Open Thread — The Archive, The Lynching, and Humanity First
A note: we are currently backtagging the entire BP archive — all 3,987 posts. The comment boards may show cross-linked notifications as the system processes older threads. We will update when complete.
Gaurav Lele’s post today asks serious questions about asymmetric condemnation. It is worth reading carefully.
But one comment in the thread deserves to be elevated. Calvin wrote:
https://article-14.com/post/even-after-their-son-was-lynched-the-khan-family-did-not-leave-the-hindu-village-3-months-later-they-fled-694f49ba99322The fact is that the people caught in TCS case will be tried and spend years in jail. That is where the fundamental difference in response comes from, we know when the perpetrators are muslim not only them but even their family will suffer, this is not guaranteed when the muslim may be the victim.
Calvin is right. And the story he linked proves it.
Suleman Khan Pathan was 20 years old. He was at a café filling out forms to become a policeman when a mob dragged him out, kidnapped him for five hours, stripped him naked and beat him to death with iron rods; including his closest friend, the person he called his jaan. Fifty villagers watched. No one intervened. His family had lived in that village for 150 years. The accused received bail because the police failed to file the chargesheet within the mandatory 90-day deadline.
He will not resurrect to bring solace to his parents.
My Urdu teacher once told me that before it was anything else, before law, before theology, before empire, Islam was about insan. Humanity.
The demographic panic that produces Love Jihad rhetoric is not a reasonable civic concern in a region of nearly 2 billion people. Historically, it is the grammar that precedes organised violence against minorities. The devastating story of Suleman Khan Pathan is where that grammar ends up.
Humanity first. Always.
I feel like there is a very specific elephant in the room that often gets overlooked in most of these discussion related to love jihad: Caste. Now to explain my point, I am just going to use a few examples from my experiences within the Kerala christian community (specifically Nazarine christian community). Basically, my grandmothers once had a male neighbor who belonged to the christian community and he was a part of prominent old money family. At some point in time, he was banished from his family for having a Hindu girlfriend. Similarly, there was a Christian women who divorced her husband and married her Muslim coworker, naturally she ended up being for religious conversion and divorce (a triple taboo).
Before we go any further, in the local Malayalam language the term used to describe religion is “മത”/”Matha” and the common term for caste is: “ജാതി”/”Jati”. Take a wonderful guess as to which word people used to describe these marriages; its sure as hell didn’t use Matha rather everyone described it as Inter-caste instead of interfaith. My basic point here would be the fact that people treat religious identity as a caste (specifically Jati) identity and by extension treat interfaith marriage as Inter-caste marriages.
Now, I am further continue my babbling further by referring to everyone’s “favorite” text: the Manusmriti. According to ye old Manu, intermarriage within the same Varna status is considered to be the most favorable form of marriage, however inter Varna marriages are acceptable as long as it is an Anuloma union. What is an Anuloma union; it is the intermarriage between a male of higher standing/varna marrying a women of low standing/Varna, while the reverse of this is called Patriloma and it is heavily condemned. For example, a Namboori Brahmin can marry an Ezhava (shudra under traditional Varna) and this union produces the Varriar Brahmins, who were allowed to live temples with a degraded status. This is an example of Anuloma.
Overtime the system of Varna degraded as it required enforcement by the state to function and the 12th century incursions broke down the Varna system, while the system of hypergamy centered around Jati emerged as the dominant social organization pathway. Many rules associated with Varna as purity rules, out-casting, Anuloma and Patriloma was transplanted onto Jati.The rules relating to Jati was applied across all religious groups, for example, when some rajput converted to Islam, they were treated as a separate Sub-Jati under the broader Rajput Jati identity. Distinct from the Hindu groups, but still posses the same origin (like the Varrier caste from before).
All of these complications make interfaith marriage less about religion and more about caste/Jati relations. Breaking the unspoken interfaith rules are the same as breaking caste rules, worthy of punishment from society eyes if they are broken by someone irrespective of friendship, kinship or history. The demography concerns are added on top of this dynamic, kinda like “what will we do if their caste (islamic jati) grows in numbers, what will happen to our caste (Yadav or some other Hindu caste)” mentality. I haven’t even talked about inter-religious inter-caste conflict between two different jati that each follow a different religion or the intersection between Jati and racial identity. The biggest issue is that most people seem to understand how to interact without the medium of caste. Conversation for another time.
P.S. This is how I see things from my perspective and readings of multiple studies as well as personal experience, it can be flawed and contradicted. I might have got a few things wrong.
wow this is an incredible comments; we’re so impressed with the quality of the new comments.
Agree so much with what you have described and aligns with my experiences as well. The muslim category is operatively a caste in rural karnataka, and if you ask someone what communities are in their village, they will list muslim as if its just another jati. On occasion a broader jati has a muslim group that has forked out, this will add further nuance, but the overriding social framework is the jati framework. Certain hindu jatis will socialize more freely with the muslims than with the more ritually impure dalits.
disagree with both Fly Die and Girmit below. There isn’t an organized campaign by boys and broader community among Hindu Jatis to go around actively trying to marry girls from other castes to increase their numbers and acquire more resources.
That’s a fair point, but my sense is that the love jihad stuff is not typical of the rural context I was referencing and starts at the tier-2 town echelon. It takes a certain level of education, urdu-ification, burqa-ization of the household to even attempt it.
I mean I have seen both Muslim and Hindus accuse one another of trying to ensnare the others women into interfaith marriages. I have also seen an upper-caste individual complain about the higher fertility rate among low caste groups. Quantitatively, both inter-faith and inter caste marriages form a lower part of the population with it being 2% (interfaith) and 9.9% (inter-caste). Those numbers include Hindu-Sikh, Hindu-Christian marriages within the same caste/tribe that make up the majority. For inter caste marriage number include relationships between members of two different lower caste groups.
Also, I have literally heard of lower caste explicitly desiring to marry women from upper caste background due to social status reasons (which has its own problematic issues nonetheless). There was even a man from the Nair sub caste who once said that his family doesn’t want him to marry within their own sub caste since they believe that other members within their own sub caste were not upper caste. While most traditional upper caste Nair groups consider them to lower caste and not a Nair caste. It was very confusing how things went. All of this is what I have personally seen or heard, there might other views and my perspective is mainly limited to the general Kerala rural environment, so there is possibility for variation.
Nonetheless, the general trend appears to favor Endogamy within groups followed by marriage to adjacent and higher caste groups. Things like Love Jihad or Bhagwan Trap or whatever, may or may not happens, but these interfaith (and caste) relations are uncommon, unaccepted or are confined to adjacent caste groups from different religions. Plus most people have arranged marriages most often and love marriages remain within caste/religious groupings.
You haven’t come shown a single case of organized community attempts by Hindus to target other castes or communities. You are using individual cases to white wash an organized attempt. Came across this apparently 2023 case in Pune of a hindu girl being abducted and held for 4 years and one one from he “minority” community reporting it https://x.com/total_woke_/status/2044768180477059092.
I am not trying mean or dismissive here, but there are a few issues with your argument. Firstly, the source you provided was a tweet made by a random account on twitter, who for some ungodly reason casually forgot to block out the victim’s face. Secondly, nothing about this seems to indicate religion was a major factor. An adult man kidnapped a teenage girl (who he promised to marry? that’s what the Opindia article said), did sexual violence against her, force ably married her and may or may not have forced here into prostitution. Neither the victim nor her relatives that saved her seem to suggest religion played a significant role here; they mostly talked about the abuse. The journals, politicians and social media users seem to be implying the “love jihad” bit. How would this be any different from the groom kidnapping in Bihar or sexual violence against women in general.
Also, I have seen your Islamic counterpart making the reverse claim about Hindu luring Muslim women way.
How are these claims any different from these ones being made here. I find both to be dubious at best, where a crime happened but the people involved came from different religions. None of which resolves my main point: it is statistically rare for people of different caste much less religions to even interact with each other on an average day.
I feel like its better to end this conversations (I don’t mean this an insult) since I don’t you will be able to convince me of your point and I can’t convince you of my point. We are just going to have a pointless without any fruitful conclusion.
First of all may he rest in peace. I was not even aware of the case & regarding police lapses i see it as a failure of Indian state to employ enough police according to proportion of people giving police excuses to deny it’s reponsibility {be it rich vs poor or communal clashes or general tendency to avoid even writing FIR’s}.
// The demographic panic //
Considering how Indian state has not done even little bit to address this insecurity regarding Abrahamic religions since independence to see this panic would be to to miss wood for the trees. P.S. Similar denial to Sikhs fanned the flames of Khalistan.
Khalistan info. source – https://youtu.be/avSzBeovf7A
I see this as a result of denial of agency to Hindus in the region since as state took complete control from Hindus including their religious institutions into it’s centralized formulation as it came into being after partition & independence.
All communities when lack institutional support always develop such insecurities & violence follows. This is precisely why i supported NRC & CAA as it would have added a visible filter into institutional structure to address some of the insecurities of Hindus & Indic communities & advocate for honest dialogue where the violent past is the best way to reconcile for the future but sadly left completely misses the idea of honesty & paints it as demand for communal continuity.
Demographics is not Destiny; even if we concede the Abrahamic Faiths becoming 20% (and Arabs 20% in Israel) it hasn’t precluded the rise of Trump, Modi & Nethanyahu
Last time Muslim population exceeded 20% of a state in the subcontinent, we had an epoch making event that led to 3 modern states and millions of lives lost. Unreasonable to not expect anxiety when we find ourselves in the same position 3 generations later especially when the elite of that so-called minority group has done no introspection of its own actions.
The fraction of hindu temples that are under government nominated boards can only be run by hindus, and by and large the instances where people of other religions or who may be partial to other religions get into thr governing or employment are exceptions that are dealt with promptly
As far as this anxiety is concerned, the primary concern is a lack of understanding of the lived reality of various communities in India which is widespread amongst all religions or castes. We dont know about each other beyond positive or negative stereotypes
This is why even in states where the NRC was done under the supreme court, the communal acrimony has only gotten worse, because the result were not as per the expectations stereotypes created. I dont think this exercise will be the filter you expect it to be.
I have no illusions regarding NRC but the process would have atleast gave some semblance of balance to the prevailing insecurities.
// The fraction of hindu temples that are under government nominated boards can only be run by hindus, and by and large the instances where people of other religions or who may be partial to other religions get into thr governing or employment are exceptions that are dealt with promptly //
Then i suppose you would have no problem is most important regions & institutions of Abrahamic faiths were to be controlled by non-Abrahamic groups like in constinopole, Jerusalem, Venice etc. ? I hate when people act naive abt double standard issues.
// We dont know about each other beyond positive or negative stereotypes //
This overlooks the sources which show deep knowledge of diff. regions & obviously most people worked with stereotypes historically but history also highlights constant breaking of suppossed taboos.
// Demographics is not Destiny; even if we concede the Abrahamic Faiths becoming 20% (and Arabs 20% in Israel) it hasn’t precluded the rise of Trump, Modi & Nethanyahu //
Check the Khalistan video & note how Indian state’s approach with naive geopolitial understanding as well as hiding behind secularism led to Khalistan movement. My point is until & unless state is not actively engaged with majority {political or religious} this always leads to extremes.
Israel has almost complete control of national standards i.e. the standards applied in it do not undermine Torah’s principles, similar to Islamic regions & supposedly Enlightened West which favors Christianity indirectly while India is the only state which actively undermines it’s own indegenous institutions, it’s experience {in name of universality} & social evolution in the name of reform. Point being when state is aligned with majority it helps both majorities as well as minorities {as your own example suggests}.
Pew report {highlighting how all nations favor religions} – https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/
//Then i suppose you would have no problem is most important regions & institutions of Abrahamic faiths were to be controlled by non-Abrahamic groups like in constinopole, Jerusalem, Venice etc. ? I hate when people act naive abt double standard issues.//
I mean waqf boards that control a large amount of muslim community exist. Hindus can be nominated to it and even before these amendments, Smriti Irani was the head of delhi waqf board. Weird examples also because at least the hagia Sophia is a mosque.
Furthermore have you actually read the laws governing the temple management boards? The very first line is that only hindus can sit on it. Can you give actual examples where this has been breached even in non bjp states?
//I have no illusions regarding NRC but the process would have atleast gave some semblance of balance to the prevailing insecurities//
So why has this not happened in Assam though? If anything the insecurities have only increased after the NRC especially since the number were not what people were led to believe? Can you explain this please?
//Israel has almost complete control of national standards i.e. the standards applied in it do not undermine Torah’s principles, similar to Islamic regions & supposedly Enlightened West which favors Christianity indirectly while India is the only state which actively undermines it’s own indegenous institutions, it’s experience {in name of universality} & social evolution in the name of reform. Point being when state is aligned with majority it helps both majorities as well as minorities {as your own example suggests}.//
Most of the power in India is in hands of its majority demographics group. Even the temple management thing you brought up does not undermine this. You are aware that most money these temples recieves goes to support other temples thst dont get as much or supporting charities right?
Furthermore, the whole NRC process disproportionately negatively affects bengali muslims, and many anti conversion laws put more scrutiny on conversion outside of Hinduism while freely allowing conversions within it. Plus there is no opposition or scrutiny towards gurukuls unlike madrassas or when government gives hindu priests salary.
Can you give specific examples because I cant think of anything that the Indian state has done or does thst undermine Hinduism, the oppositie infact.
//Check the Khalistan video & note how Indian state’s approach with naive geopolitial understanding as well as hiding behind secularism led to Khalistan movement. My point is until & unless state is not actively engaged with majority {political or religious} this always leads to extremes.//
This is a vast oversimplification. If the Indian state wss hiding behind secularism why did the army under Indiria Gandhis order mind you storm the golden temple? Where was the state when Sikhs were being killed in delhi?
Kindly do not start the equivalence between the incidences.
Nashik is a grooming case almost unheard-of in India , that too in reputed Corporate set up.
The other is a murder, yes heinous , but is in a different class. No equivalence please.
?
I am not making any equivalence. One does not undermine, justify or normalize the other.
In India many barriers to mixing including Religion Caste.
The Government of India entrenches those barrier by doing Caste Census. Worse if one converts you lose affirmative action benefits.
My opinion is that the elites want these barriers, so they have vote blocks
We had similar issues is SL specially among the SL Tamils. Tamil politicians did not want Tamils learning Sinhalese. Then the govt made Sinhalese and Tamil compulsory. Mixing ensured
// My opinion is that the elites want these barriers, so they have vote blocks //
Completely agree on this point.
Hey XTM, would it be possible for you to increase the number of entries in the “Recent Comments” section to, perhaps, 20/25 from the current 10? That would easen following up on the most recent comment threads across multiple posts. Thanks!
Of course shall do that buddy. 25 enough or more.
We love feedback on the site btw; is a huge motivator
On a different note, I came across this article on Instagram today:
“Asha Bhosle saw queer Indian men when no one else did ”
By Arman Khan
https://www.vogue.in/content/asha-bhosle-saw-the-queer-man-in-me-when-no-one-else-did