Why we Hindus have to keep silence on the issues that matter to us?
Dr Pravin Togadia
Of course, it is not the court proceeding here as shown in Hindi movies when the judge says – Silence, silence! In a family where I was staying during my travel, four generations were sitting together gleefully chit-chatting with me and each other. Suddenly after half hour of such high decibel noise, there was pin drop silence. No reason. All simply stopped speaking. In that big sitting hall of the house, this silence was loud in itself! We all looked at each other and started laughing over the silence.
This was an innocent unmotivated silence where all were waiting for someone else to speak cheerfully. Nobody forcibly silenced anyone. Now here is another scenario: Yet in another travel in the south, many people from many walks of life were sitting in the hall of a nice simple house of one of the VHP members. There was no silence. Youth and the elderly together spoke of many things. The crux of what they said was shocking. They asked, ‘Why we Hindus have to keep silence on the issues that matter to us?’ I had no answer at that moment. What were there questions where they felt that they had to be silent even if they did not want to be so?
– Despite the law banning cow butchering, why so many cows are butchered in many states?
– Every time when there is a traditional festival of Hindus, why there are restrictions such as no immersion of idols, no bhajan – music after 10 pm, not allowed to follow the traditional route for the procession, no entry for the ancient temple any more because the forest department has banned people to use the forest walkways which were traditionally used, etc. This list was long.
– Internationally, many people and groups shout and protest – rightly so – against atrocities meted out to Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh. But why the same international groups maintain calculated silence about atrocities to Hindus in Bharat?
– Thirumala Tirupati being a temple town, why the Islamic Arabic University was allowed in the foot hills of the Balaji Temple? And why so-called Hindu kept mum?
– Why Hindus are not allowed to follow the traditional systems of marriage but others are encouraged to do so? Why Hindus are banned from producing more than two kids but others are paid to do so?
– When a Hindu speaks of an injustice to him / her, he/ she is treated as an outdated, useless, communal person but why a person from any other religious practice claims injustice, he / she is treated as a secular and oppressed person and why media takes up his issue and blames Hindus all the time?
– Why no political party supports Hindu issues unconditionally and why all are engaged in wooing people from other religious practices?
Their questions were unending. They were vocal about the forced silence on Hindus. Giving usual rut about how great is Hindu Dharma and we should have faith in Bhagwan to smoothen everything would not work on their agitated, hurt and sad minds. They needed answers. More than that they needed solutions.
Do I really have answers to all their questions? And what about solutions? Frankly, I could give answers and we all together can work out the solutions on each of them. But here I recall a fable which we all heard in childhood. Why the roti got burnt? Why the beetle leaves got rotten and why the horse died? One answer to all three: Because nobody moved / turned them.
Hindus today face a very strange type of oppression. It is not seen or heard, but it is felt. Unfortunately, it is not from the other religious practices. Their attacks on Hindu lives, traditions and systems continue unabated. But those attacks could have been averted permanently. But this silent oppression by the so-called ‘seculars’ among Hindus (they would not even like to call themselves Hindu; they will love to add some prefix or suffix to Hindu. Modern Hindu, Nationalist Hindu, Born Hindu, not practicing Hindu, etc.) have halted all roads for justice to Hindus.
Such so-called ‘silencers’ too have only one question as an answer to silence Hindus. Try speaking about Ram Temple and they try to silence you with the question: How does it help ‘India’? Ask for law on cow butchering or implementation of it and they will ask – How does it help ‘India’? Demand revoking Article 370 and again the same question by them. You name any issue affecting Hindus and they have the same question which they throw on you in an extremely abusive language which is treated as funky by them. Not that these so-called groups have only youth in them. There are all. Mostly all those who want to woo people of other religious practices. To do so, the easiest way today is to openly hurt Hindus and Hindu sentiments by ridiculing them or degrading them as ‘useless, outdated, taking India back to 4th century, communal, genocidal’, etc. We all face such blah blah on social media, TV media and print too. It even has political blessings because politically it suits all to ‘look’ secular by overtly opposing Hindu traditions, temples, saints, words used in Hindu scriptures and so on. Every word on the phone, speeches, social media, emails wherever there is anything Hindu is being kept under surveillance treating Hindus anti-national! Unfortunately, those who rise on majority Hindu support too are part of this new ‘silencer’ groups. Governments bring in ‘Communal Violence Bill’ and such type of laws to silence Hindus!
There are, at this moment, no answers to the above mentioned questions. Meaning, there are solutions and they are rooted in Bharat’s rich culture and heritage. To welcome the modern, Bharat really does not need to be ‘Only India’ and create hate campaigns about all that is ancient and all that is Hindu. Hindu ethos is deep rooted here and all those who hurt it openly, subtly, politically or otherwise would get exposed and thrown out one day. But then there are powerful silencers among those so-called seculars which we all face. I faced one such on Twitter recently. These are ‘power stations’ by themselves engaged in ‘proxy terror’ and they have their own influencer groups globally. These groups force Governments to make anti-Hindu laws, spread hatred about all that is Hindu and yet look ‘Oh! How so nice!’ by mildly saying – even Islam has some such bad elements. Unfortunately, unsuspecting simple Hindus and Hindu organisations fall prey to their new tactics and take them along only to face a rude betrayal and shock of back-stabbing.
With money and power with the so-called seculars, Hindu is forced to be silent. Someone told me a strange (but fuzzy) math: A person speaks average 60 words in a minute. Take 70 years of life. 12 non-sleeping hours of the day. Per year (in 365 days, 4,380 hours) meaning in 70 years of life 3,06,600 non sleeping hours. That person concluded: A person therefore speaks 110, 37, 60,000 words in entire life. His logic was: Speak modernity in all these words and not Hindutva. I did not argue. I did not tell him that in 70 years, a child does not speak so much and nobody speaks continually for 12 hours a day. Such calculations were not needed to justify the series of temporarily important words and activities that are actually humbug for Hindus and Bharat for long term. Such fuzzy maths and inadequate sample surveys are thrown on Hindus all the time to get everything else over-ride above all that is Hindu.
So, Hindu is silent at this moment. Hindu is hurt and silent. Forced silence does not create reactions that are predictable. Hindu culture is of peace, but not of forced silence. It is time we all realise it soon.
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