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January 22, 1999
ELECTIONS '98
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'Is God dead?'
How Readers reacted to Dilip D'Souza's recent columns
Date sent: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 05:18:51 -0500
A good piece of investigative journalism. I wish more journalists would bring out instances of social injustice so that politicians and bureaucrats would be forced (hopefully) to correct them. Ven Hari
Date sent: Fri, 08 Jan 1999 18:13:10 -0800
I understand the anger of Dilip over Ashok Singhal and his VHP. I would like to add some comments to the article. Dilip has written: Poor Ashok Singhal. Try, won't you, to imagine how the prospect terrifies him. The more India's masses get educated, aware, the more we will start asking questions. We will ask questions about our condition; about the dirt, injustice, hunger, corruption, thirst, disease and oppression that lie everywhere. How true he is here! Yes what India needs now is education and awareness. But the VHP or Singhal would have nothing to do in this area. It is the corrupt and hopeless politicians who ruled India since Independence who are responsible for all this mess in India now. Can D'Souza answer some of the questions below? What kind of country is India? Secular or Non-secular? If non-secular how does he define non-secularism? In a country, which is full of venomous politicians, whose aim is nothing but to stick to power by hook or by crook, you cannot expect anything less than the current mess. Why can't D'Souza write against government policies like reservations based on caste? I believe things like these are the ones which are root causes for today's problems. It is the government that established inequality among its own citizens. Even the great ideas of people like Dr Ambedkar do not have any value with our politicians. Even Ambedkar was against the continuation of reservation. Who created majority and minority classes in India? Writers like Dilip through the media or the government? Unless the current rulers of India educate even people like D'Souza, none of the Indians will understand what the current problems of India are. Why cannot we all be just called Indians? Why does the media write headlines like attack on minority people here, rape of dalit girl etc? Does that make them sell more? D'Souza has written: In a country that contains over 800 million Hindus, Singhal wants to persuade you that 20 million Christians pose a threat to Hinduism. But it seems that D'Souza has forgotten the fact that one Mir Sadiq is enough to destroy the country. I am not saying that Christians are Mir Sadiqs. But the news that Christians are sending an SOS to the Vatican must raise this question. Tell me, what does the Vatican have to do with India ? Now can Dilip D'Souza tell me what is this nonsense created by this community? I think this issue is more severe than it looks to be. If the trend goes on, then just b'coz of these 20 million people, Western powers might interfere in the India's internal matters. It looks like people like D'Souza are trying to ignore this fact. I am not saying what the VHP has done is right, if at all they are involved in it. But what the Christians have reportedly done in response is more dangerous than what the VHP has allegedly done. Does D'Souza have the guts to condemn such an act? D'Souza continues: The extent to which this disgrace weakens India, to which it threatens the survival of India, is entirely opaque to Ashok Singhal -- or, more likely, he purposely chooses that opacity. If there is a danger to Hinduism, surely it is that hundreds of millions of Hindus -- of Indians -- live such deprived, oppressed lives. Yet Singhal cares not a whit about them. He must understand one thing: that Hindus have never invited any foreign influence like the Christians have now done. It is foolish to argue about the patriotism of Hindus and the VHP. It is true what he has written about the Hindu's as below: ''Take what a tribal leader I interviewed recently told me: 'High-caste Hindus don't treat humans as humans. They will feed milk to snakes, but they will kick people. They send money to build a temple, but none for people. Just saying [the word] dharma does not make dharma. This is why some of us convert to Islam or Christianity.' '' I agree that all this mess is happening because all Hindus are not united. They don't consider themselves as equal. They have this caste and sub-caste which is ugly, and doesn't allow them to people as equals. It's true that the VHP should think in this direction. It is true that all the people in India have a lot of soul-searching to do. And finally I have an open question for D'Souza: Can he suggest an issue that would make all the people of India united? Religion? Caste? Money? Nationality?
Date sent: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 17:05:28 -0800 (PST)
I used to get agitated while reading D'Souza's articles. Then I realised he suffered a strange kind of syndrome. Anything Hindu or the BJP was anathema to him. He blames everything on the BJP. His articles are disgusting because it is usually written with prejudice rather than careful analysis. In the USA, there is a very popular radio talk show conducted by one Howard Stern whom a lot of people dislike and consider disgusting. But they listen to his shows because they want to know what he says next. Well that is what D'Souza is. He is the Howard Stern of Rediff.
Sunil Sharma
Date sent: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 18:57:11 PST
Poor D'Souza! How long can he and his ilk fool us Indians? It is a fact Christianity destroyed everything in its path. It destroyed the whole of Africa in one century, it destroyed the Incas, the Mayas, the Aztecs, the Maoris, the Australian natives within two centuries. It is only in India they could not succeed, and therefore the entire Church be it the Anglican or the Roman and all the other denominations have turned their full concentration on India. Though all of us know Hinduism will always succeed, Christianity can only wish. It does not mean the present generation of Hindus should keep quiet. As Lord Krishna said, we have to fight even if we know we are going to win eventually. Krishnan
Date sent: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 20:40:37 GMT
I came to the US from Bombay with some traditional biases, in particular, my hate for Pakistan and everything Pakistani. As a member of the cricket team at my university, I played alongside and made best friends with some wonderful human beings, who also happened to be Pakistani. My former hatred for this neighbour of ours is now quite dormant, what remains is the competitive urge that always surges to the fore at the next cricketing encounter with that country. Many Pakistanis came from similar mindsets. One of them had the childhood ambition of becoming a fighter pilot in the PAF and bombing the hell out of India. His last visit to Pakistan saw him defending India and Indians in opposition to his childhood friends. We both recognise the role played by the political & military elite in our countries in whipping up popular passion to serve narrow interests. The VHP and the Shiv Sena are very similar to these political & military elite alluded to above. In the international arena, it is the ruling elite in one country feeding hatred propaganda to its people against an entity with whom the people have very little actual contact. In the domestic arena, the elite comprises the leadership of political and religious groups. Religion when used as the basis for conflict usually results in the greatest degree of violence. Perhaps it is easy to commit atrocities that would be logically unjustifiable and then conveniently blame it on some supreme being and thereby absolve oneself of all blame. The VHP and the Shiv Sena are a political leadership seeking to gain control. Our debate should focus on their tactics and its acceptability within the framework of the democracy that we proudly claim to be. One of the points that need to be discussed here is the separation of the State from religion. My biggest fear for democracy in India is the mixup between these two entities. It matters little as to which group is involved, Hindu, Muslim or Christian, religion and government do not mix well in any of these flavours. Unfortunately for Muslims, the examples most often quoted are of Khomeni's Iran and the Taliban ideology in Afghanistan. That is no reason for other religions to be smug, Christians need only go back in time for tales of religious persecution. Hindutva groups of today also seem well-positioned to claim their rightful place in that list. I do not propose the above argument as an answer to any problem that India faces. To be quite honest, I am as confused as those of you who seek a fair solution to this problem, though a bit more enlightened than some of us who have already decided (from their armchair), what to them is the obvious solution to these problems. This is more an attempt to frame a question and initiate a dialogue. This is a responsibility of all citizens of this country.
Date sent: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 19:17:16 +0530
You have proved that you are no different from Ashok Singhal. Just one thing I want to tell you, conversion is the root cause of all these problems. Rather than blaming Singhal, why don't you ask your own FATHERS to stop conversions? The whole problem will be solved. I just ask one question! Christian missionaries say that they are doing social service, can they provide that without conversions? Raghu
Date sent: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 02:24:06 -0800 (PST)
It is amusing to see how D'Souza champions literacy and brushes aside Christian missionaries as harmless zealots without once alluding to the Population Problem. Please check www.populationaction.org for more information. Una Ahdar
Date sent: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:01:35 -0800
Your simple point in the article has more truth to it than (probably) the entire Gujrat government. SB
Date sent: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 17:23:22 -0000
Finally an honest admission -- actually you never have any idea what is going on. That's because you spend too much time shooting your mouth off, instead of doing something useful, or even just listening. Ruchira Raghav
Date sent: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 11:46:32 PST
Dear Mr D'Souza, Finally you wrote...'So I write this tailpiece to confess that I have no idea what is going on '... About Fire. At last, a confession that you write articles without factual ideas. Dr Amartya Sen repeatedly harps that Indians need education. I think he means Indian journalists like you need education. Prabir Roy
Date sent: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 11:36:33 -0400
This is something about the tail-piece of your article. It shows how you write your articles, Dilip. Here you shamelessly confess that you don't have any idea what's going on. If you think yourself a good journalist, why didn't you check what is correct before writing such an article. Shame on you Dilip, Maha |
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