The real task we have on hand is the decolonisation of Hindu minds at home and those who went abroad with self-loathing and diffidence about Hinduism. – R. Jagannathan
An Indian Islamist, speaking on a Times Now panel on Hinduphobia yesterday (20 January), indirectly affirmed that it exists. The discussion was held in the context of a statement made by India’s ambassador to the United Nations, T.S. Tirumurti, that Hinduphobia is as real as Islamophobia or Christophobia or antisemitism.
Tirumurti said: “Emergence of contemporary forms of religiophobia, especially anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias, is a matter of serious concern and needs attention of the UN and all member states to address this threat.”
When this issue was raised by the TV anchor, Taslim Ahmed Rehmani, president of the Muslim Political Council of India, simply dismissed the idea out of hand, saying that Hinduism is a “way of life”, and by implication Hinduphobia cannot exist. He also went on to say that Hinduism is not a religion.
This is an inadvertent admission of Hinduphobia or even Hindumisia (Hindu hatred), and a confirmation that the phenomenon goes to the very root of Abrahamic dogma, where religion is defined in a very specific way. To be called a religion, it must have a historical founder, a holy book, and a set of fundamental beliefs.
It did not occur to Rehmani that he had scored a self-goal, for the mere non-acknowledgement of a religion or its dismissal as “way of life” does not mean that Hinduphobia does not exist. You can be phobic not only to a religion, but a way of life too.
In fact, phobias and contempt for non-believers are central to Abrahamic religions. This allowed early Christianity to debase and demolish Pagan cultures and their monuments, including Hellenism. It allowed Islam to do the same to the remaining cultures that it sought to dominate, demonise and destroy after conquest and subjugation. So, yes, Hinduphobia and Paganophobia are central to the way the Abrahamic religions have defined themselves. They are as much against other religions or their ways or life as they have belief in their own faith and dogmas.
The problem is that colonised Hindus are eager to obtain certificates from the West that theirs too is a religion with sacred scriptures and fundamentals, when they need not accept the Abrahamic definition of religion. They feel apologetic about the fact that their religion, defined more by tradition, rituals, practices and ways of doing things, has no founder, just as tribal and Pagan groups had none.
It is time for Hindus and other pre-Abrahamic religions or “ways of life” to stop believing that they lack something. This is not to deny the Abrahamics their right to their own definitions and ways of life. But there is nothing—absolutely no reason to think—that our god or gods somehow sold us short on scripture or fundamentals. They didn’t. They gave us much more than what the Abrahamic gods gave their faithful, including the capacity to reason, doubt, and search for elusive truths without being constrained by religious dogma.
What is good is the new Indian determination to call out Abrahamic hypocrisy and bigotry that serves their hegemonistic purposes while ignoring the rest. Tirumurti, incidentally, is not the first Indian flagging this issue. Earlier, in December 2020 and later in October 2021, India’s first secretary in the permanent mission to the UN Ashish Sharma and our Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan made similar points at the UN.
The real task we have on hand is the decolonisation of Hindu minds at home and those who went abroad with self-loathing and diffidence about Hinduism. – Swarajya, 21 January 2022
› R. Jagannathan is Editorial Director at Swarajya.
Filed under: india, world | Tagged: abrahamic religions, dharmic religions, hindumisia, hinduphobia, united nations |
India flags ‘anti-Hindu phobia’, ambassador to UN says global terror strategy is selective – India Today – New Delhi – January 20, 2022
India’s ambassador to the United Nations TS Tirumurti has urged the world body to recognise ‘Hinduphobia’ along with religious hatred against Buddhism and Sikhism in the global fight against terrorism. Tirumurti said the United Nations’ latest Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS) adopted last year was flawed and selective.
Delivering a keynote address at the virtual conference of the Delhi-based Global Counter-Terrorism Centre (GCTC), Tirumurti said, “Emergence of contemporary forms of religiophobia, especially anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias is a matter of serious concern and needs attention of the UN and all member states to address this threat.”
Tirumurti was referring to the seventh review of the GCTS passed by the UN General Assembly in June 2021. He said only religious phobias against Islam, Christianity and Judaism found place in the global terror strategy.
He said, “In the past two years, several member states, driven by their political, religious and other motivations, have been trying to label terrorism into categories such as racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism, violent nationalism, right wing extremism, etc. This tendency is dangerous for several reasons.”
Tirumurti said the UNSC should be “guard against new terminologies and false priorities that can dilute our focus”.
He said, “Terrorists are terrorists. There are no good and bad ones. Those who propagate this distinction have an agenda. And, those who cover up for them are just as culpable.”
At the GCTC, Tirumurti said he was speaking as India’s ambassador to the UN and not in his capacity as chairperson of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) for 2022. India became the CTC chair earlier this month and the tenure ends in December this year.
This is not the first time that India has flagged ‘Hinduphobia’ urging the UN to take note of religious hatred against Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. In October 2021, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan told the UNSC, “We are witnessing how member-states are facing newer form of religious phobias.
“While we have condemned anti-semitism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia, we fail to recognise that there are more virulent forms of religious phobias emerging and taking roots, including anti- Hindu, anti-Buddhist and anti-Sikh phobias.”
Earlier in December 2020, India’s first secretary in the permanent mission to the UN Ashish Sharma said, “This august body [UN] fails to acknowledge the rise of hatred and violence against Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism also.”
“The shattering of the iconic Bamiyan Buddha by fundamentalists, the terrorist bombing of the Sikh gurudwara in Afghanistan where 25 Sikh worshippers were killed and the destruction of Hindu and Buddhist temples and minority cleansing of these religions by countries, calls for condemning such acts against these religions also. But the current member-states refuse to speak of these religions in the same breath as the first three Abrahamic religions.”
This “selective” concern for phobias against the “Abrahamic religions” Judaism, Christianity and Islam was raised by Tirumurti in his speech once again at the GCTC conference.
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