• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Hindu Thread

A hotel owner in the Indian state of Rajasthan has expressed his frustration over the fact that his hotel has been closed for weeks over false accusations that it had served beef on the premises.

Police on Tuesday said forensic tests on meat seized from the Hayat Rabbani hotel in March showed it was definitely not beef, but chicken, the Hindustan Times reported.

Cows are revered as sacred animals among India's Hindus, and there are strict laws on their slaughter and consumption in several parts of the country, including Rajasthan.

"From the very first day, I have been saying that it was chicken but no one from the administration listened to me," hotel owner Naeem Rabbani told the paper. "The report confirms all allegations levelled on us were false."

The hotel was closed after a group of "cow vigilantes" protested in front of it for hours in March, chanting nationalist slogans.

The Indian Express website cited a member of the group saying they had gathered there after reading about rumours of a beef party at the hotel on WhatsApp, allegedly sent by Jaipur's mayor. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-39872080?ocid=socialflow_twitter
 
Hinduism is a less of a religion and more of a recognition of one's individual spiritual path within the south Asian tradition - or dharma. Followers of particular strands can become very susceptible to gurus or 'godmen'.

The latest fallout from famous Indian godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's conviction for rape after a 15 year(!) investigation has been deadly, with at least 30 killed as his supporters and saddhus from his ashram went on a rampage: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com...ollowers-go-on-the-rampage/article9831232.ece

"At least 30 people were killed and 250 injured today in widespread violence, arson and police firing in Haryana triggered by the rape conviction of self-styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.


While 28 people were killed in Panchkula, the epicentre of the violence, two died in Sirsa, doctors said. Sirsa is the headquarters of Dera Sacha Sauda of which Ram Rahim, 50, is its chief.


Thousands of followers of Ram Rahim went on the rampage, setting fire to vehicles, buildings and railway stations soon after a special CBI court convicted him in a 2002 rape case"



Indian justice moves very slowly, especially when it is a famous (rich) Hindu godman. Sai Baba died before he could be fully investigated over claims of child sexual abuse and there are also accounts relating to Bhagwan Rajneesh (the orange/sunshine people).

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh could now face further investigation into the unsolved murder of the journalist who uncovered the initial allegations in 2002: http://www.hindustantimes.com/india...-journalist/story-YCK36LOvM6wMcJgyFJMjJO.html
 
Last edited:
This has been on the news here a lot. Is there any difference between the Hindu 'godmen' and American televangelists? They both con money out of the religiously credulous.
 
This has been on the news here a lot. Is there any difference between the Hindu 'godmen' and American televangelists? They both con money out of the religiously credulous.

Not a huge amount - it's the same con centred around charismatic human personalities rather than 'God' him/her/itself
 
The elephant in the room...

India has lodged a diplomatic protest with Australia over an advert depicting the Hindu god Ganesha enjoying lamb.

The TV advert, by a meat industry lobby group, portrays figures from several religions sitting down to a meal.

It has caused anger within the Hindu community in Australia because Ganesha is never depicted eating meat.

The High Commission of India in Canberra said it had made a "demarche" to three Australian government departments.

It also urged Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) to withdraw the advertisement because many people considered it "offensive and hurting their religious sentiments".

"A number of community associations have also registered their protest with government of Australia and Meat and Livestock Australia," the high commission said in a statement. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41169928
 
The elephant in the room...

India has lodged a diplomatic protest with Australia over an advert depicting the Hindu god Ganesha enjoying lamb.

The TV advert, by a meat industry lobby group, portrays figures from several religions sitting down to a meal.

It has caused anger within the Hindu community in Australia because Ganesha is never depicted eating meat.

The High Commission of India in Canberra said it had made a "demarche" to three Australian government departments.

It also urged Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) to withdraw the advertisement because many people considered it "offensive and hurting their religious sentiments".

"A number of community associations have also registered their protest with government of Australia and Meat and Livestock Australia," the high commission said in a statement. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-41169928
So what if their god is never shown eating meat. This ad shows it eating meat. Deal with it.
 
I cannot understand the hypocrisy of recent radical "cow protection". Anyone who ever traveled in India (and Nepal), must have seen the suffering of countless street cows. Who will protect them? They do not need to be protected from Muslims only, but from the very Hindus who made them homeless. They had been born in human inhabited places, and when kicked out to the street, they keep staying among people, because this is what they feel safe and normal, even if they could have fresh grass in rural areas and the nature (yet, with the dangers from wild animals like tigers and jackals!). So they prefer to eat plastic and paper in the street rubbish of cities, with the occasional thrown out rubbish from vegetable shops, for that fake "protection" that the dusty roads and dangerous traffic offer them.


Deeply believing Hindus are quite often trying to find excuses, why did they "have to" throw out the few weeks old baby bulls or old cows who cannot give any more milk..."We cannot afford to keep, we are poor" I heard most of the time. "We have given our old cow to the temple, to the gods" I heard another. In reality, only young (female) cows and in certain areas one or two working oxen are kept by people, young bulls and old cows are thrown out mercilessly to the streets! This is the reality of the holy lands of India and Nepal, and I think first this shameful situation should be changed, before blaming all on the Muslims.

Owners go into such extremes that they even hire trucks to bring the unwanted cows (known for their perfect navigation ability) to a faraway jungle and there they throw them out, so that they cannot find the way "home" anymore. I have seen countless wandering lonely bull babies in deep jungles along the highways or onmy own treks, without any people or herd. It is clear: sooner or later they will be attacked and eaten by tigers or die from hunger. as many such small bulls are even not able to digest grass, they need mother's milk...


This cruelty to the "holy cow" broke my heart in holy India and holy Nepal. Once I saw a baby bull fallen to the freezing water of a canal in a village in Uttar Pradesh, but no one cared about it. Finally I mobilized five-six men to help me pull him out with ropes. But what next? A traveler, where can I find a new home for the bull? Locals told me not to bring it to so called "cow shelters" (Gaushala) because many times the Hindu shelter workers secretly sell cows to Muslim butchers. I was pulling the bull on a rope from house to house, but everyone refused it. Animals in holy lands are apparently kept only as utility objects, not as pets for love and care... It is also hard work to cut grass or buy straw for them.


So finally, as I myself had nowhere to keep him, I brought him near a river and green meadow, in the hope that at least he could find food and water there. Sooner or later he would be killed by a Muslim or a wild dog.


Street cows in India and Nepal do not have any shelter to hide during the wild monsoon rains, hailstorms, too hot and too cold weather. I saw how a herd of bulls that became friends and kept together, tried desperately to hide under the roofs of restaurants near a temple, during a strong downpour of rain. Owners had thrown stones and beating them with sticks to chase them away...


So I would accept if the recent hysteria about "protecting cows" was sincere and if Hindus were much better than Muslims in behaving to them. But this is just not true. How many street cows die from eating plastic bags, which remind them of nutritious massive leaves? I have seen them with swollen bellies lying dead in the streets. Their suffering is unspeakable, while kicked out and becoming a nuisance in India's and Nepal's cities. Sometimes I am thinking, what is more cruel, to end their suffering by a butcher, or see them strolling hopeless and hated and chased by the very Hindus who are supposed to protect them...?
 
Last edited:
Hardline Hindu nationalists step up campaign against Taj Mahal

Times are tough for India’s monument to love. Air pollution is turning its marble surface yellow. Restoration work is obscuring its famous minarets. Tens of millions of tourists still flock to Agra each year, but numbers are reportedly waning.

Critics of the Taj Mahal are also growing increasingly bold. In past months, religious nationalists in the Hindu-majority country have stepped up a campaign to push the four-century-old Mughal monument to the margins of Indian history. One legislator recently kicked up a national storm when he labelled the tomb “a blot”.
Resentment at the fact the country’s most recognisable monument was built by a Muslim emperor has always existed on the fringes of the Hindu right. But those fringes have never been so powerful.
Attacks on the monument, a lifeline for its home state of Uttar Pradesh, have grown so loud that last week the state chief minister – himself a critic of the Taj – was forced into “a day-long exercise in damage control”, one newspaper said.
Yogi Adityanath paid an elaborate official visit to Agra on Thursday to issue assurances that the Taj was a “unique gem” that his government was committed to protect.

More at the link.

There is shades of wanting to rewrite history in there with comments like
“Taj Mahal should have no place in Indian history,” he said, claiming Shah Jahan, the emperor who built the mausoleum for his deceased wife, had “wanted to wipe out Hindus”.
“If these people are part of our history, then it is very sad and we will change this history,” he added.
 
More murder by cow vigilantes.

A Muslim man accused of killing a cow was beaten to death by a mob in central India, police said Sunday, the latest vigilante murder over the animal considered sacred by Hindus.

Siraj Khan, a 45-year-old tailor, was attacked in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh state early Friday and died at the scene, local police official Arvind Tiwari told AFP. Kahn’s friend Shakeel Maqbool, who was also attacked, was admitted to hospital with critical injuries.

“We have arrested four people, and they have been sent to judicial custody. We are investigating what prompted the attack,” Tiwari said. He added that meat and a bull carcass was found at the scene.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has promised to completely outlaw cow slaughter in India. A circular issued by the government last year made transporting cows illegal, which was seen as a virtual ban on cow slaughter. The circular was later withdrawn following wide spred protest. Rights groups say Hindu mobs have been emboldened under the party, who stormed to power in 2014.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/05...eats-a-muslim-man-to-death-in-madhya-pradesh/
 
The paradox of the ritually clean/physically filthy condition of the Ganges has always interested western observers.
I remember reading about it as a child (late 60s) and seeing photos, where people bathed in it as what were alleged to be half-burned human remains floated past. :shock:

George Harrison was into that Harry Krishna stuff and after he died his ashes were slung in the "sacred" river Ganges.
Poor old George, he's a real nowhere man now..
 
I'm no expert on Hinduism, but I believe that they scatter ashes in much the same way as many Christians do (as opposed to slinging then--very hard to sling ash actually: it tends to flutter owing to lack of density and air resistance). It may be done in the Ganges or any river that flows ultimately into the sea.
 
The elephant in the room...
India has lodged a diplomatic protest with Australia over an advert depicting the Hindu god Ganesha enjoying lamb.

Yeah, elephants prefer buns-

ganeshA_zps75e3daad.gif~original
 
Another lynching with cattle involved.

Two Muslim men were lynched on suspicion of stealing cattle in Jharkhand’s Godda district on Wednesday morning. Residents of Dullu village caught hold of the two victims – Sirabuddin Ansari (35) and Murtaza Ansari (30) – and accused them of stealing 13 buffaloes from one Munshi Murmu on Tuesday night.

“Villagers claim that that they found the missing buffaloes in the possession of the two people in Bankatti area. They were beaten to death,” said Godda superintendent of police Rajiv Kumar Singh.

Murmu and three others – identified as Kaleshwar Soren, Kishan Tudu and Harjohan Kisku – have been arrested in this connection, said Singh, adding that the situation has been brought under control.

Last year, a number of Muslim cattle traders were lynched in BJP-ruled Jharkhand. A court recently gave life sentences to 11 persons in connection with the incident.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/06...hed-on-suspicion-of-cattle-theft-in-jhakhand/
 
And again.

A Muslim man was lynched to death following a rumour of cow slaughter in a village in Pilkhua near Hapur district of western UP. The man named Kashim died in the hospital in the course of treatment. The condition of the other person is also serious.

A trivial feud, where men were reportedly driving out stray cows from fields, aggravated into a big controversy after rumour of cow-slaughter broke out. It led to the lynching of the two men by the irate mob resulting in the death of one.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/06...d-in-western-up-over-rumour-of-cow-slaughter/
 
And yet again.

Killing people on suspicion of possession or trading of beef continues unabated in India. In yet another case related to suspicion on cow slaughter, the Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh (U.P) police thrashed a meat trader Mohammad Salim Qureshi alias Munna so badly that he succumbed to injuries on Thursday after spending eight days in AIIMS.

In a written complaint to UP director-general of police OP Singh, Qureshi’s wife had alleged assault by the cops at the behest of a local corporator. “He was assaulted by cops who wanted to extort money. This was all done at the behest of local corporator Anjum Khan alias Firdaus,” Qureshi’s wife Farzana wrote.

According to the FIR, the Kankartola Police Station SHO Ali Mia Zaidi had sent two constables Shree Pal and Harish Chandra to Qureshi’s house on June 14 to bring him to the police outpost following a tip-off that he was involved in cow slaughter.

Qureshi owned a small meat shop in Baradari area of Bareilly. Family members alleged that the charges were leveled against Qureshi at the behest of local corporator Anjum Khan with an aim to extort money.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/06...ctors-and-beats-a-muslim-man-to-death-in-u-p/
 
The lynchings continue.

A Muslim man was beaten to death in Rajasthan on Friday night by villagers who accused him of cow smuggling. The police have identified the man as 28-year-old Akbar Khan. Villagers in Ramgarh saw two men with cows and attacked them, according to the police. The two were beaten up and one of them died on the spot.

“Akbar Khan, a resident of Kolgaon in Haryana, and another man were taking two cows to their village through a forest area near Lalawandi village in Alwar last night, when a group of people severely thrashed Khan, said Subhash Sharma, the officer at Ramgarh police station.

The new lynching comes barely a year after Pehlu Khan was killed allegedly by cow vigilantes in Alwar district. Pehlu Khan, 55, was beaten to death by suspected cow vigilantes in Alwar while he was transporting cattle on April 1 last year.

In another incident on Tuesday , a day after the Supreme Court urged the Parliament to enact a fresh law to rein in lynching incidents across the country, toll plaza staff and cow vigilantes in Kota manhandled and robbed two persons ferrying milch cows and calves from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh over suspicion of cow smuggling.

https://countercurrents.org/2018/07...ynch-a-muslim-beat-up-a-brahmin-in-rajasthan/
 
I'm no expert on Hinduism, but I believe that they scatter ashes in much the same way as many Christians do (as opposed to slinging then--very hard to sling ash actually: it tends to flutter owing to lack of density and air resistance). It may be done in the Ganges or any river that flows ultimately into the sea.

Correct - give that man a nicotine-free e-cig :) - apart from young children not yet undergone puberty, they are regarded as innocent, and are usually buried, not cremated. Part of the reasoning behind open-air cremations is to let all the soul and all the karma of the deceased's life free into the air.

In Nepal, the main river in Kathmandu is the Bagmati and at Pashupatinath Mandir (temple) is where the main funeral ghats are, hope you guys like the photo:

25aqnx5.jpg
 
A Muslim man was beaten to death in Rajasthan on Friday night by villagers who accused him of cow smuggling. The police have identified the man as 28-year-old Akbar Khan. Villagers in Ramgarh saw two men with cows and attacked them, according to the police. The two were beaten up and one of them died on the spot.

I wonder if there are any cattle mutilations linked to extraterrestrials in India? Interestingly, the prohibition on killing cattle dates back to the Gupta period, and relates to a famine where the population were set to slaughter all their cattle. The prohibition forced them to drink only the milk of the cattle and thus preserved the herd. Former local ruling dynasties ate beef frequently before that time.
 
They've been at it for a while on the Indian subcontinent. Greater than 15 million persons were displaced during the 1947 partition of India and up to 2 million Hindu's, Muslims and Silks died fighting - rioting.
 
They've been at it for a while on the Indian subcontinent. Greater than 15 million persons were displaced during the 1947 partition of India and up to 2 million Hindu's, Muslims and Silks died fighting - rioting.

Also, lets not ignore the 500 year Islamic genocide of Hindus which is likely to have taken over a human billion lives.
 
The guru is brought down to earth, only two years ago a comedian was arrested for mocking him.

An Indian guru has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a journalist who exposed sexual abuse of women at his sect.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the 51-year-old Dera Sacha Sauda leader, is already serving a 20-year prison sentence for raping two female followers. Newspaper editor Ram Chander Chhatrapati was killed after revealing the cases at Dera's headquarters in the north-western city of Sirsa. Three other men were also sentenced.The self-styled holy man appeared at the court in Panchkula in Haryana state through a video link from his prison. Close aides Kuldeep Singh, Nirmal Singh and Krishan Lal were also given life sentences.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46909655
 
A rather bizarre outcome.

A social-media campaign against a brand of washing powder in India has raised eyebrows by taking an accidental sideswipe at a Microsoft app.

The advert for Surf Excel uses the upcoming Hindu spring festival of Holi to illustrate a story about cross-communal harmony, India's Telegraph newspaper reports. The advert shows a girl on a bicycle enjoying the popular Holi practice of being pelted with balloons full of coloured paint and water, then taking a small boy dressed in pristine white Muslim clothes to prayers at his mosque before promising to play Holi games with him afterwards.

The ad received more than ten million views and 100,000 "likes" on YouTube, but angered some viewers.

Critics of the advert have organised complaints against Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), who make Surf Excel, accusing its Colours Unite (Rang laaye sang) advert of being "anti-Hindu" and "anti-national". They have posted pictures of used HUL products like flattened toothpaste tubes along with the hashtags #BoycottSurfExcel and #BoycottHindustanUnilever.

But some of their followers have confused the washing powder with Microsoft Excel, giving the mobile spreadsheet app single-star ratings on the Google Play Store - much to the amusement of other social-media users.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-47568665
 
There's also an app called Vim. Just coincidence.
 
A rather bizarre outcome.

A social-media campaign against a brand of washing powder in India has raised eyebrows by taking an accidental sideswipe at a Microsoft app.

The advert for Surf Excel uses the upcoming Hindu spring festival of Holi to illustrate a story about cross-communal harmony, India's Telegraph newspaper reports. The advert shows a girl on a bicycle enjoying the popular Holi practice of being pelted with balloons full of coloured paint and water, then taking a small boy dressed in pristine white Muslim clothes to prayers at his mosque before promising to play Holi games with him afterwards.

The ad received more than ten million views and 100,000 "likes" on YouTube, but angered some viewers.

Critics of the advert have organised complaints against Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), who make Surf Excel, accusing its Colours Unite (Rang laaye sang) advert of being "anti-Hindu" and "anti-national". They have posted pictures of used HUL products like flattened toothpaste tubes along with the hashtags #BoycottSurfExcel and #BoycottHindustanUnilever.

But some of their followers have confused the washing powder with Microsoft Excel, giving the mobile spreadsheet app single-star ratings on the Google Play Store - much to the amusement of other social-media users.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-47568665

There is all kinds of nationalist Hindutva/Islamist right-wing wankerism going on all over south Asia at the moment. Indian elections are due soon, expect more India-Pakistan posturing in the run up.
 
I am invited to a Krishna's Birthday event on 24th August. Should I take a present?

I need to brush-up on my Hinduism*. It is such a diverse religion, though. I hardly know where to start!

No, they will not expect me to know much. I only hope not to be conspicuously awkward.

*In the day-job, 99% of multiculturalism is Muslim, needless to say. :rolleyes:
 
Back
Top