Tag: Religion

A tale of two (secular) countries – 🇮🇳 & 🇹🇷

In constitutional terms, Turkey is a secular country. But whereas in most places this implies the separation of religion and state, in Turkey it means state control over religion.

The Economist: Turkey’s religious authority surrenders to political Islam

Their belief is that cow protection is central to Hinduism, and Hinduism is the core of Indian nationhood, even though the constitution says that India as a nation belongs to all religious groups. Cow protection and nationalism have got intertwined.

FT: Narendra Modi’s illiberal drift threatens Indian democracy

Please tell me that I’m not the only one who’s been seeing this connection between nationalism, religion, conservatism, and (crony) capitalism in India, Turkey and elsewhere?

Leading the curve: Russia.
Ahead of the curve: Turkey.
In the pack: India, Poland, Hungry, US, UK, Thailand, and more…

A statement everyone in India will agree with…

WHEN Narendra Modi became prime minister of India in 2014, opinion was divided as to whether he was a Hindu zealot disguised as an economic reformer, or the other way round. The past three years appear to have settled the matter.

India’s prime minister is not as much of a reformer as he seems, August 5, 2017 at 11:33PM

It couldn’t have been more ambiguous 🙂

Beating wife & kids – my god given right!

Scripture and Russian tradition, the church said, regard “the reasonable and loving use of physical punishment as an essential part of the rights given to parents by God himself”.

Why Russia is about to decriminalise wife-beating, January 28, 2017 at 12:03PM

I know a vast proportion of population back in India would completely agree with the Russian duma on this, with religious and societal permission.

I remember an aunt who used to be regularly beaten by her husband, and her mom refused to interfere because it was ‘between her and her husband’. Her husband, and his family, burnt her to death a few years after since she didn’t get sufficient dowry.

The grand aunt was one of the strongest, most independent women I’d known till then. Her daughter’s murder broke her. Yet, she refused to accept that she should’ve intervened. She only regretted not choosing a better husband in the first place.

Not surprising then, that women led the Russian wife-beating law, or that women voted for Trump in large numbers, or that women are big supporters of some of the most women-oppressing societal norms in India.