06-10-2008, 12:18 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Jun 9 2008, 06:07 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Jun 9 2008, 06:07 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Interesting excerpt from a British Indian Muslim, Ziauddin Sardar on Koran
Book Excerpt of Ziauddin Sardar's book
He drags in Hindu views on Lord Ram.
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He thinks that Hinduism and Hindus are shallow that they will start looking at their own religion similar to the western religions just because they got western education. He comes from a western religious point of view and is not able to transcend to the Hindu and Indian point of view.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The western fixed scale of measurement, secularism, is replaced in Hinduvta discourse by an equally rigid, and totally fabricated, notion of Ram. Secularism creates an authoritarian structure by placing itself above all other ideologies; it presents itself as an arch ideology that provides the framework within which all other ideologies can exist. Truth thus becomes secular Truth: other notions of truth must prostrate themselves in front of secular absolutes. Secular man thus not only knows the Truth, he actually owns it. The new Ram of Hinduvta politics is a similar linear construction: devoid totally of multilayered complexity and richness of traditional concept of Ram, the newly constructed deity now appears as a flat, singular projection that allows for no deviation, no alternative visions, no compromises. The tender and tolerant Ram of traditional Hindu religiosity, the figure that inhabits the memories of traditional Hindus, is replaced with a intolerant, violent Ram hell-bent on war against Muslims. This Secularist Ram now defines Truth solely in terms of his attitudes to the Other: he is the yardstick by which one determines who is an insider and who an outsider in the Indian Nation. But this Ram has not only been secularised; he has also been commodified: those who know Ram, know the Truth, also own the Truth: Ram is a property, a corporation that can take over the âdisputed sitesâ of the outsiders. Just as secularism is totally disdainful of all religion, so too Hindu chauvinism is quite contemptuous of Hindu religiosity. This is a direct result, argues Purushottam Agrawal, of the âcultural inferiority complex suffered by the colonial literati. This literati was anxious to replace traditional religiosity (of which it was disdainful) with a muscular ânationalâ religion capable of embodying the aggressiveness latent in their sense of political and cultural inferiority as a colonised people. Thus popular religiosity became a recurring object of disdain in the writings of Dayanand Saraswati, and in a more subliminal fashion, in the writings of Savarkar and Golwalkar.
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Book Excerpt of Ziauddin Sardar's book
He drags in Hindu views on Lord Ram.
[right][snapback]82576[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He thinks that Hinduism and Hindus are shallow that they will start looking at their own religion similar to the western religions just because they got western education. He comes from a western religious point of view and is not able to transcend to the Hindu and Indian point of view.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The western fixed scale of measurement, secularism, is replaced in Hinduvta discourse by an equally rigid, and totally fabricated, notion of Ram. Secularism creates an authoritarian structure by placing itself above all other ideologies; it presents itself as an arch ideology that provides the framework within which all other ideologies can exist. Truth thus becomes secular Truth: other notions of truth must prostrate themselves in front of secular absolutes. Secular man thus not only knows the Truth, he actually owns it. The new Ram of Hinduvta politics is a similar linear construction: devoid totally of multilayered complexity and richness of traditional concept of Ram, the newly constructed deity now appears as a flat, singular projection that allows for no deviation, no alternative visions, no compromises. The tender and tolerant Ram of traditional Hindu religiosity, the figure that inhabits the memories of traditional Hindus, is replaced with a intolerant, violent Ram hell-bent on war against Muslims. This Secularist Ram now defines Truth solely in terms of his attitudes to the Other: he is the yardstick by which one determines who is an insider and who an outsider in the Indian Nation. But this Ram has not only been secularised; he has also been commodified: those who know Ram, know the Truth, also own the Truth: Ram is a property, a corporation that can take over the âdisputed sitesâ of the outsiders. Just as secularism is totally disdainful of all religion, so too Hindu chauvinism is quite contemptuous of Hindu religiosity. This is a direct result, argues Purushottam Agrawal, of the âcultural inferiority complex suffered by the colonial literati. This literati was anxious to replace traditional religiosity (of which it was disdainful) with a muscular ânationalâ religion capable of embodying the aggressiveness latent in their sense of political and cultural inferiority as a colonised people. Thus popular religiosity became a recurring object of disdain in the writings of Dayanand Saraswati, and in a more subliminal fashion, in the writings of Savarkar and Golwalkar.
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