Posted on 12/24/2014 10:20:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The head of India's most powerful Hindu group vowed to press ahead with a campaign to convert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, stoking a sensitive debate that has stalled parliament and threatened the prime minister's economic reform agenda.
Mohan Bhagwat of the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, which is also the ideological wing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, said India was a "Hindu nation" where many Hindus had been forcibly converted to other religions.
"We will bring back those who have lost their way. They did not go on their own," Bhagwat said in a speech late on Saturday. "They were lured into leaving."
Bhagwat's comments came after Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party said it did not support forced religious conversions and called for an anti-conversion law.
India's 1.2 billion people are predominantly Hindus but there are also about 160 million Muslims and a small proportion of Christians.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“right wing”, thanks Al Reuters.
I’d tell the Christians to keep their heads down because the Muslims and Hindus are about to go to war.
Why would the Hindus do such a thing? They’re not the Koranimals.
The article does not say that Hindus are using forced conversion.
Interesting omission.
Most Hindus I work with are nice people. They just won’t sit with you at lunch if your eating a burger.
They never mention the religion riots that happen frequently, almost always Muslim or Hindu. Christians try to keep their heads down and stay out of the way.
India has had tension between religions for as long as there have been religions. It's seldom reported in the media.
“Right wing” is entirely appropriate.
In traditional, though not entirely historically accurate, usage it refers to conservative or reactionary politics.
What “right wing” is will therefore vary by country. USA “right wing” is very different from the Euro, Islamic or Hindu versions. But they’re still all “right wing” if you accept the standard definition.
OTOH, “left-wing” is pretty similar across the world.
Then even by that criteria the Nazis could not have been Right Wing, because the Conservatives in Germany were the old Prussian order, and Hitler wanted them gone.
The Nazis were a weird combination of a socialist base with a very strong and in some ways dominant overlay of Euro-style blood and soil right wingism.
The idea that anybody opposed to the old Prussian order must of necessity be entirely left wing implies that all political varieties can be located accurately on a single axis. Which of course just isn’t the case.
What Nazism has zero in common with is traditional American conservatism, with possible exception of some aspects of Jim Crow southern conservatism.
As far as Hitler himself, he was a bit more “pragmatic”, he really wasn’t all that ideological, he would adapt to whatever worked. However, there were many in the Party who were full-bore socialists who wanted the government to seize all means of the Production.
Hitler, to his credit, knew that he needed the Industrialists on his side if he was to build up his war machine, and largely did not go along with the more socialist Wing of the party. In fact, it was one of the main reasons for the “Night of the Long Knives.” A good number of SA were former Communists, who only changed the Uniform they wore, and the Industrialists were very nervous about them. Hitler took care of their worries.
Nazi = National SOCIALIST Party.
Exactly Left Wing is socialist/Communist globally.
And “right wing” Fascism wasn’t much different.
Interesting omission.
That's because "forced" conversions are pretty much impossible in India, certainly not in the public domain. These conversions, like most conversions are conversions by inducements. Christian missionaries have been using that very method for years, this is ,"retaliatory" conversions by some Hindu groups. Hinduism generally has no concept of conversions since it does not claim to be the only source to truth/god and is theoretically open to Christian beliefs as also being valid (Islam, because of its violent history in India is on a different plane though the same principle applies with many Hindus visiting shrines of Sufi saints just as other Hindus visit Churches, sometimes even having portraits of Jesus in their prayer rooms) Conversions almost completely happens only in the most backward & tribal areas where people are susceptible to such inducements. These recent "hindu conversions" has caught most people on the back foot because the argument by these groups is a clever one - they are really not particularly interested in converting, they are using this as a tactic to put pressure for an anti-conversion law. Christian groups have long opposed any such law and now they simply face the problem of "Hindu" groups using pretty much similar tactics to poach into the christian community (also Muslims). The police have filed cases but these are cases of cheating, fraud etc and may not really stop the re-conversion movement. No easy solutions.
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