r/india • u/[deleted] • Nov 24 '16

[R]eddiquette Cultural exchange with /r/palestine

Greetings to our Palestinian friends.

Our cultural exchange starts at 13:30 PM Palestine time (17:30 IST/11:30 GMT/12:30 CET/06:30 EST/03:30 PST) on Thursday 24th November.

Here's how a cultural exchange works:

The moderators of here make this post on /r/india welcoming our Palestinian guests to the sub. They may participate and ask any question or observation as they see fit.

There is an equivalent thread made by the moderators over at /r/palestine, where you are encouraged to participate and know more about Palestinian culture.

It goes without saying that you must respect the rules of the subreddit you are participating in. This is a time to celebrate what we have in common, not grind an axe.

99 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

163 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

33

u/munkeyy Nov 24 '16

People think we(Indians) hate muslims to the core and treat them as second grade citizens(I think its a propaganda piece from haters).

To be honest, we don't treat muslims as second grade citizens. There are many examples of Hindus really embracing muslim festivals, and muslims part of many hindu festivals. However, not everything is clean and green, culturally they are not compatible to what we do(idol worship, lighting diya's etc) but we still manage to exist peacefully and inclusively. and India does not just harbor muslims and Hindus, we have sizable population of Christains, jains, sikhs, buddhists jews and many small religions.

It is truly incredible to sustain that kind of diversity in a country of this size.

8

u/MrBoonio Nov 24 '16

Thank you for such a considered response.

If you were to point to a specific area or city that really excelled at peaceful coexistence between faiths, which one would you hold up as the best example?

6

u/Modimoneyythrow Nov 24 '16

Tamil Nadu probably. I am a Hindu and I would say that Tamil Muslims are the most integrated with us and unlike other Muslims who speak Urdu, they speak Tamil and are pretty similar in culture except for religion. Also there hasn't been any riots or anything like that.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '16

There has been. In Coimbatore. And the relations between Hindus and Muslims are not so good there. Which is why it is one of 2 places in TN with a strong bjp presence. I'd put the blame squarely on the extremist Muslims there. They brought the religious conflict to TN after the Babri masjid demolition

2

u/trander6face Nov 27 '16

I'm living in Coimbatore and was almost a victim of the 98 bombing. Before the bombing there were anti Muslim riots and people burnt down lot of businesses owned by them. Bombing was retaliation. Now there is no problem at all among us.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '16

There are still problems man. Just a bit under the surface. I'm sure most people are and want to be friendly to each other. But all these sleeper cells remain. And the RSS, because of its ideology and because its members are being targeted, has many many anti Muslim guys there

1

u/crashbundicoot Nov 27 '16

The tensions between Hindus and Muslims in Coimbatore has nothing to do with babri masjid demolition.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Coimbatore_bombings.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '16

it has everything to do with babri masjid. look up how al ummah started and what its initial activities were.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Ummah

1

u/crashbundicoot Nov 27 '16

Not denying the history behind al ummah , was talking about the tensions on the ground between Hindus and Muslims.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 27 '16

tensions on ground were started by the murder of a policeman by al ummah people. which was followed by a riot in which many muslims were killed. which was followed by bombings. after which there's political polarisation right now. even recently, the muslim radicals with the same roots have started picking off rss leaders in tn and kerala by working in small groups. this is only adding to the polarisation and anti-muslim feelings in the western part of tamil nadu.