On the surface, it may seem that the Hindu right dislikes Islam to the core. They talk about how their great past was ruined by invasions, and how Muslims are taking over India etc etc. But the response to the removal of Wendy Doniger’s book suddenly revealed to me what I should have seen earlier. These guys are star struck in admiration for the way Islam conducts itself around the globe and are crying out to emulate its ways.
The most common reaction by hindutva types to the withdrawal of the book is that the author would never have dared to write a similar book about Islam. That instead of Hindu gods and goddesses, had she written about Mohammed instead, the government would have banned the book, she would have gotten death threats, and in general no liberal would have criticized the Islamic radicals (false of course but we’re talking delusions here, not facts). Furthermore, they say that she wouldn’t have been able to do this in Pakistan or Iran and it’s only because it’s India that she has the temerity to publish such stuff.
All this would have been ok if the follow up observation had been “See, this is why India is awesome. Islamic countries are fundies and this is proof that India is a free state”. But no, the general mood is one of wistful longing for the kind of censorship and violence exhibited by Mullahs and fatwa announcers. This points to a secret admiration of the way fundamental Islam works despite their claims of despising it. A very passive aggressive type of reaction. They don’t openly say “We want Hinduism to be like Islam” but they fervently wish it was.
This points to a secret admiration of the way fundamental Islam works despite their claims of despising it.
Mind you, the response could have been “Let her say what she wants about Hinduism. India is a free country. But we also demand that books offending Muslims like the Satanic verses etc be allowed too”. This would be the way you expect people to respond if they truly had a problem with how Islam deals with free speech. But no, I sense a grudging admiration. It’s as if there’s a race to determine which is the most savage and intolerant behavior, and Hindus are upset that fanatical Islam is winning and wish desperately to catch up.
Another delusion that frequently pops up is that when books derogatory to Islam are banned, no one protests. I have no idea how this idea gained traction. Who doesn’t remember the cry and furor when Salman Rushdie was deterred from attending the Jaipur literary fest? The papers were full of it for weeks. Opinion pieces, blog posts and articles flooded the Internet in outrage. I don’t remember even one person speaking up in favor of the restriction! The outrage was far greater in fact than the current opposition to Penguin’s move to take Wendy Doniger’s book off the shelves. In fact, I actually see some support from various sections for the move.
Many hardcore supporters of Hinduism are in a tight spot. On the one hand they hate Islam with their very being and are yet envious of its status in the world. They’re jealous of the fact that people tiptoe around it. They want Hinduism to also be similarly treated. To them, it’s a sign of strength in Islam that people are threatened with violence when they criticize it. They don’t see the cringing weakness and pathetic lack of self respect that generates the outrage. They don’t realize that a religion and a people who get upset over mere words are weak. Just a breath is enough to shake the institution to its foundations. If that’s not weak I don’t know what is.
Get a grip right wingers. Try and see through the fake strength of radical Islam. Don’t be jealous of the way it handles dissent. Instead, position India as a place that’s the antithesis of what you hate. Show India to be a place that people can point to with admiration and pride and say “Look – this is what India is like. A free place where the majority religion is not threatened by books and words and thoughts. This is precisely what global Islam is not“.
Isn’t that preferable to being offended all the time?
Very valid points..totally agree.
I agree. And yet they are offended when they are called the Hindu Taliban.
In reply to Indian Homemaker
They’re not quite there yet. But they want to be, which is sad.
Invalid points… totally disagree
In reply to Neha Sharma
Would you like to share your viewpoint?
“The most common reaction by hindutva types to the withdrawal of the book is that the author would never have dared to write a similar book about Islam” etc etc etc.
Have heard such comments so many times and have countered with, ‘So you want to join the bandwagon too?’ Mostly people walk out in a huff.
In reply to Shail
Can’t have it both ways no? If you want to be like them, you get treated like them. It’s a package deal.
Purely because I am bored and the comments section of this article seems more like an echo chamber and just so that your thoughts are challenged I’d like to put forward a few points.
1. “… general no liberal would have criticized the Islamic radicals (false of course but we’re talking delusions here, not facts). …”
Wrong. Using the same example of Salman Rushdie, the very fact that other eminent “liberal” authors didn’t consider it fit to withdraw their publications from the sponsors of the “lit-ree-chaw festival” speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the so called liberals.
2. Books such as Satanic verses should not be banned.
Agreed. But what have “liberals” who criticize Hindus done to get this ban revoked? Have they cancelled publisher contracts? Have they refused to take up textbook writing contracts for the govt. because they didn’t like the govt’s decision? AFAIK nothing.
3. Wendy Doniger and “The Hindus”
The third rate expensive pornography that passes for “anal-y-sis” of the Hindu or to use Wendy ben’s disparaging term, native informant, is just a piece of bigoted, racist tripe that deserves no place as a piece of serious scholarship. It is a pity that such books are required course material in various places. What’s more damaging is that this isn’t some arcane stuff that gets peddled in the various schools of pornography masquerading as Centres for Hindu Studies. School textbooks in the US are written based on such uninformed tripe. In case you didn’t know an earlier version of Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia’s entry on Hinduism was written by Wendyben. Subsequently it was removed. So that’s the level of reach. Those who read the tripe that’s written by the likes of Wendyben are bound to have a misinformed and bigoted view of Hindus. It has been standard operating procedure for the generic church to misinform and demonize pagan cultures and then genocide them. Unless Hindus are vigilant they are liable for halaling. Hence the fight in the courts. I am sure Wendyben withdrew from the courts because she was afraid of being exposed as the charlatan that she is. Her attitude seems to be one of “how dare turd world courts stand in judgement of my work”. Lastly please remember where “liberals” like you stand with respect to the likes of Wendyben. You aren’t even acknowledged as a person. Rather you are a “native informant”. Who’s a native informant, a dog, a cat or a human. This depersonalization of the Hindu smacks of racism and the attitude of since they are Hindus they deserve it. This is what leads ultimately to incidents of Indian diplomats being cavity searched.
In reply to InternetHindu
Let’s remember that the removal of Salman Rushdie’s book from the market was a government move. In this case, Penguin voluntarily removed the book from circulation. That disparity is the reason why authors are deciding to withdraw their books. Because Penguin caved when they were not forced to do so. That makes sense no?
Finally, I don’t care what faults Wendy’s book has. She can insult me all she wants, she can take a dump on the Indian flag for all I care. In my opinion, the more unpopular a certain work is, the more protection it deserves. The most offensive things in particular are those that should be carefully cherished and given a platform.
Because that’s the ideal of India. Freedom, which sets us apart from Pakistan, Iran, and China.
In reply to bhagwad
“Because that’s the ideal of India. Freedom, which sets us apart from Pakistan, Iran, and China.”
Seconded. And thirded. Pointing fingers at authoritarian countries and say “Hey, look at XYZ, India is not so bad after all!” is an utterly poor way to argue.
However, I do think laws on blasphemy do have some relevance in the Indian context; even though as an athiest, I am opposed to the concept of not being able to critique religions. The price of freedom of speech is high in India when the context is the loss of life and property that can ensue if a certain section of religious fundamentalists are supposedly ‘provoked’ with ‘blasphemous’ objects. Unless people stop wearing their religion and emotionalism in their sleeves; learn to look at the world with a thicker skin and stop being so fragile that they get their sentiments ‘hurt’ every time someone says or does something offensive to their faiths, we will have to think twice before we do away with blasphemy laws.
In reply to Akhim Lyngdoh
I think there’s a philosophical difference here. I believe laws should define the ideal without catering to “social realities”. Like many people say “India is not ready for homosexuality to be legal”, but I very strongly believe that shouldn’t matter. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. Similarly, I don’t believe reservations or divorce laws should take into consideration people’s biases.
In the same way, I don’t think the law should care about how people react to offensive content. My deep suspicion is that people who conveniently get offended and go on a riot are not afraid of getting punished. I think that if they were assured of being caught and spending some time in jail or being fined, riots in India of this sort would go down by 90% or more. The problem is poor implementation of law and order.
It’s not that India isn’t ready for free speech. It’s that our law enforcement machinery is not geared towards unbiased and swift punishment.
In reply to bhagwad
It agree with you in principle, that laws should *aspire* to an ideal. However, I have observed that how well a law is followed in a given society is determined not just by the sanctions and enforcement behind it, but also by its social acceptance. As a result, laws inevitably have to conform to social pressures.
Riots and ethnic clashes in India are intricately complex and crop out of a set of social issues that mere punishment and sanctions wouldn’t resolve; any more than the US intervention in Guatemala turned the country into a first world economy (NOT).
The idea of being jailed and fined is a scary prospect to the middle class professional who spent most of his life in relative creature comforts; not a hardcore Hindutvawadi (or Islamist) who feels so disenfranchised that he has no qualms about being a martyr to his ’cause’.
In reply to InternetHindu
There are places like Goodreads and Amazon where you can leave your reviews on this matter. You can also write a blog on how awful the book is. I don’t really see the point of banning it. If everything I think is crap is banned, there would be literally no TV shows or books in India. Instead, I write about crap books on GR and I am pretty vehement when I disagree too. That’s called ‘free speech’. You are free to write a crap book and I am free to criticise it in public.
I believe an answer to a bad book should be a good book. I urge you to read ‘Breaking India’ & ‘Being Different’ by Rajeev Malhotra and team. Unfortunately not every book receives the same publicity and possibly equal audience.
The damage by an inaccurate or biased opinion and with sufficient clout is real and cannot be wished away. While I do not worry about which God is right, fairness is expected even among thieves. Otherwise, the ideal person always loses in the real world. Yes..an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but would you be the one with one eye.. ? Difficult choices for a person who has a stake in it.
In reply to Balamurali
Ultimately I feel that it’s not the government’s job to choose which is a good book and which isn’t. That’s a job for readers alone. To put it even more bluntly, I am the person who should get to decide what I can read and what I can’t. I don’t trust anyone else with that job. Is there any human being on the planet to whom you would give that power? The power to decide what you can read? I don’t think so!
In reply to bhagwad
Totally agree… And, I like your blog for this unadulterated ideal., not for what exists, but for what is possible, and what must be aimed for.
What do you specifically mean when you say Islam?
Islam the verb–surrender, submit, obey God with peace and with sincerity, right?
Isn’t fundamnetal Islam—Islam? I mean, the stuff hasn’t been lost since Hejira, so why do people use the term “fundamental” when Islam is the “fundamentals?”
Ha, this is exactly what Becky Fischer says in Jesus Camp. She drones on about how Muslims are so good at what they do, and we must learn from them, except ‘we are right’. That’s probably what the Hindutva idiots think too.
In reply to Fem
Yuck – I checked out the page on the “Jesus Camp”. Disgusting…indoctrinating children like that. Even the cover picture is enough to piss me off. They should be ashamed of themselves.
In reply to bhagwad
What’s wrong with religious indoctrination? I mean the parents have a say in what religion their kids are raised in, aren’t they? If not, aren’t you technically taking away parents rights from upholding their religious views by NOT being able to indoctrinate their very own kids?
In reply to Western Point of View
I don’t think parents should have the right to indoctrinate their kids. Kids are not their property to do with as they please and strictly speaking, indoctrination should be an act of child abuse. But since it’s pretty impossible to precisely define indoctrination, having a law against it would make little sense.
In reply to Western Point of View
I am especially against indoctrination of children into ANYTHING. Be it religion or profession. There is nothing more disgusting than taking a child whose thought process is still developing and molding it to suit your insecure beliefs in the hopes that one day your child will not actually think and challenge them.
This holds especially true for religion which is a belief system (as opposed to professions that are usually demand knowledge and talent). Quoting Richard Dawkins, you don’t call the child of a lawyer a lawyer-child or the child of a doctor a doctor-child. Then why call the child of a Muslim a muslim child or the child of a Hindu a hindu child. It is just a child whose parents happen to follow a particular religion. The child should be free to grow up and choose what religion to follow or if he/she needs to follow any religion at all.
And talking about parents’ rights, our rights are applicable only when we are not infringing on the rights of others. A parent has the right to choose how to raise their kids as long as they are not infringing on the rights of the child to not be abused, to be provided a safe and nurturing environment, to have access to health care and schooling and most importantly, develop the tools needed to think for themselves.
In reply to Clueless
But children do not share the same rights as we do. Children do not have the right to property, for example, until they are “mature” (depends on where this applies).
Indoctrination is a parents right to practice his/her religion in itself. I mean a Muslim parent has every right to indoctrinate their chidlren to Islam since it is THEIR child. No one is getting physically or mentally abused. The child is simply carrying about his business while practicing certain rights and traditions, what’s the big deal?
Kids have to be indoctrinated to be “better Americans” in schools, so why can’t they be indoctrinated to be “better Muslims” at home?
In reply to Western Point of View
Kids do not have certain rights, yes. But they do have the basic human rights as much as anyone else.
FYI, I am against kids being indoctrinated to be “better ” too. This is exactly what allows countries to get away with horrible violations because they know their patriotic citizens will never talk against them.
In reply to Clueless
And yes, while I am aware that there are no laws against religious indoctrination, it is a great disservice to your children to raise them with any kind of upbringing that also specifically teaches them that it cannot be challenged and has to be accepted.
As a parent wanting to help my kids realize THEIR full potential, I would consider any “indoctrination” as harmful.
In reply to Clueless
The fact that kids are required to school in itself is a form of indoctrination–they are indoctrinated in the sense that they are told that they are required to be able to read in order to survive in society or know common math. Where do you draw the line?
“Disservice?” It is a disservice that thousands of Americans live in poverty, but that is just how things are–you cannot gurantee everyone certain “services” or avenues.
What would you consider indoctrination? A baby doesn’t know that fire is harmful. If a mom or dad says “don’t touch the stove Billy,” does that constitute as a parent forcing propoganda upon the children that fire is completely harmful and should never be dealt with?
As Bhagwad even said “it’s pretty impossible to precisely define indoctrination”
In reply to Western Point of View
I agree that defining indoctrination is a very hard thing to do. For myself, I follow these basic rules to see if I am educating vs indoctrinating
1. Belief vs facts. Indoctrination usually goes hand in hand with beliefs as opposed to hard core facts
2. No alternatives. An indoctrination does not educate the child on alternatives.
3. Cannot be wrong. By virtue of being itself, an indoctrination system will always claim to be right and will never ever change its views or methods despite proof to the contrary.
Your example of fire vs child would be a fact as opposed to an indoctrination because bare contact with objects of significantly higher temperature will always hurt you.
In reply to Clueless
The American school system does in fact include many basis of indoctrination:
George washington not lying (fact or fiction?)
Columbus being the first to the New World
Jesus being peaceful (yes this is in American history books)
BTW, with everything you provided above, one can make the argument that Islam is in fact not a form of indoctrination.
It is fact that Muhammad (SAW) received revelation which is fact (he was a real historical person and can historically have his existence proven easily since the empire’s that immediately followed him were led by his companions who personally knew him etc etc)
There are alternatives–being a Muslim or NOT being a Muslim
There is no proof of the contrary (ie you cannot disprove that water isn’t wet)
So technically, how am I indoctrinating someone if the above is fact?
In reply to Western Point of View
You can teach that Mohammed was (maybe) a real person. As soon as you start talking about “revelation”, that strays from the realm of fact. Only those things which are accepted by peer reviewed historical sources can be considered as “fact”.
Everything else shouldn’t be taught in schools. Like I said, it’s tough to actually define indoctrination so we can’t have a law about it, but there’s no doubt that it happens and it’s not a good thing to do.
In reply to Western Point of View
Western Point of View,
I usually admire your point-of-view. On a lighter note, reminds me of a joke in ‘Big Bang Theory’, where Leonard’s relationship is broken over a argument on whether to raise a child to believe in Loop Quantum Gravity Theory or String theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_wkCUxOuiM
You are right. Parents do have the right, and more so a duty, to tell a child on what “they” think is the truth. Not everyone’s knowledge is right, but the parent has to use his/her discretion to inform the child of what they think is right.
As it is highly possible that we may be wrong on many things, it is “ideal” to teach a child to think for oneself. And provide avenues to read on lot of things (both for and against parent’s belief) and finally hope that the child will reach to a right logical conclusion.
The point here was whether we (as a group not individually), allow our religions to be examined & researched critically, which may, sometimes, result in biased/balanced and accurate/inaccurate and/or not-so-pleasant outcomes. We have to accept, not all religions allow this with equal openness. By “religions”, I of course mean the custodians of religion or the powerful reps of the religion or whatever you call them.
In reply to Clueless
Ditto! I belong to a conservative Muslim family but am not religious. But not for my family’s lack of trying. I must have been the one who got sent to Madrasa (Arabic school) for more years than my siblings and cousins.
They still preach non-stop hoping to make a nice Muslim girl who covers her head and keeps her gaze lowered and all those shit.
Just leave them kids alone! Let them read Bible, Quran, Gita or even Odyssey and then choose their religion when they want. As long as the kids are nice and treat people well, what is the problem?
In reply to Nidaa
You’re lucky. Congratulations for coming through minimally scathed and indoctrinated!
In reply to bhagwad
Not to stray, but Muhammad’s revelations were historically true. Sahih Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidi, etc. were peer reviewed upon their release and maintain that status. THey have reviewed eye witness accounts of Muhammad’s revelations–the visitation of the angel in the gatherings (remember, Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman and Ali were all real people and they ALL saw such events along with hundreds of other companions) along with seeing the angel Michael on the battlefield. This is called Isnad–many academics call isnad the precursor to modern academics.
Also–common sense. How can a guy who never left more than 50 miles of his house in the Arabian peninsula who was illiterate and known not to use ANY form of academic or artistic language come up with the Quran?
It is like saying a guy who is 5 foot 5 kid who never played basketball before and was DOCUMENTED to have never played basketball before can all of a sudden dunk when he/she reaches the age of 40.
” Not everyone’s knowledge is right, but the parent has to use his/her discretion to inform the child of what they think is right. ”
Right on Balamurali. I think all parents–hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian etc have this right. Any attempt to take that away is a form of dictatorship.
Nidaa–and that is fine–as a grown adult, you chose. Read Surah Khaffirun–no one can misguide those that Allah have guided and no one can guide those that Allah has misguided.
In reply to Western Point of View
I have neither the time nor the inclination to pursue historical subjects. So I blindly rely on modern established historians with credentials to tell me what is fact and what isn’t. There’s no point it trying to convince me – I will believe something only when I see it in a peer reviewed journal. As far as I know, there is no academic study to say that Mohammed had magical powers.
And yeah, this is off topic, so let’s close this here.
In reply to bhagwad
Regarding peer review, there are many professors funded by exxon/mobile that have peer reviewed journals that tells us that smog, emissions and the threat of climate change is bunk.
Do we believe it?
I was apart of the peer review process and I take most of what I read with a grain of salt.
In reply to Western Point of View
That’s why it’s important to choose unbiased sources and ones who don’t have conflicts of interest. Given the specialized nature of many fields these days, I leave most detailed sorting of facts to others who know better than me. The only judgment I make is whether or not I’m choosing my sources correctly.
In reply to bhagwad
The bias is difficult to remove. Let me give you an example. If you read New England Journal of Medicine, you see a ton of journals so nothin’ new. If you read the funding for a lot of these studies, most of the funding has vested venture and commercial interests–Pfizer, Merck, Lilly etc. These guys are essentially pushing data in a way that makes their studies look good AND the peers that review such journals also have a vested interest.
Chosing sources is difficult.
If we go into history, how could something that took place be proven with typical scientific measures? What you have to rely upon is historical evidence etc. etc. That is where Hadith comes in from Imams such as Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidi, etc.
They take an event, say a revelation of the moon splitting. They narrate the event. If a large number of people attest to the event, witnessed it and all agree upon it in an unbiased since they even had friends who wanted to be published but weren’t since their witnessed attestation was questioned.
Also regarding history, again, Ali, the son in law of Muhammad became in charge of one of the largest empires in history. You think out of common sense that everything he saw was made up? He also has the witnessed accounts of 4 other Muslim rulers (Abu Bakr, Usman, Umar and Muawiayyah) that also saw this stuff as well as the witnessed accounts of non-Muslims (Abu talib, Abu Lahab).
I personally don’t need a peer reviewed journal to tell me fire is hot or water is wet. We should remember that academics also have a purpose to indoctrinate us NOT to bring into account religious events.
In reply to Western Point of View
Choosing an unbiased source can certainly be challenging. But it’s something we have to do nonetheless. If a source like Pfizer is biased, then that will come out over time – trust is difficult to establish and very easy to lose. So if after a period of time no aspersions are cast on a certain source it becomes more and more trustworthy.
As far as history, the same thing of trustworthiness occurs. India for example has extremely untrustworthy historical documentation. The concept of a neutral and unbiased history appears to have never been part of our culture. Documentation about Roman history though is much more accurate. So all this needs to be taken into consideration. It’s ironic that we get much knowledge about India’s past from third party outsider historical accounts like Herodotus etc.
In reply to bhagwad
Roman history is more easy simply because the empire was much larger and lasted for quite a long time (if you count the Byzantines, then you are talking over two millenia from Romulus until the Muslim conquest).
Also, India did not quite reach the zenith of power as the Romans did until maybe the, ironically, Mughal invasions (Auraungzeb took India pretty far in terms of his expansion). I am not denying India’s great history, but that context has to be looked at.
I should say that it isn’t PFIZER that is biased, it is simply that some universities/studies are funded by Pfizer or Amgen or Baxter or whoever. We are humans, we gotta eat right? We need an income, right?
I wouldn’t say that India has “untrustworthy” documentation. Its just the volume of historians from India may be small for several reasons–one could be that historians in India simply weren’t qutie as well off as in Ptolemic Greece or Rome.
I would also argue that Islamic sources of history are similar to Roman as well. You have guys such as Ibn Kathir, Imam Al Ghazzali, and even Avicenna who dabbled into history. Imam Bukhari would be apart of that as well.
In reply to bhagwad
BTW, i’m not sure if you know, but Pfizer is a pharma/biotech company. They sell prescription drugs.
They also fund a lot of research and get their stuff peer reviewed in the right places so their products can go down the pipeline faster.
it isn’t wrong but it tells us that peer review itself always has an agenda.
We think Herodotus is great but that is because the status quo of today’s world is based on the Helenistic tendencies of the past. We LOVE Socrates, yet do we give Avicenna any credit? We love Alexander, yet we HATE Ghengis or Timur Khan. We LOVE the Helenistic portrayal of Jesus yet hate the orthodox portrayal of him.
In reply to bhagwad
BTW, Muhammad MAYBE existed? That is like saying Ghengis Khan MAYBE existed.
Ali, who was Muhammad’s son in law, was the head of one of the world’s LARGEST empires (Rashidun Caliph).
How would a figure be fake if his own son in law became the head of one of the largest empires in the world?
Abu Bakr was also a ruler of that empire for 2 years. Abu Bakr was the father in law of Muhammad. Are you saying Abu Bakr’s son in law maybe existed? The same guy that sent Khalid Ibn Al Walid to fight the Ghassinids and the Persians (historically documented) and saw the fall of the Sassanid Persian Empire (historically documented)?
That is like saying you can prove Kublai Khan existed, but MAYBE Ghengis Khan existed.
In reply to Western Point of View
“No one is getting physically or mentally abused.”
As someone who had to bear the brunt of religious indoctrination as a kid, I disagree. Even if we leave out the ethical sketchiness of teaching kids to uncritically accept a religious faith, religious indoctrination in a lot of Muslim AND Catholic households generally take the form of real and tangible child abuse. The degree and nature of abuse depends on the degree and nature of your indifference to uncritical religious dogmas.
Muslims in my experience and observation, tend to be very judgemental, hostile and prejudiced towards other faiths and if they live in a culture where they are not the dominant *religious* group, they tend to be VERY insecure about their children’s so called ‘iman’ (faith). Beating kids when they rebel against religious ‘teachings’, scaring you with sadistic and gory descriptions of hell, sending you to Madrassas, telling you about how your earthly life is doomed because you ‘displeased’ your parents, yada yada yada.
As for the veracity of Muhammad’s so called ‘revealations’, I wouldn’t testify on its authenticity given that the desert guy had a penchant for chopping the heads of those who questioned the veracity of his claims (a trend that continues till date, what with spiritual leaders calling for the heads of famous apostates). Also in the non-Arab world, Muslims rarely ever delve deep into the veracity of Islamic teachings or make themselves aware of the not-so-pious bits of Islamic history – the rape, pillage and plunder of Muhammadan forces during his era (and beyond).
This is not admiration. Its jealousy. Admiration breeds respect. Jealousy breeds hatred. Not that I support any side of the two fanatics, I hate both of them. Certainly these people are not secret admirers, but openly jealous.
I am as far Hindu right as they come; and I can assure you I don’t admire Islam. Who would admire Islam? Islam is the greatest cause of darkness and ignorance.
Lets assume for a moment, that the Hindu right admires violence and intolerance. Even then why would we admire Islam? Sure, Muslims may be more “intolerant” and “violent” when it comes to street protests and fatwas. But Muslims with AK-47s are killed in scores by American drones. America kills 100s of Pakis like ants whenever they want….at best, those “intolerant” Pakis are good for cleaning toilets in America. Heck, forget America, even India kills them like dogs in Kashmir. Heck, an “intolerant” Muslim can repair my bicycle tyre with all the anger he wants…. as if I care! You think I would admire him?
So get off this high horse. Muslims may be angry, but they aint got the big guns…who’d admire them?
In reply to Abhishek
Darkness, you kiddin?
Who killed 20-50 million Chinese/Muslims/Christians/others? Ghengis Khan, a NON MUSLIM. What about Hitler? Pol Pot? Stalin? Musolini?
Why do people complain about Muslims? Guess what, people kill, doesn’t matter what religion you follow.
Go to South Central LA, you’ll probably get killed by a non-Muslim just for being in gang territory.
I have plenty of Pakistani friends who are doctors and lawyers–the same amount of friends that are Hindu.
I’m Muslim and I absolutely admire Islam. Fatwa giving–great. Shariah law–awesome. Beheading–if you committ a crime, pay the penalty.
Muslims aint got the big guns? Who needs the big guns? A bunch of poor people in Afghanistan who eat dirt gave Americans a run for their money. I’d say the Americans should be more embarassed than anyone ;)