In Reply to: Re: I did say posted by Traveler in India on December 28, 2009 at 09:25:30:
Religious fervors can still be whipped up, incited just by someone putting up an activist poster, but inter-religion violence is not the norm except in places like Kashmir. And you are more likely to get political violence than religious violence.
This is my impression too...lots of Indians are still very religious...even if the youth since
longer doesn't share the same sentiments.What is startling about India is the mob-frenzy...once incited...it can also be a speeding bus-driver...killing a pupil...who gets either a solid thrashing or gets killed...lynch law is pretty prevalent in India.
As far as dowry-deaths are concerned I am quite
sceptical.I believe the figure is still very high, sadly high...and that the widow remains unmarried was & is accepted still (the joining the dead husband on the pyre is outlawed, forbidden since longer, but was still practiced on the countryside on instances, while I was there)...thus the movie Baabul having it's main theme..a good one to me...
Some of the old vedic/hindu rites/customs resemble
pretty much the jewish or christian ones...pretty amazing...so I am actually for some of that stuff ; ) ...and there's where I even sympathise with the conservatives (Hindus)...but not to the point of using force & big pressure.
I still remember many years back Saudi Arabia making a big fuss about the American troops using bibles and crosses in their army camps...I thought, how ridiculous can they get?
The incidences in Northern Ireland and Ex-Yugoslavia are a total shame and disgrace...butit proves to me again, that religion/Christianity/Catholicism and power/politics should be separate things....however I like that to be everywhere in the world and I fail to see that really/fully implemented in India...
Same goes for Turkey, which likes his fellowmen abroad to have lots of religious freedom, but is not willing to grant the same in their own country...so for me they are hypocrites and some of those kinds also are in India "in action".
I wouldn't doubt, that missionaries and indigenous
pastors made mistakes in India...but to counter that with violence is anyway wrong...no matter what the religion is...or not??
Try to see the movie Pinjar...if you haven't yet...I haven't seen anything more moving till this day...of course there is Bombay...I recently bought Parzania...still got to see it.
Did you know/remember, how the Indian press/public...also Amitabh Bachchan...slammed slumdog millionaire...saying it'd put India into bad light?How many soap operas in the west and east are far from the average civilian???So I thought the critique to be really ridiculous...sure India is not just slum-dog millionaire...but in part yes...the same critique nobody voiced...from what I remember with Salaam Bombay.I think they were
sour on the fact, that a foreigner made such a fantastic movie...again false nationalism...which anyway rubs me wrong as a German...
Some time ago, they made some survey and Germany landed somewhere bottom as far as national identity is concerned...I believe it...feel that way and don't understand nations who get super uptight about it:nationalism...including India and the whole rest...but I guess so is man...and on the other hand India really is stemming a big load...so I have lots of admiration for their overall progress.