Black lives matter:- The world needs All lives matter.
Why is it “black lives matter” and not “all lives matter”?
For the past few weeks, the US is witnessing widespread protests after the killing of an African-American man, George Floyd, who died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck.
The video of the officer kneeling on the man's neck went viral on social media. People in thousands took on the streets and protested against the police brutality.
In many major cities across the world, people started protesting to demand end racism. Many Indian entertainers expressed their concern over this.
People have been changing their DP’s in support of black lives matter.
One should definitely stand against injustice. The world is made for everyone and there is no place for racism on the basis of color or religion.
But if one tries to further go deep into the issue of racism we may find many instances where people of other ethnicities were attacked too.
But why the social media world, the proprietor of the justice hesitate to protest when a person of Hindu ethnicity is targeted?
Why everyone wants to jump in whenever a black is targeted?
Maybe the degree of political propaganda is more on such incidents.
Maybe there are no such incidents against Hindus in the US?
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people”- Martin Luther King Jr.
Let us discuss a few of the incidents where people of Indian origin were targeted.
- Feb 2015- Indian-American Amit Patel shot dead in the US (Source ET)
- Feb 2015- Indian origin Sureshbhai Patel, Grandfather Partially Paralyzed by Cop. (Source-NBCN)
- Feb 2019-Hindu temple vandalized in the US in hate crime (Source ET)
- Sep 2019-Indian-American police officer killed in the US(Source TOI)
- Nov 2019- Indian graduate student in California shot dead on Thanksgiving Day (Source India abroad)
- Feb 2020-California store clerk fatally shot(Source India abroad)
Now let us see how academia in the US has been systematically tarnishing the Hindu philosophy and its culture.
Atrocity literature- In “Breaking India”, Rajiv Malhotra describes Atrocity Literature as a “technical term referring to literature generated by Western interests with the explicit goal to show the target non-Western culture is committing atrocities on its own people, and hence in need of Western intervention”
In a simpler term, it can be referred to as A western way of dismantling Hinduism.
Atrocity Literature can be used to demonize any particular community as being oppressive and discriminative towards another community.
Narratives being created around Indic practices like Jallikattu, Kerala Temple elephants, Holi, Deepavali, Dahi Handi, Ganesh Chaturthi, Sabarimala, etc. all fall under the category of Atrocity Literature.
Let us understand this with an example. Suppose in a city there are 100k people living and it is but obvious that it will consist of people of different ethnicity. If the pre-decided narrative is to demonize X men against Y in that city, this is how the narrative will be set.
Obviously there will be a few murders where X men kill Y and vice versa. Such news gets to the media headlines immediately and will be presented as X men are oppressing Y.
The narrative of X oppressing Y gets established in the minds of the people over a period of time because of media propaganda. And even the judgment discredits any such theory but it will not get any coverage.
Hindu gurus as faculty in universities- Suppose a person is practicing some kind of principles into his life and have been considered as a spiritual authority in that subject matter.
But such gurus will not be invited into universities to teach on that topic rather someone who has read few books here and there is considered eligible just because they satisfy the western standard of qualification.
How can a person who is not living by what he/she is teaching can be considered a qualified individual?
In many Universities across the US, the people who are considered an authority on subjects matters related to Hinduism are the ones who have never read the original texts and even practice the original culture aspects of Hinduism.
- Educational material in the US academia is used to teach that Hinduism focuses on caste, idol worship, lack of social values among Hindus, and other negative portrayals.
- Teaching grants to train secondary school teachers on religious pluralism has been used to develop material that portrays Rama as ‘oppressing’ women and lower castes.
- Minimal coverage is given to the positive contributions by India’s civilization to mathematics, science, medicine, metallurgy, linguistics, and logic.
Why the world is ignoring this? When there is a continuous false narrative being run against a particular community what will you expect the world to react with people of such a community?
Today even some of the Hindu kids and adults in America are apologetic about their religion, generally preferring to distance themselves from it and keep quiet about it. Why so?
Why there is a need to be apologetic about being a Hindu? Let me tell you.
Now if someone is raised in a secular modern education system where all the textbooks speak of Hinduism being some old primitive form of illogical practice what can you expect from a person coming out of such a system?
Now to take this whole system down may take us many decades but what should we be doing till then? Sit and wait for the system to change?
Is it not the time for us (Hindus) to come out of our comfort zone and let our voices be heard strongly? Where is the spirit of sacrifice gone?
Whether one is a mother, father, brother, sister, or teacher our role should be to educate the current and upcoming generation with the actual knowledge of Hinduism, and before doing that we must put those principles into practice in our life first.
“Actions speak louder than words”
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