MV Kamath
With the general elections round the corner – forget the UPA’s declaration that it will stay put till the end of its term (that is about March 2014) the time has come for initiating the Great Indian Reanaissance. And it is only the BJP that can initiate it. Indian Renaissance has been stalled for centuries, thanks to foreign invaders who had done their best to destroy the concept of Hindutva. First came the barbarians from Central Asia, determined to destroy Hinduism. Then came the British with their own campaign to belittle India, especially Hinduism. They too failed. India survived. It is time at last for India – and Hinduism – to assert itself. There can’t be an Indian renaissance without Hindu leadership and full participation. In that sense Indian Renaissance must start with Hindus and in that process every Indian citizen must be part and parcel of that all-enveloping development.
But meanwhile, two things must be fully appreciated. In the first place it must be firmly asserted that there are no minorities in India. None, neither Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist should be sought to be marginalised by being labeled as a ‘minority’. The acceptance must be total that they are Indians, first, last and always. In the past they have, everyone of them, made substantial contribution to the strength and greatness of India. They should be encouraged to add to what they have done in the past for their motherland to regain its lost glory. In the second place, Hindus and Muslims must come to terms with history. This has been prevented by our secularists who must be identified as enemies of national unity and despoilers of progress. Their role in giving Hindus a tremendous sense of inferiority and guilt must be exposed and condemned. As Major Archbishop Cyril Mar Basilios, while serving as the chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference once maintained: “Indian Christians are Indian by birth, Hindus by culture and Christians by faith”.
Hinduism is not so much a ‘religion’ as it is a culture, a civilisation with a history of over ten thousand years which no other religion can challenge. It is not exclusive. That culture can – be shared by all, Muslims and Christians alike, just to mention two great religions who don’t have to feel threatened. Hinduism has been ‘suppressed’ all these years by a thoughtless ‘intellectual’ community who looked up to Jawaharlal Nehru for leadership.
It is because our thoughtless and arrogant secularists have long suppressed the idea of Hindutva that the power of thought that Mueller spoke and wrote about has been deliberately pushed into the background. Clearly, if one wants to resurrect India’s greatness it is necessary to be more assertive – the barking of secularists notwithstanding. That is why it is important to defeat the rudderless UPA government and get on stream with putting the BJP in place. No apology is needed. It is for Hindutva to restore India to its past glory and that can neither be entrusted to leaders who under the guise of secularism are seeking to rule the country and show their sycophancy in obvious ways, nor to a foreign chairperson of the Congress who knows little of Hinduism and even less of India’s greatness and is quite happy to see a fettered people kept that way.
Hindutva is an ideology whose time has come. In the early 20s of the twentieth century it was Marxism and communism which ruled the roost. In the thirties, it was Socialism; in the forties, with India’s partition along religious lines, secularism was the order of the day – and rightly so. Now, in the second decade of the twenty first century it is Hindutva which must have its way, not only to establish a composite culture to make it the envy of all the people in the world, but to lead in all walks of life: in the arts, in theatre, in dance, drama and music, in science and technology, once again to invite contemporary Fa Hians and Hiuen Tsangs to visit new Nalandas.
It was Hegel who wrote in his The Philosophy of History that nations rushed towards India to gain access to the ‘treasures’ of this land of marvels, treasures not only of nature but also treasures of wisdom. With the Congress in power for the best part of sixty five years, India not only in its universities does not figure in the top two hundred, but a dollar which in 1952 cost only Rs 4.65 now costs over Rs 60 and could well go to Rs 80 in not too long a time. It is to this stage of servility that the Congress party has brought our country to. We have become the laughing stock of the world, to be trampled over by all and sundry. Worse, the party in power is trying to bribe the poor with goodies which the Supreme Court should under no circumstances permit, considering that elections are not far away.
To win back our self-respect and to break the shackles that bind us, the only way is Hindutva, long reviled and deliberately sought to be ignored. Those who are determined to keep it out with murderous lies have to be put in their place. If we fail in our attempt, it will be inviting disaster. If we don’t understand this, we will understand nothing
