By Shachi Rairikar
The Hindu talent for self-condemnation does not find a parallel anywhere in the world. The art of self-hate is what the Hindus have mastered during the latter half of the last century. The politicians, media, so-called secularists, intellectuals, human rights activists, who never tire of condemning the Hindus, are themselves Hindus. The greatest enemies of the Hindus today are the Hindus themselves.
Understanding the Hindu mind is not difficult. Let us try and analyse our mentality—the Hindu mentality. Whenever there is a problem with some other community, which is harming the Hindus, how do we address the problem? We have two options: either we acknowledge the problem and take action for its resolution or we do not acknowledge the problem. What, if we acknowledge this problem? We will then have to take steps to resolve it; interact with the other community in question; face confrontation and agitation; or fight. What if we do not acknowledge the problem at all? Nothing happens—no confrontation, no agitation, no fight. The adverse effects of the problem can be tolerated—after all, it is easier to tolerate than to fight. What if grave consequences will need to be faced in the years to come? At the moment we are comfortable with a few adjustments and compromises, so why worry about the future? Who is bothered if, to make today more comfortable, we make our tomorrow bleak?
How do we address the problem then? The easier course of action is to blame our own people for being communal and narrow-minded fundamentalists. After all, it is much easier to confront the Hindus as they are less aggressive and less violent. Fighting the real enemy requires a lot of courage, so we choose to make the enemy look saintly and turn against our own people. We find faults with our own people rather than addressing those who are actually the cause of the problem. So our politicians, media and the so-called secularists and intellectuals call the Hindus communal and fundamentalists, who are responsible for rioting but dare not criticize the Jehadi terrorists. What is more, the human rights activists agitate for the human rights of terrorists, without caring for the human rights of the victims of terrorism.
We don’t acknowledge that the rising Muslim population is a threat to the integrity of our country and to the very existence of the Hindu civilisation. What if we faced a vivisection of our motherland when the Muslim population became one-third of the country’s population? What if the only Muslim majority state, Kashmir, saw the driving away of the Hindu minority from their homeland? That is history and we Hindus have an excellent record of not learning anything from history.
At the moment we are comfortable with few adjustments and compromises, so why worry about the future? Who cares if, to make today more comfortable, we make tomorrow bleak?
Even though the current trends and figures clearly reveal that we are heading towards a second Partition, our intellectuals and media refuse to acknowledge this. Instead, they are criticising those who conducted demographic studies on the basis of religion. They find the Census figures on the basis of religion completely irrelevant and uncalled for in a ‘secular’ country like India. The larger threat facing the country becomes a non-issue when religious demography should be studied as a principle or the technical errors like the publication of wrong data on the first day become the issue.
The idea is to draw the attention away from the larger issues and focus on the non-issues, so that we don’t have to address the real issues. To address the real issue, we will need to talk to our Muslim community, persuade them to go against Islam and practise family planning and desist from sheltering the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants staying in their colonies. We will need to confront and fight. We quietly look for an escape route, fail to acknowledge that the problem exists and condemn those who perceive it. As a result, there is no confrontation and we need not fight.
Thus, when Uma Bharti gets arrested for hoisting the national flag on ‘disputed ground’, we do not question how and why a ground became ‘disputed’ for hoisting the national flag; we do not question the loyalty of the community whose ‘sentiments’ get ‘hurt’ by the hoisting of the national flag; instead we blame her for indulging in communal politics and criticise her for using the national flag to play upon the sentiments of the people. When the Shankaracharya gets arrested on the charge of murder, we do not see the conspiracy and evil motive behind it; instead we start doubting his innocence and character and start discussing ‘equality before law’. When riots break out in the aftermath of Godhra, we condemn the rioters as communal fundamentalists but do not say a word to those who started it all by torching a train full of Hindus. Instead, we conduct an enquiry to prove that the Hindus had themselves deliberately started the fire in order to justify the grounds for rioting.
Thus, we cannot perceive a threat to the country’s integrity from illegal Bangladeshi immigrants; we fail to acknowledge that the terrorism faced in India and throughout the world is Islamic terrorism; we refuse to see the merits of teaching the real history on the atrocities of Muslim invaders; we cannot change the British education system; we are frightened to regulate the madarsas which breed terrorism; we desist to ban the missionaries who defame our religion and convert our tribals by unethical means and methods; we do not feel pride in rebuilding our demolished temples; we cannot call India what it truly is—a Hindu nation.
Thus, we condemn our own people who talk of driving away the Bangladeshis who are staying illegally in our country; we call our people communal who implement laws against terrorism; we dub the teaching of the true history of India as ‘right-wing’ history; we describe the teaching of Vedic mathematics and astrology as ‘saffronisation’ of education; we believe that the missionaries are doing great services for our tribals; we find the re-building of demolished temples a wasteful effort to dig up the past; we call India what it officially is—a secular country.
If we acknowledge all these problems, we will have to work towards their solution. The cowardly, escapist Hindu mentality refuses to acknowledge the problem, so the question of working towards a solution does not arise. We do this under the cover of being secular, peace-loving and non-violent, but we accept and practise only those aspects of Hinduism which suit us. Hindus spend time, money and energy in performing pujas, yagyas, Bhagwat path, visiting swamis and babas but when it comes to practicing the real philosophies of the Vedas and the Bhagwat Gita, we back out.
We have forgotten the teachings of the Bhagwat Gita which asks us to fight against wrongs—adharma. We are using the tolerant and secular mask to hide our incapacity. We have tampered and moulded the doctrine of ahimsa or non-violence to cover up our inaction. Not protesting against violence is in fact supporting and encouraging more violence, which is a greater sin. What we are resorting to today is not tolerance, secularism or non-violence but cowardice. Mahatma Gandhi had once said, “My own experiences but confirm the opinion that the Mussalman as a rule is a bully, and the Hindu is a coward; where there are cowards, there will always be bullies.” Even this great apostle of peace and ahimsa had said, “I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence… but non-violence is infinitely superior to violence.”
The ostrich-like mentality of the Hindus does not help make Bharat a better place to live in. Rather, it endangers the very existence of the Hindu civilisation. Turning a blind eye to our problems will not solve the problems, instead, it will only aggravate them. Nehruvian secularism has already left us with a legacy of complications and it would be sad if our successors were to inherit more. Playing the blind man’s bluff is leading us to disaster. It is high time we called a spade a spade: ‘fight’ the real enemies or else it will be too late. It is time we pay heed to what Lord Krishna told Arjun:
“Klaibyam maa sma gamah paarth naitatvayyupapadyatey,
Kshudram hridaya daurbalyam tyaktovttishta parantapa.”
“O Arjun! Yield not to unmanliness, for such an attitude is not worthy of you. Casting aside your weakness of mind; therefore arise, O scorcher of enemies, and get ready for the battle.”
(The author manages indpride.com and can be contacted at [email protected], J-6, MIG Colony, Indore, Madhya Pradesh.)
