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shubhamChandra
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If you have read this column more than once you will find this disclaimer unnecessary but here goes. I despise Hindutva. By this I mean the Hindutva we have seen since Narendra Modi became prime minister, not the original version. I despise this new Hindutva because it has unleashed upon Indian a species of upper caste, Hindu Indian whose DNA seems made u entirely of ancient hatreds, grievances and a very ancient inferiority complex.
Indians of this species always existed but a powerful BJP Prime Ministered the spread of social media have emboldened them to emerge from the shadows into the harsh light of the public square. The 'values' on which this species of Indian bases his faith and nationalism are these. Islam is an evil religion, all Muslims are Jihadis, secularism, liberals are anti-national and Hindustan must be for Hindus. People other faiths can stay in this 'new India' only if they accept subservience.
The world when viewed through the warped lens of this Hindutva makes even something as horrific and sickening as the rape of little girls into a Hindu-Muslim issue. Hindutva warriors tweet hatred on Twitter almost every minute of every day, but when there is atgrigbger, they tweet up a tsunami. We say this after the rape of that little girl in the temple of Kathua. And, last week the trigger was Salman Khursid's brave admission that the Congress party had Muslim blood on its hands. It does. And the list of massacres in secular Congress decades is long and saddening. But, what no Congress leader will ever admit is that it was our oldest political party's twisted secularism that gave birth to Hindutva as we know it today.
Sonia Gandhi recently justified her son's spate of very publicized visits to temples and the equally publicized news that he is a Shiva bhakt who wears the sacred thread of baptized Hindus. She said it was to rectify the false impression created by the BJP that the Congress had become a 'Muslim party'. She seems to have forgotten the many occasion on which in the name of secularism Congress prime minister have gone out of their easy to play to the Muslim gallery