The comments that got me banned on r/worldnews are here (That's the day I got banned, hadn't posted for a while before that):
https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22scre...
They have all been deleted from the subreddit (hard censorship), but the internet is forever.
They have an entirely different image of the Indian subcontinent (based on this guy's vision of "Hindutva" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar). This image roughly includes three parts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva:_Who_is_a_Hindu%3F): 1. Religion 2. Culture (Caste etc) 3. National Identity Now the problem is that the government might actually not be really into building the one nation, one religion Indian subcontinent presented in the vision (yes that includes Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan) but the millions of kids being trained by the RSS since forever in thousands of schools kinda do want that. The problem with Modi is not that he's a nazi or not. The problem is with a sizeable population in India who support him because they think he's their guy and will do to Muslims and other lower caste people what the Nazis did to others. Hitler is considered a strong military leader amongst that population. The last part is of course anecdotal (the sample size was around 50 people through out my life spread over different socio-economic-geographic factors. TL;DR This is going to be a problem in the long term for the world
The people who criticize Modi are currently at the top of every english-speaking institution I know off. If anything, criticizing Modi is the easiest way to make you way up the ranks of any English-speaking institution in India. Also, please refrain from using Wikipedia on politically fraught matters. It is the biggest echo chamber of them all, in such areas.
I actually had the inverse journey. I grew up in housing the exact same "RSS are Nazis", "Savarkar wanted Aryan supremacy" opinions that get thrown around in my circles. It actually took a LOT of digging before I even started to wrap my head around the level of institutional propaganda against these persona non gratas of the Indian establishment.
I still dislike RSS, but my opinion of everyone in the Gandhi/Nehru families has plummeted. (Indira was surprisingly candid, but went completely batshit during her emergency). It requires painful digging through of first sources though.
Vikram Sampath's 2 books paint the most detailed image of Savarkar yet, warts and all. (https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=savarkar-vikram-sampath). Also, you should listen to speeches given by the RSS head himself (first sources), especially their annual year review speech. It is surprisingly inclusive. It is quite tame for India's Nazis. Urban folks like us do not realize just how much work the RSS does in rural areas on India. It took going to university in a smaller town and meeting people from poorer communities to hear about how favorably RSS was viewed as a social-welfare NGO.
> National Identity Now the problem is that the government might actually not be really into building the one nation, one religion Indian subcontinent presented in the vision (yes that includes Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan) but the millions of kids being trained by the RSS since forever in thousands of schools kinda do want that
Source ? If anything, Indian Convents and Madras
> other lower caste people
The BJP has been far more inclusive of the lower castes in their power structure than the Congress ever has. Modi himself is lower caste. A substantial portion of the lower castes are voting for Modi too. Your claims are not backed up by data.
At the same time, the recent Pew research survey shows that Indians highly value diversity of religions and preservation of the diversity and freedoms to do so. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/29/key-finding....
Hell, more Muslims want India to be 1 mega-subcontinent-nation-state than Hindus. https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/06/...
Honestly, either your perception is fundamentally different from what the literal words in the links said that you're willing to misinterpret them to any length OR this was a very cleverly disguised attempt at formulating your argument using the anti-thesis of your argument as the links themselves. Secondly, I agree with you on the Nehru/Gandhi thing. (Another interesting moment is Indira Gandhi talking about population control as a cover in this british documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCI_KhfED2k)
Last please read sarvakar's treatise "Hindutva (Who is Hindu?)" in which he equates being hindu has being indian in addition to the three parts I mentioned earlier.
Now I am going to stop replying to you for my sanity.
BTW, try not misquoting the links you give. It will lead people astray.
Can you tell me why you think you were banned in there though? Like, what attitude or opinion crossed the line? I don't really understand the politics under discussion, but your comments seemed substantive enough that some one could come and meaningfully disagree with you, which I would have anticipated to be a good thing (even if many people disagreed with you).
Anyway, thanks again.
> smoke-screen
Once burned twice shy eh. I agree, it can be hard to distinguish genuine issues and dog whistles from each other.
> If your opinions are anywhere right of woke, you get banned straight up
This was my bad. I did exaggerate a bit. The issue does bring out the worst in me. I still stand by the spirit of my point though.
> what attitude or opinion crossed the line?
My understanding is that reddit mods are not genius propagandists. So, their concerns revolve around banning anyone who steps on a set of predefined land mines.
Past the shallow left good - right bad, there is an impression of India, Philippines, Brazil being run by 'strong-men ethno nationalists' who are all right-wing and bad. Any time that status quo is genuinely questioned, you step on a land mine. They particularly don't like the semantic lines between right & left being blurred.
A couple of other land mines are : ( I single out left triggers, because that's what this community cares about. The right is often guilty of similar or worse things, but they do it with a kind of brazen selfishness that it doesn't seem as hypocritical)
* how various far-left faces are pursuing the same 'american dream' they so heavily criticize.
* If you point out that research on medical transition during puberty is lacking and a lot of gender-affirming models of treatment based in shaky science.
* That a statistical majority of black people support increase in policing. A lot counter-intuitive statistical results among 'captive demographics' are triggers in general.
* Criticisms of Islam in general. I won't extend this to Hindus = evil, but I feel like there is a general dislike towards Hinduism as a result as well. However, it is possible I am just more tuned into it.
> substantive enough that someone could come and meaningfully disagree with you
That is exactly why I got banned. The polite and well-spoken ingroup contrarian (IGW) is a rather dangerous breed. (see another one of my comments in the same thread about IGWs)
> Anyway, thanks again.
Hey, I'm glad this went in such a productive direction. I'm glad HN exists and the coercive civility of the platform is truly wonderful.
If you're not brain-washed, you'll likely have some amount of critique of every single thing in the world including their golden calf.
So when people say: this is perfect and we're the good guys and they're the bad guys and look how stupid they are, you might say something nuanced or somewhat understanding and now you're a trump supporting, racist, misogynist, nazi incel.
Or, more likely, you'll get downvoted to oblivion and the only people who will comment will have some shit like that to say.
Personally, I've had plenty of reddit users actively tell me I'm a piece of shit for trying to understand what sort of psychological trauma it is that leads to people shooting up schools, or raping, or joining hate groups. Which "humanizes" them too much for most peoples tastes.
Basically: trying to understand "the enemy" or raise awareness about issues in "the plan" are totally off limit topics in most places.
But I think I'm picking up what you're putting down. It just hasn't been my experience that moderation teams are that polarized, it has been my experience that people blame a polarized environment for their own poor behavior though.
I've seen a lot of both, and I think you should be very, very worried about your perspective on this.
There is an overwhelming amount of uncomfortable truths which people are hostile towards. Especially when those people have a narrative; narratives almost always being ideologically over-simplified and therefor in conflict with reality.
If you want a really easy one, I recommend looking into the statistical "math" behind the 75/100 wage-gap. It still blows my mind that one is not allowed to point out super faulty math, and that many people still hold that number to be truth.