Hindutva

[acharya]

How to bring about a revolution in the mind of the Hindu?


That is what the Yanks label
as the “64,000 dollars question.”


1. Is a revolution required to secure Hindu Dharma?

2. My Take:

Yes, revolution is necessary, but it must be initiated in the mind of the Hindu, as a start.

Only about 15% of the Hindus are real-Hindus, committed to the defense of Hindu-Dharma. The rest, about 85% of the Hindus, are Phoney-Liberal to one degree or another. They are suffering from a Cognitive-Disorder of some kind. It is a Hindu variety of the Stockholm-Syndrome, in which the Hindu feels sympathy, for the barbaric creeds who have brutalized and tyrannized the Hindu for centuries, committing wholesale slaughter and plunder of the Hindu for centuries.

3. These Phoneys (Phoney-Liberal Hindus) fail to perceive that, predators are planning on bringing a much larger haul of Hindu-Harvest of souls, to their barbaric camp, using terror, treachery, wholesale rape, pillage and plunder of the Hindu. They are determined to make the Hindu kiss the dust.

These Phonies can never steel their hearts, for the fight that lies ahead, against the predatory forces.

4. How to bring about a revolution in the mind of the Hindu?

That is what the Yanks label as the “64,000 dollars question.”

Surinder Paul Attri

[shamu]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Nov 2 2007, 10:46 PM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Nov 2 2007, 10:46 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE
Bridging the divide
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/di...ory_id=10015201

Nov 1st 2007
From The Economist print edition
The world's most religious country is still battling with its demons
Muslims were blamed for the dozens of deaths. In the ensuing pogrom, 2,000 people died.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can gues who has supplied the data

More:

They show the picture of Maha Vishnu's Anathashayanam and call it.....
<img src='http://www.economist.com/images/20071103/4407SR15.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<b>Bridge-building Ram</b>

[Guest]

Surinder Paul Attri is a moron who regurgitates the same thing over and over again with the words rearranged.

[Guest]

''Yet none of Hindutva's main goals has been met. Although most of India's states ban the slaughter of cows, there is no central-government ban; the Ayodhya temple remains unbuilt; the uniform code unpassed. For this many Hindu nationalists blame the BJP; but the truth is that, having never won more than 26% of the vote, it has had to rely on coalition partners, who, like most of the country, are less militant. When they think about it, many Hindus would like a temple built at Ayodhya. But they tend not to think about it, and are appalled at the violence the dispute has spawned.''
The above is a very currect assessment of the situation.In the near future, despite sporadic movement by the Hindus , no much progress is expected in the direction of making India a Hindu Rashtra. Toaday itself, there is a announcement that the Huj Subsidy will continue in such a manner that no additional burden befall upon the members of the minority community.It is nothinng special of the Congress party, the same is the situation in all the politicla parties.

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Economist wrote:
There was also a change in Hinduism: the more mystical strain, Vedanta, which preaches the unity of all religions, was challenged by the stauncher Hindutva message. Vedanta Hindus stayed with Congress; Hindutva ones moved to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So apparently Hindus in India are divided into two distinct groups known as "Vedanta Hindus" and "Hindutva Hindus", with the former owing allegiance to Congress(I) and the latter to BJP! Rolling Eyes

Whether this is once again down to an inferior journalist attempting to force-fit his limited knowledge onto the facts, or whether it is deliberate psy-ops, one can never really tell!


What the author is referring to is social engineering. The author is hiding the real information. Using media and encouraging terrorism in the heartland of India for 30 years they have spawned a Hindu nationalism which they think that they can mold. The notion of a nationalism which was developed during the independence movement is completely negated.

The author with this article (and more similar articles to follow) is trying to create an image change and create differences between vedanta and regular Hinduism. The connection to different political parties is also an attempt to steer political sociology in India in a particular way they want.

Indian elite if they are smart will see through these games and social management to create political groups. West have done sufficient social research and image creation that they feel they are in a position to mold and create image and political social groups in India according to their interest.

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-Ravish+Nov 2 2007, 05:52 PM-->QUOTE(Ravish @ Nov 2 2007, 05:52 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->''Yet none of Hindutva's main goals has been met. Although most of India's states ban the slaughter of cows, there is no central-government ban; the Ayodhya temple remains unbuilt; the uniform code unpassed. For this many Hindu nationalists blame the BJP; but the truth is that, having never won more than 26% of the vote, it has had to rely on coalition partners, who, like most of the country, are less militant. When they think about it, many Hindus would like a temple built at Ayodhya. But they tend not to think about it, and are appalled at the violence the dispute has spawned.''

The above is a very currect assessment of the situation.In the near future, despite sporadic movement by the Hindus , no much progress is expected in the direction of making India a Hindu Rashtra. Toaday itself, there is a announcement that the Huj Subsidy will continue in such a manner that no additional burden befall upon the members of the minority community.It is nothinng special of the Congress  party, the same is the situation in all the politicla parties.
[right][snapback]74849[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Indians are seeing the world changing in the last 30 years from a liberal world to a world full of intolerance, bigotry and violence. In a such a state there is a call to protect your society, culture and provide stability. That is the only reason for the change in the people and call for traditions.

If the world had not turned out what it is NOW then there would not be any demand.
It is as simple as that. GLOBALIZATION has contributed to violence and intolerance.
It has affected Indians also and this shows up in such places such as Gujarat.

[Guest]

>><i><b>GLOBALIZATION</b> has contributed to violence and intolerance.</i>

Divide & Rule on a grand scale..a global scale.

This is important to bring new areas under a predominantly anglo ruling clique influence most famously characterized by Bilderberg/TC/CFR. The idea is to pit muslims against Christians, keep Christians in dark about Hindus and spread disproportionate psy-ops about caste/discrimination/daleeets in western media. No on trusts each other and no one knows each other. Use the distrust and lack of faith to spread own agenda.

[acharya]

A deep shade of saffron
Pankaj Vohra, Hindustan Times
November 04, 2007


The future of top BJP leaders could depend on the outcome of the high-level RSS meeting currently being held in Dharvar in Karnataka, and which is expected to end on November 7, a day before Leader of the Opposition, LK Advani, celebrates his 80th birthday. What will be worth watching is whether Advani will get the Sangh’s endorsement as the political party’s prime ministerial candidate in the next parliamentary poll. Or, will this again be postponed due to the Sangh leadership’s indecisiveness, which has already become a cause of worry for the parivar and could have a bearing on the RSS’s future?

The conclave is being attended by prant pracharaks and shetriya pracharaks, many of whom had objected to Advani’s statement on Mohammad Ali Jinnah during his visit to Pakistan in 2005. It is being speculated whether the RSS will accept the leadership of a person who is yet to render any unconditional regret for, or even withdraw, the statements that had led to his ouster as the BJP president in December 2005.

The question is, if the RSS endorses his leadership, what impact will it have on the future of the Sangh, which has showcased itself as the flag-bearer of the Hindutva ideology and proclaims itself to be a cultural outfit? Cadres appear to be worried that any attempt to compromise on ideology could very well spell the Sangh’s end. As things stand today, the Sangh has been helplessly watching as acute factionalism in the BJP dilutes the very essence of the doctrine on which the party had been founded initially. Therefore, at this stage, if ‘Jinnahwad’, as Advani’s position on the subject is being termed, triumphs, the script for the final chapter of the Sangh could have very well been written. To describe Jinnah, who precipitated the division of the country, as a secularist is the anti-thesis of everything that the Sangh parivar has believed.

The RSS’s dilemma is acute since the Sangh’s image has been on the decline for the last decade or so, and its failure to attract youngsters into its fold has become a cause of concern. Though on paper, say in a place like Delhi, there are 1,500 shakhas held every morning, in reality, it may not even be one-third this number. The successive defeat of ABVP candidates at the hands of the NSUI in DUSU polls is attributed to the decline of the RSS’s influence in the city. This is primarily because the BJP compromised on the basic tenets of Hindutva to remain in power, giving up on issues like the uniform civil code, abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir and the resolve to construct the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

RSS cadres are also pinning their hopes on Sarkaryavah Mohan Bhagwat, a man committed to ideology, to bail them out of the mess created because of conflicts within the parivar. It is being speculated that the ailing Sarsanghchalak, K Sudarshan, may finally pave the way for Bhagwat to succeed him as the RSS supremo and thus end these conflicts. In fact, the change could even come during the present conclave.

Even Bhagwat’s opponents within the parivar, who are in a minority, concede that it is inevitable that he will take over. So, their focus is instead on the person who will succeed him in the number two position as sarkaryavah. The three possible contenders are all joint general secretaries. Madan Das Devi is close to the Advani camp, Suresh Soni coordinates the RSS-BJP affairs and Suresh Joshi looks after other organisational aspects. If Bhagwat’s current position goes to anyone but Devi, it may have an adverse impact on Advani’s future as the BJP’s top-most leader, given that Atal Bihari Vajpayee is suffering from poor health.

With Bhagwat as the RSS head, the outfit’s focus may also shift from its current emphasis on the power game being played by the BJP to the overall commitment of the parivar towards ideology. This shift will be considered by Sangh hardliners as the revival of Golwalkar’s thesis.

Golwalkar had advocated that in order to transform society, the Sangh should work towards changing individuals through ideology. But his successors, Bala Saheb Deoras and Rajinder Singh, said that power should become the instrument for change in society and for individuals to move towards Hindutva. Yet, six-and-half years of power experienced of the BJP proved beyond doubt that this thesis was faulty. In the process, the BJP had even moved away from the basics of Hindutva, leading to the parivar’s overall decline. This could be arrested once Bhagwat takes over.

The Sangh has, over the past year or so, been distancing itself from the BJP after being repeatedly castigated by senior leaders like Advani for interfering in the party’s day-to-day affairs. Matters have come to a stage where the RSS has not endorsed Narendra Modi’s leadership in Gujarat, asking its cadres to support whoever they wish to in the upcoming polls.

This could have a bearing on the outcome of the polls, where Modi and his supporters may find it difficult to overcome a spirited challenge from the Congress and its allies.

The RSS’s strategy seems to be to give the Sangh and its constituents a younger and ideologically-sound leadership. In this context, the words of the late DB Thengdi, who was overlooked for the RSS chief’s position to help pro-Vajpayee elements gain control, is being cited. Thengdi, commenting on Mahatma Gandhi’s remarks that if he had strength, he would not have allowed the Partition to take place, had stated that in future, the nation’s leadership should always be young and strong and not old and infirm.

The next few days could be decisive for the future of the Sangh parivar. Between us.

[Guest]

Must watch to understand Hindutva- Nationalism
Conversation with Mr. S. Gurumurthy Part - 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqslweUIDLQ&NR=1

[acharya]

Hindutva and radical Islam: Where the twain do meet - Arun Shourie

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Your Hindutva is no different from Islamic fundamentalism’ — a fashionable statement these days, one that immediately establishes the person’s secular credentials. It is, of course, false, as we shall see in a moment. But there is a grain of potential truth in it — something that does not put Hinduism at par with Islam, but one that should, instead, serve as a warning to all who keep pushing Hindus around. That grain is the fact that every tradition has in it, every set of scriptures has in it enough to justify extreme, even violent reaction. <b>From the very same Gita from which Gandhiji derived non-violence and satyagraha, Lokmanya Tilak constructed the case for ferocious response, not excluding violence. From the very same Gita from which Gandhiji derived his ‘true law’, shatham pratyapi satyam, ‘Truth even to the wicked’, the Lokmanya derived his famous maxim, shatham prati shaathyam, ‘Wickedness to the wicked.’</b>

In the great work, Gita Rahasya, that he wrote in the Mandalay prison, the Lokmanya invokes Sri Samartha, ‘Meet boldness with boldness; impertinence by impertinence must be met; villainy by villainy must be met.’ Large-heartedness towards those who are grasping? Forgiveness towards those who are cruel? ‘Even Prahlada, that highest of devotees of the Blessed Lord,’ the Lokmanya recalls, has said, ‘Therefore, my friend, wise men have everywhere mentioned exceptions to the principle of forgiveness.’<b> True, the ordinary rule is that one must not cause harm to others by doing such actions as, if done to oneself, would be harmful. But, the Mahabharata, Tilak says, ‘has made it clear that this rule should not be followed in a society, where there do not exist persons who follow the other religious principle, namely, others should not cause harm to us, which is the corollary from this first principle.’ The counsel of ‘equability’ of the Gita, he says, is bound up with two individuals; that is, it implies reciprocity. ‘Therefore, just as the principle of non-violence is not violated by killing an evil-doer, so also the principle of self-identification [of seeing the same, Eternal Self in all] or of non-enmity, which is observed by saints, is in no way affected by giving condign punishment to evil-doers.’ Does the Supreme Being not Himself declare that He takes incarnations from time to time to protect dharma and destroy evil-doers? Indeed, the one who hesitates to take the retaliatory action that is necessary assists the evil to do their work. ‘And the summary of the entire teaching of the Gita is that: even the most horrible warfare which may be carried on in these circumstances, with an equable frame of mind, is righteous and meritorious.’</b>

Tilak invokes the advice of Bhisma, and then of Yudhisthira, ‘Religion and morality consist in behaving towards others in the same way as they behave towards us; one must behave deceitfully towards deceitful persons, and in a saintly way towards saintly persons.’ Of course, act in a saintly way in the first instance, the Lokmanya counsels. Try to dissuade the evil-doer through persuasion. ‘But if the evilness of the evil-doers is not circumvented by such saintly actions, or, if the counsel of peacefulness and propriety is not acceptable to such evil-doers, then according to the principle kantakenaiva kantakam (that is, “take out a thorn by a thorn”), it becomes necessary to take out by a needle, that is by an iron thorn, if not by an ordinary thorn, that thorn which will not come out with poultices, because under any circumstances, punishing evil-doers in the interests of general welfare, as was done by the Blessed Lord, is the first duty of saints from the point of view of Ethics.’ And the responsibility for the suffering that is caused thereby does not lie with the person who puts the evil out; it lies with the evil-doers. The Lord Himself says, Tilak recalls, ‘I give to them reward in the same manner and to the same extent that they worship Me.’ ‘In the same way,’ he says, ‘no one calls the Judge, who directs the execution of a criminal, the enemy of the criminal...’

Could the variance between two interpretations be greater than is the case between the Lokmanya’s Gita Rahasya and Gandhiji’s Anashakti Yoga? Yet both constructions are by great and devout Hindus. <b>Are ordinary Hindus nailed to Gandhiji’s rendering? After all, at the end of the Gita, Arjuna does not go off to sit at one of our non-violent dharnas. He goes into blood-soaked battle.</b>

The comforting mistake

The mistake is to assume that the sterner stance is something that has been fomented by this individual or that —in the case of Hindutva, by, say, Veer Savarkar — or by one organisation, say the RSS or the VHP. That is just a comforting mistake — the inference is that once that individual is calumnised, once that organisation is neutralised, ‘the problem’ will be over. Large numbers do not gravitate to this interpretation rather than that merely because an individual or an organisation has advanced it — after all, the interpretations that are available on the shelf far outnumber even the scriptures. They gravitate to the harsher rendering because events convince them that it alone will save them.

It is this tectonic shift in the Hindu mind, a shift that has been going on for 200 years, which is being underestimated. The thousand years of domination and savage oppression by rulers of other religions; domination and oppression which were exercised in the name of and for the glory of and for establishing the sway of those religions, evinced a variety of responses from the Hindus. Armed resistance for centuries... When at last such resistance became totally impossible, the revival of bhakti by the great poets... When public performance even of bhakti became perilous, sullen withdrawal, preserving the tradition by oneself, almost in secrecy: I remember being told in South Goa how families sustained their devotion by painting images of our gods and goddesses inside the tin trunks in which sheets and clothing were kept. The example of individuals: recall how the utter simplicity and manifest aura of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa negated the efforts of the missionaries, how his devotion to the image of the Goddess at Dakshineshwar restored respectability to the idolatry that the missionaries and others were traducing... The magnetism of Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi... Gandhiji’s incontestable greatness and the fact that it was so evidently rooted in his devotion to our religion...

Each of these stemmed much. But over the last 200 years the feeling has also swelled that, invaluable as these responses have been, they have not been enough. They did not prevent the country from being taken over. They did not shield the people from the cruelty of alien rulers. They did not prevent the conversion of millions. They did not prevent the tradition from being calumnised and being thrown on the defensive. They did not in the end save the country from being partitioned — from being partitioned in the name of religion...

<b>There is a real vice here. The three great religions that originated in Palestine and Saudi Arabia — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have been exclusivist — each has insisted that it alone is true — and aggressive. The Indic religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism — have been inclusive, they have been indulgent of the claims of others. But how may the latter sort survive when it is confronted by one that aims at power, acquires it, and then uses it to enlarge its dominion? How is the Indic sort to survive when the other uses the sword as well as other resources — organised missionaries, money, the state — to proselytise and to convert? Nor is this question facing just the Hindus in India today. It is facing the adherents of Indic traditions wherever they are: look at the Hindus in Indonesia and Malaysia; look at the Buddhists in Tibet, now in Thailand too. It is because of this vice, and the realisation born from what had already come to pass that Swami Vivekananda, for instance, while asking the Hindus to retain their Hindu soul, exhorted them to acquire an ‘Islamic body’.</b>

Instigating factors

We can be certain that his counsel will prevail, our secularists notwithstanding,

• The more aggressively the other religions proselytise — look at the fervour with which today the Tablighi Jamaat goes about conversion; look at the organised way in which the missionaries ‘harvest’ our souls;

• The more they use money to increase the harvest — whether it is Saudi money or that of Rome and the American churches;

• The more any of them uses violence to enlarge its sway;

• The more any of them allies itself with and uses the state — whether that of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan — for aggrandisement.

Nor is what others do from outside the only determinant. From within India, three factors in particular will make the acquiring of that Islamic body all the more certain:

• The more biased ‘secularist’ discourse is;

• The more political parties use non-Hindus — Muslims, for instance — as vote banks and the more that non-Hindu group comes to act as one — ‘strategic voting’ and all;

• The more the state of India bends to these exclusivist, aggressive traditions.

<b>It has almost become routine to slight Hindu sentiments — our smart-set do not even notice the slights they administer. Recall the jibe of decades: ‘the Hindu rate of growth’. When, because of those very socialist policies that their kind had swallowed and imposed on the country, our growth was held down to 3-4 per cent, it was dubbed — with much glee — as ‘the Hindu rate of growth’. Today, we are growing at 9 per cent. And, if you are to believe the nonsense in Sachar’s report, the minorities are not growing at all. So, who is responsible for this higher rate of growth? The Hindus! How come no one calls this higher rate of growth ‘the Hindu rate of growth’? Simple: dubbing the low rate as the Hindu one established you to be secular; not acknowledging the higher one as the Hindu rate establishes you to be secular!</b>

Or M.F. Husain. He is a kindly man, and a prodigiously productive artist. There is no warrant at all for disrupting all his exhibitions. I am on the point of sensibilities. <b>His depictions of Hindu goddesses have been in the news: he has painted them in less than skimpy attire. I particularly remember one in which Sita is riding Hanuman’s stiffened tail — of course, she is scarcely clad, but that is the least of it: you need no imagination at all to see what she is rubbing up against that stiffened tail. Well, in the case of an artist, that is just inspiration, say the secularists. OK. The question that arises then is: How come in the seventy-five years Husain has been painting, he has not once felt inspired, not once, to paint the face of the Prophet? It doesn’t have to be in the style in which he has painted the Hindu goddesses. Why not the most beautiful, the most radiant and luminous face that he can imagine? How come he has never felt inspired to paint women revered in Islam, or in his own family, in the same style as the one that propelled his inspiration in regard to Hindu goddesses?

‘In painting the goddesses, he was just honouring them,’ a secular intellectual remarked at a discussion the other day. ‘It was his way of honouring them.’ Fine. It is indeed the case that one of the best ways we can honour someone is to put the one skill we have at the service of the person or deity. But how come that Husain never but never thought of honouring the Prophet by using the same priceless skill, that one ‘talent which is death to hide’?

‘Has Mr Shourie ever visited Khajuraho?,’ a member of the audience asked, the implication being that, as Hindu sculptors had depicted personages naked, what was wrong with Husain depicting the goddesses in the same style. Fine again. But surely, it is no one’s case that the ‘Khajuraho style’ must be confined to Hindu icons. Why has the artist, so skilled in deploying the Khajuraho motifs, never used them for icons of Islam? The reason why an artist desists from depicting the Prophet’s face is none of these convoluted disquisitions on style.

The reason is simplicity itself: he knows he will be thrashed, and his hands smashed.</b>

Exactly the same holds for politics. How come no one objects when for years a Muslim politician keeps publishing maps of constituencies in which Muslims as Muslims can determine the outcome, and exhorting them to do so? <b>When, not just an individual politician but entire political parties — from the Congress to the Left parties — stir Muslims up as a vote bank. When Muslims start behaving like a vote bank, you can be certain that someone will get the idea that Hindus too should be welded into a vote bank, and eventually they will get welded into one. Why is stoking Muslims ‘secular’ and stoking Hindus ‘communal’?</b>

And yet perverted discourse, even the stratagems of political parties, are but preparation: they prepare the ground for capitulation by the state to groups that are aggressive. And in this the real lunacy is about to be launched, and, with that, the real reaction.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Shambhu]

<span style='color:red'>Time to create a Formidable Hindu Lobby </span>

By: U. Mahesh Prabhu
12/28/2007 9:06:14 AM
Author's Home Page
Views expressed here are author"s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is at the bottom.

(The author is the Editor-in-Chief of Aseemaa: Journal for National Resurgence.)


‘In a country that prides itself on its religious diversity and its secular constitution, may see the rise of Modi and his pro Hindu agenda as a terrifying chapter of intolerance. They say he is dangerous fire brand and too comfortable inciting the politics of hatred and violence.’ States Sam Dolonick in his article published in the recent issue of ‘The Economist’. Besides holding Narendra Modi solely responsible for the riots of 2002 he also makes the baseless and completely concocted allegation that ‘The RSS was influenced by 1930s German fascism…’ It’s not that he doesn’t acknowledge the unparalleled achievements of Gujarat Chief Minister. In fact he does when he says ‘Modi has attracted more than 20% of the India’s total investment of $69 billion last year’ but he makes a foul attempt of trying to make it irrelevant by adding ‘But despite his achievement, for may of India’s 1.1 billion people – 14 per cent of who are Muslims – Modi will always be defined by the anti-Muslim violence…’

The ‘cause of hate’ against Modi is, frankly speaking, owing to his Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) background, the organization which is today whipping boy of the mainline media and, so called, ‘secular’ organizations. That which ‘The Economist’ says is influenced by the Fascist ideology. Need I say how concocted is this idea, i.e. of RSS being influenced by Fascist? Absolute bunk! RSS is, in fact, in response to the brutal history of Islamic Conquest, that which American Historian Mr. Will Durant called ‘the bloodiest in history’. The current aspersions against the RSS mostly by Media, Congress and Communist followers to the effect that it is a ‘communal organization, most dangerous to the country than even communism’ are a complete travesty of fact.

The Ideology of Hindutva which is propounded by RSS, and followed by Modi, offers a room for all minorities on a condition of their whole hearted submission to the supreme value of the nation in their lives. The nation is a vehicle of universal truths and is not an entity above them. This is no chauvinist nationalism of the kind associated with Mussolini or Hitler. It teaches loyalty and devotion to the national society in the national homeland under the image of the mother. The unity and solidarity of the motherland taught to claim the highest sacrificial devotion from the citizen body. Whoever enters into this spirit of devotion to the nation as a spiritual unity of the land and people are Indians or Hindus in essence. The mental commitment should be final and supreme.
The Muslims and Christians have perfect freedom of worship, so long as they do not destroy and undermine the faith and symbolism of the national society. They should subordinate their exclusive claims for final and sole revelation vis-à-vis the national society. They could bear witness to their faith in life and speech but they should not indulge in any unfair and unspiritual modes of conversions.

The national identity requires that the whole of the national society, including minorities, should share in the best values of the past. They should appreciate national Dharma – the code of ethical principles and ways of life. The cultural history, they should all give their mind and hearts whole-heartedly to an appreciation of the best types. Rama and Krishna may be appreciated by non-Hindus as secular examples while the Hindus will see them as full spiritual exemplars, or avatars. Now considering this ideology, I wonder as to what is so ‘dangerous’ about it, so as to look at it dangerous than communism? I would be delighted if the people who put in such allegation help me to understand.

Be that as it may. Let’s consider the following case: In the late 1980s, Abdul Latif was the underworld king of Gujarat. Later, he became Dawood Ibrahim’s business manager in the state and was one of criminal dons to make what now seems to be the shameless transition from organized crime to terrorism. Latif was also the suspect in the Mumbai blasts case of 1993; the RDX and other explosive devices for that operation landed, remember, on the Gujarat coast. In November 1997, Latif was killed in an encounter with the Ahmadabad police. Many of the Latif’s cohorts were put under watch. One of them was his driver, apparently responsible for, in one daring move, hiding a huge cache of weapons meant for terrorist groups. This was part of the consignment that had arrived before Mumbai blasts of 1993. Latif was under surveillance so his driver had hidden the arms in a well in his (the driver’s) native village near Ujjain. The driver eventually faced over 50 cases including some under the National Security Act; He was arrested at various stages, by the Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh police, but avoided conviction. When not facilitating terror networks, he was engaged in extortion rackets in Rajasthan, acting almost certainly on behalf of others. His principals, the police believe, may be linked to terror funding groups. The Latif’s driver’s name was Sohrabuddin Sheikh. Yes this was the same Sohrabuddin for whose encounter Modi was being scrutinized by his political rivals and the media. ‘A nationalist is being harassed for having exterminated a terrorist!’ by the media that calls itself ‘secular’ and ‘nationalist’. What a pity!!

If you may observe in detail of the propaganda carried on by the Media in Gujarat and in other part of the world, at the same time, you would find that: While Dr. Haneef, a doctor who flew from Glasgow in UK to Australia under mysterious circumstances, and who was arrested by the Australian authorities was given such a terrific support by the media as if they were convinced and simply wanted to convince the world that he wasn’t a terrorist. It may be noted that simply because he was allowed to return to India on benefit of doubt the media almost declared his victory as theirs, before even he was tried in the court of law. Our Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh, went on record to say that he ‘lost his sleep’ for Haneef. On contrary to this when ethnic Hindus in Malaysia made a peaceful demonstration against the destruction of their temples by pro-Islamic-fundamentalist regime and were sabotaged ruthlessly and put to jail our very own Karunanidhi’s grievances, put forth the Central Government, were simply brushed aside, he was asked to lay off the issue rather ruthlessly. Media made little publicity of the issue. When its a question of Hindus getting unfair treatment in a Muslim majority region, the civil, sophisticated and articulate Muslim intellectuals take refuge in the statement that its a matter concerning a foreign country. But when its a question regarding a cartoon or a fatwa for beheading a writer, they say - we are a global Ummah, anything happening anywhere to Muslims is our common concern! All big lies and a bigger hypocrisy traded in the name of a religion. So much for their hypocrisy! But why is it so?

Let’s go in to a bit detail. When Muslims are in trouble there is a cry of intolerance from the whole of the Islamic world led by the Arabs. The Pope cries foul when there is problem facing Christians. Communists in India are supported by their comrades in China. But why is it that none cries or express even a word of concern when Hindus are in trouble? Today thousands of Kashmiri pundits, who were driven out of their homes by Jihadi Muslims after torturing them and even raping the women, are living as refugees in their own country. No media cares for them. Instead more special privileges are given to the Kashmir as an incentive and they continue to play lame politics of ‘Azad Kashmir’ (read Independent Kashmir) with Indian Government. Our forces who risk their lives are blamed and abused for unproven allegations. Recently, in Kashmir, an Army Jawan was stripped off and made to walk nude in the public for attempting to rape a woman. Is it so? Then why is it that the same people were sitting so silently when those terrorists were killing and raping their people? Why didn’t they ever boycotted them and gave a similar treatment? Why doesn’t a Maulvi, anywhere in India, issue a fatwa against a Jihadi terrorist? No answers.

But that is understandable. The pure hypocrisy, of the Muslim Clergy and Politicians, is the answer. But why is the media sitting mum? Why aren’t they speaking? Have you ever thought of a reason? I did. The reason is because Hindus don’t have a strong Lobby of their own.

If you take the case of Israel, you will find that though it is a small land they continue to live against all odds surrounded by their enemies from all the directions with rightful support of Americans. Americans are under obligation to support Israel because Jews, who also form a majority in Israel, control American Economy. Palestinians though haven’t been anywhere successful to have a worthwhile economy for themselves and having spend six decades in building a legacy of hatred and violence continue to gain ‘sympathy’ and ‘support’ from the Media as a result of the financial expenditure by the Arab Lobby Supported by Arab Nations. When Christians are persecuted in Pakistan Pope cries foul and American along bring in their pressure to put a halt on it. But what is the case with Hindus? Who are they to look for? As Arabs for the Muslims, Vatican for the Christian and Israel for the Jews who is for Hindus? It’s sad but true that Hindus have none to look far. The only Hindu country, Nepal, is today under the clutches of Communists, with its King virtually in exile.

India has, what it is proudly called, a ‘Free Press’ that which is run by private organization without governmental controls. We have series of Television News Channels in various languages. And not a single one ever clarifies its source of income. They never specify who funds them in their websites do they? Yet they have with them millions of dollars. Where did this money come from? You must agree with me that a majority of funding comes from international sources. But why would any organization invest in a media organization? Yes it would be for profitability, if you say it just like that. But there is more than profitability, don’t you think? Every journalist has with him/her an inclination towards the Arab or the American or the European world. Don’t they? Isn’t it possible then that they also subscribe to ideologies of that part of the world? Certainly they will, and beyond doubt.

So if they have with them an ideological inclination then it is very much possible that they would have hardly any chance to criticize those people who are of interest to their principals. So when you have so many Medias everyone is certain to have one kind of the ideology or the other, except Hindu, represented. Thus the only favorite whipping boy available is the RSS and its allied organizations. Isn’t it so? So there you are.

These different lobbies have a phenomenal financial power. The Jews gain their financial power, as said before, through the various business enterprises that are vital for American Economy including the press. Jews are said to be controlling the American Economy virtually. Muslim Lobby led by Arabs gain their financial muscle through petro economy, where billions of dollars are earned by them almost without any efforts and also invested in Global Terrorist endeavors.

Since true journalistic spirits exists hardly anywhere in the modern day, media corporations are exclusively concentrated on financial profitability. Given this it’s not a great deal to make these Lobbies to run the propaganda of their kind in their supported Medias. And given there isn’t any Lobby for the Hindutva faction; they are to be the easy target of such propaganda. Won’t you agree?

This is high time for Hindus to organize an internationally influential Hindu Lobby. Do you think that it is difficult to form one? Certainly not!

Consider this: When NDA government had organized ‘Pravasi Bharatiya Divas’ there were so many Non Resident Indians, most of whom were Hindus who had expressed their interest to be of some use to their land. When, after Pokharan II, India was showered with various international sanctions, let us never forget it was our fellow NRI’s who came to the rescue by subscribing to Yashwanth Sinha’s, then Finance Minister’s, Resurgent India Bonds. Before NDA regime was over India had with it a Foreign Exchange in excess of $100 billion. Doesn’t this portray the willingness of our Diaspora? The only thing that would be needed is desire, first, followed by unrelenting determination.

Simply put ‘Creating a Pro Hindu Lobby is not an option… but a sheer necessity.’

http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/india-usa-blog-column56.htm

[Shambhu]

Now people are putting things in the proper perspective right from the word go...instead of waiting to get asked and then backtracking and re-wording. Shambho khush hua!


<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>With Rajnath comes aggressive Hindutva – BJP is back on track again ready to take on Communists and the Congress Party of Sonia Gandhi </span>
Preetam Sohani
Dec. 23, 2006

Rajnath is the man of 2007. He made it clear that BJP is a reengineered party ready to stage aggressive Hindutva. He has no problems with Vajpayee and Advani as senior advisors in the sidelines. But they were moderates. The opposition parties – the communists and the Congress Party took advantage of their decency and continued to appease Muslims on the surface. The new BJP chief Rajnath Singh wants to make aggressive Hindutva the main issue and wants to start with Ayodhya Temple. Ayodhya is not just about Ram Mandir (temple) but it is all about India’s independece from foreign aggressors.

It is time for Hindus to rise and embrace all Indians – Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jews and others. But let us not forget India is India. It is based on ancient Hindu civilization. The seeding of various other religions and cultures in India are the result of aggression that started with Greek Alexander followed by the Mughals from Persia and finally by the European colonists. These aggressors could not convert India into any one single religion although they showed utmost brutality. Eighty percent of the country held on its Hindutva. In Ayodhya at Lord Ram’s birth place, the Muslim aggressors – the alien Mughals built a Mosque but Hindus beta up like slaves continued to worship at the site silently. They were treated as beggars and inhuman by the Muslim and European aggressors but Hindutva survived.

It is time to turn the table. Indian politicians today take advantage by showing favoritism for Muslims – the unfortunate few who were forced by the Mughals to Islam. They are the descendants of their original Hindu ancestors. BJP will expose these communists and Congress party of Sonia Gandhi whose whole strategy is to make India different from original India.

Go and try to build a Hindu temple in Pakistan, America, Netherlands, Japan or China. You will see what kind of obstacle you face. Every country says they support religious freedom but in every country religious majority controls the show. Evangelical Christians in America, the Islamic Mullahs, the orthodox Jews, the Buddhists monks – all have their say in their own respective land. India’s Hindus must have similar say too. India is the only country in the world where religious minorities – the Islamists killed, raped and drove away millions of Hindus form Jammu and Kashmir. The world watched, Sonia Gandhi’s Congress party watched, the Indian communists watched, the Americans watched, the Chinese watches, the Japanese watched – no one did anything about it except forcing India to make friends with a military dictator run Pakistan!

It is time for India to rise up again. It is time for Hindutva. It is time for peaceful reinvention of India – the new India led by Hindutva.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/14852.asp

[Shambhu]

http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx...eID=2886&SKIN=I

Dear Atheists-Rationalists-Dravidians!
31/01/2007 08:32:25 Rajagopalan Seshadri


An open letter to the Atheists-Rationalists-Dravidians"From "A Proud Hindu"

[Bodhi]

Arun Shourie's awesome series of articles in Indian Express:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>Hindutva and radical Islam: Where the twain do meet</span>

Your Hindutva is no different from Islamic fundamentalism’ — a fashionable statement these days, one that immediately establishes the person’s secular credentials. It is, of course, false, as we shall see in a moment. But there is a grain of potential truth in it — something that does not put Hinduism at par with Islam, but one that should, instead, serve as a warning to all who keep pushing Hindus around. That grain is the fact that every tradition has in it, every set of scriptures has in it enough to justify extreme, even violent reaction. From the very same Gita from which Gandhiji derived non-violence and satyagraha, Lokmanya Tilak constructed the case for ferocious response, not excluding violence. From the very same Gita from which Gandhiji derived his ‘true law’, shatham pratyapi satyam, ‘Truth even to the wicked’, the Lokmanya derived his famous maxim, shatham prati shaathyam, ‘Wickedness to the wicked.’

In the great work, Gita Rahasya, that he wrote in the Mandalay prison, the Lokmanya invokes Sri Samartha, ‘Meet boldness with boldness; impertinence by impertinence must be met; villainy by villainy must be met.’ Large-heartedness towards those who are grasping? Forgiveness towards those who are cruel? ‘Even Prahlada, that highest of devotees of the Blessed Lord,’ the Lokmanya recalls, has said, ‘Therefore, my friend, wise men have everywhere mentioned exceptions to the principle of forgiveness.’ True, the ordinary rule is that one must not cause harm to others by doing such actions as, if done to oneself, would be harmful. But, the Mahabharata, Tilak says, ‘has made it clear that this rule should not be followed in a society, where there do not exist persons who follow the other religious principle, namely, others should not cause harm to us, which is the corollary from this first principle.’ The counsel of ‘equability’ of the Gita, he says, is bound up with two individuals; that is, it implies reciprocity. ‘Therefore, just as the principle of non-violence is not violated by killing an evil-doer, so also the principle of self-identification [of seeing the same, Eternal Self in all] or of non-enmity, which is observed by saints, is in no way affected by giving condign punishment to evil-doers.’ Does the Supreme Being not Himself declare that He takes incarnations from time to time to protect dharma and destroy evil-doers? Indeed, the one who hesitates to take the retaliatory action that is necessary assists the evil to do their work. ‘And the summary of the entire teaching of the Gita is that: even the most horrible warfare which may be carried on in these circumstances, with an equable frame of mind, is righteous and meritorious.’

Tilak invokes the advice of Bhisma, and then of Yudhisthira, ‘Religion and morality consist in behaving towards others in the same way as they behave towards us; one must behave deceitfully towards deceitful persons, and in a saintly way towards saintly persons.’ Of course, act in a saintly way in the first instance, the Lokmanya counsels. Try to dissuade the evil-doer through persuasion. ‘But if the evilness of the evil-doers is not circumvented by such saintly actions, or, if the counsel of peacefulness and propriety is not acceptable to such evil-doers, then according to the principle kantakenaiva kantakam (that is, “take out a thorn by a thorn”), it becomes necessary to take out by a needle, that is by an iron thorn, if not by an ordinary thorn, that thorn which will not come out with poultices, because under any circumstances, punishing evil-doers in the interests of general welfare, as was done by the Blessed Lord, is the first duty of saints from the point of view of Ethics.’ And the responsibility for the suffering that is caused thereby does not lie with the person who puts the evil out; it lies with the evil-doers. The Lord Himself says, Tilak recalls, ‘I give to them reward in the same manner and to the same extent that they worship Me.’ ‘In the same way,’ he says, ‘no one calls the Judge, who directs the execution of a criminal, the enemy of the criminal...’

Could the variance between two interpretations be greater than is the case between the Lokmanya’s Gita Rahasya and Gandhiji’s Anashakti Yoga? Yet both constructions are by great and devout Hindus. Are ordinary Hindus nailed to Gandhiji’s rendering? After all, at the end of the Gita, Arjuna does not go off to sit at one of our non-violent dharnas. He goes into blood-soaked battle.

The comforting mistake

The mistake is to assume that the sterner stance is something that has been fomented by this individual or that —in the case of Hindutva, by, say, Veer Savarkar — or by one organisation, say the RSS or the VHP. That is just a comforting mistake — the inference is that once that individual is calumnised, once that organisation is neutralised, ‘the problem’ will be over. Large numbers do not gravitate to this interpretation rather than that merely because an individual or an organisation has advanced it — after all, the interpretations that are available on the shelf far outnumber even the scriptures. They gravitate to the harsher rendering because events convince them that it alone will save them.

It is this tectonic shift in the Hindu mind, a shift that has been going on for 200 years, which is being underestimated. The thousand years of domination and savage oppression by rulers of other religions; domination and oppression which were exercised in the name of and for the glory of and for establishing the sway of those religions, evinced a variety of responses from the Hindus. Armed resistance for centuries... When at last such resistance became totally impossible, the revival of bhakti by the great poets... When public performance even of bhakti became perilous, sullen withdrawal, preserving the tradition by oneself, almost in secrecy: I remember being told in South Goa how families sustained their devotion by painting images of our gods and goddesses inside the tin trunks in which sheets and clothing were kept. The example of individuals: recall how the utter simplicity and manifest aura of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa negated the efforts of the missionaries, how his devotion to the image of the Goddess at Dakshineshwar restored respectability to the idolatry that the missionaries and others were traducing... The magnetism of Sri Aurobindo and Ramana Maharshi... Gandhiji’s incontestable greatness and the fact that it was so evidently rooted in his devotion to our religion...

Each of these stemmed much. But over the last 200 years the feeling has also swelled that, invaluable as these responses have been, they have not been enough. They did not prevent the country from being taken over. They did not shield the people from the cruelty of alien rulers. They did not prevent the conversion of millions. They did not prevent the tradition from being calumnised and being thrown on the defensive. They did not in the end save the country from being partitioned — from being partitioned in the name of religion...

There is a real vice here. The three great religions that originated in Palestine and Saudi Arabia — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have been exclusivist — each has insisted that it alone is true — and aggressive. The Indic religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism — have been inclusive, they have been indulgent of the claims of others. But how may the latter sort survive when it is confronted by one that aims at power, acquires it, and then uses it to enlarge its dominion? How is the Indic sort to survive when the other uses the sword as well as other resources — organised missionaries, money, the state — to proselytise and to convert? Nor is this question facing just the Hindus in India today. It is facing the adherents of Indic traditions wherever they are: look at the Hindus in Indonesia and Malaysia; look at the Buddhists in Tibet, now in Thailand too. It is because of this vice, and the realisation born from what had already come to pass that Swami Vivekananda, for instance, while asking the Hindus to retain their Hindu soul, exhorted them to acquire an ‘Islamic body’.

Instigating factors

We can be certain that his counsel will prevail, our secularists notwithstanding,

• The more aggressively the other religions proselytise — look at the fervour with which today the Tablighi Jamaat goes about conversion; look at the organised way in which the missionaries ‘harvest’ our souls;

• The more they use money to increase the harvest — whether it is Saudi money or that of Rome and the American churches;

• The more any of them uses violence to enlarge its sway;

• The more any of them allies itself with and uses the state — whether that of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan — for aggrandisement.

Nor is what others do from outside the only determinant. From within India, three factors in particular will make the acquiring of that Islamic body all the more certain:

• The more biased ‘secularist’ discourse is;

• The more political parties use non-Hindus — Muslims, for instance — as vote banks and the more that non-Hindu group comes to act as one — ‘strategic voting’ and all;

• The more the state of India bends to these exclusivist, aggressive traditions.

It has almost become routine to slight Hindu sentiments — our smart-set do not even notice the slights they administer. Recall the jibe of decades: ‘the Hindu rate of growth’. When, because of those very socialist policies that their kind had swallowed and imposed on the country, our growth was held down to 3-4 per cent, it was dubbed — with much glee — as ‘the Hindu rate of growth’. Today, we are growing at 9 per cent. And, if you are to believe the nonsense in Sachar’s report, the minorities are not growing at all. So, who is responsible for this higher rate of growth? The Hindus! How come no one calls this higher rate of growth ‘the Hindu rate of growth’? Simple: dubbing the low rate as the Hindu one established you to be secular; not acknowledging the higher one as the Hindu rate establishes you to be secular!

Or M.F. Husain. He is a kindly man, and a prodigiously productive artist. There is no warrant at all for disrupting all his exhibitions. I am on the point of sensibilities. His depictions of Hindu goddesses have been in the news: he has painted them in less than skimpy attire. I particularly remember one in which Sita is riding Hanuman’s stiffened tail — of course, she is scarcely clad, but that is the least of it: you need no imagination at all to see what she is rubbing up against that stiffened tail. Well, in the case of an artist, that is just inspiration, say the secularists. OK. The question that arises then is: How come in the seventy-five years Husain has been painting, he has not once felt inspired, not once, to paint the face of the Prophet? It doesn’t have to be in the style in which he has painted the Hindu goddesses. Why not the most beautiful, the most radiant and luminous face that he can imagine? How come he has never felt inspired to paint women revered in Islam, or in his own family, in the same style as the one that propelled his inspiration in regard to Hindu goddesses?

‘In painting the goddesses, he was just honouring them,’ a secular intellectual remarked at a discussion the other day. ‘It was his way of honouring them.’ Fine. It is indeed the case that one of the best ways we can honour someone is to put the one skill we have at the service of the person or deity. But how come that Husain never but never thought of honouring the Prophet by using the same priceless skill, that one ‘talent which is death to hide’?

‘Has Mr Shourie ever visited Khajuraho?,’ a member of the audience asked, the implication being that, as Hindu sculptors had depicted personages naked, what was wrong with Husain depicting the goddesses in the same style. Fine again. But surely, it is no one’s case that the ‘Khajuraho style’ must be confined to Hindu icons. Why has the artist, so skilled in deploying the Khajuraho motifs, never used them for icons of Islam? The reason why an artist desists from depicting the Prophet’s face is none of these convoluted disquisitions on style.

The reason is simplicity itself: he knows he will be thrashed, and his hands smashed.

Exactly the same holds for politics. How come no one objects when for years a Muslim politician keeps publishing maps of constituencies in which Muslims as Muslims can determine the outcome, and exhorting them to do so? When, not just an individual politician but entire political parties — from the Congress to the Left parties — stir Muslims up as a vote bank. When Muslims start behaving like a vote bank, you can be certain that someone will get the idea that Hindus too should be welded into a vote bank, and eventually they will get welded into one. Why is stoking Muslims ‘secular’ and stoking Hindus ‘communal’?

And yet perverted discourse, even the stratagems of political parties, are but preparation: they prepare the ground for capitulation by the state to groups that are aggressive. And in this the real lunacy is about to be launched, and, with that, the real reaction.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/254969._.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>What more is needed to stoke reaction?</span>

The Task Force on Border Management, one of the four that were set up in the wake of the Kargil War, reported with alarm about the way madrassas had mushroomed along India’s borders. On the basis of information it received from intelligence agencies, it expressed grave concern at the amount of money these madrassas were receiving from foreign sources. It reported that large numbers were being ‘educated’ in these institutions in subjects that did not equip them at all for jobs — other than to become preachers and teachers producing the same type of incendiary unemployables. It expressed the gravest concern at the way the madrassas were reinforcing separateness in those attending them — through the curriculum, through the medium of instruction, through the entire orientation of learning: the latter, the Task Force pointed out, was entirely turned towards Arabia, towards the ‘golden ages’ of Islamic rule. It pointed to the consequences that were certain to flow from ‘the Talibanisation’ of the madrassas. [In spite of what the Task Forces themselves advised, namely that their reports be made public, the reports have been kept secret. Accordingly, I have summarised the observations of the Task Forces in some detail in Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites? Defence imperatives beyond the military, ASA, Delhi, 2005.]

And what does the Sachar Committee recommend? ‘Recognition of the degrees from madrassas for eligibility in competitive examinations such as the civil services, banks, defence services and other such examinations’! It recommends that government use public funds to encourage formation of Muslim NGOs and their activities. It recommends that government provide financial and other support to occupations and areas in which Muslims predominate. It recommends that Muslims be in selection committees, interview panels and boards for public services.

It recommends that a higher proportion of Muslims be inducted in offices that deal with the public — ‘the teaching community, health workers, police personnel, bank employees and so on.’ It recommends ‘provision of ‘equivalence’ to madrassa certificates/degrees for subsequent admissions into institutions of higher level of education.’ It recommends that banks be required to collect and maintain information about their transactions — deposits, advances — separately for Muslims, and that they be required to submit this to the Reserve Bank of India! It recommends that advances be made to Muslims as part of the obligation imposed on banks to give advances to Priority Sectors. It recommends that government give banks incentives to open branches in Muslim concentration areas. It recommends that, instead of being required to report merely ‘Amount Outstanding’, banks be told to report ‘Sanctions or Disbursements to Minorities’. It recommends that financial institutions be required to set up separate funds for training Muslim entrepreneurs, that they be required to set up special micro-credit schemes for Muslims. It recommends that all districts more than a quarter of whose population is Muslim be brought into the prime minister’s 15-point programme.

‘There should be transparency in information about minorities in all activities,’ the Committee declares. ‘It should be made mandatory to publish/furnish information in a prescribed format once in three months and also to post the same on the website of the departments and state governments...’ It recommends that for each programme of government, data be maintained separately about the extent to which Muslims and other minorities are benefiting from it. But it is not enough to keep data separately. Separate schemes must be instituted. It recommends that special and separate Centrally Sponsored Schemes and Central Plan Schemes be launched for ‘minorities with an equitable provision for Muslims.’ It recommends special measures for the promotion and spread of Urdu. It recommends the adoption of ‘alternate admission criteria’ in universities and autonomous colleges: assessment of merit should not be assigned more than 60 per cent out of the total — the remaining 40 per cent should be assigned in accordance with the income of the household, the backwardness of the district, and the backwardness of the caste and occupation of the family. It recommends that grants by the University Grants Commission be linked to ‘the diversity of the student population.’ It recommends that pre-entry qualification for admission to ITIs be scaled down, that ‘eligibility for such programmes should also be extended to the madrassa educated children.’ It recommends that ‘high quality government schools should be set up in all areas of Muslim concentration.’ It recommends that resources and government land be made available for ‘common public spaces’ for adults of — its euphemism — ‘Socio-Religious Categories’ to ‘interact’.

It recommends that incentives to builders, private sector employers, educational institutions be linked to ‘diversity’ of the populations in their sites and enterprises. For this purpose it wants a ‘diversity index’ to be developed for each such activity.

It recommends changes in the way constituencies are delimited. It recommends that where Muslims are elected or selected in numbers less than adequate, ‘a carefully conceived ‘nomination’ procedure’ be worked out ‘to increase the participation of minorities at the grass roots.’

It notes that there already are the Human Rights Commission and the Minorities Commission ‘to look into complaints by the minorities with respect to state action.’ But these are not adequate as the Muslims still feel that they are not getting a fair share. The solution? Here is its recommendation, and a typical passage:

‘It is imperative that if the minorities have certain perceptions of being aggrieved,’ notice the touchstone — ‘if the minorities have certain perceptions of being aggrieved’ — ‘all efforts should be made by the state to find a mechanism by which these complaints could be attended to expeditiously. This mechanism should operate in a manner which gives full satisfaction to the minorities’, notice again the touchstone — not any external criterion, but ‘full satisfaction to the minorities’ — ‘that any denial of equal opportunities or bias or discrimination in dealing with them, either by a public functionary or any private individual, will immediately be attended to and redress given. Such a mechanism should be accessible to all individuals and institutions desirous to complain that they have received less favourable treatment from any employer or any person on the basis of his/her SRC [Socio-Religious Category] background and gender.’

The responsibility is entirely that of the other. The other must function to the full satisfaction of the Muslims. As long as the Muslims ‘have certain perceptions of being aggrieved,’ the other is at fault...

So that everyone is put on notice, so that everyone who is the other is forever put to straining himself to satisfy the Muslims, the Committee recommends that a National Data Bank be created and it be mandatory for all departments and agencies to supply information to it to document how their activities are impacting Muslims and other minorities. On top of all this, government should set up an Assessment and Monitoring Authority to evaluate the benefits that are accruing to the minorities from each programme and activity...

This is the programme that every secularist who is in government is demanding that the government implement forthwith. And every secularist outside — the ever-so-secular CPI(M), for instance — is scolding the government for not implementing swiftly enough. What splendid evolution! Not long ago, unless you saw a Muslim as a human being, and not as a Muslim, you were not secular. Now, if you see a Muslim as a human being and not as a Muslim, you are not secular!

Consequences

The first consequence is as inevitable as it is obvious: such pandering whets the appetite. Seeing that governments and parties are competing to pander to them, Muslims see that they are doing so only because their community is acting cohesively, as a vote bank. So, they act even more as a bank of votes.

For the same reason, a competition is ignited within the community: to prove that he is more devoted to the community than his rival, every would-be leader of the community demands more and more from governments and parties. When the concession he demanded has been made, he declares, ‘It is not being implemented’. And he has a ready diagnosis: because implementation, he declares, is in the hands of non-Muslims. Hence, unless Muslims officers are appointed in the financial institutions meant for Muslims... With demand following demand, with secularist upon secularist straining himself to urge the demands, the leader sets about looking for grievances that he can fan. When he can’t find them, he invents them...

Governments make the fatal mistake, or — as happened in the case of the British when they announced separate electorates for Muslims — they play the master-stroke: they proffer an advantage to the community which that community, Muslims in this case, can secure only by being separate — whether this be separate electorates in the case of Lord Minto or separate financial institutions in the case of Manmohan Singh.

The community in its turn begins to assess every proposal, every measure, howsoever secular it may be, against one touchstone alone: ‘What can we extract from this measure for Muslims as Muslims?’How current the description rings that Cantwell Smith gave in his book, Modern Islam in India, published in the 1940s, of the effect that the British stratagem of instituting separate electorates for Muslims had had on the Muslim mind. The separate electorates led Muslims, as they had been designed to lead them, he observed, ‘to vote communally, think communally, listen only to communal election speeches, judge the delegates communally, look for constitutional and other reforms only in terms of more relative communal power, and express their grievances communally.’ [Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India, Second Revised Edition, 1946, reprint, Usha Publications, New Delhi, 1979, p. 216]. Exactly the same consequence will follow from implementing the Sachar proposals — and the reason for that is simple: the essential point about the proposals is the same — that is, the Muslims can obtain them by being separate from the rest of the country.

The reaction cannot but set in. ‘As Muslims are being given all this because they have distanced themselves from the rest of us, why should we cling to them?’ the Hindus are bound to ask. ‘On the contrary, we should learn from them. Governments and political parties are pandering to Muslims because the latter have become a bank of votes. We should knit ourselves into a solid bloc also.’

Do you think they need a Pravin Togadia to tell them this? The genuflections of governments and parties write the lesson on the blackboard. And the abuse hurled by secularists drills it in: by the excellent work that Narendra Modi has done for development, he had already made himself the pre-eminent leader of Gujarat; by the abuse they have hurled at him, the secularists, in particular the media, have enlarged his canvas to the country.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/255484._.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>The vital difference</span>

So, the first lesson to bear in mind is that every tradition has in it the potential to become extremist. In this sense, our traditions are indeed similar to the Middle Eastern traditions. This similarity should be a warning to governments and parties that keep traducing Hindus, for instance, and pandering to Muslims and the rest just because the latter are aggressive. Everyone learns.

And yet there is a basic, foundational difference — one that points us to what is of inestimable value in Indic traditions; to the priceless pearl that we should preserve, the one that these heedless secularists and the rapacious aggressives do not realise they are pushing Hindus, Buddhists and others to discard. This basic difference is as follows.

When a tradition has the following elements, as each of the three Middle Eastern traditions has, as do the secular traditions of the West — Nazism, Marxism-Leninism — it will invariably be exclusivist, intolerant and aggressive, and it will invariably deploy all means — from propaganda to money to violence:

• Reality is simple;

• It has been revealed to one man;

• He has put it in one Book;

• That Book is inerrant as well as exhaustive: so that whatever is in it is true, that it is true for all time; and that whatever is not in it or is contrary to what is in it, is false or useless or worse;

• But the Book is difficult to understand; hence, you need a guide, an intermediary, a monitor: in a word, the Church, the ulema, or the Party;

• The Book covers, the intermediary must cover every aspect of life: there is no distinction between the private and the public sphere, between the Secular and the Religious, between the State and the Church. These doctrines are totalitarian — in both senses: they insist on governing the totality of life — the Roman Catholic Church’s minatory insistence against contraception, for instance, and the reams and reams of fatwas that deal with even more intimate matters; they are also totalitarian in the sense that what they prescribe on any aspect just must be obeyed;

• The test of piety is adherence to that Book and to the prescriptions of that intermediary — in every sphere of life;

• It is the duty of that intermediary, indeed of every believer to ensure that all come to accept and adhere to The Message — there is only one Message;

• As the Message is the ‘Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth,’ as there is no truth beside it, those who do not accept the Message are cussed; worse, they are thwarting the Will of Allah, or its equivalent — the march of History in Marxism-Leninism;

• Hence, it is the duty of every believer, and even more so of that intermediary to use all means to make them accept the Message, and if, even after being offered the opportunity to accept it, they refuse, to vanquish them all together.

When these elements are present, the tradition will have one singular objective: dominance. It will become an ideology of power, a dogma that rationalises everything in the pursuit of hegemony. The dogma will necessarily gravitate to, among other things, violence.

Contrast those elements with propositions that are central to the Indic traditions:

• Reality is multilayered complexity: both in the sense that there are layers within layers of it, and in the sense of each element mingling into others: the Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh refers to the latter as ‘inter-being’;

• It has not been revealed exclusively to one person: several have glimpsed it;

• They have put down approximate descriptions of that reality as well as hints of how to glimpse it in some books: these are travel guides;

• Perceiving that Truth is an overwhelming, incomparable experience; it is the one joy that lasts. This life gives each of us a unique opportunity to bathe in that effulgence. If we don’t, the loss will be ours — but that is about it: the Truth is not affected; the guides are not falsified;

• It is not just the Book or some singular great figure who can teach us; everything, every event, every relationship can be a teacher guiding us to glimpse the Truth — indeed, our object should be to make everything teach us. The essential points are three: different ways will suit different persons; second, the individual is the one who has to strive — as ‘an island unto himself’; third, the striving, the search is an inner-directed one. It has nothing to do with the state or power or dominance over nature or man;

• In pursuing this inner-directed search, indeed in leading one’s life, the test is not adherence to any of these travel guides, nor obedience to any intermediary, but darshan — the traveller’s own experience: do not mistake the finger pointing to the moon — that is, my teaching — for the moon, the reality, the Buddha counsels.

Every single element in these traditions guides and pulls the believer in the direction that is the exact opposite of the Middle Eastern traditions. Reality is multilayered, hence no description of it is final: tolerance follows as an article of faith. The search is to be an inner-directed one: where, then, is there a case for converting some dar ul harb into some dar ul Islam? The touchstone is not that I am adhering to what some book says or what some person, howsoever worthy, prescribed. The touchstone is my own experience. The consequence of even this single article is immense and radical. The Gita is set in a battlefield. At the end, Arjuna declares that all his doubts are settled. He goes into gory battle. Yet Gandhiji derived non-violence from it. The orthodox berated him. Where do you get the authority to advance such a notion, they demanded. Gandhiji’s answer? From here, his heart. What is written in this book, he says in Anashakti Yoga, is the result of thirty years’ unremitting effort to live the Gita in my life. When Mansur speaks to his experience, he is executed. Within Islam, the Sufis were a beleaguered sect . . .

Putting belief into practice

It is entirely possible, of course, to be earnest about one’s religious beliefs, practices, rituals and not turn to violence or to converting others through allurements or violence. Indeed, we can go further and say that in all traditions, the majority of people in their practice, in their day-to-day life are like each other: each of them has a hard enough time getting through her or his daily struggles to spare time and effort to forcing or even inducing others or even persuading others to his particular way. But when the religion insists that the object is to convert, to ‘harvest souls’ for Jesus, when it declares that all of dar ul harb must be converted into the dar ul Islam; when the religion is a doctrine of dominance, being earnest about one’s religion comes to include as an essential element that the believer assist in spreading that religion, and that he use all means to do so. If a believer does not do so, he is deficient in his belief.

That is why in the hadis, we find the Prophet repeatedly enumerating the boons that accrue to the martyr and his relatives from jihad, from killing and being killed in the cause of Islam. The pre-eminent rewards, of course, accrue to the one who joins in the fighting himself, the Prophet declares in scores of hadis. But even the one who does not do so directly, will be rewarded for every bit of assistance that he gives for the establishment, defence and spread of Islam, the Prophet declares. When a man keeps a horse for the purpose of jihad, ‘tying it with a long tether on a meadow or in a garden... whatever it eats from the area of the meadow or the garden where it is tied will be counted as good deeds for his benefit, and if it should break its rope and jump over one or two hillocks then all its dung and its footmarks will be written as good deeds for him; and if it passes by a river and drinks water from it even though he had no intention of watering it, even then he will get the rewards for its drinking.’ And again, even more generally, ‘If somebody keeps a horse in Allah’s Cause motivated by his belief in His Promise, then he will be rewarded on the Day of Resurrection for what the horse has eaten or drunk and for its dung and urine.’ [Sahih al-Bukhari, 52.44, 49, 105; similarly, Muwatta’ Imam Malik, 951, Mishkat al-Masabih, Book XVIII, Volume II, p. 822. The hadis compilations as well as books on shariah are filled with scores and scores of such exhortations and promises.]

By contrast ‘the one who died but did not fight in the way of Allah,’ the Prophet declares, ‘nor did he express any desire (or determination) for jihad, died the death of a hypocrite.’ [Sahih Muslim, 4696.] Again, the Prophet declares, ‘He who dies without having fought or having felt fighting (against the infidels) to be his duty will die guilty of a kind of hypocrisy.’ And yet again, ‘He who does not join the warlike expedition (jihad), or equip a warrior, or look well after a warrior’s family when he is away, will be smitten by Allah with a sudden calamity.’ Hence, commands the Prophet, ‘Use your property, your persons and your tongues in striving against the polytheists.’ [Sunan Abu Dawud, 2496-98.]

Such commands follow ineluctably from the propositions that I listed above. We shut this fact out by two blindfolds. We judge a faith by looking at ‘people like us’ — most of the ones we know are ‘persons like us’, they do not live by such commands, but it is precisely because they are ‘like us’ that they are in our social circle. Unfortunately, the outcome is determined, not by the millions who lead ordinary lives, lives like ours, but by microscopic minorities: to say, ‘But the majority of Muslims did not want Partition’ may be true but is little consolation — that did not save the country from being partitioned. Similarly, to say ‘But millions are living peacefully today, they have not the slightest intention of setting off for jihad’ is true but equally little consolation: the ones who take the propositions seriously and thereby heed the hadis, are the ones who are determining the direction that events are taking.

And the direction that Islam itself is taking. Once they enter the stage, the extremists come to set the standard of fidelity and piety within a community. The tradition metamorphoses in no time: look at the change that has swept Islam in Southeast Asia in just fifteen years.

Second, we often lull ourselves with the thought, ‘But so what if someone wears the scarf or burqa? If they want to send their children to madrasas, what business is it of ours?’ But there is a technology to all this. The ones steering a community make a point of starting with a completely innocuous demand, by inducing believers to adhere to a practice that does not inconvenience non-believers in any way. The headscarf, for instance, or the new piety-statement in lands as far apart as Egypt and Pakistan, the zebibah — the dark, calloused bump that registers on the forehead when it is repeatedly struck or rubbed on the ground during prayers. [For our own neighbourhood, observe the visitors from Pakistan; for Egypt, see, for instance, Michael Slackman, ‘Mark of piety as plain as a bump on the head,’ IHT, December 13, 2007.] Non-believers are not inconvenienced by such signs, and yet the practices go far. They become a device for making the adherent realise that she is not the same as the others, and to make her or him announce that she is not one of the others. Simultaneously, the marks drill into others that the adherents have come to look upon themselves as separate. When the non-believers in turn start treating them as separate, that they are doing so becomes a grievance. And thus another argument is acquired for transiting from separateness to separatism.

Hence, all who are apprehensive of a Hindu reaction should:

• Get to know the non-Indic traditions;

• Shed denial — from denial of what the basic texts of the non-Indic traditions say to denial of the demographic aggression in the Northeast;

• Most important of all, work to ensure a completely fair and an absolutely firm state; and an even-handed discourse.

For their part, the Hindus cannot recline back, confident that the reaction will take care of the current pressures. They too have much to do. In particular, they must

• Awaken to the fact that the danger does not come just from violence and money; it comes as much from the purposive use of the electoral system;

• And so, they must organise themselves for this challenge as much as for others;

• For this, they must vault over internal divisions, in particular the curse of caste;

• Be alert not just to assault by others, but also to perversions from within: the commercialisation of the tradition; its becoming a commerce with deities — ‘Please get me this contract, and I will . . .’; its becoming ostentatious religiosity; persons setting themselves up as the guardians of the tradition, and then using the perch for self-aggrandisement . . .

• Get to know the tradition; and live it.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/255906._.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

To Acharya and other moderators.

Sir many posts in this thread are irrelevant to the discussion of Hindutva. I request you to edit/delete such posts.

#212 Post by a self-hating person.

#213 should be in Islamism thread.

#218 could edited and the words highlighted could be underlined so that the post can be readable.

#219 which tries to paint RSS as a terror organisation like the Hezbollah is obviously dripping with hate towards the hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita and needs to be deleted.

#222 again the points highlighted could be instead underlined to maintain readablity of the post.

#226 Article written by the India and Hindu hating Economist newspaper needs to be deleted. If there are any doubts about the credibility of Economist ask any Bharat Rakshak member they will tell you its true face. Even Manmohan singh has criticized it for blatanly writing articles against India and our economy without any basis.

#240 article written by Ashis Nandy who's brother Pritish Nandy produces films which are financied by groups affailated to congress. So now we have believe a word of congress chamca like Ashis who shamelessly attacks all gujaratis and hindus for democratically electing Narendrabhai Modi.

I would request that the Hindutva thread be used to post articles written by educated and well informed writers rather than congress chamcas like ashis nandy. The articles written by the likes of ashis needed to go into the Gutter thread or some thread named like it.

[Shambhu]

The Renaissance of Hindu Dharma in the New Millenium

http://www.vivekanandagospel.org/Renaissan...HinduDharma.pdf

Good encapsulation of definitions of HIndu Dharma, threats to it, and what is being done..

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE
Bridging the divide
http://www.economist.com/specialreports/...d=10015201

Nov 1st 2007
From The Economist print edition
The world's most religious country is still battling with its demons
There was also a change in Hinduism: the more mystical strain, Vedanta, which preaches the unity of all religions, was challenged by the stauncher Hindutva message. Vedanta Hindus stayed with Congress; Hindutva ones moved to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

This article tries to create a psy ops about Hinduism saying that Hinduism is changing.
Vedanta vs Hindutva difference is bing projected when there is none. This is one form of social engineering

[Shambhu]

Re above article:

"Economist" wants us to believe this crap they have come up with that "Hindutva" is a militant branch of Hinduism, and vedanta is the peaceful branch. Adi Shankaracharya would be the first to kick their psec @$$es.

The "Economist" types have already made a large fraction of Hindus believe that Xtianity/Islam have done no wrong, and are doing no wrong. Kafir katl, inquisitions, rapes, Hindu kush, temple destruction, (with churches and mosks often built on top), library burning, university destruction...all these never happened. And is any of these things is irrefutably proven, well, "economist" types say that that is "just xtians/mohammedans acting out their faith..what is wrong with that? You are too narrow-minded.."

This is not just social engineering..it is "pissing on the culture as and when you like"

<!--emo&:furious--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/furious.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='furious.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Shambhu]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> Well written article:


Reexpositioning Hindutva Edition _ Article 1 _ Hindutva in the Present-day Context
http://hindurenaissance.com/index.php?opti...task=view&id=98


<span style='color:orange'>Hindutva in the Present-day Context</span>
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe
To discuss ‘Hindutva in the present-day context’ is both, simple and difficult at the same time. Simple because ample has already been and is still being said about Hindutva by its adversaries as also its advocates. Difficult because it is hard to sift the ocean of literature about Hindutva and interpret it in the present-day context.

What adds to the intricacies of the task is the confusion surrounding the concept of Hindutva - thanks mainly to the intellectual liberty, almost bordering on irresponsibility, enjoyed by both: adversaries and advocates alike. Too much political colouration of Hindutva and absolute apathy on the part of the academia and intelligentsia to understand its core message has made the task easier for its adversaries to paint it as a weird, unsustainable ideology.


No wonder that almost two decades after the Ayodhya Movement, Hindutva hardly figures in whatever serious intellectual discourse that is witnessed in India. On the one hand, adversaries of Hindutva indulge only in using it as an old stick to beat its advocates, while the latter do precious little to present it in the modern context and in the idiom, which the intelligentsia world over understands.


In the post-independence history of India, the nineties have their own importance. Early nineties saw the political consolidation of the forces behind the Hindutva movement only to be taken to its logical end in late nineties, manifested in the emergence of BJP-led governments in New Delhi. It was in this decade that Hindutva became a prominent, almost central theme of intellectual discourse in our country. Those who owed allegiance to Hindutva as a political ideology became a force to reckon with. Gradually, it became impossible to just ignore what was happening in the Hindutva camp. So much so that several political analysts of international standing attained fame for their very honest effort to understand what was happening in India. Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul believed that the movement was inevitable.



Ayodhya Movement

The Ram-Janmabhoomi movement was the perfect symbol of Cultural Nationalism and it communicated the message of Hindu Unity so very effectively that hundreds of Leftist scholars were at pains to explain as to how Hindus had come together through a movement, which was described by them as ‘Brahmnical’. While sound logical arguments in favor of Ram-Janmabhoomi made it acceptable in the educated urbanites and thinking circles, what was more important was the emotionality of the issue, which proved to be a unifier par excellence.


It was an issue, so very deeply rooted in our shared ethos that it became hard for even the staunchest secularists to gloss over it. At least for a certain period of time, Ram- Janmabhoomi made the Hindus forget their caste identities and in a way forced them to think of their larger cultural identity - the Hindu identity. A number of secularist journalists who witnessed the events in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 had to publicly accept the fact that the sea of humanity that they witnessed had only one inseparable identity and that was the Hindu identity. Regardless of the questions of legitimacy of the events on that fateful day, the one certainty was that in the entire length and breadth of our nation the entire Hindu society experienced an intense feeling of unity and solidarity, - so very unheard of about the Hindus earlier


This emotional unity, howsoever short-lived it might have remained; was the greatest contribution of the Ram-Janmabhoomi movement. True, that Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)[1] and other organizations had undertaken several programmes aimed at consolidation of all those who are essentially Hindus right after the Meenakshipuram[2] conversions, still; the success of the Ram-Janmabhoomi movement was simply unparalleled.


This single event had given rise to the expectations that now, with solid popular support, Hindutva ideologues would strive to make inroads into the intellectual and academic arenas. Expectations soared further after the installation of BJP or BJP-led governments, both in some states and also at the centre. It was thought that the ideology that has proved to be instrumental in seeing BJP at the helm of affairs would also be duly recognized in the academia and the thinking circles. But, unfortunately, it just did not.


Notwithstanding the propaganda of the Left leaning academics about the so-called Saffronisation of education, Hindutva as an ideology, continues to be untouchable in the corridors of academics. This untouchability emanates from various factors. Granted that largely this ‘untouchability’ is thanks to the lure of political correctness, it is also true that there are sections in the opinion-making classes who have genuine misunderstandings and at times even serious complaints about this ideology. Not every objection deserves to be ignored, much less to be rubbished.

Demystifying Hindutva

While analyzing the challenge of demystifying Hindutva, it must be noted that the outer world has always been seeing Hindutva movement through a particular prism only. Three dimensions of this prism consist of three important events in post-independence history of India. These events include the most unfortunate murder of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, the destruction of the disputed structure at Ayodhya in 1992 and the post-Godhra violence against the Muslim community in Gujarat in 2002. Majority of the opinion-makers consider these three events as stereotypes and base their understanding of the Hindutva movement on them…


While it is true that there could be different angles of looking at these three events, it is also true that regardless of whatever angle one desires to take; what is required is to understand the backdrop on which these three independent events happened. All these three events could be described as expression of anger or pent-up emotions and hence the state of collective minds responsible for these events needs to be dispassionately analysed and a sound understanding developed before one chooses to either defend them or denounce out rightly.


Noted journalist François Gautier[3] has brilliantly commented on this phenomenon of collective expression of anger. He says, “However reprehensible these acts of mass vengeance were, they have shown that Hindus keep quiet for a long time: they get riled at, they are made fun of, they are despised, their women raped, men killed, children burnt in trains and one day they blow up - and blow up badly. Riots don’t erupt in a few days: they are the fruit of decades, of generations even, of suppressed anger, of frustration, of a silent majority which sees itself more and more marginalized and taken for granted.”


Due to this widespread belief based on impressions; that persons responsible for these three events were all avowed supporters of Hindutva, the entire movement received a bad name and a negative image, extremely hard to erase. People are aware that thousands of service projects undertaken for the underprivileged sections by hundreds of dedicated life workers believing in Hindutva are functioning consistently for several decades. Yet, such commendable work has not helped this movement earn acceptance because the so-called progressive and secular forces. have consistently and obdurately turned a Nelson eye towards the benign influence of Hindutva organizations and chosen to portray only the momentary aberration committed by a section of erring Hindus.



Destruction of Image
Behind this double whammy against Hindutva is the unwillingness of Hindutva’s adversaries to really understand the strong sense of denial of the Hindu aspirations, the feeling that historical wrongs against the Hindus were not addressed by the governments of the day despite, serious efforts of the Hindu community to focus attention on them and negotiate a solution. The result has been that the adversaries of Hindutva relish painting the entire movement black!



Their series of allegations against Hindutva consists of following five points: -



1. Hindutva is sectarian and hence anti-Muslims and anti-Christians.

2. Hindutva is communal, pro-upper caste, pro-Manu, and hence against the backward and weaker sections of the society.

3. Hindutva is anti-women, obscurantist and against gender justice.

4. Hindutva is against freedom of expression.

5. Hindutva is anti-modernity.


Most of the above allegations have been repeated umpteen number of times creating thick clouds of misunderstanding around the entire Hindu movement. No ideological movement in the world may have ever faced such a grave image crisis. Considering the extremely wide gap between the reality about the movement and its largely established image, Herculean efforts from the defenders of Hindutva are a must.



Spiritual Democracy


Before we examine the basis of these allegations, it is necessary to enquire as to what exactly do we mean by Hindutva. Hindutva consists of the term Hindu that is largely understood as a way of worship, a religion or a belief system. However, the term Hindutva per se does not refer to Hindu religion. Literally speaking, Hindutva means Hindu ness. Just as the Sanskrit term Manushyatva means being a human, Hindutva can be explained as being a Hindu.


Due to a huge multiplicity of worshipped deities and a vast diversity of the ways to worship them, no straightjacketing is possible in Hindu religion; and, as a consequence, in Hindu worldview. It is in this complete denial of straightjacketing that lay the roots of spiritual democracy, which is the most distinguishing facet of Hindu religion. Unlike Christianity and Islam, Hinduism never presents itself as the only way to seek salvation. On the contrary, Hinduism considers that every path leads an individual to the same truth and to the same almighty, which wise / knowledgeable persons refer to in different ways.


A firm belief in this concept, as communicated in “Ekam Sat, Vipra Bahudavadanti”[4] (Truth is one, sages describe it differently) is the corner stone of Hindu religious thought. This notion has in effect, made all religions valid and reverential for all. It is due to this fundamental faith in the existence of multiple ways of seeking salvation that the concept of proselytisation and the resultant competition for converting people finds no place in Hindu religion. This is also true in other indigenous belief systems, be it Jainism or Buddhism. Let us not forget that this spiritual democracy, this fundamental spirit of accommodation alone could make India a shining example of centuries of peaceful co-existence of different religions and belief systems.


In other words, thanks to Hinduism, India could evolve a replicable model of sustainable pluralism. Acceptance of the fundamental equality of, and hence equal respect for all religions and all the ways of worship is the basis of such sustained pluralism. It must be remembered that if one commits him / herself to the cardinal principles of sustainable pluralism, one cannot talk of superiority of a way of worship and hence of the need to convert adherents of other faiths. Besides, once one decides to indulge in the concepts of superiority of a religion, no meaningful dialogue between faiths can happen.


Today, when the entire world is facing a sever threat of terrorist tendencies and the root cause of terrorism happens to be a particular religious belief system, can humanity survive without accepting spiritual democracy? The essence of the concept of spiritual democracy, I believe, has helped Hinduism survive. To put it simply, Hindu ness does not lie in a set of rituals, systems of worship or belief in any scriptures. It does not believe that there is only one path to attain salvation and openly concedes that belief, without any reservation. It is in this essential acceptance of, nay; welcome to other faiths and other gods that remains the crux of your Hindu ness, i.e. Hindutva. It is this very unique and supremely liberal characteristic of the Hinduism that makes one a Hindu. It is on this background that one has to look at the proposition that to be an adherent of Hindutva, one need not be a Hindu. It is in the light of this core concept of Hindutva that one has to examine issues such as social justice and gender equality.



No place for discrimination

Once one accepts that every path ultimately leads to the one and the same ultimate truth, the questions of caste and creed need to be settled once and for all. Hindutva has absolutely no place for discrimination on the basis of caste. Equality of human beings is the cardinal principle. In Hindutva scheme of things, superiority or inferiority of an individual just cannot depend upon in which family one has taken birth. When Hindutva aspires to put an end to such discriminations lock, stock and barrel, where comes the question of defending Chaturvarnya, untouchability or caste conflict?


The essential unity and equality of the mankind perceived by Hindutva just cannot accept any artificial divides promoted by politicians in the garb of academicians. Theories like Aryan invasion, conflict between indigenous people and non-indigenous people, differences between aboriginals or Adivasis and others, branding of certain social groups or communities as criminals by birth, or a conflict between the victor and the vanquished etc. cannot find any place at all in the concept of Hindutva.


It may be pointed out here that the adversaries of Hindutva always propagate that Hindutva is the other name of Brahmanatva. There cannot be any other statement than this that is farthest from the facts. Several references in what is known as Dalit literature are a testimony of the fact that the upbringing of Dalit children happens in the same religious-cultural ethos just like that of the so-called upper caste children. The way Brahmans celebrate Diwali is in no way different from the way Mangs or Matangs and other scheduled caste groups celebrate. Same is the case with Adivasis.


Several sociologists have established that Adivasis in India are not like aboriginals in Australia. There are several erstwhile nomads or even martial communities who took shelter in the thick forests during the times of turbulence, several centuries before. Today, they are identified as Adivasis, the original inhabitants, as if all others are either aggressors or outsiders. It is in this context that one has to have a re-look at the terms in which we refer to our own brethren.


Again, to say that simply because some of the Adivasis eat beef or worship nature and no idols, they go beyond the purview of Hindutva is a misnomer. When Hindutva can accept even Lord Christ or Prophet Mohammad, where comes the question of not accepting nature-worship? And above all, how can non-Hindus like church groups in India’s North-East sit in the judgment and decide as to who are Hindus and who are not?



Social equality

On this background, it is necessary to discuss the question of social equality in general and caste based reservations in particular. It must be noted that the universally accepted and widely acclaimed concepts of affirmative action and positive discrimination for social justice are at the root of caste based reservations. Supporters of Hindutva have realised long ago that larger and lasting Hindu unity will not be possible without the so-called upper castes cultivating a mindset for creating a space, at the cost of their own opportunity; for the underprivileged classes.


It would not be wrong to suggest that the privileged and comparatively less unfortunate sections of the society also have to ensure that the weaker sections not only get reservations but also are also duly empowered to take advantage of them. Those who are committed to the cause of Hindu unity just cannot afford to be unmindful of the fact that if emotional integrity is not achieved, Hindu unity will remain a chimera. For emotional integrity to sustain one has to promote this spirit of mutual understanding, accommodation with a sense of fundamental social responsibility.


Hindus will have to remain fully aware about the designs of anti-Hindu-unity forces aimed at dividing this society and breaking the cultural-emotional bonds and inter-community harmony, whatsoever. Having said that, it must also be mentioned that the whole gamut of issues concerning reservations need a re-look. Thinking out of box with regards to the ways and means of making caste-based quota more effective and result oriented is the need of the hour. For this to happen, the issue of caste-based quota requires to be de-politicized. Our politicians will have to choose between securing vote banks and protecting national interest. After all, high decibels while clamoring for quota from the rooftop cannot be the only yardstick for being progressive.


Quotas cannot be de-linked from the wider issue of social and community identity. Narrow and communal identities need to be accommodated and amalgamated with the wider national and social identity. Ironical as it may seem, but this can happen only through respect and recognition for smaller identities. Lest one forgets, such identities can never be crushed. They can only be accommodated.


‘Recognize first and then try to remold’ could be the only effective way of dealing with these issues. Creating an atmosphere where every part feels that it can lead a meaningful life only while remaining inseparable from the whole is a severe challenge before the Hindutva movement. For this, disadvantaged sections of our society need to be assured of equal respect, equal opportunity and equal protection. Mahatma Gandhiji’s principles of Antyodaya (Placing the last man in the row, first when it comes to benefits of a welfare state) as the mainstay of our approach towards policies for social justice and social harmony alone can halt the process of social divide.



Sustainable pluralism

The vexed issue of conversions has a close connection with social justice and equality. Firstly, demands for quota also for the new converts from formerly scheduled castes and tribes have rendered the argument that conversions bring social equality and respect, completely hollow. But more importantly, when Hindutva itself means broad-mindedness, how can one accommodate an argument that a particular faith alone is valid or have a monopoly right to take one to salvation?


Granted that in a spiritual democracy, one is free to worship gods of his/her choice. However, this cannot be stretched too far to accommodate some kind of a “sole distributorship of salvation” claimed by certain belief systems. It must be remembered that any argument in favor of conversion construes an acceptance to the attempts of proclaiming other faiths inferior and invalid. While there is nothing wrong in conversion per say, proselytizing through fraudulent means like claiming a particular faith as the only path, is totally against the very grain of spiritual democracy. In any truly secular democratic polity, conversions should find no place at all.


At several occasions in the past, those who swear by secularism have developed cold feet. The 45th Amendment of 1978 introduced in the parliament in India introduced the definition of “secular” as “equal respect to all religions”. However, the Rajya Sabha, with a Congress majority rejected this definition, mainly because some fundamentalist elements in non-Hindu belief systems were opposed to the same.


Yet another case in point of stubborn opposition to this equality of faiths is the fact that in year 2000, when UN had organised a an International Conference of all Belief Systems to mark the beginning of a new millennium, Vatican had chosen to stay away saying that they can not sit with other faiths and declare acceptance to equality of religions. Artificial or contrived conversions are an affront on Human Rights and if fraudulent conversion is allowed unabatedly, in the long run, it will render a body blow to sustainable pluralism.



Gender justice

The foundation of the Hindu ideology lies in scriptures like “sarvepi sukhina snatu sarve santu niramayah” (Happiness and health should be reaching all). Naturally then, the idea of Hindu ness encompasses welfare of the entire Humankind. If this is the fact, how can Hindutva ever be discriminating on the basis of gender? Hindutva worldview in the context of the present days presupposes both men and women are equal and complementary to each other, at the same time. Excessive insistence on mere equality may not ensure the desired creative co-existence.


On the other hand, stressing complementary aspect alone may elude recognition and respect for the individuality of a woman. Element of justice has to be the basis of any ideological concept in this regard. As advocated by renowned scientist Dr.R.D.Mashelkar, evolving a family system where woman occupies centrality is the need of changing societies. Modern families where women get equal opportunities, equal respect and equal protection as well as facilities alone can survive. For this to happen, men need to change and become more family oriented. This mindset change can happen only through greater awareness amongst the male members of families about gender sensitization and gender equality.


In the context of women related issues, on the one hand women can no more be treated like a slave, and on the other hand portraying them as deities or goddesses is also unfair. What all women need is a humane treatment. Practices such as Sati or for that matter any other traditions connoting inequality of sexes are outdated and hence condemnable. Such obsolete and irrelevant practices have absolutely no place in Hindutva.



Liberalism

Unlike what is being portrayed, Hindutva forces have always stood for freedom of expression and for most of the times, disapproved any attempts to suppress creativity. Instances like the brouhaha over the infamous Danish cartoons or Da Vinci Code are so very rare in the context of Hinduism that many progressive artists take liberty to play with Hindu sensibilities. Hindutva movement will have to handle such issues with dexterity. The kind of maturity shown by Hindutva forces during the controversy over Dr. Ambedkar’s “Riddles in Ramayan”,[5] in early eighties was illustrious since it ensured that the cause of larger Hindu unity is not harmed.


It has to be underscored that concepts of democracy and liberalism form the core of Hindutva. As desired by Sant Dnyaneshwar, [6]“Jo je wanchhchil to te laho” meaning everybody should get whatever he or she aspires for is the bottom line of Hindutva. Hindutva believes in autonomy in all respect. From food habits to fashions and from family systems to festivities, everything that is not against human justice and human rights should be generally acceptable. Any kind of straightjacketing is an anathema to Hindutva.


Hindutva recognizes the importance of reforms, and also recognizes the fact that reforms cannot be transplanted from without. Only those who identify themselves with the traditions can effectively change them. For those who believe that practices like celebrating Valentine Day are Western and hence need to be abhorred, the best way could be to draw a longer line and popularize the indigenous version of this festival of love. Indulging in violence while decrying revelers just cannot be the answer.


About the observation that Hindutva represents anti-modern views, has no base at all. Obscurantist elements are in every society and even the way some of the Hindus preach and practice, they sound extremely fanatic. But since Hindu religion is not book based, really speaking there is no scope for any fundamentalism. “Nitya Nutan - Chira Puratan” (Innovation and Modernity going hand in hand with Ancient and Historical.) is the mainstay of Hindu thinking. The kind of resilience that Hindus have shown while accepting whatever is modern is a testimony of their being receptive to whatever is modern and in tune with the times.


For Hindutva to be embraced by the entire Humanity as a way of life, Hindus should be exporting their own cultural traditions, symbols and even social institutions. One pre-condition of this is that Hindus first of all, should come out of self-denial while understanding themselves. To that end, it has to start with the long overdue re-stating of Hindutva. An absolute lack of clarity and sheer absence of articulation, coupled with incoherence, and inertia, has made Hindutva forces appear like a bankrupt millionaire.


Hindutva has become a favorite whipping boy of the so-called progressives. Many consider that without assailing Hindutva, one can never be considered legitimate in the worlds of academia, scholarship and to an extent; even media. Let it be remembered that thinking circles in India let alone recognizing, are not even tolerating Hindutva forces. None of the Hindutva leaders have ever defended practices as irrelevant and anti-Humanity as either untouchability or child marriages.


From Swami Vivvekananda to Balasaheb Deoras[7] or L K Advani, those who have taken pride in their Hinduness (Hindutva) have, in no uncertain terms denounced all such practices describing them as perversions. But then, hardly ever efforts have been made to tell the world as to what are the ingredients of this new age or modern or say contemporary “Hindutva” and present it once again, in the form of a theory or a thought. It was on this background that the Left - leaning thinkers had a field day, successfully hitting Hindutva with the same old sticks, wantonly indulging in self-flagellation and in the process demoralizing the cadre. That this further helped them consolidate their position and continue with their “Thought Hegemony”. The most dreadful and anti-democratic consequence of this was the cult of ideological untouchability indulged in by several members of the intelligentsia. Clearing every kind of confusion about Hindutva in no uncertain terms, once and for all; is the only way. Let us walk this way together…

About the author:

Vinay Sahastrabuddhe is the Director of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a political activist training institute located in Mumbai, India.



EMail : vinays@rmponweb.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] VHP is a world body working for the unity of Hindus of the world. According to Vishwa Hindu Parishad, The word 'Hindu' is not to be taken in its narrow, restricted sense. The term 'HINDU' embraces " all people who believe in, respect or follow the eternal values of life - ethical and spiritual- that have sprung up In Bharat."



[2] 1981 Meenakshipuram conversion is conversion of hundred of dalits in 1981 in village Meenakshipuram in Tamilnadu state in India to Islam.It caused a major controversy then.



[3] François Gautier in Vivek Jyoti, Friday, November 3, 2006


[4] A shloka in Rigveda


[5] Riddles in Hinduism, (Vol.8) of the collected works of Dr. Ambekar (Maharashtra govt., 1987). In the” Riddles of Ram & Krishna” both the heroes of Hinduism are shown in poor light and derogatory language is used. 6.Sant Jnaneshwar was born over seven hundred years ago in the village of Alandi, on the banks of the Indrayani River. The son of a sannyasi, he was shunned by the local Brahmins. It is said that Jnaneshwar won the right to investiture with the sacred thread by making a water buffalo recite the Vedas.
[7] Balasaheb Deoras was the third Sar Sangha Chalak or Chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha, (RSS) between 1973-95.RSS is the world’s largest non-government organisation of primarily of Hindus.

---------------------------------------------------
Vinay Sahastrabuddhe
About the author:
Mr. Vinay Prabhakar Sahasrabuddhe is the Director General of Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, India's only training and research institute for voluntary social workers and elected representatives.

He comes from Khandesh or the north Maharashtra region. Born in a middle class family, Mr. Sahasrabuddhe has done his post graduation in English literature. Since his student days, he has been active in the social sector. During the infamous emergency of 1975, he participated in a Satyagraha and faced imprisonment for one and a half months. As a student activist, he was closely associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and also worked as a full timer of this organisation for over four years. Since 1987, he is with Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini.

From 1987 to 2004, he was a Member of Senate of the University of Mumbai. He was also elected as a member of the Management Council of the University where he worked for five years. For three years, he was on the Board of Governors of 'Yashada' , a government institute for the training of officials. Today, he is on the Governing Council of Ahmedabad-based Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration. During 2001-2004 he was the Chairman of the Western Region Committee of the Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology, (CAPART) , a Government of India agency.

Mr. Sahasrabuddhe is also a freelance journalist and has been contributing columns to various journals regularly. To his credit, he has four edited books and one book written by him. One of his books has bagged the Government of Maharashtra award.

Mr. Sahasrabuddhe was selected as an Ambassadorial Scholar by the Rotary International in 1998 and was working as a visiting researcher at the University of Illinois in USA, during 1998-99. For the purposes of research, paper presentations, training and seminars, he has visited US, UK, Germany, France, Austria, Turkey, Afghanistan, Israel and China.

[acharya]

Hindutva Not a Way of Life PDF Print E-mail
Written by Arvind Bal

The concept of Hindutva got evolved in British period as Indian Nationalism. Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekanand, Swami Shraddhanand, Lala Lajpatrai, Masurkar Maharaj propounded various ideas which interpreted Hindutva as Nationalism of Hindu people and started various movements to put their ideas in practice. The concept was more concerned with Nationalism and less with religion.

Hindutva not a way of life

Arvind Bal


The concept of Hindutva got evolved in British period as Indian Nationalism. Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekanand, Swami Shraddhanand, Lala Lajpatrai, Masurkar Maharaj propounded various ideas which interpreted Hindutva as Nationalism of Hindu people and started various movements to put their ideas in practice. The concept was more concerned with Nationalism and less with religion.

Savarkar’s Hindutva:

Veer Savarkar is considered to be the father of ‘areligious concept of Hindutva’. Savarkar wrote a book “Hindutva” in 1923, which elaborates the concept in great detail. The book runs into some hundred pages. The book gives historical background of the word “Hindu”, explains in details the idea of Nationalism and establishes Hindutva as a secular form of Bhartiya Nationalism.


He goes on to define the word “Hindu” in one Sanskrit anushtap shloka. His famous definition is


*** quote***


The definition comes almost at the end of the book and therefore should be considered as his inference of all the arguments made in the book.


The shloka defines who a Hindu is. The definition first describes a geographical piece of land with loosely defined boundaries. A person is a Hindu if he considers this piece of land as his “Fatherland” and his “Holyland”. Thus the definition considers three aspects (a) geographical, (b) ancestral and © emotional.


Savarkar claims that his definition is precise and it does not omit anyone nor includes any person who is not a Hindu (avyapti and ativyapti). But if we consider those Hindus who are dwelling in other countries for generations and considers that country as a fatherland are omitted. Also those foreigners staying in India, who have willingly accepted Hinduism cannot be called Hindus due to their ancestry.


Also, if Indian Muslims, Christians and others who got converted to Islam or Christianity from Hinduism, start considering this country India as their holyland also, will have to be considered as Hindus because their ancestral fatherland is anyway India. Punyabhu concept presumes that allegiance to religions established outside India makes a person non-Hindu because of extra-territorial faith. This is not correct. I deplore Islam not because it was established in Arabia, but because of its contents. Even if someone in India would have put forward such anti-humanistic ideology and established Islam as a religion, it would have been equally deplorable as it is now.


My intention is not to find fault with Savarkar’s definition, but to stress that it is not wise to hang on to any precise definition “who is Hindu and who is not”. Any person who wholeheartedly and very honestly considers himself as a Hindu must be accepted as a Hindu.


Because Savarkar specifically discerns Hinduism from Hindutva, he wants to keep Hindus’ religions away from Hindutva. He keeps his concept of Hindutva completely secular. He succeeds in this, because in any case Savarkar never believed in any religious tenets to interfere in worldly matters. It was therefore both easy and natural for Savarkar to keep his concept of Hindutva completely and strongly secular. But ultimately Hindutva is an abstract noun formed from the word Hindu. Savarkar even preferred English word ‘Hinduness’ as a closest alternative to Hindutva. The point is the word Hindutva is derived from the word Hindu and if ‘Hindu’ is defined wrongly, Hindutva also is misunderstood.


Savarkar wants to stress only one point in his book - Hindus are a National Society in Hindusthan and others are not. ‘Others’ include mainly Muslims and secondarily Christians. He does not very much bother about Jews (anyway a very small community in India) and feels sorry that Parsees, who are loyal to the land and people of this land, cannot be included in ‘Hindus’. But frankly, there was no need to make such a precise definition of Hindus to exclude Muslims and Christians from Hindutva. No Muslim or Christian had ever made a claim to be called a Hindu.


But to prove his point, he went on to define who is a Hindu and therefore what is Hindutva. Unfortunately, he did not stop at that and went on to include Hindus settled in other parts of the world in the concept of Hindutva. It is worthwhile to give the extract from the book verbatim.


“There are hundreds of thousands of Hindus who have settled in all parts of the world. A time may come when these our Hindu colonist, who even today are the dominating factor in trade, numbers, capacity and intellect in their respective lands, may come to own a whole country and form a separate state. But will this simple fact of residence in lands other than Hindusthan render one a non-Hindu? Certainly not; for the first essential of Hindutva is not that a man must not reside in lands outside India, but that wherever he or his descendents may happen to be he must recognize Sindhusthan as the land of his forefathers.


Nay more; it is not a question of recognition either. If his ancestors came from India as Hindus he cannot help recognize India as his Pitribhu. So this definition of Hindutva is compatible with any conceivable expansion of our Hindu people. Let our colonists, continue unabated their labour of founding a Greater India, a Mahabharat to the best of their capacities and contribute all that is best in our civilization to the up building of humanity. So long as ye, O Hindus! Look upon Hindusthan as the land of your forefathers and as the land of your prophets, and cherish the priceless heritage of their culture and their blood, so long nothing can stand in the way of your desire to expand. The only geographical limits of Hindutva are limits of our earth.”


The tone of the above passage is blatantly imperialistic. But we must realize one thing. Hindutva is not an intellectual property right of Veer Savarkar. We have our own talent and reason to make our own interpretation of the concept of Hindutva.
RSS’ Hindutva:

Now we must consider second claimant to Hindutva i.e. Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). Dr. Hedgewar established RSS in 1925. Savarkar had already written his book ‘Hindutva’ in 1923. Dr. Hedgewar had not only read it but also had a dialogue with Savarkar before starting RSS. The difference which I can see in thinking of these two great men is, Savarkar thought Hindu people are actually a Nation, whereas Dr. Hedgewar was convinced that unfortunately Hindus never lived as one national society (this inspite of tall claims of ‘this nation of last 5000 years etc’). That was the reason all aggressors could easily succeed in their aggression. For centuries, Hindus could not push the aggressors out of the country.


Dr. Hedgewar therefore decided to form an organization to establish Hindus as a Nation. However, he scrupulously avoided to bring in religion and therefore named the organization as National Volunteer Corp. He behaved in his personal life in such a manner that none could charge him as a religious bigot. He also scrupulously kept Hindu religion and religious practices away from RSS daily shakhas. Thus the concept of Hindutva as put forward by RSS was also a secular national concept, clearly independent of Hindu religion.


The picture definitely changed after Guruji Golvalkar became Sarsanghchalak in 1940. Guruji was a Sanyasi himself and therefore had long hair and flowing beard. He used to carry Kamandalu always along with him. His personality was of a staunch religious Hindu from top to bottom. He used to perform Pratah Sandhya and Sayam Sandhya regularly. Such a behaviour of the Head of an organization inevitably attracted a criticism that RSS was an orthodox religious organization.


It is true that he believed in many antiquated practices like Chaturvarna and believed in pristine Vaidic Sanatan Dharma. If one reads his books “We” and “Bunch of Thoughts”, it is not possible to repel the charge of religious bigotry and generally reactionary and regressive attitude. However again, whatever way, Dr. Hedgewar or Guruji Golwalkar might have interpreted Hindutva, it is not their intellectual property right either.


Before leaving Savarkar’s and RSS’ Hindutva, I must state one common objection taken against Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha and Dr. Hedgewar’s RSS. If the basic idea was to achieve a national resurrection in a secular way, why their membership was not open for non-Hindus. On the face of, it appears to be an insurmountable objection. But it is not really so.


After all, it was due to aggressive nature of Muslims that these organizations were started in self-defense. It was but natural that non-Hindus were not allowed to become members. That in itself does not make these organizations “Communal”. The basic condition to make any organization communal is that the organization must be working not only in the interest of that community but also against the legitimate interests of other communities. Hindu Mahasabha and RSS were organizations made for self-defense (although it may sound amusing that a majority community should be doing so) due to the strong communal character of Muslims and Christians.

Common Enemy – Islam and Christianity

Now let me come to redefining Hindutva in my own way. Before we do that, we must understand Islam and its philosophy. We should understand why Muslim psyche is so intolerant and perpetually aggressive.


Islam divides the mankind in two parts – One who believes in Allah, his last prophet Muhammad and Quran as the divine book of command i.e. Muslims; and those who are non-believers (i.e. those who do not believe in Islam) who are called Kafirs in Islam. Islam commands all Muslims to either convert the non-believers into believers i.e. Muslims or eliminate them. By obeying their religious command, Muslim population has increased from 200 believers in 622 A.D. i.e. at the time of Hijrat to Medina (the world population was 20 crores then i.e. Muslims constituted of 0.001 percent), to 126 crores at present in a world population of 804 crores i.e. 15 percent; a phenomenal increase indeed.


Muslims have developed a peculiar mentality. Where in majority, they have an Islamic state with total rights for Muslims and no rights for non-Muslims. Where in minority, they must have special rights over and above the rights of majority community. Muslims just cannot peacefully live with equal rights with non-Muslim community.


In spite of this coercive Muslim mentality, there is no doubt that Hindutva must remain a secular concept. This simply means that religious commands of Hindu religion should not interfere in worldly matters. But that should not mean that various indigenous religions of Indian people should have no space in worldly life. In fact, it is necessary to strengthen the pride in our own religion and keep that self-esteem high.


I feel that too much stress on Secularism has come to mean that concept of religion itself is something mean, substandard and outdated. To be a proud secular person has automatically come to mean a progressive person. To be religious has come to mean (in Hindus at least) to be retrograde, backward and behind times. This feeling must go. Hindus must be given to understand that being secular is a minimum condition of present day life and not something great achievement, not something lofty.


Secularism does not mean deriding Religion. A wide diversity in Hindu religious ethos is normally ridiculed by secular rationalists intellectuals. But this in fact was a strong point due to which Hindus and their religions did not get wiped out in Islamic onslaughts. A loose religious organization proved to be a strong point for survival.


Hindus have a unique problem, which no other religionists have to face. Hindu word had a geographical context in the beginning. It has become a religion later. There were several religious faiths in India, co-existing peacefully for ages. There were dissents, friction, even armed conflicts but never a total enmity. This was not a big issue until a totally alien religion aggressively entered India with an intention to destroy indigenous religions and convert the people to their intolerant religion. Hindus unfortunately could not judge the seriousness of the calamity fallen on them and considered Islam (and also Christianity) as just one more way of praying just one more God

Hindus – Their own enemy

Actually Hindus are their own enemies. Hindu intellectuals take great sadistic pride in making fun of Hinduism. Saffronisation is considered as worst form of communalism. But have you heard anything like Greenisation? Because for rationalists, Hinduism is a great danger to liberal civic society of India, not Islam or Christianity. The word Hindutva is used as a pejorative.


Now we must understand Hindu mindset also. Somehow Hindus are tolerant of external aggression though intolerant internally. Hindus must have inculcated this trait right from mythological period. The stories of Raja Harishchandra, Ram, Yudhishthir, Bhishmacharya, all depict this pervert mindset and still they are all considered great heroes. Whatever may be the historical background, Hindus must painstakingly change their nature, should realize who their enemies are and learn to behave with them as enemies.


The diversity amongst Hindu fold can be bridged only due to existence of a common enemy of all Hindus transcending caste, creed, language, ethnicity, etc. Fortunately Hindus have a common enemy in Islam and Muslims led by Mullah and Maulvis are really deadly, virulent and wicked enemy at that. As far as Muslims are concerned, they do not distinguish between Brahmins and Dalits, between Begalis and Maharashtrians, Aryas and Dravids, between Adivasis, Vanvasis and Nagarvasis, all are just Kafirs for them and hence all equally deserve extermination. This was very well experienced at the time of partition in 1946-47-48. All leftist Hindus got the same treatment like the rightists. All Manmohans, Indrakumars, Khushwantsinghs, Kuldeepsinghs, and Jyoti Basus, had to run away inspite of their leftist leanings, along with rightist LalKrishnas. Atleast such an enemy should help Hindus unite.


With eyes wide shut, Hindus are meekly observing their numbers dwindling and land shrinking. And progressive intellectuals of today and philosophers of yesteryears do not feel perturbed nor concerned. Hindus are by nature and also by its philosophical doctrine against spreading their religion. This has proved to be suicidal. As a religion, Hinduism either considered to be too great only to be admired but not be followed by others or some consider it out-dated and therefore not apt for spreading. Although these points are contradictory, they are put forward as they are.


Non-proselytizing nature of Hindu religion and Hindu people has turned out to be suicidal to Hindus. It is bound to be a permanently shrinking religion. It is not only that Hindus do not spread their religion, they even oppose taking back people in Hindu fold, who were forcibly converted to Islam or Christianity. Hinduism at one level is considered too sacrosanct to accept “fallen” people back in its fold, lest it may be contaminated. At another level, Hindus plead that, after all, all paths lead to the same God. Therefore one can be good Muslim or a good Christian and achieve the same goal of Mukti (emancipation) or Swarga (heaven). But Muslims or Christians do not think that way. Therefore there is only a one-way traffic, Hindus getting converted to Islam and Christianity.


We can learn a thing or two from Buddhism. It is a proselytizing indigenous religion. However there are no instances of individual or mass conversions of Muslims or Christians to Buddhism. Either indigenous religionists of Srilanka, China, etc eastern countries accepted Buddhism two thousand years back or in recent times it is only a mass conversion within Hindu fold.


There are two aspects of proselytizing. One accepting Indian Muslims and Christians back to Hindu fold. Those Hindus, who were converted to Islam, fell in Stockholm syndrome. They started feeling love and affection for captors because Hindus considered those who were forced to accept Islam or Christianity as “fallen” people and not “aggrieved”. It is necessary to appreciate the circumstances in which they were converted and bring them back to Hinduism with all honour and not by ‘Shuddhi’ process as if they were polluted. In fact Hindus must declare that Hinduism is purified to the extent more and more Muslims and Christians come back to Hindu fold.


While considering proselytizing, we should not rule out Sikhism. Although Sikhism has some similarities with Semitic religions like one founder, one book, strict worldly dress and behavioral codes, strong community life, that may in fact help in getting Muslims back to a similar alternative as Sikhism.


We should rope in spiritual Gurus also in our attempt to de-Islamise Muslims and bring them closer to Hindu ethos, if not a total conversion to Hinduism, Yoga, Meditation, Vipashyana, Art of Living, Swadhyay, etc. Rationally speaking, there is no reason why Hindus should find a counter answer for every Muslim religious symbol. Therefore Hindus need not invent an Avtar to counter a Prophet, invent a book Bhagwad Geeta as an answer to Quran or Swastik and Om to counter Star and Crescent.


But at the same time, creating, accepting and revering such symbols cannot be under-rated. Not only intellectuals, even common Hindus do not consider such symbols or even superstitions necessary to bring the people around some intangible mark of religion to sacrifice their life for. This has proved to be a disadvantage for making Hindus unite. A little irrational faith in religion is perhaps a practical requirement.


I do not see any point in perpetually whining against Muslim behaviour, their aggressive nature and their loyalty towards world Ummah. Hindus must develop a cogent policy for Hindus in various countries. Developing a Hindu commonwealth is not against any nationalism or patriotism towards a country. For centuries, Hindus have not given any thought in that direction. It is necessary to develop a well thought out policy.

Decolonizing Hindutva

Hindutva has nothing to do with any economic theory. There is a general feeling that Hindutva stands for rightist policies. This impression must be removed. With socialist and left leaning views, one can be a “Hindutva”wadi. A Bardhan or a Yechuri must ridicule Hindu customs to prove that he is a Marxist. But have you come across any Muslim Marxist who has blamed Islam for its anti-liberal views? No. Never. Because even for a Marxist Muslim, he is a Muslim first and Marxist afterwards.


Also, Hindutva is not any political theory. It has nothing to say, for or against, democracy, globalization, SEZs, big dams, etc. Bhartiya Janata Party or Shiv Sena has no right to claim an exclusive right on Hindutva. A Hindutvavadi can be a member and leader of any other political party like Congress, Janata Dal, etc for various other issues, keeping his Hindutva in tact.


Hindutva also does not have any sociological viewpoint. Hindutva need not subscribe to a joint family system and other conservative ideas. Even to the extent of accepting free sex relationship, same sex relationship should not come in the way of one being a Hindutvawadi. Hindutva is not Puritanism. It is, considering all Hindus as one people and protecting their worldly interests. So take courage in both hands and listen “Hindutva is not a way of life”.


Now we must come to the last point of the meaning of Hindutva in different contexts.


Savarkar had enunciated Hindutva before independence i.e. before partition of British India which Savarkar called Bharatbhumi. The country was partitioned entirely on the basis of religious nationalism. Pakistan became a Muslim nation-state and India (named as India i.e. Bharat in Indian Constitution subsequently as a Hindu nation, howsoever secular the state might be.)


It is necessary to fresh up the memory that it was Indian Muslims i.e. the Muslims in that part of India which never could have become Pakistan, who fought tooth and nail to create Pakistan under the leadership of an Indian Gujarati Muslim - a domicile of Bombay - Mohammad Ali Jinnah.


It is inappropriate here to narrate the entire story of partition. But it must be noted that All India Muslim League was not automatically partitioned on 15th August 1947 along with India’s partition. A special session was called to split Indian Muslim League at Karachi in December 1947. In this session by a special resolution, All India Muslim League was split into two – Pakistan Muslim League (with Liaqat Ali Khan elected as special convener) and Indian Union Muslim League (with President of Madras Provincial Muslim League, M. Mohammad Ismail, elected as special convener.) The resolutions adopted in Karachi session are worth studying in totality. But I reproduce below (in part) resolution no.3.


Resolution no. 3 (All India Muslim League, Karachi Session, 14-15 Dec 1947)


The Council of All India Muslim League views with great satisfaction the attainment of its great objective, namely, the establishment of Pakistan, and congratulates Musalmans of the Indian subcontinent on sacrifices they have made for achievement of their national goal. The council feels confident that the unique struggle of Muslim League for establishment of a fully independent sovereign state, under the superb leadership of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and its ultimate triumph in the birth of largest Muslim State and fifth largest of all States of the world, will go down in history as the most outstanding world-event of modern times.


The tenor of the above resolution will make it amply clear that Muslims in partitioned India could not sever their relationship with brother Muslims in Pakistan. After expressing their pride in partitioning the country on religious basis, they could not be expected to be loyal national of Bharat.


But Indian National Congress just automatically ceased to exist in Pakistan. Congress was not required to be partitioned. It was always a Hindu organization irrespective of what Congress pleaded. Therefore none ever thought what happened to Congress houses in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Multan and Dhaka.


Therefore we must redefine Hindutva in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh too as Pakistan was further dismembered and Bangladesh became a separate nation-state in 1971.


As far as India is concerned, the Hindutva concept remains unchanged i.e. same as before partition. But we must remember after complete independence from British rule and any left hangovers of Muslim rules, the responsibility of Hindus is increased. Not only they must remain as united national people in India, but they must be able to bring all non-Hindus and particularly Muslims in the main national stream, leaving behind their ambition of creating Muslim State. The onus is on Hindus to integrate Muslims in territorial and cultural Nation-State as Bharat and not look to making India a Hindu Nation-State.


The clock cannot be turned back. What Hindus could not achieve in thousand years, cannot be achieved now. If Hindus can turn all Muslims into loyal Indian nationals with no attachment to Muslim Ummah, it will be a big achievement. And it should be possible. After all, every Muslim is as much a homosapien as any Hindu. To turn a Muslim as a true national, he will have to be weaned away from Mullah, Maulavis who keep on harping on the old ideas of Dar-ul-Harb and Dar-ul-Islam. Muslims will have to be liberated from their blind faith in Islam and treating remaining humanity as Kafirs.


How do we define Hindutva for Bangladesh? Even today Bangladesh has 16 percent Hindu population. What is the meaning of Hindutva to them? Their Hindutva should aim at making Bangladesh a true secular Nation-State. In fact, it was born as a secular state in 1971. but due to lack of Indian diplomacy and lack of fighting spirit of Bangladeshi Hindus, Bangladesh became an Islamic State in 1975 and also a member of Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). Hindus of Bangladesh can still aspire to take more and more active part in political life to turn the country back to a secular state and press for their rights within the legal and constitutional framework.

<b>
Pakistan (then West Pakistan) solved the Hindu issue just by pogroms and squeezing Hindus out of Pakistan. The percentage of Hindus came down from ten percent at the time of partition to just one percent at present. So we are relieved of the issue of defining Hindutva of Pakistani Hindus.</b>


To sum up, Hindutva is a still relevant secular, non-communal, non-political concept. Just defining nationalism of Bharat keeping it open for non-Hindus to assimilate in a territorial cultural nationalism. In Bangladesh, it means attempts to turn the Islamic Republic to Secular Republic in which Hindus can live honourably and flourish as equal citizens.