#india religion population

[census2023]

Hindu Religion in India | Statewise Census 2023 | Census 2023

Hindu religion data of all states as per Census 2011 figures—complete Data of all religions and comparison in each state. According to the most recent census data from the Indian government, the Hindu population in India as of 2011 is approximately 79.8%. This makes Hinduism the dominant religion in India, followed by Islam (14.2%) and Sikhism (1.7%). Other religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, and Jainism, comprise less than 1% of the population. It is important to note that census data is subject to change and should be considered an estimate. The Hindu population in India has been growing at a slower rate than other religious groups, particularly Muslims.

The Growth rate of Hindus, Muslims, and Christians is expected to fall more in the upcoming 2023 census while other religions like Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddism are expected to remain stable for the next 2 decades considering the already slowed-down growth rate of these religions.

[peachiyyy]

ind*a’s h*nduv*ta issue needs to be addressed globally bc they essentially want to do the same thing isr*el is doing to non-hindu indians. They’re also one of isr*el’s biggest supporters + isr*el funds the indian occupation in kashmir. B*p and m*di are garbage and I pray for their downfall everyday. Considering the history of 🇮🇳 , being in favor for genocide should be anti-indian but they hate muslims so much that they don’t care. But when I talk about it some yt saviour on here wants to tell me, a DESI- not just south asian, a DESI person, that im ‘racist’ for calling majority of them garbage lmfao.

[klimanaturali]

Maiores Religiões na ÍNDIA Por População

[tribalkhabar]

Adivasi of India

Here find info on: Adivasi of India. Know, History of Adivasi in India. Adivasi Population in India. About, Adivasi Religion. Adivasi History. Tribes of India.

[mapsontheweb]

Buddhism in Southeast Asia

Buddhism reached Southeast Asia both directly over sea from India and indirectly from Central Asia and China in a process that spanned most of the first millennium CE. Currently, there are approximately 190–205 million Buddhists in Southeast Asia, making it the second largest religion in the region, after Islam. Approximately 35 to 38% of the global Buddhist population resides in Southeast Asia.

by african.mapper

[metamatar]

im asking this out of pure ignorance but I've always wondered how does hinduism handle people who are not hindu? i know Christianity is essentially 'be the right kind of christian or go to hell' (so much as to beleive that Jewish people are literally devils, for example) but i was wondering how hinduism deals w people who are in proximity but not of the same religion. also if a dalit or lower caste person converts from hinduism to another religion, how does that affect thier life and how they're treated? appreciate your answer if u feel like explaining ^__^

it depends, in some parts of the country the non hindu has the same status as the lower caste dalit by default – so exclusion but in most places its a detente where religious and caste endogamy is strictly maintained. housing and employment discrimination is v common. its actually much harder to marry under the special mariage act and violence against interfaith and intercaste couples by their own families is common. in 2023, the muslim is the designated enemy of the state. the christian was fooled by the british and/or money to give up their culture or is literally a foreign agent. if you're looking for a textual answer, the equivalent of the "infidel," there isn’t really one because the streamlining of the canonical religious texts and construction of the hindu is recent. hinduism has aimed to appropriate instead of convert.

in modern india, legally anyone who is not a christian or a muslim is treated as a hindu. you are hindu by default in india to the state, governed by hindu codes for marriage and inheritance. for indigenous tribals it is a matter of coercing their children to feel shame at the (state sponsored but outsourced to private religious groups, love privatisation!!!) residential schools about their animist practices and making them worship the proper gods. for sikhs, jains and buddhists their is marginally more toleration. but they are basically seen as wayward hindu sects. this does change when they're in conflict with the majority in a way that resists "national cohesion" – see sikh pogroms in 1984 and the recent moves against sikhism due to the invocation of khalistan in the farmers protests. when dalits convert to buddhism many right wingers will invoke the spectre of predatory conversions.

since you are supposed to be hindu by default, christians and muslims are then seen as invasive outsiders and conversions are regulated very strictly by many states. it is historically true that christian missionaries brought christianity as part of a broader civilising mission, but imo it says something really depressing about hinduism that its epithets for christians is 'ricebag converts' bc people apparently converted for a bag of rice. islam's foothold in the continent is older, accompanying immigration from the west as well as the sultanate and the mughals. returning these christians and muslims to the fold, or "ghar wapsi" is a major project of the hindutva right. note that india is home to one of the world's largest populations of muslims (~200mil).

lower caste dalits have long converted to christianity and islam but caste violence follows them there anyway. caste may have textual origins in religion and focus on ritual purity but it is a socioeconomic form of subjugation. this means that while still subject to caste violence, dalit christians and muslims will be denied redressal through state protections like legislations against anti caste violence or reservations because those are restricted to hindu dalits.

[sammaggs]

3x10 Perfect Strangers | Multiculturalism

This episode is (like the rest of the show, but still) particularly and obviously preoccupied with the differences between Canada and America—especially since this is the episode where they fly to Toronto.

As Fraser says upon landing at Pearson about the dual French/English announcements over the PA:

And this is true!

The American “melting pot” philosophy of immigration is an assimilationist one: as different cultural groups join the society, they “melt together” into one common culture. Typically, this means erasing the unique parts of your own culture to become more acceptably American (and you know exactly what that means as well as I do.)

Canada’s multiculturalist approach is instead an example of a “cultural mosaic” model, in which we believe that disparate cultures can co-exist side-by-side and, in maintaining their own individual identity, enrich each other in the process.

The Multiculturalism Act, meant to make preserving and enhancing cultural diversity part of official government policy, was signed in 1971 (the OG Trudeau government was big on this). As of 2016, there were over 250 different ethnic groups in Canada.

Which brings us back to our top GIF!

Punjabi Sikhs in Whitehorse and Vancouver, 1906 and 1908

Sikhs are the fourth-largest religion in Canada, and have a large population out West. Canada actually has the largest national Sikh proportion in the world (at 2.1%), and the second-largest Sikh population in the world (after India).

So naturally, some of them would want to join the RCMP.

I’m going to let this article from the CBC tell this story far better than I could:

And so that’s why, for a brief moment, due South shows us a Sikh officer in a turban outside RCMP HQ.

(Which is actually the Canadian Blood Services HQ, in the building of what was once the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, built in 1892!)

Quiet Canadiana in due South [more]

[callimara]

Important PSA

Criticizing Israel is NOT antisemetism or an attack on Jewish people because

ISRAEL =/= ALL JEWS

And while I am not saying that there is no antisemitism because there is plenty of that too, this is not a case of that. But grouping all Jews together as Israeli and presenting them as a monolith erases their individuality and identity. It's like calling all Asian people Chinese, and that if you criticize China, then you hate all Asian people. It doesn't make sense.

I am so frustrated seeing people who are trying to raise awareness about Palestine be called antisemetic and disgusting by people who cannot perceive Jews and Muslims as anything but a monolith. That's the reason why so many people are having trouble distinguishing between Hamas and Palestinian civilians, because to them, they're all the same.

And that's why they don't see an issue with collective punishment.

And you know what? Palestine is NOT just the Jewish holy land. It is also the Christian holy land, and the Muslim holy land. Palestine wasn't even the first choice for a Jewish homeland because it was heavily contested by Jewish rabbis at the time.

Turning Palestine (I say Palestine because the entirety of what is now Israel used to be Palestine) as an exclusively Jewish ethno-state means that people of Christian and Muslim faith all over the world are stripped of their holy land. The oldest church in the world, dating back to the times of Christ is located in Gaza, and who are the ones protecting it? Palestinians.

And you know who bombed it? Even though it had 500 refugees of both Muslim and Christian faith inside? Israel.

Even the slogan used for the founding of Israel itself, "A land without people for a people without a land." Is blatantly revisionist and erases the existence of Palestinians already living there. It erases all the historic religious sites that stand there and are frequented regularly by their respective devotees. Or worse, does not consider the Palestinians as 'people.'

Some people tend to forget that religious belief is NOT the same as race, and so you CANNOT claim indigeneity just because you are a certain religion. I am an Indonesian Muslim. Born Muslim, raised Muslim, and every generation of my family have been Muslim. That doesn't mean I can say I'm indigenous to Saudi Arabia. Let alone that Saudi Arabian land is my birthright.

If a white American woman born and raised in Seattle decides to convert to Hinduism, can she then say she is now indigenous to India? Or if she has a child, and that child had a child, and they were all raised as a Hindu, but have always lived in the US all their lives, can they claim that they are indigenous to India?

No.

And the fact is, the first Jewish settlers during The First Aliyah (great Jewish migration to Palestine) came from Eastern Europe and are genetically closer to Russians and other Slavs than they are to the Jews who remained in the Middle Eastern region after their exile (and I guess some people forget that you can convert into Judaism even if you didn't come from "The Promised Land." Like for marriages and stuff.) That's why they feel the need to distinguish themselves from the word "Arab."

Granted, there were also Yemeni Jews that migrated with them (whom I would say have stronger claims to indigeneity), but even in the transition camps, there was a clear divide between the European Ashkenazi Jews and the Yemeni Jews, who literally had their kids taken from them to give to the Ashkenazi Jews.

And let's not forget that when Jewish migrants from Ethiopia came, they were given contraceptives without consent to make sure they didn't impact the "desired" population.

Wake up. This isn't a religious war. This is European colonization.

[daughterofruins]

How dare you say India is not my country, when my ancestors chose this Land, this Nation, this Mother over all other "religious" and political factors?

How dare you think that I am any less of an Indian because I am Muslim, and you are more of an Indian because India is also called Hindustan?

How dare you even think that Hindustan is called Hindustan because of the Hindu population, and not because of the river Indus?

How dare you even think that, I, a Muslim, cannot be a patriot when all my live I have sungs songs of Patriotism and sung praises of Bharat Mata?

How dare you even think of comparing two children of a Mother who has thousands and is loving each of them, living in each of them, thriving in each of them?

How dare you think that my religion makes me any less of an Indian, when all it does is makes me all the more of an Indian?

How dare you?

[memecucker]

The relationship between colonialism and religion is more complicated than the Civilization game where you’re trying to score a religious victory and it’s easier to convert places you conquer.

It’s not a matter of religion being imposed purely for the purpose of religion being imposed even if that may have been the personal motives of individual colonizers because even if there was a truly missionary motive these missions could only exist insofar as it was economically sustainable and oftentimes this takes the form of exploitation of the indigenous population.

Also the flat conception of religious colonialism overlooks how as colonialism progressed as a type of “social technology” there was in many places a shift away from seeking to replace indigenous organized religions (if they were present in the first place) towards recruiting the indigenous religious authorities to the colonial side.

Like for example with the colonies of the Iberian powers there was no separation of church and state and I don’t just mean in the sense of “the state imposed religious dogma and the church officially endorsed the state” I mean basic everyday functions of the state relied upon services of the church. Eg; If a colonial Governor wanted to say, requisition corvee labor from villages for a building project and he wished to know the populations of these villages in order to decide which to pull laborers he wouldn’t be looking at any state mandated census but instead would rely upon the archives and records of the Catholic Church because records would be kept of church attendance. If the governor wanted to hunt some rebel named “Diego of San Juan” he’d look at baptismal records to find examples of people named “Diego” and who they’re related to.

This meant that Spanish and Portuguese colonialism had an actual material interest in enforcing religious homogeneity and Catholic supremacy because that’s how their colonial states functioned. The colonial bureaucracy was in fact synonymous with the Church’s bureaucracy and so if some people weren’t Catholic they existed outside the Church which meant they existed (at least partially) outside the State. One example that’s a bit relevant is the original version the “National Commission on Indigenous Peoples” in the Philippines was set up during the American occupation and was called “Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes” because the groups in question are largely people who existed outside of direct Spanish colonial control (and wouldve been labeled “savages” in the 19th century) and hence “non-Christian”.

Anyway in the case of the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia this wound up being part of the reason for its collapse. By making their state function in the requirement that it’s subjects be observant Catholics the Portuguese had a lot of trouble making allies because if indigenous elites could be persuaded to convert then great but if they didn’t then they were gonna get really pissed off especially when they start hearing the Portuguese are torturing people under their rule that feel the same. And so without a network of allies the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia began to fall apart leaving only Goa, Macau and East Timor. Elsewhere the Portuguese had been replaced by the Dutch, English and French all of whom had systems of governance which was not as so dependent on doctrinal supremacy as the Iberians eg; the Dutch agreed to help the Shogunate put down a Christian revolt in 1638 and the East India Company actually banned Christian missionaries from operating in its territories until 1813 when Parliament forced them to allow Christian missionaries to preach.

Now of course the EIC example is in particular interesting because what you’re basically seeing is the colonial state shedding its reliance on the Christian Church in favor of courting the support of indigenous religious leaders and recruiting them into the colonial apparatus but at the same time you have churches seeking to operate whats can be considered a type of “rival” colonial project that would have an almost parasitic relationship in that the churches profited in their own way while also in a way undermining the local legitimacy of the official colonial state.

[census2023]

Muslim Religion in India - Statewise Census 2011 to 2023 - Census 2023

The population Growth rate of various religions has come down in the last decade (2001-2011). Hindu Population Growth rate slowed down to 16.76 % from the previous decade's figure of 19.92% while Muslim witness a sharp fall in growth rate to 24.60% (2001-2011) from the previous figure of 29.52 % (1991-2001). Such a sharp fall in the population growth rate for Muslims didn't happen in the last 6 decades. Christian Population growth was at 15.5% while the Sikh population growth rate stood at 8.4%. The most educated and wealthy community of Jains registered the least growth rate in 2001-2011 with a figure of just 5.4%.

The Growth rate of Hindus, Muslims, and Christians is expected to fall more in the upcoming 2021 census while other religions like Sikhism, Jainism, and Buddism are expected to remain stable for the next 2 decades considering the already slowed-down growth rate of these religions.

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Genuinely curious, because you seem to hate the Ram Mandir... or how you think one party/ruling government is using it for political gain/votes or how it's wasting money etc.

What do you have to say about the Waqf board act? Or the infamous Shah Bano case and the way the Rajiv Gandhi government went against the decision of the Supreme Court to favour Muslim patriarchy. Or the fact that the Congress government banned books like the Satanic Verses to please a certain community. Is this not politics of appeasement?

You say that the ruling party is playing politics over religion, but hasn't every party done it? It's not like BJP was even hiding it, they've been campaigning for the Ram Mandir rebuilding for decades. It doesn't make it automatically a bad move.

Besides, Ram Mandir is built through devotee donations, so why so much vitriol against it? If Hindus are giving money to construct a temple, it's solely their own decision. I genuinely don't understand why there's so much hatred for it. If a community is reclaiming their holy land, which had been forcibly ruined and rebuilt into another type of building, it's not a bad thing. Plus, a big chunk of land was given to the Sunny Waqf board to build a beautiful mosque in Ayodhya itself, which has begun construction this year (iirc). Both communities will have their interests restored.

Why can't we move on and celebrate the Ram Mandir rebuilding and inauguration? Is decolonization and reclaiming of a place of cultural significance not important?

(I know that some people are being too aggressive about it, but the majority isn't. They're simply celebrating and praying. And some of them actually got attacked for it.)

Okay. Since you're genuinely curious, I'll answer this.

"Why am I criticising the current ruling party for playing politics of appeasement and not any of the other parties?" I'm criticizing them BECAUSE they're the ruling party. They have been in power for close to 10 years now. That's more than 1/3rd of my whole life. This is a hilarious question because I would've been criticizing the same action if it would've been taken by any other political party. I don't have a problem with the party, I have a problem with what they're doing. All citizens are SUPPOSED to do this, my friend. Criticizing your government on what they're doing wrong is a fundamental part of a democracy.

"Politics of appeasement." I hope you understand the difference between appeasement and religious nationalism. The ruling party isn't appeasing anyone. Their acts are guided by their political ideology of Hindutva. I fundamentally disagree with their ideology. I do not agree with them when they say being Hindu is integral to being an Indian. I do not believe in maintaining a Hindu hegemony in India. I simply refuse to accept an ideology that was LITERALLY INSPIRED BY FASCISM AND THE IDEAS OF RACIAL SUPERIORITY.

"What do you have to say about so-and-so?" You know, I would've criticised things I believe are harming our country and power when the governments you speak of were in power. Unfortunately, in certain cases I was not alive then to criticize them and in a few cases, I was a child and I did not know how to form complex sentences. I do not believe in essentialism, you understand? I do not believe that any religion or political party is essentially good or bad. I believe in judging them for what they do.

"They've been campaigning for the Ram Mandir for decades. It doesn't make it automatically a bad move." It's imperative for you to understand this, it is politically a good move and in all other ways a HORRIBLE move. They get the support of all the Hindus who make up the majority of the population? Decent political move. Who could begrudge them for using DIVIDE AND CONQUER as a strategy? But in doing so, what kind of monster have they created? Have they created a billion people who think religious-nationalism is an okay direction for the country's future? Is that a good move, I ask you.

"Ram mandir is built through devotee donations so it's okay." That's close to ₹1,800 crores. (Estimated amount because of course, there's no transparency in the donation system so that we know who donated what amount.) Do you seriously believe all that money came out of the pockets of average working class Indians? Or did the ultra wealthy businessmen fund this religious project and get massive tax breaks in the process? But yes, I'm sure there's no fuckery going on with the money because it's out of DEVOTION. That makes it okay, I guess.

Now we come to the part that is the worst part of this anon message, according to me.

"Reclamation and decolonization." You use these words so lightly and I find that offensive. These words are HIGHLY tied to power structures. Who has the power right now? Is it the mythic evil Islamic conquerors of 400 years ago? Or is it a political party that believes in hindu nationalism and is funded by the ultra wealthy billionaires because said party helps them get even richer? Who is reclaiming what here? I want you to ask yourself this. Can a powerful majority claim reclamation when they tear down a building to build another building there?

"They tore down the temple and built a mosque there" And now you've torn down the mosque and built a temple there. Congratulations, you've won the game. Where do we go from here? Will everyone be happy now? Has peace been restored? A great evil destroyed? What story are we telling ourselves here? Will the religious fanaticism go away now? Will the hatred that has been cultivated in the hearts of Hindus against Muslims be sated? Or will it find more avenues to spread itself?

Decolonizing the mind, right? I wonder why we're only focused on decolonizing against the islamic past and not anything else. But it's okay that India is currently colonising Kashmir. We don't believe in decolonisation when it comes to Kashmir. We don't believe in decolonizing from the system of capitalism that is choking the lives out of us. HELL, WE DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN RECLAMATION SEEING HOW WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH GIVING THE BARE MINIMUM RESERVATION TO CERTAIN COMMUNITIES AS A REPARATION FOR THE HARM THEY'VE HISTORICALLY AND CURRENTLY SUFFERED AND ARE STILL SUFFERING.

I don't want people to talk to me about reclamation, reparation and decolonisation before they accept their own hypocrisy.

Anon, you say have so much vitriol and hate towards a mandir. I should let people celebrate. Did I stop you personally from celebrating? Did I beat up somebody for trying to shove their religious agenda on me? All I did was talk about how sad I am that this is what we've decided to do with our country's resources. Why is one voice of dissent such a big deal to you? Do you want me to shut up and fall in line? Will that be acceptable?

- Mod S

[secular-jew]

Colonialism is a disease

Imagine being an Arab Muslim and having the audacity to call someone else a colonizer. The illustration below is a snapshot of Islamic colonialism and occupation of other people's lands, from the 7th-9th centuries. Islam went on to attack, destroy, occupy and colonize vast swaths of Europe and southeast Asia, as well as what is now called Turkey.

The world has witnessed many colonial empires since the beginning of time. Most notably, the Mongols, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Islam/Ottomans, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish, British, and American. The only empire that didn't take land, even after winning world wars, were the Americans. They actually gave back the Philippines. But I digress.

All of these empires were in large part, created by bloody conquest, and built on the backs of the newly subjugated. The Hebrews were, famously, slaves in Egypt. No one seems to teach this in the west, focusing more on the Romans, but of all the colonialists, one of the most deadly brutal and expansionist empires were the Muslims aka the Islamists. The Islamic empire expanded by sheer, from Medina (where Muhammad massacred and enslaved the 50% majority Jewish population) all the way into western North Africa, much of Europe, and large populations of Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, parts of India now called Pakistan, etc). As it expanded using violence and fear, Islam literally took 100 million slaves out of Africa, and was responsible for one of the greatest mass murders in history: killing 10 million (or more) on the forced march from their homelands to the Middle East.

Some examples of Islamic slavery include the Al-Andalus slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the Comoros slave trade, the Zanzibar slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, the Ottoman slave trade, the Black Sea slave trade, the Bukhara (Uzbekistan) slave trade, and the Khivan slave trade from which Islam took millions of slaves out of Persia to the Islamic khanates. There are Arab/Islamic societies today (Libya, a well-known example) that still trade slaves.

Compare this to Israel. Israel/Judea was never colonial nor expansionist. The Hebrews (aka Jews) were often properties of and were subjugated by, colonial empires, including the Islamic colonial empire.

They Hebrews themselves, as noted above, were most famously slaves of the the colonial Egyptian empire, some 4,000 years ago, before being murdered and subjugated by Islam starting in the 7th century. Somehow able to escape Egyptian tyranny through their own efforts (some say, by the grace of Hashem), the Hebrews settled in their current indigenous homeland 3.600 years ago - a small area by global standards, smaller than Belize, Albania, or Montenegro. They were happy there, and even at their peak, did not attempt to force convert others or expand much beyond their lands.

As historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, Israel is “the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did 3,000 years ago.” Despite all the occupations and forced exiles, the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites have maintained a continuous presence in Judea/Israel/Samaria for some 3,600+ years. And even though Israel was granted modern statehood in 1948, it is one of the oldest continuously maintained countries in the world. The 'modern' state of Israel came to fruition post WWII, in 1948; the redefinition of borders and modern statehood after the fall of the big colonials was in no way unusual to Israel. Many country's modern borders came to be defined in the post colonial period (post WWI & WWII). While Israel and Lebanon and Iraq and Iran and Syria and Egypt were all ancient civilizations, dating back thousands of years, modern statehood came in the 20th century: For example, statehood was granted to Egypt in 1922; Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1932; Lebanon in 1943; Indonesia, South Korea & Vietnam in 1945; Syria & Jordan in 1946; India & Pakistan in 1947; Israel, & Myanmar in 1948; Laos, Libya & Bhutan in 1951; Cambodia in 1953; Morocco, Sudan & Tunisia in 1956; Ghana & Malaysia in 1957; and so on.

The problem is, the tribalism and supremacy of Islam, can't stand that it's once-conquered land is now in the hands of the original owners. Islam believes that once it puts a flag in the sand somewhere, it's theirs.

Oh, and by the way, Andalusia (Spain) is next in Islam's sights.

[rosetta-stoned-bitch]

The argument that Kashmir belongs to India to do to it whatever the fuck the Centre wants just because it was acceded by the then-monarch is hilarious to me because this is their literal thought process

Majority population of Religion A ruled by a monarch of Religion B: the monarch is tyrannical and oppressed the public and never once acted as a beneficiary of the people. The people now deserve to "decolonise".

Majority population of Religion B ruled by a monarch of Religion A: the monarch had the best interests of people and knew what to do, the people are delusional and can't be trusted to know what they actually want. Oh and they are all terrorists so obv we can't listen to what they say now.

Gotta love the hypocrisy and mental gymnastics 🤌

[mapsontheweb]

Second Largest religion in Pakistan

Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis, Scheduled Castes and others (including Sikhs and Parsis) are officially and constitutionally recognized as religious minorities. Pakistan has various religious minorities. According to the 1941 census of India, there were 5.9 million non-Muslims in the territories that came to form Pakistan in 1947 (West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). During and after Pakistan’s independence in 1947, about 5 million Hindus and Sikhs emigrated to India, with Punjab alone accounting for migration of 3.9 million people.According to the 1951 census conducted by the Government of Pakistan, Pakistan had 1.6% Hindu population.In East Pakistan (Bangladesh), the non-Muslims comprised 23.2% of the total population. By 1997, the percentage of Hindus remained stable at 1.85% in Pakistan,while Bangladesh has witnessed a decline with Hindus migrating from it because of insecurity due to fear of persecution, conflict, communal violence (as a result of newly created Bangladesh’s assertion of its Muslim identity) and poverty. The demolition of the Hindu temple site serves as a poignant illustration of the ongoing discrimination endured by the Hindu community in Pakistan. In Pakistan, women, religious minorities, and transgender individuals remained subjected to violence, discrimination, and persecution. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws illustrate one of the most extreme instances of this issue: Since 1990, over 62 individuals have fallen victim to vigilante violence linked to blasphemy accusations

by map_nerd

[reddest-flower]

The Soviet intervention in Hungary and the Khrushchev revelations produced in Europe a process that led – gradually – to the Eurocommunism of the Communist Party of Spain’s leader Santiago Carrillo, who said, in 1976, ‘once Moscow was our Rome, but no more. Now we acknowledge no guiding centre, no international discipline’. This was a communism that no longer believed in revolution but was quite satisfied with an evolutionary dynamic. The European parties, correct in their desire for the right to develop their own strategies and tactics, nonetheless, threw themselves onto a self-destructive path. Few remained standing after the USSR collapsed in 1991. They campaigned for polycentrism but, in the end, achieved only a return to social democracy.

Amongst the Third World communist parties, a different orientation became clear after 1956. While the Western European parties seemed eager to denigrate the USSR and its contributions, the parties in the Third World acknowledged the importance of the USSR but sought some distance from its political orientation. During their visits to Moscow in the 1960s, champions of ‘African socialism’ such as Modibo Keïta of Mali and Mamadou Dia of Senegal announced the necessity of non-alignment and the importance of nationally developed processes of socialist construction. Marshal Lin Biao spoke of the need for a ‘creative application’ of Marxism in the Chinese context. The young leader of the Indonesian Communist Party – Dipa Nusantara Aidit – moved his party towards a firm grounding in both Marxism-Leninism and the peculiarities of Indonesian history. [...]

In the Third World, where Communism was a dynamic movement, it was not treated as a religion that was incapable of error. ‘Socialism is young’, Che Guevara wrote in 1965, ‘and has its mistakes.’ Socialism required ceaseless criticism in order to strengthen it. Such an attitude was missing in Cold War Europe and North America [...] After 1956, Communism was penalized by the Cold Warriors for the Soviet intervention in Hungary. This played some role in the Third World, but it was not decisive. In India, in 1957 the Communists won an election in Kerala to become the ruling party in that state. In 1959, the Cuban revolution overthrew a dictatorship and adopted Marxism-Leninism as its general theory. In Vietnam, from 1954, the Communists took charge of the north of the country and valiantly fought to liberate the rest of their country. These were communist victories despite the intervention in Hungary.

[...]

Much the same history propelled the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) forward from 1951, when it had merely 5,000 members, to 1964, when it had two million party members and an additional fifteen million members in its mass organizations (half of them in the Indonesian Peasants’ Front). The party had deep roots in the heavily populated sections of east and central Java but had – in the decade after 1951 – begun to make gains in the outer islands, such as Sumatra. A viciously anti-communist military was unable to stop the growth of the party. The new leadership from the 1953 Party Central Committee meeting were all in their thirties, with the new Secretary General – Aidit – merely thirty-one years old. These communists were committed to mass struggles and to mass campaigns, to building up the party base in rural Indonesia. The Indonesian Peasants’ Front and the Plantation Workers’ Union – both PKI mass organizations – fought against forced labour (romusha) and encouraged land seizures (aksi sepihak). These campaigns became more and more radical. In February 1965, the Plantation Workers’ Union occupied land held by the US Rubber Company in North Sumatra. US Rubber and Goodyear Tires saw this as a direct threat to their interests in Indonesia. Such audacity would not be tolerated. Three multinational oil companies (Caltex, Stanvac and Shell) watched this with alarm. US diplomat George Ball wrote to US National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy that in ‘the long run’ events in Indonesia such as these land seizures ‘may be more important than South Vietnam’. Ball would know. He oversaw the 1963 coup in South Vietnam against the US ally Ngô Đình Diệm. The West felt it could not stand by as the PKI got more aggressive.

By 1965, the PKI had three million party members – adding a million members in the year. It had emerged as a serious political force in Indonesia, despite the anti-communist military’s attempts to squelch its growth. Membership in its mass organizations went up to 18 million. A strange incident – the killing of three generals in Jakarta – set off a massive campaign, helped along by the CIA and Australian intelligence, to excise the communists from Indonesia. Mass murder was the order of the day. The worst killings were in East Java and in Bali. Colonel Sarwo Edhie’s forces, for instance, trained militia squads to kill communists. ‘We gave them two or three days’ training,’ Sarwo Edhie told journalist John Hughes, ‘then sent them out to kill the communists.’ In East Java, one eyewitness recounted, the prisoners were forced to dig a grave, then ‘one by one, they were beaten with bamboo clubs, their throats slit, and they were pushed into the mass grave’. By the end of the massacre, a million Indonesian men and women of the left were sent to these graves. Many millions more were isolated, without work and friends. Aidit was arrested by Colonel Yasir Hadibroto, brought to Boyolali (in Central Java) and executed. He was 42.

There was no way for the world communist movement to protect their Indonesian comrades. The USSR’s reaction was tepid. The Chinese called it a ‘heinous and diabolical’ crime. But neither the USSR nor China could do anything. The United Nations stayed silent. The PKI had decided to take a path that was without the guns. Its cadre could not defend themselves. They were not able to fight the military and the anti-communist gangs. It was a bloodbath.

[...]

There was little mention in Havana of the Soviet Union. It had slowed down its support for national liberation movements, eager for detente and conciliation with the West by the mid-1960s. In 1963, Aidit had chastised the Soviets, saying, ‘Socialist states are not genuine if they fail to really give assistance to the national liberation struggle’. The reason why parties such as the PKI held fast to ‘Stalin’ was not because they defended the purges or collectivization in the USSR. It was because ‘Stalin’ in the debate around militancy had come to stand in for revolutionary idealism and for the anti-fascist struggle. Aidit had agreed that the Soviets could have any interpretation of Stalin in terms of domestic policy (‘criticize him, remove his remains from the mausoleum, rename Stalingrad’), but other Communist Parties had the right to assess his role on the international level. He was a ‘lighthouse’, Aidit said in 1961, whose work was ‘still useful to Eastern countries’. This was a statement against the conciliation towards imperialism of the Khrushchev era. It was a position shared across many of the Communist Parties of the Third World.

Many Communist parties, frustrated with the pace of change and with the brutality of the attacks on them, would take to the gun in this period – from Peru to the Philippines. The massacre in Indonesia hung heavily on the world communist movement. But this move to the gun had its limitations, for many of these parties would mistake the tactics of armed revolution for a strategy of violence. The violence worked most effectively the other way. The communists were massacred in Indonesia – as we have seen – and they were butchered in Iraq and Sudan, in Central Asia and South America. The image of communists being thrown from helicopters off the coast of Chile is far less known than any cliché about the USSR.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad, 2019