In the history of the world,
the Hindu awakening of the late twentieth century will go down as one of
the most monumental events in the history of the world. Never before has
such demand for change come from so many people. Never before has Bharat,
the ancient word for the motherland of Hindus - India, been confronted
with such an impulse for change. This movement, Hindutva, is changing the
very foundations of Bharat and Hindu society the world over.
Hindu society has an unquestionable and proud history of tolerance for
other faiths and respect for diversity of spiritual experiences. This is
reflected in the many different philosophies, religious sects, and
religious leaders. The very foundation of this lies in the great Hindu
heritage that is not based on any one book, teacher, or doctrine. In fact
the pedestal of Hindu society stems from the great Vedic teachings Ekam
Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti -- Truth is One, Sages Call it by Many Names,
and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam -- The Whole Universe is one Family. It is this
philosophy which allowed the people of Hindusthan (land of the Hindus) to
shelter the Jews who faced Roman persecution, the Zoroastrians who fled
the Islamic sword and who are the proud Parsi community today, and the
Tibetan Buddhists who today face the communist secularism: persecution of
religion.
During the era of Islamic invasions, what Will Durant called the bloodiest
period in the history of mankind, many Hindus gallantly resisted, knowing
full well that defeat would mean a choice of economic discrimination via
the jaziya tax on non- Muslims, forced conversion, or death. It is no
wonder that the residents of Chittor, and countless other people over the
length and breadth of Bharat, from present-day Afghanistan to present-day
Bangladesh, thought it better to die gloriously rather than face
cold-blooded slaughter. Hindus never forgot the repeated destruction of
the Somnath Temple, the massacre of Buddhists at Nalanda, or the pogroms
of the Mughals.
Thus, the seeds of todayUs Hindu Jagriti, awakening, were created the very
instance that an invader threatened the fabric of Hindu society which was
religious tolerance. The vibrancy of Hindu society was noticeable at all
times in that despite such barbarism from the Islamic hordes of central
Asia and Turkey, Hindus never played with the same rules that Muslims did.
The communist and Muslim intelligentsia, led by Nehruvian ideologists who
are never short of distorted history, have been unable to show that any
Hindu ruler ever matched the cruelty of even a RmoderateS Muslim ruler.
It is these characteristics of Hindu society and the Muslim psyche that
remain today. Hindus never lost their tolerance and willingness to change.
However Muslims, led by the Islamic clergy and Islamic societyUs innate
unwillingness to change, did not notice the scars that Hindus felt from
the Indian past. It is admirable that Hindus never took advantage of the
debt Muslims owed Hindus for their tolerance and non-vengefulness.
In modern times, Hindu Jagriti gained momentum when Muslims played the
greatest abuse of Hindu tolerance: the demand for a separate state and the
partition of India, a nation that had had a common history and culture for
countless millenia. Thus, the Muslim minority voted for a separate state
and the Hindus were forced to sub-divide their own land.
After partition in Pakistan, Muslim superiority was quickly asserted and
the non-Muslim minorities were forced to flee due to the immense
discrimination in the political and religious spheres. Again, Hindus did
not respond to such an onslaught. Hindu majority India continued the Hindu
ideals by remaining secular.
India even gave the Muslim minority gifts such as separate personal laws,
special status to the only Muslim majority state -- Kashmir, and other
rights that are even unheard of in the bastion of democracy and freedom,
the United States of America. Islamic law was given precedence over the
national law in instances that came under Muslim personal law. The
Constitution was changed when the courts, in the Shah Bano case, ruled
that a secular nation must have one law, not separate religious laws.
Islamic religious and educational institutions were given a policy of non-
interference. The list goes on.
More painful for the Hindus was forced negation of Hindu history and
factors that gave pride to Hindus. Hindu customs and traditions were
mocked as remnants of a non-modern society, things that would have to go
if India was to modernize like the west. The self proclaimed guardians of
India, the politicians of the Congress Party who called themselves
secularists, forgot that it was the Hindu psyche that believed in
secularism, it was the Hindu thought that had inspired the greatest
intellectuals of the world such as Thoreau, Emerson, Tolstoy, Einstein,
and others, and that it was Hindus, because there was no other land where
Hindus were in a significant number to stand up in defence of Hindu
society if and when the need arose, who were the most nationalistic people
in India.
When Hindus realized that pseudo-secularism had reduced them to the role
of an innocent bystander in the game of politics, they demanded a true
secularism where every religious group would be treated the same and a
government that would not take Hindu sentiments for granted. Hindutva
awakened the Hindus to the new world order where nations represented the
aspirations of people united in history, culture, philosophy, and heroes.
Hindutva successfully took the Indian idol of Israel and made Hindus
realize that their India could be just as great and could do the same for
them also.
In a new era of global consciousness, Hindus realized that they had
something to offer the world. There was something more than tolerance and
universal unity. The ancient wisdom of sages through eternity also offered
systems of thought, politics, music, language, dance, and education that
could benefit the world.
There have been many changes in the thinking of Hindus, spearheaded over
the course of a century by innumerable groups and leaders who made their
own distinct contribution to Hindu society: Swami Vivekananda,
Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhiji, Rashatriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Swami
Chinmayananda, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, International Society for Krishna
Consciousness, Muni Susheel Kumarji, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya
Janata Party, and others. Each in their own way increased pride in being a
Hindu and simultaneously showed Hindus their greatest strengths and their
worst weaknesses. This slowly shook the roots of Hindu society and
prompted a rear-guard action by the ingrained interests: the old
politicians, the Nehruvian intellectual community, and the
appeased Muslim leadership.
The old foundation crumbled in the 1980s and 1990s when Hindus
respectfully asked for the return of their most holy religious site,
Ayodhya. This demand promptly put the 40-year old apparatus to work, and
press releases were chunked out that spew the libelous venom which called
those who represented the Hindu aspirations RmilitantS and
Rfundamentalist,S stigmas which had heretofore found their proper place in
the movements to establish Islamic law. Hindus were humble enough to ask
for the restoration of an ancient temple built on the birthplace of Rama,
and destroyed by Babar, a foreign invader. The vested interests were
presented with the most secular of propositions: the creation of a
monument to a national hero, a legend whose fame and respect stretched out
of the borders of India into southeast Asia, and even into Muslim
Indonesia. A hero who existed before there was anyone in India who
considered himself separate from Hindu society. The 400-year old structure
at one of the holiest sites of India had been worshipped as a temple by
Hindus even though the Muslim general Mir Baqi had partially built a
non-functioning mosque on it. It was very important that no Muslims,
except those who were appeased in Indian politics, had heard of anything
called Babri Masjid before the pseudo-secularist apparatus started the
next to last campaign against the rising Hindu society. It was also
important that no Muslim had offered prayers at the site for over 40
years.
Hindus hid their true anger, that their most important religious site
still bore the marks of a cruel slavery that occurred so very recently in
the time span of Hindu history. It was naturally expected in 1947 that
freedom from the political and economic chains of Great Britain would mean
that the systems and symbols that had enslaved India and caused its
deterioration and poverty would be obliterated. Forty years after
independence, Hindus realized that their freedom was yet to come.
So long as freedom to Jews meant that symbols of the Holocaust in Europe
were condemned, so long as freedom to African- Americans meant that the
symbols of racial discrimination were wiped out, and so long as freedom
from imperialism to all people meant that they would have control of their
own destinies, that they would have their own heros, their own stories,
and their own culture, then freedom to Hindus meant that they would have
to condemn the Holocaust that Muslims reaped on them, the racial
discrimination that the white man brought, and the economic imperialism
that enriched Britain. Freedom for Hindus and Indians would have to mean
that their heros such as Ram, Krishna, Sivaji, the Cholas, Sankaracharya,
and Tulsidas would be respected, that their own stories such as the
Ramayana and the Mahabharata would be offered to humanity as examples of
the brilliance of Hindu and Indian thinking, and that their own culture
which included the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas, the temples, the gods and
goddesses, the art, the music, and the contributions in various fields,
would be respected. Freedom meant that as the shackles of imperial
dominance were lifted, the newly freed people would not simply absorb
foreign ideas, they would share their own as well.
In India, something went wrong. The freedom from Britain was supposed to
result in a two-way thinking that meant that non- Indian ideas would be
accepted and that Indian ideas would be presented to the world. So long as
the part of India giving to the world was suppressed, the freedom was only
illusory and the aspirations of the freedom hungry would continue to rise
in temperature.
The freedom could have been achieved if a temple to Rama was built and the
symbol of foreign rule was moved to another site or demolished. The battle
was never really for another temple. Another temple could have been built
anywhere in India.
The humble and fair demand for RamaJanmabhoomi could have resulted in a
freedom for India, freedom from the intellectual slavery that so dominated
India. This freedom would have meant that all Indians regardless of
religion, language, caste, sex, or color would openly show respect for the
person that from ancient times was considered the greatest hero to people
of Hindusthan. For the first time, Hindus had demanded something, and it
was justifiable that a reasonable demand from an undemanding people would
be realized. Imagine if the Muslim leadership had agreed to shift the site
and build a temple in Ayodhya. How much Hindu- Muslim unity there would
have been in India? India could then have used that goodwill to solve the
major religious, caste, and economic issues facing the country.
But some of the vested interests in politics and in the Muslim community
saw that such a change would mean that their work since 1947 would be
overturned and that this new revolution would displace them. Rather than
join forces and accept the rising tide, the oligarchy added fuel to the
greatest movement in Indian history. One that on December 6, 1992
completely shattered the old and weak roots of Indian society and with it,
the old political and intellectual structure. The destruction by the Kar
Sevaks of the dilapidated symbol of foreign dominance was the last straw
in a heightening of tensions by the government, and the comittant anger of
more and more Hindus to rebuffs of their reasonable demands.
The ruthless last-ditch effort of the powers-that-be was the banning and
suppression of the leaders of the Hindu Jagriti. The effort of the rulers
reminds one of the strategy of all ill-fated rulers. Throughout history,
when monumental upheavals have taken place, the threatened interests have
resorted to drastic measures, which in-turn have hastened their own death.
Hindus are at last free. They control their destiny now and there is no
power that can control them except their own tolerant ethos. India in turn
is finally free. Having ignored its history, it has now come face to face
with a repressed conscience. The destruction of the structure at Ayodhya
was the release of the history that Indians had not fully come to terms
with. Thousands of years of anger and shame, so diligently bottled up by
these same interests, was released when the first piece of the so-called
Babri Masjid was torn down.
It is a fundamental concept of Hindu Dharma that has won: righteousness.
Truth won when Hindus, realizing that Truth could not be won through
political or legal means, took the law into their own hands. Hindus have
been divided politically and the laws have not acknowledged the quiet
Hindu yearning for Hindu unity which has until recently taken a back seat
to economic development and Muslim appeasement. Similarly, the freedom
movement represented the supercedence of Indian unity over loyalty to the
British Crown. In comparison to the freedom movement though, Hindutva
involves many more people and represents the mental freedom that 1947 did
not bring.
The future of Bharat is set. Hindutva is here to stay. It is up to the
Muslims whether they will be included in the new nationalistic spirit of
Bharat. It is up to the government and the Muslim leadership whether they
wish to increase Hindu furor or work with the Hindu leadership to show
that Muslims and the government will consider Hindu sentiments. The era of
one-way compromise of Hindus is over, for from now on, secularism must
mean that all parties must compromise.
Hindutva will not mean any Hindu theocracy or theology. However, it will
mean that the guiding principles of Bharat will come from two of the great
teachings of the Vedas, the ancient Hindu and Indian scriptures, which so
boldly proclaimed -
TRUTH IS ONE, SAGES CALL IT BY MANY NAMES - and - THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS
ONE FAMILY.