The Indian Theocracy

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The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Salman Rushdie & India's new theocracy
The contours of the bizarre theocratic dystopia that could replace the secular state are already evident. The state tells us we may not read the Satanic Verses, or Aubrey Menen's irreverent retelling of the Ramayana; it chooses not to prosecute the vandals who block stores from stocking D.N. Jha's masterful Holy Cow, James Laine's history of Shivaji, or Paul Courtright's explorations of oedipal undertones in Hindu mythology.
It doesn't end there: the state regulates, on god's behalf, what we may eat or drink — witness the proliferation of bans on beef, and proscriptions on alcohol use in so-called holy cities. It ensures children pray in morning assemblies funded by public taxes, provides endowments for denomination schools and funds religious functions. It pays for prayers before state functions, and promotes pseudo-sciences like astrology. And, yes: it censors heretics, like M.F. Husain or Mr. Rushdie.

this article is probably the best ive read in any newspaper in a very long time.
this also reminds me that even though billions of rupees of public tax money is being spent on pseudo science and theorcratic batshit, they banned tomatina on grounds of being wasteful.
 
All this comes because we give special treatment to religions and religious fanatics. And not to speak of the two intolerant semitic religions that displays gross disrespect towards the majority.

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I admire the Hindu for daring to take potshot at the religious fanatics. It remains as my favorite newspaper.
 
excellent article. the entire premise can be summed up in the few lines from the article itself:'Eight years ago, scholar Meera Nanda argued that “India is a country that most needs a decline in the scope of religion in civil society for it to turn its constitutional promise of secular democracy into a reality.” “But,” she pointed out, “India is a country least hospitable to such a decline”. '
 
exactly, we (even the most rational people) tend to give religion a free pass on logic and law.
and in india, the governments ( and by this i mean all of them, congress bjp, lanterns, cows, bullocks whatever) promote and publicise all this nonsense as something really great and useful.
the govt. advertises homoeopathy and alternative medicines on television openly, whereas there are foreign govternments making regulation even harder for them.
and not to mention how islam has its own law. i was totally dumbfounded when i came to know about this few years back.

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and daring the author of the article definitely is.
there's a facebook fan page for him.

Praveen Swami Must Apologize | Facebook
 
We've no dearth of people who are hell bent on blaming everything related to Indian culture, almost always based on their interpretation. I challenge them to question other groups.
 
the article wasnt about our culture and its shortcomings. it was about our excessive tolerance on one hand, and complete intolerance on the other.it was about how the government endorses and helps promote superstition, bigotry and false beliefs.the religious institutions themselves weren't even questioned once.i lol'd at how someone who was unable to understand a simple straightforward article wants to discuss complex and intricate subject of religious interpretations. 😛
 

the real intention?to point out to us our hypocrisy. how Rushdie's book (an honest explanation/interpretation of quran gets banned, but on the other hand the govt gives islam its own law. and not only just the ban, the govt. doesnt even do much to protect him or his freedom of speech.)he is only telling us that we should weigh everything equally. if something is pseudoscience, it shouldnt be sold as medicines.if you read the article, you'll see religion wasnt the only thing questioned.
 

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