Some time ago, on an online atheism forum on G+, I was having a discussion on homosexuality in India in particular and the sexual mores of what is seen abroad as ‘a largely Hindu society’ generally, when I said the following about this alleged ‘Hindu’ society.
Having posted it, I realised I must share it outside the group:
Hinduism, in fact, now resembles Victorian Christianity in more ways than the right-wingers are willing to accept. And as days (years? decades?) go by, it has started to take on the extremist colour of Islam too.
So, take an (il)liberal dose of good old paganism and pantheism, add a (un)healthy amount of monotheism, place on the fire of pseudoscience and extremism, and stir with plenty of over-the-top evangelism, muscular nationalism, naked xenophobia, apologism for slavery (caste, in this case), exploitation, racism, sexism, misogyny, thin-skin, hair-trigger sensitivities, and other vile toxins of the same kind. Serve boiling hot with a side dish of a large, illiterate, and biased police force, religious, and morally bankrupt but grandstanding judiciary, amoral religious leaders, a sold-out media wallowing in yellow journalism & propaganda, and a generous helping of corrupt, appeasing, regressive, base-desire-pandering, half-literate, egotistic politicians on a plate of British Raj era laws, huge population, and nuclear weapons, and you have the reigning religion of India, by whatever name you may choose to call it, though, to be honest, ‘Hinduism would be the last thing I’d identify it with.
Yep, Hinduism ain’t a religion. It’s a way of life. Just that it’s become a rather shitty way of life as it has started to become exactly what its loudest proponents claim to hate.
