Dark Jester
The New Lynn shopping mall attack shows that despite our reassurances, there are Jihadist and ISIS linked elements in New Zealand. But what was interesting was the reaction on social media underneath. Many of the comments underneath the articles that covered the New Lynn attack would be considered by the woke SJW mob as ‘racist’ and ‘islamophobic’. But it was the profiles of the people that the mainstream media won’t talk about.
Many of the comments talked about how Islam not mental illness was what inspired the attacker. A typical leftist would assume that these comments were coming from white supremacists/nazis, but in fact, the names of some of these commenters were Indian. One profile even had the Indian flag as their profile picture. Therefore, the conclusion must be that Indians have a perspective on the issue of Islamic terrorism. This would make sense considering the number of Islamic terror attacks in the country including bombings in Dehli and Mumbai in 2011 when relations between India and Bangladesh were strengthening.
In fact it’s become such an issue that India added counterterrorism as one of their priorities when they were elected as president of the United Nations Security Council.
This also reflects the rise of Hindu nationalism with nationalists becoming increasingly vocal in their opposition to Pakistan, China and Islamic fundamentalism, which could increase in light of the threat posed by the Taliban in the neighbouring country of Afghanistan. Therefore it would be understandable that Indians are more hostile to Muslims and would be more aware of the connection between Muslim fundamentalism and terrrorism. However, one of the interesting aspects of Hindu nationalism is that it has been institutionalised and organised with entities such as Rashtriya Swayamesvak Sangh (RSS), Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) and the Bharatiya Janat Party (BJP). These are groups I may examine more in depth at a later date. The expected response to such comments speaking out against the dangers of Islamism would be accusations of racism and Islamaphobia from the cancel culture thought police who would smear them as ‘right wing Hindu nationalists’.
This recently happened with the case of Massey University Professor Mohan Dutta who was allegedly targeted by ‘right wing Hindu trolls’. What the mainstream media failed to mention was that the controversy started around a white paper he wrote titled ‘Cultural Hindutva and Islamaphobia’ which misconstrued the terms ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hindusim’ which seemd to imply that all Hindus were responsible or are connected to Islamaphobia. In fact this was so concerning that the Hindu Council of New Zealand sent a letter to the Massey University faculty asking for that white paper to be withdrawn. Specifically they made three points:
- The misconstruing of ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’
The definition of ‘Hindutva’ is very clear to mean ‘Hindu-ness’. It was first used in a political context by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his book ‘Essentials of Hindutva’. They point out that Dr Dutta does not refer to Savarkar in his white paper. Which is to be expected considering Savarkar’s book is not available in the Massey University library.
This is different from ‘Hinduism’ which is just simply the religion.
They then said that there are variations on the interpretations of ‘Hinduism’ some which do not subscribe to ‘Hindutva’. Therefore it is unfair to apply a political agenda to the Hindu community that not all Hindus may agree with.
2.The calls for the banning of Chinmaya Mission
They were concerned by what was seen as an unprovoked attack on Chinmaya Mission which was an NGO that promotes Hindu culture and values and educates Hindus about their religion, something which is no different from a church educating their congregation about the Christian religion and preserving those principles or a mosque educating the Muslim community on Islamic principles. The other reason was his accusations of the organisation advocating for ‘Hindu supremacy’ with no evidence.
3. The call to ban cultural elements of Hindus
Finally they were concerned by Dr Dutta calling for a ban on ‘Hindutva’. However, this will create a problem because of the confusion created between ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’
This could lead to unfair targeting by the government of legitimate cultural Hindu activities.This further escalated because of Dr Dutta’s claim of Hindutva’s connections to Isamaphobia with no evidence They believe that the white paper has misrepresented the Hindu community as anti-Christian and Islamaphobic and is not telling the truth about ‘Hindutva’
Therefore, it would be understandable there would be much anger against Dr Dutta for not providing fair and impartial information about Hinduism and Hindutva. This led to him hitting back with the ‘right wing’ smear against Hindus simply defending their culture. In this case the letter was written by members of the Hindu community who may not be sympathetic to the rise of Hindu nationalism in India but what this shows is how the media are willing to paint anyone who the academics point to as ‘extremists’.
I hope for the sake of the Hindu community that they are not unfairly targeted as being part of the ‘far right’.
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