It doesn’t happen often, but here I must totally disagree with David Frawley ( Read : Hindus Need Long Term Political Strategy And Dharmic ). Or should I say: with the Sangh Parivar, for this is the standard argument I have heard from them for more than twenty years. The central refrain is “unity”. This [...]
April 23, 2016
HHR
Archives, India
The recent happenings in NIT Srinagar is the best example of how BJP practices secularism in the veil of Hindu nationalism. The row erupted in NIT, Srinagar when non-kashmiri students hoisted tricolour in response of celebration of India’s defeat against West Indies. When situation turned callous, police were called which had to lathicharge on the [...]
“Significantly, PM Narendra Modi had made beef exports an election issue. In a poll rally in Nawada, Bihar, in April 2014, he had referred to ‘pink revolution’. More recently, incidents like the Dadri lynching and the Kerala House raid had led to a debate on ‘intolerance’ with several BJP members speaking against consumption of beef.” [...]
December 17, 2015
HHR
Archives, India
The Bihar election results are out. Now there will very likely be a lot of breast-beating or apologetics on the part of the supporters of the BJP and Modi, and gleeful crowing by their opponents. As a consistently staunch Hindutva supporter but N.O.T.A voter, I would like to make two points which may [...]
As a member of the Dutch-speaking Belgian Yoga Federation, I received a copy of the booklet the Government of India issued for the United Nations’ first-ever Yoga Day. It falls on 21 June, Summer Solstice, a day of mixed feelings: it is the longest day, alright, but it is also the start of the sun’s [...]
May 15, 2015
Dr Koenraad Elst
Analysis/Insights, Archives
The united minorities are waging a no-holds-barred campaign against Narendra Modi or against whomever is or can be pictured as a pro-Hindu power-wielder. One of their lines of attack is the blackening of the ruling party, the BJP, in the eyes of public opinion and of the world. An impression is being created that the [...]
March 30, 2015
Dr Koenraad Elst
Analysis/Insights, Archives
“The BJP, instead of trying to craft a secular face and hoping to regain the 8 per cent of the minority vote it lost in 2004, needs to consolidate its Hindu equity by 2014. Inclusive secularism is redundant. Obama won by polarising America. Narendra Modi is sure to polarise the Indian popular vote. Those who [...]
February 21, 2015
HHR
Analysis/Insights
The BJP’s thundering defeat in Delhi was not due to any sudden merits of the Aam Aadmi Party, but to several problems inside the BJP itself. That much is not controversial. The debate is all about what exactly were the mistakes made. Campaign strategy – We need not spend many words on the poor campaign strategy, contrasting [...]
February 15, 2015
Dr Koenraad Elst
Analysis/Insights
NEW DELHI: His community — Rabaris, a livestock-dependent tribe traditionally-addresses him as “Bhopajj” or priest. He dresses up like a cow-herd himself: a long white cloth wrapped around his bare torso, red turban, dangling ear rings et al. With a lathi in tow, he walks into everywhere, even the chief minister’s office in Rajasthan. Otaram [...]
January 11, 2015
HHR
Archives, India
On Christmas Day 2014, Delhi-based novelist Chandrahas Choudhury wrote in Bloomberg of a chilling vision of the future: an India that is 100 per cent Hindu. He insists that this is the long-term strategy of the RSS, the national volunteer Hindu organisation from which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sprung. Careful to also condemn the [...]
December 27, 2014
Ranbir Singh
Analysis/Insights, Archives