-The anti-Modi Lutyens cabal “trolled” the government
mercilessly on non-existent “church attacks” and alleged “intolerance” based on
isolated utterances by fringe elements.
-Abuse and name-calling was an art perfected not by the
so-called Right, but by the Left (remember terms such as “running dogs of
Capitalism” and “class collaborators”).
-In India, terminological terrorism started with our Marxist
history writing, whose first contribution was to reduce Hinduism to Brahminism
- ignoring the fact that Brahmins were essentially priests.
-What makes Leftism so holy? It was no different
from the holy terror of the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades, or the
genocides perpetrated by Islamists from ancient times to the present.
While I would be the last one to extol trolling or
harassment of journalists, it is interesting how a troll is defined. A troll,
says the Wiki definition, “is a person who sows discord on the internet by
starting arguments or upsetting people.” If we take out the words “on the internet”,
this definition would fit most of those making intemperate remarks continuously
about Narendra Modi or the BJP or the Sangh in Old Media, including “Left
Liberals”. The anti-Modi Lutyens cabal “trolled” the government mercilessly on
non-existent “church attacks” and alleged “intolerance” based on isolated
utterances by fringe elements.
To assume that one can only be trolled on social media is a
myth. You can troll a person even in other forms of media. Just as trolls bring
up past tweets of disliked journos to embarrass them on social media, the Old
Media rakes up 2002 (but never any other communal riot) whenever they want to
score a point.
This article is not about trolling, but what I would call
“terminological terrorism.”
Abuse and name-calling was an art perfected not by the
so-called Right, but by the Left (remember terms such as “running dogs of
Capitalism” and “class collaborators”). Even ethical behaviour by individuals
can be rubbished by the Left by terming it “bourgeois” or “middle class morals.”
Long-term political enemies will be called “fascists”, and opportunistic
current allies can be called “neo-liberals” as a mere put-down.
In India, terminological terrorism started with our Marxist
history writing, whose first contribution was to reduce Hinduism to Brahminism
- ignoring the fact that Brahmins were essentially priests. But once the Left
defined Hinduism as Brahminism, and Brahmins as essentially exploiters and
oppressors, calling someone Brahmin was enough to condemn him. But the same
definition – of using priests to define other religions - was never applied to
any other faith.
All religions have their priests and ideologues; in Hinduism
it was Brahmins. That Brahmins were complicit in and helped perpetrate an
oppressive caste system is clear, and they deserve strong condemnation for the
same. But Hinduism isn’t Brahminism. This is reductionism at its worst,
conflating the negative part of a religion to the whole. It is like saying
jihadism is Islam.
Didn’t Christianity and Islam not have their priests and
ulema, their own rabid guardians of the faith, at whose instigation kings and
generals killed and murdered thousands of people who belonged to pagan or other
faiths?
So why isn’t Christianity called “Papism” or Islam Jihadism
or Ulema-ism or Mullah-ism, or whatever? Why is only Hinduism Brahminism?
Take another example. Hinduism is represented in Christian
literature as a crass cult, what with phallic and monkey worship. That these
ideas have moved on from their natural and animist origins to something more
metaphorical is never acknowledged. That was how the ancients worshipped the
Infinite when their understanding of the world was limited and different. But
no one who worships a Shiv Linga today thinks of it as the phallus anymore.
Ideas and concepts have evolved.
Now consider the basic concept of imbibing the “flesh and
blood” of Christ, something basic to Christian theology. The idea originated in
cannibalism. Cannibals believed that if they drank the blood and ate the flesh
of their enemies, they would gain their strength. So should we call modern
Christianity the Cannibal Cult, or even the Cult of Jesus?
Islamists would like to dismiss “idolators” as kafirs,
people who create gods out of stone. But what is the Kaaba if not a large
stone? (Meteorite, or whatever). Many Muslims have a picture of that meteorite
framed and festooned. Is Islam the Cult of the Big Meteorite?
Ditto with Marxists. To call the history of the Left Marxism
is a travesty. Marx was merely the man with 20/20 hindsight who tried to
develop a materialistic and deterministic history of the world. But Marxism as
practiced in the world became the ultimate Cult of Mass Murder, even worse than
Hitler’s Nazism. Marx is unlikely to have approved of this. Class war cannot be
this crass.
In his Black Book of Communism, author Stephane Courtois
estimates the number of people killed under Communist regimes in the 20th
century at 95 million people – 65 million in China, 20 million in Stalinist
USSR, and one or two million each in Cambodia, North Korea, Vietnam, pre-Berlin
Wall Eastern Europe and Afghanistan.
So why doesn’t anyone call this death cult fascism, or
genocidal? We still demand human rights for Maoists in Chhattisgarh who worship
the same death cult, and also practice its rituals. What makes Leftism so holy?
It was no different from the holy terror of the Spanish Inquisition or the
Crusades, or the genocides perpetrated by Islamists from ancient times to the
present (ISIS, Taliban, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda). We should add one ancient Indian
called Ashoka The Great at Kalinga. Do read Sanjeev Sanyal’s piece here on how
Ashoka was hardly the benevolent Buddhist and peacenik he was made out to be in
later hagiographies. He was brutal and violent, and his violence did not end
even after the Kalinga war.
And yet, Ashoka is a saint for people like Amartya Sen and
Nehruvian historians.
A creed that kills 95 million people is, by definition,
good. A man who kills tens of thousands at Kalinga is a model of public
reasoning for Amartya Sen. Why? Because some of his edicts claimed he was kind
of repentant and preached tolerance. Billi sau choohe marker Haj pe chali.
But a creed with a history of tolerance is violent and
dangerous and fascist. The Left-Liberal’s terminological terrorism is clearly
intended to tar Hinduism and its followers with the death-paint it has itself
used to cover up its murderous past – and possibly create a reason to do so in
future.
Today, Indians in the US are fighting biased South Asian
faculty in California who have asked the California Board of Education to
replace the word “India” in History and Social Science Frameworks with the word
“South Asia.” (Read the petition against this move here). This is how petty the
Left can get. They can’t even let a name like India remain, so what will they
not do to erase the memories of India’s oldest cultural and religious idea
called Hinduism?
It is time to fight terminological terrorism.
By: R. Jagannathan
Courtesy: Swarajya
By: R. Jagannathan
Courtesy: Swarajya
No comments:
Post a Comment