[higerordermap]

You're underestimating how conservative people are in general.

There is a fear of Islam propagation in general populace of India, and there are valid reasons for it.

When you have uninformed general populace, it's easy to portray yourselves as protector of the culture and they will become fans of you, and defend every action of you. It doesn't matter you make their lives bad, corruption becomes rampant or economy goes shit. All that matters is creating a common enemy for all people.

It has worked well for BJP, because the opposition party was full of nepotism and old tactics such as minority appeasement. They came late to this propaganda game, and as long as they are nepotistic and have this muslim party image they can't do shit.

I don't think all people defending modi here are paid to do that. Let's be real, they are emotionally connected. And the problem cannot be solved by dismissing more than half of the population.

[srean]

I do not disagree with a single sentence in your comment, except what is implied but not stated in the last one.

I am willing to be convinced with data that about half of the Indian population support the current events, but haven't encountered any such. Note, only around 60% voted. I will happily agree that at the time of elections around 50% of the 60% that voted was in favor of the BJP led coalition.

A person with a conservative belief system and a IT cell operation coordinator are different things altogether. I have spotted the latter on HN. If you look at their comment stream you will see them claiming that they are hindu in one that they are muslim in another. Yes its possible they converted in the middle but the prior for that is low.

[higerordermap]

> I don't think __all people__ are from IT Cell.

I stand by this. Some of them seem to be seriously emotionally connected.

[srean]

I know. Not quite sure why you have latched on to it. I don't think there is any disagreement there

[thunderbong]

I agree with most of your points. However, I'm interested in knowing - what are the valid reasons for Islam propagation in India?

[higerordermap]

Half of them are true. The rest is exaggerated. Both sides hold extreme opinions about this matter.

To be clear I don't hate muslims / christians but the expansionist attitude of few religions. I believe Savarkar's Hindu Atheist ideology, for all his faults, is the way forward for India.

The problem as seen by many right-leaning people is that girls of other faiths (Hindu/Christian) date with low-status-but-high-pretention Muslims, and marry them or if there's opposition by family, elope with them. They also generally get converted into Islam. But the opposite happening (Muslim/Christian getting converted to Hinduism, especially) is very rare in comparison. Also, (non-urban or previous generation mostly) Muslims have multiple wives and have many more children than others. There are anecdotes these women are pressured to have more children by those Muslim families, I don't know how pervasive that is. We can't disagree Islam has some extremist attitudes. (Sadly Hindu leaders also calling their followers to have more children, this doesn't solve the problem)

Due to minority appeasement politics played in last 70 years by Indian National Congress, Muslims also enjoy some more privilege than Hindu counterparts. This despite most of them being ruler/trader class in past (so unlike Scheduled castes). Now the game is majority appeasement and Congress has not caught up. Thus BJP is only player in the town.

A COVID19 superspreader event was an Islam religious event which also villain-ized them more in the eyes of majority.

Lastly, there are always communal fights in many parts of India and each side sees the other as enemies that must be extinguished. (There are statistically exceptional states like Kerala, but again Kerala is very educated state).

Doesn't help some of the practices of Muslim citizens irritate everyone else, like high sounds in mosques and "atther" or whatever that's called smell in public transport.

All this can be used to create a common enemy for majority of youth and boomers today.

Modi is a lot like Trump, but also intelligent enough.

[srean]

> A COVID19 superspreader event was an Islam religious event which also villain-ized them more in the eyes of majority.

This has been called very strongly by the supreme court as malicious and politically motivated and government supported propaganda.

> like high sounds in mosques

Those last 2 to 3 minutes each and aren't on in the night. Hindu celebration pandals violate noise norms for weeks at stretch playing loud Bollywood songs and drums incessantly through out the night. Complaints result in Hindu right wing goons sent to rough up the one who complained. Its hard to take your reasonings in good faith if you make those one sided.

Many of the appeasement complains are also I'm bad faith. Many economic programs target those that are badly off. Turns out there is a significant overlap with that population and Muslim and lower caste Hindu population - which is not to claim all Muslims or all lower caste are economically backwards.

What is offensive about itar ? Its a traditional perfume/deodorant. Eberyone can see wjat this is - just institutionsl Muslim hatred of the hindu right. What's the logic here ? Gajra perfume is good itar perfume is some sort of a national politics issue.

The guy who used to grovel in apologies to the Brits is a hero now. Golwalkar the fountainhead of Hindu right wrote that Muslims are the real problem and it'd them who have to be fought not the colonizing British forces yet its Nehru who is branded Brit loyalist.

The contention is whether India should be modeled with values of liberalism and plurarism or insular right wing and fascist ideas

[pfiwxruxta]

>> Those last 2 to 3 minutes each

They are on EVERY day of the year, 5 times a day and start at 5 am. Festivals aren't daily. Why hide that fact?

That said, I would like to see no loudspeakers used in residential areas at all - by anyone.

[srean]

Not hiding. I expected this to be common enough knowledge that it did not require further elaboration.

I am bothered more by the pandal loudspeakers because they disrupt night sleep for multiple stretches of a week at a time. Ajaans are not aired during my sleeping hours so they don't bother me (except for the 5 am one at times). Neither do church bells. There are many mosques around where I stay, thankfully they seem to obey noise ordinances that pandals do not.

In contrast there is always some festival every month with a pandal and there goes my sleep for a week.

Totally agree that noise ordinances should be uniformly applied. Same applies to construction noise.

[random314]

Interreligious marriage is a very tiny fraction of indian marriages, and actually works in both directions. This concern is a recently invented bogey man that has no basis in reality. The real demographic challenge for India is the backward northern states reproducing at a rate higher than the progressive southern states. However, there is absolutely no media focus on this issue. It is hilarious to watch north Indian hindus bully some Muslim from kerala (pakistani, child producing machines, Somali etc), when north Indian Hindus have a much higher fertility than them.

Attar is a fragrance, that several Hindus also use. Maybe you should check if the person applying it is hindu or Muslim before generalizing .

The so called super spreader event was organized before the lockdown, at about the same time as modi Trump rally involving more than 100K people. Instead of locking down the mosque, the administration forced everyone out of the mosque to help spread covid outside the mosque all over India! The media is absolutely silent about various hindu temple superspreader events being held such as the khumbu mela. Nobody is clutching their pearls.

The land owning muslims moved to Pakistan and the Indian muslims primarily occupy a lower socio economic class. The so called appeasement that one hears about all the time is never actually spelt out in clear detail. It is taken as an article of faith. Congress appeasement of Hindus, such as in the case of ram mandir or hindu joint family tax exemptions are conveniently ignored.

Yes indeed, Modi is a smarter version of Trump.

[srean]

Seconding the statement that attar/itar is a traditionally made fragrance, usually essential oils from various sources. Before perfume and deo industries penetrated the Indian market they were used universally by those who could afford it - they are and were quite expensive.

Displeasure with attar is just a thinly veiled feelings of hatred towards members of another religion.

[higerordermap]

No hate / disrespect intended. When there are many Muslim citizens in public transport etc.. the smell is pretty strong and intolerable. Not so much in urban areas but many times in rural areas. That said we both love in different places of India so have different exposures to reality. And I don't like bajrang dal stuff / loud music during festivals either. I was just explaining the parent commenter the general attitude towards muslims.

[higerordermap]

> The so called super spreader event was organized before the lockdown, at about the same time as modi Trump rally involving more than 100K people. Instead of locking down the mosque, the administration forced everyone out of the mosque to help spread covid outside the mosque all over India! The media is absolutely silent about various hindu temple superspreader events being held such as the khumbu mela. Nobody is clutching their pearls.

Indeed. I was just explaining general attitude against muslims.

[srean]

My apologies then. I too misunderstood

[eicossa]

I couldn't have stated these things better.