Word: hinduism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...still proudly hang diwali lanterns and shop at the local Bharat Bazaar, Jindal has done the best he can to assimilate by erasing his cultural origins. Changing his name as a child from the Punjabi Piyush to that of his favorite character on The Brady Bunch, converting from Hinduism to Christianity as a senior in high school (and later asking his wife to do the same), attending Brown University and Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, working as a consultant at McKinsey, and adopting a flat Louisiana drawl—the only part of “Indian-American?...
...with most communal violence in India, this latest explosion of hatred is the result not only of religious differences but of a tangled intersection of political power, communal prejudice and the injustices of Hinduism's archaic caste system...
...Muslim "outsiders," says Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist and sociologist at India's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. "If you can identify a common enemy it is easier to unify all these Hindu groups" that, in the view of Hindu nationalists, should "work together to save Hinduism...
...hard-liners' main frustrations is the fact that Hinduism is inherently tolerant of other religions and allows that they too could be valid alternative paths to enlightenment. Proselytizing as Christians and Muslims do is, by its nature, un-Hindu, which makes a looming battle for Indians' souls look "very asymmetrical," says Nandy. For Hindu nationalists, the fear of Hindu conversions to Christianity "is a kind of humiliation that is being rubbed in," he says. Ironically, of course, Hinduism's acceptance of other religions is used by extremists as an excuse for hostility towards other religions. "The source of tolerance...
...Founded by Guru Nanak in northern India during the 15th century, Sikhism drew from Sufism, Islam and Hinduism, but rejected what it saw as their worst traditions, such as the Hindu caste system. It later incorporated the teachings of nine other Gurus, or teachers, which are collected in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book revered as the eleventh Guru. The religion claims 23 million followers today, 76 percent of whom live in the Indian state of Punjab. Although they make up only 2% of the wider Indian population, they are a close-knit and prosperous community with a strong...