Astral Codex Ten

Hindu

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Hindu

Article

Hindu is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between September 14, 2021 and October 04, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as ""despite everyone else calling him a Hindu fanatic""; “a train car full of Hindu pilgrims on fire”; “India is moderately Hindu”. It most often appears alongside Germany, India, Italy.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: September 14, 2021
  • Last seen: October 04, 2024

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Modi - A Political Biography
September 14, 2021 · Original source
As a teenager, Modi spontaneously adopted ascetic habits. "First he gave up eating salt, then he gave up eating chilies, and even oil." "No matter what the temperature is, he always takes baths in cold water". He read and fell in love with the works of Swami Vivekananda, although only as "intellectual admiration of an ecumenical figure who made over Hinduism for modern purposes, revealing its kinship to other faiths through his enlightened liberalism", because Narendra Modi Is Certainly Not Some Kind Of Religious Fanatic. He joined Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the aforementioned accused-of-fascism youth organization, because of "a feeling of duty and belonging in the widest sense".
For thirty years, since its independence, India had been a socialist state. Not the cool kind of socialist where you hold May Day parades and build ten zillion steel mills. The boring kind of socialist where the government makes you get lots of permits, then taxes you really heavily, and nothing really ever gets done. "Even today the Representation of the People Act requires all Indian political parties to pledge allegiance not only to the Constitution but also to socialism." The RSS and its collection of associated right-wing nationalist parties supported Hindu nationalism plus socialism. Their arch-enemy, the center-left-to-confused-mishmash Congress Party, supported secularism plus socialism. Non-socialism was off the table.
According to Modi, when he was growing up (the 1950s) there was little racial division. Hindus and Muslims lived together and socialized together; Modi's own childhood best friend was a Muslim boy from a few blocks away. He attributes the worst prejudice and division in modern Indian society to the results of this Congress push to get everyone hating each other. Implausible? Kind of. But I remember reading Salman Rushdie, an Indian Muslim (though, uh, not a very good one), who also says there was almost no racial animus in his native Kashmir when he was growing up in the 1940s. And there's a historical pattern where there's decreased ethnic strife during colonial empires (since the colonizers are firmly in control, there's not much to be won in competitions between colonized groups), and then worsening strife after decolonization (different ethnic groups fight for control, or demagogues try to win elections by fanning inter-ethnic hatred). So I am not going to reject it out of hand when Modi says things were better back in the past - though I’m also can’t ignore everyone else’s position that worsening relations are due to Modi and people like him.
Against The Cultural Christianity Argument
October 04, 2024 · Original source
But the Christian cultural package also fell apart and became the current post-Christian world. This wasn't just a one-time coincidence either. Protestantism gave way to modernism in Scandinavia, Germany, and the US. Catholicism gave way to modernism in Spain, Italy, and Latin America. Orthodoxy gave way to modernism in Greece, Eastern Europe, and Russia (with a slight Putinist resurrection-in-name-only which hardly seems to have produced a flourishing liberal society). Meanwhile in China, the local mix of Buddhism/Confucianism/Taoism gave way to modernism. In South East Asia, Buddhism gave way to modernism. Only 10% of Israeli Jews are ultra-Orthodox, and it would be lower if they didn't breed so fast. India is moderately Hindu but still noticeably modern. Even the Middle East is gradually becoming less Muslim.