Christian Anti-Hindu Bigot Nandy’s new rant: India should not win the Cricket World Cup!

Some weeks back we had discussed how political opposition to the ruling Government in India has metamorphosed into Anti-Hindu bigotry in India.  (Delhi Elections: Is Self Righteous Anti-Hindu Bigotry the new normal for Indian Secularism?) Of course, all in the name of a bastardized form of “Secularism”.

As the time is going on, things are going from bad to worse.  Ashis Nandy, a Bengali Christian and hailed by various bodies as a great Sociologist, who has been in controversies for his utterances that show his racist and bigoted worldview, has come out with a remarkably outlandish claim.

India is in the midst of the Cricket World Cup campaign.  A World cup where cricketing nations fight for the most coveted prize every four years.  India happens to be the defending champion.  While they are at it after a rather disastrous tour of Australia, where the team lost everything in sight, things seem to have looked up for the team.  A team which was down and out, is now back up and fighting to win.

The Christian with an obvious anti-Hindu and by extension anti-Modi (and it comes rather easily these days to many in India) worldview has taken an innocuous game championship and shoved it into the embers of his hate polemics.  Outlook, a popular but rabidly Left-wing Indian weekly rag, has come out with a survey asking the readers “Should India Win the World Cup?”  Yes, exactly!  That is the question asked.  It would be laughable if it wasn’t taken very seriously and based on the utterances of someone who in 2008 was hailed as one of the “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” in a poll of the Foreign Policy magazine.  Quite clearly his words carry a lot of weight inside and outside of the country.  That he has insinuated that winning the World Cup only fills a Hindu, who in Nandy’s world is a communal being by virtue of his religion, with pride is something that everyone should question in India!  After all, all my friends – Sikh, Christians, and Muslims – rejoice as much at India’s win in Cricket.  Heck, the best bowling performance from India in this tournament is by a bowler who happens to be a Muslim!  Since when did winning a Sports tournament become a majoritarian thing?  But for someone like Nandy, whom the Western media and organization will sit up and listen to, bigotry suddenly becomes the most trendy substratum to construct his skewed theories off of.

The poll lays out its narrative thus:

India has stormed into the semi-finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup and are now a step closer to the coveted ‘Champions’ title for the third time. As most of India roots for the boys in blue, sociologist Ashis Nandy feels that winning the World Cup might just make India’s macho and hyper masculine nationalism more intense. Over the last few months, there seems to have been an effort to make a pluralistic India into a homogenized Hindu state where the space for dissent has diminished, churches are regularly ‘robbed’, talk of religious conversion is rampant, and there’s banning of many things, including beef. In case India wins the World Cup, the

(Emphasis has been added)

Now, let us understand the claims in the poll.

Churches robbed in Delhi: In the run-up to the Delhi Elections, a phenomena started.  Some Churches were suddenly looted and miscreants broke some stuff inside.  It was said that this is the handiwork of the BJP, Modi’s party fighting in the elections.  Unless Modi is masochist, he and his party people would be lunatics to “orchestrate” this.  When a report was sought from the Delhi Police of how many Churches were being targeted for robberies and what was being done, the statistics shocked everyone.

As can be seen, in Delhi, not just Churches but all religious places have been targeted by robbers.  One doesn’t know about the politicians, but the thieves in Delhi are surely Secular in their crime!  Actually, for some prone to statistical analysis, even thieves may be targeting the temples overwhelmingly more than other places.  Churches definitely seem to be lowest in their religious place of choice to steal from.  So, if Churches were being targeted by Hindus, is it also true by the same logic (and factoring in the surprisingly low numbers for Churches) that Temple thieves are Christians?

Religious Conversions: The Minorities in India are all worked up because a few Hindu groups are converting people of other faiths to Hinduism.  That is being touted as a sinister practice.  Strangely though, conversions in India have been financed and sponsored by Western organizations and evangelists for long.  And in an illegal way.  Yet, that was never a show of aggression by the minority?

There are many such cases being orchestrated openly in India.

People are now asking the obvious question – Why are Modi haters turning into India haters?.  The articles says very pertinently:

Ever since Narendra Modi was declared the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP and opinion polls started hinting that he had an edge over others, his so-called critics turned into compulsive haters that they always were (but masqueraded as neutral commentators).

These haters fall into various groups and they could have different reasons to hate Modi – the common factor being an intense loathing for Hindutva – but now they have started hating India itself after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country.

That they would start hating India itself was indicated when many started issuing statements about them leaving India if Modi became the Prime Minister. The implicit message was “I will hate a country that is represented by Modi.”

As Ashis Nandy’s characterization of just a Sports even shows, somehow hatred for a politician has metamorphosed into a larger hatred.  That of the Hindus and by extension of India.  And contempt for nationalism by essentially saying that minorities are without nationalism!  Now, that is framing the minorities in a rather poor light.  Something that hardly anyone would agree with!!

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