Saturday 14th December 2024,
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Hinduism, Hindutva, Hindu Rashtra

Hinduism, Hindutva, Hindu Rashtra

In this period the dirty propaganda war has been raging on to an increasingly open attack to “dismantle” Hinduism, firing all possible ammunition, old and new, against the last stronghold of Dharma, in the desperate attempt to stop the Hindu Resurgence before it grows up to finally come of age.

The greatest danger of the present battle is that the clever and well-funded agents provocateurs can push immature and uninformed albeit sincere and enthusiastic dharmic activists to fall into alluring traps, thus inflicting more damage to their own cause than their opponents could do. The most dangerous of all such traps consists in believing the defamatory accusations of haters might have some merit and defiantly assume that identification, or trying to imitate the dirty tactics of haters hoping to get an even field, to justify their own adharmic choices.

A conspiracy theorist could easily be tempted to suspect that the present new campaign against Dharma has been deliberately launched at this delicate time in history to precipitate the unstable emotions of the general population and channel their frustration and insecurity into a renewed witch-hunt, that has been deliberately planned for a long time and orchestrated to enrol the libertarian secularists to join the temporary opportunistic alliance between groups that are natural sworn enemies of each other – such as Islamists, evangelists, and Maoists.

All such ideologies can be called abrahamic and post-abrahamic respectively because they are based on exactly the same principles of supranational imperialism, intolerance towards freedom of thought, violent persecution of dissenters, and rigid control and exploitation of the lower classes in society (read “slavery”). Textual and historical evidence of the policies of these groups seem to be irrelevant to the eyes of the largely ignorant masses, carefully groomed into conforming to the politically correct superficial reactions dictated by the dominant media.

It has to be recognised that the liberal leftist culture, with all its good intentions, has sometimes been tricked by shrewd propaganda and rhetorics into making big judgment blunders and behaving as “useful idiots” to support untenable positions, such as the imposition of burqa on women for example – a campaign that has unbelievably been carried on in the name of “freedom” without ever bothering to verify what women really suffer under the burqa regimes: for more information ask Nasrin Sotoudeh, sentenced to 148 lashes and 33 years of prison for saying that hijab should not be forced on women.

The recent campaign against Hinduism is exactly along the same lines.Hindus are accused of “attacking academic freedom” because they simply politely ask to be allowed to tell their own story about themselves, while the same liberal communities find very little to say about the celebration of the end of all academic freedom in yet another islamic regime: for more information ask Obaidullah Baheer, Higher Education Minister of the new Afghanistan government. In the name of the same “western liberal” freedom of expression that abrahamic and post-abrahamic regimes so violently oppose, abrahamic and post-abrahamic propagandists are openly trying to demolish Hinduism by painting it as obscurantist, oppressive, cruel, intolerant, fascist, and hell-bent on imperialistic supremacism and birth prejudice.

And because Hinduism is historically universally known for being very tolerant, inclusive, scientifically oriented and supportive of human rights, its attackers needed to build the false propagandistic idea that Hindutva is fundamentally different from Hinduism. The trick is to pass Hindutva for the bad deviant “extremist fundamentalist political wing” of Hinduism, that needs to be demonised and dismantled.

This is a dangerous trap in which many have fallen, including some Indian Hindu activists, and that depends on the misconception of the misleading interpretation of the word “fundamentalism”.We are accustomed to a very negative semantic application of the term to people who actually believe and practice the FUNDAMENTAL teachings and rules of the Abrahamics ideologies, demanding the violent imposition of a social-cultural system that is inherently obscurantist, oppressive, cruel, intolerant, fascist, and hell-bent on imperialistic supremacism and birth prejudice.

Many famous thinkers, from Voltaire and Thomas Pain to Mark Twain, Robert Ingersoll, Richard Dawkins and contemporary influencers, have observed that the only good and decent Abrahamics are those who do not take seriously to the FUNDAMENTALS of their ideology.

Those who seriously know, believe and practice the teachings of Abrahamics scriptures and religious authorities are responsible for the popular negative definition of “fundamentalist”.With Hinduism, however, exactly the opposite is true. The more a Hindu knows, believes and practices the teachings of Vedic scriptures and genuine original  Hinduism, the better person s/he will become, contributing to the peace, prosperity and happiness of the entire universal community.

The problem is that studying and applying the genuine original teachings of the shastra is a much more difficult and demanding task than studying and applying the small and elementary Abrahamic scriptures and rules, by which people are simply required to blindly believe the dogma and obey orders from “the authority”, abandoning all other considerations including the natural and universal principles of ethics, conscience,  common sense, compassion, intelligence and sincerity.

Unfortunately in this case of the pot calling the kettle black, Abrahamics and post-Abrahamics can still get supporters in their crusade and are not booed down by the secular governments and institutions, because of the standard defamatory approach to Hinduism commonly found in mainstream academic texts and popular cultural trends, since the very beginning of the first abrahamic-biased universities established by the Church in Europe to demolish “paganism”. For many years Hindus in the USA have been pacifically asking the government to sanitise the most offensive passages in public school books and to protect Hindus (students, teachers, staff members) from ongoing persecution in the public academic system.

Probably because Hindus do not go around blowing up themselves to destroy people and buildings, doing mass shootings, and taking hostages to behead them or burn them alive, Hindu activists have not obtained much in their negotiations – not even the simple recognition that injustice against Hinduism and Hindus is indeed a problem.In fact, Hindus are accused of terrorism even when they are simply bringing up historical facts of the deliberate campaigns of genocide against Hindus, such as those reported by the jihadists chronicles since the early Middle Ages – for example on one single day, Timur slaughtered 100,000 Hindu captives to terrorise the population of Delhi before he attacked the city to establish the Delhi Sultanate.

It is difficult to calculate how many Hindus were killed, raped, enslaved and “disappeared” during the islamic raids and regimes, but historian Will Durant (who is no Hindu) wrote in his book, “The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history”.Even after the end of the sultanates in India there have been several massacres, including the Mappila (Mopla) riots (1836-1921), the Calcutta riots in 1926 and 1947, the Noakali pogrom in 1946, and the prolonged “ethnic cleansing” in Pakistan and Bangladesh due to partition.

Of course not all the victims of partition were Hindus, but “impartial researchers” somehow fail to notice that after several decades the demographics of Muslims in India have multiplied considerably (becoming a “majority minority” in some regions) while in Pakistan and Bangladesh (what to speak of Kashmir etc) all non-Muslims have permanently continued to disappear, being either killed or forcibly converted or chased away to the status of refugees.

To throw some light on this mystery, it could be useful to consider the actual scriptural and historical evidence of the ideals and intentions of the two “opposite camps”, and recognise that the islamic “martyrs” (or more accurately, suicide bombers) and all prominent Islamic leaders have repeatedly and clearly stated that “the greatest joy for a Muslim is to kill and be killed for Islam”, while Hinduism has no such recommendations but is rather well known for its tolerance, kindness, and inclusiveness.Everyone knows that Hinduism values ahimsa, “non violence”, as one of the most important principles of dharma, a term that means “religion based on the natural principles of ethics”.

Even in war, Hinduism teaches chivalry and honor, and forbids any hostility towards non-combatants. From very ancient times, Hinduism only spread through culture: ask for example Hu Shi, an ambassador of China to the USA, who stated, “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border”.

However, the Hindu scriptures never say that one should not defend oneself, one’s dependents, or one’s land and property. In fact, the Artha shastra teaches: agnido garadas caiva sastra-panir dhanapahah, kshetra darapahari ca shadete atatayinah, “One who attacks with fire, with poison, or holding weapons in hands, one who takes away (someone else’s) wealth/ possessions, land or wife: these are the six types of criminal aggressors.”In Vedic society, everyone is implicitly authorized to defend himself and his family, subordinates and property from such aggressors, by using whatever amount of force is required. And this is what Hindutva basically means.The height of hypocrisy is for aggressors to criminalise their victims because they “dare” to defend themselves.

Yes, the victims who are trying to fight back are not always doing so in a very intelligent and effective way, mostly because they are generally ordinary decent people who normally value sincerity, compassion, straightforwardness, simplicity, so they are not particularly expert in cunning strategies and manipulation. They expect the “authorities” to protect them, and when it does not happen, they try to manage as much as they can, but mostly react instinctively and without the proper training when they are heavily provoked.

And this is why Hindutva needs a Hindu rashtra.However, in order to implement a Hindu rashtra in the holy land of Bharata, Hindus and especially the Hindutva leaders need to become more seriously engaged in studying and practising what Hinduism really means, in the light of dharma and vidya.Of course there can be some transitional provisions, so that everyone can adjust in the best possible way, and injustice must be avoided. People who simply want to live peacefully and work as per their talents and inclination, and keep their personal life private, should not be discriminated because of their birth or even personal beliefs or traditions, as long as such traditions are not physically harming anyone else.

The freedom of a person (or a community) should be guaranteed but not beyond the limits of reciprocity, meaning it should not be infringing on the freedom and rights of others.The original varnashrama system, so often maligned by anti-Hindu propagandists, is based on merit, inclination, talent, that are carefully and expertly trained in a highly personalised manner to develop the full potential of each individual, focusing on personal responsibility and well-informed choices.

Unfortunately, many still confuse this system with the recent, degraded caste system that is kept alive only because of the damaging principle of “positive discrimination”. We need to actually understand the ancient Vedic system of social order and governance that brought the maximum prosperity and happiness to people: it was the most liberal, progressive and compassionate system – the best possible solution to the problems we are all facing today. We really need a very serious debate on Hindu Rashtra, Hindutva and Hinduism, to establish what these terms are really supposed to mean.

About The Author

Mataji Parama Karuna Devi started to study and practice Vedic knowledge in 1970. In 1978 she left her home and career to move into the local Iskcon ashram in Italy, And actively worked at the translation and publication of the literary works of the founder or the movement, as well as at the personal service of the Deities in the temple and in preaching. Starting from 1984, she extensively traveled around the Indian subcontinent, from the Himalayan foothills to the extreme south, in a cultural and spiritual full immersion, living as a local person among the local people, attending the traditional Hindu temples and meeting many extraordinary personalities at a very high level in the religious field. In 1986 she officially left Iskcon, dissociating herself from the Organization's policies and conclusions. and started her own preaching center in Italy, also publishing several study guides, translations, and religious and spiritual texts. In 1994 she moved to Jagannatha Puri in Orissa, where she established the Jagannatha Vallabha Vedic Research Center and actively participated to the cultural and religious life of the orthodox Hindu community. Under the tutelage of the deula purohita of Sri Jagannatha Puri Mandir, she underwent the suddhi, prayaschitta, vratyastoma and diksha rituals characteristic of the ancient vratya tradition of Orissa. Among her works: a pilgrimage guide to Jagannatha Puri (Puri, the Home of Lord Jagannatha), an extensive commentary on Bhagavad gita, a summary study on Bhagavata Purana, a translation of the major 108 Upanishads, an Introduction to Vedic knowledge, and a multi-volume research on the life and teachings of Krishna Chaitanya.

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