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News

Baby-throwing ritual in India

30 replies

NancyPreg · 06/08/2009 19:12

From everybody's favourite daily:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1204699/Pictured-Horrific-baby-dropping-ritual-India-sees -toddlers-thrown-roof-good-prosperity.html

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PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 19:28

Was surprised not to have heard of this though tbh my Lecturer in Eastern Studies was very good at accentuating the positive IYKWIM

What I would say is:

It's crap and if anyone tried that with my boys I would break their legs, thank goodness I can find no reports of babies being injured- phew.

It's also only one village out of so very many so whilst it's fine IMO to say FFS, we can't extrapolate that to a general Muslim or national thing

NancyPreg · 06/08/2009 19:42

I wonder how this ritual actually got started.... for example, I wonder how the link between good health and being tossed from a great height was actually made? And did the height from which a child was thrown get higher and higher each generation, rather than being fixed at its current height from the get go?

I posted the link because I was curious to hear if anybody had any experience of this ritual and perhaps could shed some more light on it but as you say, it isn't a sub-continent-wide phenomenon...

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PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 19:46

Is it about putting your faith in God / Allah?

As it's a Muslim thing I would assume so. A public demonstration of sending your most precious thing out for his safekeeping.

lisad123 · 06/08/2009 19:48

thats terrible, what if he missed those poor children

NancyPreg · 06/08/2009 19:55

I must've just scan-read the article because I just saw people throwing kids not muslims!

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PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 19:56

nancy I googled it a bit (interested, degree in world faiths so intrigued somewhat) and it says it's a Muslim ceremony from a Mosque

PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 19:58

reuters

Don't worry, am not an assume-they're-Islamic sort of Bigot I rpomise!

NancyPreg · 06/08/2009 20:06

Ah yes, it does say from a mosque (but that part didn't register - I was more focussed on the throwing bit!).

I had a trek leader once who had Sri Lankan heritage and when he was a baby, his (Sri Lankan) grandfather insisted that he be passed underneath an elephant to confer good health or similar but his mum said, 'no', so his grandfather offered to babysit one day and duly took the baby off to the zoo and persuaded the keeper to allow him to pass his grandson underneath one of the elephants!! After which he showed no further interest in babysitting!

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fuzzywuzzy · 06/08/2009 20:10

It's not a 'muslim thing', I saw a news shot of it a while ago at my parents (on an indian channel), and it appears to be a 'village thing' they're chucking children off Mandirs (hindu temple), and the muslims are doing the chucking off shrines of people they consider holy.

Most certianly not a Muslim thing! A dumbass thing IMHO.

sherazade · 06/08/2009 20:11

superstition and such evil nonsense are completely unislamic.

thanks god for wahhabism.

PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 20:12

Oh really? Sorry fuzzywuzzy, didnt eman to offend but did paste link so at least you know twas a msitake and nothing more

PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 20:13

Oh and yes agree with dumbass definitely

fuzzywuzzy · 06/08/2009 20:14

Not offended in the least Peachy... It was actually horribly shocking to watch it being done, the babies are really small, my dad started yelling at the TV screen, he was most offended that Muslims were doing it too!!!!

Aranea · 06/08/2009 20:17

Pedant alert:

Kinda off the point, but I'm a bit shocked at the line 'held taught by a group of around 14 men'

PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 20:21

I did something at Uni on Hinduism and how some (and I can't remember whether it was Brahmanical or village tradition) Hindu's thought children rated as less human than adults (related to the prohibition on burials in ganga-ma etc), and I assumed it was another exhibition of that until I read about the Mosque- a bit like Sati was linked to attitudes to women (and yes I know it's been illegal for years- thank goodness).

But clearly as it transcends religious affiliation it's a local thing.

Quite obviously the vast majority of Hindus and Muslims would run a mile if you approached them with the suggestion that you chuck their child off a building 5 stories high so there has to be something there completely transcending the whole faith bit and going to 'just' local behaviours.

Which in a way I am glad about becuase then it reflects on nobody except the prat willing to participate.

sherazade · 06/08/2009 20:25

i'm a muslim and i'd consider that what they were doing incredibly sinful. if not blasphemous . and downright inhumane .

WhereTheWildThingsWere · 06/08/2009 20:27

Why do they have to shake them first? Insult to injury really.

PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 20:29

It'snot exactly the spirit of Mohammad is it?

I'm not a muslim but I have a lot of respect and time for Mohammad and much of the Quranic teachings. I can't say i've seen anything that wouild make this vaguely OK

OTOH nor have I in Hinduism; the variability and cultural naturefo Hinduism makes it easier for a wider number of variants to occur but even then- WTF? This is obviously about sowething very odd.

Might have a glance through a few books later

CloudDragon · 06/08/2009 20:33

It's nothing to do with Islam it's purely a fucked up cultural thing.

NancyPreg · 06/08/2009 20:38

The thing that I find intriguing with this type of thing is the plasticity of the human brain such that rituals like these get started and then develop to the point where they become a regular feature of the local culture. We are a bizarre species!

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PeachyLaPeche · 06/08/2009 20:48

Exactly nany, I always feel a need to understand why things like this happen. It's so against everything we do to protect our kids

I can't find anything anywhere much though except shock horrow coverage from today. There's so much still to be elarned about Indian culture, I guess I shall have to add it to my list. It's 'just' a good luck ritual-

NancyPreg · 06/08/2009 21:07

Makes you wonder what other rituals take place within small communities/populations that the wider world doesn't (yet) know about...I bet there's stuff that goes on that we couldn't even dream up!

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LastTrainToNowhere · 06/08/2009 23:10

It's nothing to do with Islam and it's nothing to do with Hinduism. It's a local thing and most likely confined to that particular village and the neighbouring ones.
I'm a Hindu, my husband is from Maharashtra (that's the name of the state that these villages are in) and we have never heard of such a thing!

edam · 06/08/2009 23:50

I wonder whether the mothers are happy about this. Or have the Indian version of EMILs (or EFILs) dragging their babies off...

NancyPreg · 07/08/2009 00:01

I wondered about this too...the article just mentions that the children are passed to their mothers after they have been caught in the sheet but I noticed on the video clip that not too many women seem to be around...

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