Originally posted by Double Edge
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In this ebb and flow of time as the population grew and new ideas were born, different faiths and methods of worship took root. Some like Buddhism and Jainism and Sikhism organically from within the continent and its people. Others like Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity inorganically from other shores. But I doubt whether in terms of the population, our land has ever seen an en masse significant exodus of people (into or out of) beyond the advent of the Indic Aryan migration thousands of years ago.
All other "foreign" ingresses by comparison have been insignificant in their numbers, if not their ideology and faith they brought along. But when you get down to it, while ideologies and faiths and methods and rituals and books and places of worship changed, the people more or less remained the same. Same DNA. Same collective unconscious. Same civilization. Same culture. Same primal likes and dislikes. Same food. Same clothing (barring minor changes here and there). Same languages.
And all this happened and grew and co-existed alongside and under and within the larger umbrella of the ancient faith and way of life of the land - Hinduism. Sure there was war and strife. But over time Hinduism absorbed and assimilated. Not rejected and persecuted. To the extent that each foreign faith as well took on a unique hue and flavor of the ancient land and people it took root and grew in.
The flavor of Hindutva.
A subcontinental Muslim is a very different animal to Muslims anywhere else. As is a subcontinental Christian or Jew. As is a subcontinental Zoroastrian (Parsi) to the followers of the faith elsewhere in the lands of its origin. What is the single thread that binds them all?
Hindutva.
I need to think this through some more but from what i can tell it should not affect the way minorites are currently, they continue practising their faiths as usual but with the added realization that they are a part of something much more as well. It's looking at themselves & their role in India with a different lens, an inclusivist one, dare i say it. One of your problems with Congress is that it comes in the way of this, tries to keep ppl divided as nations within one nation. Which is why you consider them a sectarian party.
Now that puts a very different spin on things doesn't it :)
Now that puts a very different spin on things doesn't it :)
Its not something new or foreign. Its not a different spin. Its what Hindutva has always been about. Its why India is the ONLY nation in the world where 250 million Muslims live peacefully alongside a billion others of different faiths, and where less than a century ago that number was far greater still, till a people were divided by artificial boundaries and nonsensical theories.
Are your ancestors Hindu ? if you're Parsi then does that not necessarily imply they were Persian. How does hindutva help you reconcile that.
On another note i recall seeing the Iranians mentioning their Persian heritage in the 2009 demonstrations. Trying to go back in time before they had their revolution in 1979, before they were muslim. Trying to recollect lost memories. Trying to become whole again perhaps.
On another note i recall seeing the Iranians mentioning their Persian heritage in the 2009 demonstrations. Trying to go back in time before they had their revolution in 1979, before they were muslim. Trying to recollect lost memories. Trying to become whole again perhaps.
I know many Iranians who similarly yearn to re-capture the ancient Zoroastrian culture of their land and their people - as different from what they increasingly see and resent as a foreign Arab culture foisted on their people by conquest and displacement. That does not mean that all or most reject Islam as a faith. But for them Zoroastrianism as a common cultural civilizational nationalistic legacy is the same as what Hindutva is (or should be) to Indians. The difference is that they increasingly embrace it as the anchor that moors them to who they are as an ancient people. While we, an equally ancient people, for the most part fail to understand and fight it.
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