BC INDIA
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Hindutva does not belong to Modi nor his party, it belongs to the people as a unifying, decolonial ideology similar to pan-Africanism or Yugoslavism.

His own brand of "positive secularism" is even milder - deepening special rights and welfare schemes for religious minorities.

 After the disbanding of the Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh, Hindutva as a political ideology does not even exist, except as a bogeyman in the minds of the Anglophone elite.

Even the BJP gave up Hindutva for civic nationalism, Gandhian socialism, and positive secularism in 1980s.
Under Modi, there has been compete policy continuity on minority rights and welfare from the Congress era, with little to no "Hindutva agenda" coming to see the light of day.

The most radical policy they can dream of is religion-neutral laws and equal rights for equal citizens.
Hindutva was essential in forming a national consciousness, but was abandoned with time. The modern BJP refuses to self-identify as a Hindutva movement, adopting moderates like Sardar Patel, Deendayal Upadhyay, and JP Narayan as their icons, rather than Savarkar or the Mahasabha.
When they say Hindu Rashtra, all they mean is an "Indic polity".

When British India was partitioned into a Muslim homeland and a Dharmic homeland, one state became a 'Ghazi' garrison state, and one the successor state to the Indic civilisation.

https://t.co/Jiy4gfJ6sD
"The RSS has never said it wants to create a Hindu State. Rashtra is based on a rich heritage of memories and a keen desire to live together. Ernest Renan had once pointed out that people are a nation because they want to be a nation, which is “a soul, a spiritual principle”.
"Speaking the same language or belonging to the same ethnic group does not constitute a nation, but having accomplished great things in the past and wishing to accomplish them again in future ... Those who are co-travellers in this journey are considered as Hindu by the RSS."
"State, on the other hand, is an entirely political construct with elements of land, people, government and sovereignty, and abides by a Constitution. Even when there was no unified Indian State as it exists today, there existed a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ that kept its people together."
"Speaking at the same programme in New Delhi, Sarsanghchalak Bhagwat said that the RSS considers as its own even those who do not call themselves Hindus but consider themselves Indians."
Long after its natural death, Hindutva was revived as a bogeyman by the Congress-CPI ecosystem to discredit indigenous political philosophies.

That backfired when voters believed this and voted for Modi, thinking he was going to be the "Hindu nationalist" he was portrayed as.
What did he do with this mandate? 40% of his welfare schemes go to minorities, he actively works with religious NGOs like the Zakat Foundation to increase Muslim representation in the police and bureaucracy to "build a sense of trust in state institutions among the community".
Unlike Western liberal icons like Macron, he never uses the terms 'Islamist terrorism' or 'jihadism', and rather hosted the World Sufi Conference and waxed lyrical about "the message of the Quran" and how "terrorism cannot be tied to a religion".

https://t.co/yLPQf0AXSR
If a Western leader tried to increase the proportion of Muslims in the police and bureaucracy on these lines, or gave conciliatory speeches like this, they would be hounded out of politics by the media as a "loony left extremist" or "terrorist sympathiser" like Jeremy Corbyn was.
If they really wanted to, a Hindutva party would try to adapt and adopt Article 9 of Sri Lanka's Constitution, scrap the Places of Worship Act, Minority Ministry, religious subsidies.

The centre-left party in power prefers to draft religion-neutral laws and hope for the best.
Parties aside, classical Hindutva is a decolonial foundation to build legitimacy to India's right to exist as a sovereign nation.

Inspired by Italian unification, similar to pan-Africanism, and compatible with a range of political ideologies once such sovereignty is established.
Modern Hindutva does not exist in parliament, only in elections.

Some use it as a bogeyman to discredit indigenous knowledge systems.

Others use it for their election-winning machine, where right-wing voters go in, and left-wing policy comes out, and a bit of steam is released.
For a bit of historical context, let's see the negotiations around Partition in 1946.

The Hindu Mahasabha did not fight for establishing Hindu Rashtra but to defend an undivided India, with one-citizen-one-vote instead of separate electorates, and with "maximum" minority rights.
Whereas the only supremacist, exclusionist voice which consistently refused to acknowledge Indian nationhood or sovereignty as legitimate, was that of Jinnah's Muslim League.

Who insisted on a division between Pakistan ("land of the pure") and Hindustan ("land of the Hindus").

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@hathyogi31
#Thread on "Kashi (Varanasi), From Birth to Death and Death to Moksha."

Located on the left bank of the Ganga, Varanasi is one of the 7 holy cities of the Hindus. According to the Vamana Purana, two rivers named Varuna and Assi originated since the beginning of the timei

The name Varanasi originates from the two tributaries of the Ganges, the Varuna &the Assi, which flows at its northern & southern boundaries. The land lying between them was named 'Varanasi'. Its original name was derived from the word 'Kashi', 'Kaasha', which means brightness.

By the way, kashi is mentioned in many Vedic literatures. Kaushitaki Upanishad mentioned about the places like Kashyas and Videhas. Ajatashatru has been declared as the ruler of Kashi or Videha in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Apart from this, Kashi &Videha are also mentioned in

Shankhayan & Boudhayan Srotasutra.

It also mentions about Kashi joining the Kosala after the independent state got destroyed. It is often referred as adjectives such as 'city of temples', 'religious capital of India', 'city of Shiva', 'city of lamps', 'city of knowledge' etc.

Famous American writer Mark Twain writes: " banaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”

In the Middle Ages it was a part of the Kannauj kingdom and later it was ruled by Pala kings of Bengal.
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Female athletes are still subjected to the equivalent of a sex test, based on whether they appear feminine.


Dutee Chand in her successful appeal against the validity of the IAAF’s hyperandrogegism regulations, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) originally began investigating her after complaints that she “ran like a

Chand was banned in 2014 after the @WorldAthletics decided that her androgen (testosterone) levels were above the 10 nmol/L permitted by the IAAF’s hyperandrogegism regulations, resulting in her missing the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Androgens, including testosterone, are naturally produced in significant – but varying – levels by both men and women.

Endocrine profiles in 693 elite athletes in the post-competition setting’, found that 16.5% of the ‘male’ athletes had low testosterone levels, and 13.7% of the ‘females’ had high testosterone levels, ‘with complete overlap between the
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Folks. Ever heard of a temple with a Shiva Lingam so tall that it is worshipped on two floors?
And a Shaktipeeth where the Goddess so furious that Adi Sankaracharya changed her pose to face away from devotees?

No? A thread on the Draksharamam Bhimeswara Manikyamba Temple


Draksharamam is a quaint little town located in the Godavari Delta, in the East Godavari district of Andhra. This otherwise sleepy little place hosts a temple with a history as old as our civilisation itself. Shiva worshipped as Bheemeswara and Parvati worshipped as Manikyamba.


Legend has it that the Daksha Yagnya took place here, where Sati immolated herself after being insulted by her father, and the rampage by Lord Virabhadra ensued on the orders of an enraged Shiva.
Thus the name for the town as Draksharamam.


Another version for the name is the numerous grape plantations which proliferated in the area during ancient times. So the word "Draksha" (Sanskrit and Telugu for grapes) was used to christen the town.

Draksharama is a part of the legendary Pancha Rama Kshetras. These are the five holy places where the Shiva Lingam worn by the demon Tarakasura was broken and installed in temples by Lord Karthikeya. Only after the ShivLing broke, could Karthikeya slay Tarakasura.
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Amit Schandillia
Amit Schandillia
@Schandillia
[QT: INDIA, THE GOLD STANDARD OF CLASS]
1/28
Some time last week, an American shared this on LinkedIn. A neutral (note the 3rd-person verbiage) observation of the goings-on in our capital with a legit @AP thumbnail. Of course India had to descend on him like an avalanche of poop.


2/28
This is a quick thread of some of the worst responses out there, just to illustrate the obvious, which in one way makes the exercise pointless. At the same time, such loss of a demography's class must never be out of the spotlight. So am doing it anyway.

3/28
Just before we start, here's a small bummer: I've redacted all identifying information even though it's all in public domain. This is to avoid any inadvertent code violation; Twitter doesn't seem to like doxing and neither do I.

So here we go.

4/28
1. Corporate affairs general manager at a Japanese auto heavyweight.
2. DB architect with a Silicon Valley giant. Sum total of his argument? Farmer leaders lean Left. Interestingly, also disses the IAC shindig the biggest benefactor of which was the party in power today.


5/28
Here's another, this time no less than the COO of one of the biggest electronics retail chains in India. From his English, to his demeanor, to his self-entitlement, tweet naming one thing that isn't oozing class.
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Shubham Sharma
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Thread on Evolution of Sino-India Border

I expect followers not to tag official govt handles and create unnecessary hype.

This thread includes generic information of the border post 1987 as the longitude-latitude wise information is only available with Army and not in public domain. Post 1987 information is taken from satellite imageries, generic archive records available in public domain.

The modern nation states are based on shared idea of their definition, some might be synthetic but they all are based on a common definition. Territorially, China considers itself as a nation state having same borders as that of Qing Dynasty

while India considers itself as a civilizational state between Himalyas and Indian Ocean whose boundary is based on long customs and latest treaties inherited by Dogras,Hill states,Sikkim,Bhutan Kingdom and British India on one side and the Tibetian Empire.

which was nominally independent under Qing and the Qing had authorized them to have treaties which they refused by 1920s.
Lets first go back to 2 main great Chinese extents-
Ming Dynasty with independent Tibet 1368-1644
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Dad was unmoved and told the guy to stop arguing with him.

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It was really hard to not jump in and say, "Sounds like you guys are going to have a fun meal tomorrow!" so they could unite in hatred against me, the outsider, and stop squabbling. Instead I exchanged glances with a nearby fellow lady patron, who also emotionally ate a cookie.

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