Topic started by Tamil (@ 66-44-71-165.s419.tnt9.lnhva.md.dialup.rcn.com) on Thu May 24 20:52:26 .
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Tentacles of RSS, Hindu Munani, BJP spread in TN. What little peace and amity we enjoy is threatened.

Please read the first posting in this thread

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• From: Tamil (@ 66-44-71-165.s419.tnt9.lnhva.md.dialup.rcn.com) on: Thu May 24 20:59:57
  
  The principal annual festival of ‘Vinayaka’ or ‘Ganesha’ falls on the fourth day of the bright fortnight of ‘Bhadrapada’ (August-September). In Tamil Nadu, ‘Vinayaka Chaturthi’ (as it is known) is very widely celebrated with special rituals in people’s homes, as well as at Vinayaka’s temples and shrines. Until the 1980s, though, there were no large-scale public ceremonies and processions at the festival, as there have been at Ganesha Chaturthi in Maharashtra since the late 19th century.
  
  In Chennai (Madras) on Chaturthi day in 1983, a little group of Hindu activists belonging to the Hindu Munnani (‘Hindu Front’), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) installed an image – or ‘idol’ – of Vinayaka in a public place near a temple in West Mambalam, a suburb in the south-west of the city. A few days later, they took their image in a procession for immersion in a temple tank. One year later, images were set up in several other localities, including Triplicane in the centre of the city, and from this tiny beginning, the scale of public Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations expanded fairly rapidly in Chennai. In 1990, for the first but not the last time, a procession of many tall images accompanied by thousands of Hindus led to a bloody riot with Muslims near the Ice House mosque in Triplicane [Geetha and Rajadurai 1990; Pandian 1992]. Vinayaka Chaturthi remains a major public festival in Chennai, but in the late 1980s and early 1990s its celebration spread across Tamil Nadu, to both urban and rural areas. Before the 1995 festival, the Hindu Munnani’s president plausibly claimed that immersion processions would take place in every panchayat district in Tamil Nadu (The Hindu, June 28, 1995).
  
  In almost every locality, the festival’s principal initiators have been activists belonging to the Hindu Munnani, RSS, BJP and other allied organisations in the Sangh parivar. The Hindu Munnani was founded in the early 1980s and rose to prominence later in the decade. Accurate information about the structure of the Munnani, and the caste and class composition of its membership, is sparse, but it certainly draws support from across the whole social spectrum [Fuller 1996:24-28, Pandian 1990].1 Alongside the RSS, the Munnani has become the main militant Hindu nationalist or communalist organisation in Tamil Nadu, closely linked to the BJP and playing a politico-religious role similar to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in north India, although the VHP itself also has a presence in the state. In 1995-96, the Hindu Munnani split internally, which led to the emergence of a rival organisation, the ‘Hindu Makkal Katchi’ (‘Hindu People’s Party’). Since then, in various places including Chennai, there have been two separate public festivals ending with processions on different days, but its smaller rival has done little serious damage to the Munnani’s strength.
  
  Between 1991 and 1996, when the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) headed by Jayalalitha was in power, the Munnani broadly supported her government and its promotion of brahmanical Hinduism, which virtually amounted to a Tamil version of Hindutva [Fuller 1996: 22 and Geetha and Jayanthi 1995: 261]. When the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) under Karunanidhi returned to power in 1996, the de facto alliance between the government and the Munnani ended, and in that year, after violence at the festival in 1995, the government infuriated the Munnani by diverting the processional route away from the Ice House mosque in Triplicane. Yet the DMK is no longer the party of militant anti-brahmanism which existed in the 1970s [Fuller 1999: 36-37 and Pandian 1994], and ideological differences have not impeded an alliance with the BJP – and hence indirectly with the Munnani – in place since before the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. In 1999, Vinayaka Chaturthi actually occurred during these elections, so that its political implications were always prominent, although this was almost equally true in 2000, because all politicians were then looking ahead to the state assembly elections due in 2001.
  
  Because the BJP itself has never won very many votes in Tamil Nadu, some commentators suppose that Hindu nationalism has had little impact there. But they are wrong.2 The BJP is well-organised and firmly entrenched in many areas of Tamil Nadu, and more or less openly it has been allied with the state’s ruling party for much of the last decade. Moreover and more importantly, popular acceptance of Hindutva as an ideology or discourse, or more loosely as a set of ideas and assumptions, cannot be directly measured by voting figures, because the fortunes of political parties rise and fall for reasons that are partly independent of longer-term, underlying shifts in people’s attitudes. The public Vinayaka festival in Tamil Nadu was copied from its counterpart in Maharashtra by the Hindu Munnani and it is another successful example of the Sangh parivar’s ‘appropriation of traditional Hindu rituals’ in a dual process that aims to ‘nationalise’ Hinduism and ‘Hinduise’ the nation [Basu et al 1993: 39-40].3 Thus Vinayaka Chaturthi has become a vehicle to disseminate Hindutva ideology; it has played a significant part in moving Hindu nationalism ‘from the margins of Indian society to its centre stage’ [Hansen 1999: 4] so as to ‘normalise’ it within Tamil Nadu’s religious-cum-political domain, and Geetha and Jayanthi’s fear that ‘Hindutva ideas may percolate into the common sense of the people of Tamil Nadu’ (1995: 265) has been at least partly realised.
  
  
  
• From: T (@ 66-44-71-165.s419.tnt9.lnhva.md.dialup.rcn.com) on: Thu May 24 21:08:53
  
  The Hindu Munnani’s goal of maximising the display of images in each locality is well served by very tall images at prominent sites. In Chennai since the late 1980s, what might be called the festival’s epicentre has been the Tiruvatiswaran temple in Triplicane; since their split, both the Munnani and Hindu Makkal Katchi have erected near the temple very tall images of the armed ‘Victory (vetri) Vinayaka’ (18 feet in 2000, but as high as 33 feet in 1995) (The Hindu, August 29, 1995). In the heart of Thyagaraya Nagar (T Nagar), a large suburb in south-west Chennai where the festival has long been celebrated on a grand scale, a huge image is built on a trailer beside a main road; in 2000, it was a 25-feet high display of Vinayaka with the ‘Navagraha’ (Nine planets). In other towns and cities, the tallest images are normally around 12 feet high. Tall images in prominent positions – like the 13-feet Vinayaka placed in Coimbatore’s central business area – make an extremely striking impression that nobody could overlook. On the other hand, because all the images together mean that more and more of the public space can be claimed as Vinayaka’s domain and hence as the Hindus’, three- or four-feet images scattered widely across quiet suburbs and small villages proclaim Hindu ubiquity as much as tall ones standing at major urban road junctions. In places where Hindus are indisputably in the majority, the god’s multiple manifestation across the landscape can make a powerful impact. Yet Vinayaka’s demonstrative effect is of course most provocative wherever Hindus are in the minority, as in many parts of Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Kanniyakumari districts in the far south, where the Munnani and its allies have made particular efforts to install images and celebrate Vinayaka Chaturthi as ostentatiously as possible. Like the saffron flags flying over countless Hindu households during the Ayodhya campaign, the multitude of Vinayaka images ‘swamp(ed) individuals in their ubiquity, contriving a sense of the irresistible tide of Hindutva’ [Basu et al 1993: 60].
  
  
  
• From: T (@ 66-44-71-165.s419.tnt9.lnhva.md.dialup.rcn.com) on: Thu May 24 21:14:29
  
  http://www.epw.org.in/current/sa1.htm
  
  Follow this link for the full article
  
  
• From: Surya (@ adsl-64-166-143-81.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net) on: Fri Apr 30 22:53:40
  
  "The Vidwat Parishad, comprising sadhus and sants, would meet soon to evolve a social order to eradicate untouchability." Said by Mr. Ashok Singhal. International Working President of VHP. (Vishwa Hindu Parishyat)
  
  Source: The Hindu
  
  
  VHP, RSS, BAJRANG DAL, HINDUTVA ETC. ALL SHARE SAME VIEWS ON UNTOUCHABILITY!
  
  
• From: bp (@ 202.142.106.175) on: Sat May 1 07:36:24 EDT 2004
  
  
  
  
  
  
  "99% of Indian Muslims and Christians were Hindus
  who were converted due to then compelling circumstances.
  Hence, their re-entry into Hindu fold is just like home coming.
  This should be encouraged through persuasion of our long lost brethren."
  
  
• From: BAB (@ cache-mtc-ae09.proxy.aol.com) on: Sat May 1 09:30:45 EDT 2004
  
  Agreed 100%
  
  
• From: Thirumavalavan (@ c-24-4-153-182.client.comcast.net) on: Sat May 1 14:47:50 EDT 2004
  
  same here
  
  
• From: Thirumavalavan (@ c-24-4-153-182.client.comcast.net) on: Sat May 1 15:34:55 EDT 2004
  
  ///"The Vidwat Parishad, comprising sadhus and sants, would meet soon to evolve a social order to eradicate untouchability." Said by Mr. Ashok Singhal. International Working President of VHP. (Vishwa Hindu Parishyat)
  
  Source: The Hindu
  
  
  VHP, RSS, BAJRANG DAL, HINDUTVA ETC. ALL SHARE SAME VIEWS ON UNTOUCHABILITY!///
  
  
  Of Course the VHP is against untouchability. But a few politicians like KK, and also cunning bith*es like christian missionaries and islamic groups brainwash the dalits into thinking that the VHP, Hindutva, RSS, and BJP are against dalits. These organizations want unity in hinduism now, so the last think that they want is untouchability dividing hindus. Missionaries and islamic organizations don't want unity in hinduism because they can't use it to convert more hindus. Missionaries should be terrified when they think of converting hindus. If a hindu want to convert by his or her own will, then thats different, but most of these missionaries pay poor hindus to convert, this is unethical. SO anyway, VHP RSS BJP Hindutva, Bajrang Dal, obviously doesn't want untouchability.
  
  
• From: bp (@ 202.142.106.175) on: Sat May 1 15:46:46 EDT 2004
  
  log on
  
  http://www.rss.org
  
  http://www.hssworld.org
  
  http://www.hinduhumanrights.org
  
  http://www.hinduunity.org
  
  
• From: mmmmmmmm (@ alecto.mt.pl) on: Sun May 2 15:38:55 EDT 2004
  
  
  F.U.C.K SHRI RAM!
  
  
• From: mmmmmmmm (@ alecto.mt.pl) on: Sun May 2 15:39:04 EDT 2004
  
  
  F.U.C.K SHRI RAM!
  
  
• From: Nedunchezhiyan (@ 142.76.1.62) on: Thu May 6 12:08:23 EDT 2004
  
  JUST LIKE RSS: EARTH IS FLAT...their motive is to languish Thamizhans in their own Land!
  
  

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