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Thread: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

  1. #1
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    legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    Vannakkam: This article: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/seer-hits...15-60-115.html

    struck me. The interesting thing is the idea that its actually illegal, since 1958. Now, I certainly don't want to open an old can of worms here. But I certainly applaud the swami's mission. Education is the best defense.

    Aum Namasivaya

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    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    Hari Om!

    I've seen the likes of this in boycotts of the Laxmi Brand of products and others of similar accord.

    Long live the Swami!

  3. #3

    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    That sounds like a very good thing. You know, it is very confusing for people with Western minds to see sacred things on advertisements and stuff. I remember the first time I went to an Indian grocery store and say so many deities printed on packaging...I thought..."huh, isn't that sacrilegious...? Revered things should not be put on items that will be thrown away, in my personal opinion.
    Last edited by ohhcuppycakee; 19 October 2011 at 07:22 AM.
    Pave to Musalman, pave Hindu, Sikh ve, sada ve Rabb jive; ek sada dil ve. Apne aap nu tu vakhra kyun samjhe...?
    Whether you are Muslim, Hindu, or Sikh...Our God is the same; our heart is one. Why do you consider yourself different...?


    Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself?

  4. #4

    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    i didn't know this. but it is good that we have some such law, because there are so many commercial products in market who tend to cash on in the religious sentiments of innocent people.

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    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    I am kinda agnostic on this issue...Sure, I dont like to see Ganesha Beedis or Lakshmi Wines, etc.

    But still, the Hindu conception of the Divine is intensely personal. Our Gods are not fire-spewing bearded men in the sky but friendly, humourous, omnipresent and ever-close to the devotee Our Gods have inspired beautiful poetry and art in the hearts and minds of devotees. I hope we Hindus continue to maintain this sort of friendly relationship with the deities.

    Still no need of unnecessary beedis or wines.

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    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    Vannakkam: I would say that there are 3 types of products: those connected to adharma, those that are neutral, and those connected to dharma. Murugan often adorns packages of vibhuthi, and it seems totally appropriate. As you said, wundermunk, on wine and smokes it seems wrong. The grey, or agnostic, is in the middle category. For me this includes using it (religious imagery) for a marketing strategy.

    Aum Namasivaya

  7. #7

    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    he had succeeded in motivating a trader in his village, Pachhapur in Belgaum district, to rename ‘Sri Renuka wines’ as ‘Aashique wines’.
    Nice job in replacing hindu identity with Urdu/Muslim word & identity, at a time when Hindus anyway are facing a serious identity crisis and people are forgetting what Hindu names are, freely converting to other religions. Over the ages, peoples like this swami, vedic and puritan crusaders have brought about this situations, and as it would seem, these guys have not yet understood how dangerous they are for Hinduism itself whether in real life or in a virtual forum, regardless of how much importance they attest to their self imposed crusader status for hinduism.

    No doubt he will have to refer to 1958 secular law of nehru's new india than a Hindu scripture to promote his senility and a retarded concept of hindu crusade.

    I have learnt my lesson, and won't dwell further on the incredible stupidity of hindu activists.

    The swami could use 24 hrs a day available in his ascetic life to an intelligent and useful task which could actually benefit hindus (like irradicating superstition - then he is probably so full of it himself, or countering conversions) than this ill conceived, outdated victorian puritan war. No, he would rather spend all energies in destroying hindu identity from the shops and local brands of rural and semi urban India. With such undertsanding and empty religious mongering this race deserves to be swept by christianity and islam. Good luck.
    Last edited by sm78; 20 October 2011 at 01:27 AM.
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    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    I hope Swamiji (is that a proper title?) makes good progress in waking people up. You just don't use religious icons or motifs on products that are generally frowned upon by the religion or just plain tacky.

    Reading this thread I had to look up beedi. OM Shankar cigarettes!? This is pretty low...

    śivasya hridayam viṣṇur viṣṇoscha hridayam śivaḥ

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    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    namaste everyone.

    This post is in complementary to the following post of mine on the subject:
    http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/sho...5&postcount=17

    The issue of using God names for spiritual/worldly ventures by Hindus is much more sophisticated than what meets the eye. Various levels of thoughts are involved before before a Hindu can arrive at a personal opinion as to what extent is it wrong and right. Let us consider these scenarios:

    • I am delighted to find the image of GaNesha in line-drawing on a chaturthi day on my Tamizh daily-sheet calendar, the image of Murugan on ShaShTi days, besides the images of related Gods on their festive days.

    Yet, I tear off the sheet on the next morning, crumple and throw it to my trash can. I take care to preserve the image on my mobile phone for later use, but it is clearly not possible for me to preserve all the sheets!

    I do feel guilty and sorry about it though, everytime I have to crumple a sheet and throw it away. I do not know if I am to be faulted for my action, or the calendar publisher for his action, but what I know is that the sight of the God image early morning reminds me of the sacredness of the day and my duty towards it.

    • Hindus read religious magazines that are these days published in good number, specially in Tamizh, with colorful images of Gods and temples and sages. Eventually, they bundle and sell the magazines to the old paper marts or grocery shops. The next time I open the the loose sheet pack of some grocery I bought, I find a Hindu God sitting pretty there, along with a voluptuously posing cine artiste at the back or even side by side! What should I do with that God image, however imposing it is?

    • Among the Hindu DIpAvaLi firecrackers, the LakShmI crackers are among the most popular, for their flash and sound. As school children we used to be scared of lighting them and watch our elders do it in our agrahAram--brahmins' colony, street. We used to feel proud of being the first home to make the sound of a firecracker-string, around four in the morning, or even earlier. Children of the home that had the most paper garbage in front felt proud and blessed.

    Neither we as children, nor our elders as pious people, never did have a thought that we might be commiting an act of sacrilege. Nor did we ever feel that the manufacturers of this brand of crackers at SivakAsi, TamizhnADu was wrong either. Today, however, I am made to feel uneasy when the innocence of childhood faith and celebration is misued for desecration and revilement.

    • The Mangalore Ganesh Beedies are very popular among the tobacco-smoking rustics, specially in South India: http://www.saiwaiboeki.com/ganeshbeedi/

    People buy a pack, tear off the cover with its GaNesha image and throw it away, and then puff away in wild abandon, without even knowing that they might just have insulted the God. And it seems that GaNesha does not curse but continues to bless the company, which is in business since 1940 and the smokers as well!

    • On the side of literature and entertainment, even traditional Hindu magazines like the Ananda Viketan in Tamizh, publish occasional jokes and skits that make fun of Hindu Gods. Writers regularly imagine the Gods of our Puranas in modern situations. Movies and TV programmes regularly have a dig at our Gods and texts in the name of entertainment. There is even a subhAShita that makes fun of our TrimUrtis:

    kamale brahmA shete haraH shete himAlaye |
    kshIrabdhau cha hariH shete manye matkuNashankaya ||


    कमले ब्रह्मा शेते हरः शेते हिमालये ।
    क्शीरब्धौ च हरिः शेते मन्ये मत्कुणशन्कय ॥

    BrahmA sleeps on a lotus, Shiva sleeps in Himalaya, ViShNu sleeps in KShIrsAgar--it's all due to the fear of bugs in their bed!

    • The very Gods themselves are not above the questions of the fickle human mind: GaNesha with his large body rides a mouse, is he perverse then? DurgA rides a lion, would it mean that she supports animal food? Suppose our children ask such questions, how do we seek to answer them?

    Importantly, how do the above scenarios compare with non-Hindus using Hindu God images on toilet seats, sweatshirts, and such other consumer items? To what and to what extent should we protest? Are we sure that we are not guilty about aiding and abetting such unholy ventures by using the products at home? Seems SM78 is right about his point that we need to learn a lesson.
    रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
    ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥

    To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.

    --viShNu purANam

  10. #10

    Re: legality of misuse of religious names, etc

    Namaste Saidevo, As an Indian you have rightly recognized that common Hindu's live eat drink their gods. All events small & insignificant to large and important are done with our gods in the midst. This is an unique way of remaining engaged with the culture and divinity that is the primary reason why hinduism has survived after multiple onslaughts. It is easy to destroy something which is purely theoritical or only active in high grounds of lopsided morality - but that is not hinduism of the land. Hinduism of our land is involved at every level. Our gods adore or doors, walls and even floors, from shop names, to bidi brand names. It makes them inseparable from our daily life in all its aspects. Real hinduism of the land never differentiate between pure and impure - since nothing is such in front of divinity. Western moralists (british) found this extremely disturbing to their **refined** sense and did all to modernize and chritianize hinduism by erecting laws to promoting chritianized hindu reformist saints. We have our own brand of puritans and purity crusaders from ages also. However, theoritical hinduism and purity crusade has remained confined to 4 walls of some mathas or some exclusive communities and never percolated to change the ordinary day to day hinduism.

    Missionaries will still find conversion NOT so easy because they have to fight hindu gods in most unlikely places (bidi brand) in the daily lives of Hindus. Had the gods only been enshrined in a few big temples, job of converting by either persuation or by force (like islamists) would have been easy, we probably would not be talking in this forum.

    Common hinduism of the land is simple yet sublime, free from theoritical sophistry yet deeply ingrained in our psyche.

    Good to see you appreciate the point and not get all crusady and hyper over **disrespect** (respect is mostly a dangerous term) to Gods, as it happens everyday in India.

    I hope in that case you will also recognize that it would be hypocritical to get offended at the drop of hat when this **disrespect** is exhibited by western people? Just because they have a different skin colour doesn't make their action of making a tattoo of Ganesha a crime when we can put him on bidi brands or liquer shops or paint his yantra on the gateway floor as part of our daily everyday life? How is that when someone in the west when drawing a tattoo immediately becomes an offender of hatred or disrespect when you understand this is exactly the way we involve our gods in our lives, i.e making them close to us in all our activities. Not even spending time to understand the real motivation (it is often those who like or have some fascination for hindu gods do put them in their arms as tattoos...someone hating them is most unlikely to do it) we start spitting venom everywhere and such acts are then postered as acts of hindu nationalism? Is not clear that this is very anti hindu?

    And to those internet crusaders like TTA et al. who jump on every occation to abuse western skin and culture in pretext of **disrespect** to hindu gods, I invite them to leave their lucrative career in the west, come to India and join this swami in his crusade to remove hindu names and identity from all rural and semi-urban business establishments and establish what you preach at your home first. Please do this before you open your foul mouth again on some other instant of **disrespect** by the west, and honestly & effectively take your share in destroying hinduism like this swami.
    Last edited by sm78; 20 October 2011 at 01:22 AM.
    What is Here, is Elsewhere. What is not Here, is Nowhere.

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