Friday, December 19, 2008

Hindu Nationalist New Year Cards

(via tasveerghar)



Vikram Aditya New Year Greeting Card (painted by Chitrapal), 1990s (The text on top left says "Vikrami Samvat - nav varsh - abhinandan" (Greetings for the New Vikrami Samvat Year)


The Ideal Devotee. New Year Card, Delhi, 1992


Ram as leader of a revolutionary people’s awakening movement. (1990s)


A New Year greeting card depicting Mother India and a devout son of the soil worshipping her. 1990s (Hindi text at bottom: Jeevan pushp chadhane nikley - offering one's flower-like life...).


Have a nuclear Diwali. Diwali Greeting Card for the year 1998/99, depicting the Hindu pride in India's nuclear tests.

This card shows (from top left to right, bottom left to the right): King Rana Pratap from Rajasthan, Subhas Chandra Bose, Marathi king Shivaji, Bhagat Singh, RSS founder KB Hedgewar and Chandrashekar Azad. A sticker of the proposed Ram Temple at Ayodhya, promoting the Ram Janmabhoomi Hindu March for Unity organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is added at the bottom right.


Saraswati, the goddess of learning and arts, leads the caravan of Nationalist icons, including recent luminaries such as Gandhi, Swami Vivekanand, and even Bhagat Singh!


"Arise, let’s confront the challenge" announces this card, urging the people to fight against foreign elements such as Muslims, Christians, MNCs, corruption, cow-slaughter and so on. Issued by Lok Jagran Abhiyan, Uttar Pradesh.

Mother India calling her sons to fight against capitalism, Islam and Christian missionary activities. (early 1990s) Check out the symbols on the snakes the lion is trampling upon.

I’m not a big fan of Arundhati Roy’s. Her public persona can be best described as ‘finger-waving raving psychotic’. Nevertheless, her recent article in the Guardian does raise a few interesting points. Her main point is that our problems are our own doing. While we berate the Pakis to shut down LeT, corporate India embraces Modi, one of the main perpetrators of the genocide in Gujarat. The RSS, a Hindu-supremacist organization, has 45,000 branches and 7 million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India.

Don’t you wish all these religious nuts would get a room and fight it out among themselves? Unfortunately, they have and that room happens to be my country. Dear Blogger.com people, if you’re reading this, I know I’ve blocked pop-ups and banners on this blog, but just this once, if you like, you can insert an ad for a sleazy Canada Immigration lawyer here. Throw in a couple of pop-ups as well.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The BJB Hindutva contingent is frightening in it's close-mindedness and it's espousal of violence and hatred. I was raised in India, I was taught as a child that we are a secular, tolerant and inclusive society. This kind of thinking is so contradictory to everything I was raised to believe in and when I read about this stuff I am as surprised as appalled.

My grandparents witnessed the violence of partition. They lived in what is now Pakistan and were forced to migrate to Indian territory. They saw first-hand the vile things that people did to each other in the name of religion. But they NEVER laid the blame for those atrocities at the feet of the Muslims who lived in India. They might have been justified in being bitter and angry but they never were and they would never, never, never have condoned what the BJP does in the name of Hinduism.

I am so heartbroken when I see stuff like this. This is not the face of my country.

Anonymous said...

i dont know what to say oh wait yes i do WHAT THE FUCK

Anonymous said...

these cards are hardcore man! some of them are so freaky and deranged...