Challenges
HINDU SOCIETY UNDER SIEGE
By Dr Subramanian Swamy
Even though Hindu theology, culture, and civilization are the longest unbroken, and which have been tested through fire many times over the past millennium, their foundation has once again come under siege in the 21st century. The challenge today is much more difficult to meet because the forces at work to erode and undermine Hindu faith are unlike before unseen, clandestine and deceptive. Tragically, Hindus are being used as pawns in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India. Therefore my call today is first and foremost for the undiluted unity of Hindus, a unity based and fostered on the fundamentals of a renaissance[see my website www.indiaright.org].
Non-Hindus can join this unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement: that they recognise and accept that their ancestry is Hindu, that they revere their ancestors, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own.
India is only for those who swear that Bharat or Hindustan is their matrabhoomi and karmabhoomi. Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is hard, we cannot therefore have amongst our midst those whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc or those who feel no kinship to Hindus.
Hindu society today has become fragmented, lacks a cohesive corporate identity, and is in disarray. I am not referring to the millions who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai. I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness and the willingness to collectively defend the faith. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness has been depleted and dissipated over the last six decades. Even the patriotic and anguished writings of Dr. Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarised to advocate Hindu society'sdisintegration. Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired, the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason.
This sorry state has come about as a cumulative effect of a thousand years past of Islamic invasions, occupation and imperialist colonisation. A renaissance has yet to happen to cleanse the past. But most of all, it is because of the battering that the concept of Hindu identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 per cent of the population in India, they have not been able to shape their own future, even in a pluralistic democracy.
When a false murder case is foisted on the 2500 year old Kanchi Mutt acharyas, Hindus are watching it as spectators. That the Supreme Court has declared the case as without prima facie basis has not galvanised the Hindus. That the obvious perpetrator of this blasphemous atrocity on the religion is the head of the State government who claims to be a Hindu because she regularly visits temples has only helped to further confuse the already confounded Hindu mind. This atrocity could not have been heaped on the Mutt without the aid and abetment, or even the instigation of the power behind the throne in Delhi, a devout Catholic foreigner.
Today we are witnesses to the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law. The desecration of Hindu icons is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognise the danger and that we have to unite to defend against the threats to the motherland. We are under siege, and we do not know it. Hindu ethos could be today dissembled without a protest.
Numbers of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism does not matter in today'sinformation society. It is the durability and invincibility of the Hindu mind that matters. When a false murder case is foisted on the 2500 year old Kanchi Mutt acharyas, Hindus are watching it as spectators. That the Supreme Court has declared the case as without prima facie basis has not galvanised the Hindus. That the obvious perpetrator of this blasphemous atrocity on the religion is the head of the State government who claims to be a Hindu because she regularly visits temples has only helped to further confuse the already confounded Hindu mind. That this atrocity could not have been heaped on the Mutt without the aid and abetment, or even the instigation of the power behind the throne in Delhi, a devout Catholic foreigner, has not even evoked any anger amongst the Hindus. Instead the Hindus are just discussing gossip?whether there was some land dispute or a money angle to the misuse of state machinery to frame a Shankaracharya on a murder charge. That the State dared to foist a bogus case on a Shankaracharya should have caused a spontaneous uproar and mass protest. That this atrocity could be the beginning of further assault on the foundations of the religion to discredit it has not awakened the Hindus.
And further assault has come with rapidity. The state government of Karnataka patronised the congregation called by a Benny Hinn who is under US Internal Service investigation. US Christian organisations such as the Trinity Foundation have exposed him as a fake. Yet in the admiring presence of the Karnataka Chief Minister, and Central Government ministers, Benny Hinn was allowed to usurp the Bangalore Airforce campus and hold a rally to ?cure? hopelessly and terminally ill or handicapped persons just by placing his hand on their heads. Such obscurantism was extolled by the Congress Party leaders, while mouthing secularism. Benny Hinn let the cat out of the bag by thanking the ?friends of Sonia Gandhi? for making the event possible. The nexus has tumbled out.
Then we had a near disaster in Ayodhya. Pakistan trained foreign terrorists slipped into India and traveled to Ayodhya to blow up the Ram Mandir. Their attempt was foiled by courageous elements of the police. But did the representative Government of 870 million Hindus retaliate? On the contrary the Prime Minister assured Pakistan that the peace talks will not be affected. And Sonia pulling strings from behind gave the nation a running commentary on the incident?that the culprits are ?enemies of the nation?. That is trite and obvious, but what retaliation was there to be for daring to think about blowing Sri Ram'sbirth place?
This sorry state has come about as a cumulative effect of a thousand years past of Islamic invasions, occupation and imperialist colonisation. A renaissance has yet to happen to cleanse the past.
Hence, as Swami Vivekananda said: ?Arise, Awake and Go Forth as Proud Hindus? but, what does being a proud Hindu constitute ? The core, gleaning the writings of our sages, in the modern context means the following five:
First, a Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu ancestry, must know the correct history of India. Hindus are one. There is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory, or that caste is birth-based and immutable. Hindus always lived in this area called Akhand Hindustan, and did not come from outside. Instead they went abroad to spread learning.
Second, Hindus must believe that all religions lead to God, but never that all religions are equal. Hindus believe that God'sdarshan can be had in one'slifetime, and is a superior path to God. Hence, Hindus expect that respect for other religions is a two-way traffic. If Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one'sown religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus. But we find that today no Christian or Islamic organisation has stood up against the atrocity against the Kanchi Mutt. Secularism as presently defined is a one-way traffic, and Hindus must reject such appeasement.
Third, Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny, and now terrorism. Hindus have worshipped Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Subhash Bose not because they led us to victory or found out a safe compromise, but because of their courage of conviction. Of course those victorious like Shivaji or the Vijaynagaram Kings are adored, but those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja are despised. Today those who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised. They are not Hindus just because they go to the temple. Even Ravana regularly went to pray before Shiva.
First, a Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu ancestry, must know the correct history of India. Hindus are one.
Fourth, the Hindu must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, Hindus must seek to carpet bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today'sso-called Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshardham, Ayodhya, and even a former prime minister's[Rajiv Gandhi?s] assassination. On the other hand those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organisation behind them are central government ministers today.
Fifth, all Hindus to qualify as true Hindus must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India'slink language since all languages[Tamil included] have 40 or more percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit already.
(Speech of Dr. Subramanian Swamy former Cabinet Minister for Commerce, Law & Justice at the Hindu Sanghatan Divas held in New York on July 24, 2005.)
