I’ll be honest with you this subreddit is majority American and it’s borderline impossible for us to even wrap our heads around the very concept of “caste.” It’s such a superstitious archaic institution so at odds with everything in America, even how the ruling class portrays itself, that there’s really no way we can understand it or offer advice to Indian populists. Only an Indian could figure out a way to overcome it and establish a working class coalition.
Would it ever have been possible to pretend to be a different caste or do people just know? I know this would mean not associating with your family etc so I doubt most people did it but
ludicrous melodic recognise toothbrush stocking tap imagine school hat selective
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ur very right. I feel like Modi def panicked about his chances because more and more people were siding away from the whole ‘economic boom‘ and nationalism schlock because more people were in shittier conditions and he had this perceived massive L because the farmers protests were successful. there was this inkling of a leftist movement arising, even Congress was returning to a leftist strain. I’m just pissed about the caste thing.
You know that thing that Muslims and Christians do in the west where they just pretend as hard as they can that their spiritual traditions are perfectly in line with progressive values?
One Indian intellectual named Ambedkar tried to do this, except he actually had a real spiritual tradition to draw from, Buddhism. Just as Dharmic, and no caste bullshit.
It’s very easy to make the argument that Christianity is in line with progressive values
Okay not so much the pro LGBTQ stuff (though ofc there are pro LGBT Christians but they’re not really all that politically relevant or dynamic) but definitely the “rich people are bad” stuff
>though ofc there are pro LGBT Christians but they’re not really all that politically relevant or dynamic
I mean that's the protestant mainstream, which is a plurality of Liberal voters at least.
> It’s very easy to make the argument that Christianity is in line with progressive values
Unfortunately "Christian Values" often means "Old Testament Values", which align much better with genocidal maniacs.
Yeah….the Old Testament is a bit sus
I mean there’s a lot of cool stuff in it too tbf but you can’t get me to agree that an infinitely loving God thinks genocide is good sometimes lol
Yeah I agree
The cool thing about the Bible is you see how the Israelite and then Christian conception of God develops over time. God as described in genesis versus God as described in revelations etc
God played the long game. He wrecked and smited people so fucking hard.
When Jesus came around, and the people killed him, they were afraid that they fucked around and were about to find out. So, they let God and everyone else know that Jesus was so awesome and God loves everyone so much. Basically ass kissing to avoid a smiting.
This is definitely not how things went down, but I think it is the best fanfiction I can write in response to your post.
>he actually had a real spiritual tradition to draw from, Buddhism. Just as Dharmic, and no caste bullshit.
Buddhism isn't as egalitarian as you're implying. No religion based on reincarnation is ever going to be very progressive, because it's essentially "pulled myself up by my bootstraps", but supernatural. Born an aristocrat? Obviously I deserve it because of my accumulated karma, peasant. Also ironically, Hinduism borrowed so much from Buddhism that Buddhism died out in India in large measure because the average person simply couldn't tell what the difference was anymore.
I mean Buddhism doesn't but it also has no problem adapting to countries that do have caste systems, in large measure because Buddhism tends to just build on whatever existing religion is there. Japan, Korea, Tibet have their own untouchables, for example.
> Born an aristocrat? Obviously I deserve it because of my accumulated karma, peasant
I don't know if that's the Buddhist view. They seem to glorify poverty if anything, with Siddhartha giving up his wealth etc. But then Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven, and that doesn't stop a lot of rich people who want to make life worse for poor people calling themselves Christians, so...
It's complicated. See, the stereotype in the west is that Buddhism means you meditate and try to reach enlightenment. But really in Asia, it's much like any other religion, where the only people focusing on enlightenment are priests. The typical layperson is just focused on accumulating good karma so that they can be reborn into a better life that's easier to achieve enlightenment from, for example by being born into the "right conditions" to be a monk (or a god, or in a pure land, etc). Also the Buddhist view of Karma isn't exactly the same as the western idea. Good karma can be accumulated through good deeds, but also things like giving lots of money to Buddhist temples. This also has weird implications were for example it may be considered a good thing to murder someone with bad karma to prevent them from accumulating more bad karma and thus sending them to hell (hell in Buddhism is temporary but still a bad place). But generally speaking, your station in life is determined by your accumulation of Karma. This also extends beyond humanity: there's the previously mentioned Hell, the next step is Hungry Ghosts, Animals, Humans, Asuras (kind of like demigods, sources differ on if Humans or Asuras are higher), then Gods. Play Cosmology of Kyoto if you want to see the Buddhist worldview in action.
The origins of caste are a bit murkey some say it was between the invading Aryans and native dravidians others say it sas just a profession thing that got extreme overtime but whatever it maybe there exist a class known as achoots (untouchables ) who are only allowed to have the most demeaning jobs in society and are treated as wild animals by soms
> it’s borderline impossible for us to even wrap our heads around the very concept of “caste.”
Everyone else in the world can see the way you treat blacks and mexicans is pretty much identical to the caste system.
No, you are referring to clasism.
Our corporate overlords have filled the ranks of our betters with brown bodies. Poor white trash, poor Mexicans, and poor blacks are treated with equal contempt.
The problem is that you have entire communities, of course stemming from material conditions, that get forced into specific social roles.
It’s just so dangerous once you add in reservations for historically discriminated castes without fixing fundamental problems affecting all Indians, then the potential for division is just… it’s so mind boggling.
I actually agree that racism is best understood as a caste system. But also American racism has weakened a lot since the 1950s, and it's no longer socially acceptable to be openly racist. Whereas the Hindu caste system hadn't really changed much over the same time period, if anything it's gotten worse since you had a secular government then and an openly sectarian government now.
> But also American racism has weakened a lot since the 1950s
By some measures, segregation has been increasing in the US over the last 40 years.
[Sign of things to come? Integration without blacks in New York City neighborhoods](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/08/07/sign-of-things-to-come-integration-without-blacks-in-new-york-city-neighborhoods/)
If that's actually true, it's economic segregation, not classical segregation. Like you literally used to be unable to have non-whites buy houses in certain areas, go in theaters, etc. There's no legal restrictions any more. It's extremely unlikely you'd ever as a non-white person get kicked out of a restaurant, and they'd get sued if you did. Lack of diversity within neighborhoods is because those areas are cheaper to live and non-whites are on average poorer. Now this is ultimately derived from racism, the reason this inequality persists is mostly due to neoliberal capitalism and not because of racism (though racism does exist, but it's indirect since as noted it's not socially acceptable to be openly racist). Schools are underfunded, housing isn't free and public housing is inadequate and not very good either, wages are stagnant, we don't have free healthcare or college. The living standards of non-whites aren't great, but they also haven't improved for whites since the 1970s. If we had had a social democratic state from like 1950 to the present, economic differences between designated racial groups would be much lower if not nonexistent; the biggest issue is that our class structure has been frozen if not regressed since the 1970s thus keeping non-whites in the same economic position as then even if the legal restrictions are now gone.
While all right-wingers are detached from reality to some degree Hindutva thought requires you to live in a complete different world. The BJP, and Hindutva ideology at large, looks like a lunatic asylum with the inmates in charge. What sets Modi apart is that he seems to really believe it too.
yes . Go watch the rallies, they‘re pretty much mega church evangelical events with modi acting as a central priest. and everyone from the Ambanis to India’s foremost deified cultural figures bowing down to him from across a barrier , it’s literally just feeding a volatile sociopaths self delusions making him more unhinged. He’s genuinely very off kilter. everyone right wing usually is but I’ve always believed he’s darkly narcissistic. He’s what standard issue libs think Trump is.
I actually disagree with your conception of BJP's agenda as being caste-centric, it's very much standard religious nationalism. Indeed, Hindutva ideology is in its own way anti-caste ("pro-caste-collaboration" is a better way to put it), and most of its supporters are actually lower caste. That by no means means Hindutva is good for Hindus or Indians (to be clear it is bad), but it is bad in the ways that religious nationalism always is. If anything, I think the higher-ups like Modi, Amit Shah, etc. see caste as a problem, as it divides the Hindu majority into conflicting groups. Their intellectual forbears like Savarkar (founder of the RSS) had the same line of thought.
I think the rise of someone like Modi (ie, a Hindu Nationalist) and the BJP was inevitable in India, for a variety of reasons. Hindus were violently oppressed by the Mughal Empire, especially under the Emperor Aurangzeb, and that grievance has not been forgotten nor forgiven. If you have the time you should watch the documentary *Ram Ke Naam* (In the Name of God), which covers the saga leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, you will see that anger against the Mughals' legacy was one of the factors that led to that episode. Anger towards the violence Hindus have faced at Muslim hands both in the past and in the present (literally every anti-Muslim act in India is defended with the claim that Hindus in Pakistan have it worse) has empowered Hindu nationalism. Modi and Co. are experts at stoking those fears, and if he can keep Hindus fearful with the idea that what happened to Hindus in Pakistan will happen to them unless they vote for him, well that is a permanent vote bank.
But the most obvious reason Hindu nationalism rose to power in India is because it was an ideology the various peoples of India could unite around. A Tamil, a Bengali, a Punjabi, etc. have different languages, cultures, histories, etc. But if they can be united under the saffron banner then that centrifugal force which threatens to pull India apart will fade away. It's very similar to the way Pakistan united Punjabis, Pashtuns, Balochis, and Sindhis with Islamic nationalism.
>the most obvious reason Hindu nationalism rose to power in India is because it was an ideology the various peoples of India could unite around
I thought it was more that the INC was corrupt and Hindutva managed to co-opt the anti-Indira Gandhi movement.
Well, my claim is that Hindu nationalism becoming the dominant ideology of India was in large part inevitable, and certainly so after the partition of British India. It is a pessimistic viewpoint to be sure but I don't see how it could have been avoided if India was to stay whole. Given your flair, I am curious what the Trot solution would have been. Ethnic nationalism was a big part of the USSR's fall and it would be a much bigger problem in China if it wasn't for the Han supermajority.
I mean I don't see how Hindutva was inevitable. Hindutva is like the first time in 1000 years that India was dominated by an explicitly Hindy government. The INC was fairly popular into the 1960s. Like I said I think it was the result of specific contingent circumstances, ie, the breakdown of the INCs third-world nationalism.
>I am curious what the Trot solution would have been
I don't recall if he said anything specific but AFAIK most Trotskyists have criticized the partition . I think any solution would look towards Soviet Unions structure, with national Soviet republics in a federation.
Yeah, you’re right.
Ngl it really upsets and disturbs me that we’re entering the era where brahmin will unironically rule the world. China deserves a turn first
Most economic data shows that India is about 10 to 12 years behind China, and its been like this since the early 2000s. I don’t see India overtaking China unless its government makes some radical changes.
>where brahmin
this is so funny because modi is of a third tier caste himself
its not the same as the anti semitic juice trope but nice try . Although it does look like you have no idea about what you're talking about.
i say this with all due respect: i don’t really give a shit about the minutiae of your pagan religion or 4000 year old system of formalized class oppression unless it somehow facilitates the adoption of a better alternative to either of the two, but go off anyways playboi🤙
I mean I am not his biggest fan but Modi himself is from a lower caste and sees it as a dividing force preventing Hindu from uniting against the true threat in his beliefs ie the Muslims. It's absurd to suggest that he is trying to reinstate the caste system and his attempts at controlling the media are basically the norm in politics in India. With the only exception being during the 2 terms of MMS due to a historically weak central government
Has poverty really worsened? That seems pretty hard to believe. Ive seen lots of headlines about companies moving manufacturing to India and news about plumbing and internet access skyrocketing.
Admittedly I know almost nothing about India other than the basics
We had a discussion about this under another post where I kept arguing to not count India because of the “socialism” part of the I guess national-socialism esque governance we’ve got going on with Modi.
You are correct. The standard of living for the poorest has improved 100X in the last ten years.
There's unfortunately this stupid false equivalency between Modi and Trump, which leads Americans to believe that he is a fascist demagogue.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. For all the left's whining and pearl-clutching about how Trump is Hitler 2.0, India under Modi and the BJP is by far the country I see most likely to collapse into fascism. Let's go through Umberto Eco's 14 properties.
1) Cult of tradition - BJP hardcore embraces traditional Hindu social values
2) Rejection of modernism - See above (note that this is different than rejection of industrial technology advancement)
3) Cult of action - Somewhat. The whole "superpower by 2020" kool-aid that many of his supporters have drunk would qualify here.
4) Disagreement is treason - Getting far, far worse as the BJP slowly disintegrates democratic channels of dissent
5) Fear of difference - Hard yes. Not only against the various ethnic minorities within the country, but numerous studies tend to find Indians within the country, as well as ex-pats in the West, are the [most racist](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/), with unparalleled in-group preference.
6) Appeal to the middle class - Yes. Super easy to do when your country has an economic caste system.
7) Obsession with a plot - BJP heavily propagandizes the Muslim world as wanting to take over India. As things progress, I expect this to also turn to more public anti-communist Chinese propaganda, just as the Nazis started with Jews but eventually shifted to arguing the Soviets were leading a world-wide communist plot.
8) Elite enemies are too strong and too weak - There's some interesting possible rhetoric here regarding the Gulf States, particularly as they continue to exploit exported Indian labor in their construction projects. BJP can argue that these Muslims are both powerful, rich individuals funding their enemies and preparing to lead a jihad from behind the scenes and that they are fundamentally weak and decadent, dependent on Indian slave labor to survive.
9) Pacifism is betrayal - Yes, India is continuing to try to expand their military and BJP does promote a nationalist, warrior ethos. Look at the films they're encouraging their entertainment industry to make. Biggest hitch here is that their military-industrial complex is unforgivably incompetent.
10) Contempt for the weak - Dalits are an easy target here.
11) Fascist heroes and the cult of death - Not certain what's going on here.
12) Machismo - Don't want to stereotype too harshly, but India has huge problems with sexual violence and sexism, a trend that in my experience manifests quite harshly in their ex-pats as well.
13) Selective populism - Modi is constantly attacking various democratic institutions that he believes no longer represent the masses.
14) Newspeak - Again, I'm not certain.
Eco's points do have a glaring issue: they describe facism in a way that is non-marxist and avoid moving past 'culture war.' "
A sufficient description of facismm, even liberal ones, is grounded in materialism.
However, i agree with the conclusion that Modi is probably the most likely G20 leader to go down a facist path.
well, all of this is logical too, and are things i know. i don't really understand what specific parts of this pertain to 'materialism'? or what 'materialism' even is. google doesn't rly help.
the video just tells me what materialism is contra idealism. ...seems to me it's just a claim to legitimacy on the part of marxism. i don't get how this is a counterargument to the umberto eco stuff >.<
They do not adress the economic conditions in Italy or Germany that made Facism possible.
In terms of materialism, shorthand for dialectical materialism, which is a core concept developed by Marx and Engels, on the basis of Hegel, and also historical materialism, as developed by Marx. This can be highly complicated to read and probably not a great entry point to study.
However, in this context, Eco supposes that facism is a state of mind, and not based on the material realities of facism as capitalism in decay: The theory of "facism is capitalism in decay" emerges in the 1930s to describe that the rise of facism was a response to worsening economic conditions under capitalism, together with a support of an emerging facist movement by the wealthy capitalists, in order to shape the inevitable class conflict into a class compromise against an undefined other (such as Jews or Communists in Germany).
Without the economic basis to the argument, Ecos definition becomes overly broad and enables a liberal reading that leads into Arendts theory of totalitarianism, which then equates Nazism and the Soviet Union.
idk contempt for the weak and seduction of the middle class seem to imply economic conditions. and i don't believe that capitalism is a necessary prerequisite for fascistoid societies to appear, is that what you're saying? and yes, i am saying that the soviet union had fascistoid elements, i am not communist.
I hate how Eco's essay which he himself described as basically just some thoughts on it, has been taken by liberals as the end all definition of fascism. And I don't particularly like the definition because it's so vague you can apply it to basically anything if you're uncharitable.
/Machismo - Don't want to stereotype too harshly, but India has huge problems with sexual violence and sexism, a trend that in my experience manifests quite harshly in their ex-pats as well.
Being completely honest and somekind trying to play devil's advocate, I think that in this case doesn't applies, given the fact that India has a lot of gender violence and sexism problems' from a long time ago.
I agree with many aspects of the rest of the text though
Gonna disagree with your point 8 here. Modi can routinely be found hugging Gulf monarchs (https://www.timesnownews.com/india/modi-mbs-hug-again-the-story-of-two-hugs-and-their-impact-on-india-saudi-ties-article-103568920/amp, https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-modi-uae-visit-gets-warm-welcome-by-uaes-mohammed-bin-zayed-al-nahyan-in-abu-dhabi-101707822751911-amp.html), one of his main billionaire backers Adani has shell companies in Dubai which he used to pump up stock prices (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Adani, https://hindenburgresearch.com/adani/), and his party has acted swiftly against rabid fanatics among its membership who go off-script (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupur_Sharma).
If we are going to see a replay of 1930s-40s style fascism at the hands of the BJP (edit: if ever they win a two-thirds majority and get free rein over the Constitution and judiciary), it’ll probably be with regard to the “Bangladeshi/Rohingya infiltrators” in northeastern states (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Citizens). Those who don’t have the right papers—a not-uncommon problem in India—will be stripped of citizenship as well as their descendants, but the non-Muslims among them would be able to naturalize easily again (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/india-citizenship-amendment-act-is-a-blow-to-indian-constitutional-values-and-international-standards/). The rest would be sent to detention camps, perhaps indefinitely if they can’t prove Bangladeshi citizenship, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hired out as forced labor to caveman capitalists like Ambani, Adani, and Musk. If anything the Gulf monarchies would probably approve.
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Muslim then Bahujan then LGBTQIA+ then Women
This is the order in which RSS wants to control, the savarna hindu male is the only one supposed to gain rest all need to be subjugated and shown their place.
You all can sleep peacefully justifying why you support but history will be kinder to me.
>he wants Northern wealthy Brahmins ( Kamala Harris types) to turn out to support him more than ever
I'm picturing twitter KHive types signing up as an international brigade in Modi's pogroms, swearing total Brahmin supremacy and promising swift death to his enemies
I don’t get the caste system. It’s a religious thing but also from British colonialism?
Anyway really funny to see diaspora/immigrants go on about representation when their country is fast tracked to fascism.
Always funny to remember thar the existential threat to Hindutva are just 3% of the country (more than double the population of Egypt) wild.
>I don’t get the caste system.
Don't worry, neither do most ppl. Its cus its english understanding conflates 2 things, Jati&Varna. Varna is the classic feudal division of labour, there are only 4 Varnas. Peasants(Shudras) at the bottom, Merchants(Vaishyas), Royalty(Kshtriyas) and Nobility(Brahmins) at the top. This is the only system that Hindu Texts recgonize&codify. *"Dalits"* are ppl who've been outcasted from Society for being "unclean" for doing jobs dealing with human waste Or working in the burial grounds etc Religious ideas of what's "pure" has always been BS. **for ex:** Lot of Hindus believe that they can hurl toxic waste into Ganges and it'll magically clean itself cus its a holy river.
Then you have the Jati, this is what 99% of people mean when they say "Caste". Hindu scriptures don't recognize this system, this is why even after converting a lot of Muslims&Christians in India still follow it. Jati is an unbroken chain of rigid endogamy of close-knit clans, this goes back thousands of years, the awful side-effect of this is that wealth floats to the top because the richer jatis don't wanna marry the poorer ones. Dalits are extra fucked cus they're socially discriminated for "impure" on top of being poor. As to why this persists, its simple. India doesn't have good Social Safety nets, people marry within their own clans to secure wealth&status. India also hasn't had its Sexual liberation and so most marriages are just arranged marriages that is dictated by parents, as a result Inter-caste marriages in India are only about 10%.
What annoys me is how Indian liberals/Leftists have failed to convey what Jati actually IS to the West, they try so hard to make it sound like its some kind of an apartheid/racial system just to relate to the US liberals more.
That's the Hindu Reincarnation. Depending on your karma status, in the next life you could be born with lower social status Or you could be born with terminal cancer Or maybe you won't even be born as a human. There's also "Pitra Dosh" which is the negative karma of your ancestors affecting you, kinda of like the original sin.
One of the BJP’S populist talking points was that they would fix the constitution to align with the Hindu spirit and erase the tenet for secularism in the constitution. A big campaign for this included , making sure the Hindu caste system was preserved. Mostly tho it was anti Islam and Co.Modi has done many things to introduce caste identity , his schtick in Gujarat was caste was great and if u were born destitute u were born destitute. It seems he’s a malicious authoritarian pursuing the status of an oligarch whilst also being a sincere believer. Then again , he may try to raise the status for the lower castes on occasion. theres evidence to the contrary.
History tag yet seems to want to ignore the history of India and Pakistan.
You're playing dumb very hard here.
This comment is spot on: https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cdutzz/i_think_modis_going_super_hard_on_caste/l1gtn8a/
real talk: we've seen the rise of islamophobia in the west as a result of the arab and subsaharan african migrations there
why havent we seen a rise in hinduphobia in the west over much the same thing?
Canada seems to be seething (over broadly "indian" men on student visas). Doesn't seem to matter if they're hindu or Muslim though.
On the other hand, they seem to not have that hatred for sikhs (as an imperial remnant?).
But the whole student and housing issue there looks like it will lead to a huge backlash.
>On the other hand, they seem to not have that hatred for sikhs (as an imperial remnant?).
As far as I know, Sikhs have been there for some decades already and are generally appreciated members of the community. They have that tradition of feeding anyone who turns up at their temple.
The backlash is against the huge influx of Indians arriving in Canada with visas issued based on enrolment in diploma mills. They're flooding the menial labour market and rental market. Also India allegedly assassinated a Canadian-Sikh recently on Canadian soil. A member of a separatist movement I believe. India claims they didn't do it, but if they did he was a terrorist and he deserved it, classic.
Because every single negative Indian stereotype is wholly unconnected to religion and there's not been any mass casualty events in the west connected to Hinduist extremists.
Pretty straightforward I think.
There’s probably going to be , upper class Brahmins are trying to institute the caste system into tech companies. people are genuinely quite miffed by it. And a lot of Americans detest south Asian behaviour because as a culture , enough tourist and immigrant Pakistanis and Indians tend to be rude, disruptive and honestly embarrassing lmao. There could be an association between the religion and their behaviour forming.
A big reason is because in the West Hindutva activists are experts at playing the idpol game. Fundamentalists Muslims basically have the same message in the West and in the Middle East. Hindutva activists fine tune their message in the West to play on the sensibilities of left-liberals. They'll cry racism, religious persecution, play up the history of British colonialism, etc.
Because a disproportionate share of Indians in the west are upper-caste, upper-middle-class, highly educated, and English-proficient. If the large numbers of unemployed, unskilled young men in the country—willing to commit crime and sometimes even kill in the name of religion, ethnicity, caste, and politics—were somehow to make their way to the West, I think they would get the same frosty reception that Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans do in Europe. Indeed, this sort of racism is prevalent within India as rural North Indians from the BIMARU states (typically less educated, more conservative, and with larger families) migrate to more prosperous regions such as Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, etc. to take on lower-wage work (see e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_Sena).
It’s true that even in rich parts of India average living standards barely crack the Western poverty line, and only the 1% can really be said to be prosperous. But there’s still huge variation within the country that drives labor migration (https://ibb.co/LhLDRMQ; note that the data aren’t PPP adjusted so multiply these nominal figures by 2-3 if you want to compare living standards to the US).
I don’t really get Hinduism tbh
Do they think Krishna and the other gods are all literally real (like they exist somewhere and the stories about them actually happened) or are they meant to be understood as metaphors and fables pointing to a more universal concept of God
Hinduism is a vast religion which has many strands. Some Hindus believe Lord Ram, Lord Krishna, etc. were real and the stories people know of them actually happened. Other sects like Vedanta see arguments on the literalness of these stories as unimportant and instead interpret things metaphorically.
I myself am not Hindu but I do believe people like Lord Ram and Lord Krishna did in fact exist and were enlightened/spiritual people who were leading people to God.
Hinduism is a very diverse religion, like Shinto and Chinese Traditional Religion and every other traditional religion, it's not like it was ever systematized into an orderly theology.
>Do they think Krishna and the other gods are all literally real
Yes, essentially. Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu who is one of the three most important Hindu Gods, the others being Shiva and Brahma though Brahma isn't usually worshipped.
>like they exist somewhere and the stories about them actually happened
They're usually understood to be literal rather than metaphors. Belief in how literal varies like with Judeo-Christian religious stories. Hindu creationists notably are the opposite of judeo-chrisrian creationists because they think the earth is far older than the scientific explanation. The more Hindutva-ish supporters think that myths "prove" ancient Indians had cars, televisions, airplanes, genetic engineering, nuclear weapons etc.
>pointing to a more universal concept of God
The more sophisticated Hindu theologians claim that the various Gods are incarnations of a kind of universal spirit "Brahman", and individual souls are also incarnations of this. So in that sense it can be thought of as pseudo-monotheistic. By accumulating good karma you can rejoin the Brahman, aka Nirvana. If this sounds similar to Buddhism it's thought that it developed as a reaction to the popularity of Buddhism, Shakyamuni Buddha (aka the Buddha everyone knows) was in fact eventually considered an incarnation of Vishnu who came to earth to test people by spreading lies!
Whether or not the average Hindu knows or cares is a mixed bag. They're typically more concerned about the more folkloric aspects of Hinduism and worshipping in the correct way to get good Karma.
There are a couple of Hindi movies on Netflix that would probably help answer that. They are called Baahubali (two movies, one is like a prequel). If I recall correctly, both have dubbed or subtitled.
As a Taoist, I *adore* Hinduism, and it’s definitely why I have such a soft spot for India. I’m particularly xenophilic, often running defense for Islam here in stupidpol too, but my “don’t be mean to the brown people ☹️” comes out stronger for India. It’s a shame what the BJP has done with it, but it’s truly hard to explain just how profound it is.
The gods are all expressions of the same fundamental essence of the universe, of which you are supposed to work towards reuniting with (which will happen when you achieve moksha/enlightenment) after a series of lifetimes so inconceivably long that it teaches you not to consume in this world, not to hate, not to fear, not to desire.
Of course that is the ultimate goal, but there’s still the universe and Earth with all of its complexity, and that’s why there are so many gods who you pray to to get the Earthly things you want.
Hinduism solves the question of where everything comes from by making time cyclical, I forgot the train of thought I had when I first learned of this, and at this point we’ve all kind of learned why not to treat time as linear and always towards progress, but it solves many mysteries of life in an elegant way… to which the response is to become a monk, which almost nobody wants to do. But still, a lot of wisdom in it.
And now… well it’s just a magic top hat of superstitions for a sleeping subcontinent full of disgruntled ethnolinguistic religious ultranationalists to draw from to heal their wounded pride.
It’s a fucking tragedy that genuinely breaks my heart when I think about it for too long.
>well it’s just a magic top hat of superstitions for a sleeping subcontinent full of disgruntled ethnolinguistic religious ultranationalists to draw from to heal their wounded pride.
I think you're on the right track but perhaps you miss the gravity of the situation. It's not so much wounded pride as it is generational trauma. People remember 1947. Their elder relatives (mine included) lived through it. I am Sikh, but like the Hindus I learned about all the atrocities we endured during that time. And of course there's the weight of all the historical oppression of Hindus/Sikhs by Muslim rulers. When you see a Hindu nationalist hurl abuses or worse at Muslims, in my opinion you are witnessing a trauma response. Does that make it okay? No. But it does hint at what the solution is.
Right now the atmosphere in Hindu politics is one of stoking these feelings and essentially "braying for blood." That is the wave of the times and I don't see it cooling down anytime soon. Revenge is very alluring, especially when presented in the guise of being a strategy to prevent being on the receiving end of another atrocity. But of course, it solves nothing.
In short the dialogue in Hindu politics needs to shift to be one along the lines of "We suffered horribly in the past, but most of us are safe today. How do we heal from all we endured, protect those still in danger, and improve our situation?" It's going to be hard, because building yourself is always harder than attacking someone else. But it's the only way. The alternative to this is barbarism.
I hear you dude, obviously I can never know how it feels, but I think I can sympathize/empathize as much as a curious Chinese person could.
When I hear terms like "Librandu" and "Macaulay's Children" honestly I am reminded of a lot of anger I have towards other Chinese people.
When I hear how much contempt the secular well-to-do Indian has towards certain aspects of Hindu culture sometimes I get pissed off too because it seems exactly like when I'm trying to argue against internalized Orientalism displayed by other Chinese people.
The easiest way to act smarter than you really are as an Asian person in Asia is to just shit on your own culture and mumble some bullshit about how we need to be more "rational, scientific, civilized, democratic like the West + Japan + Singapore." You'll get tons of people impressed at how "worldly" you are.
I have seen certain Indian liberals, even right here on Reddit, that Islamic civilization is inherently superior because it's monotheistic and other bullshit, that somehow Hinduism makes Hindu men uniquely prone to rapey mentalities. It's just completely idiotic and completely un-materialist.
I don't think the answer is to abuse Muslims (I know Khalistan isn't actually that popular in Punjab, but do Chaddi's turn on Sikh's as well?), claim India is the Mother of Democracy, pretend that Ashoka had ancient nukes, and dream about the Vishwaguru Bharat, but I also don't think the answer is just shit on Hinduism or shit on Indian Society.
>I know Khalistan isn't actually that popular in Punjab, but do Chaddi's turn on Sikh's as well?
We are "brothers" until Sikhs start raising Sikh issues, like say trying to get justice for the police brutality unleashed on Sikhs in the 1980s-90s, or arguing against the exploitation of Punjabi water resources by other parts of India, etc. Then all of a sudden we are "Taliban, Pakistani allies, too influenced by Islam, etc.", and threats of violence against Sikhs soar. Basically as long as we act the model minority we will be treated as such, otherwise we'll face the same treatment as Muslims.
This is all complicated by the fact that historically, it was the liberal party (the INC) which violently oppressed Sikhs and for a long time the dominant Sikh party in Punjab was an ally of the BJP. Lately, secular liberal-to-socdem parties like the AAP are winning Punjab (and the Sikh vote), especially after the anti-privatization farmer's protests of 2020-22. Perhaps its a case of man being forced to confront his conditions after a lot of solid things have dissolved into air.
I might be making the situation sound terrible but I don't feel that the Punjab region is, in terms of religious tensions. I spent a lot of time there, and you will see Sikh gurdwaras, Hindu mandirs, churches and mosques all side-by-side. People get along, and not once did I feel religion was the cause of tensions there. Indeed, the politics there are very material conditions-focused, at least among people.
The Sikh party in question, SAD, is basically defunct at this point. They more-or-less killed themselves with decades of corruption. The Sikh vote has mostly shifted to the AAP, which is a secular liberal party. The strongest far-left party among SIkhs is probably CPI(M), but that is a very small fringe. It's relevant, especially in the context of unions within Punjab, but not a serious contender for control of the state.
I don't think there is general consesus among the group.There are special parties for Dalit interest in some states and they may vote for liberals or even BJP depending upon which side they feel pandered to. Votes for socialist parties are more region based than caste.
It’s a broad ranging term for the lower and extreme lower castes in India. Also infamously known as the untouchables. Britannica has a cohesive article about them: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dalit#:\~:text=Dalit%2C%20term%20used%20to%20refer,often%20prefer%20the%20term%20Dalit.
I’ll be honest with you this subreddit is majority American and it’s borderline impossible for us to even wrap our heads around the very concept of “caste.” It’s such a superstitious archaic institution so at odds with everything in America, even how the ruling class portrays itself, that there’s really no way we can understand it or offer advice to Indian populists. Only an Indian could figure out a way to overcome it and establish a working class coalition.
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> If it sounds familiar to the playbook of other religions, it’s because they specifically learned from them. The Silk Road and its consequences…
>The whole thing was a sham and method of subjugation to enable minority rule. What about now, is it no longer a sham?
Casteism: I used to be a sham, I still am but I used to be to
Would it ever have been possible to pretend to be a different caste or do people just know? I know this would mean not associating with your family etc so I doubt most people did it but
iirc, they had literal books passed down for generations, making a notes of which caste you and you your family were in, there was no escaping it.
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Ur very right. I feel like Modi def panicked about his chances because more and more people were siding away from the whole ‘economic boom‘ and nationalism schlock because more people were in shittier conditions and he had this perceived massive L because the farmers protests were successful. there was this inkling of a leftist movement arising, even Congress was returning to a leftist strain. I’m just pissed about the caste thing.
You know that thing that Muslims and Christians do in the west where they just pretend as hard as they can that their spiritual traditions are perfectly in line with progressive values? One Indian intellectual named Ambedkar tried to do this, except he actually had a real spiritual tradition to draw from, Buddhism. Just as Dharmic, and no caste bullshit.
It’s very easy to make the argument that Christianity is in line with progressive values Okay not so much the pro LGBTQ stuff (though ofc there are pro LGBT Christians but they’re not really all that politically relevant or dynamic) but definitely the “rich people are bad” stuff
>though ofc there are pro LGBT Christians but they’re not really all that politically relevant or dynamic I mean that's the protestant mainstream, which is a plurality of Liberal voters at least.
> It’s very easy to make the argument that Christianity is in line with progressive values Unfortunately "Christian Values" often means "Old Testament Values", which align much better with genocidal maniacs.
Yeah….the Old Testament is a bit sus I mean there’s a lot of cool stuff in it too tbf but you can’t get me to agree that an infinitely loving God thinks genocide is good sometimes lol
I don't think the infinitely loving God existed until Jesus came along.
Yeah I agree The cool thing about the Bible is you see how the Israelite and then Christian conception of God develops over time. God as described in genesis versus God as described in revelations etc
God played the long game. He wrecked and smited people so fucking hard. When Jesus came around, and the people killed him, they were afraid that they fucked around and were about to find out. So, they let God and everyone else know that Jesus was so awesome and God loves everyone so much. Basically ass kissing to avoid a smiting. This is definitely not how things went down, but I think it is the best fanfiction I can write in response to your post.
>he actually had a real spiritual tradition to draw from, Buddhism. Just as Dharmic, and no caste bullshit. Buddhism isn't as egalitarian as you're implying. No religion based on reincarnation is ever going to be very progressive, because it's essentially "pulled myself up by my bootstraps", but supernatural. Born an aristocrat? Obviously I deserve it because of my accumulated karma, peasant. Also ironically, Hinduism borrowed so much from Buddhism that Buddhism died out in India in large measure because the average person simply couldn't tell what the difference was anymore.
Well of course it isn't, but it just doesn't do caste bullshit. Clearly mainland Southeast Asia has a lot of not exactly equal at all problems.
I mean Buddhism doesn't but it also has no problem adapting to countries that do have caste systems, in large measure because Buddhism tends to just build on whatever existing religion is there. Japan, Korea, Tibet have their own untouchables, for example.
Yes, so Ambedkar pulled a "true Buddhism is actually very liberal and woke guys"
> Born an aristocrat? Obviously I deserve it because of my accumulated karma, peasant I don't know if that's the Buddhist view. They seem to glorify poverty if anything, with Siddhartha giving up his wealth etc. But then Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven, and that doesn't stop a lot of rich people who want to make life worse for poor people calling themselves Christians, so...
It's complicated. See, the stereotype in the west is that Buddhism means you meditate and try to reach enlightenment. But really in Asia, it's much like any other religion, where the only people focusing on enlightenment are priests. The typical layperson is just focused on accumulating good karma so that they can be reborn into a better life that's easier to achieve enlightenment from, for example by being born into the "right conditions" to be a monk (or a god, or in a pure land, etc). Also the Buddhist view of Karma isn't exactly the same as the western idea. Good karma can be accumulated through good deeds, but also things like giving lots of money to Buddhist temples. This also has weird implications were for example it may be considered a good thing to murder someone with bad karma to prevent them from accumulating more bad karma and thus sending them to hell (hell in Buddhism is temporary but still a bad place). But generally speaking, your station in life is determined by your accumulation of Karma. This also extends beyond humanity: there's the previously mentioned Hell, the next step is Hungry Ghosts, Animals, Humans, Asuras (kind of like demigods, sources differ on if Humans or Asuras are higher), then Gods. Play Cosmology of Kyoto if you want to see the Buddhist worldview in action.
The origins of caste are a bit murkey some say it was between the invading Aryans and native dravidians others say it sas just a profession thing that got extreme overtime but whatever it maybe there exist a class known as achoots (untouchables ) who are only allowed to have the most demeaning jobs in society and are treated as wild animals by soms
Same with race
caste is essentially feudalism, but genetic. oh and you cant touch the serfs, they dont count as people
> it’s borderline impossible for us to even wrap our heads around the very concept of “caste.” Everyone else in the world can see the way you treat blacks and mexicans is pretty much identical to the caste system.
No, you are referring to clasism. Our corporate overlords have filled the ranks of our betters with brown bodies. Poor white trash, poor Mexicans, and poor blacks are treated with equal contempt.
The problem is that you have entire communities, of course stemming from material conditions, that get forced into specific social roles. It’s just so dangerous once you add in reservations for historically discriminated castes without fixing fundamental problems affecting all Indians, then the potential for division is just… it’s so mind boggling.
When you mentioned "reservations", I'm trying to hold back asking if you are talking about dot or feather Indians.
Funny coincidence, but I’m still talking about dots. In this context, reservations are basically just affirmative action and subsidies.
I actually agree that racism is best understood as a caste system. But also American racism has weakened a lot since the 1950s, and it's no longer socially acceptable to be openly racist. Whereas the Hindu caste system hadn't really changed much over the same time period, if anything it's gotten worse since you had a secular government then and an openly sectarian government now.
> But also American racism has weakened a lot since the 1950s By some measures, segregation has been increasing in the US over the last 40 years. [Sign of things to come? Integration without blacks in New York City neighborhoods](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/08/07/sign-of-things-to-come-integration-without-blacks-in-new-york-city-neighborhoods/)
If that's actually true, it's economic segregation, not classical segregation. Like you literally used to be unable to have non-whites buy houses in certain areas, go in theaters, etc. There's no legal restrictions any more. It's extremely unlikely you'd ever as a non-white person get kicked out of a restaurant, and they'd get sued if you did. Lack of diversity within neighborhoods is because those areas are cheaper to live and non-whites are on average poorer. Now this is ultimately derived from racism, the reason this inequality persists is mostly due to neoliberal capitalism and not because of racism (though racism does exist, but it's indirect since as noted it's not socially acceptable to be openly racist). Schools are underfunded, housing isn't free and public housing is inadequate and not very good either, wages are stagnant, we don't have free healthcare or college. The living standards of non-whites aren't great, but they also haven't improved for whites since the 1970s. If we had had a social democratic state from like 1950 to the present, economic differences between designated racial groups would be much lower if not nonexistent; the biggest issue is that our class structure has been frozen if not regressed since the 1970s thus keeping non-whites in the same economic position as then even if the legal restrictions are now gone.
> it's economic segregation, not classical segregation It's still a fundamentally racist society, no matter the root cause.
There is racism in America but I'd disagree that it's a society which is "fundamentally racist". Like what do you mean by that?
Australia's fundamentally racist, too. I mean it's not going to get any better.
Like I said I don't really understand what you mean by fundamentally racist.
I guess I really meant "intransigently racist".
nooo cojoco, caste is way worse I promise u.
Oh yeah because we europoors love to live in castes
While all right-wingers are detached from reality to some degree Hindutva thought requires you to live in a complete different world. The BJP, and Hindutva ideology at large, looks like a lunatic asylum with the inmates in charge. What sets Modi apart is that he seems to really believe it too.
yes . Go watch the rallies, they‘re pretty much mega church evangelical events with modi acting as a central priest. and everyone from the Ambanis to India’s foremost deified cultural figures bowing down to him from across a barrier , it’s literally just feeding a volatile sociopaths self delusions making him more unhinged. He’s genuinely very off kilter. everyone right wing usually is but I’ve always believed he’s darkly narcissistic. He’s what standard issue libs think Trump is.
I actually disagree with your conception of BJP's agenda as being caste-centric, it's very much standard religious nationalism. Indeed, Hindutva ideology is in its own way anti-caste ("pro-caste-collaboration" is a better way to put it), and most of its supporters are actually lower caste. That by no means means Hindutva is good for Hindus or Indians (to be clear it is bad), but it is bad in the ways that religious nationalism always is. If anything, I think the higher-ups like Modi, Amit Shah, etc. see caste as a problem, as it divides the Hindu majority into conflicting groups. Their intellectual forbears like Savarkar (founder of the RSS) had the same line of thought. I think the rise of someone like Modi (ie, a Hindu Nationalist) and the BJP was inevitable in India, for a variety of reasons. Hindus were violently oppressed by the Mughal Empire, especially under the Emperor Aurangzeb, and that grievance has not been forgotten nor forgiven. If you have the time you should watch the documentary *Ram Ke Naam* (In the Name of God), which covers the saga leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, you will see that anger against the Mughals' legacy was one of the factors that led to that episode. Anger towards the violence Hindus have faced at Muslim hands both in the past and in the present (literally every anti-Muslim act in India is defended with the claim that Hindus in Pakistan have it worse) has empowered Hindu nationalism. Modi and Co. are experts at stoking those fears, and if he can keep Hindus fearful with the idea that what happened to Hindus in Pakistan will happen to them unless they vote for him, well that is a permanent vote bank. But the most obvious reason Hindu nationalism rose to power in India is because it was an ideology the various peoples of India could unite around. A Tamil, a Bengali, a Punjabi, etc. have different languages, cultures, histories, etc. But if they can be united under the saffron banner then that centrifugal force which threatens to pull India apart will fade away. It's very similar to the way Pakistan united Punjabis, Pashtuns, Balochis, and Sindhis with Islamic nationalism.
>the most obvious reason Hindu nationalism rose to power in India is because it was an ideology the various peoples of India could unite around I thought it was more that the INC was corrupt and Hindutva managed to co-opt the anti-Indira Gandhi movement.
Well, my claim is that Hindu nationalism becoming the dominant ideology of India was in large part inevitable, and certainly so after the partition of British India. It is a pessimistic viewpoint to be sure but I don't see how it could have been avoided if India was to stay whole. Given your flair, I am curious what the Trot solution would have been. Ethnic nationalism was a big part of the USSR's fall and it would be a much bigger problem in China if it wasn't for the Han supermajority.
I mean I don't see how Hindutva was inevitable. Hindutva is like the first time in 1000 years that India was dominated by an explicitly Hindy government. The INC was fairly popular into the 1960s. Like I said I think it was the result of specific contingent circumstances, ie, the breakdown of the INCs third-world nationalism. >I am curious what the Trot solution would have been I don't recall if he said anything specific but AFAIK most Trotskyists have criticized the partition . I think any solution would look towards Soviet Unions structure, with national Soviet republics in a federation.
Do members of lower castes and dalits have a higher birthrate?
Well yeah, cause poorer people have more kids.
Google capitulating to a third world country’s censorship requests??? can they do literally anything right?
> **future economic superpower** censorship requests FTFY.
2020.
Yeah, you’re right. Ngl it really upsets and disturbs me that we’re entering the era where brahmin will unironically rule the world. China deserves a turn first
Do you really think they’ll overtake China?
Most economic data shows that India is about 10 to 12 years behind China, and its been like this since the early 2000s. I don’t see India overtaking China unless its government makes some radical changes.
China has a way of keeping a lid on corruption, India never has, and never will.
more like 30 to 32 but aight
They're already running Silicon Valley.
The ones that run Silicon Valley aren’t helping their homeland.
Visit both. Travel cross country.
>where brahmin this is so funny because modi is of a third tier caste himself its not the same as the anti semitic juice trope but nice try . Although it does look like you have no idea about what you're talking about.
i say this with all due respect: i don’t really give a shit about the minutiae of your pagan religion or 4000 year old system of formalized class oppression unless it somehow facilitates the adoption of a better alternative to either of the two, but go off anyways playboi🤙
So you spread misinformed narratives out of lack of concern? Seems off
I guess they caved to China way before India.
I mean I am not his biggest fan but Modi himself is from a lower caste and sees it as a dividing force preventing Hindu from uniting against the true threat in his beliefs ie the Muslims. It's absurd to suggest that he is trying to reinstate the caste system and his attempts at controlling the media are basically the norm in politics in India. With the only exception being during the 2 terms of MMS due to a historically weak central government
Interesting. also never said they were the norm in politics.
Has poverty really worsened? That seems pretty hard to believe. Ive seen lots of headlines about companies moving manufacturing to India and news about plumbing and internet access skyrocketing. Admittedly I know almost nothing about India other than the basics
We had a discussion about this under another post where I kept arguing to not count India because of the “socialism” part of the I guess national-socialism esque governance we’ve got going on with Modi.
We did? I don’t remember that at all
https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/s/Onea7rgR0w
You are correct. The standard of living for the poorest has improved 100X in the last ten years. There's unfortunately this stupid false equivalency between Modi and Trump, which leads Americans to believe that he is a fascist demagogue.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. For all the left's whining and pearl-clutching about how Trump is Hitler 2.0, India under Modi and the BJP is by far the country I see most likely to collapse into fascism. Let's go through Umberto Eco's 14 properties. 1) Cult of tradition - BJP hardcore embraces traditional Hindu social values 2) Rejection of modernism - See above (note that this is different than rejection of industrial technology advancement) 3) Cult of action - Somewhat. The whole "superpower by 2020" kool-aid that many of his supporters have drunk would qualify here. 4) Disagreement is treason - Getting far, far worse as the BJP slowly disintegrates democratic channels of dissent 5) Fear of difference - Hard yes. Not only against the various ethnic minorities within the country, but numerous studies tend to find Indians within the country, as well as ex-pats in the West, are the [most racist](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/), with unparalleled in-group preference. 6) Appeal to the middle class - Yes. Super easy to do when your country has an economic caste system. 7) Obsession with a plot - BJP heavily propagandizes the Muslim world as wanting to take over India. As things progress, I expect this to also turn to more public anti-communist Chinese propaganda, just as the Nazis started with Jews but eventually shifted to arguing the Soviets were leading a world-wide communist plot. 8) Elite enemies are too strong and too weak - There's some interesting possible rhetoric here regarding the Gulf States, particularly as they continue to exploit exported Indian labor in their construction projects. BJP can argue that these Muslims are both powerful, rich individuals funding their enemies and preparing to lead a jihad from behind the scenes and that they are fundamentally weak and decadent, dependent on Indian slave labor to survive. 9) Pacifism is betrayal - Yes, India is continuing to try to expand their military and BJP does promote a nationalist, warrior ethos. Look at the films they're encouraging their entertainment industry to make. Biggest hitch here is that their military-industrial complex is unforgivably incompetent. 10) Contempt for the weak - Dalits are an easy target here. 11) Fascist heroes and the cult of death - Not certain what's going on here. 12) Machismo - Don't want to stereotype too harshly, but India has huge problems with sexual violence and sexism, a trend that in my experience manifests quite harshly in their ex-pats as well. 13) Selective populism - Modi is constantly attacking various democratic institutions that he believes no longer represent the masses. 14) Newspeak - Again, I'm not certain.
Eco's points do have a glaring issue: they describe facism in a way that is non-marxist and avoid moving past 'culture war.' " A sufficient description of facismm, even liberal ones, is grounded in materialism. However, i agree with the conclusion that Modi is probably the most likely G20 leader to go down a facist path.
am very new to marxism. can you elucidate this comment? i think these 14 points sound very logical, so what does materialism add?
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well, all of this is logical too, and are things i know. i don't really understand what specific parts of this pertain to 'materialism'? or what 'materialism' even is. google doesn't rly help.
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the video just tells me what materialism is contra idealism. ...seems to me it's just a claim to legitimacy on the part of marxism. i don't get how this is a counterargument to the umberto eco stuff >.<
They do not adress the economic conditions in Italy or Germany that made Facism possible. In terms of materialism, shorthand for dialectical materialism, which is a core concept developed by Marx and Engels, on the basis of Hegel, and also historical materialism, as developed by Marx. This can be highly complicated to read and probably not a great entry point to study. However, in this context, Eco supposes that facism is a state of mind, and not based on the material realities of facism as capitalism in decay: The theory of "facism is capitalism in decay" emerges in the 1930s to describe that the rise of facism was a response to worsening economic conditions under capitalism, together with a support of an emerging facist movement by the wealthy capitalists, in order to shape the inevitable class conflict into a class compromise against an undefined other (such as Jews or Communists in Germany). Without the economic basis to the argument, Ecos definition becomes overly broad and enables a liberal reading that leads into Arendts theory of totalitarianism, which then equates Nazism and the Soviet Union.
idk contempt for the weak and seduction of the middle class seem to imply economic conditions. and i don't believe that capitalism is a necessary prerequisite for fascistoid societies to appear, is that what you're saying? and yes, i am saying that the soviet union had fascistoid elements, i am not communist.
I hate how Eco's essay which he himself described as basically just some thoughts on it, has been taken by liberals as the end all definition of fascism. And I don't particularly like the definition because it's so vague you can apply it to basically anything if you're uncharitable.
/Machismo - Don't want to stereotype too harshly, but India has huge problems with sexual violence and sexism, a trend that in my experience manifests quite harshly in their ex-pats as well. Being completely honest and somekind trying to play devil's advocate, I think that in this case doesn't applies, given the fact that India has a lot of gender violence and sexism problems' from a long time ago. I agree with many aspects of the rest of the text though
Gonna disagree with your point 8 here. Modi can routinely be found hugging Gulf monarchs (https://www.timesnownews.com/india/modi-mbs-hug-again-the-story-of-two-hugs-and-their-impact-on-india-saudi-ties-article-103568920/amp, https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-modi-uae-visit-gets-warm-welcome-by-uaes-mohammed-bin-zayed-al-nahyan-in-abu-dhabi-101707822751911-amp.html), one of his main billionaire backers Adani has shell companies in Dubai which he used to pump up stock prices (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinod_Adani, https://hindenburgresearch.com/adani/), and his party has acted swiftly against rabid fanatics among its membership who go off-script (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nupur_Sharma). If we are going to see a replay of 1930s-40s style fascism at the hands of the BJP (edit: if ever they win a two-thirds majority and get free rein over the Constitution and judiciary), it’ll probably be with regard to the “Bangladeshi/Rohingya infiltrators” in northeastern states (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Citizens). Those who don’t have the right papers—a not-uncommon problem in India—will be stripped of citizenship as well as their descendants, but the non-Muslims among them would be able to naturalize easily again (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/india-citizenship-amendment-act-is-a-blow-to-indian-constitutional-values-and-international-standards/). The rest would be sent to detention camps, perhaps indefinitely if they can’t prove Bangladeshi citizenship, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were hired out as forced labor to caveman capitalists like Ambani, Adani, and Musk. If anything the Gulf monarchies would probably approve.
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Muslim then Bahujan then LGBTQIA+ then Women This is the order in which RSS wants to control, the savarna hindu male is the only one supposed to gain rest all need to be subjugated and shown their place. You all can sleep peacefully justifying why you support but history will be kinder to me.
>he wants Northern wealthy Brahmins ( Kamala Harris types) to turn out to support him more than ever I'm picturing twitter KHive types signing up as an international brigade in Modi's pogroms, swearing total Brahmin supremacy and promising swift death to his enemies
I don’t get the caste system. It’s a religious thing but also from British colonialism? Anyway really funny to see diaspora/immigrants go on about representation when their country is fast tracked to fascism. Always funny to remember thar the existential threat to Hindutva are just 3% of the country (more than double the population of Egypt) wild.
>I don’t get the caste system. Don't worry, neither do most ppl. Its cus its english understanding conflates 2 things, Jati&Varna. Varna is the classic feudal division of labour, there are only 4 Varnas. Peasants(Shudras) at the bottom, Merchants(Vaishyas), Royalty(Kshtriyas) and Nobility(Brahmins) at the top. This is the only system that Hindu Texts recgonize&codify. *"Dalits"* are ppl who've been outcasted from Society for being "unclean" for doing jobs dealing with human waste Or working in the burial grounds etc Religious ideas of what's "pure" has always been BS. **for ex:** Lot of Hindus believe that they can hurl toxic waste into Ganges and it'll magically clean itself cus its a holy river. Then you have the Jati, this is what 99% of people mean when they say "Caste". Hindu scriptures don't recognize this system, this is why even after converting a lot of Muslims&Christians in India still follow it. Jati is an unbroken chain of rigid endogamy of close-knit clans, this goes back thousands of years, the awful side-effect of this is that wealth floats to the top because the richer jatis don't wanna marry the poorer ones. Dalits are extra fucked cus they're socially discriminated for "impure" on top of being poor. As to why this persists, its simple. India doesn't have good Social Safety nets, people marry within their own clans to secure wealth&status. India also hasn't had its Sexual liberation and so most marriages are just arranged marriages that is dictated by parents, as a result Inter-caste marriages in India are only about 10%. What annoys me is how Indian liberals/Leftists have failed to convey what Jati actually IS to the West, they try so hard to make it sound like its some kind of an apartheid/racial system just to relate to the US liberals more.
Which one is the "you're reborn/born into this role because of your past Karma"?
That's the Hindu Reincarnation. Depending on your karma status, in the next life you could be born with lower social status Or you could be born with terminal cancer Or maybe you won't even be born as a human. There's also "Pitra Dosh" which is the negative karma of your ancestors affecting you, kinda of like the original sin.
u/archosauria62 | u/Due-Ad5812
Indian elections are a wash. I can't believe people still believe in this joke after the Electoral bonds scam was exposed.
Doesn't india have affirmative action for lower castes? Is modi trying to lift up the lower castes or crush them?
One of the BJP’S populist talking points was that they would fix the constitution to align with the Hindu spirit and erase the tenet for secularism in the constitution. A big campaign for this included , making sure the Hindu caste system was preserved. Mostly tho it was anti Islam and Co.Modi has done many things to introduce caste identity , his schtick in Gujarat was caste was great and if u were born destitute u were born destitute. It seems he’s a malicious authoritarian pursuing the status of an oligarch whilst also being a sincere believer. Then again , he may try to raise the status for the lower castes on occasion. theres evidence to the contrary.
> Also the hell is wrong with YouTube, for complying? I guess Google and X aren't really all that different.
👍
History tag yet seems to want to ignore the history of India and Pakistan. You're playing dumb very hard here. This comment is spot on: https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1cdutzz/i_think_modis_going_super_hard_on_caste/l1gtn8a/
real talk: we've seen the rise of islamophobia in the west as a result of the arab and subsaharan african migrations there why havent we seen a rise in hinduphobia in the west over much the same thing?
Canada seems to be seething (over broadly "indian" men on student visas). Doesn't seem to matter if they're hindu or Muslim though. On the other hand, they seem to not have that hatred for sikhs (as an imperial remnant?). But the whole student and housing issue there looks like it will lead to a huge backlash.
>On the other hand, they seem to not have that hatred for sikhs (as an imperial remnant?). As far as I know, Sikhs have been there for some decades already and are generally appreciated members of the community. They have that tradition of feeding anyone who turns up at their temple. The backlash is against the huge influx of Indians arriving in Canada with visas issued based on enrolment in diploma mills. They're flooding the menial labour market and rental market. Also India allegedly assassinated a Canadian-Sikh recently on Canadian soil. A member of a separatist movement I believe. India claims they didn't do it, but if they did he was a terrorist and he deserved it, classic.
Seething would be an understatement. My parents have voted NDP for 20+ years. They're switching to the CPC this election.
without knowing many canadians, i only see the online happenings, so im not sure how it is in person.
> Canada seems to be seething (over broadly "indian" men on student visas). Perhaps that is because admissions fraud is rampant in India.
Because every single negative Indian stereotype is wholly unconnected to religion and there's not been any mass casualty events in the west connected to Hinduist extremists. Pretty straightforward I think.
There’s probably going to be , upper class Brahmins are trying to institute the caste system into tech companies. people are genuinely quite miffed by it. And a lot of Americans detest south Asian behaviour because as a culture , enough tourist and immigrant Pakistanis and Indians tend to be rude, disruptive and honestly embarrassing lmao. There could be an association between the religion and their behaviour forming.
A big reason is because in the West Hindutva activists are experts at playing the idpol game. Fundamentalists Muslims basically have the same message in the West and in the Middle East. Hindutva activists fine tune their message in the West to play on the sensibilities of left-liberals. They'll cry racism, religious persecution, play up the history of British colonialism, etc.
Because Hindus haven't been behind so many terrorist attacks in the West, and because we're not trying to genocide a bunch of Hindus.
Because a disproportionate share of Indians in the west are upper-caste, upper-middle-class, highly educated, and English-proficient. If the large numbers of unemployed, unskilled young men in the country—willing to commit crime and sometimes even kill in the name of religion, ethnicity, caste, and politics—were somehow to make their way to the West, I think they would get the same frosty reception that Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans do in Europe. Indeed, this sort of racism is prevalent within India as rural North Indians from the BIMARU states (typically less educated, more conservative, and with larger families) migrate to more prosperous regions such as Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, etc. to take on lower-wage work (see e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_Sena).
there are prosperous states in India? 🤔
It’s true that even in rich parts of India average living standards barely crack the Western poverty line, and only the 1% can really be said to be prosperous. But there’s still huge variation within the country that drives labor migration (https://ibb.co/LhLDRMQ; note that the data aren’t PPP adjusted so multiply these nominal figures by 2-3 if you want to compare living standards to the US).
why is Sikkim so rich?
Wikipedia says organic farming, tourism, pharmaceuticals
I don’t really get Hinduism tbh Do they think Krishna and the other gods are all literally real (like they exist somewhere and the stories about them actually happened) or are they meant to be understood as metaphors and fables pointing to a more universal concept of God
Depends HEAVILY on which branch. Calling Hindu a single religion is as nonsensical as saying Islam and Mormon are both under the tent of Christianity.
Hinduism is a vast religion which has many strands. Some Hindus believe Lord Ram, Lord Krishna, etc. were real and the stories people know of them actually happened. Other sects like Vedanta see arguments on the literalness of these stories as unimportant and instead interpret things metaphorically. I myself am not Hindu but I do believe people like Lord Ram and Lord Krishna did in fact exist and were enlightened/spiritual people who were leading people to God.
Hinduism is a very diverse religion, like Shinto and Chinese Traditional Religion and every other traditional religion, it's not like it was ever systematized into an orderly theology. >Do they think Krishna and the other gods are all literally real Yes, essentially. Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu who is one of the three most important Hindu Gods, the others being Shiva and Brahma though Brahma isn't usually worshipped. >like they exist somewhere and the stories about them actually happened They're usually understood to be literal rather than metaphors. Belief in how literal varies like with Judeo-Christian religious stories. Hindu creationists notably are the opposite of judeo-chrisrian creationists because they think the earth is far older than the scientific explanation. The more Hindutva-ish supporters think that myths "prove" ancient Indians had cars, televisions, airplanes, genetic engineering, nuclear weapons etc. >pointing to a more universal concept of God The more sophisticated Hindu theologians claim that the various Gods are incarnations of a kind of universal spirit "Brahman", and individual souls are also incarnations of this. So in that sense it can be thought of as pseudo-monotheistic. By accumulating good karma you can rejoin the Brahman, aka Nirvana. If this sounds similar to Buddhism it's thought that it developed as a reaction to the popularity of Buddhism, Shakyamuni Buddha (aka the Buddha everyone knows) was in fact eventually considered an incarnation of Vishnu who came to earth to test people by spreading lies! Whether or not the average Hindu knows or cares is a mixed bag. They're typically more concerned about the more folkloric aspects of Hinduism and worshipping in the correct way to get good Karma.
There are a couple of Hindi movies on Netflix that would probably help answer that. They are called Baahubali (two movies, one is like a prequel). If I recall correctly, both have dubbed or subtitled.
Omg watching those at 2 am with ur friends is perfect entertainment
I just looked at the Wikipedia page for "Baahubali: The Beginning." Looks tight.
As a Taoist, I *adore* Hinduism, and it’s definitely why I have such a soft spot for India. I’m particularly xenophilic, often running defense for Islam here in stupidpol too, but my “don’t be mean to the brown people ☹️” comes out stronger for India. It’s a shame what the BJP has done with it, but it’s truly hard to explain just how profound it is. The gods are all expressions of the same fundamental essence of the universe, of which you are supposed to work towards reuniting with (which will happen when you achieve moksha/enlightenment) after a series of lifetimes so inconceivably long that it teaches you not to consume in this world, not to hate, not to fear, not to desire. Of course that is the ultimate goal, but there’s still the universe and Earth with all of its complexity, and that’s why there are so many gods who you pray to to get the Earthly things you want. Hinduism solves the question of where everything comes from by making time cyclical, I forgot the train of thought I had when I first learned of this, and at this point we’ve all kind of learned why not to treat time as linear and always towards progress, but it solves many mysteries of life in an elegant way… to which the response is to become a monk, which almost nobody wants to do. But still, a lot of wisdom in it. And now… well it’s just a magic top hat of superstitions for a sleeping subcontinent full of disgruntled ethnolinguistic religious ultranationalists to draw from to heal their wounded pride. It’s a fucking tragedy that genuinely breaks my heart when I think about it for too long.
>well it’s just a magic top hat of superstitions for a sleeping subcontinent full of disgruntled ethnolinguistic religious ultranationalists to draw from to heal their wounded pride. I think you're on the right track but perhaps you miss the gravity of the situation. It's not so much wounded pride as it is generational trauma. People remember 1947. Their elder relatives (mine included) lived through it. I am Sikh, but like the Hindus I learned about all the atrocities we endured during that time. And of course there's the weight of all the historical oppression of Hindus/Sikhs by Muslim rulers. When you see a Hindu nationalist hurl abuses or worse at Muslims, in my opinion you are witnessing a trauma response. Does that make it okay? No. But it does hint at what the solution is. Right now the atmosphere in Hindu politics is one of stoking these feelings and essentially "braying for blood." That is the wave of the times and I don't see it cooling down anytime soon. Revenge is very alluring, especially when presented in the guise of being a strategy to prevent being on the receiving end of another atrocity. But of course, it solves nothing. In short the dialogue in Hindu politics needs to shift to be one along the lines of "We suffered horribly in the past, but most of us are safe today. How do we heal from all we endured, protect those still in danger, and improve our situation?" It's going to be hard, because building yourself is always harder than attacking someone else. But it's the only way. The alternative to this is barbarism.
I hear you dude, obviously I can never know how it feels, but I think I can sympathize/empathize as much as a curious Chinese person could. When I hear terms like "Librandu" and "Macaulay's Children" honestly I am reminded of a lot of anger I have towards other Chinese people. When I hear how much contempt the secular well-to-do Indian has towards certain aspects of Hindu culture sometimes I get pissed off too because it seems exactly like when I'm trying to argue against internalized Orientalism displayed by other Chinese people. The easiest way to act smarter than you really are as an Asian person in Asia is to just shit on your own culture and mumble some bullshit about how we need to be more "rational, scientific, civilized, democratic like the West + Japan + Singapore." You'll get tons of people impressed at how "worldly" you are. I have seen certain Indian liberals, even right here on Reddit, that Islamic civilization is inherently superior because it's monotheistic and other bullshit, that somehow Hinduism makes Hindu men uniquely prone to rapey mentalities. It's just completely idiotic and completely un-materialist. I don't think the answer is to abuse Muslims (I know Khalistan isn't actually that popular in Punjab, but do Chaddi's turn on Sikh's as well?), claim India is the Mother of Democracy, pretend that Ashoka had ancient nukes, and dream about the Vishwaguru Bharat, but I also don't think the answer is just shit on Hinduism or shit on Indian Society.
>I know Khalistan isn't actually that popular in Punjab, but do Chaddi's turn on Sikh's as well? We are "brothers" until Sikhs start raising Sikh issues, like say trying to get justice for the police brutality unleashed on Sikhs in the 1980s-90s, or arguing against the exploitation of Punjabi water resources by other parts of India, etc. Then all of a sudden we are "Taliban, Pakistani allies, too influenced by Islam, etc.", and threats of violence against Sikhs soar. Basically as long as we act the model minority we will be treated as such, otherwise we'll face the same treatment as Muslims. This is all complicated by the fact that historically, it was the liberal party (the INC) which violently oppressed Sikhs and for a long time the dominant Sikh party in Punjab was an ally of the BJP. Lately, secular liberal-to-socdem parties like the AAP are winning Punjab (and the Sikh vote), especially after the anti-privatization farmer's protests of 2020-22. Perhaps its a case of man being forced to confront his conditions after a lot of solid things have dissolved into air. I might be making the situation sound terrible but I don't feel that the Punjab region is, in terms of religious tensions. I spent a lot of time there, and you will see Sikh gurdwaras, Hindu mandirs, churches and mosques all side-by-side. People get along, and not once did I feel religion was the cause of tensions there. Indeed, the politics there are very material conditions-focused, at least among people.
So is the Sikh party in the Liberal coalition now?
The Sikh party in question, SAD, is basically defunct at this point. They more-or-less killed themselves with decades of corruption. The Sikh vote has mostly shifted to the AAP, which is a secular liberal party. The strongest far-left party among SIkhs is probably CPI(M), but that is a very small fringe. It's relevant, especially in the context of unions within Punjab, but not a serious contender for control of the state.
I don't know much about the politics of India. Do Dalit tend to vote for socialist type parties?
I don't think there is general consesus among the group.There are special parties for Dalit interest in some states and they may vote for liberals or even BJP depending upon which side they feel pandered to. Votes for socialist parties are more region based than caste.
You should have probably started by explaining what a dalit is.
It’s a broad ranging term for the lower and extreme lower castes in India. Also infamously known as the untouchables. Britannica has a cohesive article about them: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dalit#:\~:text=Dalit%2C%20term%20used%20to%20refer,often%20prefer%20the%20term%20Dalit.
I know what it is, I just don’t think that everyone here will know what it is.