Julia Robert's Hinduism : We don't need to feel guilty about

This was sent to Bangalore Mirror under ' Reader's feedback ' in response to an article in BM Dt Aug 8 , 2010 by Aseem Chhabra on Julia Robert's new found ( reported ) love for Hinduism .  

The tone of the article appeared   ' apologetic  ' , dismissive of  any    ' feel good '  factor  --  implying Hindus to feel guilty if they feel good about the news --- quite in line with political climate in our country .

I felt it was unwarranted & petty , hence my feedback . This was published in BM on Aug 15 , 2010 .

 

I read the article in today's BM by Aseem Chhabra .

In a literary sense , it's a neatly written article & I've no criticism on its content .

However I do have some comments on the tone / tenor behind the article ; even if it may be implied & not by intent .

 

I'm a little curious on what prompted Mr Chhabra to quickly pen down on a seemingly small news item which generally would pass off without much notice or evoking response .

 

To me it connects with a wider sense of ' Guilt of existence ' & a  feeling of      ' Being apologetic about being a Hindu ' ... which exists subliminally anong a large majority of urban Hindus ... primarily as a sinister side effect of a well coordinated  ' Vote bank politics ' cultivated in this country post independence by Congress , Left & some regional political parties .

While demoralising Hindus may not be staring intent of these political parties ; their relentless religiously discriminatory postures have had disastrous effect on Hindu psyche , to the extent that an average Hindu feels ashamed / shy of sapeking anything which can be remotely sound as taking pride in religion or taking up rightful issues on discrimination .... you can see examples abound in day-day media .e.g. It's against freedom of expression to condemn M F Hussain's on intent work humiliating Hindu deities ; but it's O K for a demand by a minister in ( UP ) state cabinet to behead Danish cartoonist on prophet's cartoon , to go by without a murmur of protect by any one upholding freedom . It's also O K to drive off Taslima Nasreen from a ' Democratic ' . 'Secular ' country on behest of some religious fundamentalists .
Point I'm making here is a feel of sadness to note that  a Hindu today ( Aseem Chhabra in this case ) is so conditioned to only accept heaps of insult , humiliation & bad PR that any news which may remotely seem good , let alone flattering , he feels very uneasy & is psychologically conditioned to quickly stand up in disbelief & do his best to negate / erase any positive ' feel good ' impression it may have on our minds .

I see this attempt ( in intent ) as a psychological backdrop in this article , which is really disturbing . J Robert's news ( even if it's a publicity stunt ... difficult to believe this , since audience to an English film in India in itself being limited , evoking Hindu feels is yet a small fraction of it ) is such a small value item it'd would have generally passed off without much notice , had it not been to appear with a positive feel for Hindus .

If it would've been a news in favour of other religion .. say Islam , either there would have been no article , or if any Muslim would have written an article  building on the feel to establish how the religion is egalitarian or profound or in the least there would be nothing in the article to express disbelief or effort to neutralise any possible positive feel about the religion .

This is the most amusing ( & saddening ) feel about a subconscious ' guilt of existence ' feel post independence political circumstances in India have succeeded to do Hindus  !
Thanks very much for your patience in reading this .