“We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatan Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatan Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived. This is the Dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the seclusion of this peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great”. –Sri Aurobindo, Uttarpara Speech, May 30, 1909
The Sanatan Dharma row refuses to die down. Each day, some or the other members of the opposition alliance support or further vitiate the hateful remarks by Udhayanidhi Stalin. Externally, with the excuse of assessing religious freedom, a committee in the United States targeted the Hindus and Hindutva. Khalistani extremists in Canada make hateful and threatening remarks against Hindus and the Canadian Prime Minister defends it as ‘free speech’. International media, Islamists garbed as ‘Indian Muslims Councils’, Evangelists evading legal norms related to foreign funding, Marxists and Maoists who believe in violently overthrowing the Constitutional democracy, etc., target the Sanatan Dharma by equating Hindutva to fascism. Liberal, secularist intellectuals and media houses dare to denigrate Sanatan Dharma even in a crime against women. What is the root cause of this hatred for Hindutva (Hinduness), the contemporary manifestation of eternal values? Is it just a political game and something more sinister to it?
Sanatan Dharma from the Vedic period has stood for the universal values of humanity. After experimentations for years together, sages at different times, irrespective of gender, community and region, have contributed to and enriched this knowledge tradition of knowing the self and nature. The harmonious approach towards human, environmental, economic, spiritual and scientific issues has made the Bharatiya civilisational eternal. For thousands of years, it has not just existed but also thrived and adapted to the changing times when many other parallel cultures were extinct.
The present phase of the attack is not new. Right from the Greek invasion, many assaults were made on the Sanatan. The most brutal were Islamists in the form of Arabs, Turks and Mongols. Contrary to their experience worldwide, Hindu civilisation survived the onslaught and, to a large extent, indigenised their faith. European colonisation led by the evangelical forces was not significantly different. Unlike what they did to the American or Australian aboriginals, the Bharatiya populous across the region and sects resisted the European colonisers tooth and nail. Unfortunately, the colonised minds in the form of self-certified ‘liberal intellectuals’ started taking pride in showing an illiberal attitude towards the Sanatan. In the last hundred years, especially after the independence, the Communist variants of different denominations took up the baton for distorting Sanatan academically and intellectually. Dravidianism represented by DMK is a curious mixture of colonial, missionary and Marxist distortion of Sanatan. Despite a monopoly over political power and media narrative for almost a hundred years, Dravidian parties could not destroy the Sanatan culture in Tamil Nadu. The worst part is they could not fulfil their promise of ensuring ‘social justice’ either.
The tactical and strategic alliances taking place globally and domestically in the name of targetting Bharat, Hindutva, or Sanatan are the outcome of this frustration of ages. Despite centuries of attacks, they could not eliminate this ‘property of humankind’ as Gandhiji had called it. Even modern scientific experiments are equating their results to the cosmic dance of Shiva; hence, the alliance formations to fragment the society with the Anglo-Saxon and cultural Marxist paradigms. The Sanatan means eternal and, therefore, indestructible. No force, isolated or combined, can eliminate this eternal thought that is finding global recognition regardless of persistent defamatory offensive. Some social groups are falling prey to these fake narratives as a matter of concern. Awakening and educating the masses with Sanatan’s authentic and universal message is our national duty, not just for us but for the sake of our entire existence.
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