RAJARAM EPISODE

[Arun Gupta]

Zydenbos writes :

Perhaps that overwhelming Hindu majority could consider returning all the
Jaina and Buddhist structures to their erstwhile owners first, before raving
about what the Muslims later did to brahminical structures? Why such a
partisan attitude? (Sorry if the desire for 'truth and integrity' in some of
us, which you expressly say not to believe in, asks such questions.)

My reply : your contempt for Hindus is showing.

First, being a majority is no guarantee of being oppression-free, witness
South Africa.  Injustice does not cease to be injustice because it happened
to a majority.

Second, there is no systematic Hindu ideology or program of destroying
structures of other religions, nor is such glorified anywhere.  The
historical evidence for this happening in a systematic way is thin at the
best.

Third, in no other case of real or symbolic cases of restitution or
reparation, have the victims been called on their history. Whether it be
Israelis, or many American Indian tribes or virtually anyone but the
Australian aborigines, they displaced earlier peoples; but that has never
been relevant before.

-arun gupta