Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

[beetle]

According to Allahabad high court order....muslims are no longer aminority in UP (around 17.5-18 %) hence have to be treated as non minority...... Has got all political parties active... BJP happy rest ...not so.

[Anakin]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC Why is BJP happy

[beetle]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC God knows..... Apparently that means the minority education institutions won't have special rights and won't get special grants.....

[The Outsider]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC Whats the definition of a minority?

[CC1981]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC BJP is happy because the RSS/VHP fundoos they ally with will be happy at any news (deserved or otherwise) that doesnt impact muslims positively.

[Don]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC Firecracker celebrations could be heard in Lucknows VHP Centre.

[Cricketics]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC GOD BLESS HINDUSTAN

[CC1981]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC Hindustan is a misnomer created by the Arabs when they traded with India in pre and post Mohammedan days. But India has never been and never will be a completely hindu nation. There have been Jains from before history was written, then came the Buddhists who for a while were close to a majority population in the subcontinent...then there are muslims, sikhs, christians today. In the past there were various other faiths/schools of thought that are now dead - such as Ajivika ( the legendary Chanakya was a practitioner of Ajivika). Hindustan has always been a mix of people who follow the Sanathan Dharma and a sizeable portion (Today muslims, in the past Jains/Buddhists/Ajivaks etc) of people not following the Sanathan Dharma.

[yoda]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

then came the Buddhists who for a while were close to a majority population in the subcontinent.

proof? link?

[CC1981]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

proof?

I don't want to get in this- it is a natural denial mode that many hindus have and i don't want to get entangled in this again. I am just glad that there are enough Hindus around who know and accept the truth. As for proof- i will say this only once. Much of what we know about documented Indian history ( particularly the classical age pre Muslim invasion) is from foreign accounts. A lot of it is from shards of evidence back in India. There are several sources for Buddhism in India - from Hindu literature of Harshavardhana's time, Kushan empire's records, Gupta records etc. that give a very good insight to subcontinental life in the classical ages. Then there are Faxian and Xuan Zeng- two of the most famous classical chroniclers/travellers who came 300 years apart to the subcontinent. Faxian (the first of the two) came when Gupta empire was starting to peak. His writings say that much of the subcontinent, except for the southern-most peninsular part ( he defines it as kindgoms 'south' of the Kadambas which today are the modern states of TN and Kerala) were buddhists,particularly in the gangetic basin. Xuan Zeng follows him approx. 300 years later and notes the revival of hinduism beginning to take form due to several hindu dynasties replacing buddhist ones like the Mauryas and the Guptas. He notes how in several regions where 'buddhism held sway', Hinduism was starting to re-emerge from fringe role. In short, for nearly 800 years ( 250 BCE to approx. 600 CE), most of northern and central India were predominantly buddhist. The south (ie, southern half of Karnataka to the end of peninsula) however, was never predominantly buddhist or jain and i find it no surprise that Southies are often the most misinformed about India's buddhist and Jain past/present. I have long since stopped using the web for citations- simply because any fool can put up a website and put any gibberish on it. And besides, very little of proper historical/anthropological research exists on the web compared to the paper form. If you want citations, i give thee : 1. Guns, Germs & Steel ( a must-read IMO) by Jared Diamond 2. Rise & Decline of Buddhism in India by Kanai Lal Hazra 3. A History of Civilization in Ancient India, Based on Sanscrit Literature: Volume 3. Buddhist and Pauranik Ages by Romesh Chander Dutt 4. Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India by Wendy Doninger. If you take time to read these illustrious group of literature, it will dawn on you that India distinctly had a 'buddhist period' for almost a millenia where the bulk of India and the much larger 'subcontinent' were buddhists in practice. The last three citations are essentially hugely respected works in their field by hugely respected authors in the said field. The first one is a remarkable work on trying to trace overall human history and the effects of religion, economics and resources at one's disposal in shaping the world as we see it today. And obviously, i can see why some hinduvtas would have a problem with this. Not saying you are one but i wouldn't be surprised if some usual suspects here start braying. Anyways, first and last word on this - i am out.

[The Outsider]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC ^ CC is mostly right. I just want to add a couple of things, without again wanting to get into anything long drawn: 1. Even though most of North India had a strong Buddhist influence, there were also not only pockets but significant areas which were "Hindu". Why I use quotes on Hindu I'll allude to in the second point. Buddhism for a long time was a religion embraced by the kings and lords in North India and strong "Hindu" cultures existed in tandem though there was little organization behind them. 2. There is no historical mention, documentation etc. of the word "Hindu" before somewhere around the 12-13th century. I forget the exact date. So whether this amalgam of cultures were all part of mainstream Hinduism as we know it today is again a question open to interpretation and judgement. For example, many surviving adivasi cultures are very disparate from mainstream Hinduism.

[Lurker]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC The term Hindustan has nothing to do with Hinduism. It is derived from Hind..which in itself is a derivative of Sindhu(Indus) river. People South of Indus were named as people from Hind and the term has been used right from the Greece and Roman time period. Dont spin this into a Hindu versus Budhist or what have you. Hindustan doesnt represent Hindus, it represents people of Hind, which every religion follower is. xxxx

[yoda]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC @CC. Show me something that says "at one point there were more buddhists than hindus in the sub-continent", not that "some guy visited in year X and another visited in year Y, so in short what I say is true.". A link would be more useful than your mumbo-jumbo.

[head coach]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

The term Hindustan has nothing to do with Hinduism. It is derived from Hind..which in itself is a derivative of Sindhu(Indus) river. People South of Indus were named as people from Hind and the term has been used right from the Greece and Roman time period. Dont spin this into a Hindu versus Budhist or what have you. Hindustan doesnt represent Hindus, it represents people of Hind, which every religion follower is. xxxx

Lurker as a followup, let me write that some modern Hindu nationalists have tried to enumerate the meaning of the term Sapta Sindhu to mean the following seven rivers that span the whole of modern India: Indus, Ganges, Yamuna, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada and Kaveri. But many of these rivers are not mentioned even once in the Vedas.

[Lurker]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

@CC. Show me something that says "at one point there were more buddhists than hindus in the sub-continent", not that "some guy visited in year X and another visited in year Y, so in short what I say is true.". A link would be more useful than your mumbo-jumbo.

Yoda. Obviously it would be extremely hard to show anything like that. I mean there were no census back then, were there? However it is certainly fair to say that at some point Buddhism might very well have been India's majority religion. There were a lot of powerful Buddhist kingship as such and Buddhism being practically an off-shoot of Hinduism I doubt Hindus have a deep resentment about that(as compared to say Muslim rule). Plus Buddhism was a more evolving and in some ways more polished form of Hinduism(Buddhist would disagree with this of course). Its hard to prove/disprove that Buddhism was the majority religion but I beleive it is certainly prudent to suggest that a large segment of Indian population back then followed Buddhism, if I have to put a number I shall say 40-50% and perhaps more. Again no census so kinda hard to prove so take it for whatever its worth. xxx

[The Outsider]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

The term Hindustan has nothing to do with Hinduism. It is derived from Hind..which in itself is a derivative of Sindhu(Indus) river. People South of Indus were named as people from Hind and the term has been used right from the Greece and Roman time period.

I would like to see a credible reference where there is mention of the word Hindu from the era you are talking about.

[CC1981]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

not that "some guy visited in year X and another visited in year Y, so in short what I say is true."

Guy visits in year X says most of the country is predominantly Buddhist. Ie, most of India apart from the very southern bit is predominantly Buddhist. Few hundred years later another guy visits and says 'hinduism is resurging and now in many areas where it was in the fringe, its making a comeback'. This demonstrates precisely what is being said - that for a near 1000 year period, bulk of the subcontinent (except the extreme southern peninsular india) were areas of predominantly Buddhist following. All the above books i quoted shows this and cites much more ancient evidence than i have (hence i pointed you towards those books). Many hindus today have this view that Buddhism was a fringe religion in India and 'exotic', practiced by the ruling clans for a period in time. Infact, the buddhist 'revolution' started at the grassroot level - with the common masses. Buddhism started spreading ( under Ashoka and then further spread/maintained by the Kushans, Guptas and Palas) through the common masses because Buddhism rejected the caste system utterly. Which in that period ( 300 BCE period) was clearly enthrenched in the society. There is also significant amount of Sri Lankan literature from antiquity that details the spread of buddhism in ancient India.

[DesiChap]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC There should be no reservations period, come up with your own merit. We ahd past 50 years of Independence ! The fackin political praties will never let go of this vote bank.

[Lurker]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC

I would like to see a credible reference where there is mention of the word Hindu from the era you are talking about.

A few quick links Shewtabh. Would write more on this when I am home. The name India may refer to either the region of Greater India (the Indian subcontinent), or to the contemporary Republic of India contained therein. The term is derived from the name of the Indus River and has been in use in Greek since Plutarchus[1] (1st century AD). The term appears in Old English in the 9th century, and again in Modern English since the 17th century. The name Hind is derived from a a Persian pronunciation of Sind. The Persian -stān means country or land (cognate to Sanskrit sthāna "place, land"). India is called al-Hind الهند in the Arabic language, and sometimes in Persian. (e.g. in the 11th century Tarik Al-Hind "history of India") and Hind هند in Persian. It also occurs intermittently in usage within India, such as in the phrase Jai Hind. The terms Hind and Hindustan were current in Persian and Arabic from the 11th century Islamic conquests: the rulers in the Sultanate and Mughal periods called their Indian dominion, centred around Delhi, Hindustan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_the_names_of_India I remember reading this long time back in a book - Lost Discoveries - a nice book about Ancient Discoveries in India, Middle East, China which is not given as much credit in Western world. One of things I remember till this date is how the balance of trade between India and Greece was so overwhelmingly in India's favour that some of the noted philosphers/thinkers of the time(Ptolemy perhaps?) were of the opinion that eventually all the Greek gold would make it to India. See if you can borrow that book from your local library. xxxx

[The Outsider]

Re: Muslims no longer a minority in Uttar Pradesh:HC ^ Thats the origin of "India", lurker. I was referring to Hindu, Hinduism etc.