Sunday, May 31, 2020

Colonial Parsi elite published anti-Hindu rhetoric, calling Hindus irrational, uncivilized and dark

All it takes is one drop of poison


"What becomes clear in these publications and in others like them is that the rhetoric of asserting similitude to the European entails the assertion of distance from non-Parsi Indian communities. They become other: barbaric, uncivilized, nonrational, dark-skinned, essentially different in their constitution. Some Parsis chastised the community for this separatist sensibility, but it is undeniably present in the texts and in what we know of the practices of at least the Parsi elite. Parsis lived in Anglicized houses; they became active as liberal reformists, often attempting to reform "backward" Hindu customs; they wrote about the "rational" quality of Zoroastrian religion, its lack of ritualism, and its compatibility with science, which they saw as a contrast to Hinduism. By 1901 25 percent of the community spoke English, as compared to less than 1 percent of the Jains and .5 percent of the Hindus (Axelrod 1974, 31).15"

- T. M. Luhrmann, "Evil in the Sands of Time: Theology and Identity Politics among the Zoroastrian Parsis", Retrieved 05/31/2020 From: http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/amcdouga/MEAS400/winter%202008/mar%2010/abad_rdg.pdf

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