By “Hindus” Do You Mean “A Guy”?
Hindus are outraged about the new Sony game that allows gamers to play as Hanuman, one of the most prominent deity who, according to wikipedia scriptures lead a giant monkey army to defeat evil. Lead by the Universal Society of Hinduism, Hindus around the world are rising up and Sony are being forced to muster an apology. Something we actually reported on ourselves previously, only with our child like and cynical tone.
At least, that’s what the news is reporting. We here at NG also got the press release from Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, sent from his gmail. Gmail? How odd… which got me thinking. Normally, press releases from these types of organisations come from proper email address. It looks like some further journalism is required.
A quick google search for “Universal Society of Hinduism” quickly backs up my suspicions. The only results are people reporting the out-rage the Universal Society of Hinduism is apparently spouting. The first result, from March last year, talks about a report in which the formation of the Universal Society of Hinduism is discussed. The author however points out that “the formation of the organization was not reported by any prominent newspapers. Neither was I able to locate the website of the organization.”
The article also mentions the Universal Society of Hinduism’s first big story, when they campaigned against the film The Love Guru starring Mike Myers.
When GamePolitics originally covered the story, they referred to Zed as a “U.S.-based Hindu spokesman”. Hmm, sure. Still, apparently he has enough weight behind him to make even Sony begin to buckle. From his press release;
Replying to the communiqué of Bhavna Shinde of Forum for Hindu Awakening, Keita Sanekata of Sony Electronics Inc wrote, ‘œWe will review this issue, and get back to you as soon as possible.’
Or does he? Who is Bhavna Shinde and what is the Forum for Hindu Awakening? It sounds super important. Well, it’s not. It’s a website that is “devoted to awaken society to the unique spiritual science behind Hindu Dharma concepts and practices”. According to Alexa it gets basically negligible traffic. And Shinde’s connection? I can’t find any, save for her name appearing at the bottom of the protest letter posted on the site. Searching the site for more information just leads to the same press releases which refer to her as being from their.
Still, she is a known figure. Back at the start of last year the BBC reported that she campaigned against the release of the film The Love Guru starring Mike Myers. Wait. This seems familiar.
The news outlets have fallen into the all too common trappings of the impressive looking press release. Something old Jacky Thompson was incredibly good at. If you can make yourself look like more than just one guy with a few connections, you really can get your cause noticed.
Now, I am open to the possibility that the Universal Society of Hinduism is more than just a guy (I’ve emailed Zed to get more details), though to be honest I think it’s fairly unlikely. Even Gaming Indians aren’t taking him seriously, and they know about this sort of stuff.
Im in this cult… I mean social group and Im not only a client, Im the principal.
PS No Cows eaters, gays, or researchers allowed. Bring cake and pie.
“Spiritual Science”? Go ahead and practice your religion but for Christ’s sake stop calling it science. There needs to be some sort of global squad who’s only goal is to stop religions and religious figures from comparing any theology to science.
I love how Destructoid blatantly stole your header image.
@Grasslunatic: they also credited it at the bottom of their post, so it’s cool with me. I know it took me ages to find just the right picture of a cat in an empty room, but I am happy with their crediting of the site :)
Also, they once bought me beer. I’m easily bribed :P
To ,
Mr. John( “wardrox”)
you got some brain but thats not sufficient. As you tried to search refferences for MR Rajan Zed & Bhavana Shinde. Also you tried to search history of forum for hindu awakening & universal society of hinduism. Your research is not that bad but not so good.
Some more information for you :
Mr Rajan Zed :
Rajan Zed is a Hindu and Indo-American statesman who was invited to read historic first Hindu prayers to the Nevada Assembly[1] and the Nevada Senate,[2], as well as the United States Senate in Washington DC [3] – his prayer is transcribed on page S9069 of the Congressional Record.[4] He also read the historic first Hindu prayers in the State Senates of California, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and Washington. [5] besides Arizona House of Representatives.
more details visit below site :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajan_Zed
If you read the above lines about Mr. Rajan Zed you will understand that he is not just a hindu guy but a Leader of the Hindus in USA.
Regarding your comments on “Spiritual Science� :
It seems you dont like science thats why u never tried to find out what is Spiritual science.
The gifts of Hindu Spiritual Science are as follows :
1] The mathematics that world is learning is a gift of Hindu Saint
2] The principle which came into exist before few hundred years back that earth is round was already discoverd by Hindu saints through the spiritual science.
So a small advice for you to go and learn about spiritual science.
It seems you are christain by your name. So I would like to ask you a question how you will feel if someone introduce a game in which we can control Jesus christ life or may be your parents life. We can kill them any time we can do anything by using some buttons. And if you have some respect for your parents atleast your feelings will get gurt if someone will do the above act. So as it hurts the Billion Hindus worldwide. Anyhow we will stop this game & will force sony to withdraw this game but you also keep in mind before writing something regarding a respected Hindu Deities, The hindu leaders do some homework & try to find the truth.
Now I think you will try to find who am i? You do not need to think much . I will give the answer . I am a awakened Hindu , who feel proud being a hindu. you can reach me by girishlokhande23@gmail.com.
@Girish Lokhande:
Regarding your comments on “Spiritual Science� :
It seems you dont like science thats why u never tried to find out what is Spiritual science.
The gifts of Hindu Spiritual Science are as follows :
1] The mathematics that world is learning is a gift of Hindu Saint
2] The principle which came into exist before few hundred years back that earth is round was already discoverd by Hindu saints through the spiritual science.
So a small advice for you to go and learn about spiritual science.
Regarding your comments on “Spiritual Science� :
It seems you dont like science thats why u never tried to find out what is Spiritual science.
The gifts of Hindu Spiritual Science are as follows :
1] The mathematics that world is learning is a gift of Hindu Saint
2] The principle which came into exist before few hundred years back that earth is round was already discoverd by Hindu saints through the spiritual science.
So a small advice for you to go and learn about spiritual science.
I’ve been following Zed’s self-promotion for some time now. He’s a Hindu clergyman in Nevada who got lucky to be on some interfaith panels and then, because he likes the limelight, he was asked to lead some Hindu prayers in the Nevada senate. He’s also the self-appointed head of several probably self-created institutions. You always have to be wary of a guy who says he’s the head of the “Universal” anything.
Anyway, if you ask me, and nobody asked me, he’s nothing but a camera-hound. So, let him be a camera-hound in politics–they’re all camera-hounds there.