Related to my comments in purple 2 posts up.
Elst is a curiosity.
- He has repeatedly said subversive things about Hindu Gods - the very same that when they were said by Doniger and missionary types were protested and denied by Hindus - and there's no remonstrance from Hindus. I.e. the very same class of Hindus who wax on and on about how PK is propagating dawaganda against the Hindoo Gods - like its nonsense on Shiva, as per reviews. And anyone who can't see that the error or subversion is the same is deluding themselves. So it's a bit hypocritical on the part of such "Hindu" vocalists to then place Elst on a pedestal and present him as "Hinduism-friendly" (he may be friendly to some Hindus and to India and the idea of India, but he's not Hindooism-friendly, he's a subversionist, but he's not the only one). Had PK stated what Elst did, I'm sure Hindoos would have protested against those statements too, nah? (Surprised that more Hindus have not grown disillusioned with this inconsistent (hypocritical) position of "Hindu" nationalists/vocalists.)
- As already pointed out earlier, Elst's most obvious statement on Krishna, say, was at 180 degrees from what would fit/be consistent with the sorts of views expressed by Elst's predecessor SitaRam Goel.
- Had Ram Swarup been around - Goel's predecessor/mentor/what you will - he'd no doubt have told Elst who recently threatened an alleged interest in Hindu religion/"converting"/whatever - that he ought to return to his *own* ancestral heathen religion, since Swarup wanted Europeans in their own religions (not converting to Hindu religion). This is what Swarup told the Canadian "Ishwar Sharan", as per the latter.
- Elst has this very determined denial of western conspiring against India. More than this being a mere personal attribute/dogmatic belief of his, he wishes to convince or at least persuade his Hindu/nationalist readers of the same. <- It is his need to convince his target audience - as is evident in the number of articles he has repeatedly written on or containing the subject - that makes his motivation and his larger interests suspect. What is eerie about it is of course that his opinion is actually entirely at odds with known facts about US and general western meddling concerning India and the reasons for their sabotage.
- There are always western infiltrators in any important Indian intellectual movement or any prominent Indian religious organisations or even cults (like the Osho example covered in the swarajya blog).
It would be a serious and monumental omission by aliens if they did not try to install someone to subvert the most important of all recent movements in the Indian "Hindu nationalist" sphere: the path set forth by Ram Swarup and SitaRam Goel. Be honest, if you were the meddling west - especially the US - determined to make sure India never rises again (only a heathen i.e. Hindoo India could rise, note), would you *NOT* have targeted Goel and Swarup before you even bothered going after little cults? They and their work was after all the (last) intellectual movement to warn the Hindu nation against de-heathenisation, about christoislam, exposing foreign meddling and interests.
The interfering west does Not stop at denying/silencing those it perceives as threats to its plans for any nation. They have always sent infiltrators into the more important organisations, skuttling budding intellectual movements is no exception.
If the west were to have ignored or neglected Swarup-Goel, it would not be a mere oversight but an idiocy of a magnitude that few morons would be capable of, certainly not the calculating US. (Even Talageri was the unwilling recipient of overtures by the west to "join us", except he said No Thanks to darth vader, as nationalists do.)
Of course, it turned out that the US realised that Swarup and Goel weren't the kind to be bought or brought over to working for western interests, not to be subverted out of their personal views of what was necessary for India and who its enemies were.
Nor were Goel and Swarup likely to be the kind of dunces - like Devdutt Patnaik is - to get taken in by unsubtle characters like Donigers. Swarup seems brahmachari of personal choice and Goel was happily married, so sending in some idiotic female contingent (as works so easily on arch-seculars like Tharoor) would be another bad move. Much better would be someone who chimes in 90% of the time and then departs on 10% - significanly when Swarup and Goel are conveniently dead and can't disagree.
Rajarant has claimed that he and Elst are the true/selected successors of Goel (and Swarup). Rajarant is of a typical class of anti-Hindus, as many modern "Hindu" vocalists are, and so I am fully ready to accept that he is not consciously working for anti-Indian and anti-Hindu interests, though he is an invariable subversionist and works with Clooney and apparently works for that christist templeton foundation or whatever. (Not all who get roped in by the west do so consciously. Some are merely stupid and easily fall for the traps customised for them.)
The other case is Elst. I've already indicated how Elst significantly differs from heathenism, Hindoo religion in specific, is inconsistent with core viewpoints of Goel and Swarup, and that his unreasonable insistence that the west is innocent of conspiring against the Indian nation is quite suspect. There's also significant documented data on how the west has motivation for planting and sidetracking important intellectual movements in any targeted nations. (They managed to do that in the colonial era too especially around independence.) Beyond motive, there are the means and opportunity: both are perfect in Elst, though the opportunity is greater at the time past Goel's life, when not just the Rajarant but also Elst have revealed opinions they did not appear to emit to Goel's face.
Of course, people - and especially the every hysterical Elst brigade - are likely to disagree if such suspicions were to be expressed publicly. But I personally think Elst was the ideal candidate to inveigle himself into the Goel/Swarup movement (and was meant to do so) and that - though Indians have learnt from the more obvious infiltrators of the past - Indians naturally fell for this, as this is the current standard of unsuspectable and hence undetectable. (Though immunity increases with every attack that one survives, viruses mutate regularly and get harder to detect. Same with the infiltrati in each generation.)
There is no proof, there never is. Only inferences, several of which are indicated above.
And there is also the degree to which Elst has been successful: his success in subverting his readership and his highly-subvertible fandom is beyond question. Their readiness to defend him - which contrasts nicely with their readiness to turn on their Gods and tradition, where it comes down to a choice between the two - is a classic case of subversion and de-heathenisation that points to subvertibles.
I don't trust aliens who have the power to subvert or are given the power to subvert by their willing heathen audiences (i.e. the audience raises them to figures of authority on heathenism*, which they most certainly are not). The latter is even more suspicious than the former, in that it points to 1. the identification of the manipulable, 2. manipulation and 3. what steps need to be taken to achieve this (to be in a position to finally start manipulating). Today's Indians - like those in the colonial era - are highly manipulable because of a combination of mis-education and subvertibility, conditioned over time.
* IIRC some of the insane Elst fans actually referred to him as a guru or acharya. Methinks there is a direct correlation between the kind of Indians who would lavish impossible titles and praises on aliens and their own ignorance of their heathenism which causes them to misidentify inexperts as experts. And there is definitely an identity relationship between those who crown aliens as exemplaries of Hindus and those who ignore, reject, undermine or sneer at traditional Hindoo authorities (also because of their own ignorance regarding their ancestral heathenism).
Elst's subversions of Hindoo religion can't be dismissed as merely new-agey anti-theism (by the way, he also removed the theism from at least 1 and possibly 2 core Taoist ritual practices), because that would Not explain Elst's peculiar position and behaviour as regards Indian Hindu nationalists' accusations of western conspiracy against the Indian/Hindu nation. Even declaring that he is merely a new ageist innocent of the larger matters does not hold water, as he's not ignorant and he knows a lot about the political situation. Others may choose to be deliberately blind - as many are simply unreasonable - but in him such an argument is unacceptable.
Blablabla. Having said all this, I acknowledge gratitude owed even to Elst subversions on Hindoo's heathenism - and not just his pro-Indian political articles: because it is very hard for Hindoos to identify subvertibles in their midst, not least because Hindus don't want to identify them. Because there's nothing worse than realising that the number of actual heathens in the homeland is much smaller than people estimate it at, and growing smaller with every generation. However, at least there's the fact that traditional Taoists are hardcore heathens of the kind only HindOO heathens would recognise or identify with.
Oh and finally, in general: Hindoos owe nothing to aliens and it is entirely justified to mistrust them as a rule and avoid cases where they may become to privy to internal matters (especially but not restricted to ones concerning religio). It is exclusively Hindoo necks on the line, and Hindoos' way of life that is threatened.
Converts/dabblers/whichever aliens have nothing to lose. They are not Hindus, they don't face an existential threat. Like vultures, however, they may return to feast on the remains of Hindus' loss - their vampirism will proceed both whether Hindus are extant or extinct - but it was never aliens' religion and they will benefit not at all by it at any time.
Hindoos - ethnic Hindus, especially traditionalists - need to understand that alien dabblers/converts have no particular interest in Hindoos' welfare, except as far as it serves them: they are interested only in the freedom to indulge in their own current hobby of dabbling or of playing at being 'Hindu'. If Hindoos' refuse to acccept alien converts or alien dabblers, aliens turn subtly to extremely hostile, some even joining other Hindu-baiters to plot Hindoos' demise (so that converts may parasite unperturbed without protest). They need Hindoos only for so long as they can leech of the Hindoos, to get "initiated", to parasite of Hindoos' knowledge of Hindoo ritual practices, to invade=terrorise India's Hindoo-built temples meant for Hindoos etc. Aliens are the fundamental anti-thesis to heathenism. Some aliens are christoislamaniacs, others are dabblers in Others' heathenisms and others are new ageists (=subverters of multiple or their own ancestral heathenisms). But all aliens are alien to their own ancestral heathenism, i.e. they are Unheathens, and are either consciously or subconsciously anti-heathens.
Elst is a curiosity.
- He has repeatedly said subversive things about Hindu Gods - the very same that when they were said by Doniger and missionary types were protested and denied by Hindus - and there's no remonstrance from Hindus. I.e. the very same class of Hindus who wax on and on about how PK is propagating dawaganda against the Hindoo Gods - like its nonsense on Shiva, as per reviews. And anyone who can't see that the error or subversion is the same is deluding themselves. So it's a bit hypocritical on the part of such "Hindu" vocalists to then place Elst on a pedestal and present him as "Hinduism-friendly" (he may be friendly to some Hindus and to India and the idea of India, but he's not Hindooism-friendly, he's a subversionist, but he's not the only one). Had PK stated what Elst did, I'm sure Hindoos would have protested against those statements too, nah? (Surprised that more Hindus have not grown disillusioned with this inconsistent (hypocritical) position of "Hindu" nationalists/vocalists.)
- As already pointed out earlier, Elst's most obvious statement on Krishna, say, was at 180 degrees from what would fit/be consistent with the sorts of views expressed by Elst's predecessor SitaRam Goel.
- Had Ram Swarup been around - Goel's predecessor/mentor/what you will - he'd no doubt have told Elst who recently threatened an alleged interest in Hindu religion/"converting"/whatever - that he ought to return to his *own* ancestral heathen religion, since Swarup wanted Europeans in their own religions (not converting to Hindu religion). This is what Swarup told the Canadian "Ishwar Sharan", as per the latter.
- Elst has this very determined denial of western conspiring against India. More than this being a mere personal attribute/dogmatic belief of his, he wishes to convince or at least persuade his Hindu/nationalist readers of the same. <- It is his need to convince his target audience - as is evident in the number of articles he has repeatedly written on or containing the subject - that makes his motivation and his larger interests suspect. What is eerie about it is of course that his opinion is actually entirely at odds with known facts about US and general western meddling concerning India and the reasons for their sabotage.
- There are always western infiltrators in any important Indian intellectual movement or any prominent Indian religious organisations or even cults (like the Osho example covered in the swarajya blog).
It would be a serious and monumental omission by aliens if they did not try to install someone to subvert the most important of all recent movements in the Indian "Hindu nationalist" sphere: the path set forth by Ram Swarup and SitaRam Goel. Be honest, if you were the meddling west - especially the US - determined to make sure India never rises again (only a heathen i.e. Hindoo India could rise, note), would you *NOT* have targeted Goel and Swarup before you even bothered going after little cults? They and their work was after all the (last) intellectual movement to warn the Hindu nation against de-heathenisation, about christoislam, exposing foreign meddling and interests.
The interfering west does Not stop at denying/silencing those it perceives as threats to its plans for any nation. They have always sent infiltrators into the more important organisations, skuttling budding intellectual movements is no exception.
If the west were to have ignored or neglected Swarup-Goel, it would not be a mere oversight but an idiocy of a magnitude that few morons would be capable of, certainly not the calculating US. (Even Talageri was the unwilling recipient of overtures by the west to "join us", except he said No Thanks to darth vader, as nationalists do.)
Of course, it turned out that the US realised that Swarup and Goel weren't the kind to be bought or brought over to working for western interests, not to be subverted out of their personal views of what was necessary for India and who its enemies were.
Nor were Goel and Swarup likely to be the kind of dunces - like Devdutt Patnaik is - to get taken in by unsubtle characters like Donigers. Swarup seems brahmachari of personal choice and Goel was happily married, so sending in some idiotic female contingent (as works so easily on arch-seculars like Tharoor) would be another bad move. Much better would be someone who chimes in 90% of the time and then departs on 10% - significanly when Swarup and Goel are conveniently dead and can't disagree.
Rajarant has claimed that he and Elst are the true/selected successors of Goel (and Swarup). Rajarant is of a typical class of anti-Hindus, as many modern "Hindu" vocalists are, and so I am fully ready to accept that he is not consciously working for anti-Indian and anti-Hindu interests, though he is an invariable subversionist and works with Clooney and apparently works for that christist templeton foundation or whatever. (Not all who get roped in by the west do so consciously. Some are merely stupid and easily fall for the traps customised for them.)
The other case is Elst. I've already indicated how Elst significantly differs from heathenism, Hindoo religion in specific, is inconsistent with core viewpoints of Goel and Swarup, and that his unreasonable insistence that the west is innocent of conspiring against the Indian nation is quite suspect. There's also significant documented data on how the west has motivation for planting and sidetracking important intellectual movements in any targeted nations. (They managed to do that in the colonial era too especially around independence.) Beyond motive, there are the means and opportunity: both are perfect in Elst, though the opportunity is greater at the time past Goel's life, when not just the Rajarant but also Elst have revealed opinions they did not appear to emit to Goel's face.
Of course, people - and especially the every hysterical Elst brigade - are likely to disagree if such suspicions were to be expressed publicly. But I personally think Elst was the ideal candidate to inveigle himself into the Goel/Swarup movement (and was meant to do so) and that - though Indians have learnt from the more obvious infiltrators of the past - Indians naturally fell for this, as this is the current standard of unsuspectable and hence undetectable. (Though immunity increases with every attack that one survives, viruses mutate regularly and get harder to detect. Same with the infiltrati in each generation.)
There is no proof, there never is. Only inferences, several of which are indicated above.
And there is also the degree to which Elst has been successful: his success in subverting his readership and his highly-subvertible fandom is beyond question. Their readiness to defend him - which contrasts nicely with their readiness to turn on their Gods and tradition, where it comes down to a choice between the two - is a classic case of subversion and de-heathenisation that points to subvertibles.
I don't trust aliens who have the power to subvert or are given the power to subvert by their willing heathen audiences (i.e. the audience raises them to figures of authority on heathenism*, which they most certainly are not). The latter is even more suspicious than the former, in that it points to 1. the identification of the manipulable, 2. manipulation and 3. what steps need to be taken to achieve this (to be in a position to finally start manipulating). Today's Indians - like those in the colonial era - are highly manipulable because of a combination of mis-education and subvertibility, conditioned over time.
* IIRC some of the insane Elst fans actually referred to him as a guru or acharya. Methinks there is a direct correlation between the kind of Indians who would lavish impossible titles and praises on aliens and their own ignorance of their heathenism which causes them to misidentify inexperts as experts. And there is definitely an identity relationship between those who crown aliens as exemplaries of Hindus and those who ignore, reject, undermine or sneer at traditional Hindoo authorities (also because of their own ignorance regarding their ancestral heathenism).
Elst's subversions of Hindoo religion can't be dismissed as merely new-agey anti-theism (by the way, he also removed the theism from at least 1 and possibly 2 core Taoist ritual practices), because that would Not explain Elst's peculiar position and behaviour as regards Indian Hindu nationalists' accusations of western conspiracy against the Indian/Hindu nation. Even declaring that he is merely a new ageist innocent of the larger matters does not hold water, as he's not ignorant and he knows a lot about the political situation. Others may choose to be deliberately blind - as many are simply unreasonable - but in him such an argument is unacceptable.
Blablabla. Having said all this, I acknowledge gratitude owed even to Elst subversions on Hindoo's heathenism - and not just his pro-Indian political articles: because it is very hard for Hindoos to identify subvertibles in their midst, not least because Hindus don't want to identify them. Because there's nothing worse than realising that the number of actual heathens in the homeland is much smaller than people estimate it at, and growing smaller with every generation. However, at least there's the fact that traditional Taoists are hardcore heathens of the kind only HindOO heathens would recognise or identify with.
Oh and finally, in general: Hindoos owe nothing to aliens and it is entirely justified to mistrust them as a rule and avoid cases where they may become to privy to internal matters (especially but not restricted to ones concerning religio). It is exclusively Hindoo necks on the line, and Hindoos' way of life that is threatened.
Converts/dabblers/whichever aliens have nothing to lose. They are not Hindus, they don't face an existential threat. Like vultures, however, they may return to feast on the remains of Hindus' loss - their vampirism will proceed both whether Hindus are extant or extinct - but it was never aliens' religion and they will benefit not at all by it at any time.
Hindoos - ethnic Hindus, especially traditionalists - need to understand that alien dabblers/converts have no particular interest in Hindoos' welfare, except as far as it serves them: they are interested only in the freedom to indulge in their own current hobby of dabbling or of playing at being 'Hindu'. If Hindoos' refuse to acccept alien converts or alien dabblers, aliens turn subtly to extremely hostile, some even joining other Hindu-baiters to plot Hindoos' demise (so that converts may parasite unperturbed without protest). They need Hindoos only for so long as they can leech of the Hindoos, to get "initiated", to parasite of Hindoos' knowledge of Hindoo ritual practices, to invade=terrorise India's Hindoo-built temples meant for Hindoos etc. Aliens are the fundamental anti-thesis to heathenism. Some aliens are christoislamaniacs, others are dabblers in Others' heathenisms and others are new ageists (=subverters of multiple or their own ancestral heathenisms). But all aliens are alien to their own ancestral heathenism, i.e. they are Unheathens, and are either consciously or subconsciously anti-heathens.