Crimes against Hindus and Sikhs on the rise in UK

[suchandra]

Racism= animalism - yet another prove that human society is not advancing but terribly stuck in polished animalism. The Britishers once exploited India up to the point of having this 1 bn people nation to order its sewing needles in Sheffiled/UK. However, when Hindus live in UK they're treated like criminals.

 

Crimes against Hindus and Sikhs on the rise in UK: Report

 

Press Trust of India, Press Trust Of India

London 05 June 2008

 

<!-- ANIMATED MARKETING MODULE ENDS --><!--End of top module--><!--Start of the story--><!-- VIN: Start of actual news body --> In the backlash that followed the London bombings, there has been a steep rise in incidents of hate crime against Hindus and Sikhs, with most of them perpetrated because of mistaken identity, the Hindu Forum of Britain said in London. There were as many as 932 instances of such hate crimes against Indians, who are predominantly Hindus or Sikhs, as opposed to approximately 600 instances of faith-related hate crime against Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims, Ramesh Kallidai, Secretary General of the Forum said on Wednesday evening.

"As Asians we all look the same, and are equally vulnerable to any backlash," Kallidai said at the meeting of the leaders of the Forum with the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Tarique Ghaffour.

At the same time Hindu leaders noted that most of the hate crimes against the community were perpetrated through mistaken identity during the backlash after 7/7 bombings.

"However, our greatest concern is that there is no official recognition yet of the vulnerability of Hindus and Sikhs," Kallidai said.

 

 

During the special meeting organised by the Forum and the Metropolitan Police Hindu Association, he said the leaders voiced concerns over lack of community infrastructure to prevent hate crimes and help the victims.

"Even worse is the fact that there has been very low levels of Government engagement to understand what effect such high levels of hate crime is having on our confidence in the Criminal Justice System," he said adding very little effort was being made to help increase reporting of hate crime and offering voluntary support to victims.

In June there were only three instances of faith hate crime against Hindus and Sikhs but now there are more Hindu and Sikh victims of hate crime in the capital than Muslims, Kallidai said.

Arjan Vekaria, Chair of the Hindu Forum Security Committee, said "even though the level of hate crime against our community has increased so dramatically, there have been very few prosecutions."

The Forum had invited over 25 organisations to the meeting with Assistant Commissioner.

[theist]

 

In the backlash that followed the London bombings, there has been a steep rise in incidents of hate crime against Hindus and Sikhs, with most of them perpetrated because of mistaken identity, the Hindu Forum of Britain said in London.

 

This says that they are not tageted because they are Hindu. They are targetedbecause people think they are muslim and responsible for the London bombings.

 

There were a couple cases in America also. Two Sikhs were killed by some ignorant fools who thought they were Taliban because they wore turbans.

 

Doesn't excuse it but nevertheless Hindus are not the real target.

[suchandra]

 

This says that they are not tageted because they are Hindu. They are targetedbecause people think they are muslim and responsible for the London bombings.

 

There were a couple cases in America also. Two Sikhs were killed by some ignorant fools who thought they were Taliban because they wore turbans.

 

Doesn't excuse it but nevertheless Hindus are not the real target.

 

Thanks for calling me off, but here are approximately 151 million Muslims in India's population as of 2007, i.e., 13.4% of the population. Currently, India has the third largest population of Muslims in the world, following Indonesia and Pakistan. Since Indian Muslims have an Indian passport and Indian citizienship, they also can be called Hindus. Just like Jewish, Chinese, Mexican, HIndu is a bodily designation.

[theist]

"Calling me off"????

[suchandra]

 

"Calling me off"????

 

Actually the very term "Hindu" seems to be in perpetual discussion und constantly re-defined.

 

Friday, May 23, 2008

 

<!-- Begin .post --> The Myth of the Hindu Right

 

http://news.hinduworld.com/click_frameset.php?ref_url=/index.php&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpseudosecularism.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F05%2Fmyth-of-hindu-right.html

In media accounts today, any group that identifies itself as Hindu or tries to promote any Hindu cause is immediately and uncritically defined as "right-winged". In the leftist accounts that commonly come from the Indian press, Hindu organizations are also routinely called militants and fascists. However, if we look at their actual views, Hindu groups have a very different ideology and practices than the political right in other countries. In fact many Hindu causes are more at home in the left in the West than in the right.

 

The whole idea of the "Hindu right" is a ploy to discredit the Hindu movement as backward and prevent people from really examining it. The truth is that the Hindu movement is a revival of a native spiritual tradition that has nothing to do with the political right-wing of any western country. Its ideas are spiritually evolutionary, not politically regressive, though such revivals do have a few extremists. Let us examine the different aspects of the Hindu movement and where they would fall in the political spectrum of left and right as usually defined in the West.

 

Hinduism and Native Traditions

 

The Hindu cause is similar to the causes of native and tribal peoples all over the world, like native American and African groups. Even Hindu concerns about cultural encroachment by western religious and commercial interests mirrors those of other traditional peoples who want to preserve their cultures. Yet while the left has taken up the concerns of native peoples worldwide, the same concerns of Hindus are styled right-wing or communal, particularly in India!

 

When native Americans ask for a return of their sacred sites, the left in America supports them. When Hindus ask for a similar return of their sacred sites, the left in India opposes them and brands them as intolerant for their actions! When native peoples in America or Africa protest against the missionaries for interfering with their culture, the left supports them. Yet when Hindus express the same sentiments, the left attacks them. Even the Hindu demand for rewriting the history of India to better express the value of their indigenous traditions is the same as what native Africans and Americans are asking for. Yet the left opposes this Hindu effort, while supporting African and American efforts of a similar nature.

 

In countries like America, native traditions are minorities and thereby afforded a special sympathy. Leftists in general tend to support minority causes and often lump together black African and native American causes as examples of the damage caused by racism and colonialism. In India, a native tradition has survived the colonial period but as the tradition of the majority of the people. Unfortunately, the intellectual elite of India, though following largely a leftist orientation, has no sympathy for the country's own native tradition. They identify it as right-wing in order to express their hostility towards it. They try to portray it as a majority oppression of minorities, when it is the movement of a suppressed majority to regain its dignity.

 

Not surprisingly, the same leftists in India, who have long been allied to communist China, similarly style the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause as right-wing and regressive, though the Dalai Lama is honored by the American left. This should tell the reader about the meaning of right and left as political terms in India. When one looks at the Hindu movement as the assertion of a native tradition with a profound spiritual heritage, the whole perspective on it changes.

 

 

Hindu Economics

 

The Hindu movement in India in its most typical form follows a Swadeshi (own-country) movement like the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch. It emphasizes protecting the villages and local economies, building economic independence and self-reliance for the country. It resists corporate interference and challenges multinational interests, whether the bringing of fast food chains to India, western pharmaceuticals or terminator seeds.

 

Such an economic policy was supported by Mahatma Gandhi with his emphasis on the villages, reflected in his characteristic usage of the spinning wheel. Its counterparts in the West are the groups that protest the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, these protest groups are generally classified as "left-wing" by the international press.

 

The international press considers the economic right-wing to be the powers of the multinational corporations, particularly, the oil industry, which certainly are not the allies of Hindu economics. Clearly Hindu economics is more connected with the New Left in the West and has little in common with the right. The Republican right in America, with its corporate interests, would hardly take up the cause of Hindu economics either.

 

Meanwhile the BJP, the so-called Hindu nationalist party in India, has been responsible for much the economic liberalization if the country, sometimes even to the dismay of some votaries of Hindu economics. It has been the main opponent of the socialist policies of the previous Congress and left governments that had communist leanings. While such a movement is to the right in the political spectrum, the policies of the BJP are a movement towards western capitalism from the left, they are not a movement from it to the right. At most they emulate a more open capitalist society as in the West but one that retains a dharmic background.

 

 

Hindu Ecology and Nature Concerns

 

Hindu groups are well known for promoting vegetarianism and animal rights, particularly the protection of cows. The Hindu religion as a whole honors the Divine in animals and recognizes that animals have a soul and will eventually achieve liberation. Hindu groups have tried to keep fast food franchises, which emphasize meat consumption, out of India. Such a movement would be part of consumer advocacy movements that are generally leftist or liberal causes in the West. Again it is hardly an agenda of the right-wing in America, which has a special connection to the beef industry; or to the right-wing worldwide, which has no real concern for animal rights and is certainly not interesting in spreading vegetarianism.

 

Hindus look upon nature as sacred, honoring the rivers and mountains as homes of deities. They stress the protection of Mother Earth, which they worship in the form of the cow. They have a natural affinity with the western ecology movement and efforts to protect animals, forests and wilderness areas. This is also hardly a right-wing agenda.

 

 

Hindu Religious Pluralism

 

The Hindu religion is a pluralistic tradition that accepts many paths, teachers, scriptures and teachings. One cannot be a Christian without accepting Christ or a Buddhist without accepting Buddha, but one can be a Hindu without accepting any single figure. In fact there are Hindus who may not follow Krishna, Rama, Shiva, Vishnu or other Hindu sages or deities and still count as Hindu.

 

Hindus have been at the forefront in arguing for the cause of religious diversity and the acceptance of pluralism in religion, rejecting the idea that any single religion alone can be true. This Hindu idea of religion which is also d to by so-called right wing Hindu groups like RSS is obviously not part of the agenda of the religious right in the West. The American Christian right is still sending missionaries to the entire world in order to convert all people to Christianity, the only true religion. It is firmly fixed on one savior, one scripture and a rather literal interpretation of these. Yet when Hindus ask the pope to make a statement that truth can be found outside of any particular church or religion they are called right-wing and backwards, while the pope, who refuses to acknowledge the validity of Hindu, Buddhist or other Indic traditions, is regarded as liberal! Such pluralism in religious views is hardly a cause for any right-wing movement in the world, but is also considered progressive, liberal, if not leftist (except in India).

 

 

Hinduism and Science

 

Unlike the religious right in the West, the Hindu movement is not against science or opposed to teaching evolution in the schools. Hinduism does promote occult and spiritual subjects like astrology, Ayurvedic medicine, Yoga or Vedanta, but these are the same basic teachings found in the New Age in the West, generally regarded as a liberal or leftist movement, not those of the religious right in the West. Many leaders of the Hindu movement are in fact scientists. For example, RSS leaders like former chief Rajinder Singh, or BJP leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi have also been professors of modern physics.

 

In fact we could compare Hinduism as a whole with the case of Ayurveda. Ayurveda as a form of mind-body medicine emphasizing the role of consciousness in health and disease is part of the alternative medicine movement in the West and considered to be progressive, while the medical establishment that emphasizes allopathy is regarded as conservative, if not right-wing. However, in India it is Ayurveda, because it is a tradition of the country, which is regarded as backwards, while modern medicine is regarded as progressive.

 

 

The Hindu Movement and Caste

 

The Hindu right is often defined in the media in terms of caste, as favoring the upper castes over the lower castes. This is another distortion that is often intentional. Modern Hindu teachers have been at the forefront of removing caste. This includes great figures like Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Aurobindo. It includes major Hindu movements like the Arya Samaj, the largest Vedic movement in modern India, and the Swadhyaya movement.

 

The RSS, the largest so-called Hindu right wing group, rejects caste and works to remove it from Hindu society, giving prominence to leaders from lower classes and working to open the Hindu priesthood to members of all castes. While caste continues to be a problem in certain segments of Hindu society, it is generally not because of these current Hindu social, religious and political movements, but because their reform efforts are resisted.

 

 

The Hindu Movement and Women's Rights

 

Generally, the right wing in the West is defined as opposed to women's rights. However, there are many women's groups and active women leaders in the Hindu movement and in the Hindu religion. Being a woman is no bar for being a political or religious leader in India as it often is in the West. Hinduism has the worlds' largest and oldest tradition of the worship of the Divine as Mother, including as India itself. Great female Hindu gurus like Ammachi (Mata Amritanandamayi) travel and teach all over the world. The Hindu movement worships India on a spiritual level as a manifestation of the Divine Mother (Shakti).

 

Hindus were very protective of their women during the period foreign and kept them sequestered, which was often for their own safety. Unfortunately, this trend has continued among some Hindus in the modern world when it is no longer necessary. So while there is poor treatment of women in some parts of Hindu society, this has not been by modern Hindu teachers or movements that have tried to raise the status of women as Shakti.

 

 

The Hindu Bomb

 

Perhaps the main thing in recent years used to define Hindus in India as right-winged is India's testing of the nuclear bomb in 1998. Yet India's concern for its military welfare and need for a nuclear deterrent is certainly no more than what the democratic party in the United States has asked for. The Indian government has at the same time argued for complete nuclear disarmament, which it would be happy to comply with. Note that the Dalai Lama supported India's nuclear testing. He can hardly regarded as a right-wing leader (except by the Chinese communists and their Indian counterparts).

 

 

The Indian Left: The Old Left

 

In India, the political terminology of right and left is defined by Marxists, who like to call anyone that opposes them right-wing or fascists, which they used to do even with socialists. In their view anything traditionally Hindu would have to be right-wing on principle, just as their views are always deemed progressive, even if supporting Stalinist tactics. This means that in India such subjects as Yoga, natural healing, vegetarianism and animal rights are all automatically right-wing because they are causes of the Hindu mind, with antecedents in ancient Indian culture. Great Hindu yogis and sages from Shankaracharya to Sri Aurobindo are classified by modern Marxists as right-wing, if not fascist.

 

However, the Indian left is mainly the Old Left, emphasizing a failed communist ideology and state economic planning such as dominated Eastern Europe in the decades following World War II and took it nowhere. It wreaked the same havoc with the economy and educational systems of India and kept the country backward. Indian communists are among the few in the world that still proudly honor Stalin and Mao (while warning of the danger of Hindu fundamentalism)! Communist ruled Bengal still teaches the glory of the Russian revolution for all humanity, though Russia gave up communism ten years ago! The Old Left was itself intolerant, oppressive and dictatorial, sponsoring state terrorism and genocide wherever it came to power. Indian leftists have never rejected these policies and look back with nostalgia on the Soviet Union!

 

Therefore, we must remember that the leftist criticism of Hinduism coming from the Indian left is that of the Old Left. This old left in India does not take up many of the causes of the new left like ecology or native rights. It even sides with the policies of the political right-wing in western cultures upholding the rights of missionaries to convert native peoples and continuing colonial accounts of Indic civilization.

 

The communist inspired left in India has tried to demonize the Hindu movement as a right-wing phenomenon in order to discredit its spiritual orientation. The aim of the Indian left is to keep the Hindu movement isolated from any potential allies. After all, no one likes fascists, which is a good term of denigration that evokes negative emotions for both communists and capitalists.

 

 

Hinduism and the Left

 

The causes taken up by the Hindu movement are more at home in the New Left than in right wing parties of the West. Some of these resemble the concerns of the Green Party. The Hindu movement offers a long-standing tradition of environmental protection, economic simplicity, and protection of religious and cultural diversity. There is little in the so-called Hindu right that is shared by the religious or political right-wing in western countries, which reflect military, corporate and missionary concerns. The Hindu movement has much in common with the New Age movement in the West and its seeking of occult and spiritual knowledge, not with the right wing in the West, which rejects these things. Clearly, the western right would never embrace the Hindu movement as its ally. Right-winged labels have been cast on the Hindu movement in an uncritical way. Usually it has been little more than a casting of labels or stereotypes.

 

To counter this distortion, some Hindus are now arguing for a new "Hindu Left" to better express the concerns of Hindu Dharma in modern terms. They would see the New Left as more in harmony with Hindu concerns and a possible ally. Hindu thought has always been progressive and evolutionary, seeking to aid in the unfoldment of consciousness in humanity and not resting content with material or political gains as sufficient. Hindu Dharma should be reexamined by the New Left and the distortions of by the Old Left discarded. The New Left will find much in Hindu Dharma that is relevant to its concerns.

 

The Hindu movement can be a great ally to many social movements throughout the world. It has a base of nearly a billion people and the world's largest non-biblical religious tradition, with a long tradition of spiritual thought and practice. The Hindu movement can be an ally for any native causes, environmental concerns, women's spiritual issues and movements toward economic simplicity and global responsibility, to mention but a few.

 

Groups espousing such causes may have looked upon Hinduism as an enemy, being taken in by leftist propaganda. They must question these distortions of the Old Left. They should look to the Hindu view for insight, even if they may not agree with it on all points. They should not trust the anti-Hindu stereotypes of the Old Left, any more than they trust the views of the now defunct Soviet Union.

 

 

Towards a Non-Political Social Order

 

However, the entire right-left division reflects the conditions of western politics and is inaccurate in the Indian context. We must give up such concepts in examining Indic civilization, which in its core is spiritually based, not politically driven. It reflects older and deeper concerns that precede and transcend the West's outer vision. As long as we define ourselves through politics our social order will contain conflict and confusion. Democracy may be the more benign face of a political order, but it still hides the lack of any true spiritual order. We must employ the vision of dharma and subordinate politics to it, which should be a form of Karma Yoga.

 

The New Left also contains various distortions from a Hindu perspective. True liberalism requires a responsibility to the entire universe, not just an assertion of individual human rights, which can be to the detriment of larger social groups or to the natural environment. It looks to the spiritual human being, our immortal consciousness, and not to the bodily-based ego as the real human being. It helps preserve organic social orders and avoids interference with natural cultural development.

 

We cannot look to politics to change the world, but to spirituality to change politics. Hindus should not try to remake Hinduism according to current images of political correctness, but should connect the world to a greater idea of humanity than political concerns. These follow the vision of the great yogis and sages who have stood outside of western political concerns and viewpoints.

 

What is said to be "politically correct" is often "spiritually incorrect". It consists of simplistic outer solutions that do not go to the root of the human problem, which is one of consciousness, not only social or material equality. We must look back to an organic and spiritual order to society that cannot be defined by either the left or the right of western politics, and which will hopefully set both aside. This is what Hindu Dharma can offer.

[theist]

Christians are automatically branded as right-wing also. Muslims are branded as terrorists or 14th century mutants.

[suchandra]

 

Christians are automatically branded as right-wing also. Muslims are branded as terrorists or 14th century mutants.

And it also looks like there're as many proselytes as anywhere else.

 

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td width="100%">A Hindu's Journey to Islam

</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> <table class="authorBox" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="100%"> By Saumya

http://www.readingislam.com/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1212394839207&pagename=Zone-English-Discover_Islam/DIELayout

</td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="epigraph" width="100%">

</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%"> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100"> <tbody><tr> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">Indian Saumya led a journey from Hinduism to Islam. Picture © Microsoft.com

</td> </tr> </tbody></table> When the truth is revealed to you and you stand face to face with it, how long can you refuse to accept it? How long would you run away denying it?

 

 

There comes a point in your life when you have to break free from all the chains that hold you back from answering the True Call.

It is a moment where nothing else seems significant and equivalent to the call of the Almighty Allah and His path of freedom, bliss and satisfaction.

 

 

 

All the lies with which you have been living with start fading and your beliefs as a disbeliever fall like a pack of cards. And what you witness is an Eureka moment, a moment when you realize the truth, when you realize the beauty of Islam.

 

 

Then you take no time to accept it. You just have to take a bold step lest fearing the societal pressure and disagreement. For you should always fight for the Truth and stand firm on to it, no matter be it against your own kin.

 

 

I remember the day when I stood in front of the mirror in my room, looking vaguely, trying to search for something but failing to find an answer. In retrospect, I was never an atheist,

 

 

I always believed that God existed and being a Hindu it existed for me in thousand forms: from a stone to a tree, from a tree to a river, from a river to a well (funny but true). All were objects of worship for me as I was told by my family and other traditions.

 

 

I took pride in being a polytheist, considering that all objects made by God are worth worshipping and that there exists a part of God in them, in every single being; so all are worthy of worship. It could be a cow, a tree, a river (as I said also a well), idols and even human beings themselves.

 

 

I detested Islam for being so rigid and stubborn on this. I found the Muslims static, living in the past, while the world is moving far ahead of them. For me all their beliefs were unreasonable (maybe because I never looked for reason), impractical, cruel and outdated.

 

 

Probably, it was not my fault, it was that I was made to look at them this way. It was a pre-conceived notion, which I inherited from this society which has often kept a negative image of Islam in majority of its opinion.

 

 

My first encounter with Islam was in high school where the majority of my classmates were Muslims and during free classes we used to have discussions on Islam (largely because of the anti-Islam propaganda by the Hindu Organizations post 9/11 and the Gujarat riots).

 

 

During these talks they tried to clear various misconceptions that I carried regarding monotheism, rights of women, their status, and other popular myths which have become clichéd more or less.

 

 

Yet, it was not convincing for me, I still kept those beliefs and my pride in being polytheist. Though I was not anymore an anti-Muslim, I was moved by the sufferings of the people who were one of us, simply dying because they practiced a different faith. I became more secular in my outlook.

 

 

I give the major credit of becoming a monotheist to Arya Samaj, a Hindu organization that believes that Hinduism preaches monotheism and not rituals and idol worshiping. After coming under its influence I stopped worshiping idols, performing any sort of rituals and going to temples.

 

 

These are what I call the steps I was taking to finally reach my destination that is Islam. Though Arya Samaj has its own flaws, I again found myself in the same cob-web; where rituals and fire worshiping became an integral part.

 

 

Reading Vedas, Manu Smiriti, and other scriptures only confused me. It was all philosophical, nothing material which could help you precisely find an answer for your daily life queries.

 

 

While in college studying Law, it was the first time when the clarity of Islam dawned over me. It was nothing but a small course of Family Law - Hindu Law and Islamic Law regarding marriages, divorce, succession, etc.

 

 

While Hindu law was riddled with various technicalities, confusions, differences of opinions and lack of stability, Islamic law on the other hand was clear, precise and certain.

 

 

My opinion here changed overnight. What I used to find static, appeared stable to me. This made me curious to read more in this regard; I spent hours online talking to friends who used to tell me about Islam.

 

 

I read various links and participated in forum discussions. My outlook towards Islam started changing which was reflected when I spoke with my friends or discussed things with them.

 

 

Of course this change was not appreciated by them, they warned me against the so-called 'brain washers' whose sole aim is to divert Hindus to Islam.

 

 

All this used to bother me, I felt scared of their disagreement. I felt as though I were cheating my friends and family by doing what they sternly disagreed of.

 

 

But, as I said earlier, how long can you run away from the truth? You cannot live with a lie and accepting the truth needs courage. And as the Holy Quran says:

 

 

*{Believers, uphold justice. Always bear true witness, even if it be against yourself, your parents, or your relatives-and regardless of whether the person against whom you are speaking is rich or poor. God is close to people regardless of their material circumstances. Do not be led by emotion, as this may cause you to swerve from the truth. If you distort your testimony, or refuse to testify, remember that God is aware of all your actions.}* (An-Nisaa': 4:135)

 

 

And that day all the fears just drifted away, because if I wouldn't have converted then I guess I would never had. I would have stayed stuck in the complexities of the life of the material world where false emotions stop us from doing the right thing.

 

 

Though my friends and family members are yet unaware of it, but certainly I will tell them sooner or later and I hope Insha'Allah that they will respect my decision.

 

 

Alhamdullilah, I'm a Muslim today, trying to learn more and more about the Holy Quran and the guidelines of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Insha'Allah, I will walk on his path in a better way.

 

 

With the help of a few friends and an organization, I've learned to pray; I'm praying 5 times daily alhamdulillah. I pray to Allah to give me more strength so that I could always stand firm on my decision.

 

</td></tr></tbody></table>

[theist]

You know suchandra I am not really interested in having a conversation with various copy and pasted lengthy articles.