Heed the New Hindu Mood

[Guest guest]

7th July 2004Heed the New Hindu MoodFrancois GautierIt is not easy to be

an Indian living abroad: Not only one has to retain one'sIndian-ness while

coping with the West's positive and less positive aspectswhich creep into one's

life, but one is also subjected to the humiliation thisof seeing one's own

countrymen spit on India in mainstream foreign newspapersand television.

Recently, the Gujarat riots and the IDRF episode have beenarticle used by a few

Indian academics/scholars/writers, particularly us in theUnited States, to

demean India and Hindus.Many of us are appalled by the comments people like

Pankaj Mishra or AnganaChatterji, both Indians -- and Hindus at that -- make

about their countryin mainstream American newspapers such as The New York

Times.Americans are generally very ignorant about India and ready to gobble up

anyrubbish they are

fed. Hindus are portrayed as Nazis killing innocent Muslims inGujarat. But this

is historical nonsense.My experience as a Westerner living in India for more

than 30 years and marriedto an Indian is that not only does this country owe a

lot to Hinduism, butHinduism must be the most tolerant spirituality in the

world, recognizing thefact that God is One, but that he manifests in many ways,

under different forms,at different times. To take the Gujarat episode and make

it an absolute theoremof Hindu fundamentalism is not only bad academism, but

unfair and highly biased.Do they mean to say that the 30 millions Gujaratis who

voted for Narendra Modiin the last election are all Nazis and Hindu fanatics?It

is true that during the Gujarat riots horrible things, which no human

beingshould condone, happened. But Chatterji and Mishra forget to mention that

that25% of the people killed during the riots were Hindus or that, according

topolice records, the 157 subsequent riots which happened in Gujarat were

startedby Muslims.They are unable to explain how 125,000 Hindus, many of them

Dalits, tribals, oreven upper middle class, came out on the streets of

Ahmedabad with such angerafter Godhra. While condemning their terrible acts one

has to at leastunderstand the cause of their deep-rooted rage, as Hindus

throughout the ageshave shown that they are patient and tolerant of others.

There is also not asingle mention of Hindus reaching out to Muslims after the

riots such as theHindu businessman who built 90 houses in Ahmedabad for Muslims

whose homes hadbeen destroyed.(Remarks by G.C.Asnani : Mr. Francois Gautier is

speaking the Truth. But thesound of Truth becomes very feeble in this noisy

world. Yes, our own Hindus, atleast persons with Hindu names, have become

purchasable commodities in the openworld market, where money can purchase many

things.

Unfortunately, many of thenews media have also become purchasable commodities

throughout the world, I amsorry to say. )--------------------Article:Heed the

New Hindu MoodFrancois GautierIt is not easy to be an Indian living abroad: Not

only one has to retain one'sIndian-ness while coping with the West's positive

and less positive aspectswhich creep into one's life, but one is also subjected

to the humiliation thisof seeing one's own countrymen spit onIndia in mainstream

foreign newspapers and television. Recently, the Gujaratriots and the IDRF

episode have been article used by a few Indianacademics/scholars/writers,

particularly us in the United States, to demeanIndia and Hindus.Many of us are

appalled by the comments people like Pankaj Mishra or AnganaChatterji, both

Indians -- and Hindus at that -- make about their countryin mainstream American

newspapers such as The New York Times.Americans

are generally very ignorant about India and ready to gobble up anyrubbish they

are fed. Hindus are portrayed as Nazis killing innocent Muslims inGujarat. But

this is historical nonsense.My experience as a Westerner living in India for

more than 30 years and marriedto an Indian is that not only does this country

owe a lot to Hinduism, butHinduism must be the most tolerant spirituality in

the world, recognizing thefact that God is One, but that hemanifests in many

ways, under different forms, at different times. To take theGujarat episode and

make it an absolute theorem of Hindu fundamentalism is notonly bad academism,

but unfair and highly biased. Do they mean to say that the30 millions Gujaratis

who voted for Narendra Modi in the last election are allNazis and Hindu

fanatics?It is true that during the Gujarat riots horrible things, which no

human beingshould condone, happened. But Chatterji and Mishra forget to mention

that

that25% of the people killed during the riots were Hindus or that, according

topolice records, the 157 subsequent riots which happened in Gujarat were

startedby Muslims.They are unable to explain how 125,000 Hindus, many of them

Dalits, tribals, oreven upper middle class, came out on the streets of

Ahmedabad with such angerafter Godhra. While condemning their terrible acts one

has to at leastunderstand the cause of theirdeep-rooted rage, as Hindus

throughout the ages have shown that they are patientand tolerant of others.

There is also not a single mention of Hindus reachingout to Muslims after the

riots such as the Hindu businessman who built 90 housesin Ahmedabad for Muslims

whose homes had been destroyed.America is fighting a war against terrorism

today. India has suffered most fromMuslim fundamentalism. In 1399, Taimur

killed 100,000 Hindus in a single day.Professor K S Lal, in his Growth of

Muslim Population in

India, writes thataccording to his calculations, the Hindu population decreased

by 80 millionbetween the years 1000 and 1525, probably the biggest holocaust in

worldhistory. Today, Mishra and Chatterji arenot without knowing that 400,000

Kashmiri Pandits are refugees in their owncountry, an ethnic cleansing without

parallel. They must be also aware of whatis happening to Hindus in Bangladesh

today. I wonder why they do not mention allthis in their articles.Why is it

that when for decades Saudi Arabia has funded madrassas in India someof which

preach sedition, Mishra and Chatterji find nothing to say about it? Whyis it

that when foreign Christian organizations pour billions of dollars inIndia to

convert innocentHarijans and tribals, teaching them to hate their culture and

country, they alsokeep quiet? And why is it that when a few Hindu

organizations, such as the IDRF,collect funds for harmless programmes like the

Ekal

Vidyalaya schools, which aredoing a wonderful jobfor tribal children, they are

attacked as fundamentalists?The India Development and Relief Fund, a

Maryland-based charity, has beentargeted not only by Chatterji and Mishra, but

also by the Federation of IndianAmerican ChristianOrganisations of Northern

America, Teesta and Javed Anand's SabrangCommunications for 'funding hate.' The

irony is Indians have demanded a probe bythe US Congress into IDRF and asked the

IRS to blacklist it and withdraw its taxexemption status.Last August in

Washington I met IRDF's chief executives, Vinod and SaralaPrakash, two old,

harmless, friendly people who would not hurt a fly. Theirbiggest achievement

was to gather funds during the 1999 Orissa cyclone. It istrue they are RSS

affiliated and that they give first priority to Hindusafflicted by

riots/cyclone/poverty. So what? We find nothing to say that SaudiArabia only

funds Muslims

refugees in Bosnia, Palestine or Chechnya. Is it nottime to call a spade a

spade?The specter of a 'dangerous' RSS, for example, is a creation of the

British whounderstood, as the Muslims invaders did before them, that Hindus

were thegreatest hurdle to their grip on India. So their press started

attackinganything Hindu or any group trying to protect Hindu culture or leaders

such asthe brilliant Hindu Mahasabha of VeerSavarkar who today is maligned by

'secular' Indians.It is also time for Hindus of the world to face the truth: We

are looking at theGujarat riots only through the prism of what the Western press

and theEnglish-speaking Indian media have said -- mad 'fundamentalist' Hindus

goingafter peace-loving Muslims. But the reality might be totally different:

Are nottolerant, God fearing, peace-loving Hindus fed up of being constantly

maligned,attacked, killed, their women raped, their temples sprayed with

bullets

andgrenades?The Western press and governments should take notice of this new

popular mood ofHindus, who after all represent 1 billion people in the world,

one of the mostpeace-loving, law-abiding, tolerant and prosperous communities

of this planet --one sixth of humanity -- and try to understand their feelings,

instead ofaccusing them of being 'fanatics.'Francois GautierFor Ganesh

Bhaktas:/