Soul of India

[Guest guest]

For our US Readers PBS is airing a very anti-Hindu documentary :

Soul of a Nation on Thurs., Sept. 19 at 9pm ET

 

 

Soul of India

 

 

Thurs., Sept. 19 at 9pm ET

(check the TV schedule for local listings)

 

The bloody conflict between Hindus and Muslims in northwestern India is at the forefront of a struggle for India's identity, led by an increasingly powerful Hindu nationalist movement whose goal is to turn India into a Hindu nation. Over the last three months, at least 850 Muslims have been killed -- some estimates go as high as 2,000 -- in the Province of Gujarat, and more than 100,000 Muslims have fled to refugee camps.

 

This outbreak of communal violence has a long history. The recent mob violence in Gujarat was kindled in late February, 2002, when a Muslim crowd in Godhra attacked a train carrying Hindu nationalists, killing 58 people. The victims of this attack were returning from a gathering in Ayodhya, where ten years earlier Hindu nationalists had torn down a centuries old Muslim temple.

 

The film focuses in part on the efforts of India's supercop, K.P.S. Gill, a Sikh, sent by the federal government to quell the violence in Gujarat and on Harish Bhatt, a leader of the Bajrang Dal or Monkey Brigade, India's largest Hindu youth movement. Amid recruitment drives and martial arts training, Bhatt imbues the young with the spirit of Hindu nationalism. At the same time, Gill attempts to keep order as preparations are made for the dramatic Rathyatra, an annual religious parade of painted elephants and Hindu songs.

 

The specter of communal violence has haunted India from its birth as an independent nation in 1947, when more than a million people died as the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan.

 

For more than 50 years, secular co-existence has survived in the world's largest democratic nation. Will India, home to more than a billion people, continue to be the multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, secular, and tolerant society that Gujarat's Mahatma Gandhi attempted to create? Or will the nation be split by an increasingly powerful Hindu nationalist movement?

: Steven Silver

Producer: Richard Clemmow

 

Steven Silver's THE LAST JUST MAN, the story of General Romeo Dallaire, the UN force commander during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, won the Audience Awards at Double Take and Hot Docs film festivals and the Gold Plaque at the Chicago International Television Competition. His just-completed COVERAGE, a feature documentary following a Canadian journalist covering the conflict in the Middle East, will premiere on the CBC this summer. Richard Clemmow is Head of Production at Carlton Television International, established one year ago as a U.S. base for the U.K. production and broadcast company. Formerly head of newsgathering at the BBC, Clemmow has produced documentaries for NEWSWEEK, DISCOVERY, and PBS.

[Guest guest]

I wonder,

 

Will these same people dare go to Kashmir and report on what is going on there? Or are they afraid of becoming another Daniel Pearl? Perhaps a visit to the refugee camps where some 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus live who have been forced out of their homeland?

[Guest guest]

Only those who have been a minority in any country and experienced the ordeals can make impartial decision.

I neither support Hindu fundamentalists nor Islamic.

Believe in living together in religious harmony and let all live in peace.

[Guest guest]

Well, let me pose a question?

 

If muslims living in America, UK, or another Western country decided to ambush an ordinary train carrying non-muslims and these same muslims then proceeded to set fire to the train and burn 58 non-muslims alive, what would be the reaction in these 'civilised' countries.

 

The muslim community has been up in arms about the events in Gujarat. I have never once heard a muslim condemn muslims burning Hindus alive. What do they expect non-muslims to do? Sit back and enjoy their terrorism? These are the same muslims who justify the 9/11 by saying that America is at war with islam, and muslims were simply retaliating. Muslims are hypocrites - masters in the art of double speak. Remember, in islam, it is ok to lie in the name of islam.

[Avinash]

I request all those who post as guest to please add their names. Otherwise, there are cases (as in this thread) in which a Guest replies to a Guest. This is very confusing.

[theist]

please stand up.

 

Maybe even register as Guest 1 or 2 etc. if one plans on posting regularly.

 

But then as stone suggested why not just take a fake name like many of us have?

[sha]

I watched this documentary and felt very dissapointed to see how the Hindu fundamentalist groups are using God and religion for ulterior purposes.

 

Shouting slogans of 'Ram and Bhajarang bali (Hanuman)' and killing innocent women, men and children, these groups are bringing shame and disgrace to Lord Ram.

 

This activist group called (Bajaranga dal) 'Brigade of Monkey God', seemed like the KKK of America.

Training the youth and mob for brutal vilolence, instilling racism in the name of patriotism and spreading hatred for other religions as revenge by these Hindu groups are so disgusting, makes one renounce his or her so called Hindu status.

 

The film is very well made with good commentery and guests. Also very touching and thought provoking.

 

The suffering, the loss of human life and property and total disregard for Gandhiiji's principles of non-violence and his ideals for free secular India, the proliferation of out and out fascism, make any sincere God conscious (whether Indian or non Indian) person depressing to see what is happening in today's India.

 

Has anybody else watched this documentary?

It was aired at 9.00 PM EST and also at 10.PM on two PBS stations.

[Gauracandra]

I see no solution to this problem. Unfortunately these acts of violence are not isolated towards those responsible for violence. Instead, innocent men, women, and children end up dying because of fanatics on both sides.