Hindu Taliban

Hindu Taliban is a pejorative term used by Tunku Varadarajan in an article dated January 11, 1999 in The New York Times to describe supporters of the fundamentalist Hindutva movement in India, similar to the term Christian right.
New Delhi-based journalist Kuldip Nayar in an article titled India's Hindu Taliban published in Pakistan's Dawn on January 25, 2008 wrote that the Indian state of Gujarat continued to be in the grip of the Hindu Taliban who destroyed the office of the NDTV at Ahmedabad because the channel reported that Indian artist M.F. Husain was the people's choice for the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award. While Nayar also criticized Islamic fundamentalists describing them as "Muslim Taliban" because they demonstrated against the Godrej for their hosting of Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, he asserted that this "Muslim Taliban" in India might be less active than the Hindu Taliban.
In another incident, they also condemned Valentine's Day and threatened to "force unwed couples" found dating to marry. This statement by the Sri Ram Sena, often referred to as the 'Hindu Taliban' by critics, sparked a protest throughout the internet; as a form of retaliation, angry young women sent cartloads of pink panties to Sri Ram Sena's office.
Criticism of the term
Indian journalist and columnist Swapan Dasgupta in a column in India Today dated back to 1999 criticized Tunku Varadarajan's opinion that there is a "growth of a sort of Hindu Taliban movement" in India as "preposterous suggestion". In response to Varadarajan's suggestion, Indian author, columnist and diplomat Navtej Sarna, titled as Counselor for Press, Information
and Culture, Embassy of India in the letter, wrote to the editor of The New York Times, "India is not, as Tunku Varadarajan should know (Op-Ed, Jan. 11), a third world country swept by 'shadowy armies' of a 'Hindu Taliban movement'." Praveen Togadia, a member of the VHP, while talking about his "Padshahi yatra," refused to consider the VHP some sort of "Hindu Taliban", while at the same time saying those who describe the VHP as a "Hindu Taliban" and propagate that a VHP rally, or programme, always results in riots and/or other violence have been silenced as this yatra (march) passed off peaceably.

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