Being seduced by Hindu Nationalism without being aware of it is a huge threat that young Hindus face today, said Dr. Dibyesh Anand while delivering a lecture on ‘The Myth of Tolerant Hindus’ on January 6 in connection with the Centre for Integrated Studies (CIS) Lecture Series.
Dibyesh, who is a Reader in International Relations at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at University of Westminister, London, also emphasized that the attempt of Hindu Nationalists to make Muslims live on Hindu terms is against the spirit of democracy. The day differences become undesirable, democracy comes under serious threat.
The speaker, who has authored a Routledge publication called ‘Tibet: A victim of geo politics,’ said that an attempt to study Gujarat riots led him almost naturally to Hindu Nationalism. Use of identity politics by creating a Hindu Self and a Muslim Other and an extreme reductionist approach of representing all Muslims in a stereotype of terrorism prove that any theory of ‘tolerant extremist Hindus’ is farcical. “Coining terms like ‘Love Jihad’ for inter-religion marriages does not romanticize their cause at all,” he said. He also confidently mentioned about the Gujarat riots that any violence of such scale is impossible without state complicity.
While concluding, he said that democracy is not about majority rule, but protection of dissent and minority. Dr. Sheela Prasad led the discussion that followed.
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