Pagan Reformation

is simply that India is big and the initial invasions that took Delhi and imposed Muslim control over the Indo-Gangetic floodplains had a lot to digest.

Indeed over the next half millennium Islamic warlords did progressively set up shop further and further South. The thing is by that time they were already coming South as Indianised warrior aristocracy- the process of conversion had been freighted with a lot of caste baggage.

I think this is broadly true, but a couple of things occur to me: You still have, and had, plenty of Hindus in the territories ruled by Muslim dynasties for the longest period of time; and explaining that the caste system made conversion more complicated seems like an explanation for why Hinduism.

Charlemagne stepped it up to imperial policy by demanding conversion or destruction from a number of neighboring petty states in the years after the Saxon Wars which was continued under the early Holy Roman Empire. In some places (Scandinavia, the Baltic) this process got pretty violent. Ultimately the offer of trade, power, and privilege in the eyes of Western Europe won out for most elites and when the guy with the sword is killing anyone who isn't going to mass the commonfolk toe the line sooner or later.

Sure, but there were also states and kings which rejected Christendom because they saw it as an attempt by European powers to subvert their authority, and anti-Christian beliefs were a sign of resistance; this comes up not just with the Saxons, but also the zoroastrians in early Islamic Iran.
 
I think this is broadly true, but a couple of things occur to me: You still have, and had, plenty of Hindus in the territories ruled by Muslim dynasties for the longest period of time; and explaining that the caste system made conversion more complicated seems like an explanation for why Hinduism

Yup. Being Malayalee my ancestors come from a part of South India with large Muslim and Christian minorities with a small Jewish minority and hindu majority. Any religon in India slots into the local caste system. Once you have Indianised Muslims from NortH india coming down the differences are even stronger because the castes would be differebt
 
The VHP is associated with the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella of Hindu nationalist organisations which also includes the centre-right Indian political party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the cultural organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Its slogan is Dharmo rakṣati rakṣitaḥ, which means "Dharma protects its protector" and its symbol is the banyan tree. The current international president of VHP is G. Raghava Reddy,[2] while its executive president is Dr. Praveen Togadia.[2
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The VHP engages in several programs to reconvert Hindus who had previously converted to Christianity through their trained missionaries called "Dharma Prasaar Vibhag" (Religious Propaganda Cell), The VHP has deputed large number of its missionaries in those remote villages and tribal areas which have substantial Christians and Muslims. In recent years the VHP has emerged as one of the most active Hindu missionary organisation and has organised several mass forced as well as voluntary reconversion programmes of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.

I hope we are getting the flavor of the VHP. Their youth wings, the Bhajrang Dal for young men and the Durga Vahini for young women are quite militant and have engaged in a great deal of communal violence against Christians and Muslims.:mad: They have been compared to Nazi sturmabteilung. But in terms of longevity, militant Hinduism has more than outlasted the Nazis. In some ways, they are kind of scary. Vishva Hindi Parishad, Bhajrang Dal, RSS, ect. Bharatiya Janata Party, ect. are worth boning up on. We could see some interesting TLs developing out of them.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is not the central organisation in the Sangh Parivar. V.H.P. established in August, 1964 is one of the subsidiary organisations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), formed in 1925. The RSS has established a large number of Pan-Indian organisations active in various fields. The VHP is engaged in the field of religious activities. Sri. Raghava Reddy you have mentioned is the current International President of the VHP. But the Working President Sri. Pravin Togadia is more important in the set up. Comparing Raghava Reddy to the Pope is ridiculous, as he is only a figurehead and a minor official in the Sangh Pariwar.
The most important subsidiary organisation of RSS is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition and the second largest political party in India. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh(BMS) works in the trade union field. Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the organisation of students. Vidya Bharati is active in the field of education and runs thousands of schools and colleges. Sewa Bharati is active in the field of social service. There are about thirty similar All India organisations and hundreds of regional and local groups under the RSS. The VHP is one of them and definitely behind BJP in importance.
The man who presides over this vast network of organisations is the Sarsanghachalak(the Chief) of RSS and the current and the sixth Sarsanghchalak is Sri. Mohan Bhagavat. It is to him that Sri. Pravin Togadia reports the progress achieved by VHP. The Presidents of the BJP, BMS, ABVP, Seva Bharati, Vidya Bharati and other Pariwar organisations meet him at regular intervals to report and discuss. Thus RSS is the mother organisation and all the subordinate organisations are controlled by it.
 
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