Are all religion's treated equally in India???

i think theres no use of talking abt all this.............................
impt fact is when it comes to religion there has never been equality............
 
First of i hope we do not have people like u in law enforcement agencies.
If we did then all criminals would be roaming free just because of your perception.
"PERCEPTIONS ARE NOT ALWAYS THE REAL PICTURE.." definitely if we had perception like your then we can NEVER see the real picture.

The police stop only certain people. Not all vehicles are stopped.
And if they are it is there duty to check.
THERE ARE RESPONSIBLE TO PROVIDE US SECURITY??
ISN'T IT??

If u want to fight come out and support the cause....I belonging to the majority am speaking for them...and would appreciate if u accept the facts..
 
I think india is one of the most secular countries in the world. but you will always find a few extremist among the millions who bring shame to their respective profession..............
 
CAME ACROSS AN ARTICLE:


A YEAR AFTER THE killer waves hit the Indian shore killing 10,749 and leaving 5,640 missing, another wave is devastating



the poorest Christians in these parts: the tidal wave of religious discrimination.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, on top of losing their homes and livelihoods, Dalit communities are also being discriminated against in relief camps and in the distribution of aid.

Dalits were long considered Untouchables





and represent 60 per cent of India's 25 million Christians. Dalits in India are on them lowest rung of the caste system
and often face economic and social discrimination. Even after conversion to Christianity
, they are considered Untouchables and are denied any kind of social benefits or development.

Many of the 300 million Dalits who converted to Christianity have lost their rights in India. Most of those who bore the brunt of the Asian tsunami crisis in India were Dalit Christians who live by the coast and many lost their homes. Social discrimination against the lower-caste Dalits who converted to Christianity was exposed during the tsunami relief operations.

In a public tribunal held by All-India Catholic Union in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the low-caste Hindu converts to Christianity declared that the 16 million Dalit Christians in India should get their full Scheduled Caste




rights ("reservations," a form of affirmative action in education and job opportunities) enjoyed by their Dalit counterparts of other minority religions.

"It is necessary that the Christian Dalits are given the same benefits, aids and advantages, facilities and opportunities as are given to the Dalits of Hindu, Sikh and neo-Buddhist religions on the basis of the caste-to which they belonged before conversion and which they are carrying even today," the tribunal said.

The tribunal saw 573 witnesses from the southern Indian states arrive for the public hearing; it heard 20 persons and took written depositions from others. These reports will be submitted to officials in New Delhi. Roman Catholic and Charismatic/ Protestant church leaders backed the public hearings.

In some southern Indian states, Dalits are asked by members of higher castes to leave camps, while in other shelters they have been prevented from drinking from the same water tanks or eating in the same places as others. In the Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu, Dalit families tried to return to their villages, but higher castes prevented them from putting up temporary shelters on common or temple land.

Indian Christian leaders also accuse government officials of not visiting Dalit camps, failing to provide as much food and other relief materials as is being given to other communities and being reluctant to register deaths and missing people among Dalits.

John Mary, a female Dalit Christian who was one of the 573 witnesses from the southern Indian states, said her house was among those destroyed by the tsunami but only the Hindu fishing community was receiving aid from the government.

"Even the District Collector refused to receive our petitions," Ms. Mary said. "They exempted school fees of other tsunami-affected Dalits. But we were denied the same, for being a Christian and a Dalit."

Ms. Mary, 45, is knocking on doors for help. But being an Untouchable

Christian, she and hundreds of others in southern Indian states are being denied government relief assistance which is duly distributed among other communities.

Hundreds of thousands of "untouchable" Christians like Ms. Mary suffer all across India. Their fate depends on a positive move by the federal government to offer them the reservation status.

Till then, the waves of discrimination will keep all of them at bay.

Joshua Newton is an India-based writer.
 
India’s religion & politics: a troubled present

Religion and politics have been mixed together in Indian society for so long it’s senseless to talk about them separately today, said Indian journalist Vishal Arora in a presentation to the Oxford Centre’s course on Religion & Politics in Washington, D.C.

With 1.1 billion people, India is the second most populous nation and the largest democracy in the world. The population is divided among a Hindu majority of 80.4%, a Muslim minority of 13.4%, a Christian minority of 2.3%, and the remainder composed of various religions. This makes for a very volatile political environment, though it was not always this way.

“The use of religion in Indian politics can be linked to the country’s pre-independence era,” argued Arora. “It is believed that the British, who ruled India for more than 100 years around the 19th century, pitched one community against the other to weaken the freedom struggle.”

The religious divisions affect both party organization and voting habits. For Arora’s study, the key political players are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the party most closely tied to the Hindu-nationalist agenda.

Arora maintains that the Hindu nationalist agenda is not theocratic. It is more like civil religion, with an understanding that the nation-state “”belongs”to Hindus. The political problems arise out of the Hindu nationalist’s violent fringe, which rejects “encroachment” by non-Hindus.

The BJP’s primary political opponent is the Indian National Congress (also called “the Congress”), which advocates for “secularism” or the notion that all religions should be treated equally before the law. The Congress advocates a public square that functions more like the religiously “neutral” public square of Western, industrialized democracies.

India’s political-religious divides are in turn cross-cut by caste loyalties. The caste system is poorly understood outside of India, but it is primarily a cultural rather than religious phenomenon. Caste loyalties do get picked up in the religious divisions, since many from the poorest castes are more likely to convert out of Hinduism. Christianity has made big gains among the Dalits and among those formerly known as the “untouchables”.

As might be expected, the Hindu population tends to support the BJP. Likewise, the Muslim and Christian populations tend to support the Congress and its commitment to protect pluralism. With these divisions showing no signs of disappearing, separating politics from religion is nearly impossible and might not even be desirable.

“The very idea of India and its premise for pride revolve around religious issues,” noted Arora.

“Communalism” is another religious-political term that is often invoked in Indian public discourse. Arora says “communalism” is the means whereby Hindu nationalists cast Christians and Muslims as enemies of the Hindu-majority community.

“As part of its ‘communal’ agenda, the BJP allegedly organizes and incites communal violence, and raises divisive issues, such as ‘Islamic terrorism’, uniform civil code, and Christian conversions,” declared Arora.

At its worst, the “communal agenda” has resulted in the loss of lives and the destruction of homes and property among both Christians and Muslims. Arora argues that though religious violence has always been a part of Indian society, these acts surged after the BJP took political power in 1998.

The total of violent acts against Christians alone numbered approximately1000 in 2007, or almost three per day, Arora pointed out.

Arora detailed how the BJP’s rise to power has also resulted in discriminatory policy outcomes designed to slow conversions out of Hinduism. For example, Hindu Dalits, along with other “lower” castes, receive development resources from the government as well as favors in the job market. A Dalit who converts to Christianity or Islam, however, will lose those affirmative-action rights.

Of course the most important window into the religious-political tensions ought to be the news media, but Arora argues that Indian media do not always serve the public well in these matters. One issue is that Indian media do not have a religion beat, per se, and thus lack reporters with expertise. But the media often fail their publics with poor reporting and by mislabeling violent events in a way that protects the perpetrators. The media consistently label communal violence as spontaneous “riots” even when the evidence implies they were premeditated.

Arora’s presentation laid out many causes for concern, but he insists that the remedy is not to remove religion from public life. He claims that the remedy is simply to ensure that religion’s virtues come out in public life.

“After all,” Arora noted, “Mahatma Gandhi, known as the Father of the Nation, led India to win independence from the British rule through a struggle that was founded on religious beliefs.”

LINK
Summary Article: India’s religion & politics: a troubled present OCRPL
 
A secular state cannot subscribe to the concept of a majority and a minority for it is that very inequity that a secular state strives to eradicate, argues Vivek Gumaste

It had all the pretensions of an exalted moral judgment. But in reality was a politically motivated vote garnering gimmick. Analyse it further and the statement becomes an arbitrary interpretation of Indian secularism and a fallacious one at that. I am referring to the pronouncement made by our home minister at the Deoband Islamic Seminary on November 3.

At a conference organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, Chidambaram philosophised: "A nation can ignore its minorities only at its peril. The golden rule in a democracy is that it is the duty of the majority to protect the minority, be it religious, racial or linguistic. It is a self-evident rule. It is a rule that is firmly rooted in the universality of human rights."

Although Chidambaram added racial and linguistic qualifications to imbue a sense of political correctness to his remarks, it appears to have been an afterthought. There is little doubt, that the basic thrust of his statement was directed at assuaging Muslim sentiments as evidenced by his redundant resurrection of a near forgotten issue that is nearly 17 years old: the Babri Masjid demolition.

The term minority is an oxymoron in a secular setting: the two terms are incompatible. A Hindu state can have a Muslim minority and vice-versa but a secular state cannot subscribe to the concept of a majority and a minority for it is that very inequity that a secular state strives to eradicate.

Chidambaram's statement therefore stands out for two infractions both of which perpetuate a malady that we are striving to erase: one, the use of the term minority that stereotypes a section of our society and two, the ill conceived proposition that all minorities are automatically in need of protection or privileged access. These remarks by Chidambaram as well as the oft quoted contention by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that minorities have the first right on the nation's resources violate the spirit of the constitution and are diametrically opposed to the course of action advised by the Supreme Court of India as per the Constitution of India.

The Constitution is extremely clear that the ultimate goal should be the creation of an egalitarian society that harbours no division and obviates the need for protection for anyone as indicated in this Supreme Court judgment:

'The constitutional ideal, which can be gathered from the group of articles in the Constitution under chapters of fundamental rights and fundamental duties, is to create social conditions where there remains no necessity to shield or protect rights of minority or majority.

'The commission instead of encouraging claims from different communities for being added to a list of notified minorities under the Act, should suggest ways and means to help create social conditions where the list of notified minorities is gradually reduced and done away with altogether.'

SOURCE:
Aren't we all minorities, Mr Chidambaram?: Rediff.com India News
 
This is a very sensitive topic.
Hence people responding to the topic must understand the sensitivity of the topic and debate.

During the festival of Eid i left from my friends place around 12:30 am.
I was travelling on my bike.
Just a few meter away from my friends place there was a NAKABANDI.
I was stopped by the "Pandu"(Police)....i thought i am dead...was speeding b4 i came near the NAKABANDI.

He asked me to just remove my helmet and came closer to me and just asked my name.
I told him and he told me to go.
Is it because i was a Hindu??

What do i take this behavior of Police has?? They are the one's who are responsible for security.
 
I think all religions are treated equally in India. Why do you think our democracy survived so many years. There have been clashes between religions or there have been discrimination against religions only because of political motives.Not because anyone has anything against a particular religion.Politics has created these differences between people for their own benefit.
 
Varun’s hate-Muslim speech makes BJP squirm

Varun Gandhi, son of Menaka Gandhi and BJP candidate from Pilibhit, found himself at the receiving end of both his own party and the Congress for alleged communal remarks which also prompted the Election Commission to seek a report on his speeches from the Pilibhit district administration.

“This is not a hand (Congress symbol), it is the power of the lotus (BJP symbol). It will cut the head of... Jai Shri Ram,” a media report quoted Varun Gandhi (29) as telling an election meeting in Pilibhit, his attack directed at the Muslims. At another meeting, the report said, he said: “If anyone raises a finger towards Hindus or if someone thinks that Hindus are weak and leaderless, if someone thinks that these leaders lick our boots for votes, if anyone raises a finger towards Hindus, then I swear on Gita that I will cut that hand.”

The Congress, headed by Varun’s aunt Sonia Gandhi, was quick to condemn the remarks as “unethical and against law”. “It is condemnable... He (Varun) is associated with a party which has this (anti-minority) ideology and culture,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters in New Delhi.

SOURCE:
Varun’s hate-Muslim speech makes BJP squirm
 
there none the ranking whihc exists....i'll quote here what has been previously preached by great saints all thourgh their life whihc says that "none the division exists; all paths lead to the same god and hence we should rather think of him/her a unanimous entity rather than specifically creating a new one everytime as per our need."...hope i am clear with my thought process. Thnx
 
No its not the case every where in India.......... still people are here subconscious, people don`t want to think out of the box means they are treating ........... people, by keeping them in box of community.........
 
My dear friend,

My answer would be a big NO. Here religons are not treated equally. India as a nation opted to be a secular STATE at the time of freedom. But the biggest apathy is we ever became so. At one end, you will often find appeasement politics by our leaders to get the Minority vote bank..

There are three kind of states in the world -
- Those countries which give privilege to Majority...examples are rife..and i don't need to give them...like all Muslim Countries, and many Cristian countries too
- Those countries which give almost equal treatment...for namesake you can keep USA, UK and some other European nation in this list..but the reality is that even sate sponsor growth of Christianism by means of various incentives.
- Third and last...those countries which give more privilege to Minority.

Now let me tell you friends, India is the only nation in the third category giving privilege to Minority...Just see how
- In terms of Rservation..Andhra pradesh implemented Religon based reservation against the basic principles of our Constitution
- India is the only nation which give incentive for religeous visits only for a particular minority from taxpayer's money which principally against the proposition of being Secular state
- Often, majority have to bear the burnt on many issues..and those are innumerous.

As far as, the treatment you got from the police, in that their is no role of Government treatment or GOI involvement but that is the sheer consequences of events that has executed by the specific community and that compell the EXECUTORY to treat them differently atleast on SECURITY perespective.

Thanks
Sanjay
 
We say that we give preference to minority...
Or it just a showcase to show that we are equally to all Religions...

Even the way we are brought up i see many people will ask to which caste u belong first.

Specially dislikely towards a particular religion...which i do not need to mention.
 
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