Nationalism or religion?

>>"And yeah India belongs to HINDUS ... is you want proof then .......India is also known as Hindustan"

Bullshit.
Adherence to a particular religion doesn't give anyone additional rights. India doesn't belong to Hindus or Muslims. It belongs to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and whatever other religious practitioners there are in India, plus atheists and agnostics. In short-- India belongs to Indians.

Hindu was a label the Persians used to describe the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent and the region itself, not the practitioners of a certain religion. That doesn't matter, though: etymology does not determine the rights of a populace.

>>"Whenever there is a violence done against Hindus in India, the guilty are found to be linked with terrorist organisations or Indian organisations which are against Hinduism, such as Student Islamic Movement of India..."

Again, I call BS.
There is no way in hell that every act of violence against an Hindu is perpetrated by a zealot or a terrorist. I understand that they exist-- I remember 9/11-- but they aren't the only a-holes in the world. And, supposing they WERE legitimately the perpetrators of all crimes, not all zealots and terrorists are Muslims. And, by the same token, not all Muslims are terrorists and zealots.

>>How did Hindus oppressed Muslims [in Kashmir]?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuses_in_Kashmir#Indian-administered_Kashmir

The point of all this is not that all Muslims are necessarily good people, nor that all Indians are abusing Muslims. It's that using religion or nationalism as a way to justify oppression is wrong.

PS: Before the unthinking downvotes begin, let's recap my points, so you can be sure you know what you're downvoting:
-India should serve the people of India
-Religion doesn't guarantee rights
-Hindu was not originally used as a term to describe a religion
-Etymology doesn't determine rights
-Not all violence against Hindus is terrorism and zealotry
-Not all Muslims are terrorist zealots
-Using religion or nationalism as a way to justify oppression is wrong.

@clousems
Seems like I am not updated with stats.
So, yeah, Pakistan has second most Muslims.
But still it's quite surprising that India has large chunk of Muslims in the world.
Nationalism was on peak during years around Independence. It has reduced to great extent and now with many different religions and cultures, it's hardly there right now. It has got more and more divided due to being too much religious.
And yeah, I downvoted #21 cause you didn't understand hidden meaning behind my words.

@DIVYASHREE1234 said in #28:
> what problem do you have from India ??
I don't have a problem with India and as far as I know none of my current problems is from India.

However, I do have a problem with bigots, zealots, and oppressors.

I realize I never answered the question. Nationalism would be my pick. Am I biased due to the fact that I am somewhat religious? Probably.

But religion by itself is difficult to weaponize, since its more akin to a system of static ethics and morals. You also have to be able to convince people that yours is the true religion, and that's clearly not easy to do. Nationalism is easy: "The bad guys are trying to kill us! Only by working together can we beat the bad guys!" is a lot more convincing than "Look, these guys have a different perception of the afterlife than we do, so we should break the rules of our own religion regarding nonviolence to prove that our religion is right".

It should also be noted that, unlike nationalism, I typically view religion as a positive. You've got zealots, sure, but most religions teach values that are designed to help others, rather than harm.
But, as I said earlier, religion can be used to further nationalism.
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32: If there was a meaning that I didn't address, that must be one stealthy meaning, perhaps trained in the arts of ninjutsu.
It is not at all surprising that India has a large Muslim population. Islam developed fairly close to India and spread rapidly. India has a lot of people.

> But religion by itself is difficult to weaponize,
Ever heard of crusades? Of ISIS? Of states still applying the Sharia? Of Roe vs Wade rebuttal? Of Hindutva? The last one at least you must have heard of since you mentioned it yourself :)

Now I do agree and I will be the first to say that none of these things are actually driven by religion. They all are, in spirit, pretty anti-religious. They all have ulterior motives (with the possible exception of abortion ban?). But they are exactly what you said: weaponisation of religion.

Fair point. Let me rephrase that and say harder to weaponize.

Isis, Sharia, and Hindutva are all nationalism combined with religion. The Crusades as well-- even though they weren't always perpetrated by a single country, they were still fighting for Christendom as a nation*. Pure religion can indeed be weaponized, but it typically must be combined with another differentiating factor, like racism or nationalism.

Not sure what Roe v Wade has to do with this, since that's not an actual persecution, and doesn't involve de jure religion. All of the debate is a dispute regarding legal boundaries.

*Excluding the Cathar crusade. I have no idea what category that one falls under.

@Akbar2thegreat said in #32:
> @clousems
> Seems like I am not updated with stats.
> So, yeah, Pakistan has second most Muslims.
> But still it's quite surprising that India has large chunk of Muslims in the world.
> Nationalism was on peak during years around Independence. It has reduced to great extent and now with many different religions and cultures, it's hardly there right now. It has got more and more divided due to being too much religious.
> And yeah, I downvoted #21 cause you didn't understand hidden meaning behind my words.

You speak in turgid riddles then downvote anyone who is unable to penetrate the quagmire of "forget what I said...you should have known what I actually meant."?

@clousems Oppression is an unjust treatment or exercise of authority. I might be wrong because I didn't completely understand what you meant to say, but curious to ask, Misuse of authority can also be done against a religion right? so what's wrong in using religion to justify oppression?

Anyways, the wikipedia does not show a single oppression done by the Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir and this was my question, whereas it shows a series of action taken by the armed forces against the protestors/ rioters or the separatist leaders who wants to merge it to Pakistan and some unproved allegations like rape. It also showed a protest during 2008 kashmir unrest which happened because the J&k govt refused to fulfil the promise they did of giving some land for Mansarovar Rath Yatra I don't think if any Muslim or anybody was harmed in that protest.

"Whenever there is a violence done against Hindus in India, the guilty are found to be linked with terrorist organisations or Indian organisations which are against Hinduism, such as Student Islamic Movement of India..."

By this I mean that there is not a single violence done because Hindus oppressed Muslims, there is always a different reason or they don't even share it during custody, and even if they oppressed then doing violence and killing many who don't even know what they have done is not a good solution. I never said all Muslims are terrorist or zealots neither I said all violence against Hindus is terrorism, I just cited that almost every time when the guilty are arrested it is found that an organisation is giving them instructions or bringing provocative thoughts in there minds, the organisation is anti hindu sometimes or a terrorist one. You should read it whole

@clousems said in #36:
> Fair point. Let me rephrase that and say harder to weaponize.
>
> Isis, Sharia, and Hindutva are all nationalism combined with religion. The Crusades as well-- even though they weren't always perpetrated by a single country, they were still fighting for Christendom as a nation*. Pure religion can indeed be weaponized, but it typically must be combined with another differentiating factor, like racism or nationalism.
>
> Not sure what Roe v Wade has to do with this, since that's not an actual persecution, and doesn't involve de jure religion. All of the debate is a dispute regarding legal boundaries.
>
> *Excluding the Cathar crusade. I have no idea what category that one falls under.
I think the norse had a pretty cool (literally? and vicariously?) martial religious movement - it seemed to hold more sway than any form of nationhood...
As could be said of early 600-800s Islam - whose jihads certainly taught Christendom a thing or two about how to justify religious militancy in the context of an Abrahamic religion.. and many other levels.