#indpol

[tiredguyswag]

’Hinduphobia’ is literally not a thing in India, you just want to be oppressed because your entire life you’ve been conditioned to be patriotic and nationalist and that almost always means Hindu nationalism and you’ve been conditioned to such a degree that you cannot hear marginalised groups criticise mainstream Hinduism without spontaneously combusting. In this essay I will

#lamp.txt #indpol #sanghi bs

[ghost-in-a-cup]

india has no place for creativity

we are told to copy the answer from the reference book

to write it exactly as the teacher says

we all draw the same house with a river and the sun in between two mountains

and the birds that look like 3s

we dont live in houses like that nor does a river run by our house

yet we all drew it the same for that's what we were thought

creativity is punished, it is not according to the grading rubric

we are not allowed to be ourselves to think for ourselves

even in creative writing assignments they give us the plot and tell us to write the story

why even bother naming it creative writing if you're just concerned about our sentence structure?

we are not allowed to be independent or to think for ourselves

we have to consider what will our teachers think, parents think, the society at large will think?

nobody considers how we think how we feel

we are made to be robots parroting our parents or someone else who is charismatic enough

all independent thoughts are quashed by people, any line of questioning leads to being called an idiot,stupid

am i an idiot for not blindly following you?

we are not people we are being molded into machines to let the country continue according to the whims of the few at the top

#indpol #i think #india #desiblr #haunted.thoughts

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Things that are hinduphobic:

Having prejudice for, discriminating and harming (both harassment and hate crimes) people who practice Hinduism on the basis of their religion.

Things that are NOT hinduphobic:

Talking about the caste-based hierarchy and the suffering of people harmed by it, condemning dangerous Islamophobic speech and actions, criticizing the actions of the state when it curbs civil rights of its citizens, opposing people that support an ongoing genocide and talking about your feelings about your own identity.

I hope this clears things up for people. <3

Always remember, prejudice is reprehensible and so is claiming prejudice using it as a shield when someone criticizes you for your negative Actions.

- Mod S

#an important psa #for #hindublr #desiblr #indian politics #indpol #desi #desi tumblr #hinduism #mod: s

[kamariya]

fun fact: listening to a public speaker's interpretation of a religious text does not count as reading the text 🥰 if you have the time in your day-to-day life to bitch and moan about society going downhill cause no one follows your religious text's teachings, you have the time to actually read that shit! hope this helps <3

#bhakts get on this #miss the times when andha bhakts were trolled to hell and back man... what happened #swan stuff #indpol

[metamatar]

sorry to election blog but I love living in a normal country where the risk of post election defection under duress is so common that MLAs are being moved to resorts after elections for security.

#indpol

[okbutwhy-aka-fagdyke]

#indpol

[youngneemleaves]

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra today joined growing protests against police crackdown on students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University. Students from campuses around the country have come out in strong support of counterparts from Jamia and AMU after Sunday evening's violence over the new citizenship law. Cops in both Delhi and Aligarh have been accused of using excessive force during protests that turned violent. The clashes left a total of nearly 50 students injured and the 100 Jamia students - who had been detained after cops barged into the campus without permission - were only released after a massive show of strength by students outside Delhi Police Headquarters throughout Sunday night.

Universities and student unions with activists that have come out in support of the students’ protest at Jamia Millia and Aligarh Muslim University:

Chandigarh University, Chandigarh;

Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi;

Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi;

Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama Institute, Uttar Pradesh;

Patna University, Bihar

All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), Assam

Jadavpur University, West Bengal;

Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), IIT Bombay, and Mumbai University, Maharashtra;

Jain University, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and the National Law School University, Karnataka;

Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad;

College students with members of the Students Federation of India (SFI), IIT Madras, Loyola College, Tamil Nadu;

Pondicherry University, Puducherry

#indpol #jmu/amu students protest #politics #india #anti-caa protests #indian politics #citizenship amendment act 2019 #student activism #fascism #civil rights activism

[indianpolsoc]

Colourism and Its Impact on Young People

This article has been written by Editor Arslan Sheikh and covers a previous event held by KCL Indian Political Society.

The KCL Indian Political Society organized an online event on April 3, 2021, on the topic ‘Colourism and Its Impact on Young People’. The event was hosted by Vidisha Madan, a third-year politics student at King’s and the President of KCL IndPol. The guest speakers included Chandana Hiran – a social activist whose petition against Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) led to the change of the name of ‘Fair & Lovely’ products to ‘Glow & Lovely’ – and Vedant Kaushik, an established YouTuber, TEDx speaker and alumnus of KCL who uses his online presence to critique the cultural impact of mainstream media on younger generations.

Answering the question put forward by Vidisha on what colourism means, why we need to talk about it and who are the most impacted by it, Chandana remarked that, “Colourism is the discrimination against people of colour.’’ She said this topic was very personal to her, and it was the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement which inspired her to start her own campaign against HUL’s fairness advertisement. The campaigns were “demeaning” and “outright insulting”, she added. For Vedant, the experience of colourism dates back to his childhood and he gave an example of naming the street dogs based on colour – a startling look into how deep-rooted this problem really is.

Chandana added that she believes that Bollywood has played an equal role in encouraging colourism by endorsing numerous fairness cream companies. According to her, fairness cream companies profit by creating a recurring loop of insecurities and Bollywood has only benefited from this. ‘’There are many movies which normalise the notion that being fair is better,’’ she added.

Vedant put forth his view on this question by saying that even though he believes that Chandana’s campaign was successful in making HUL change its product’s name, it would still take a long time before Indian society would be open to critically thinking about colourism.

Chandana remarked that there is a prevalent, singular idea of beauty wherein a particular body size or hair texture is elevated to an aspirational standard of beauty, and we can tackle this by asking questions. Vedant confronted Chandana on this and underlined that there are many people asking these questions, but there had not been enough answers. Meanwhile, Chandana talked about a heart-wrenching story from India where a middle-aged woman confided in her about washing her face with the Harpic (an acid-based toilet cleaner) to lighten her skin tone. ‘’My campaign was successful because it resonated with people,’’ she added.

When asked about ‘convenient activism’, Chandana went on to say that it is the case of convenient activism when people from India openly talk about BLM but choose to stay silent on similar issues prevalent in India. She adds that it is the responsibility of those people who are in power to convey the right message to the general public because they have an impact on them. She further advised that people who have influence need to be more responsible (and mindful) of the content they put out.

Vedant held a counter opinion on this and said that people who have an online following often fall into a dilemma when they are in such a position wherein they must choose on which issue to talk about. He partly agreed that convenient activism is a reality, but also said that it is a very extreme position to take by assigning this term to such people. He emphasized that ‘influencers’ usually stop talking about controversial topics owing to the backlash they get from opposing audiences. He did, at the same time, add that it is important to have honest conversations with people. Because of the backlash, influencers tend to back-off from broaching sensitive topics, but we need to support them and keep these conversations going.

Bringing us back to ‘Glow & Lovely’, Chandana stressed that her campaign was not against the name but the narrative itself which tries to undermine dark-skinned people. She saw this judgement as the first step towards mitigating the damage these commercials have done but, according to her, this is not enough. She was hoping that HUL could have done something more inclusive.

When asked whether such fairness cream products should exist at all, Vedant pointed out the utopian nature of the idea that all such products can be taken away from the market. He said that such a huge damage cannot be undone in a couple of years but will, instead, have to be done gradually through awareness.

Vedant touched upon another important instance of colourism in showbiz, stating that it is undoubtedly wrong to cast someone who looks different from the character itself but those who do, justify it entirely upon monetary grounds. He explained that a movie is like a start-up, and they need a known person to bring people into the cinema halls. He strongly believes that people should look for alternatives in such situations in which the character does not look different from the cast and Over The Top (OTT) platforms are making a difference in that direction.

Chandana emphasized that we need to ask more questions regarding why are not enough number of people who are of diverse skin tones equally successful. She clarified that it is not because they are not equally talented, but because they are not equally represented. Vedant also agreed to this and said that better representation can solve this issue.

On the issue whether it is also the older generations who endorse colourism, Chandana said that it is not entirely their fault because this is what they have been taught; we need to be more empathetic towards them and explain it to them rather than taking it personally. Vedant emphasized it is a battle of generations, and it is very difficult to change the mindsets of older generations.

While opinions regarding this issue varied across the panel, one belief that stayed the same was the need to raise awareness and educate ourselves and people around us, particularly now more than ever.

#colourism #media representation #india #south asia

[tiredguyswag]

i hope narendra modi dies btw. painfully

#lamp.txt #indpol #sanghi bs #desi tag

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Ohh not the constituency obviously I just meant the political party! Sorry for the confusion!

No issues if you don't want to talk about that either it's completely understandable

See, I believe that thinking about the lok sabha elections as if we're directly voting for the prime minister of the country is flawed. We're not. We're voting for the people who represent our constituency. We don't have a direct line to the prime minister. I know the ruling party has made the political atmosphere such that we care about the Brand of One Person who happens to be our prime minister but that's really not how this works and we all need to snap out of the cult of personality thing and not fall into that trap.

Of course I'm not telling you to not take into account which party you're voting for as whichever party or coalition of parties wins the majority seats will decide who the prime minister is. But also I don't think that's the only factor you should consider. Consider the profile of the candidates at least. All Indian political parties try to make it pretty hard to look into the candidates' history but you can find out with a tiny amount of research. You don't even need to do much.

We've historically never shut up about our distaste for the BJP and their shitty governance and we won't shut up about it now either. They suck. So do the other parties, let's be honest. Politicians are just like that. Sometimes it can come down to picking the least evil option, or in this specific case, the least harmful option.

I, for one, am sick of having a one party majority in the parliament. They've always ALWAYS been the worst governments in the history of our country. I just want a change. I'd prefer it if we had a coalition government again. But that's just me.

You guys are smart people and I trust you'll make decisions after thinking about it and doing some research.

P.S. If you need something immediate that can help you choose the parties you wanna vote for, please look at the recently released ELECTORAL BONDS data. That's huge.

- Mod S

#ask reply #mod replies #asks #mod: s #indpol #desiblr

[metamatar]

The Indian govt just withdrew the highest denomination note from circulation. I assume this is an attempt to restrict opposition spending during after some high profile losses. One of Modi's traditional donors in Gautam Adani is in lots of trouble.

#indpol

[okbutwhy-aka-fagdyke]

#Bjp #indpol #india