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by Isamu 1617 days ago
So what is right wing discourse in India? How would I distinguish it? Not to be disrespectful, I just would like to know since I have such a large number of Indian friends.
5 comments

This is a series that's hot from the press.

[Copying an HN comment]

Part 1 - https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/1.html - Tek Fog: An App With BJP Footprints for Cyber Troops to Automate Hate, Manipulate Trends

Part 2 - https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/2.html - Tek Fog: Morphing URLs to Make Real News Fake, 'Hijacking' WhatsApp to Drive BJP Propaganda -

Part 3 - https://thewire.in/tekfog/en/3.html - Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists, Pushing Communal Narrative on COVID, Delhi Violence -

Discussion with the journalists - https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/s4jfw7/hey_reddit_in... - Hey, Reddit India. We are the team behind the Tek Fog investigation, which uncovered the BJP-affiliated app for social media manipulation. ASK US ANYTHING

The journalists on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI7NLMLOMLw

> So what is right wing discourse in India? How would I distinguish it? Not to be disrespectful, I just would like to know since I have such a large number of Indian friends.

I'm not very familiar with it, but I understand a big component is "Hindu nationalism," which seeks to turn India into an exclusively Hindu nation. That's resulted resulted in attacks and official harassment against minority Muslims and Christians.

A couple weeks ago the NY Times had an article on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/world/asia/india-christia...

There are plenty of Indians who will also say the NY Times loves to publish exaggerated and negative articles about India.
> There are plenty of Indians who will also say the NY Times loves to publish exaggerated and negative articles about India.

I'm sure there are, but that likely-true fact doesn't shed any light on anything. For instance, Trumpers say similar things, simply because they're hostile to anything that portrays Trump in a negative light. They attack the media in order to hide the truth.

Given how attacks against relatively unbiased media are now part of the standard propaganda playbook, I don't put much stock in them unless they're very convincing. "People say" doesn't pass that threshold.

Googling "site:.in hindutva" produces some interesting articles about the relationship between Hindutva and Hinduism.

It seems to be of much debate. Rahul Gandhi made some controversial comments about Hindutva and BJP last year, I believe.

The right wing discourse is about advocating the replacement of existing democratic law in place of the vedic laws just like the olden days of pre british era. Vedas are the Hindu religious book that provides structure by which a society should be run by dividing people in to varna system(caste system).

India can never go back to vedic days, simply because there is no incentive for all Hindus. All Hindus are not the same in Hinduism. Vedic book advocates only a particular caste should have monopoly over education and only another to the right of having weapons, etc. This worked well prior to british colonilzation because people were not educated and could not see the big picture. That changed after the british rule and every one was given education which woke enough people to see the bigger picture of caste system.

The right wing advocates know that just with Hinduism they can not unite. They need another religion to hate and unite over that hate. This is where ISLAM comes in. Indian Muslims like the rest of the world can not take a joke on koran or Allah. This is very convenient for the right wing to spread hate and unite people over it. In contrast there is lot of atheist movement especially in South India where they can trash talk Hindu gods and their scriptures on public media at least for now. South India is more progressive and educated compared to North states.

r/chodi paints an accurate picture
I have seen a few forgiven “extremists” subreddits before and I often have no idea what they are talking about. It’s all obscure debates and references that someone outside of the country wouldn’t understand. Last one I remember was just posts about how good India is and how Pakistan sucks.
Thr political elite is right wing. There is no discourse against a government that is actively pursectuing Christians minorities.