The Muslim, Sikh and Christian readings of Mohan Bhagwat's speech converge on one omission. Each community was told it would be protected. None was told that we all equally belong in India.
Repeated changes in cotton import duty have prioritised textile competitiveness when mills face high input costs. But policy can also put pressure on farmgate prices.
“Their ancestors’ labour, languages, architecture, jurisprudence and military service are constituents of India rather than guests within it. ” – according to KB Sidhu, Parsis and Jews are guests of India. How nice of him to denigrate these two most accomplished Indian communities.
Secondly, he refers to the sacrifice and martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur. But is that the standard the average Sikh holds himself to? There have been scores of lynchings in Punjab over patently false and baseless allegations of sacrilege and blasphemy.
Anyone reading KB Sidhu would believe that only Hindus go about lynching others while his community is saintly in it’s acts and deeds.
Also, what is most remarkable is that he does not speak a single word on the Indian tricolour being torn and trampled by his fellow Sikh brethren in New York.
What does that tell us?
Mahatma Mohan Bhagwat’s NY lecture on ‘oneness’ and ‘shelter’ is peak political fatigue and comedic.
He stands in New York telling the world that India’s job is to protect and accommodate everyone, while lecturing his own Hindu base that they aren’t ‘true Hindus’ if they demand accountability. The reality? Non-Indic demographics don’t treat India as a sacred, shared, civilization heritage. Why would they? They demand concessions, act entitled to special status, and completely reject any civilizational responsibility. Non-Hindus reject the label to his face because they don’t want their identity subsumed, while core Hindus are sick of being admonished, lectured on restraint, and forced to carry the burden of endless ‘good behavior.’
Placating everyone with shenanigans of ‘soft universalism’ pleases absolutely no one. He is just repackaged Congress’s appeasement policies.
In fact, Bhagwat’s global posturing is just the mirror image of frequent-foreign-flyer Mahatma Raoul. Both are addicted to external validation. Raoul implores Western elites to intrude into internal Indian democracy and help him validate the ‘Democracy is dying’ theory, while Bhagwat seeks foreign interfaith panels to validate the RSS as soft and non-threatening. Both treat foreign soil as the supreme court of legitimacy.
Bottom Line: The RSS no longer speaks for Hindus or Bharat…they’re just playing the exact same foreign-validation game as the opposition!
Most Hindus have no difficulty in conceding that Sikhism is a separate religion. At the same time, I, as a lay Hindu person, would place it in the category of Indian/Dharmic religions including Buddhism and Jainism, which though different from Hinduism are not so different as to be incommensurable with it. In fact, I come from the Jat community and if we go back around three generations, i.e., pre-independence era, intermarriage between Hindu and Sikh Jats was relatively common. Then, Sikhs decided to forge an identity explicitly different from Hindus, and this intermarriage, for the most part, also came to an end. Now, personally, I don’t see what purpose is served by these continuing efforts to distance Sikhism from Hinduism. From what I can see, they haven’t made either side any happier.
Very fine column. 2. Going beyond the minorities, who are protected ultimately by the Constitution, including its foundational principle of Fraternity, which a judiciary is duty bound to uphold unswervingly. These wise words should be heard by the Hindu majority. I instinctively believe that Hindus are a tolerant community. Although there is a large minority for which this perhaps does not hold true. This was a solemn declaration made to the whole world about the limits a Hindu Rashtrapati will respect. It should travel downwards, encompass all of the faithful. When a CM makes a hurtful majoritarian remark, or a mob unleashes violence on a poor Muslim, they will all be reminded that this is the standard and promise they are not living up to.
Can you imagine a democratic and secular India (imperfect as it is) . with a 50% Muslim population? Or a Christian India where the government takes the church’s money and spends it without its permission? Hindus have underwritten India’s democracy and secularism because Hindus fundamentally believe that all religions lead ultimately to the One Supreme being. That is not true of some others. Bhagwat has only stated the truth. You may not like it, but that’s what it is. So yes, minorities in India have been protected because India is 70+ Hindu. It is because of attitudes like this that refuse to accept the difference between theory and reality that RSS/BJP have become so popular.
“Their ancestors’ labour, languages, architecture, jurisprudence and military service are constituents of India rather than guests within it. ” – according to KB Sidhu, Parsis and Jews are guests of India. How nice of him to denigrate these two most accomplished Indian communities.
Secondly, he refers to the sacrifice and martyrdom of Guru Teg Bahadur. But is that the standard the average Sikh holds himself to? There have been scores of lynchings in Punjab over patently false and baseless allegations of sacrilege and blasphemy.
Anyone reading KB Sidhu would believe that only Hindus go about lynching others while his community is saintly in it’s acts and deeds.
Also, what is most remarkable is that he does not speak a single word on the Indian tricolour being torn and trampled by his fellow Sikh brethren in New York.
What does that tell us?
Mahatma Mohan Bhagwat’s NY lecture on ‘oneness’ and ‘shelter’ is peak political fatigue and comedic.
He stands in New York telling the world that India’s job is to protect and accommodate everyone, while lecturing his own Hindu base that they aren’t ‘true Hindus’ if they demand accountability. The reality? Non-Indic demographics don’t treat India as a sacred, shared, civilization heritage. Why would they? They demand concessions, act entitled to special status, and completely reject any civilizational responsibility. Non-Hindus reject the label to his face because they don’t want their identity subsumed, while core Hindus are sick of being admonished, lectured on restraint, and forced to carry the burden of endless ‘good behavior.’
Placating everyone with shenanigans of ‘soft universalism’ pleases absolutely no one. He is just repackaged Congress’s appeasement policies.
In fact, Bhagwat’s global posturing is just the mirror image of frequent-foreign-flyer Mahatma Raoul. Both are addicted to external validation. Raoul implores Western elites to intrude into internal Indian democracy and help him validate the ‘Democracy is dying’ theory, while Bhagwat seeks foreign interfaith panels to validate the RSS as soft and non-threatening. Both treat foreign soil as the supreme court of legitimacy.
Bottom Line: The RSS no longer speaks for Hindus or Bharat…they’re just playing the exact same foreign-validation game as the opposition!
Most Hindus have no difficulty in conceding that Sikhism is a separate religion. At the same time, I, as a lay Hindu person, would place it in the category of Indian/Dharmic religions including Buddhism and Jainism, which though different from Hinduism are not so different as to be incommensurable with it. In fact, I come from the Jat community and if we go back around three generations, i.e., pre-independence era, intermarriage between Hindu and Sikh Jats was relatively common. Then, Sikhs decided to forge an identity explicitly different from Hindus, and this intermarriage, for the most part, also came to an end. Now, personally, I don’t see what purpose is served by these continuing efforts to distance Sikhism from Hinduism. From what I can see, they haven’t made either side any happier.
Very fine column. 2. Going beyond the minorities, who are protected ultimately by the Constitution, including its foundational principle of Fraternity, which a judiciary is duty bound to uphold unswervingly. These wise words should be heard by the Hindu majority. I instinctively believe that Hindus are a tolerant community. Although there is a large minority for which this perhaps does not hold true. This was a solemn declaration made to the whole world about the limits a Hindu Rashtrapati will respect. It should travel downwards, encompass all of the faithful. When a CM makes a hurtful majoritarian remark, or a mob unleashes violence on a poor Muslim, they will all be reminded that this is the standard and promise they are not living up to.
Can you imagine a democratic and secular India (imperfect as it is) . with a 50% Muslim population? Or a Christian India where the government takes the church’s money and spends it without its permission? Hindus have underwritten India’s democracy and secularism because Hindus fundamentally believe that all religions lead ultimately to the One Supreme being. That is not true of some others. Bhagwat has only stated the truth. You may not like it, but that’s what it is. So yes, minorities in India have been protected because India is 70+ Hindu. It is because of attitudes like this that refuse to accept the difference between theory and reality that RSS/BJP have become so popular.