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"Angry
Hindu" Yes! Why Not?
by
Angry Hindu
This
was written by a Hindu in France, and is making the email round. There
is no alternative for Hindus but the lesson of the Mahabharata. The
Pandavas regained their kingdom only because they finally understood and
practised the rule of reciprocity. Where the exclusivisms are concerned,
the historical evidence is that the only language they understand is
their own. I challenge anyone to give a single example of the survival
in any significant sense of a pre-existing worldview where the
exclusivisms have conquered. And they've already conquered most of the
world. The indic worldview is the only survivor - so far.
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Angry Hindu" Yes! Why Not?
"ANGRY HINDU" blared out a weekly edited by a noted
"secularist" "Yes! Certainly I am angry. I have every
reason to be angry. And it is also right for me to be so; otherwise I
would be no man."
"Yes! For too long I have suffered the affronts in silence.
For ever so long I have been at receiving end. My people have been
kidnapped by the hostiles. My numbers have dwindled. As a result, my
adored motherland has been torn asunder. I have been deprived of my
age-old rights over my own hearts and homes.
N.W.F.P,
Sindh, Baluchistan, more than half of the Punjab, half of Bengal and a
third of Kashmir, all these have been usurped from me. And I have been
subjected to untold atrocities, dishonor and massacres. I was thrown out
from what was once part of India. And yet you tell me that I should not
get angry. I should not stand up and say, "Enough is enough."
My temples have been desecrated and destroyed. The sacred deities
in them have been trampled under the aggressors' feet. My gods are
crying. They demand for reinstatement to their original glory. When I
speak out my agony, you of the secular tribe condemn me as a threat to
our "secular peace". You add insult to my injury. You rub salt
into my wounded heart and yet expect me to keep my mouth shut. This you
call justice!
And the thing that infuriates me most is the betrayal and the
hypocrisy of your tribe. You get my votes but pamper those who attack
me. Whenever I defend myself against them you denounce me as a communal.
And when they raise an alarm, however false, you uphold it as their
"minority right". When some ruffians attack me and the police
you go and make deals with attackers and carry them out with an iron
hand. Every anti-Hindu agency in the world raises an accusing finger
against me just because I raise my voice against cruelty and injustice.
But when scores my temples are raised to ground in Kashmir and my
brothers and sisters are squeezed out from there, my dear Sirs! Did any
one of you ever utter a single word against this? And yet you accuse me
of being angry.
When a Muslim or a Christian Head of State visits my country, you
make the necessary arrangements for him or her to go and pray as well as
address his followers in a Masjid or a church as the case may be. You
even flash this with great fanfare in the press. There is even silent
admiration for his devotion and act. But when our president or Prime
Minister worships in a temple, you raise an alarm. You see in it even
danger to our "secular' tradition. Why so? You cannot even tolerate
the Ramayana on the TV. You see in it the rise of "Hindu
Fundamentalism".
And your arguments afford one more sample for your double
standards. Since some religious communities as compared to that of mine
are small in number, you have chosen to call them minorities and have
thus given them what you call "minority rights". But in
Kashmir and several N.E. States, Hindus are in a minority. And from
these states the Hindu minority is either hounded out or treated as a
second class citizen with no minority rights. No body has ever heard you
raising any alarm that minorities are in danger of extinction in the
said States.
Again, when the Muslim League and the Kerala Christian Congress
merrily ruled Kerala in proxy either through Congress or the Communist
Party, you never noted the ugly face of communalism. But when a small
murmur of protest was raised you suddenly saw the fair face of Kerala
haunted by the specter of communalism. Anything practiced by the Hindu
minority becomes a great cause of intense concern for you. Even the
breaking of a coconut or lighting of a lamp is taboo to you. For you,
our national life minus every bit of Hinduism from it constitutes what
you call secularism. In fact you want me to cease to be myself. I should
not even claim myself as a Hindu in my own country.
This cannot be tolerated. In my heart throb the words of Aurobindo,
"Bharat will rise with Sanatana Dharma." And of Gandhi,
"I would not like to live in an India which has ceased to be
Hindu." And of Annie Besant, "If Hinduism perishes; India will
no more remain India." And of Swami Vivekananda that "Hindu is
India and India is Hindu."
The simple and glaring fact is that I form 85% of the total
population of India. And that I have shed my blood and sweat in freeing
this country. And yet you expect me to continue to be deprived of rights
which, those who sided with foreigners and helped to vivisect my
motherland enjoy with impunity. That I should not be permitted to teach
my children love for my culture and spiritual heritage; that I should
stop speaking of my ancestral heroes while at the same time elements
inimical to all that I hold sacred have a field day I their schools.
Do you not see the shocking discrimination in all this? Enormous
amounts of my hard earned money poured out at the feet of my gods are
squandered by those whom I have elected to rule the country. Where as
the same rulers not only do not touch a single cent of so called
minorities but also finance them at my cost. Even the Hajj Pilgrims are
subsidized from my money. Should I, tell me frankly continue to sit
silently in the face of such indignities, injustices and exploitations.
And do you dare tell me that I have no right to be angry? Even a worm
turns, they say. Do you think that I am worse than a worm?
For too long, I was lost in a deep coma. I saw nothing. I did
nothing. My country was divided. But incessant blows have at least
awakened me. I have now begun to see. I now understand and I have begun
to feel and I shall speak out now. I shall now face the challenges.
Yours calling me as "Angry Hindu" has, in fact, made me
happy. So far I was an angry landlord or an angry kisan, an angry
employer or an angry worker or an angry Maratha, an angry Bengali, an
angry Brahmin, or an angry Rajput, an angry Arya Samaji or an angry Jain
and so on. But now you address me as an "angry Hindu" that
encompasses all of the above. It signifies that now, after all these
centuries, I have come to think and feel and act as one whole ---- as
HINDU. Even you will concede that it is not a small gain.
The one reason for my downfall all these centuries has been --- I
was a house divided against itself; because of the oblivion of my true
and innate Hindu identity. And now even you, though unconsciously, have
complimented me that I have realized my blunder and decided to mend the
matters. And remember! On your admission, my anger is not of a small
group here and there - each canceling out the other. Now my anger is
that of more than 650 million people - remember this and take heed! I
believed that others would respect my gods and temples as I respected
others'. I believed that since I did not aggress upon other lands,
others too would not trample upon mine. I believed that generosity
begets generosity. I believed that my moral standards in warfare would
be reciprocated by the enemies. I believed in the sanctity of womanhood
even among the enemies. I expected the same from others. I believed in
equal rights for all - irrespective of one's faith, and I believed that
the same attitude is shares by others as well.
But, Alas! Again and again I was deceived I was betrayed. I was
stabbed in the back. In return for my welcome and help o others to build
their places of worship, they started desecrating and destroying those
of mine. In return for my allowing them to practice their faiths, they
began subverting my faith. While I stuck to moral standards, they hit me
below the belt. While I treated all alike - they treated me as worse
than an animal. My goodness itself has been turned on me. I know now a
bit of the ways of the world. And I have decided to speak to others in
the language they understand. Of course, I am quite well aware that my
moral and spiritual standards have been the high watermark of my
cultural glory. Of course, I shall not forsake them. No, never! If I
forsake them, I will no more remain a true Hindu - a child of our great
seers and servants. But at
the same time I shall take care that my virtues are not misinterpreted
and exploited by others. I will not allow them to become a vice - by
practicing them out of place.
Speaking really I am more angry about myself than about others.
Angry, because how long and in how many manners have I allowed myself to
b fooled by others in the past and now by the new post-independence
tribe of "secularists". Yes! I have learnt a lesson or two.
The first lesson is to listen to the wise sayings and warnings of our
great saviors. Adi Shankracharya has commanded that generosity is good
and great only when it is showered on the worthy and not otherwise. Sri
Ramakrishana has told the story of a cobra which, having become totally
docile o the advice of a sadhu was stoned almost to death by the
passerby. The sadhu corrected it saying, "I had only asked to stop
biting but who asked you to stop hissing also?" And soon enough the
passersby heard its hissing sound and the serpent became safe. Swami
Vivekanand's sharp remark to his disciple Sinha was likewise: "just
as you would feel when some one insults your mother, so should your
blood boil with righteous indignation when Christian missionaries abuse
Hinduism or convert a brother o yours." And the Swami himself had
held by the neck two Christians missionaries on board a ship for
maligning Hinduism and threatened to throw them overboard if they
uttered a word more against our Dharma. The two preachers, shivering in
their shoes, apologized, and begged for mercy and thinly they were let
off. That is the way Shri Krishna and Chhatrapati Shivaji conducted
themselves. Even while practicing the highest of virtues, they did not
allow their power of discrimination to be clouded. And it is because of
such saviors, I now realize that we continue to live as Hindus.
And, finally, I have come to know the value of my anger itself. It
has already put some holy fear in the hearts of some of my congenital
baiters. Some of them even have started deserting the "secular
camp". They have begun to have a realistic appreciation o my anger.
And even respect it. You had also imagined that you held the monopoly of
intellectualism. But now, some of the topmost among the judges,
historians, writers, professors and professionals have taken up cudgels
on my behalf. And so the ivory tower of "intellectualism' from
which you were raining your missiles on me all these years, is totally
and irrevocably smashed. Display of your intellectual arrogance
hereafter will only boomerang upon yourself.
Before
I close, I urge you to heed the subtle warning given by a top journalist
"Hindus are very slow to act, but when they do rise even the
Himalayas must start trembling. And Himalayas are the home of the
angriest Hindu of them all - Lord Shiva.
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