Friends, elated to announce that my second book Land of the Eastern Light: Assam Before the Ahoms published by @HarperCollinsIN is out for preorders!
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Some peoples in circles of RWs, Indic’s, & much of the Non-left, do not support eachother. They are jealous of other's work. They don't even help to promote fellows work.
Met the real “trads” today, in the real world. And yes, they’re from “all castes.” No bar.
The lil’ brahmacharis got quite annoyed when I asked whether only Brahmins were allowed to study here.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the Arya Samajis running this Vedic Gurukul and Goshala, right in the region where the Pandav-Kuru princes once received their tutelage under Guru Drona, thousands of years ago. A few of them also know how to fire a ‘shabdbhedi baan’. The place even offers a MA in Sanskrit.
It’s not in a great state infrastructure wise, and hardly 65-70 students are enrolled here.
It does not work like that. The world is not going to bend to your unreasonable religious rules. BAPS has this issue, and I have told members of BAPS in North America umpteen times, off the record. They do a ton of good work for the community. But this rule of theirs is a problem.
BAPS approached the Eiffel Tower authorities well in advance, requesting an exclusive time slot during the very early hours of public access and clearly communicating its requirements beforehand. The authorities were entirely free to accept or decline the request. They chose to
This has become a major political controversy in France with statements from top political leaders, including Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella from the Far Right, decrying this assault on French laws and values.
The Mayor of Paris is a socialist and presidential election fever is building up in France.
This issue of not treating men and women as equals cannot be ignored by politicians and the media.
This incident has got played up far more than it deserves. But then, since this involves the Eiffel Tower, the most visited monument in the world, and it was shut for one day because of strike by women employees in protest, this was bound to happen.
This incident will provide grist to the mill of anti-Hindu campaigns in the West.
BAPS people don’t understand the price of blood paid by the Hindus of France. 🕉️🇫🇷
They think they can damage 40 years of struggle just to flex.
Let me tell you why the Hindus of France were the most hardcore at protecting Dharma.
98 – We have heroin-addicts over-dosing in front of our mandirs. We cleaned the street of the 10th district of Paris.
99 – Hindus are bullied by some other communities – I was going to school with no book, no pen, just a metal rod in my backpack. Attack another Hindu and I would wake you up at 8 am at your house.
2001 – Mauritius’ Bhojpuris love to eat dal puris passage Brady but also bond the Hindus together. They are the true cement of this community. They also brought to us the Hindus from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, Guyana and Madagascar. We discover that you can be an expert of Jyotish, Rudrakshas or Tablas and be named Denis or Bernard. They even found on the way an Algerian who embraced Dharmism and renamed him Shiva. Without all of them the North Indians would have been outnumbered too easily. It’s also the apparition of guns due to the end of the Yugoslavian war. I’m just exiting school at Place Clichy and it’s the first time someone tried to shoot me down.
2007 – The whole community is shocked. A Bhojpuri little brother of us we know from birth has been stabbed 7 times because he talked to a girl from another religion. One of the wounds is 30cm deep. He survived this fight but will lose his life soon after.
2008 – Two street gangs – The Candy Shop and the GDN – want to turn the 10th into their battlefield. They got the train station for that but no chance they would get the mandirs’ area.
2009 – Harass a Hindu girl and your last vision is a 120kg bald Tamil from Pondy
2010 – The LTTE are coming in large amount. The streets will never be the same again. They cut feet, nose, ears, hands. Snatch the gold chain of a Hindu aunty and you might end up with 25 stabbings. Become a strainer.
2011 – The French police start to be extremely concerned by the Tamil Tigers at La Chapelle. At this time, I was freshly graduate from the French Intel School and I was training at the gym of the republican guard with some top police officers. I negotiate with them and find an understanding about how to control the streets.
2012 – The Khalistanis think that France will become a shelter for them. The Amritsar boys – Sikhs & Hindus – explained them it won’t happen. They still fight today. We saw skulls opened, a machete grabbed bare handed mid-air.
I don’t want to be too long but there are so many stories, thousands of fights, so many of us who will never come back.
🛕 We had to do all that while looking like a perfect community for the government and the whites.
Every single of us got a good degree. None of us never been involved in illegal activities outside street violence for protection. We never attacked any other community. We always played the good boys at the police station.
We managed to walk on a thin line. We never became the victims. But we never became a burden for France.
And we had nothing in common with the rich Indian diasporas of London, Dubai or San Francisco. We were poor. Each of us was the only Hindu in a ghetto school of Sarcelles, Gennevilliers or Clichy-Montfermeil.
Also, we have never been divided by ethnicity, caste or language.
All our mandirs have been paid franc by franc – in one of the most expensive city of the world - by hardworking cab drivers, fruit sellers, porters… Every single Diwali, Holi, Shivaratri… was celebrated the upcoming Sunday, behind close doors to not display any religious sign. The only exception was the Tamil Ganapati Pooja that takes place outside. But it’s promoted by the city of Paris, the local French like it and it’s fully cleaned after.
🇫🇷 We understood extremely well the French concept of Laicite (the French secularism on steroids). The separation of the state and the church that happened in1905. We have been accepted by the local French with arms wide opens so we ensured to be a community with a net positive impact on the country.
So please understand that yes we will criticize you if you come to France, don’t connect with the local community who built and protected the whole ecosystem; open a mandir no one asked for in the middle of nowhere; pretend you are some officials from India to embarrass the whole political class of the country; and do the dumbest rookie mistake you can do in France by invoking Hinduism to request women to be hidden not understanding it will be all over news and each politician of the country will have to react.
So far Hindus of France managed to be respected and to not have any bad reputation. Now and for the next 10 years they will be reduced to that stupid move.
- Not Kutniti Foundation, just Ram who came back to India 15 years but will never forget the sacrifice of the Hindus of France
BAPS has messed up in France. They have given ammo to anti-India forces operating across Europe spreading hate against Hindus & India. French media is full of this issue (read the issue in comments below).
They have hurt their own reputation and now they are being linked to India, Hindus, and Modi (as he inaugurated them) to destroy their reputations as being anti-women & patriarchal.
There are many Christian institutions in Europe that are exclusively male. But they do not go to a public place and ask women not be present to create a controversy. Even though if they did that there would be little controversy like this.
When you know you are being targeted by some forces, you need to be a lot more careful and sensitive. How difficult is this? The fault lies with the tower operator too but BAPS is the one that made the request.
It is important the BAPS leaders in France and Worldwide give proper public statements, appear in media widely, dispel the myths and propaganda being generated.
@MEAIndia@IndiaembFrance must issue statements and reach out to French media widely to say BAPS request and the tower operator's decision had nothing to do with India. And "India always stands for inclusivity and women participation as a country and civilization."
But, unfortunately, it is likely we won't see such media outreach and counter correcting the issue as everyone will imagine the problem will go away with time. I hope I'm wrong.
BAPS has messed up in France. They have given ammo to anti-India forces operating across Europe spreading hate against Hindus & India. French media is full of this issue (read the issue in comments below).
They have hurt their own reputation and now they are being linked to
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