“I want to see you, Swami”, I began, “on this matter of receiving back into Hinduism those who have been perverted from it. Is it your opinion that they should be received?” “Certainly,” said the Swami, “they can and ought to be taken.”
He sat gravely for a moment, thinking, and then resumed. “Besides,” he said, “we shall otherwise decrease in numbers. When the Mohammedans first came, we are said — I think on the authority of Ferishta, the oldest Mohammedan historian — to have been six hundred millions of Hindus. Now we are about two hundred millions. And then every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more.
“Again, the vast majority of Hindu perverts to Islam and Christianity are perverts by the sword, or the descendants of these. It would be obviously unfair to subject these to disabilities of any kind. As to the case of born aliens, did you say? Why, born aliens have been converted in the past by crowds, and the process is still going on.”
– Swami Vivekananda, On the Bounds of Hinduism, Prabuddha Bharata, April 1899
Remarkably, few slogans captured the popular imagination overnight, as the newly coined slogans by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath did. Ek Rahenge toh Safe Rahenge and Batenge toh Katenge are substantially not new slogans, but they have resonated with the masses in the present context. Instead of seeing them as election sloganeering, we need to derive the historical lessons, present connotation and future implications.
Bharat is a Hindu civilisation and Hindu Rashtra. Everyone knows this, whether they accept it or not. Being Hindu, Bharat can never be a theocratic state; hence, all ways of worship would be accepted and respected here, which is also a fact. Then why do these slogans, which apparently sound religious but are actually national, find widespread acceptance and should be supported? Bharat is the only civilisation that has survived the civilisational onslaughts right from the Greek invasion. Though most of the invaders were accommodated and assimilated in this great civilisation, the intolerant and brutal invasions by Islamists of Arab, Turk or Mongol variety starting from Mohammad Bin Kasim were unimaginable and Adhramic by the Bharatiya standards. Killing someone for not following your religion, forcefully converting people, sharing and disrobing women of the defeated society as a bounty, etc., were unheard-of practices. What Missionaries did through British administration by deceitful conversions and earmarking the forest and tribal areas for free-run of Missionaries further added fuel to this non-Bharatiya tendencies with intellectual narratives of alienation. The mass conversions, whether through sword or with the enforcement of state policies, resulted in a demographic transition in a few decades or centuries. In all these developments, we were divided. Therefore, a handful of invaders could cut the population from the roots and, later, land into pieces. From Afghanistan to Pakistan, Bangladesh or even in present-day Jammu-Kashmir, North-East and some parts of Kerala, the historical experience shows that the reduction of the Hindu population has resulted in growing divisive separatist activities.
The converts who were victims of the barbaric invasions soon became inheritors of the invaders’ legacy. The modern secular historians trained by the British or Marxist school of thought strengthened these impressions. Connecting with the pan-Islamic identity, insulting Hindu practices as infidels or kafirs, opposing any policy that strengthens the cultural identity of our nationhood, identifying with Gaznavis, Babars and Aurangzebs, bringing foreign money to facilitate conversions and illegal immigration to change the demography and influence the democratic process are the recent experiences that we cannot ignore. The plight of Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains in the partitioned parts of Bharat is known to all. The recent developments in Bangladesh have indeed awakened the masses to the reality of demographic danger to democracy. The role of international actors in whitewashing these crimes against the global minority following Bharatiya faiths raises the tempers of ordinary Hindus. Simultaneously, to divide the larger Hindu population on linguistic, caste or regional identity is not just the continuation of the British policies but also creating new faultlines with rigorous intellectual efforts for political gains. The political and legal ploys used during the Shah Bano case and the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement exposed these divisive forces and their communal facade in the name of secularism. The Waqf Acts, legalising land-grabbing by religious boards, is another fraud that came to the people’s notice. The forest lands that are reserved for the tribals are also under invasion, both by Missionaries and Islamists. All these actions certainly create a threat perception for the indigenous faiths of Bharat.
From Chanakya to Shivaji, some unifiers emerged to create national consciousness among the common masses, which is why we have survived as a civilisation. Sages like Swami Vivekananda also cautioned against this while contextualising the Vedanta philosophy for the modern world. The historical experience and the contemporary trends of aggressive fanaticism demand the same kind of movement to build a shared understanding of Bharat as a Rashtra. Hindu unity of all Bharatiya faiths is the pre-condition for developing such consciousness. Therefore, ‘United we Stand, Divided we Fall’ cannot be just an election slogan. Our social actions and policy initiatives must be sharpened with the same zeal to combat, overcome and assimilate the divisive forces. Acceptance and respect, not just tolerance, are the fundamental cultural traits of Bharat on which the cultural nationalist paradigm rests. Any tendency that is derived from the binary of believers and non-believers or Mu’min and Kafir is non-Bharatiya and, therefore, should be considered a threat to our nationhood. All our policies and social actions should be based on this fundamental trait of unity. The slogans coined during the Haryana elections and got traction amidst the Maharashtra and Jharkhand Assembly elections should not be limited to our political behaviour but should shape our national behaviour and consciousness in the coming days.
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