A couple of days ago, Annie Gowen, the India Bureau Chief of the Washington Post, put this up on Twitter.
One wonders, whether, in this day and age, a journalist would have dared to express hatred so openly towards an icon of another religious community. At least a journalist who wishes to keep her job. Can you imagine a liberal taking on Muslim, Christian or Jewish iconography in this manner?
I hate to bring race into this, but I am going to do that since the global left loves race-baiting so damn much. The optics of a white American journalist dissing a religious icon in a country of brown people are simply devastating for The Washington Post. A pink slip should have been in order.
But I am pretty sure it isn’t. Which confirms the position of Hindus as the most culturally marginalized people on this planet. In a world that is increasingly sensitive towards issues around race, nationality, gender identity and expression, Hinduphobia stands out as the last acceptable prejudice.
The whole fracas around the Rudra Hanuman imagery happened so quickly that most of us remember it well. A smalltime journalist was taking a taxi somewhere when she happened to stick her neck out of the window and notice a bunch of people with Rudra Hanuman flags. Notwithstanding the fact that they did not cause the slightest trouble to her or anyone else that she could see, she decided to attribute violent, hateful motives to them and the Rudra Hanuman icon they were using. Her rantings were published on a far left portal and overnight the Hanuman was declared a symbol of hatred, genocide and whatnot.
Incidentally, the far left website in question has an entire section called “The Soviet Century,” dedicated to celebrating the Communist regimes that massacred 1000 lakh people. But who cares about that? Not coincidentally, the man who started this far left website was recently honoured at Stanford University for “contributing to Western understanding” of the Asia-Pacific.
I have created this simple chart to explain the liberal thought process:
Stunningly enough, what began with an unhinged rant by a marginal journalist working for a far left portal has now been internationalized by staffers of The Washington Post.
Yet another testament to the dominance of the Hinduphobic international left and the cultural marginalization of Hindus worldwide.
There are several other shocking examples, but the worst would be the Swastika. As the world gets more global and connected, you would think that there would be greater and greater understanding of the fact that Hindus using the ancient and sacred symbol has nothing to do with Hitler. But you would be wrong.
A photo showing UN Ambassador Nikki Haley with a swastika behind her at a Hindu temple gets removed. If a Muslim icon had been subject to a similar cultural misunderstanding of this magnitude, we would have been in for a thousand lectures from liberals on “ignorance.”
But instead of using Nikki Haley’s picture with the Hindu swastika as a teachable moment, Reuters decided that it was best to get rid of the photograph. In other words, if you don’t know anything about the culture of one billion Hindus, that’s just fine. The international liberal establishment is here to cater to your ignorance. Instead, they will remind you five times a day that Islam is a “religion of peace.”
Like I said, Hinduphobia remains the last acceptable form of prejudice.
Instead of addressing ignorance and prejudice towards Hindus, there is evidence that the global left is now working actively in the opposite direction. You can see that efforts are in progress to fix the Rudra Hanuman in the Western imagination as a symbol of hatred. And yes, the same applies to the Swastika. Remember this?
This is from the time Narendra Modi visited the UK. This was projected on to the British Parliament by “activists” belonging to the Awaaz Network.
The sacred Om and Swastika symbols fused into Nazi emblems! That’s the new left. They actively wish to turn the clock backwards, to promote colonial attitudes towards the “Hindoo.”
We recently learned that India’s GDP for the year 2017 has officially crossed that of France, making us the world’s sixth largest economy. In 2018, we are almost certain to go past Britain, which will make us the world’s fifth largest economy. In view of our increasing economic might in the world, the fact that the cultural imprint of Hindus is actually decreasing, that Hinduphobia is on the rise, is absolutely shocking.
We Hindus are not an Abrahamic people. We are not bound to a Prophet or a book. We are incredibly diverse. We constantly reinvent our Hinduness by re-imagining our festivities, our cultural expression and our icons and deities. Who knows what is next in line to be labelled as a global symbol of hatred? Considering even the Left doesn’t mind getting in bed with radical right like Islamists and when it comes to Hinduphobia, fascists like Ku Klux Klan and the Left harbour exactly the same feelings. Remember, all it takes is for a smalltime journalist for a left-wing portal to stick her neck out of the window and damn you forever.
