Word: togadiya
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Pravin Togadiya is general secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Hindu movement blamed for the upsurge in religious bloodletting in India. Last week in New Delhi he spoke with TIME's Meenakshi Ganguly...
...TIME: Why are you upset with Muslims? Togadiya: It is a cultural conflict against Islamic fundamentalists. Muslims enjoy more rights than Hindus. But Islam is an armed doctrine. Hindus feel there is no one to protect them, so they have started to take the law into their own hands. The country is heading toward anarchy...
...TIME: What is the solution? Togadiya: First, Muslims should respect Hindu sentiment. They built 30,000 mosques after breaking our temples. We are asking them to return just three. Second, secularism has to be remolded so it does not favor any one religion. And, thirdly, politicians have to stop appeasing the Muslim vote...
...TIME: And if this does not happen? Togadiya: The mood today is to punish militant Islam. Muslims are not in the mood for compromise. Until they do something to calm Hindu sentiment, things will get more and more violent. You can impose a curfew in one place, but there will be an incident somewhere else. When you control that, there will be a third place. The VHP only wants to protect Hindu society. But I fear a new path may be adopted by Hindu youths. The Hindu mood has changed...
...Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has described the pogrom merely as "unfortunate." Pravin Togadiya, general secretary of the VHP, warns that he can see Hindu sentiment getting even more out of hand. Said one rioter in Ahmadabad, capital of Gujarat, as he watched his comrades pillage a cluster of Muslim homes: "We want to make sure the Muslims never come back." If there is one immutable law of nature, it is that violence begets violence, and hatred spawns more hate (think of the Middle East). India's long national nightmare may just be beginning...
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