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Aug 17 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Local reporting on the appearance of a bulldozer--symbolizing far-right Hindu nationalist violence against Muslims--in Edison, NJ.

Notes Amnesty International has condemned "bulldozer justice" as a human rights violation.

patch.com/new-jersey/edi… #bulldozer #EdisonNJ #HateSpeech
"The parade was attended by prominent NJ lawmakers including speaker Craig J. Coughlin (@SpeakerCoughlin), NJ-18 Assemblyman Robert Karabinchack, Sen. Partick Diegnan and the Mayors of Edison (@SamipJoshi) and Woodbridge (@mayormccormac)."

They should condemn this hateful act.
For the benefit of those lawmakers, I want to note some things here --

Hindu nationalism is a global phenomenon, with strong roots in New Jersey. In brief, it is a form of extremism that flourishes in our soil. We should call call it out and condemn it in our communities.
Hindu nationalism is a political ideology, quite distinct from Hinduism.

Leading Hindu American groups (e.g., @Hindus4HR) have already condemned this bulldozer appearance as an act of aggression and hate speech. See their letter here:

The core issue here is this -- When we see hate, intolerance, and violence celebrated in our communities what do we do about it? Do we look the other way on anti-Asian hate?

I say we call it out and condemn it. Leading Democrats in the state have spoken strongly on this issue.
Further reading --

Basic primer on Hindu nationalism: hindutvaharassmentfieldmanual.org/defininghindut…

On Hindu nationalism in the US:
religiondispatches.org/north-america-…
and
thewire.in/world/new-repo…

On the use of bulldozers in India against Muslim communities: bbc.com/news/world-asi…

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More from @AudreyTruschke

Dr. Audrey Truschke Profile picture
Aug 11
What nonsense. Manu was a misogynist through and through (and very proud of it). I'll let him speak for himself --

"Even in their own homes, a female—whether she is a child, a young woman, or an old lady—should never carry out any task independently...
"...As a child, she must remain under her father’s control; as a young woman, under her husband’s; and when her husband is dead, under her sons’. She must never seek to live independently...
"...She must never want to separate herself from her father, husband, or sons; for by separating herself from them, a woman brings disgrace on both families."

Manavadharmashastra 5.147–49 (Olivelle's translation).
Read 6 tweets
Dr. Audrey Truschke Profile picture
Aug 5
The Hindu Right is objecting to historical images of Hindu deities.

This isn't surprising, but it is appalling and, dare I say it, anti-Hindu. Here's how that works...

scroll.in/latest/1029850… #Hindutva #Hinduism
The "Hindu Right" is a set of groups and individuals aligned on political lines. Some are practicing Hindus, and some are not. They all share allegiance to a political ideology of Hindu supremacy known as Hindutva.
Hindutva thinkers have been intolerant of many Hindu ideas from the start. The godfather of Hindutva ideology, Savarkar mocked Hindu practices, such as cow veneration as lowering the standing of humanity (get angry at him, not me; I find many of Savarkar's ideas offensive).
Read 6 tweets
Dr. Audrey Truschke Profile picture
Aug 4
Another Indian human being, a Muslim, killed over a cow by Hindutva extremists.

The cow has had a long, quite variegated history in Hindu traditions in South Asia. Buckle-up for this whirlwind 🧵

thewire.in/communalism/ma… #Hindutva #cows #murder #India #History
Way back in the day, like 3,500 years ago, followers of Brahminical traditions sacrificed cows and ate beef. The Vedas--our earliest Indian texts--are quite clear on this.
Eating beef as part of religious practice continued for some time.

Then, in the first millennium CE, a new idea began to gain traction that not eating beef could be a mark of upper-caste status, especially being Brahmin. It was part of a larger set of prescriptions.
Read 11 tweets
Dr. Audrey Truschke Profile picture
Aug 2
I'm writing today about the first Indian experience with European colonization -- the Portuguese Estado da India, established in 1505 and limited to a handful of cities along India's southwestern coast.
This chapter of Indian history gets going when, as the conventional narrative goes, Vasco de Gama successfully sails around Africa and arrives in Calicut in 1498.

That's true, but here's some things I think are pretty critical to add to the story --
Once the Portuguese navigated around the Cape of Good Hope, they found themselves in a world teeming with experienced Indian Ocean traders. They used this local knowledge.

Vasco de Gama even picked up a Gujarati, in what is now Kenya, to help him sail on to Calicut.
Read 8 tweets
Dr. Audrey Truschke Profile picture
Jun 8
We lose a lot of things in history, and right now I am somewhat obsessed -- in a healthy, historian way -- with the takht-i firuza, or the so-called Turquoise Throne.

Here's the story --
Kapaya Nayaka, ruler of Telangana in the second quarter of the 14th century, commissioned the throne.

He originally intended it as a gift for the Tughluqs, who were in Daulatabad, trying to hold onto their relatively newly acquired landholdings in central and southern India.
But the Tughluqs couldn't hold on. Some of their own rebelled, and the rest tucked their tail between legs and ran back to Delhi.

The rebels established a new Indo-Persian dynasty in 1347: the Bahmanis, originally based in Gulbarga.

So, they got the throne instead.
Read 7 tweets
Dr. Audrey Truschke Profile picture
Jun 6
Folks, some resources for educating yourself about the basics of #caste, in history and today. A lot Indians probably don't need this... some other folks who follow me here appear to be in dire need of this education.

#AcademicTwitter
I have successful taught Flueckiger's "A Note on Caste," which is about 5 pages in her book Everyday Hinduism.

It covers terminology in different languages, some caste markers, class / urbanization differences, and discrimination.

google.com/books/edition/…
For your really basic, sort of statement of facts, this BBC explainer can be helpful. It doesn't connect the dots much, but it has the virtue of being succinct:

bbc.com/news/world-asi…
Read 5 tweets

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