What Is Hindutva

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  





 What Is Real Hindutva

The great Hindu heritage is based not on one book, preceptor, or dogma. The Hindu heritage and culture flow 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. That is why the Hindu society has a proud and indubitable history of tolerance for other religions and their spiritual beliefs. So we find that Hindus gave refuge to many people fleeing from kinds of persecution, - Jews, Zoroastrians, Tibetan Buddhists etc.

The universal inclusion, so characteristic of the Hindus made the society so vibrant and unassailable that the successive invaders beginning with the Islamists who were the damned bloodiest in history failed to destroy  Hinduism or even contain it.

But despite such barbarism meted out to them by the hordes of Islamic invaders from Central Asia and Turkey, Hindus never paid them back in the same coin. They refused to adopt the barbarian rules by which the Islamists played. No Hindu ever tried to match the level of cruelty of even a moderate Muslim ruler.. Hindus sustained their tolerance and the adaptability to change, to evolve through all adversities.

However, the Muslim society’s inherent unwillingness to change, to adapt, abetted by the Islamic clergy never realized or considered the debt they owed to Hindus for their tolerance and lack of vengeance. Instead Hindus  were forced to divide the country and partition it, - a country that had millennia of common culture. In spite of that, "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 also other rights that are even unheard of." elsewhere. It is these characteristics of Hindu society and the still un-evolved Muslim psyche that remain today.

The self-appointed guardians of India, the Congress, called themselves secularists to play vote bank politics. They  feigned ignorance of the fact that it was the Hindu psyche that believed in secularism that prompted to declare India as secular  In the guise of vote-bank secularism Hindu traditions and customs were ridiculed and mocked at.as archaic and regressive to be changed to achieve modernity. They ignored the fact that  it was the Hindu thought that had inspired some of the greatest intellectuals of the world and that it was Hindus, who were the most nationalistic people in India.

The pseudo-secularism sought to relegate the majority in to mere spectators and bystanders in the game of politics. The majority then had no other go but to demand true secularism "where every religious group would be treated the same and a government that would not take Hindu sentiments for granted". .Thus Hindutva, homogeneous in history, culture and ethos, awakened to a new consciousness of a new national order leading to a new world order wherein India  had great contributions to make and will play a dominant role.

"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..

Secularizing The Religion

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Secularizing The Religion

Mahatma Gandhi said: “If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I swear by my religion. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The state has nothing to do with it. The state would look after your secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody's personal concern!”. But what is happening in India is that instead of keeping one's religion personal, every politician is using it for his own benefit. They fail to see that alternative to their bad religion or their take of religion, is not secularism, which every bad religionist is using for playing hide and seek. Just as leftists used ideology as opposed to values, the pseudo secularist is using secularism to cover bad religion. Has any one of them put religion behind him? Scratch any of them and you can see communalism under their skin.

The religionists need to be reminded that you can secularise your religion with or without spiritualizing your life. Instead of waiting for that happening to you, you should seek it to happen in you. One should gradually start synchronizing the thinking ,beliefs, commitments, and practices to the pattern of this age rather than to the medieval. It is easy for the Hindus but may be not so easy for the semitic religions who believe that each one of theirs is the God's word, unalterable., For them the universe is no democracy as it is for the Hindus, it is a monarchy. Only Hindus have nothing like the last word, but instead have the principle of universal dynamics where there is no finish..

The Persians had no sound or letter for  'S' but used instead 'H' for these in their language, so they called the great riverine Sindhu people and civilization, world's earliest culture, as Hindu. That got wide currency in rest of the world west of Bharathavarsha that is India now, and whoever came from the west used the name known to them already. Later on, Sindhu river was known in Greek as Indus from which came the English name, India.This was in a way good because the earliest civilization got a name for itself; the earliest civilization had no use for a name, it was indeed  the mankind and the world. Christ never created any religion; Christianity was created by others in his name. By the time of Christ there were plenty of others, but in Sindhu people's rather primordial times only they were there as the Manu, the thinking animal, ( Manu>Man, Adi>Adam, all came from sanskrit ), others being  not far away from having come from the stage of brachiation from tree to tree.

That is why you don't find the term for this way of living, or the word Hindu in the Vedas, although there are references to Sanathana Dharma. Dharma, not math, mind you. It was the life one should do, his duty, not one of the ways, the math. Get it?

So when we say Hindutwa, it is actually Sindhutwa or Indianness. In order to be a complete or even better Indian, one has to synchronize oneself with this Indian ethos. Reactionaries are attacking this concept, turned in to demand, under open skies and broad daylight shining bright in India unlike in many theocratic nations. Reactionaries who have treated their own kinds in the most despicable way wherever they hold the sway. And our working -class heroes are no exception who behave like so many dogmatic idiots..

The pseudo secularist should learn that secularism is not loss of faith. It is a loss of political interest in the world of faith. they should also understand that in the  Indianness, religion is irrelevant in the common way of life. It is only the Indian ethos all the way.