It got onto News 24, or whatever it now calls itself! The BBC!
The status of Christianity as the most persecuted religion in the world, the particular virulence in India, the fact that most Indian Christians are Dalits ("Untouchables") or from the "Tribal Peoples", and the fact that seventy per cent of them are Catholics, have all been completely ignored by the BBC, among many others.
Instead, we get the likes of "Mumbai", a BJP-RSS name not acknowledged by either the High Court or the Stock Exchange in Bombay.
Globalisation and its multiculturalism are bringing "Untouchability" and low-caste status to these shores, too. And Christians, mostly Catholics, are paying the price here, as in India.
Perhaps not yet in blood.
Perhaps.
Not yet.
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Yes, and "Beijing" instead of "Peking". Didn't see you complaining about that during the Olympics. Why not?
ReplyDeleteI thought about it, but the damage is done there, and writing "Peking" would only distract from the substance of the points about China. On "Mumbai", as on (for example) "Myanmar", we can still win.
ReplyDeleteAre you a key player in the struggle over the naming of "Mumbai" and "Myanmar"?
ReplyDeleteThere is no "struggle". These simply are not the names of Bombay and Burma. Not in English. Not as used by the High Court or the Stock Exchange is Bombay. Not as used by choice in Burma. Not at all.
ReplyDeleteIf there is no struggle, then what is it that "we can still win"?
ReplyDeleteThe battle for reality in our own media.
ReplyDeleteBollywood still calls itself Bollywood, not Mullywood.
ReplyDeleteSo that's the law, the Stock Exchange and the film industry. The three points of Bombay's existence. None of them has any truck with "Mumbai". There is no such city. The one people have in mind is called Bombay.
Precisely.
ReplyDeleteNow tell that to our own media, beginning with the BBC.
Before the "official" renaming, Mumbai/Bombay's Marathi and Gujarati speakers generally referred to it as Mumbai, and its Hindi and Urdu speakers referred to it as Bombay. There were and are millions of locals using Mumbai, and millions using Bombay. In any case, I'm sure that the vast majority of its 19 million inhabitants, the vast majority of whom have nothing to do with the law, the stock exchange or the film industry, would be surprised to hear those three referred to as "The three points of Bombay's existence". There's a lot more to the place than that.
ReplyDeleteSay what you like about the BJP, but I always assumed that at least they wanted their people to have livelihoods, even if nobody else did. Bombay without the law courts, the financial services and Bollywood? Oh well, a good reason not to vote BJP, anyway.
ReplyDelete"Bombay without the law courts, the financial services and Bollywood?"
ReplyDeleteWho on earth suggested, or would suggest, such a thing? I certainly didn't, and wouldn't. It's just that they are by no means "the three points of Bombay's existence" - an absurd suggestion. And why are you confusing the BJP with Shiv Sena?
Shiv Sena has been a BJP mini-me at least since the 1995 Elections.
ReplyDeleteNice to see you defending the BJP, though. It brings us neatly back on topic: the persecution of Chrtistians in India, their largely Dalit or "Tribal" backgrounds, the export and international entrenchment of "Untouchability" and low-caste status by globalisation and its multiculturalism, and the place of Christians at the receiving end of the results.
"Nice to see you defending the BJP, though."
ReplyDeleteI did no such thing. Nice to see you (a) blatantly misrepresenting my comments; and (b) ignoring the several points in that comment and previous ones which you clearly can't answer.
Where?
ReplyDeleteOn topic, please.