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Indian Nationalists Forcibly Censor Orkut
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun Jun 10, 2007 12:04 AM
from the that's-one-way-to-do-it dept.
from the that's-one-way-to-do-it dept.
starkravingmad writes "The Economic Times is running a story on Hindu nationalists in India threatening to wreck internet cafes that don't block parts of Orkut that the vigilantes find offensive. From the article: '"Orkut is used by many destructive elements to spread canards about India, Hindus, our gods and cultural heritage," said Abhijit Phanse, president of Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student group. "We are gently telling Internet cafe owners that it is their responsibility to see that surfers do not use their facility to carry out such hate campaigns ... Or else, we will have to do that job for them." Last week, dozens of Shiv Sena workers vandalised some Internet centres, saying they were not stopping their customers from accessing Orkut groups involved in sending hate messages.'"
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why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just another vote bank tactic to gain the votes of the poor and middle-class by using these "campaigns".
The internet penetration is so low that nobody in India really cares about Orkut or any other site for that matter. This just a show to the larger middle-class population that they are taking steps to "preserve the culture".
Parent
Mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)
This is pure, filthy politics - the Shiv Sena and their ilk are just trying to fight their own growing irrelevance - this is just to remind the UPA government that they still have the power to make life difficult - an attempt to gain leverage on some obscure internal negotiations, perhaps.
You and I are not the intended audience for this charade - the current administration is. The poor Internet cafes are merely caught in the crossfire.
And finally to all those who lament censorship in India, please don't worry on our behalf. We Indians have seen off graver challenges to our freedoms. We maintain a level of openness unmatched in the third world, and it will take more than a few assholes like these guys to change that. We're far from perfect in this regard, of course, but we'll get by just fine.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really?
Here is an interesting interview [buffalo.edu] of Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul that points out how the "Indian Intelligentsia" (ie communist fanatics and Islamists) deliberately skew media reports against the Shiv Sena as part of a systematic campaign of hatred directed against Hindus. The Shiv Sena has done more for the emancipation of the Maharashtrian poor then any of the leftist parties who attack and villify them.
Also notable is Naipaul's famous observation in his bestseller "India, A W
Re:Mod parent up (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not denying that there is a section of the Indian polity that is often anti-hindu because of vote bank politics. But there is equally a section that is rabidly pro-hindu because of vote bank politics.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why every news story about Shiv Sena involves vandalism - they're never doing anything constructive, always destructive. It's no wonder then that they find themselves slowly losing favor in the eyes of the common man.
Parent
Re:Mod parent up (Score:4, Informative)
There is most definitely a pervasive media bias against the Shiv Sena. A bias that stems from Islamist votebank politics, motivated primarily by a sense of "My enemy's enemy is my ally" style of realpolotik and the desire of the left to ultimately eradicate all criticism from Hindus and render India a totalitarian, communist regime.
What about the thuggery and villany of the Communist Party? What about the decades of nepotism, corruption, and state-sponsored buggerry conducted by Communist bastard despots like Jyoti Basu in West Bengal? What about the thugs and murderer Communists called Naxalites inIndia's red corridor (Bengal, Bihar, orissa and northern AP)? How well does the Indian Media report about their killings, rapes, bombings and Pakistani support? No, the Indian media is only obsessed with Hindus.
How well does the media report the attacks on poor Hindus carried out by the Communist thugs in Nandigram just a few months ago? In the finest traditions fo Stalin and Mao, the CPM massacred dozens of poor Hindus in Nandigram , and the media conveniently hid the whole damn thing under the rug. Only the international media reported on it with any degree of objectivity.
Parent
Moderation abuse (Score:3, Interesting)
Regarding the "funny" moderation of the parent. There is nothing obviously funny to me about it; can we assume that:
Re:Moderation abuse (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect strongly that it's the first. Most Slashdot readers have very little clue what is going on in India, and probably didn't read past the first few sentences before modding.
The act of stridently assigning blame for political ills to Communists and Islamists (as those first few sentences do) will strike a chord with most Americans, and echoes a lot of the rhetoric (historical and modern) from their own leaders. The idea that this sort of rhetoric would be happening in very different and faraway place turns the familiarity of such statements into humour.
Hence the "funny" mod. I really think that's a much more plausible explanation than deliberately abusive modding.
Parent
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice try Osama, but the Indian Military's actions in Kashmir are a response to massive human rights violations by the Islamists against the Kashmiri Hindus, millions of them have been ethnically cleansed by Muslim militants. It is the religious intolerance and racism of the Islamists that brought their fate upon them.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't tell that the signature is quoting something very funny that someone else said (that hyperlink thing, you know), you need reading comprehension class.
> but ur comment does deserve a mod-down.
Sure, mod me down because I've hurt your feelings. If I were physically present, you'd probably be calling for my head. See where the fascist tendencies come from?
> Status of Shivaji is not going to be changed
No, but it will change thanks to neo-Nazis like the Shiv Sena and
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bhere is right, your comment and the report of RSS and Shiv Sena actions have greatly diminished my idea of Hindu's. Although I respect his position more and I assume he is a Hindu. Violence is the last resort of the incompetent and the action reported in the article clearly high light this. If they were competent they would ignore the small slights and aim for larger political goals. Instead they storm around like goods giving Hindu's a bad name.
If a comment and a report converts you into an anti-Hindu bigot then I suppose debating with you is a waste of time, but here goes. Hindus have the same rights to protect, preserve and practice their faith, culture and society as anyone else. While I do not support mindless violence, the only reason why these people have gone that far is because they have been pushed there by the Communist-dominated Indian government, polity and intelligentsia, who spend a good deal of their time and political power creati
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
but a lot of the reforms that I am aware of that effect Hindu's tend to be positive human rights related things (laws regarding the untouchables).
Quite so, but most of those reforms were done by Hindus. Hindus are hated even more because they reformed. The hatred stems from those communities and political groups who do not show the same propensity for reform as Hindus, and, instead of observing and learning from them, wind up loathing them instead. The dynamic of anti-Hindu bigotry is basically the same as that of Anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle east. Jews were/are hated primarily for their social and cultural pliability by Anti-Semites, as
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? The chappies who trashed Valentines Day couples must have been figments of the Indian media's collective imagination. Oh wait, don't tell me-- it was also part of the vast Communist-Christian-Muslim conspiracy against Hinduism. Ditto the nice people who chop off Muslims' heads en masse in riots. Oh wait, they are provoked. They have no choice but to ignore the rule of law and become animals.
With attitudes like that, you dream of becoming a world intellectu
Are you *kidding* me? (Score:5, Insightful)
These are the same who vandalize flower shops on Valentine's Day and threaten couples if they are seen doing anything they consider "obscene" in public.
Personally, I think that these guys need to have a good drink and need to get laid a little. I thought it was all about tolerance and forgiveness and all those good things? Pursuit of truth and enlightenment? No? I guess it doesn't quite have the same ring as terrorizing innocent people and flauting your ideologies about.
Jerks.
Re:Are you *kidding* me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:India is not a Western nation. (Score:5, Informative)
India may be a democracy, but it is not a Western nation. Being a democracy does not mean that a nation is a democracy. Look at Singapore.
The first sign that the AC is out of his league. Yes, India is not a perfect democracy ( who is anyway? ) but comparing it to Singapore - a small island nation whose citizens themselves consider the polls to be a sham (wiki link here [wikipedia.org]) - is a complete joke. Come on, at least India does not have a one-party government that tries to sue the opposition into oblivion.
India, as any other democracy, has its share of nutjobs. The BVS and Shiv Sena, as has been pointed out by other posters, are essentially groups of uneducated riff-raff that try to present themselves as nationalists to distinguish themselves from common thugs ( which they are in reality ). They have little influence beyond Mumbai.
In the India of today, honor killings are so widespread that it is a national pasttime. An honor killing is murdering a wife because her family has not provided sufficient dowry to the husband.
No my dear AC. Honor killings are not what you presented (link [wikipedia.org]). They are women that are killed if they are suspected to have brought dishonor to the family (unwanted pregnancy, etc.). They are extremely rare in India and are more a part of life of our friends across the border in Pakistan ( and other such Islamic societies) than ours.
What you did state about dowry killings(link [wikipedia.org]) is exaggerated. While it is true that bride burning is still present in India, due to many high-profile convictions in the recent past, it is abhorred widely and the burden of proof is on the suspected in-laws. However, unfortunately, dowry as a social phenomenon still exists in India.:(
Finally, the Indians are aggressively building nuclear weapons.
Having been attacked by 2 totalitarian neighbours (who are allied strongly with each other) 4 times in the last 50 years is not a good enough excuse ? Then, pray, why do the United States and Russia, which are far removed from their enemies, have the largest nuclear arsenals in the world ? Anyway, having nuclear devices without a proper delivery system can hardly be considered aggressive.
So, India is a democracy, but it is not a Western nation.
So, you took all this effort to point out the obvious. As we say in north India, shabaash mere puttar ! ( well done, my son !)
Coming back to the topic, as I said before, this is a very local event. The Economic Times is HQ-ed in Mumbai which is why it has received more prominence than necessary. From my personal experience, I can speak of places with worse kinds of restrictions in India. There are hamlets controlled by some political party/ religious group/ communists where information from the outside world, in any form, is not allowed unless they are filtered by the party thugs. But, I would be more worried by the fact that most of rural India, if they ever cared, would not be able to connect to orkut because of the pathetic infrastructure in those parts, rather than being banned from doing so by a collection of retards.
My INR 10
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for RSS, they were created not out of theological compulsions, but as a backlash to Islamic activism -- not so unfounded considering that ethnic group split the country.
No culture has any innate right to exist. Culture is simply a secondary trait of large groups of people. If a culture is diminishing then e
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
dear sensitive religious types (Score:5, Insightful)
i believe that your religion is strong and powerful and moving
apparently, you don't
for if you did, you would not be so threatened by such random fluff
or, alternately, if these stupid offenses affect you, your religious faith is shallow
you do not honor god/ allah/ shiva/ whomever by being moved by the most contrived of offenses that even a child could shrug off and roll his eyes at
when you do, you make a mockery of what they stand for, by showing that some of your religions followers (you) are of small easily swayed faith
you're a shame to your own religion, and your cheap outrage cheapens your religion
signed,
people with faith and maturity
Re:dear sensitive religious types (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This not only makes you less likely to take such criminal actions, but it also is likely to reduce your stress and your blood pressure, and teach you a useful skill.
Let me put it this way: I find crap like this to be offensive. But then, I usually have to look for it, and even if it was right there in my face, I only have to close that tab to make it go away. And if I really, really cared, I could go
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair here the big issue with cross in pee is that it was funded with public funds in the of art.
Precisely, please mod parent UP (Score:2)
I believe almost basically exactly the same thing as the grandparent. The question with Piss Christ, other than the potentially quite offensive art, is government funding. I can see where the artist is going with this - he wanted to demonstrate how society has treated Christ. To be quite honest I think he's got a point. But using taxpayer dollars to fund something of this sort does not strike me as the best use of our resources. But these are the kinds of situations g
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The question with Piss Christ, other than the potentially quite offensive art, is government funding.
Got any evidence for that? If the problem was public funding of art in general, then why did they wait until "Piss Christ" to make a big shitstorm about it? Would any other exhibition that was publicly funded, be just as offensive? Somehow I doubt they would be protesting a publicly funded Monet exhibition.
So, why the double standard?
some of the works produced with that government funding are very good, have a wide appeal, and would never come into existence without government support
But should "wide appeal" really be a criteria for the arts? I would have thought artistic expression would be more important. If you want wide appeal, we already have The
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll assume you missed this part of my post or, more likely, chose to ignore it. Whatever.
Anyways, why make a stink over the public funding of this piece and not others? I'd think the answer would be obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of human nature - people tend not to get worked up about things they don't perceive as important to them. If a publicly funded artist pr
Re:chocolate christ (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, they're making mockery of Jesus by tying him randomly to Easter like thatg. What's Easter got to do with Jesus anyway.
It's about bunnies, people! Next thing, they'll tie him to Christmas as well. Idiots.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Easter is a heathen celebration of fertility (as demonstrated by the large amounts of eggs and the ever-symbolic rapidly-breeding rodent) taken over by Christianity. Christmas happens to be celebrated on the Winter Solstice, even though the time of Jesus' birth is a somewhat murky matter.
In some nations, despite being overtly christian, they still call the Winter Solstice celebration by its traditional name, Yule, or variations
Forget lawsuits (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone else have to look up Orkut? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
mod up (Score:2)
At this point there is nothing the radicals wont block if they win with censoring orkut. Maybe google, myspace, livejournal and god knows what next because someone might create a group which could offend someone.
What the hell is Orkut? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get what's up with journalism these days. I even RTFA, and there was no mention of what "Orkut" is. Even if it is well-known to Indians, then couldn't the slashdot summary give a description, or at least a link to the site?
Are we just supposed to intuitively know what every obscure website on the interweb is about?
Re:What the hell is Orkut? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
You can hardly call Orkut obscure. To put it short, Orkut is the MySpace of the Third World. AFAIK, it first got popular in Brazil and now apparently in India, too. Google bought it a while ago and integrated it to its services.
I've encountered Orkut many times before, even though I
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, I like totally spaced that year.
Mirror mirror... (Score:3, Insightful)
When I observe how religious believers behave... (Score:5, Funny)
Religion gone wild ..... again.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What about sex?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe.
Send me a photo, and I'll think about it.
Let's see how brave these guys are (Score:2)
This Story Is Not About "Nationalists" (Score:3, Insightful)
Obscure words explained (Score:3, Informative)
Shiv Sena [wikipedia.org] is a Hindu fundamentalist group
Canard [wiktionary.org] presumably means a deliberately false story, in this context.
Violence, Retardation, Religion. (Score:5, Insightful)
Go ahead, god squad, mod me down, but the days when society lacks the information to see through your horse shit philosophy systems is at hand. In a few generations, only real Luddites or actual retards will worship invisible men in the sky.
Information wants to be free. And humans want information. The days of praying to "holy ghosts" and multi-armed gods of war and love are ending. I just wish they would end sooner, like before we have another catastrophic global war, or completely destroy the environment.
*sigh* Seems unlikely though.
rhY
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Specifics aside, this kind of thing is just another piece of why India (as opposed to China, Vietnam etc.) remains all talk and no action. Would you, as an American or EU business owner want to set up shop in a country where these types of things are routine events?
This is Freedom 101 - you need to put up with idiots and their opinions. India is perhaps the only recently independent nation that has even attempted to achieve an essentially open society. In India, we are free to express and actively promote our views - and that includes morons such as these RSS guys. What's not mentioned in TFA is that we also have recourse to the courts and the police, who, while ineffici
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If he did, maybe then I wouldn't have to hear him every time he thinks he can make a buck off the suffering of blacks.
Re:omfg, are you retarded? (Score:5, Insightful)
The US, whether you like it or not, is one of the few countries in the world where someone's religion dictates whether or not they can seriously run for office.
Polls have been taken on the subject and, when asked, something like 52 percent of Americans have said that they would not vote for an aethiest. That alone shows how much of a ceiling your religion (or lack thereof) poses in the US. Neither of the two main political parties would even consider nominating a non-Christian candidate because his/her religion alone would lose them the race: policies and job suitability wouldn't even factor into it.
Compare that to anywhere else in the developed world. I live in the UK, and I can tell you that we wouldn't give a fig what religion someone was before voting for or against them. We certainly wouldn't be using religious litmus tests as you do in the US.
Creationism? Abortion? Seperation of church and state but "One nation under God", and with the motto "In God we trust"?
As for politics and policies, I can give you clear examples of how serious political debate has been stifled in the US post-September 11th. Perhaps you missed the instances of TV shows being cancelled because of comments people made questioning what was going on and why it was happening? Or how any voice raised in dissent was shouted down as anti-American? Don't you remember any of that?
What was wrong with asking why the US was attacked in the first place? Are you seriously telling me that that's been questioned by anybody outside the fringes?
It's only now that this shit has been going on for years and it's cost the lives of over 3,000 US troops (hey, let's not think about the 100,000s of dead Iraqi civilians - they clearly don't count) that serious questions are given more than short shrift by the mainstream media.
(Still, though, the lunatics running the asylum see nothing wrong. And the lunatics wanting to replace them aren't any better: the eight Republican nominees were asked whether knowing what they know now if they would have done anything differently in Iraq, to which none of them had the common sense to say "yes". Even after seeing the disasterous consequences of the path that they've travelled, they'd still go down that road again.)
Elsewhere, District Attorneys are being fired for political purposes. But, of course, when it's discovered, the people in charge have "no recollection" of what happened.
I won't even talk about voter disenfranchisement. Go read up on that before you comment again though.
Of course, I'm sure you'll say that none of that counts. To be honest, if it wasn't helping to screw the rest of us, I wouldn't give a shit. But it does, so I'm telling you, as a friend, this shit is happening, and it does you no favours to be lecturing the world on religious and political freedoms when your own country's record in that area is far from perfect.
The politics of the US aren't any better than that of anywhere else. If you, like the person who I initially replied to, truly consider the US to be a place where religious and political freedoms are respected then you're looking through rose-tinted glasses.
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong and how. Just save the "retard" tag, OK?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, it's funny.... we here in Norway are a christian state, with something like 85% membership in the state church and even though actual religiousness is low, we certainly don't subscribe much to other religions. We had an ordained priest as prime minister from 1997-2000 and 2001-2005. Yet nobody has considered teaching creationism as anything but religious mythology for many, many d