1. There is a method to the madness. Riots in India often seem to display a great deal of pre-planning. For example, there is strong evidence that after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Congress party apparatchiks gave out the home addresses of Sikhs to Hindu mobs in Delhi. In the Gujarat riots, VHP & RSS party leaders were seen leading some of the mobs (toward the home of a Muslim Member of Parliament in one case). There is also evident complicity in these riots by the police and even the armed forces.
2. I don't want to sound like a cliché, but this rioting is not really about religion. Religious texts or beliefs have nothing to do with it. The types of people who carry out these heinous acts (Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, etc.) are hardly religious or spiritual. There is enough discussion of war making in the classics of Hindu texts that anyone who wants to find an excuse to kill someone can find an appropriate passage (I think even serial killers in the US have cited the Gita in their defense). I am sure all religions are equally prone to this type of abuse. (But I should add that "Hinduism" - if there is such a thing at all - is not really a text based religion but a ritual based religion).
3. The riots in Gujarat were sparked by a massacre on a train. In the sub-continent this type of massacre evokes very strong ghosts from the horrors of the Partition massacres. Countless numbers of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and others were massacred on trains in 1947. The Gujarat train massacre was a very symbolic act that was bound to elicit strong reactions. In other words, what seems like a sporadic outburst of violence has traces that go back over fifty years.
4. I am not sure that I accept the claim that Indian mobs act with any more speed or cruelty than mobs in other countries. It was not so long ago that European-Americans in the South were infamous for lynching African-Americans on the drop of a hat. Although Southern culture eventually ritualized the lynching as a sick social event, sporadic lynchings by mobs persisted for a long time (there is a new book out about the ritualization of lynching - can't think of the title at the moment). I think that there are also parallels between the India's massacres and the massacres in Rwanda (but I do not know the case well enough to really comment).
I do not in anyway want to sound like I am diminishing the horrors of what happened. I just don't think that India is in anyway unique in the speed, style, or scale of cruelty that its inhabitants are able to inflict on one another.
What is really frightening to me is the strong feeling I have that the riots in Gujarat are only a taste of what will happen again on March 15th when the VHP attempts to build its temple at Ayodyah.
Vikash Yadav Philadelphia, PA
-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of dlawbailey Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 05:19 AM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: RE: Ayodhya - Indian culture query
A small point, but can someone tell me why it is that whenever I meet someone from India, he or she strikes me as polite and mannered to the point of diffidence and yet Indian history is filled with episodes of the most shocking, blood-curdling violence imaginable that seems to come on terribly quickly. I mean most mobs in, say, Indonesia or Haiti (just to grab two troubled countries out of the hat) seem to take a few days to warm up before they get to the point of grabbing passersby, drenching them with gasoline and burning them alive.
Is it my imagination or do Indians go from zero to a hundred in about ten seconds? Is this apparent Jekyll/Hyde dichotomy real?
Another question: Is there language in the Hindu sacred texts that would tend to inflame violence? I always thought, naively I'm sure, that Hinduism was not a religion focused on earthly conquest. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all include a history of religious/ethnic conflict in their theology. Does Hinduism?
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