Hindu Violent Extremism Against Christians in India: The Continuing Legacy of the BJP

Hindu nationalists target Christians in India, as the culmination of a few decades of increasing hate. In Christmas 2007, a hundred churches were damaged and 700 Christian homes destroyed: things have gotten especially bad since the BJP gained power nationally in 2014, with their representatives giving hate speeches (including calling for death to Christians), encouraging the many hundreds of violent incidents recorded each year against Christians. See section 6 of https://www.humanreligions.info/hindu_extremism.html.

The Thugs / Thuggae / Thuggees of 13th-19th Century India

The Thuggae were a secret society in India, who dedicated their lives to ritualistically strangling victims as sacrifices to Kali, often in a way that specifically included first gaining their trust and confidance, and sometimes coming together en masse to perform a mass-murder. Parents initiated children into the order. It's not clear when they existed from, but they existed as a organised fraternity by the 13th century; they were eradicated in the 1830s. They believed that the killings kept the world in balance, and the victims and the Thuggae themselves were assured places in the afterlife for the performance.

"The Thuggae" by Vexen Crabtree contents:

1. For Kali, for Balance, for Paradise
2. Timeline (13th-19th century)
3. The Targets

Human Rights and Freedom in Taiwan

A new page! "Human Rights and Freedom in Taiwan". Taiwan performs very well in ensuring human rights and freedom compared to most other countries. It does the best in the world at supporting freethought and better than average on supporting personal, civil & economic freedoms, supporting press freedom (one of the best in Asia) and in LGBT equality. In 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage.

Statistics covered:

1. Taiwan's Human Rights, Equality & Tolerance
2. Human Rights & Tolerance Data Sets
   1. Personal, Civil & Economic Freedom
   2. Press Freedom
   3. Slavery
3. Prejudice Data Sets
   1. LGBT Equality
   2. Freedom of Thought

Religion in India

India is 80% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 3% Christian. Hinduism has a wildly varied mix of beliefs and practices which date to prehistory. Buddhism and Sikhism both also started in India and in the 1960s, Western spiritualists took home some interpretations of Hindu beliefs: the result was a range of movements which became called the New Age.

But religion in India is no longer peaceful. Intolerant right-wing Hinduism-first parties have instigated a bloody series of mob conflicts with Christian and Muslim communities; causing hundreds of churches and mosques to be destroyed, and a great number killed and displaced.

Incompatibility between Hinduism and Islam lead to the breakoff of Pakistan amidst fighting that saw over a million people lose their lives, and, three subsequent wars and a nuclear arms race, with the disputed territory of Kashmir as the flashpoint. During this cultural and religious conflict, Hindu extremism has become "an impediment to... human rights".

http://www.humanreligions.info/india_religion.html

India

Added to Section #6 tables on India's education statistics compared to the rest of the world: The BJP, a conservative Hindu-first party made popular by its campaigns of hate against minorities, have pursued a policy of establishing astrological departments at universities, despite academia's longstanding aversion due to the overwhelming evidence that astrology is not founded on any kind of reality. In an unequal nation of 1.4 billion people, the funding could have provided for a large number of teachers, covering sorely-needed topics of maths, the sciences and engineering. http://www.humantruth.info/india.html: 6. India's Modernity and Learning. #india #BJPGovernment #BJP