sudeepj wrote:devesh wrote:
Problem is some of the yahoo non-bengalis seem to have an axe to grind against Bengalis for their perceived "leftism". Bengals trajectory since partition is similar to Punjab's in many ways and Punjab even now voted heavily to INC despite BJP wave in neighborhood.
Bit Punjab doesnt get the ethnic/chauvinist hatred directed against it, which Bengal does.
The current Ram Mohan Roy topic, I suspect, is also raised by the same elements.
On the flip side is somebody like Saswati Sarkar who pretty much has a chip on her shoulder the size of Mt. Everest. But nothing that Sarkar says even comes close to the poison that Khalistanis spread.
After watching a lot of these interactions on twitter, my instinct is that some people really are very insecure or feel threatened by Bengal turning saffron.
The Bengali Rai Bahaduri class has done a very good job of convincing an avg. middle Bengali thinking class person, that any questioning of any Bengali icon is an attack on Bengali culture and pride. No matter, that the only Bengali icons that the Rai Bahaduri class has annointed thus are carefully selected to further the centuries old cultural war leading to an ultimate westernization and christianization of India.
Why is the widespread attack on Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, by calling him or his novels communal not considered an attack on Bengal/Bengalis? Why is the widespread attack on Subhash Bose, by calling him a war criminal etc. not considered an attack on Bengal/Bengalis? Why are the contributions of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee denied their place in our nations history? Why is the sidelining of Pranab da not a chauvinistic act? How many in India know today of Bagha Jatin?
The reason is simple.. The obvious reason is ofcourse 'programming' of individuals to react a certain way.. Another important reason is,
the left attacks not so much by attacking directly, but by ignoring the contributions of these other people. Left attacks by establishing hegemony in the myth making departments of culture and then erasing personas out of history! Were it not for the resistance by nationalistic forces, no one would remember Bankim, Subhash Bose, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee by the year 2000, such was the hegemonic power of the left.
From a very high level perspective, Bengal and Punjab have suffered deeply from the attacks of the Islamist and Colonialist forces on India. Long after the last red coat left the shores of India, the assault by the colonialist forces continued. Both Bengal and Punjab saw brutal COIN campaigns, supposedly by nationalist leaders! And as a result of this centuries old assault, there is a kind of stockholm syndrome among the intellectual class there. You see Punjabis making nice with Islamists, even as the Islamists commit genocide on Punjab! And you see Bengalis making nice with colonialists, even though the colonialists committed numerous genocides on Bengal, the last one, not 80 years old.
We must be kind, but firm, with Bengali and Punjabi intellectuals.. Their communities have suffered the most. And if we cant be kind to our own, rest assured, the treatment that the Islamists and the colonialists meet out to us will be much much worse.
Finally, there is indeed a yahoo class masquerading as Hindutva-wadins. If they had any association at all with the RSS, rest assured, their speech would be a lot more restrained and thoughtful. Literally, the first thing taught to you in a shakha is that you must address your peers, even your younger peers, as Ji. There is no room for pointless ego battles and aggression in the Sangh. There are also numerous false flag ops these days.. You never know, that the ultra rw handle is really ultra rw, or is merely a Congressi plant.
Sudeepj, You are absolutely right on some part and partially wrong on some other.
Let me get to the wrong part first. There are left intellectuals who has bad mouthed Bankim & Netaji but rest assured Bongs do take that as affront to their cultural icon. The ballot box winning by Left and TMC had nothing to do with what Bongs think about them. Same goes for Pranabda and Bagha Jatin. To keep their memory alive, Bongs do not need nationalistic forces from outside, they are part of Bong folk lore and I dare say none would be able to erase them. SPM is largely forgotten, true, but that's the fate of all Bong Hindu Mahasabha politicians, including father of Late Somnath Mukherjee (CPM and Speaker during UPA govt). SPM's father Sir Ashutosh is again part of Bong folklore and it would be impossible to erase the legacy. As it said, Bongs suffered a lot during the earlier political regime as there were no options who could go against the incumbent by money, muscle and influence. The current win by BJP has a large money play that switched part of the machinery to BJP along with the organisational genius of Mukul Roy. The electoral win does not indicate the cultural direction bongs as a society are going and it would be a grave danger to think that BJPs win in the election have won over bongs culturally; us bongs, in our 34 years of Left rule have learnt to compartmentalize these 2 and if not handled properly, the bongs would switch again electorally.
Now the right part. We do need to take care of
our own and reject the puritans who on the drop of a hat makes our own as "others". It would be really sad to get into a the "more saffron shade win" situation in India.
WB has a lot of offshoots of Hindu religion. Brahmo is just one of them but there are 100s such which follow a mix of hindu, muslim and xtian principles. Some got wide spread recognitions like Baul but not all. There are serious social science researchers (I have a few friends there) who digs and documents the details. Most of the bongs in this forum would know the name of deities like Maa Shitala, Dharmathakur, Banabibi, ChandRay etc that are not in hintu pantheon of gods but adopted to co-opt the "antaja" class (lower strata) of people in the greater hinduism. And WB won't be the only state, I am sure people of other states who are really in touch with the lower strata would know about them. Co-opting the tribals into greater hinduism follows the same pattern.
While Brahmos have a few peculiar custom, none who have met them would deny that they are essentially part of hindus. I didn't know one of my close friend was brahmo till i attended his wedding and the only thing different than a hindu wedding was the bride and groom were sitting on chairs instead of ground while the prist does the same jagna and recites similar sanskrit mantras
The people who are doing rah rah against RRM and Brahmo are essentially those, who have never come across a Brahmo in real life and knows thing only from bookish perspective. And their lies the danger of using "primary source" without understanding the context. Primary source is necessary but not a sufficient condition to prove something in history. The quality of primary source and understanding the context matters. Let me give 2 example - one recent and one historical.
1. If anyone go by the primary source on NaMo from LeLi gang, his is "fascist", "divider in chief". The current age of course allows countering that with contrarian primary source but that luxury is not there always for historical figures.
2. Based on primary source, Jesus is a prophet of Islam and if you ask any muslim, none would counter that.
Similar is the logic of proving RRR as "unitary Xtian" and "hinduphobic" based on primary sources. The bongs, who are really aware of the context, would obviously protest when someone, unaware of the context, trying to prove a bengali icon to be "phobic" of majority religion of bongs. We may not show our devotion overtly and by influence of Ramakrishna Paramhansa agree that all religions leads to god but we are extremely attached to our cultural hinduism. You go anywhere in the world outside WB and you will find that a Durga Puja and a Maa Kali mandir exists whereever a group of bong resides. This far precedes the current hindu revival of creating large temples outside India, us bongs were there for long.
And this is what i dislike about the current blue on blue. Rajeev Malhotra and TrueIndology in this case are absolutely wrong to brand RRM and brahmo samaj the way they are proceeding. I dare say that following that principal we will brand a large number of hindus to be outside dharma and subconciously demand ghar wapsi from them. We can forget a greater hindu revival in such puritan way.
There is a reason hindu bongs consider RRR as icon and you can see the result even today. The hindu bongs came under EJ and Islamic conversion forces much earlier than most in south india. While the bong buddists converted enmass, see the solidity of bong hindus in that front even in current day. While the Islamic population is increasing due to a differential in birth rate and illegal crossing over from Bangladesh, historically we survived the conversion pressure on both front and a large credit goes to RRR and such hindu reformers who allowed the hinduism to evolve by taking over best practices from others and denigrating bad practices within. The brahmo samaj in that aspect to hindu is same as the relationship of shia vs sunni to some extent (not exactly but you get the point). Look at south india today with the conversion going on at full speed by both EJs as well as Mullahs and you would realize how great and far seeing those bong icons were.
And how blind Rajeev M and TrueIndology are in their intellectual ivory tower.
it is not there ? ok