Hindu Tolerance
©Prakash John Mascarenhas. This page is Copyright.
24th October 2003. See another relevant page here.
Are the Hindus a tolerant people? That is what they insistently and loudly claim. However, I am not a stranger to the Hindus, studying them from afar. I live among them, work among them, eat among them. I see them at first hand, and I experience them at first hand.
Like they say, I admit that the Hindus are tolerant. Like they are fond of claiming, I admit that the Hindus are a considerate people. I know - I have personally experienced this; I personally experience this every living day of my life. I am being literally marinated in their tolerance and considerateness, so much so that I am overwhelmed!
From the time I was a small child, I have been experiencing this.
From the time I was a small child, I have seen the Hindus arrogantly and inconsiderately insist on thrusting their religion down the throats of one and all at all times of the day and night.
I have been subjected to blaring loudspeakers, day in and day out. I and my family have had the good fortune to be subjected and exposed to the brain-numbing, and irrationally, obtrusive, loud, high-decibel garbage of a cacophony, at very close quartersand all at all times of the day and night.
I have, from the time I was a small child, seen my native city brought to a complete halt, and overrun by the Hindus proudly flaunting their ridiculous and grotesque idols on the way to dumping them in the nearest sewer - all this in the name of Hindu piety!
I have been subjected, not only to a zombifying cacophony at close quarters, I have been also subjected for days on end, every year, to the spectacle of barbarous scenes, inhuman, bestial, demonic dancing on the streets as these devotees accompanied their bestial idols to the sewers to be dumped. Scenes that never failed to conjure up, and realize the word-pictures of Sodom and Gommorah, and all the abominations that these illustrious cities are associated with.
From the time I was a little child, I have been subjected, willy-nilly, also to the explosion of loud crackers that have made the building in which is my home, shiver and quake - literally. But my Hindu neighbours never mind that.
They do not also mind exploding series of fire-crackers in narrow passageways or on wooden stairways, putting the building at risk of a fire or collapse. I wonder what the vibrations would be doing to the more than fifty year old structure.
From the time I was a small child, I have been witness to the humaneness and consideration of the Hindus as they lighted off tons of firecrackers during their festivals which gave off a huge quantity of noxious fumes direct into our homes. My sisters were asthmatics, but that did not ever stop our Hindu neighbours.
It is, of course, commonsense, that not all asthmatics and others who ail from some illness, are non-Hindus. There are Hindu asthmatics and Hindus too who suffer from some ailment or the other.
To be fair to the Hindus, they are considerate in their inconsiderateness - they certainly do not discriminate. They make a nuisance of themselves to one and all, even to their own co-religionists.
It does not matter that some child is preparing for his school exams. It does not matter that some family is in mourning. It does not matter that some family has some old and ailing member who cannot bear the pain of loud noises, of loud firecrackers and loud cacophonies. The Hindu, in his overpowering and insane "joy", which he insists on thrusting down the throats of one and all, as being his considerateness and tolerance, will inflict his nuisance on one and all - Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, whatever.
If the Hindu is kind and loving, tolerant and considerate of his non-Hindu neighbour in the residential districts, what shall I say of the workplace? I have experienced first-hand Hindu lovingness, consideration and tolerance even here.
I have walked out of job after job because I was required to worship the Hindu demons, to garland their idols and play "hymns" to these grotesque and bestial monsters. I have had to fight off Hindus who out of their considerateness and tolerance and lovingness, insisted on imposing their impieties upon me, a Christian.
In Bombay, the vast majority of Christians, or those who masquerade as Christians, have surrendered quietly and meekly to these blasphemies. To please their bosses, their employers and colleagues, they have betrayed Yahweh and Christ, disregarded the Commandments and have become, for all practical purposes, apostates and pagans. All this is due to Hindu lovingness and kindness and considerateness and tolerance. Amen.
There is another kind of Hindu tolerance, too, which I have first-hand experienced at work - Casteism! I live in metropolitan Bombay, not some Dehat in the Cow-Belt or in the last redoubt of the abominable Aryan racists, in the Far South. Yet, even here too, this demon is alive and well.
My "Brahmin" and "Kshatriya" colleagues, but the "Brahmins" the most, have abused and continously degraded, in front of my own eyes, and despite my protests, my Dalit co-workers, contemning and denigrating them as inferior, subhuman, on a daily basis. The law forbids all of this, but as everyone knows, in India, the law is for asses!
But it was not only the Dalits who were badworded with gusto and pleasure, but even Christians and Muslims, who were patronized as having abandoned Hinduism for "foreign" religions! All these unprovoked verbal and psychological assaults, this endearing dehumanization, is, of course, an integral part of the endearing Hindu all-lovingness, inoffensiveness, innocence, considerateness, tolerance.
Even as I found Francis the Apostate Gautier's fantastic and unbelievable paean to Hindus and Hinduism on Sify.com, at the beginning of this month, and was coming to grips with it, for the Hindus it was time for their annual "Ganpati" - a "god" that is a man-elephant transported on a mouse! Don't ask me - I have still not been able to comprehend whether it was that the elephant was mouse-sized or the mouse that was elephant-sized, not to even consider the human part of the equation!
For days on end, processions after processions of Hindus vended their way outside my windows, on the street outside, to dump this demon in the sewers. In the process, out of their tolerance and considerateness, they marinated us with their cacophonies and loud firecrackers. And, despite the law, and despite the ubiquitous presence of the police at every naka and chowk, they exploded fire crackers even at 3 am in the morning!
[Every one in Bombay knows that the police belong and exist solely to justify the Hindus, to protect them against recriminations from others. Any doubts?]
3 am! Why at 3 am? I do not know. I do not even want to know. All that I know is that my old and ailing mother, a patient of renal failure and other ailments, was awakened and in anguish, from the pain of the cacophonies and firecrackers. But, of course, this is Hindu tolerance, Hindu considerateness!
During this same "Ganpati", the local whorehouse on the way from the railway station to my home, a pub that features dancing girls in skimpy outfits, had cordoned off the sidewalk, in order to dispense free "vadapao" to these "devotees" - probably as a means of "piety." Since the sidewalk was closed, I was forced to walk on the street, besides the trucks bearing these "devotees." My mistake. These vermin, hateful scum and monsters in human form gleefully showered me with, and desecrated my office clothes with their vile powders!
I beg pardon that I am not amused. I beg pardon that I am not too impressed with Hindu considerateness and tolerance. My bones ache. They ache for the Inquisition, for Dom Vasco da Gama and Dom Affonso de Albuquerque. They ache for the opportunity to possess a machine gun, to repay the loving-kindnesses that the Hindus so lovingly force down upon me!
© Prakash John Mascarenhas
Continued...