On July 16, Swamy, the leader of the Janata Party in India, contributed a shining example of vitriolic filth to DNA India:<\/p>\n\n
Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100% converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion. Undivided India in 1947 was 75% Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the fanatics…<\/p>
The first lesson to be learnt from the recent history of Islamic terrorism against India and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus…<\/p>
We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus. If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan (DNA India<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
So to recap, despite the overwhelming diversity that defines Hinduism, and despite the glaring social inequities that find their roots in the religion, Hindus in India need to privilege their religious identity above everything else because the Muslims around them are being infected by the suicide bomb bug. Did I miss anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As nasty as it is, Swamy’s diatribe doesn’t stray very far from the body of work that defines rightwing Hindu nationalism. That last paragraph I quoted pretty much paraphrases M.S. Golwalkar from his 1939 book, We or Our Nationhood Defined:<\/p>\n\n
The foreign races in Hindusthan [India] must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must loose (sic) their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment — not even citizen’s rights. There is, at least, should be, no other course for them to adopt.<\/blockquote>\n\nSwamy is a long-time faculty member of the economics department at Harvard (he got his PhD there in the 60s), and he is teaching there this summer. Two Harvard students have started an online petition<\/a> demanding that the university cut its ties with Subramanian Swamy. It currently has 223 signatures. An article in the Harvard Crimson<\/a> published today contains more details about the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On July 16, Swamy, the leader of the Janata Party in India, contributed a shining example of vitriolic filth to DNA India: Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. All other countries conquered by Islam 100% … Continue reading