The Internet Hindus

An interesting segment from Al Jazeera TV about the “Internet Hindus.” The Internet Hindus are the Hindutvadi Hindu nationalist fascist Indians who have flooded the Internet in the past few years. Let us think for a minute about who these people are. Only 6% of Indians even has a computer. And how many of those are on the Net. As you can see, almost all Indians on the Net will be the upper class and the upper middle class, the richest of India, the bourgeois and ruling class sector. Hence, these folks are not representative of India as a whole.

The top 6% of Indians are obviously almost all high caste Hindus. So it follows that if almost all Internet Indians are Hindutvadis in one form or another, this shows that Hindutvadi is an ideology of the Hindu ruling class and bourgeois, of the Hindu ruling class and upper middle class. It is also apparently an ideology which has extremely high support among high caste Hindus. Is it mostly a high caste movement? This is hard to say, as surveys are hard to come by. But almost all Hindutvadis on the Net are high caste Hindus for sure.

Hence, this is no populist or working class movement of the people. It’s an elite movement of the bourgeois. Bourgeois revolutionary nationalist movements that attack minorities and are predicated on volkisch nationalism are properly seen as fascist movements. Note how Hindutvadis hate “internationalists,” “international movements,” and how they call all of their opponents Communists and Marxists. They also accuse their “Marxist” opponents of being anti-national or opposed to the country. Ringing any bells now? Sounds like fascism, right? Even sounds like Nazism.

Really, most ethnic nationalist movements are fascist, quasi-fascist or nearly fascist in some sense. The Nazis were nothing special. They were just a typical ethnic nationalist fascist movement, though granted they were quite a bit more bloodthirsty, genocidal and imperialist than most of them.

The lesson of the Nazis is that the Nazi germ is in all fascist movements. All fascist movements are potentially genocidal against the “enemies of the nation,” the internal enemies, usually coded as citizens who are not really members of the nation and the “anti-national” Left which seeks to promote solidarity with other nations and sanity in international relations and offers a critique of society, the state and even the nation. These are the “traitors” in any fascist movement, and their fate in any fascist country is tenuous at best.

That the vast majority of the Hindu upper class and upper middle class and large segments of the Hindu middle class has gone over to an overtly fascist ideology is very troubling.

Russian Neo-Nazi Violence is Out of Control

To be honest, I had not expected anything reasonable on this subject from a group called the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ) but in this report, they really outdo themselves.

Groups like the disgusting ADL in the US spend most of their time engaged in worthless activities like promoting a fake anti-Semitism crisis in the US. Some examples?

An execrable attack on the sublime Walt/Mearshimer report. A shrill screech against some guy saying “Holocaust” and not referring to Jewish folks. A depressing and relentless push for scary hate crime laws. Stoking the fires with the Catholic Church after the Vatican buried the hatchet. Shamelessly shilling for the Israeli gangster state.

Ludicrous anti-Semitism surveys that only ask folks if they are aware of the obvious. Waging total war against the noble academic boycotts of Apartheid Israel.

I could go on but why? Someone got their feelings hurt, wah wah. 1 million humans lie dead in a charnel house called Iraq and the ADL says some Jewish folks got their feelings hurt. I am supposed to really care about this? I don’t think so.

So I dubiously clicked the link on UCSJ page, at best hoping to find an obsession with the Jewish victims and short shift of the Gentile victims of Russian Nazis. To their credit, the UCSJ did a bang-up job, and I salute them.

This is the real deal, the stuff Jews ought to be really concerned about, instead of wasting time chasing phantoms, persecuting innocent people who “criminally” don’t genuflect enough in front of the Jews and shuddering over fake persecution crises.

The entire month of April 2006 was a great big party in all of Russia. It was Adolf Hitler’s birthday, and the skinheads were partying with guns, knives, fists, etc. When the shindig was over, seven innocent people were corpses, and over a dozen more were seriously wounded. The list itself is worth reading in its numbness and outrage.

Victims were Tajiks, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Turks, Muslims in general, people from the Caucasus, Syrians, Mongolians, Tuvans, Chinese, North Koreans, Vietnamese, Malays, Indians, Gypsies, Jews (of course), anti-fascists like me, Senegalese, Zambians, ordinary Russians (??), and fans of rock music (they hate people who listen to “racially inferior” Black music like rap and reggae).

In one case, Tajiks in a market fought back, and a Nazi was killed. Good show!

That was last year. This year is 25% worse.

Sean’s Russian Blog has a good rundown on the crisis, suggesting that the Russian Far Right is becoming radicalized. He blames the socioeconomic structure of Putinism itself.

This stuff has been going on for a long time now. The gangs formed around 1993, but the attacks did not start until 1995. In 1994, police began beating immigrants from the Caucasus repeatedly in public, and there was no punishment for them. This seemed to set an example for the Nazis.

By 1998, they were using weapons in most attacks. Already in 1998, there were many attacks against Indians in Russia, mostly students. So many that the Indian Embassy lodged repeated complaints. That year, neo-Nazis pledged to kill “an Asian a day” and “a Black a day” during April when they celebrate Hitler’s birthday. April 1998 was a particularly bad year for attacks on Indians in Russia.

And in the month after April 20, 1998, an average of four Blacks a day were attacked in Russia. One died. Victims came from Nigeria, Benin, Sudan, South Africa and India. Two Pakistani women were badly beaten. In the following years, synagogues were bombed, police were attacked and bombs were planted in the streets.

There are now at least 70,000 skinheads in Russia and probably many more. That is 50% of the world’s skinhead population. 2/3 of the population agrees with nationalist slogans like “Russia for Russians” and blames all problems on foreigners.

1/2 of Russians want to restrict the rights of Russian national minorities. The Russian neo-Nazis probably have quite a bit of popular support, though it has been difficult to gauge the true level of it.

In the past couple of years, they have crossed a previous red line – no attacks on children. They now usually use screwdrivers, baseball bats and knives, and increasingly the attacks end in homicide. In 2004, they killed Nikolai Girenko, an anti-skinhead activist who had helped convict a number of skinheads in court. He had received many death threats and the entrance to his building was covered in Nazi slogans and symbols.

A good, but long, report on the subject is available here.

Indian Horndogs on the Internet

Dota writes:

Some interesting points, especially regarding creepy behavior. Indians get subtlety, but generally in the context of etiquette, which resembles the Persian ‘Taruf’ in its mode of implied communication. I am not sure about the etiquette patterns of the lower castes since I’ve never had any extended interaction with them, knowing how segregated Indian society is. This is worth looking into. You are also generally correct about Indian men failing to read signals properly, especially with regards to non Indian women

I have been dealing with Indians on the Net for a long time now. All I know is that they are regarded as the bane of the Internet by many women, and not just Western women. I knew a Kuwaiti and a Filipina who despised them also. They were simply way too forward and often aggressively and immediately sexual, and the women regarded them as creeptastic. The basic impression that I have gotten from these Indian guys, who I feel immense sympathy for, is that these guys simply do not know how to act around women at all! That’s just all there is to it. A bunch of guys who simply do not know how to behave or act around chicks.

As a guy who knows women very well and theoretically at least knows how to act around them, I can spot this clueless behavior a mile away.

My conclusion was that these guys grew up in some sort of a gender segregated environment, and they simply never learned how to act around chicks.

Of course I have acted creepy and clueless countless times in my life. I was corrected by females and others in all sorts of ways for this creeptastic behavior such that I know don’t really do it very much. The way a guy learns to act around chicks is by going through a creeptastic phase and getting spanked countless times. After a while you start to figure out what is ok and what is not ok.

I know quite a few Facebook chicks. I met them on a FB dating site a long time ago. When I go to these women’s homepages, every post they make has one or more (often quite a few) Indian guys jumping all over the post saying stuff to the woman. The stuff they say varies, but in general they are coming across overeager and overenthusiastic. Many of these women are Filipinas (some were Thais), and they are not that easy to score anyway. I have asked many of these Filipinas with Indian guys all over their page if they have anything going on with any of these Indian guys. 100% of them have told me, “No, those guys are just friends.”

Over time, I noticed that a few of my Filipina friends hooked up with men and started relationships with them. 100% of the guys they hooked up with were Western guys, either Europeans (often Swedes) or Americans, New Zealanders, Australians, etc. Indian guys were having a 0% success rate with these chicks.

I wondered if there was something inaccessible about these chicks that kept the Indian guys away from them. I got to know some of these chicks via chatting. I know how to talk to women, and it often didn’t take very long before these chicks were inviting me to their countries. I would say, “Where do I stay?” Sometimes they would say, “You stay in a hotel,” but a number of other times they said, “You stay with me baby!”

And a number of them asked me if I wanted to marry them. “You come here to my country, if you meet me and like me, you marry me and take me to USA.” Maybe they just want a green card, but I think a lot of them want to marry an American and get out of wherever.

Some of them sent me dirty pics of themselves, and others talked dirty to me. So these women were definitely accessible, but these Indian guys were completely locked out of them. Now why these Indian guys were batting .000, I am not really certain. Whatever they are doing, I would say that they are doing it wrong.

Indians and the “Diabolical Little Secret”

India Land of Rapes writes:

I have chosen my identity after many ugly experiences with Dirty Hindus, I am more comfortable with Muslims,Iranians,Arabs-Germans and French.

I admire Americans, I detest Hindu fake idiots and Chinese Copy cats with no originality .

Yes I realize there are a lot of problems with Islam. That much is so obvious. But on an individual basis, Arabs are so warm and friendly. Even Muslims in general are warm and friendly. Here in my town, we have many South Indians. Mostly Sikhs, but we also have South Indian Christians, Hindus and a few Muslims. The South Indian Muslims are very friendly!

The Christians are the nastiest of all, and the Hindus are extremely standoffish. 100% of the Hindus are Gujaratis – I do not know why that is. They are pleasant enough say behind the counter, but you cannot make friends with them in any way whatsoever. If you say anything about India, Gujarat or Hinduism, they just completely shut down and end the conversation and walk away! Often they have this evil little smile on their face like, “I see you are onto us and our evil, wicked ways!” Especially if you say something about caste, they get this diabolical little Satanic smile on their face like you have uncovered this evil little secret they have. Then they sort of walk away and end the conversation.

I know this Punjabi guy who is a very wealthy physician. I was talking about India and Punjabis once. Like most such people, he tends to shut down the conversation as soon as you mention his ethnic group for some reason. But somehow today we were talking. I told him that Sikkhism opposed caste, but nevertheless, many Sikhs practice caste anyway, and then I saw that diabolical little smile like the guilty devious look of a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar combined with the shit-eating grin of a cat with a bird in its mouth plus a sort of diabolical conspiratorial grin like you just uncovered someone’s evil little secret like their illegal stashed money account.

Indians are very strange people. Most people who act wicked will simply act terrible and then pretend that they are good. If you tell them they are wicked, they get very angry. A lot of Indians seem to know that their behavior is evil and wicked, but they either don’t care or they like to be wicked. It is very disturbing. Like a people in love with Evil. Like a Satanist or a sociopath. You wonder if Indian society doesn’t produce some sort of mass semi-sociopathic mindset.

A couple of the South Indian stores are now being boycotted pretty much by me due to their meanness and rudeness to me. One is run by Punjabis, and the other is run by Pakistani Christians.

Letter from Rapey, Rapey India

A friend of mine was in India recently. I received email from her when she was there. She told me that the men were very aggressive, creepy and almost rapey. It was difficult to go outside because the men would all stare you down in an excessive, creepy, almost rapey way. In addition, the men were very aggressive sexually, always coming up to her, talking to her and basically obviously trying to pick up on her. The whole scene was so creepy and rapey that she actually dreaded going out. She is a 28 year old Asian-American, so it’s obvious that she is a foreigner.

At one point, I got an email from her telling me that she had almost gotten raped. She had met a couple of Indian men who were very nice and friendly. They invited her back to their place for dinner. She went along with them. They had a very pleasant meal and as it got later, she said she was tired.

They said, “Well, you are too tired to go home, so why don’t you stay here?” There was a huge bed, and they assured her that nothing sexual was going to happen. They would just leave her alone to sleep unmolested. She went along with it. Later that night, the two guys climbed into bed too. I am not sure if they were clothed or not. It was a huge bed, and there was plenty of room for three people. She was wearing a top and pants. They started bothering her. After a lot of cajoling, they convinced her to take her pants off so she was down to her panties. They also got her top off and she was down to her bra.

Then the men kept getting on top of her and trying to penetrate her sexually (not sure exactly how they were trying to do this). One would get on one side and try to penetrate her from the front while another would try to penetrate her from the back. They grabbed at her tits so hard that her breasts hurt for 3-4 days afterwards. They spent much of the night pestering her and trying to get her to have sex with them, but she refused.

I asked why she went along with them. Why had she removed her top and pants? Why hadn’t she left during the night as it was obvious what an uncomfortable scene was unfolding? She told me that she was scared of the guys. She said Indian men are very aggressive and dominant, and these guys were no exception. She had taken off her top and jeans due to fear. She had not left in the night due to fear. There were two of them and one of her, and it seemed safer to stay there than to leave. She told me that she was so scared of them that the just wanted to do everything they said except have sex with them.

I figure this is just Indian guys acting normally in India. It’s also possible that in Indian society, if a woman consents to share a bed with a man, she has consented to sex with them. It also seems as if Indian men regard Western women as “whores” and a prime target for sex, as many Indian women are not available for sex before marriage.

Further, many Indian men have little experience with women and hence behave very aggressively with them. I have noticed this online. Many women complained about the extreme aggressiveness of Indian men online and they told me that they hated all Indian men online.

I run a group for victims of Internet scams, and we used to have group chats. This Indian guy age 25 somehow weaseled his way in there, and he would get on his mike and start describing how he was jacking off now in a really creepy sexual voice. He also told everyone that he was virgin. All of the women absolutely hated this guy and said he was creepy as Hell, but his behavior is rather typical of clueless extreme horndog Indian guys on the Net.

It turns out that many females give in to sex with males out of sheer fear. I do not think it is acceptable to terrorize any female into having sex with you. You shouldn’t be getting sex with women because you have made yourself deliberately so scary that they are afraid to say no to you. I’ve never terrorized any female into having sex with me, and I’ve had tons of sex.

The behavior of these Indian guys was not ok at all. It’s frankly sexual assault. In the US, you don’t get to attack a woman all night long just because you want sex with her. It doesn’t even matter if she is in your bed. It is extremely rapey behavior, and it’s basically criminal, sorry.

You have a right to attack women, that is, grab them, kiss them, or whatever. If she responds positively, then the game is on. If she responds negatively or tells you to back off, at some point the game is off, and you need to give it up. I haven’t engaged in the sort of behavior these guys did ever in my life, and I’ve been around the block quite a bit. I always figured that if you have to pester her or continuously assault her until she gives in, it’s not even going to be worth it.

That said, no DA will press charges on this sort of thing in the US. It’s a date rapey thing, and date rape stuff hardly gets prosecuted. Further, no actual rape occurred, just a lot of assaulty sort of stuff. The cops would say, “Why did you stay with them? Why didn’t you leave?” Anyway, it is a He said, she said sort of thing and those cases almost never see the light of day.

In India, prosecuting a case like this would be hopeless. The cops would not come even if you called them. If they did, they would probably take the woman into custody and rape her themselves. India is probably one of the rapiest countries on Earth, maybe close to South Africa in the running.

Is Education Causing Flynn Effect Secular IQ Rises?

Realist writes:

I don’t think intelligence can be influenced by education. Education provides knowledge, but intelligence is what use when you lack knowledge.

It’s likely that education can artificially inflate scores on culturally biased IQ tests that depend on vocabulary and knowledge, but the most culture fair tests make every effort to minimize these variables.

Intelligence, like height, is extremely genetic within a given time and place however both of these traits can be profoundly boosted by nutrition. For example height in America has increased by several inches over the 20th century and IQ has increased by 20 points over the last 100 years, thanks to advances in nutrition. Nutrition increases the size and complexity of the brain, causing IQ levels to skyrocket.

People in the developed world are probably near their peak IQ, but people in the third world are still suffering from sub-optimum nutrition. That’s why Blacks in Africa average IQ 67, but pure Blacks born in America average around 80.

Indians average about 80 in India but would probably score 90 with first world nutrition. Actually Indians in America average ridiculously high levels (IQ 110) because only the richest and best educated Indians tend to come to America, and once here, they get a 10 IQ point nutrition boost.

So only biological variables can influence intelligence (genes, nutrition) but within a given country at a given time, it’s almost only genetic. But between generations and between countries, nutrition is HUGE.

Nothing Realist says is true.

No one knows what the IQ’s of “pure Blacks” are in the US, and there are hardly any native US Blacks who are pure anyway. One study found a group of very pure Blacks in Mississippi and Alabama. They were loggers in the pine forests there and worked in lumber mills. They had about 5% White in them on average. These are essentially the purest native Blacks in the US. The African American IQ is 87, not 85.

The South Asian IQ is ~82. South Asians in the US and UK, not a particularly selected group especially ion the UK, have IQ’s that have traditionally been 90-96. New scores of ~110 trumpeted by lying Hindutvadi dogs are suspect. Selective immigration could not have raised the scores more than 3-4 points anyway, and it was hardly selective in the UK, where scores are now ~96. The available data suggest a Flynn rise of ~8-14 points in 2nd generation South Asians merely by moving to the West. The rise is due in part to nutrition but also to schooling and growing up in a high tech modern society.

The Flynn rise is due to much more than nutrition. We know this because scores have only risen on certain IQ subtests. On others they have been completely flat. Much of the rise seems to be on tests that would be influenced by modern mathematics instruction and living in a modern, high-tech society. In addition, modern society emphasizes abstract thinking, so children growing up in the West learn to think abstractly. This makes them smarter, and the rise is shown on IQ tests.

Realist’s contention that education related rises do not show up on culture fair tests is wrong. In fact, the greatest rises have been on Raven’s Progressive Matrices, the most culture-fair and g-loaded test of them all. The increases on Raven’s have been due to modern education methods and living in a high-tech modern society. We know this due to multivariate analysis.

IQ is indeed highly influenced by education. Many of the Flynn rises we have been seeing on IQ tests in the past century seem to be due to education. As a population gets more and more educated, they start getting high Flynn rises in their IQ scores. Studies in Dominica and Kenya have born this out well. Also new ways of teaching mathematics have caused Flynn rises all over the world, possibly due to a direct effect on the developing brain.

Gypsies in Romania

This is an excellent video about Gypsies in Romania, narrated by a young Romanian man who absolutely hates Gypsies, as do most Romanians. A number of commenters below chime in from various countries in the region to report that everything the narrator says about Gypsies is true based on their experience.

Gypsies in Romania are somehow getting ahold of some serious money, apparently mostly through crime, scams and various schemes. Almost no Gypsies go to school, even though there are slots allotted to them. And when they do go to school, they almost always do very poorly. Despite having satellite dishes, luxury cars and gold chains, they live in the most sickening hovels which they refuse to fix up. They even shit in the open just like people in India since they often don’t bother to build a toilet in their homes.

Their homes quickly become horribly overcrowded with all of their relatives and hangers-on. They start having sex at age 12-14 and the females spend most of their lives pumping out one baby after another. They openly refuse to work (85% are unemployed) and instead choose to live off the welfare system, beg, steal, con or run various scams. Many Gypsies for some reason never learn to speak, read or write Romanian properly. They send their children off at a very early age to beg for a living. The adults then collect the wages that the children earn from begging, which can be a considerable sum.

Many Romanian Gypsies are now migrating to other parts of the EU because those countries are richer and there is more to steal. In France, they gave the Gypsies $1000 to take off and start a new life. They immediately blew the money and then they were back in France. In other cases, the Gypsies were given a pig to start a farm. The Gypsies quickly killed the pig and then they were right back in France. Gypsies often squat in legitimate buildings. No matter what kind of a building it was beforehand, the Gypsies inevitably trash the place.

Perhaps the most disturbing revelation of all was when the narrator discussed on Gypsy Organized Crime steals houses from Romanians with the assistance of the Attorney General, the judges, the cops and all of the other authorities, all paid off with Gypsy stolen wealth. The Gypsies come into town and try force residents to leave by harassing them, throwing things at them, shitting on their doorstep, urinating on their walls, vandalizing their place, threatening them, etc.

They try to get the residents to sell the place for, say, 5% of the value of the home. Somehow the Gypsies are able, and I am not sure how, to get the residents to leave. Then they buy the home at 5% of the value and sell it at 100% of the value. Many crimes are committed along the way, and the bribed authorities let the Gypsies get away with all of it. I have heard that in Hungary, 85% of property crime (theft) is the result of Gypsies. The way that Gypsy Organized Crime is allowed to run amok in Romania is truly depressing and it suggests that with the return of capitalism, Romania has turned into a Third World nation. Congratulations, revolutionaries.

You will see many similarities between Gypsies and US ghetto Blacks, in fact, it is said that Gypsies are “the thieving ghetto Blacks of Europe.” However I dare say that Gypsies are vastly worse than Black people in the US. I make that comparison because it is true that Black people cause quite a few problems in my country. However, this is nothing compared to an overt criminal culture that the Gypsies lead.

Many Black people in the US are not dedicated to living a career criminal existence. Blacks do not ordinarily destroy all their homes and neighborhoods, nor do they shit in the streets and fields. Many to most Blacks are in school, at least until age 14-16 or so. Quite a few Blacks do well in school, and many go on to college, where quite a few even graduate and go off to work in various professions and good jobs. Blacks have not yet formed organized crime gangs that have paid off cops, DA’s, judges and other authorities. Blacks do not send their children out to beg in the streets all day and then live off the earnings.

Many Black people are in fact employed; indeed, most are employed. Black people in the US speak English well and generally learn to read and write it at least passably. Black criminal gangs do not, thank God, force legitimate homeowners to move so they can buy the homes at 5% of value, committing many crimes along the way. While some Blacks have many children, the Black fertility rate in the US is not particularly high. Blacks are not responsible for 85% of the theft in the US. There is a vast Black middle class and even a small upper class that is relatively to highly well-behaved and is far removed from ghetto culture.

It’s hard to say what to do with Gypsies. It’s anti-human to kill them, although that is frequently proposed. Hitler already tried that. Many countries such as France are throwing them out of the country (they are immigrants after all). This is a great idea; however, every time a country does this, the Left screams and hollers about racism. In fact, anytime anyone criticizes the deplorable behavior of the Gypsies, they are called racists. Considering how horrific Gypsies act, it’s hardly racism to dislike them. It would simply be a normal reaction. At the end of the day, there really is nothing to be done with these people who are obviously a criminal race and a plague upon nations.

One wonders how or why Gypsies have adopted this parasitic and criminal lifestyle. It appears to be cultural, but the roots of this hostile and anti-human culture are uncertain. They came from India 1000 years ago, but what this explains is unknown. One thing is for certain is that it is not due to their genes.

It is true that some small number of Gypsies are well behaved and believe it or not are not even criminals. A few have gone to college and gotten university degrees. There are even Gypsy university professors. These good actors should not be forced to bear the brunt of racist hatred against the Gypsy people, however well deserved it might be, as they are acting as responsible citizens.

Prostitution in Lahore, Pakistan

Very interesting video shows wide open prostitution in a Muslim country, Pakistan. A brothel is open for 2 hours in the city of Lahore every evening, with bribed cops looking the other way. The women all say that they are still Muslims, and they go together to a local Muslim mosque or shrine where they pray and petition Allah to be relieved of their sins. The praying, the petitioning to Allah for forgiveness and the use of the word “shrine” imply a Sufi overlay to these women’s Islam.

The women look very much like Indian people. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would think that they were Indian Hindus. There does not seem to be much physical difference between Pakistanis and Indians, though Pakistanis like to think so. I knew a Pakistani woman once who hated Indians. I saw her on cam once, and I told her that she looked like an Indian. She got pretty upset at that. “No I don’t! I don’t look like an Indian! We don’t look like Indians! We are not Indians!”

This same woman told me that there was a ton of prostitution in Pakistan, even in smaller cities and all the way down to small towns and even villages. She basically said about every village had some of this going on. I was stunned to say the least.

The fact that there is open prostitution in Pakistan makes me think once again what a “Hinduized” form of Islam must be practiced in that country. The truth is that in much of the Muslim world, there is not a heck of a lot of prostitution, certainly not open prostitution. If there is a lot of open prostitution in a Muslim country, one legitimately wonders what sort of accretions have crept in to the syncretistic or schismatic form of Islam practiced there.

“A Question of Honor,” by Dota

Nice post by Dota. Enjoy.

A Question of Honor

 By Dota

Of all the misunderstood aspects of South Asian culture,the least understood, I would argue, is the concept of honor. Westerners often betray their lack of awareness when addressing the controversial (and complex) issue of honor killings while making rhetorical statements such as, “There is nothing honorable about honor killings.” Statements like these indicate a fundamental lack of understanding of the value systems of South Asia. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the South Asian value system that has given rise to this complex social phenomenon.

Before we plunge headlong into the subject matter of this article, let us begin by sketching a brief overview of honor as understood by Westerners. In the Western system, honor generally refers to a personal code of ethics that encompasses a deontological set of rules that enables an agent to act consistently in a moral context. As such, honor codes vary from individual to individual, which is not surprising in a culture that prizes individualism.

There is a considerable overlap in meaning between the terms of honor and ethics in the West. It is not possible for an agent to concurrently be unethical and yet honorable, notwithstanding an individual’s use of deceit to project the illusion of honor. Thus while an overwhelming emphasis is placed on the personal moral code, there is also a (comparatively) smaller emphasis placed on reputation.

Let us now examine the concept of honor in the South Asian context. In this system, honor is perceived as a resource that can increase and decrease with time, depending on the agent’s actions. Thus honor is not a code of ethics in South Asia, but a code of conduct. As an ethical code, this code of conduct leans towards consequentialism, as honor is perceived as being an intrinsic good (being wholly good in and of itself) that the agent tries to maximize with correct action.

However despite its affinity to consequentialist ethics, honor is not concerned with ethics per se but rather with reputation. It is here that we can see the emerging dichotomy between honor in both systems as honor in the South Asian context reverses the priorities of the western system: an overwhelming emphasis on reputation with a minor emphasis on ethics.

So just exactly how does honor guide action in South Asia? The formula is rather elementary: The agent (through his actions) must project honor into his environment that in turn projects it back to the agent. As Aakar Patel explains: “Honor is bestowed on us by others. We cannot honor ourselves.” On a day-to-day level, honor consists of a series of face saving gestures. Offering assistance increases honor while accepting assistance decreases honor. Declining to offer assistance also decreases honor. Maintaining dominance over an adversary is honorable whereas seeking compromise is perceived as a sign of weakness.

 A Closer Look At Saving Face

Face saving is best understood as the day-to-day modus operandi of the honor system. Craig Storti correctly points out in his book (Speaking of India) that the ultimate goal is to maintain group harmony by helping sustain the honor of other members (as well as oneself) within the group. This is primarily accomplished by carefully calibrating ones actions and words so as to not cause deliberate offense. Indian culture is at its core collectivist where groups are defined around family/kin and caste. Since Hinduism does not encourage empathy for others outside one’s caste, maintaining group harmony is paramount and face saving is the way to go about it.

Since Westerners are not dependent upon any group affiliation for their survival, they are generally free to speak their minds. In India, this is generally not an option. It is considered supremely offensive for one to criticize a superior in front of his subordinates. This would cause the superior to lose face. Likewise employees are expected to know their place, and their inputs are also discouraged.

If one requires something from a superior, one is traditionally expected to eulogize the superior before formally broaching a request or grievance. If one is unable to meet a commitment, one must communicate it indirectly in order to save face. Admitting a mistake can also lead to losing one’s face, and oftentimes Indians and Pakistanis will proceed with a job without fully understanding it rather than admitting their ignorance. As Craig Storti again points out, the purpose of conversation in the West is exchanging information whereas in India it is building relationships by preserving honor.

While face saving etiquette is common (to varying degrees) across all strata of Indian society, honor is most prized by the peasant and warrior castes of India and Pakistan. As Aakar Patel astutely observes, an overwhelming majority of honor killings are committed by members of these castes. The Brahmins and Vaishya (traders/merchants) castes do not place a premium on honor. I would assume that the Brahmins’ indifference to honor stems from their advantageous social position whereas the Traders do not care for honor since they deal in exchanges and hence their mercantile values favour flexibility over the rigidity of honor constraints.

 Saving Face: The Case of Nawaz Sharif and the Kargil Conflict

After Pakistan’s supremely incompetent General Parvez Musharraf launched his disastrous invasion of Indian Kashmir in 1999, it was tasked to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s civilian government to clean up the military’s mess (and subsequently be blamed for it as well). It is widely understood that the Pakistani military unilaterally decided to invade Indian soil without the civilian government’s consent or knowledge.

When the Kargil War took a turn for the worse, Nawaz Sharif began getting desperate. His attempt at recruiting Chinese support for the ill planned invasion was rebuffed by the Asian giant. On July 2,1999 Sharif phoned Clinton and begged the US president to intervene. Clinton stated that the terms included a complete Pakistani withdrawal from Indian Kashmir. After the Indian army recaptured Tiger Hill in a decisive 11 hour battle on July 4th, Sharif phoned Clinton again and demanded an audience, to which Clinton acquiesced. After scolding Sharif, the Pakistani army withdrew and the conflict was over. How did the Pakistani army infiltrate Kargil to begin with? According to Ajay Bisaria:

By a gentlemanly agreement, every year Indian and Pakistani forces withdrew from the heights in the winter harshness and returned to man the posts in spring. The two sides had refrained from major attempts to alter the status quo during this ebb and flow of seasonal deployments. This was true of Siachen as also the Kargil sector. Pakistan had now violated this agreement.

Pakistan had violated a gentleman’s agreement by taking advantage of the Indian military’s absence during the harsher winter months.

There are several interesting points to note here. When the Pakistanis began losing the war, Sharif appealed to Clinton for help instead of directly approaching the Indians for a diplomatic solution. This motive is obvious – Sharif wanted to save face (for the entire country) by approaching Clinton instead of the ‘inferior vegetarian cowards’ who had just humiliated Pakistan’s military. Sharif later admitted that had India formally declared war and closed its borders, the Pakistani troops stranded inside India had only 3 days worth of supplies.

How do the Pakistanis narrate this story to each other? I have spoken to numerous Pakistanis about this, and they have told me that Pakistan inflicted massive casualties against India (this part is true) and was clearly winning the war. Unfortunately the traitorous Americans sided with India and summoned Sharif to the White House in order to force his hand to withdraw. Sharif is seen as being weak willed and indecisive by most Pakistanis and the main reason for Pakistan’s failure in the war. The Pakistani version clearly contradicts established facts as it was Sharif who begged Clinton for an audience; but why retell this story?

For one, the military had to save face by blaming their failure on the superior American foe instead of the Indian foe that had directly vanquished them. The military’s honor was saved, and Sharif took the fall. Clearly Pakistanis are oblivious to the fact that Sharif’s groveling saved the lives of all those Pakistani troops stranded behind enemy lines in Kargil. This is not even given fleeting consideration.

What is paramount is that honor should be preserved. Another striking point is that Pakistanis are also oblivious to their military’s blatantly unethical conduct when violating their gentleman’s agreement with India. This case study illustrates that ethics and honor can be mutually exclusive in the South Asian context whereas this would be unthinkable in the West.

 Saving Face: The Case of the Shiv Sena’s ‘Defiance.’

The Shiv Sena is a Mumbai-based political party that has been unfairly classified as a Hindutva party by secular minded non-Mumbaikars. In reality however, while the SS might sympathize somewhat with Hindutva, they remain a primarily Marathi Chauvinist party. They claim to speak on behalf of the Marathi people of Maharashtra. The SS are not averse to patrolling their neighborhoods with local toughs and generally making a nuisance of themselves by using violence when necessary. It was they who unleashed a wave of violence against south Indian immigrants in Mumbai shortly after the party was formed in the 60s . Bullying is their game.

What drives the SS? In a remarkably insightful article, Aakar Patel points out that the SS renders visible the anger of the Marathi people. Why are the Marathis angry? Patel believes it is because they are a disenfranchised majority within their own regional state. Mumbai owes its commercial success to the competence of the Gujarati Trader castes that have built up the island’s fortunes over the last 300 years. The Gujarati Trader castes (Vanias, Bohras, Memons etc) still maintain their Gujarati culture and language and do not identify with the local Marathi culture. To makes matters worse, Bollywood (based in Mumbai) is not dominated by Marathis but by Punjabis and Urdu speaking Muslims.

Since the Marathis are primarily from the peasant caste, their economic disenfranchisement makes complete sense from a historical perspective. The roots of poverty and anger are usually historical.

In the US certain segments of the African American population engage in a disproportionate amount of violence as they no doubt feel a sense of collective anger and resentment at their socioeconomic station; a result of the African American experiences shaped by the historical reality of slavery. The Marathis too feel a sense of anger, but there is a difference in the motivating factors of Marathi violence compared to African American violence that can only be explained by culture.

As stated above, Black aggression is a product of anger that is rooted in historical injustice. The Black man acts out of a sense of desperation and frustration whereas Marathi violence is driven by the need to project power. The underclass of African Americans do not seek to dominate society whereas the Marathi is genuinely trying to claim what he believes is his birthright. The Marathi resents that he has no control or say over the development of his regional state.  He feels marginalized. As the ultimate face saving act, the Marathi resorts to violence with the aim of maintaining the illusion of control.

The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena party (in some ways an offshoot of the Shiv Sena) attacked cinemas that screened Amithabh Bachan’s films in response to a remark made by his wife expressing pride in her Hindi mother tongue. How dare she express Hindi pride in a Marathi state! The MNS had also previously threatened Mumbai shopkeepers with vandalism if they refused to put up Marathi language signboards alongside their English ones. These acts of defiance belie the wounded pride felt deeply by a people whose caste so highly prizes honor and saving face.

Conclusion

The notion of honor in South Asia is demonstrably different from that of the West. Understanding honor would greatly enable any Westerner to not only decode South Asian behavior but also their speech patterns by detecting insinuations which would normally fly under their radar. I have also tried to sufficiently address the Western query of how South Asians can behave in a manner deemed unethical by Western standards but yet command high status amongst their fellow South Asian peers.

References

Bisaria, Ajay. 2009. Bill Clinton and the Kargil Conflict: From Crisis Management to Coercive Diplomacy. WWS 547: The Conduct of International DiplomacyPatel, Aakar. 2011. Why the Honor Killing Bill Won’t Work. Livemint.

Patel, Aakar. 2010. The Thackereys’ Primitive Charisma. Livemint.

Storti, Craig. 2007. Speaking of India. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

The Oxford Sex Trafficking Gang

This text was borrowed from a Wikipedia sandbox page. I am not sure what the real article looks like yet. The article contains detailed descriptions of what these men did to these poor girls, who were horrifically abused. Incredible what these guys did to these girls – the girls were apparently raped and tortured over a long period of time.

Apparently they were all Muslim, and the girls were all White Britons, so the Muslim haters are going wild with this stuff. Some of them are saying that this is part of the “rape jihad” that Muslims supposedly conduct against the infidels, but I do not think that this is true. Do you think the rape and abuse of these young girls was part of a “rape jihad” on the part of these Muslim men?

The Oxford sex trafficking gang was a group of nine Asian men who preyed on under-age teenage girls in Oxford, England. The girls were subjected to extreme physical and sexual violence, and were transported around England for prostitution.

Gang members

The gang, seven of whom were of Pakistani extraction, the other two of North African, included two sets of brothers: Akhtar Dogar, a thirty-one-year-old hospital porter and his unemployed brother, Anjum (30), and Bassan Karrar (32) who worked as a security guard and his unemployed brother, Mohammed (37). Kamar Jamil (26) also worked as a security guard and Zeshan Ahmed, also 26, was unemployed.

Abuse

From 2004-2012, the gang groomed children ranging from 11 to 15-years-old from dysfunctional backgrounds who were unlikely to be believed, some living in foster care homes. They gave them presents, plied them with alcohol and introduced them to crack and heroin. After the girls became dependent on the men, they were guarded so they could not escape and were threatened that they and their families would be harmed if they ever tried to leave. The girls were raped vaginally, orally and anally, sometimes by several men, the abuse occasionally lasting for several days at a time.

Some girls were groomed to be child prostitutes and were taken to guest houses in Bradford, Leeds, London, Slough and Bournemouth where men, usually Asian, would pay to have sex with them. The girls were subjected to extreme sexual violence, including biting, suffocating, and burning. They were tortured with knives, baseball bats, and meat cleavers and were occasionally urinated upon. One 14-year-old girl was burnt with a lighter when she tried to resist having sex.

One of the girls had just turned 12 when she was forced into prostitution. She was abused in various places around Oxford, including a flat, the Nanford Guest House, Travelodge and in the Shotover Woods. She frequently contracted chlamydia and was covered in burns from where the men had stubbed out their cigarettes. She began to self-harm and later described her experiences as “living hell”. She said that the men sometimes seemed to be aroused by her crying.

Another girl, aged 11, was “bought” by Mohammed Karrar, one of the gang members, who would charge men men between £400 and £600 to have sex with her. He used a hot piece of metal to “brand” the girl with his initial, beat her, and forced her to have a backroom abortion after making her pregnant. Karrar used to visit her at her house where the girl was a carer for her deaf and ill parents.

A 14-year-old girl was threatened with a gun into having sex with member of the sex ring. She said that the gang were aware that she lived in a children’s home and that Akhtar Dogar would wait around the corner from the childrens’ home in Henley-on-Thames that she was staying in. She described being transported around flats, guest houses and parks where she was then raped.

Trial

The gang were arrested by Thames Valley police as part of Operation Bullfinch, an investigation of child exploitation of 24 girls aged between 11 and 16 years old, and were charged with 51 counts of various crimes at the Old Bailey:

Name	Sentence	Charge
Anjum Dogar	years	rape, conspiracy to rape, arranging child prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation
Akhtar Dogar	years	rape, conspiracy to rape, arranging child prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation
Kamir Jamil	years	rape, conspiracy to rape, arranging child prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation
Mohammed Karrar	years	rape, conspiracy to rape, assault of a child by penetration, conspiracy to assault by penetration, using an instrument with intent to procure a miscarriage, arranging child prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation
Bassan Karrar	years	rape, conspiracy to rape, conspiracy to assault by instrument, arranging child prostitution, trafficking for sexual exploitation
Assad Hussain	years	sexual activity with a child, conspiracy to rape
Mohammed Hussain	years	rape, sexual activity with a child, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child
Bilal Ahmed	years	sexual activity with a child, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child
Zeeshan Ahmed	years	sexual activity with a child, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child

Response

Esther Davidson, from the Oxford Community Against Trafficking, said that demand for sex with under-age children was “completely unacceptable” and that “we now have to face the fact modern slavery takes place in our community.