[Reader-list] Petition against renaming of Delhi's Aurangzeb Road

[Prem Chandavarkar]

> On 31-Aug-2015, at 2:43 pm, Shohini Ghosh <shohini.ghosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I am a Hindu so don't teach me how to love Hindus. You are not the
> custodian of Hindus.

“The problem with Hindutva, which has impeded its capture of the average Hindu’s political and cultural imagination, is that it is the outcome not so much of hatred for others, especially Muslims, but rather of Hindu self-hate. It’s a historic and possibly doomed attempt to change everything about Hinduism that makes it what it is — its ability to accommodate mind-boggling diversity, its avoidance of strict definitions and boundaries, its amorphous, heterogeneous, tolerant and fluid character.

Hindutva wants to “Semitize” Hinduism, giving it a god, a book, a revelation, a prophet, an ecclesiastical order, a pontiff, a race, a language, a country (or a holy land), a history, a canon, doctrinal stability and missionary zeal. It’s an attempt to standardise, essentialise, codify and systematise a vast universe of incommensurate beliefs, practices, rituals, theologies and narratives — to render Hinduism modern and modular”. 

Ananya Vajpeyi

Hind Swaraj vs Hindu Rashtra

The Hindu, 12 July 2014

Full article available at:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/hind-swaraj-vs-hindu-rashtra/article6201620.ece