The Effeminate Hindu
"Hindu temples were felled to the ground and for one year a large establishment was maintained for the demolition of the grand Martand temple. But when the massive masonry resisted all efforts, it was set on fire and the noble buildings cruelly defaced"
Firishta, Muhammad Qãsim Hindû Shãh
Imperialists, both Islamic and Christian, have criticised Hindus as a 'weak, cowardly and effeminate' race. Al berouni criticises Hindus for being feminine and seeking the advice of women in all matters. In a 1994 article, Rubina Saigol, a Pakistani scholar writes, "The period before the advent of Islam [in India] is always a "feminine" period...after Islam conquers and subjugates the sensuous pre-oedipal/pre-Islamic society, it brings the Law of the Father and the society enters its moral and cleansed oedipal phase.. "
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Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote about the effeminacy of Hindus in dealing with Islamic invasion : “The dark, slender, and timid Hindu shrank from a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair race, which dwelt beyond the passes”. Macaulay further writes, "..he seldom engages in personal conflict, and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. There never perhaps existed a people so thoroughly fitted by habit for a foreign yoke.”
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​These prejudices bothered the likes of Aurobindo Ghosh, Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. Luckily for us, today effeminate Hindu is the ideal Hindu. He doesn't remember oppression, genocide and persecution, much less be offended by it. When faced with bigotry, he lowers his head and walks away. If you slap him, he puts his other cheek forward. If he accidentally comes across any achievements of Indic civilisation, he shrinks with self-doubt. With the bridle of pluralism and tolerance he never strays far from the path of the master narrative, forever scared of banishment from the civilised table, where he couldn't sit but for the kindness of his master.
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This blog is for the benefit of the ideal Hindu, the effeminate Hindu.
