Methodological Rigor in Knowledge Building – Ayurveda and the Scientific Challenge

September 1, 2006

Ram Manohar
Is Ayurveda an old system of thought based on ancient Hindu and Persian beliefs?¹. Does it need to borrow the methods of science to resurrect itself as a respectable system of medicine in the modern world? Such and other analogous questions daunt one’s mind as one watches the resurgence of this age-old medical tradition of India in the global scenario under the umbrella term CAM – Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
There is a need for alternatives to scientific medicine it seems, which is increasingly being complemented with other health care approaches². The crisis in global health care that brings the older medical traditions back into the vanguard gives room for a subtle epistemological debate on knowledge systems. Have we reached a point from where we need to look beyond the ken of science – seek an alternative not just to medical systems, but science itself?
Throughout the long span of its evolutionary history, religion, military onslaughts, politics and law have challenged Ayurveda. Once upon a time, Ayurvedic physicians became outcastes on religious grounds because they touched impure and diseased bodies. Centres of Ayurvedic learning and rich collections of medical manuscripts were destroyed by ruthless invaders. The British colonizers politically subjugated Ayurveda and withdrew state patronage. In modern times, international law does not recognize Ayurveda as a legitimate system of medicine outside India, save for a few exceptions.
Withstanding and overcoming these challenges, Ayurveda has survived into the new millennium and is fast gaining acceptance in various forms amongst the general public at a global level. At the same time, it is facing an intellectual confrontation – an epistemological challenge that is more profound than all the challenges that have been thrown at it and which may have far reaching implications in terms of its future growth and development. The testimony of science is being demanded from Ayurveda to prove itself as a medical system worthy of recognition and adoption by the developed nations of the world.
The scientific validation of Ayurveda has already been initiated with international bodies like the World Health Organization and National Institutes for Health announcing research agendas for CAM³. Only time can tell what the outcome of these projects will be and how they will influence the destiny of Ayurveda. At this critical juncture, an enquiry into the position of Ayurveda as a knowledge system assumes significance as it has never before. For the simple reason that such an exercise will enlighten us on the innate potential that Ayurveda possesses to withstand the emerging epistemological challenge from the scientific community.
Belief, Knowledge and Science:
Organized systems of thought that humanity has developed through the ages can be categorized as belief systems or knowledge systems. Science is a highly evolved and rigorous knowledge system that has gained such universal acceptance and popularity that it has become synonymous with knowledge itself. In this paper an attempt is being made to distinguish between a belief system and knowledge system as well as to characterize science as a specialized knowledge system. An attempt will be made to epistemologically position Ayurveda in the backdrop of this canvas.
Belief System and Knowledge System:
We can look at five characteristics based on which a belief system and a knowledge system can be distinguished from each other. They are:
1. Origin
2. Proof
3. Acceptance
4. Revisions
5. Methodology
A belief system advocates supernatural origins of knowledge. The concept of divine revelation is central to this system of thinking. Most of the major religions of the world exemplify this approach. On the other hand, a knowledge system professes natural origins of knowledge and human agency as the key component in the process of knowledge acquisition. Rational systems of thought that were nurtured in ancient India, Greece and such other parts of the world and of course, science, illustrate this approach.
In a belief system, the authority of a deified personality is the ultimate proof for the validity of knowledge. In very rigid belief systems, a single authority is worshipped as the ultimate source of knowledge. In a knowledge system, however, observation and experience become the criterion for valid knowledge. What cannot be verified experientially does not constitute knowledge.
A cardinal feature of a belief system is the tendency to accept a teaching uncritically and without investigation. Everything is a matter of belief and nothing can be questioned. A knowledge system accepts a proposition only after a thorough investigation. Any new suggestion is subjected to critical enquiry before being accepted as knowledge.
A belief system resists change and does not allow revision of previously accumulated knowledge. What has been said once is the final truth. A knowledge system is typically open to revisions and accumulates knowledge on the go. Old theories are modified, elaborated or abandoned and new theories are introduced.
A belief system is not based on any well-defined or rigorous methodology to acquire and verify knowledge. It just transmits beliefs from one generation to the other. In contrast, a knowledge system thrives on rigorous methodology. Transmission of knowledge itself is a process of verification, where in, the teaching is subjected to rigorous analysis and internalized before acceptance.
The characteristics that essentially differentiate a belief system from a knowledge system can be summarized succinctly in the form of a table.
FEATURE BELIEF SYSTEM KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM:
Origin Supernatural origins of knowledge Natural origins of knowledge Proof Authority is the proof Observation is the proof Acceptance Uncritical acceptance Acceptance after criticism Revisions Resistance to revisions Openness to revisions Methodology Lack of well defined methodology has well defined methodology.
Ayurveda as a Knowledge System:
In the background of this discussion, we can now attempt to explore and define the character of Ayurveda as an organized system of thought. Is Ayurveda a belief system or a knowledge system? What position does Ayurveda take on the origin of knowledge?Interestingly enough, a careful study of the classical texts of Ayurveda yields contradicting answers. For example, the mythological account of the origin of Ayurveda states that it was first remembered by Lord brahmā, thereafter transmitted to prajāpati who imparted the knowledge to the aśvini twins and from whom indra obtained it⁴. These are all mythological characters and hence at the first look, it appears as though Ayurveda is promoting itself as a belief system by tracing its origins to supernatural sources. Indra is the link between the mythological personalities and human beings and various sages, who were essentially human beings, acquired the knowledge of Ayurveda from indra.
In stark contrast, another section of the text talks about direct perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna) and verbal testimony (āptopadeśa) as the true sources of knowledge⁵. A particular passage even goes to the extent of subsuming the importance of verbal testimony and stating that direct perception and inference make up the tools with which the wise acquire knowledge. Some times correlative logic (yukti) is also considered as a valid tool of knowledge⁶. The celebrated Ayurvedic text, the caraka samhitā, states that the scope of knowledge is to distinguish between what is real and unreal and this is done by employing the tools of knowledge, which is fourfold – verbal testimony, direct perception, inference and correlative logic⁷. Unmistakably, Ayurveda projects itself as a knowledge system through such positioning. One cannot help, but be intrigued by the apparent dichotomy of the thought process discernible in the Ayurvedic tradition – a blend of the elements of both belief systems and knowledge systems.
The same ambiguity is reflected in the context of proof of knowledge. There are passages in the classical texts that almost attribute absolute authority to the precepts of a particular individual or revered teacher of the past. The celebrated author vāgbhaṭa, who composed the aṣṭāṇga hṛdayam, for instance, struggles to prove that his exposition is only a repetition of what the authorities of the bygone days have expounded and that he has not deviated even by a syllable from what they have said⁸. In spite of being one of the most outspoken exponents of classical Ayurvedic learning, vāgbhaṭa in one context distinguishably characterizes Ayurveda as a belief system. He states that the knowledge of Ayurveda should be used like a mantra, without ever being subjected to critical examination, because it has come down from authoritative persons and produces practical results⁹.
In several other situations, he throws all caution to the winds and criticizes authority without mincing words and advises the aspiring physician to rely on his own intelligence and understanding without blindly relying on the teachings alone¹⁰. In his characteristic and pithy remarks like “a statement does not become acceptable just because it comes from the mouth of a ṛṣi, rather it is accepted on the merit of the truth that it conveys”¹¹ and “the fact that oil alleviates vāta, ghee pitta and honey kapha remains unchanged whether it is uttered by brahmā or his son”¹², one cannot miss the sarcastic tone that scoffs at authority with unveiled contempt.
To sum up, Ayurveda fluctuates across the domains of a belief system and knowledge system when it comes to deciding what constitutes the proof for knowledge.
We can notice a much more volatile situation when we try to examine and understand the position that Ayurveda has taken with regard to acceptance of propositions as valid knowledge. The Ayurvedic texts get transformed into an arena for hot debates and discussions. Technical discussions and debates are very much encouraged in the tradition and the teachings are not so easily accepted without questioning¹³. This has given rise to different schools of thought in Ayurveda and variations in theories and explanations of its basic tenets.
However, much of the energy seems to have been diverted in proving and consolidating already proposed theories and establishing the supremacy of the older ideas, which ultimately overrides the importance of the newer notions. In some instances, new ideas are accepted only if they confirm to and do not contradict the already established conceptions, failing which, they are rejected. One gets the impression that Ayurveda exhibits greater flexibility when it comes to critical examination of a proposition before acceptance but offers much resistance as far as revision of older theories are concerned.
Radical revisions to the basic theories of Ayurveda are literally unknown in the long span of its historical evolution though the expositions have been refined and elaborated as well as new applications derived from them in the course of time. For example, the tridoṣa theory was well established at a very early period but the concept of five types of pitta and kapha was a later development¹⁴.
Finally, when it comes to methods of knowledge acquisition, the Ayurvedic texts are quite eloquent in elaborating rigorous protocols and systems for validating knowledge. The texts distinguish between speculative thinking (tarka) and definite knowledge¹⁵. It is the existence of a sufficiently rigorous methodology for acquisition of knowledge that helps us to characterize Ayurveda as primarily a knowledge system.
This discussion has revealed the dual character of Ayurveda, which appears to take on the features of both a belief system and knowledge system. How do we make sense of this paradox? In order to understand this peculiarity of Ayurveda, one has to delve into the complex structure of Ayurveda as an organized body of knowledge.
The texts clearly state that the knowledge of Ayurveda has been organized to address three levels of intelligence – the dull, the mediocre and the bright¹⁶. For the dull student, the knowledge of Ayurveda has been packaged as a belief system and for the bright student it becomes a knowledge system opening up new frontiers of knowledge. For the mediocre, it takes on a dual nature and is partly a belief system and partly a knowledge system. The dull witted has been advised to just follow instructions and not to attempt to understand subtle implications of the teachings¹⁷. On the other hand, the bright person should go beyond what has been taught and discover new knowledge¹⁸.
The ancient teachings have therefore been clothed in three layers of interpretation and one will have to delve into the deepest level to discover the not so obvious character of Ayurveda as a knowledge system.
Ayurvedic knowledge has been organized on a three tier structure, which corresponds to the three levels of intelligence. This constitutes the realm of application (vyavahāra), which is based on operational concepts or theories (śāstra) and which in turn stems from a direct experience of a truth principle (tattva). The dull witted has to just follow instructions (dos and don’ts called as vidhis and niṣedhas) at the level of vyavahara to get expected results. The mediocre can attempt to understand the sastra or theory behind an application and thereby handle it more efficiently. The intelligent student, however, can have a direct experience of the truth behind a theory and improvise or modify the theory as well as invent novel applications. The ideal physician according to suśruta, is well grounded in the practical applications and delves into the tattva (truth content) behind the śāstra (theory) and becomes an innovator or inventor himself¹⁹.
Belief based on direct perception of results (pratyakṣaphaladarśana) is sufficient for one who operates at the level of applications. This has to be supplemented with inference at the level of theoretical discussions. At the level of direct perception of the truth principles, altered states of consciousness have to be invoked and the world of sensory experiences transcended to obtain direct knowledge.
The allusion to the origin of the knowledge of Ayurveda from the mythological personalities is an indication that the real substance of the body of Ayurvedic knowledge has emerged from higher states of consciousness. indra, meaning knowledge is sahasrākṣa²⁰ (one who has a thousand eyes), with an ability of perception that has been increased thousand fold by rigorous discipline (śatakratu²¹ – performance of a 100 yāgas to purify and refine the cognitive apparatus). Knowledge from the level of tattva is purely a matter of verbal testimony for the dull witted and a matter of direct perception for more advanced seekers. The level of vyavahāra is always changing as new applications have to be constantly discovered in response to varying spatio-temporal situations. The level of śāstra is relatively stable but subject to modifications, revisions and elaborations reflecting change in human understanding of the truth principles. The level of tattva is stable and purely experiential reflecting the innate and unchanging nature of the fundamental truth principles and laws that govern the universe.
In the light of the above discussion, we can conclude that Ayurveda is essentially a knowledge system with an inbuilt flexibility to present itself as a belief system for aspirants with lower levels of intelligence.
Knowledge Systems and Science:
Let us now try to position science in relation to knowledge systems. Science no doubt is a knowledge system and the very term ‘knowledge system’ includes science. It is however, important to realize that science is a specialized knowledge system, which differentiates itself on the basis of some rigorously defined basic premises from other knowledge systems. What are the characteristic features of science?Science is essentially empirical. Confronted with the limitations of the sense organs, science attempts to expand the scope of sensory perception through sophisticated instrumentation. Valid knowledge originates from observation and though intuition is recognized as a way to know, it has to be substantiated by actual observations of multiple observers. Thus science is not only empirical but also objective. Constant observation being the method of science, it has a characteristic tendency for self-correction. In the light of new evidence old theories are revised or rejected quite often and replaced by new ones. Science therefore advances in the quantity and quality of the knowledge it accumulates in the passage of time. Science is concerned with theorizing. Science is empirical like intuition and its higher expression of mysticism. Common sense is also a kind of empirical knowledge but differs from science in that it confines itself to merely a working knowledge of the Universe. Common sense accepts an idea as knowledge if it works. But science is concerned about the theory of how something works. Another important characteristic of science is the process of experiment wherein a hypothetical assumption is verified by planned observations under controlled conditions.Last but not the least, the unique characteristic of science is the criterion of falsification. It is easy to look for confirmations or verification to support the veracity of a theory. But the real test of a theory that would accord it a scientific status is the possibility of attempting to refute it or falsify it. A theory is accepted not just because it can be verified but only if one fails to falsify it²². We can thus arrive at the understanding that science is a specialized kind of knowledge system with unique characteristics.
Ayurveda and Science:
At the very outset, it has to be emphasized that there are both points of divergence and convergence between Ayurveda as a knowledge system and science. Both Ayurveda and science are empirical but science, as mentioned, does not formally accept intuition and common sense as valid sources of knowledge. Ayurveda includes all these and also objective methods as sources of valid knowledge. Thus, one of the essential differences between Ayurveda and science lies in what constitutes the sources of valid knowledge.The next difference is in the operational realm. Being empirical, both Ayurveda and science rely on sensory observations. But when confronted with the limitations of the sensory apparatuses, Ayurveda attempts to transcend the sensory realm through mystical approaches to knowledge (alaukika pratyakṣa) whereas science extends the scope of sensory perception by extending it with technology. On account of differences in the source of knowledge as well as the level of reality on which they operate, there is a certain degree of incommensurability between Ayurveda and science. This incommensurability stems from paradigmatic differences and becomes more pronounced when science attempts to understand Ayurveda. This is because science adopts an exclusive approach while Ayurveda is inclusive.Problems of incommensurability can be better tackled if Ayurveda attempts to accommodate the methods of science in a proactive way. When science approaches Ayurveda, there is the danger of reductionism trimming the scope of Ayurveda within the framework of science. On the other hand, if Ayurveda approaches science, there is a better chance of preserving the totality of Ayurveda as a knowledge system. The rest of this paper is a discussion to explore whether Ayurveda has the potential to meet the scientific challenge in terms of methodological rigor in knowledge building. For this we need to see if there are at least a few major points of convergence between Ayurveda and science.The very word Veda is an elaboration of the process of knowledge acquisition. This word means existence, conceptualization, analysis and realization²³. These are four stages in the knowledge cycle, which starts with observation of existent phenomena and its conceptualization. Such conceptualized knowledge is transmitted as a teaching and subject to analysis and internalized experientially. Knowledge seeking is an attempt to differentiate between what is real and what is unreal. This is clearly an empirical exercise and all knowledge is experiential. But all expressions of empiricism cannot become knowledge or in other words, knowledge is experiential but all experience is not knowledge. Validated experience alone becomes knowledge and therefore knowledge acquisition is all about validating experience²⁴.The tools used to validate experience are called as pramāṇas and the number and type of pramāṇas vary from system to system. Ayurveda recognizes at least three such tools or pramāṇas – verbal testimony, direct perception and inference and also correlative logic in certain contexts as already pointed out earlier. The knowledge gained through verbal testimony is basically conceptual (jñāna). When it is verified through direct perception and inference, it becomes experiential (vijñāna). Therefore, the real tools of validating knowledge are direct perception and inference. This exercise is technically known as parīkṣā meaning investigation²⁵. Thus, we can conclude that Ayurveda accepts empirical knowledge only after validation and meets science eye to eye in this regard.The need for objectivity is also emphasized in the Ayurvedic tradition. Knowledge has to be theorized, objectified and validated by multiple observers before it is accepted as a doctrine or siddhānta²⁶. anumāna, one of the tools to validate experience, is not merely inference but inference based on perception. anumāna proposes a rigorous methodology to establish causal relationship between events in a systematic way. When an association between two events is observed repeatedly for a number of times, a correlation is suspected. This is called sāhacarya or vyāpti²⁷. Establishing this correlation is tantamount to discovering a law and helps us to control the event. In scientific parlance, this is the study of two variables; one is independent and the other dependent.However, mere association cannot help us to formulate a law of correlation between two variables. Certain other criteria will also have to be fulfilled. They are:(a) Law of exclusivity (avyabhicāritva) – the dependent variable should not be influenced by another independent variable than the one being studied, it should be exclusively associated with the independent variable under study.(b) Law of invariable concomitance (avinābhāvasambandha) – the two variables should always be seen together or in other words, the dependent variable should be influenced by the independent variable on all occasions of observation.(c) Law of inherence (ayutasiddhatva) – The two variables should always co exist and should not be observed independent of each other²⁸. In this approach we can discern the rudiments of the experimental method to validate hypothetical assumptions.In the biomedical context, the clinical trial design seeks to study a trial drug against a control and a placebo. For the trial drug to be acceptable, its action should be comparable to that of the control and not comparable to that of the placebo. This is very similar to what is meant by pakṣa, sapakṣa and vipakṣa in the process of validation through anumāna²⁹. sapakṣa is equivalent to the trial drug; it is a context in which a particular effect is doubted to exist. pakṣa is the control; which is a context in which the effect being studied is proved to exist. And vipakṣa can be compared to the placebo; i.e., a context in which the effect being studied is established to be non-existent. Such a suggestion does not seem to be improbable altogether and it does look like the importance of validation of clinical outcomes was recognized in ancient days. The caraka samhitā states clearly that a clinical outcome that has not been validated by proper reasoning can only be dismissed as accidental success³⁰.It is beyond the scope of this paper to engage in further discussions on the parallels between Ayurveda and science. The objective of this discussion has been to demonstrate the fact that though not a science in the strict sense of the word, Ayurveda has the right ingredients ingrained in its epistemology to confront the scientific challenge that has been thrown at it in recent times. The future of Ayurveda as a knowledge system and a medical system in its own right will very much depend on how successfully it understands and accommodates science and at the same time operates from within the larger framework of its epistemological foundations.
REFERENCES
What is Ayurvedic Medicine? Backgrounder – NCCAM, October 2005, NIH US DHHS, p. 22.
Expanding Horizons of Health Care – Five Year Strategic Plan 2001–2005, NCCAM, September 2000, NIH Publication No. 01-5001, p. 73.
Expanding Horizons of Health Care – Five Year Strategic Plan 2005–2009, NCCAM, December 2004, NIH Publication No. d 251.
WHO, Strategy on Traditional Medicine 2002–2005, Geneva, 2002.
A.H. Su. St. 1.35.
C.S. Vi. St. 4.36.
C.S. Vi. St. 4.67.
C.S. Su. St. 11.178.
A.S. Su. St. 1.209.
A.H. Ut. St. 40.81
A.S. Su. St. 7.26
A.H. Ut. St. 40.88
A.H. Ut. St. 40.81
C.S. Vi. St. 8.15
The fivefold divisions of pitta and kapha are not seen mentioned in Caraka Saṃhitā but only in later texts.
C.S. Sa. St. 7.14
C.S. Su. St. 30.18
C.S. Vi. St. 8.3
C.S. Su. St. 4.20
S.S. Su. St. 34.19
C.S. Su. St. 1.23 – Indra is referred to by the synonym Catakratu here.
C.S. Su. St. 1.18 – Indra is referred to by the synonym Catakratu here.
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1963, pp. 33–39.
The word Veda is derived from the root vid, which has four meanings – sattā, jñāna, vicāra, and prāpti. (Tarkasangraha, pp. 152–153)
C.S. Su. St. 11.26
C.S. Vi. St. 8.37
Tarkasangraha, p. 160
Tarkasangraha, pp. 160–171
Tarkasangraha, pp. 165–166
C.S. Si. St. 2.28
ABBREVIATIONS
CS – Caraka Saṃhitā
SS – Suśruta Saṃhitā
AH – Aṣṭāṅga Hr̥dayaṃ
AS – Aṣṭāṅga Saṃgraha
Su.S. – Sūtrasthānaṃ
Sa.S. – Cārīrasthānaṃ
Si.S. – Siddhisthānaṃ
Vi.S. – Vimānasthānaṃ
Ci.S. – Cikitsāsthānaṃ
Ut.S. – Uttara sthānaṃ
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Yadavji Trikamji Acharya (ed.), Caraka Saṃhitā, Chaukhambha Surabharati, Varanasi, 2002.
Yadavji Trikamji Acharya (ed.), Suśruta Saṃhitā, Chaukhambha Surabharati, Varanasi, 1994.
Hari Sadasiva Sastri Paradakara (ed.), Aṣṭāṅga Hr̥dayam, Chaukhambha Surabharati, Varanasi, 1994.
Ananth Damodar Athvale (ed.), Aṣṭāṅga Saṃgraha, Mahesh Anand Athvale, Poona, 1980.
Acharya Kedaranatha Tripati, Tarka Saṃgraha: Nyāyabodhinī Sanskrit and Hindi vyākhyāna, Varanasi: Kashi Hindu Viswavidyalaya, 1985, 2nd edn.
About the Author:
P. Ram Manohar is the Director of Research at Arya Vaidya Pharmacy in Coimbatore.d Keagan Paul, 1963, pp. 33-3923. The word veda is derived from the root vid, which has four meanings – sattA, jJAna, vicAra and prApti. sattAyAm vidyate vetti jJAne vinte vicAraNe, vindate vindati prAptau rUpabhedA videh amI24. Tarkasangraha, pp. 152, 15325. C.S. Su. St. 11.2626. C.S. Vi. St. 8.3727. Tarkasangraha, p. 16028. Tarkasangraha p. 160 – 17129. Tarkasangraha, pp. 165,16630. C.S. Si. St. 2.28
ABBREVIATIONSCS – caraka saMhitA; SS – suCruta saMhitA; AH – aSTAGga hRdayaM; AS – aSTAGga saMgraha; Su.S. – sUtrasthAnaM; Sa.S. – CArIrasthAnaM; Si.S. – siddhisthAnaM; Vi.S. – vimAnasthAnaM, Ci.S. – cikitsAsthAnaM, Ut.S. – uttara sthAnaM.
BIBLIOGRAPHY1. Yadavji Trikamji Acharya ed., caraka samhitA, Chaukhambha Surabharati, Varanasi, 20022. Yadavji Trikamji Acharya ed., suCruta samhitA, Chaukhambha Surabharati, Varanasi, 19943. Hari Sadasiva Sastri Paradakara, ed., aSTAGga hRdayam, Chaukhambha Surabharati, Varanasi, 19944. Ananth Damodar Athvale, ed., aSTAGga saGgraha, Mahesh Anand Athvale, Poona, 19805. Acharya Kedaranatha Tripati, tarka saMgraha: nyAyabodhinI Sanskrit and Hindi vyAkhyAna, Varanasi: Kashi Hindu Viswavidyalaya, 1985, 2nd edn
About the author: The author is the Director of Research at Arya Vaidya Pharmacy in Coimbatore.

Fundamentals of Hindutva and the Concept of Hindusthan

Subramanian.Swamy

October 18, 2005

Hindustan, conceptually is a nation of Hindus and those others in the nation who accept with pride that their ancestors are Hindus. The identity of an “Indian” follows as an easy corollary as one who is a Hindu or one who proudly acknowledges that his ancestors are of Hindu faith. Even today most nations abroad refer to India as Hindustan [e.g., Yindu guo in Chinese, Hind in Arabic]. Only in our country we go by the English garbled variation India of Hindustan.
Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians come in a special category of Hindustan’s religious minority, as those who were welcomed by Hindus since they came to Hindustan seeking refuge from persecution in their own lands abroad, and who willingly accepted to abide by, and adopt cultural customs of Hindus. All these minorities however had inter-married with Hindus over the last millennium and a half, and hence have a claim to the nation’s Hindu civilization by ancestry. From the Hindustan identity flows the fundamentals of Hindu-ness or Hindutva as the cultural parameters of the Hindustan society.
Why the need to discuss? Why is it important after sixty years, since the British imperialists were driven out, that we need to discuss today the concept of our identity and the fundamentals of Hindutva? This need arises because of the misfortune of the almost uninterrupted rule of Jawaharlal Nehru[17 years] and Indira Gandhi[16 years], and their cheap imitators in office since 1947.The concept of Hindutva and the ancient Hindu foundation of the nation were demeaned during their tenure, and those who dared to advocate it were ostracized by the government. The nation was not allowed by these imposters to find its feet after a thousand years of debasement of, and brutality against Hindu religion, by a vulgarization of Hindustan’s true and glorious history in textbooks that were prescribed by the Congress governments. That debasement continues today under the present government.
Over the last two millenniums, Hindu religion had been subjected to threats several times from other religious groups, but these threats had been met, the challenges faced and overcome sometime actively as by the Vijayanagaram and Mahratta kingdoms or passively as in the Freedom Struggle. Well before the birth of Christianity and Islam, Hindu religion had been once intellectually dethroned by Hinayana Buddhism. But Adi Sankaracharya rethroned Hinduism through his famous shastrathas[religious debate] and caused a renaissance in Buddhism itself, which then came to be known as Mahayana Buddhism, conceptually in complete harmony with, if not indistinguishable from, Hindu theology.
In South India, the azhwars and nayanmars also through shastrathas repositioned Hinduism after absorbing Jainism and Buddhism. Since then the Hindu dharmacharyas have always been looked up to, when Hindu society faced a threat or crisis, for guidance to meet the challenge to the Hindu religion. Today, we again need the revered acharyas to show us the way. Hence the formation of the ‘Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha’ under the guidance of Swami Dayananda Sarasvati of Arsha Vidyalaya and the Tirupati Declaration of July 2006 are of vital importance for the future renaissance of the nation.
Hindu ethos provided for sanctuary and home to those of other faiths fleeing from their countries due to religious persecution. As I stated earlier, Parsis, Jews and Syrian Christians are among those religious groups who had sought refuge in India, and survived because the Hindus looked after them. These three religious communities have had and have today a disproportionate share in power and wealth in Indian society, but Hindus have no resentment about it. These minorities had come to India in search of peace and found safe haven in the midst of Hindu society.
Parsis migrated elsewhere in the world too, but disappeared as a community in those countries. Jews have openly acknowledged that India as the only country where they were not persecuted. Syrian Christians too are today completely integrated into India. Even early Arab Muslim travelers who came peacefully to settle in Kerala were taken into Hindu families, and hence called Mapillai[meaning son-inlaw– Moplah in English]. That is a fundamental of Hindutva, the ethos of compassion and co-option that is unparalleled in world history.
However, militant Islam and later crusading Christianity came to India, and aggressively challenged Hinduism. They seized power in sequence and established their own state in India. But despite state patronage to the ensuing onslaught, plunder and victimisation, those of Hindu faith could not be decimated, and Hinduism remained the theology of the vast Indian majority. This was passive resistance of Hindus, much before Mahatma Gandhi came of the scene. Defiant Hindus suffered persecution and economic deprivation during Islamic and Christian reigns, such as through differential taxation[e.g., jezia and zamindari land revenue appropriation] and plain brutality, but Hindus by and large refused to capitulate and convert.
Even after almost a thousand years of such targeting by Muslims and Christian rulers, undivided India in 1947 was more than 75 percent Hindu. This was partly because of the victorious Vijayanagaram, the Sikh reign, and Mahratta kingdoms, and later the Freedom Movement, each inspired by sanyasis such Sringeri Shankaracharya, Swami Ramdas, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo, who by their preaching about the Hindu identity and Hindutva ensured that the flame of Hindu defiance never dimmed. It was also due to individual defiance of Hindus such as of Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Netaji Subhas Bose.
These icons are admired not because they led us to victory [in fact they were defeated or killed], or had found out a safe compromise[they did not], but because of their courage of conviction in the face of huge odds not to submit to tyranny. That courageous defiance is also is part of Hindutva. But those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja in order to live in pomp and grandeur are despised today by the people. Hindutva means: resist by passive non-violent resistance if possible, otherwise by vigorous aggressive action if necessary. Hindutva means never to submit, never to compromise with evil.
In 1947, temporal power was defacto restored to the Hindu majority. But the Indian state formally adopted secularism, which concept however was never properly defined or debated. For example, it left vague what modern Indian’s connection was with the nation’s Hindu past and legacy. In the name of secularism, it was taboo for a public servant even to break a coconut or light a oil lamp to inaugurate an official function on the ground that religious symbols must not invade public life.Such orthodoxy was promoted by Jawarharlal Nehru and his Leftist advisers. But the government took over supervision of temples, legislated on Hindu personal laws, appropriated temple revenues and regulated religious festivals, but kept aloof from the Muslim and Christian religious affairs. The secularism principle was foisted on the Hindu masses without making him understand why they had to abide by such legislation but not the Muslims and Christians. It made a mockery of Article 14 of the Constitution on equality before law.
As a result, the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms and on norms valid in a pluralistic society] was aborted by the confusion thus created in Hindu minds by Nehruism. Electoral politics further confounded the issues arising out of secularism, and hence the Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused perspective. Hindu society became divided by caste that became increasingly mutually antagonistic.
Attempts were made through falsification in history texts adopted for curriculum in the education system to disconnect and disinherit the contemporary Indian from the past glory of Hindu India. The intrinsic Hindu unity has been sought to be undone by legitimizing such bogus concepts as Aryan-Dravidian racial divide theory, or that India as a concept never existed till the British imperialists invented it, or that Indians have always been ruled by invaders from abroad.
There is no such word as Aryan in Sanskrit literature [closest is ‘arya’ meaning honourable person, and not community] or Dravidian [Adi Sankara had in his shasthrath with Mandana Mishra at Varanasi, called himself as a ‘Dravida shishu’ that is a child of where three oceans meet, i.e. south India]. The racial divide theory was a deliberate distortion by British imperialists, and propagated by their witting and unwitting mental Indian slave academicians on the hapless students in educational institutions.
Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern research on DNA of Indians conducted by Professor C. Panse of Newton, Mass. USA and other scholars. In light of such new research, the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] in it’s October 6, 2005 service completely debunked the Aryan—Dravidian race theory in stating that: “The theory was not just wrong, it included unacceptably racist ideas” [www.bbc.co.uk, religion & ethics homepage, Thursday, 6/10/05].
Modern India is portrayed by foreign interests through this curriculum, as a discontinuity in history and as a new entity much as are today’s Greece, Egypt or Iraq. That curriculum is largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, become a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint India as a mosaic of immigrants much like a crowd on a platform in a railway junction. That is, it is clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms.
Thus the concept of Hindustan, and India’s Hindu foundation implicit in Hindutva, are dangerously under challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even cognizant of it. Hindu patriots thus must meet this challenge by propagating the concept of Hindustan and spreading the knowledge among Hindus of the fundamentals of Hindutva. The challenge today confronting Hindus is however much more difficult to meet than was earlier in history because the forces at work to erode and undermine the Hindu foundation of the nation, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine, pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media-savvy.
Tragically therefore, a much more educated and larger numbers of Hindus have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see, much as Lord Macaulay saw in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious perfidious game for castrating Hindustan. Adherence to Hinduism is also being sought to be diluted in the name of modernity and this dilution is made a norm of secularism.
Religion, it is advocated, is personal. To be a good Hindu today is conceptually being reduced to just praying, piety, visiting temples, and celebrating religious festivals. The need for a collective Hindu mindset, an essential fundamental of Hindutva, is being ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist. The concept of a corporate Hindu unity and identity however is that of a collective mindset that identifies us with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it’s glorious past, and the concomitant resolve to defend that vision.
However pious a Hindu becomes, however prosperous Hindu temples become from doting devotees’ offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective. The sacking of Somnath Temple by Ghazni should serve as a reminder of the validity of this dictum. Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with the reality of millions of Hindus who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai or participate in Kumbh Mela.
When I speak of Hindu unity, I am not taking of piety of Hindus as a community. I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness, which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the erosion that is being induced by the disconnection with our glorious past. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness, has now in the name of Nehruvian secularism been distorted and dissipated over the last six decades.
Even the writings of Dr. Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarized by the Nehruites. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar [and published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr. Ambedkar stated: “ It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of its culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity – the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”. Ambedkar wrote several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him and isolated him that in the end, bitterness drove him to Buddhism.
Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a resolve to unite Hindustanis [Hindus and those others who proudly identify with India’s Hindu past], the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason. Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law.
The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We Hindus are under siege today, and we do not know it! That is, what is truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled or lost the capacity to think collectively as Hindus.
To resist this siege we first need Hindu unity based on the fundamentals of Hindutva. Let us remember that numbers [of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today’s information society. It is the durability and clarity of the Hindu mindset of those who unite that matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.
We Hindus cannot fight against looming and creeping danger, unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult today is that the oppressors are not obvious marauding entities as were Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds in the hands of our enemies for camouflaging their evil purposes are multiples of that available in the past.
My contention here today is that Hindus are facing a four dimensional siege and this siege is pernicious, clandestine, deceptive and sophisticated. It requires an enlightened Hindu unity to combat the threats and get the siege lifted. We have to begin by first understanding the content and scope of the four-dimensional siege before we Hindus can unite to battle it.
1. The clandestine defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions Making Hindus to lose their self-esteem by disparaging their tradition, which also had been the strategy of British imperialists for the conquest of India, as Lord Macauley made clear on February 2, 1835 in the British Parliament. “I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which [backbone] is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation”. That basic strategy of those who want to see a weak and pliant India remains. Only the tactics have changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to debunk Hindutva, thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation’s past.
2. Demographic restructuring of Indian society People of India who declare in the Census that they are adherents of religions born on Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 84.21 percent of the total Indian population in 2001. In 1941, the proportion adjusted for Partition was 84.44 percent. This figure hides the fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India, which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh, Hindus were 30 percent in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8 percent. In Pakistan of today, Hindus were 20 percent in 1941, and less than 2 percent in 2001.
Such religious cleansing has not been noticed by anybody. If the figures are adjusted for this migration, then in the five decades 1951-2001, Hindus have lost more 3 percent points in share of Indian population, while Muslims have increased their share by about 3 percent. What is even more significant is that Hindus have lost 12 percent points since 1881, and the loss in share has begun to accelerate since 1971 partly due to illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation. We have to find ways and means to meet this threat. Kerala is a state where the Hindu population declined from 69 percent in 1901 to 56 percent in 2001. Muslims are now 25 percent and Christians 19 percent. But Hindus’ share in agricultural activities has fallen to 24 percent; while for Christians the share has risen to 40 percent. For Muslims it is 33 percent. In commerce and industry too the same proportions obtain, while in foreign employment, Hindus’ share is just 19 percent, Muslims 49.5 percent and Christians 31.5 percent.
In the land fertile districts of Western UP, from Rampur to Saharanpur, Muslims, due to a much higher population growth rate, are now 40 percent of the population. Six of the 14 districts of Assam in the northeast are already Muslim majority, and by 2031, all fourteen will be Muslim majority if present trends of differential population growth rate and illegal migration from Bangladesh continue. In northeast India, minus Assam, 45.5 percent of the population is already Christian. Every one of the seven sisters states has a galloping Christian population. Arunachal, which had zero Christian population in 1971, now has over 7 percent.
These two communities today fiercely safeguard their control of institutions spawned on public money besides receiving funds from abroad. Take for example the educational institutions. ‘Jamia Millia Islamia University’ has been reorganized as a central university with liberal government grants. But 88 percent of the faculty is Muslim. American College, Madurai’s faculty is 66 percent Christian. Its junior faculty is 95 percent Christian. Union Christian College at Aluva, Kerala has 83 percent Christian faculty. There are no exceptions. All institutions run by Muslims and Christians have grossly disproportionate share of their religionists.
Differential application of family planning, non-uniform civil code, illegal migration, and induced religious conversion have together created a serious looming crisis for the Hindu character of the nation. We see what Muslim majority will mean to Hindus when we look at the situation in Kashmir. Even if Muslims are in a majority at the municipality level, they begin to oppress the Hindu minority. We can witness this in Thondi in Ramanathapuram and Rasathipuram in Vellore districts, in Mau and Meerut in U.P., and in the Northeast.
We can learn from witnessing how Muslim majority treats minorities or even women of Muslim faith when we look around the world and study Islamic nations. Muslims believe the world is divided as Dar-ul-Islam, where Muslims are in a majority and are rulers, and Dar-ul-Harb, in which Muslims are in a minority and are entitled by the Koran and Shariat, by hook or crook, to transform these countries to Muslim ruled and/or Muslim majority. At present, India is viewed as Darul Harab, and unless the Hindu majority compels or persuades the Muslim minority to enter into a contract to live in peace, whence India becomes Dar-ul-Ahad, the Muslim population will always play host to fanatics bent upon creating upheaval in India. That is why I am emphasizing that Muslims in India must declare that their origin and ancestors are Hindus, and that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.
Christians too have their view of the world as divided between heathens who have to be ‘saved’ by conversion and followers of Jesus Christ. Now, with the publication of Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ and revelations about Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad. Moreover, patriots concerned with the safeguarding of the Hindu foundation of the nation have to take note that religious entrepreneurs have put conversion to Christian faith on a war footing. In Dallas, Texas, USA, the Global Pastors Network [GPN] held a conference and resolved that over the next fifteen years, the organization will support financially worldwide the construction of five million churches and conversion of one billion persons to Christianity. From India alone, according to the Evangelist Pat Robertson, the target is 100 million persons.
Hence, Hindus are not only under siege, but face a terrible pincer of Islamic fast population growth and illegal migration, in conjunction with Christian money-induced conversion activities. Therefore, Hindus will have to hang together or ultimately be hanged separately. This is no inflamed psychosis. Not long ago, despite being the overwhelming majority, Hindus had to pay discriminatory taxes to the Muslim and Christian emperors who were ruling India. Lack of unity was the reason, and not poverty. In fact, when the onslaught and enslavement took place, India was the richest country in the world. Within 150 years thereafter we were reduced to the poorest in the world. Now, if the demographic restructuring described herein goes on unchecked, then the danger becomes several fold than before.
The Rise of Terrorism Directed at Hindus
If one were to study the terrorism in Kashmir, Manipur, and elsewhere, it is apparent that only Hindus are the target. The driving away of the Hindu population from the Kashmir valley by targeted terrorism of Islamic jihadis is the single biggest human rights atrocity since Nazi Germany pogroms against the Jews. Yet it has hardly received notice in international fora. Why?
Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 30 percent to less than 8 percent of the total population by deliberate targeted ethnic cleansing by Islamic fanatics aided and abetted by their government [see Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India’s State of Jammu & Kashmir: A Survey of Human Rights, June 17, 2005; hinduamericanfoundation.org], and yet there is no outcry. Why? This is because of the lack of Hindu mindset to retaliate against atrocities against Hindus. When in 1949, anti-Hindu riots took place in East Pakistan, Sardar Patel had declared that if the government there could not control it, then India was quite capable of putting it down for them. Soon after, the riots stopped.
Terrorist attacks against India and Hindus in particular are growing because we seem today incapable of retaliating in a manner that deters future attacks. According to the well-known National Counterterrorism Center, a US government body, in its report titled A Chronology of International Terrorism for 2004, states that: “India suffered more significant acts of terrorism than any other country in 2004,” a damning comment. India is suffering, on average, about 25 incidents of terrorism a month. India’s Home Ministry in its 2004-05 Annual report to Parliament acknowledges that 29 of the 35 states and union territories are affected by terrorism. Moreover, all India’s neighbours have become hotbeds for anti-Hindu terrorists training.
Because of a lack of Hindu unity and a mindset for deterrent retaliation, terrorists have become encouraged. In 1989, the Indian government released five dreaded terrorists to get back the kidnapped daughter, Rubaiyya, of the then Home Minister. Kashmir terrorists got a huge boost by this capitulation. When the Indian Airlines plane with 339 passengers was hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan, the government again capitulated and released three of the most dangerous terrorists. Today, these three freed terrorists direct the three most murderous terrorist organizations in Kashmir. And yet there is chorus today to give clemency to the terrorist Mohammed Afzal who masterminded the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001.
Then there is the case of the LTTE, which murdered Rajiv Gandhi. We have made no effort to apprehend the leader of the LTTE who had ordered the assassination. On the contrary, those MPs [of PMK, MDMK, and DMK] who publicly praise that terrorist and hold the assassination as justified have become Union Ministers in a coalition led by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi! During the NDA rule on Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s plea, one of the LTTE conspirators ordered to be hanged by the Supreme Court, viz., Nalini, was given clemency!
Terrorism cannot be fought by appeasement. But that precisely is what the government is doing today. Tragically, innocent Hindus have invariably been the victims of this capitulation. To combat terrorism, there has to be a determination never to negotiate a settlement with terrorists. Citizens of a country have to be educated that there will be hazards when faced with acts of terrorism, but that the goal of the government will always have to be to hunt down the terrorists and fix them. Only under such a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism will the ultimate good emerge.
For example, in the Indian Airlines hijack case, in order not to risk 339 passengers’ lives, the government released Mohammed Azhar from jail. But Azhar went to Pakistan after his release and formed Jaish-e-Mohammed, which has since then killed nearly a thousand innocent Hindus and is still continuing to do so. How has the nation gained by the Kandahar capitulation then? Hence, the Hindu political leadership must treat the fight against terrorism as a dharmayudh, as a fight to the finish, and a religious duty not to negotiate, compromise, or capitulate to terrorists. The government must safeguard the nation by adopting a policy of “hot pursuit” of terrorists by chasing them to their sanctuaries no matter in which country they are located.
The Erosion of Moral Authority of Governance
The well-known organization Transparency International has graded about 140 countries according to the corruption levels from least to most. India appears near the bottom of the list as among the most corrupt. Recently, The Mitrokhin Archives II has been published wherein KGB documents have been relied on to conclude that shamefully, “India was on sale for KGB bribes.” If India is one of the most corrupt countries today and purchasable, it is because the core Hindu values of simplicity, sacrifice, and abstinence have been systematically downgraded over the years. Wealth obtained by any means has become the criteria for social status.
There was a time in India when persons of learning and simplicity enjoyed the moral authority in society to make even kings bow before them. Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi and later Jayaprakash Narayan, without holding office, were exercising the same moral authority over political leaders. In a very short period, that Hindutva value has evaporated. India is fast becoming “a banana republic” in which everything, a person or policy, is available to anyone for a price.
The proposal, now implemented in some states, to have reservation in government employment for Muslims and “Dalit” Christians is one such sell-out. Reservation quotas are strictly for those whom the Hindu society, due to degeneration, had suppressed or had isolated from the mainstream. But those who were ruling classes in our nation, such as Muslims and Christians, and that too for a total of 1000 years, cannot claim this facility. But some political parties, in reckless disregard for equity and history, have sold out for bloc votes the national interest by advocating for such a reservation proposal.
In such a situation, the nation’s independence and sovereignty slides into danger of being subverted and rendered impotent. This has happened before in our history, not when the nation was poor but was the richest country in the world. India then was ahead in science, mathematics, art, and architecture. And yet because the moral fibre weakened, all was lost. We had to struggle hard to recover our freedom. But by the time we did, we had lost all our wealth and dropped to the bottom of the list of countries in poverty.
In this time of creeping darkness in our society, there are still venerated souls who draw crowds of people who come on their own expense to hear such evolved souls and follow them. These are our Dharmacharyas, many of whom are members of the newly formed Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. With the RSS and VHP, this Sabha must, just as Rshi Vishwamitra picked his archers and hunters to put an end to asuras and rakshasas, pick a political instrument to cleanse the body politic of the nation.
This, however, cannot be done without Hindu unity in our democracy, and hence formulating a code of ethics and moral principles is essential for creating a meaningful and purposeful Hindu unity. This code and principles together constitute the fundamentals of Hindutva. The nation looks to this spiritual force today, for guidance in this hour of need. Therefore, my call today is first and foremost for the unity of Hindus, a unity based on a mindset that is nurtured and fostered on the fundamentals of Hindutva. This also requires an action plan to fight and lift the siege [see my Hindus Under Siege—The Way Out, Haranand Publishers 2006, for a detailed elaboration]. Only then Hindus can meet the challenge of Christian missionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. I can do no better here than quote Swami Dayananda Sarasvati:
“Faced with militant missionaries, Hinduism has to show that its plurality and all-encompassing acceptance are not signs of disparateness or disunity. For that, a collective voice is needed.”
Non-Hindus can join this Hindustani unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement of recognizing and accepting that their cultural legacy is Hindu, and revere their Hindu origins, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own. In turn, the Hindu will defend such non-Hindus as they have protected the Parsis and Jews, and take them all as part of the Hindustani parivar. India can be only for those who swear that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.
Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is not going to be easy, we cannot therefore trust those amongst us whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc, or those who feel no kinship to the Hindu past of the nation. We have partitioned a quarter of Hindustan to enable a homeland for those Muslims who could not live with Hindus in a democratic framework of equality and fraternity. Hence only those are true children of Bharatmata today who accept that India is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.
I have tried summarizing the above-stated concept of Hindustan and the fundamentals of Hindutva in the following axioms of Hindu renaissance:
A Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu past and origins, must know the correct history of India. That history records that Hindus have always been, and are one; that caste is not birth-based and nor immutable. India is a continuum, Sanatana. That ancient Hindus and their descendants have always lived in this area from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, an area called ‘Akhand Hindustan’, and did not come from outside; and there is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory. Instead, Hindus went abroad to spread learning and spiritual knowledge.
Hindus believe that all religions equally lead to God, but not that all religions are equal in the richness of their theological content. Respecting all religions, Hindus expect from others that respect is two-way. If Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one’s own religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus too. Thus, by this criterion, secular attitude as defined till date is a one-way obligation for Hindus, and hence Hindus must reject such a concept because of its implied appeasement. At the same time, enlightened Hindus must defend and protect vigorously those non-Hindus who identify with the concept of Hindustan. That is, a nation of Hindus and those who accept that their ancestors are Hindus. A vibrant Bharatvarsh, of course, cannot be home to bigotry and obscurantism since that has never been Hindu tradition or history. But Muslims and Christians shall be part of the Hindustan parivar or family if they accept this truth and revere it.
Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny or to terrorism. Today those in India who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised as anti-Hindus. They cannot be good Hindus merely because they are pious or go regularly to the temple or good Hindustanis just because they are citizens of India.
Hindus must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka, Hindus must seek to carpet-bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today’s so-called self-proclaimed “good” Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshardham Mandir, Ayodhya, and even a former Prime Minister’s [Rajiv Gandhi’s] assassination. On the other hand, those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organization behind them are permitted to be central government Ministers today.
All Hindus, to qualify as true Hindus, must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India’s link language since all the main Indian languages have large percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit already.
These five axioms, if followed, will constitute the virat Hindu unity, a bonding that Hindus need to be in a position to confront the challenge that Hindu civilization is facing from Islamic terrorists and fraud Christian missionaries from abroad, who are also aided and abetted by confused Hindus within the country. Without such a virat Hindu unity and the implied mindset, we will be unable to nullify and root out the subversion and erosion that undermine today the Hindu foundation of India. This foundation is what makes India distinctive in the world, and hence we must safeguard this legacy with all the might and moral fibre that we can muster.
In this, we can get great moral support from Hindus resident abroad because of their sheer commitment to the motherland. Free from economic constraints, aching for an identity, and well educated, I have seen them organize effectively to challenge the attempts to slander Hindu religious symbols and icons. Overseas Hindustanis have contributed during our Freedom Struggle, the Emergency, and in enabling our acharyas to spread the message of the Hindu religion abroad. This has been done without demeaning other religions.
I urge and implore the Acharya Sabha, that since in a democracy the battle is in fighting elections, therefore to resolve to foster a Hindu consciousness that leads to a cohesive, vigorous Hindu unity and mindset, so that the Hindustani voter will cast his ballot only for those candidates in an election who will be loyal to a Hindu Agenda drawn up by the Dharmacharyas. The Tirupati Declaration of July 2006 adopted by the acharyas must be electorally translated.
Dr. Subramanian Swamy
About the author:

J & K’s Relevance to Hindu Renaissance & ‘Secularism’ Politics in India (Part II)

HR Editor

August 10, 2004

Continued from the previous issue…
The question of Jammu and Kashmir’s status must be extricated from the religious-political mindset and restored to its rightful place – in facts of history:
First, the Jammu and Kashmir imbroglio must be correctly answered in terms of the legality, completeness and irrevocability of the accession of J&K to India.
Second, it must be understood that the accession of J&K to India has been fully and firmly ratified by the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, enshrined now in the very Constitution of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Third, a clear vision for the development of Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of the Republic of India must be developed. (Key elements of these three critical factors will be discussed in the present series of articles).
Thus, it is in the backdrop of the ‘secular’ Constitution of India that Jammu and Kashmir’s status and development as an integral part of India must be addressed. Toward this objective, it is necessary to –
Ø Meticulously free the path towards Consolidation of Integration First of Jammu and Kashmir in India (CIFJKINDIA) from religious and political nuances. (Like it is with other states in India, the people of Jammu and Kashmir may practice different faiths. Also, its State Government must be periodically elected.)
Ø Address Article 370 of the Constitution of India, which has been and remains a stumbling block for the Consolidation of Integration of J&K in India. [A State in the Indian Union can be governed only in accordance with the country’s constitution; amendments to the constitution can of course be made in accordance to constitutional provisions. Article 370 must be addressed to bring on par J&K’s statehood with that of other states. Each state may have its own laws appropriate to the region, but wild variations in State-Centre relationships are not desirable. Article 370 contravenes this requirement violently, and must therefore be dealt with.]
Ø To discuss the Consolidation of Integration of ‘Pakistan occupied’ and ‘China occupied’ parts of J&K (PoJK and CoJK) in Jammu and Kashmir, and of J&K in India. [Given the ground reality in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, this is a compelling goal, for the security and integrity of India, and also to enable the people of the region to reclaim their human rights – right to peace and prosperity].
The Jammu and Kashmir discomfiture is predominantly due to lack of awareness about exhaustive facts pertaining to the following questions:
(i) Was the Accession of J&K to India ‘just’?
(ii) Did the UN Resolutions indict India, and what is their relevance today?
(iii) What about the ‘Wishes of the People’?
Pakistan harps on these questions by its misinformation campaign, only in order to divert attention from the real ‘most critical’ factors, which are:
A.) Supreme National Will
To resolve the issue for the best advantage of the people, specially of those who belong to the State of J&K, inclusive of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs etc., and including those who live in the Gilgit-Baltistan region.
B.) Abrogation of Article 370
This is the ‘root’ cause that has maintained a different status for J&K. It prevents many Indian laws to operate in J&K, thereby creating an atmosphere conducive to breed secessionism and terrorism.
C.) Demographic Rationalization and Prospective Reconfiguration
Trifurcation, Quadrification, creation of Panun-Kashmir etc. of J&K.
Diversionary tactics employed by Pakistan sidetracks India’s contemplation on these factors. Worse, political interests in India have overtaken national priorities. What has allowed this to happen is a lack of national will. A disastrous offshoot of this is the continuation of the anomalous ‘Temporary’ Article 370 to contaminate the country’s Constitution for over fifty years! Finally, confusion about constitutional provisions (or lack of them) under Article 370 for reconfiguration of Jammu and Kashmir, and a multitude of proposals inconsistent with each other, further aggravate difficulties.
In the present series of articles, the diversionary factors invented by Pakistan’s misinformation campaign (of which the Indian media has become an unsuspecting ally) will be dealt with, and the above-mentioned three critical factors will be expanded upon. However, before that, the relevance of the Jammu and Kashmir imbroglio to Hindu renaissance must be demonstrated.
The discussion can be carried out essentially within the framework of ‘secularism’, but this requires a clear understanding of ‘Dharma’ and ‘Religion’.
‘Religion’ and ‘Dharma’ are not synonyms; in fact they are antonyms! Common understanding is that ‘Religion’ imposes adherence to a particular tradition, faith in a particular God, adoption of a particular path to ‘moksha’, ‘nirvana’, ‘and salvation’. In sharp contrast to this, ‘Dharma’ has been defined differently by Krishna himself (Mahabharata, Karna Parva 69.59):
The word ‘dharma’ stems from the root ‘dhru’ which means ‘to hold’ and it is by ‘dharma’ that the society (social order, civilization) is held together.
Thus it is in essence true that ‘dharma’ is that system which holds the social order.

Imposition of any one religion threatens peace, produces war. Pursuit of ‘Dharma’ does just the opposite: it produces a scheme that would hold different, plural, conflicting perspectives to be embraced together in constructive, synthetic harmony, since ‘Dharma’ is what holds the social order together.
The meaning of the terms ‘Dharma’, ‘Religion’ and ‘Secularism’ must certainly be clarified to prevent their political abuse. A Hindu, Christian and a Muslim may practice different religions, but their common ‘Dharma’ toward sustenance of the social fabric they belong to in India must be the same.
Reforms in the practice of each religion may be needed, and must be carried out based on the above broad based definition of Dharma.

‘Dharma’ concerns itself with an evolutionary sense of righteousness; ‘Religion’ (any religion) is dictated by theology and sacred books in whose terms alone – however anachronistic and obsolete – can a code of conduct be framed. Rigid adherence to ‘Religion’ has been, and will remain, the root cause of conflicts, bloodshed and wars. Hindu Renaissance would be unsuccessful unless it clearly defines the opposite elements in ‘Dharma’ and ‘Religion’.

Operational definitions:
The definitions – ‘Dharma’ as ‘that system which holds the social order’; and ‘Religion’ as ‘a system of personal faith’ – would allow each to practice his personal religion and worship his own God. However, in each aspect of social behaviour, a common discipline must be observed by every citizen of the society (such as following the same ‘traffic rules’). Sensitive terms like ‘Religion’, ‘Dharma’ and ‘Secularism’ must be properly defined within the Constitution so that Government cannot interfere with personal freedom.
The very ambiguity in the meanings of these terms would otherwise permit the majority to run over the minority, or impose the tyranny of the minority on the majority via the politics of appeasement.

The Constitution of India must provide for equal opportunity and justice to each citizen irrespective of sex and ancestry. It must guarantee that each citizen has the right to his personal faith. The Constitution must however require that every citizen adhere to a societal system of norms that would hold peoples of diverse religions in a harmonious framework.
None would then feel threatened by the other’s religion, and each person would trust every other.

Indian Muslims on ‘Article 370’, and on ‘Jammu & Kashmir’:
‘Article 370’ applies to the State of Jammu and Kashmir alone but impacts the integrity and security of the entire country. Article 370 has allowed secessionism and terrorism to grow in Jammu and Kashmir, affecting Hindus and Muslims both. Article 370 has prevented the consolidation of integration of Jammu and Kashmir in India. It has nothing to do with Allah or with Rama.

Article 370 offers absolutely nothing to a Muslim in Hyderabad or Kolkata, but clubbing it with the ‘Ram temple’ has united Muslim voters in both Hyderabad and Kolkata against its abrogation, and only because they may be united in their stand on ‘Rama temple’. This is tragic, for otherwise the stand taken by Indian Muslims on Jammu and Kashmir is no different from that of Hindus.

Indian Muslims’ stand on Jammu and Kashmir:
(a) Not a single Indian Muslim leader of any consequence has ever supported the secessionist activity in Kashmir. Militant outfits in J&K hold this against the Indian Muslim community. Indian Muslims in the Valley were not spared by the militants. Most were compelled to leave the Valley. Some were killed including the VC of Kashmir University, Prof. Mushirul Haq, a brilliant son of the Indian Muslim community. Indian Muslims, by and large, have shown no support whatsoever to the secessionist movement in Kashmir, and have openly opposed it time and again.

(b) The National Convention of Indian Muslims on J&K, held in Delhi on 21st September 2003, adopted the following consensus statement [9,10]:
“… we, the Indian Muslims, regard the people of Jammu and Kashmir as an inseparable and valuable component of the larger Indian Community…. the destiny of Jammu and Kashmir is indivisible from that of India. … We note with satisfaction that an increasing section of the Kashmiri intelligentsia rejects the option of independence in view of the geo-political situation of the territory and the emergent threat to the sovereignty of small States… We totally reject the ill-conceived presentation of terrorism, which destroys innocent lives, as ‘jihad’. We condemn the infiltration of terrorists across the LoC and the support it gets from the various agencies in Pakistan.”

(c) A characteristic viewpoint expressed by a Kashmiri Muslim is worth noting:
“It is well known that Pakistan has no love for Kashmiris as their so called co-religionists… Kashmir is no pocket borough of Pakistan and Kashmiris no pawns on Pakistan’s political chessboard. They are a proud, ancient and most cultured community in the sub-continent; be they Hindus or Muslims. It has been the shortsightedness on the part of our leadership that we did not wrest PoK from Pakistan soon after that country invaded the valley in 1947. Muslims in India are Abdul Hamids, Brig Usmans, Idris Latifs or Abdul Kalams or my father-in-law, a Second World War veteran, a freedom fighter and a pious Muslim who was assassinated in cold blood by an ISI-hired Afghan mercenary in July 1992 while offering afternoon prayers. Indian Muslims and Kashmiris in particular do not require to be authenticated by Pakistan. It is therefore, time that the present leadership in Pakistan woke up to the realities and considered accommodation instead of confrontation.”

VIII. Pressing Questions!
It is sometimes argued that Muslims can never co-exist with any other community as they are stuck with the finality of the distinction between a ‘believer’ and a ‘non-believer’. Reforms sought by some Islamic scholars are however underway. Pessimism on such reforms amongst Hindus is on account of historical events.
Gandhi’s support to the Khilafat movement is often cited as the basis for this pessimism. However, should Hindus neglect prospective reforms amongst Muslim scholars? By such indifference, would they not catalyse the amalgamation of Indian Muslims against the Hindus?

The biggest question is: can the Hindus then still expect the Muslim-majority State of Jammu and Kashmir to be retained as an integral part of India? Why should Hindus always suspect that reforms amongst Muslims were not effective in the past, and hence cannot take place in the future? Aren’t reforms in the twenty-first century world of mass communication more promising than ever before?
Why must they fail when some Islamic scholars are themselves openly advocating them? Can such reforms be encouraged if they are treated with contempt and suspicion? As an alternative, can one wish away one out of every five Indians across the country?

Hindu renaissance must seek its destiny on the principles of ‘Dharma’ and ‘Secularism’, undeterred by the confusion about the former and misuse of the latter. An important and involved element in this exercise will be to extricate the Jammu and Kashmir issue out of its muddle and consolidate the integration of the State in India.

Many view Jammu & Kashmir as an ambiguous residue of an incomplete partition of the pre-1947 British India, precipitated by a Hindu Maharaja against the wishes of his Muslim citizens. This misconstruction has triggered religious and/or political nuances engineered by Pakistan’s muck propaganda, generating doubt in the unsuspecting Indian mind.
The Indian media and intelligentsia have remained only passive, letting politics overtake national priorities. This has left the gates open for jihadi assault into India through Kashmir. India must combat this effectively, and this is possible only if Indians squarely examine the records of history and dissociate the issue from all religious and political ramifications.

These issues will be addressed in the forthcoming articles in this series.

[The author is the Coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Project, Bharat Awareness Forum, Atlanta, USA and Convener, CIFJKINDIA (http://www.cifjkindia.org )]

References:
Arvind Lavakare, “The definition of ‘secular’”, See http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/14arvind.htm
Non-Muslims and the Sharia, Islam and Democracy. See http://www.ntpi.org/html/nonmuslims.html
Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Exorcising Terror – American Style.” See http://www.ntpi.org/html/exorcisingterror.html
See http://www.subcontinent.com/sapra/terrorism/terrorism20001227a.html
B. Raman, “Pakistan-Sponsored Terrorism In J & K,” South Asia Analysis Group. See http://saag.org/papers2/paper192.htm
Mrs. Hamida Maqbool Shah, “Leave India Alone: Pakistan And Terrorism In Kashmir,” The Truth About Kashmir, See http://www.armyinkashmir.org/articles/lindia.html
The Korea Herald. http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/11/07/200311070034.asp
The Indian Express, http://www.indiaexpress.com/news/regional/delhi/20030921-3.html
The Hindustan Times, http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_486790,0008.htm

Forthcoming Articles of the present series:
THR-JK3: “Jammu and Kashmir’s Accession to India: Legal, Complete, and Irrevocable”
THR-JK4: “UN Resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir: Plebiscite and Will of the People”
THR-JK5: “Root Cause and its solution: Article 370 of the Constitution of India”
THR-JK6: “The Consolidation of Integration of PoJK and CoJK in J&K, and of J&K in India”
THR-JK7: “Kashmir – 6th Century BC to 3rd Century AD – The Persian encounter (531 BC – 322 BC), The Mouryas (320 BC – 180 BC ), The Greeks (160 BC), The Kushans (ad 15 – 225), the Nagas (3rd century)”
THR-JK8: “Major Events in Jammu and Kashmir – 3rd Century AD to 7th Century AD: India under the Guptas (240 – 600), The Hun assault (467), and Samrat Harshavardhan (606 – 647)”
THR-JK9: “Rulers of Kashmir – 7th Century AD to 16th Century AD: The Karkotas (600 – 855), The Utpalas (855 – 1003), and the Loharas (1003 – 1320), The first Muslim rulers of Kashmir (1339 – 1586)”
THR-JK10: “Kashmir under the Mughuls (1586 – 1751), Afghans (1751 – 1819), Sikhs (1819 – 1839) and under the Dogras (1846 – Oct. 26th, 1947)”
THR-JK11: “The Kashmiri Hindus – their plights and rights”
THR-JK12: “Resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir problem toward global fight against terrorism”
THR-JK13: “Geopolitical context of Chinese occupation of Jammu and Kashmir (Ladakh)”
THR-JK14: “Development of fully integrated Jammu and Kashmir: jewel in Bharat-Mata’s crown”

– Pranawa C. Deshmukh

America’s Inhuman Rights Record

Arvind Lavakare

May 24, 2004

After the recent revelation of the horrors and humiliation inflicted by US soldiers on Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the American nation has lost whatever pretension it may have had for presenting to the world its state department’s annual human rights report that includes everyone else but the US.

And if the US, the arrogant nation that it is, persists in compiling that report, every thinking media outlet must henceforth dump it into the waste paper basket.

The fact of the matter is that the Abu Ghraib episode is not the first of the miserable US track record on human rights. Below is a chronological summary of that record:

The US constitution, ratified in June 1788, had no solace whatsoever for the Blacks. Although African slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619 as indentured servants who could earn their freedom, by the 1660s Africans were being brought to America in shackles for a lifetime of involuntary servitude. The ten constitutional amendments proposed in December 1791 and collectively called the Bill of Rights also showed no concern for Blacks and Black slaves. The much-lauded Bill of Rights was supposedly meant to ensure the fundamental freedoms and rights of the citizens of the US. Indeed, even 30 years after the advent of the Bill of Rights, the Union was admitting states that openly permitted slavery, and where a planter in the South meant that he was the owner of at least 20 slaves. Thus, in 1819, half of the 26 states in the Union were slave states. It was only after the ratification of the 15th amendment in December 1865 that slavery was constitutionally abolished—77 years after the constitution came into being.

Martin Luther King – Champion of the Blacks: Assassinated for demanding equal rights

Since the early 1600s, lands that belonged to the native Indian settlers were relentlessly taken away from them by European settlers and then by those who were called Americans. This was effected through outright purchase or through the superiority of cannon and cavalry over bows and arrows. By a law in 1887, 54 million acres of land were redistributed to the Northern American tribes like the Cherokee, but the land use rights remained with the government, with the money raised from the land being put in a trust for redistribution to the individual landowners. It now transpires that the natives filed a lawsuit in 1996 claiming that they are collectively owed $80 billion for farming, timber, and oil rights. The strength of this claim? The remark of the US district judge, Royce Lamberth, describing the case as “the golden standard for mismanagement by the federal government for more than a century.”

On May 8, 1945, all that remained of Germany’s Third Reich surrendered to the Allied forces of World War II, and Japan was on its knees. Yet, US President Harry S Truman ordered the use of its atom bomb if Japan did not surrender within a week ending August 3, 1945. On August 6, accordingly, Hiroshima was bombed; two days later, it was Nagasaki’s turn to suffer the holocaust. Though three years of intensive research in laboratories across the US and a test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16 had been done, the scientists, the military, and the politicians of the US had not cared to assess the awesome destructiveness of the atom bomb. And those Americans, remember, are the ancestors of those of today who write the annual human rights report on the world.

More than one million Black soldiers fought for the US in World War II, but those who came from the South could not vote. Blacks who registered faced the likelihood of beatings, loss of job, loss of credit, and eviction from the land. Lynchings continued to occur even a year after the war, and there were laws in place that enforced segregation of the races in streetcars, trains, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, recreational facilities, and employment. Ironically, the first documentary use of the expression “human rights” is to be found in the United Nations Charter adopted at San Francisco on June 25, 1945 and promptly ratified by the US Senate by a vote of 89 to 2.

After World War II, the US government became so paranoid over rooting out Communism within the country that the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated the motion-picture industry to see whether Communist sentiments were being reflected in popular films. When some writers refused to testify, they were cited for contempt and sent to prison. The most militant anti-Communist was Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican. With the help of press and television coverage, he indulged in savage attacks on suspected Communists and didn’t hesitate to offer scapegoats to heighten fears aroused by the Truman administration’s own anti-Communist effort.

McCarthy has many followers in India amongst the left-liberal intelligentsia and media who intimidate Hindus with secular terrorism as their weapon.

Segregation of Black and White students in schools continued till 1954 when the Supreme Court debarred the practice. Till 1956, segregation in buses of Black and White continued till another Supreme Court verdict prohibited it. Till 1957, the US Constitution did not guarantee the right to vote, and it was only the Civil Rights Act of that year which authorised federal intervention in cases where Blacks were denied the chance to vote. Yet loopholes remained, warranting the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which provided stiffer penalties for interfering with voting but still stopped short of authorising federal officials to register Blacks.

It was only in 1964 that the landmark Civil Rights Bill was enacted, outlawing discrimination in all accommodations. It was as late as 1965 that the Voting Rights Act came, authorising the federal government to appoint examiners to register voters where local officials made Black registration impossible. And in 1968, Congress passed legislation banning discrimination in housing. By contrast, each and every Indian citizen of 21 years and more was, irrespective of caste, creed, community, colour, education, and income, entitled to vote in every state and national election held from 1952—two years after the commencement of the Indian Constitution—to 1968.

The anti-Communist zeal led in 1964 to the prolonged war in Vietnam that cost 58,000 American lives, and the needless invasion of Cambodia in 1970. In both instances, there were revelations of American units engaging in atrocities.

The Watergate scandal of 1972 showed that a President of the US could violate human rights to the extent of tapping his rival party’s crucial deliberations in a hotel.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution was passed by Congress in 1972, barring denial of a right on account of sex. Even after several years, ratification from the necessary number of states was not obtained. Women secured the right to abortion only by a Supreme Court verdict of 1973—the right, though, was restricted to early months of pregnancy.

Space constraints demand a jump to 9/11 and the bombing of Afghanistan with its big collateral damage. Within two months of that historic date came the US Patriot Act, which allowed the police at any time, and for any reason, to enter and search any resident’s house, files, and bank accounts without even notifying them. According to legal experts, the new law effectively nullified at least six amendments of the Bill of Rights addendum to the US Constitution. As a result, America became a police state, pure and simple. And President Bush wants to extend the life of that law.

9/11 also meant the ghastly scenario at Guantanamo Bay, near Cuba. Imagine 680 inmates held there in solitary confinement for more than 24 months. No lawyer was allowed to represent an imprisoned suspect at trial unless the lawyer was a US citizen vetted and approved by the US Defense Department; imagine the construction of an execution chamber at the site. It’s been a new low in human rights—even for the USA.

No presiding Uncle Sam has described any of the above as “a national shame”—not even after Abu Ghraib.

There’s no need at all for its state department to give lessons on democracy and social justice to Free India, which has had a pluralist, liberal, and humane constitutional mechanism (barring the aberration of the 1975 Emergency) that is unmatched in the rest of the world.

We have our failings, yes, but we don’t need sermons from those who have the blood of slaves on their hands.

— Arvind Lavakare

The Hoax of Human Rights

Sita Ram Goel

May 22, 2004

(In the demise of Shri Sita Ram Goel, Hindu society lost a bold and towering figure whose collaboration with Shri Ram Swarup gave birth to a stimulating era of debate and introspection on many socio-religious and political problems plaguing the Hindu community. In memory of these two distinguished personalities, we begin a new column with this issue titled “The Voice of India Column” devoted exclusively to selected extracts from some of the important works of these pioneers published under the banner of “Voice of India”, New Delhi. Our sincere thanks to Shri Pradeep Goel for making this possible.)

The next encounter between Hinduism and Christianity took place in the Constituent Assembly, which started framing independent India’s Constitution in 1947 and completed the work by the end of 1949. The dialogue centred around what the Christian participants proclaimed as their fundamental human right, namely, to propagate their religion.

The Christians were quite clear in their mind as well as pronouncements that the “right to propagate” religion entitled them to: 1) receive massive financial help from foreign sources; 2) maintain and multiply churches and missions; 3) train and mobilize an ever-expanding army of missionaries, native and foreign; 4) enlarge the mission infrastructure of seminaries, social service institutions, and mass media; and 5) convert an increasing number of Hindus to Christianity by every means, including fraud and material inducements. They had been holding meetings and passing resolutions on all these points even before the Constituent Assembly was mentioned in the negotiations between the Congress leaders and the British Cabinet Mission.

The Hindu participants, on the other hand, did not grasp the full meaning of the “right to propagate religion.” They did understand that the word “propagate” was only a substitute for the word “convert,” and tried to hedge in the provision with various restrictions. But they did not realize or think it important that “propagation of religion” had employed, and would employ, a formidable organisational weapon forged almost entirely with the help of foreign money and controlled completely by foreign establishments, including intelligence networks. Therefore, the points they raised in the course of the dialogue did not go to the heart of the matter.

What helped the Christian lobbyists a good deal was the talk about fundamental human rights, which filled the atmosphere at the time the Constitution was being framed. The San Francisco Conference had completed the framework of a United Nations Charter. A declaration of fundamental human rights was being proposed and discussed. The Christian missions were backed by powerful people and establishments in the West. They, therefore, exercised considerable influence in the United Nations and were able to ensure that this declaration included their right to wield organisational weapons in the countries of Asia and Africa for the conversion of non-Christians. The politicians who mattered in India were either unaware of the Christian game or did not understand the implications of the “fundamental right to propagate religion.” They yielded easily when the Christian lobby pressed for inclusion of the word “propagate” in the clause, which in its earlier version had allowed only freedom to profess and practise religion.

The controllers of Christian missions in Europe and America had foreseen quite early in the course of the Second World War that the enslaved countries of Asia and Africa were heading towards freedom. The future of Christian missions in these countries was fraught with danger. The missions were an integral part of Western imperialism. Leading native freedom fighters did not look at them with favour. It was, therefore, felt that the future of these missions had to be rethought and replanned. They had to be presented in a new perspective in the post-war world.

In the past, propagation of Christianity and conversion of heathens with the help of organisational weapons, forged and financed by the West, had been propped up as a “divinely ordained” privilege. That was not going to work in the new world order which was emerging fast. Propagation of Christianity was, therefore, to be presented as a fundamental human right. Christian missions were to become champions of religious liberty and minority rights. As early as 1941, church organisations in Britain and the USA had set up Commissions for projecting a post-war world order from the Christian point of view. The Commissions “foresaw” great opportunities for “world evangelization” in the “just and durable peace” that was to be ensured in the wake of victory over the Axis Powers. More important, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and the Foreign Missions Conference of North America had set up a joint Committee on Religious Liberty with which the International Missionary Council was cooperating unofficially. The Committee completed its work at the end of 1944, and its findings were presented to the world at large in a 604-page book published by the International Missionary Council from New York in January 1945.

Coming to India under British rule, the book said, “The major difficulty is in lack of social liberty, rather than in deficiency of civil liberty legally formulated. It is extremely hard for members of most Indian groups to transfer their allegiance to Christianity or to any religion unless it be to the majority group of Hindus—or in some area, of Moslems—among whom they dwell. Persecutions and disabilities are severe, especially in regard to employment and the use of land. They rest upon the fact that transfer of religious allegiance brings a loss of entire status in society, including family position, economic relationship in village or caste guild and opportunities of marriage in the natural grouping. Not only do these hindrances tend seriously to limit accession to Christianity, even from the ‘depressed classes’ who have little to lose and everything to gain, but they also serve to cut off Christians as a distinct body of persons largely dependent upon their own meagre group for economic and social opportunity.”

The problem faced by Christian missions in some princely states of India was also noted. “Restrictions in certain Native States,” it was pointed out, “are ominous, since they suggest what the full combination of political rule with religious community interest may hold for wide portions of India in the future. Despite considerable British persuasion and influence to the contrary, certain Indian states prohibit the preaching of Christianity and the entry of missionaries within their borders. Some states forbid the erection of church buildings, some prohibit schools, and one is tolerant of a single denomination. Patna recently put severe difficulties in the way of change from Hinduism to any other faith, using the piquant title ‘Freedom of Religion Act.’”

Looking to the future, the book stated, “Rule by Indians is already well along in transition and is certain to be consummated, whether by gradual or by revolutionary change from the present mixed system in which British authority has long fostered the concept and the practice of self-government… The Congress Party has committed itself to religious freedom and the protection of minorities. But the restraints of British neutrality and British protection of minorities are irksome to the strenuous elements, and they may be swept away in the name of ‘Indian unity’ or even of ‘Hinduism restored’. All that has been associated in fact or in the emotions of Indians, with foreign rule and its cultural connotations will be a target for attack.

Finally, it came to the main culprit—Hinduism. “It is necessary,” it said, “to consider further the basic nature of Hinduism, the system which controls the lives of a multitude half as numerous as all the peoples of Europe. It is a totalitarian social and economic and cultural complex knit together with powerful religious sanctions. Every act of life, from birth till death, is directed by it. Race, caste, guild or occupational grouping, tribe or clan, family, gods, temple and pilgrimage, literature and legend, folklore and local superstitions, ethical and social prescriptions, community in all senses of the term: they are one pervasive, controlling force—Hinduism. How can one renounce it? If not impossible, the thought is unnatural, impious. Withdrawal is an outlawing of self from all established institutions and from normal human fellowship. Such is the background for the Hindu view of conversion.”

The World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council exhorted church organisations all over the world to “intercede” for the success of the San Francisco Conference. The National Christian Council of India received a cable from New York stating that the American churches were planning special intercession on April 22 for the success of the San Francisco Conference and suggesting like action in “your constituency.” The National Christian Council Review commented, “Momentous issues will face the delegates of the San Francisco Conference of the United Nations as they assemble on April 25… A supreme responsibility rests at this time on the Universal Church.”

What this “intercession” meant became clear when the U.S. monthly, Christianity and Crisis, published in its June issue a report about Christian influence at San Francisco. “The concern,” it said, “which Church leaders have shown during the past decade for the development of a law-governed world has borne fruit… The State Department included in its group of advisers or consultants, representatives of certain Church organisations, Federal Council, Church Peace Union, Catholic Welfare, and others. These representatives had worked consistently and steadily to back the American delegates in giving what Mr. Dulles has called a ‘soul’ to the Charter. They had backed the recommendations for a commission on Human Rights and had urged the recognition of such in preamble and definition of the Assembly’s work.”

18 May – Churches’ concern over the situation in Iraq and the Israel/Palestine conflict, the role of religion in conflict, and working relations between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the United Nations Organization were the focus of a first meeting between the UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia. Annan welcomed Kobia’s initiative to invite the Council’s member churches to mark the International Day of Peace with prayer services.

It seems, however, that lobbying for “religious liberty” through government delegations was not enough. Pressure from outside had to be maintained. It was with this aim that the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council set up a Commission on International Affairs, which held its first meeting in Cambridge, England, in August 1946. One of its aims was to make sure that “the Church should and will play an important part in promoting the work of the United Nations.” According to a spokesman of the Church, “It is imperative that Christians develop an intelligent understanding of what the United Nations Organisation is, what its duties are, and the manner in which these duties are to be discharged.” He added, “The American Church helped influence the shaping of the Charter. Upon invitation of the Department of State, they had their consultants at San Francisco Conference. Plans are now being perfected whereby Churches may have ‘observers’ present at the public meetings of the major organs of the United Nations, including the General Assembly.

Rest is history. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in October 1948 included Article 18, which read: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion: this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” The renewed assaults to be mounted by Christian missions in post-war Asia and Africa had been camouflaged in clever language.

Extracted from Sita Ram Goel’s History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (AD 304 to 1996), Voice of India, New Delhi.

An Evening with the Hindu Human Rights Group – UK

Prabhu Rajagopal

May 7, 2004

‘Human Rights’ has always been a useful stick to browbeat opponents in the global political arena. How honest and balanced are the self-proclaimed human rights ‘watchdogs’? Organizations like Amnesty International give wide coverage to rights violations of many ethnic groups and communities but maintain a strange silence when it comes to Hindus. Whether it be the deliberate killings of Hindus in Kashmir or the planned depredations in Bangladesh or the subtle discrimination and manipulations in countries like Malaysia or Fiji, these organizations at best present a muted response.

Therefore, thinking Hindus have developed a sort of cynicism and general distrust towards them. Recently, when many well-known news portals across the world quoted “the Hindu Human Rights group, based in the UK,” I was pleasantly surprised. BBC even offered a link to the ‘Hindu Human Rights’ website (http://www.hinduhumanrights.org). A quick look at it tugged at my heart – after years of anguish, is global Hindu Renaissance heralding a new beginning here too? I thought I should meet them up.

On a quiet English Sunday, I arrived at one of their meeting places at London. I was welcomed in. There was quiet activity, some members discussing seriously, while others pored over books. Some were planning to leave but stayed back to speak to me. A hush set in as I introduced myself, with some apprehension, perhaps shared by many Hindus towards English language journalists today. But as the meeting progressed, our conversation shifted to a smooth track.

What follows is the gist of the interview with Anil, Nitin, Raju, and Sheila – founding members of the Hindu Human Rights group (HHR), UK. Sheila Maharaj is HHR’s spokesperson.

Sheila Maharaj, spokesperson of HHR

Prabhu Rajagopal: Can you tell us something about the origins of your group?

HHR-UK: (after a short pause) It was a long process. Growing up in mixed communities in London made many of us acutely aware of and question our identity. Over the years, we were painfully exposed to the numerous problems facing Hindus. So many times, it was frustrating for us, as Hindus, to see why we alone put up such a spineless response to the different challenges and provocations. But deep within, we knew, that in spite of all this apparent weakness, Hinduism could not be all that shallow.

That this great religion survives today and still provides anchor to millions worldwide, when all its contemporaries have been confined to museums, and is as vibrant as it was over millennia, would not be possible without an underlying strength. The wonderful magazine Hinduism Today affirmed what we felt. Books by brilliant authors like David Frawley and Sita Ram Goel stirred us. There was this great churning going on and some of us decided that we had had enough of complaining; that it was time to act, to do something, to put into practise what Sri Krishna taught, that ‘we had to go for it now.’

PR: When was this and how did you all meet?

HHR-UK: Things began roughly in around 2001… (with a ring of deep sincerity) When the mind and heart are true to what you want, people turn out. That’s how we all met.

PR: Why this unconventional name?

HHR-UK: All around the world, there are pressure groups lobbying for the rights of particular communities. They have people in the media, academia and the political parties. So much so that some of them even get away with blatant acts and plain blackmail and still, there are people who want to cuddle up to them and ‘respect their sensibilities.’ In this atmosphere, Hindus seem like orphans. Their rights ‘don’t concern nobody’ and they die most often unsung and unwept. No groups, no lobbies represent them effectively, leave alone speak for them. Aren’t Hindus human beings? Also, are they not entitled to Human Rights? That question brought us to this title. But actually titles are nothing, we are essentially a group of concerned people and ‘Hindu Human Rights’ is one of our activities.

PR: Please tell us about some of your activities

HHR-UK: Our activities are mainly aimed at promoting a better understanding of Hinduism and Hindu issues especially rights abuses and circumstances leading to them, both among Hindus and the world at large. We have so far sought to do this through different activities, like promoting awareness through incisive books, organizing talks open to the general public and also at Universities, setting up channels for spreading of ideas like websites etc.

We take efforts to present an unbiased perspective of Hinduism and reach out to similarly marginalized groups like the neo-pagans in Europe and the natives in Africa and America. We have also, till date, organized a number of protests, like the ones against Taliban in July 2001 (at 10 Downing Street); against biased articles during the post-Godhra period in The Independent newspaper; and against the abuse of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh in the aftermath of elections there, in 2003. Recently, we launched a petition against the casting in Shakti, one of Ismail Merchant’s forthcoming films, given that Hindus revere Shakti and considering the lead star’s image. This gained wide coverage in about a dozen newspapers and news portals around the globe, including the Washington Post and the BBC; we were interviewed on BBC Radio 4 in this regard. We believe such coverage is helpful because at least people would awaken to the fact that Hindus do have views on different issues and that the world cannot just continue taking them for granted without any consultation or dialogue.

PR: What in your opinion are the challenges before the Hindus today in the UK?

HHR-UK: There are both internal and external challenges. One important external issue is the need for Hindus to be classified as Hindus and not in such confusing terms as ‘Asians’. You know that a few years ago there were race riots in the North of UK. What many do not know however is that Hindus were attacked as much as the whites; but the local newspapers ran campaigns for freeing those very ‘Asians’ who’d butchered Hindus.

Then there is the problem of periodic attacks on Hindu temples, dating from the Ayodhya days. Added to this is the portrayal of Hinduism in the print and electronic media, which creates an intellectual atmosphere for the abuse of Hindus – ‘they deserve it’ kind of attitude. Unsympathetic, disparaging and outlandish comments often bordering on mockery are made upon Hindu Gods and Goddesses and Hindu rituals.

There is also a disturbing trend in so many popular soap operas, which show Hindu families as dysfunctional and Hindu women as being loose. This makes us suspect if there is an attempt to influence Hindus in a certain way, because, in reality, Hindus in the UK have been known to have the strongest family values. And then we have the problem of missionary propaganda and conversion of Hindus to other faiths. Hindus can be easy prey because they do not often know much of their own tradition and all that they see and hear only adds to negativity regarding Hinduism. Internally, a serious problem is the unreasonable dominance of regional and sectarian bodies over religious and social life of Hindus. The consequent lack of cohesion aggravates all the problems and hinders any collective response.

PR: What do you think is the cause for this media bias?

HHR-UK: This bias in world media occurs because the English language journalists and media in India itself are so prejudiced towards Hinduism. When we protest to The Guardian or The Independent or BBC about biased reports, they taunt us that they’ve got the stories from “Hindu columnists from India.”

PR: A quick aside – I’m curious to know how, as second generation Hindus in the UK, you connect to India.

HHR-UK: Yes, we feel connected to India, we feel connected emotionally and spiritually; India is our Holy Land. India is the spiritual mother ship of Hindus everywhere in the world. But, we are sometimes disgusted with the Indian State. All the sham that happens in the name of secularism and crass politics upsets us. We feel connected because of our Hindu identity.

PR: Returning back, why do you think there is no representation from genuine Hindus against this bias?

HHR-UK: This, we believe, is because Hindus are the most uneducated about Hinduism and regarding issues facing them. Ninety percent of Hindus don’t quite understand Hinduism well. Many of them are the most brainwashed – anyone pro-Hindu is perceived to be a fundamentalist and a fascist (with some amusement, whatever those words might mean!). And Hindus seem to have a taboo against going into anything that won’t benefit them immediately. This is why either non-Hindus or Hindu namesakes fill the academic chairs on Hinduism and related studies in so many universities. The same is true with the mass media too.

PR: Is there something coming, do you see a change in this direction? Are there more groups like yours in the UK or in the world?

HHR-UK: At the moment, there are few other groups like ours. The Global Human Rights Defence Group formed recently in Holland is in our opinion, a laudable venture. The consciousness has arisen, but nobody has given a comprehensive vision yet.

PR: Are you optimistic about the future? What vision do you propose?

HHR-UK: Indeed the future is bright. We need to be and ought to be positive. Hinduism is a global religion and Hindus just need to understand that today they are spread over the entire world; Hinduism is not just a ‘way of life’ but ‘THE Natural Way of Life’. There is something fundamentally wrong with the modern world, so much of strife and chaos and so much running after nobody knows where. Therefore the big vision before Hindus is to expand – on one hand, take to their religion more strongly than ever before and on the other, play a part in making the world a better place.

So much has been spoken about Hindu Gods and Goddesses and our myriad philosophies. But there is something more intrinsic to Hindus, which has never been given coverage – family values, morality, emphasis on a balanced life and respect for nature. These are actually the practical manifestations of Hindu ideas. Today societal chaos stares the world, and we may be on the brink of an ecological disaster. Hindu ideas can go a long way in assuaging these crises. In future, we propose to put this vision to action. Hindus need to come out of a sort of trauma into which they have shut themselves.

– Prabhu Rajagopal

How Khem Singh Starved to Death

Rajeev Srinivasan

March 22, 2004

This man, who did not speak English well, was brutalized in a jail in Fresno, California, and the jailers watched him starve to death, with no compunctions. They gave him no medical attention or even food for two months while he starved.So 72-year-old Khem Singh died in prison of slow starvation partly because his religious beliefs were violated: a strict vegetarian, he was given meat to eat. Which meant he ate nothing at all.

A few years ago, a young Indian man named Navroze Mody was beaten to death by eleven white racists shouting ‘Dot-head!’ as he was walking to catch a train in Hoboken, New Jersey. His crime? He was Indian.

A couple of years back, an Indian father of three, Charanjit Singh Aujla, was shot to death by plainclothes sheriff’s deputies in Jackson, Mississippi. They claimed that he, a person with no prior criminal record, had pulled a gun on them as he thought they were trying to rob the liquor store that he managed. His crime? He was Indian.

None of the people in the civil rights cottage industry in India, such as the ever-vigilant Human Rights Watch, or Amnesty International, or Teesta Setalvad, or Shabana Azmi, or SAHMAT or Communalism Combat raised a little finger in the defense of Navroze Mody or Charanjit Singh Aujla.

Nor did the great protectors of minority rights such as FOIL (Forum for Indian Leftists) mavens Vijay Prashad and Biju Mathew. I suppose you can’t blame the US Indian Marxist cohort: they prefer more glamorous issues, like the Guinean Amadou Diallo being shot by New York City police. No time for Indians, plenty of time for African Muslims.

What was the original sin of Mody and Aujla? They did not follow Semitic faiths. If Aujla had been, say, Mohammed Akram Aujla, FOIL, ActionAid, Human Rights Watch, and other lords of poverty would have been all over his case, and would have gone to the US Supreme Court shouting from the rooftops about the human rights of minorities.

If he had been Christopher Ignacius Aujla, the US Council on International Religious Freedom and John Dayal and Jaichand somebody (that’s his real name, I get mail from him) would have sued the US government for ill treatment of a minority. On second thoughts, scratch that. All these worthies, who are in cahoots, would have hushed up the incident, just as the church hid decades worth of paedophilia. In any case, the CIRF’s purpose is not to worry about religious freedom, it is to make money for clever religious entrepreneurs.

An even more appalling incident took place in February. A crippled, elderly, Sikh priest was brutally and deliberately murdered by agents of the US government. Yes, I say this, because at the very least, it is criminal negligence, and more likely culpable homicide on the part of prison authorities.

So 72-year-old Khem Singh died in prison of slow starvation partly because his religious beliefs were violated: a strict vegetarian, he was given meat to eat. Which meant he ate nothing at all.

It was an egregious violation of his human rights as well as his religious rights, in the land that prides itself on the rights of its residents.

I am reminded of Kala Pani, about the brutal prison camp in the Andamans, where the British imperialists broke brave men: a gulag, a Devil’s Island.

Remember this was a frail old man, a man of God, who was only 110 pounds to begin with, and not quite able to deal with the culture of this land, thrown in jail on what were probably trumped up charges, which shocked and deeply depressed him. Perhaps he just wanted to die, because of all this. And he was terrorised and injured by a prison guard who slammed a cell door on his hand, so he never even left his cell to eat. Casual racism, bigotry and brutality. This is the America of chain gangs, Jim Crow, Bull Connor, and Mississippi Burning.

The details are absolutely shocking; the LA Times has reported this in full, but Indian newsmen are busy with more important news, such as cricket in Pakistan.

The Singh case reminds me of two incidents. One, the Achille Lauro hijacking, where Palestinian terrorists shot a wheelchair-bound Jewish man, Larry Klinghoffer, and threw him overboard. The second, when a missionary, Graham Staines, was killed in India.

In the Klinghoffer case, there was universal condemnation of the fact that a terrorist had murdered a defenseless old man. In the Staines case, much was made of the fact that he was a preacher.

Khem Singh was both a defenseless old man and a preacher. The case is also far more egregious, because it was not random individuals who were responsible. It was duly appointed law enforcement officers of the California correctional system who were the violators of human and religious rights. This is a serious blot on the American legal system and its moral standing, and I wish the Indian government would take up the legal issue.

However, we know full well that the Indian government will not do this, and so it is up to individual Indians, especially NRIs, to take it up. I hope the Indian Diaspora will pursue the legal issues, for this is a test case for the rights of non-white, non-Christians in the US in the post 9/11 scenario, and the limits to government-sanctioned cruelty. It might get to the US Supreme Court eventually. Alternatively, Bush II or Kerry I may build concentration camps for some US residents, like they did for Japanese Americans during World War II.

A few friends of mine have been galvanised by the Singh case, and are in the process of collecting data about similar cases of human and religious rights violations in a few countries such as the US, EU nations, China, Australia, and so forth. If you have specific and verifiable details, including reliable media reports, about such cases, feel free to send them to my email id below.

As expected, FOIL and other Marxist Indians are quite blasé about this murder. All the ‘secular progressives’ afflicted by ‘South Asianitis’ have also been astonishingly quiet about it. These are the hypocrites who screamed loudly when the white missionary was killed (see my earlier rediff column, “Death of a Missionary”). But since this priest was merely a Sikh, he doesn’t count.

Prison Authorities Ignored Our Repeated Alerts: Inmates

India Post Reports on Khem Singh case

Tuesday April 6 2004 11:56 IST

WASHINGTON: An elderly Sikh inmate, who was a former priest at a local Gurdwara, died of starvation in a California state prison, where he also faced brutal abuse by security guards, a media report alleged.

“On February 16, the 72-year-old Khem Singh passed away at Corcoran state prison. Crippled and bound to a wheelchair, he died of lung and heart failure brought on as a result of starvation, India Post, an ethnic weekly published from multiple centres in the US said.

“Fellow inmates repeatedly alerted the authorities about his condition but allegedly no action was taken,” the report said alleging that it was the first case of a starvation death in a California state prison.

The matter, said the weekly, is under investigation and, “Hopefully, upon the intervention of state senator Gloria Romero, chairperson of the oversight committee who visited Corcoran to review medical and other related documents and spoke to the inmates, those responsible for nay wrongdoing will be brought to justice.”

An inmate wrote about Singh’s condition to Romero for her intervention but it arrived a few days late. The inmate also accused a prison guard of brutalising the frail old man.

Khem Singh was the head granthi at the Modesto gurudwara. But was relieved of his post, said India Post. He continued to provide religious education to Sikh children in the area.

He was accused of “inappropriate behaviour” with a child and was sentenced to 27 years in prison in June 2001. Khem Singh, then almost 70 years old, maintained he was innocent and had been “framed,” the weekly said.

Baljit Kaur, Khem Singh’s wife, accused the prison authorities of brutalising her husband.

(PTI)

Because Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains are children of some lesser god. Only the Semitic types (in the Indian context, these are Christians, Muslims and Marxists) are human, only they have human rights, only they have the right to worship. Yes, it’s true, it’s written in their books, by God (and Marx). Personally. Didn’t you know?

What Nehruvian Stalinists have institutionalised in India is nothing but apartheid. Just as in South Africa the numerically larger black population was brutalized and exploited by a small white population, the fascist Marxists of India, in cahoots with Christian and Muslim collaborators, engage in systematic and endemic discrimination and oppression of Indic religionists. And the latter are led to believe they deserve it, too.

This is one of the greatest perversions that has been visited upon India in the recent past. Subramanian Swamy, whom I am not a great admirer of, nevertheless wrote an intriguing piece in the Chennai newspaper called The Hindu of March 18th, explaining why the ‘secularism’ of Jawaharlal Nehru is a travesty because it is totally discriminatory against the native culture of the land. Just like apartheid.

Like the empty nihilism of the Dravida Kazhagam, this Nehruvian ‘secularism’ is a monstrosity, as it creates a spiritual vacuum which will be filled with something, perhaps a religious abomination: people are worshipping E V Ramaswamy Naicker, Jayalalithaa, C N Annadurai, M G Ramachandran, et al. ‘Secularism’ is creating a backlash where all Semitic types are now viewed with suspicion, deservedly or not.

The effects of this grand apartheid can be seen all over the place: the victims of Muslim aggression in Maraad, Kerala, are forgotten. Nobody publishes the stories of the widowed women or their fatherless children. The reports that I read suggest that the cover-up, led by a Muslim League minister in the Congress government, has been quite successful in thwarting an official CBI enquiry into the massacre. Everybody is losing interest; after all it is only inferior beings, Hindus, who were killed. Nameless, faceless creatures.

But Bilkis Bano from Gujarat, also a victim, now that’s a different matter. She’s a Muslim, so she has a name, she is interviewed in the media, she has batteries of lawyers and gets many column inches in the papers. Or take the Best Bakery case. This will be tried over and over again.

This asymmetry is utterly shameful, and inappropriate in a society that aspires to be just. It is clear that some Indians are more equal than others.

Where are the court cases about Maraad? There are none.

What about the court cases about the Godhra massacre? Once again, everyone is losing interest. After all, the victims were just Hindus. The Muslims have their poster boy, the fellow whose image, allegedly begging for his life, was flashed around the world.

But there were no images of grieving relatives of the 59 Hindus burned alive, nor of their charred bodies: ah, we mustn’t show Hindu victims, because Hindus by definition can only be victimizers. Soon there will be a film that ‘proves’ that Hindu pilgrim women and children set fire to the train from inside and committed suicide to make the Muslims of Godhra look bad just because they had gathered in a two thousand strong mob at 7 am, armed with Molotov cocktails.

The USCIRF and their JNU friend, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, have a stick to beat India with for, oh, the next fifty years. Everyone is happy, all’s well with the world. Business as usual, apartheid rules.

But I beg you to shed a tear for a little Sikh man named Khem Singh, 72 years old, crippled, starving to death in a strange and brutal place. Imagine now, God forbid, something like this happening to a loved one of yours.

I cannot help thinking of my father first coming to America, smaller than I remembered him, unsure of himself, clutching his briefcase when I met him at the airport in Boston, intimidated by the strange surroundings, even though he was a professor of English and American literature.

Khem Singh too was someone’s father, someone’s husband, some mother’s son.

I once wrote about Jallianwallah Bagh. 1,650 bullets, 1,579 casualties. The savagery of the white man and of the imperial West. Khem Singh’s case is in its small way, another Jallianwallah Bagh.

The marchers at Martin Luther King’s last public meeting, in Memphis in 1968, bore signs that said, simply, “I am a man.” Khem Singh was a man. He had rights too.

Khem Singh didn’t deserve to die like this. No, not in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

(This article is available online at Rediff: http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/22rajeev.htm Other columns by Rajeev Srinivasan referred to in this article are also available at: www.rediff.com/news/srinivas.htm. Reproduced with the kind permission of the author.)

Identities in a Multicultural World

Rajiv Malhotra

January 28, 2004

In a world where people are on the move from country to country, identity becomes a very complex issue. Just fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for people to be born in a small village in Europe and live in a large and fast changing metropolis like Bangalore, Bharat or vice versa. In the present era this is commonplace, facilitated by easier and faster means of communication, travel, as well as global job opportunities. So, the issue of identity is a crisis for all those who live away from the countries of their origin and the offsprings of the uprooted have identity issues too, which varies by ethnic groups.

It is well known that when moving, we take not only a few bags of things with us but also many habits; in fact this is how humans cross-fertilize cultures. Identities are tied to these habits that seem to form rather early in our lives and become ingrained; in one form or another these stay with us – all through the complicated journey of our existence on Earth. That must be the reason why Mom’s food is the best tasting! Another significant add-on to this learning in early years is our religious ideas and the concept of Bhagavan (God). These are the core values forming our identities and when threatened, cause great disturbances to both the individual and to the world at large. In fact, two most sustaining habits from our beginnings seem to be food and God!

In the USA, I have seen each religious identity become less tolerant, moving towards fundamentalism, as opposed to India where each group moves towards less staunchness and more acceptance. I attribute this to a feeling of threat that comes from being in the presence of a strongly converting religion here in the West. Hindu Dharma, on the other hand, has attempted to accommodate all traditions and thus is less threatening.

A Hindu-American living in North America, at first thinks that blending in a land of immigrants should be easy, especially one that also claims to be secular. Very soon though, one finds this to be not at all the case. Secularism to most Hindus means to be able to practice the religion of one’s choice – often the one we were born into.

We have no single Hindu authority controlling our religious life nor are we told to accept anything unless it makes sense to us. In other words, we are used to great freedom in the area of our relationship with our Maker, which is not the case with the people of aggressive traditions. A world of religious fatwas, excommunications and a host of other restrictions shock us. At the same time, it creates a sense of awe towards the Hindu Tradition, which is so very open. Some of us feel very privileged to be born into such a system, where restrictions are social, not religious!

We are just not used to constant interference into our spiritual lives, nor are we used to seeing people denigrating other religions in the most uncivilized way. This is something Hindus rarely do and have very little tolerance for. Hearing highly ignorant, hurting and downright impolite comments about Hindu Dharma has made our Hindu identity become stronger, especially for those of us living abroad.

I have often wondered how our adopted country, the USA, will handle the future of a multicultural nation? Will we assimilate the non-European, non-white, legal immigrants and their USA born children, belonging to various traditions, wisely, into the larger mainstream? The present majority is Euro-centric in nature and the question of white superiority remains in the minds of some, though less obviously than before.

On this process of assimilation depends the future of USA. Without creating a sense of security for the ethnic minorities, USA could become a battleground like the Middle East and other parts where differences have not been harmonized well. Naturally, my mind thinks about Bharat, the other country and society I know equally well. The way India has kept her even more diverse people together, even during times of unbelievable stress, seems marvellous. Here, we must learn from this example or suffer eventually.

My observations over the past thirty-seven years, is that in the USA, this attempt at harmonizing will be more challenging. Whereas in India, the Vedic Sanatan Hindu Dharma is itself an accommodating tradition whereas the religion of the majority in the USA belongs to the aggressive type – making conflict resolution far more difficult. Now, the conflict with Islam is on the rise, making it even more complex.

Samuel P. Huntington in his book, The Clash of Civilizations writes about conflicts of the two religions of expansion:

“The causes of this ongoing patterns of conflict lie not in transitory phenomena such as twelfth-century Christian passion or twentieth-century Muslim fundamentalism. They flow from the nature of the two religions and the civilizations based on them.”

Further, he says,

“From its origins, Islam expanded by conquest and when the opportunity existed Christianity did also. The parallel concepts of ‘jihad’ and ‘crusade’ not only resemble each other but also distinguish these two faiths from other major world religions. Islam and Christianity, along with Judaism, also have teleological views of history in contrast to the cyclical or static views prevalent in other civilizations.”

Faced and threatened by such unaccommodating religious systems, plus the usual adjustment problems, the first generation immigrant faces a different society. Religious aggression evokes fear and anger which leads to insecurity and a strong desire to defend and protect one’s own religion. These repeated assaults by evangelical groups within the USA and by missionaries in Bharat (one of the reasons for insurgencies in many areas) have done much to offend the Hindu psyche. Hence, the tradition of accommodation among the Hindus is weakening both outside and inside Bharat.

There is, however, a very positive effect too – an increasing desire amongst the young and the old to learn about their traditions. This is particularly good for Hindu Dharma as we are a teaching tradition with a great regard for debate on ontological (nature of being) issues.

Even so, the Hindus everywhere are faced with a great dilemma. First and foremost, we have been brought up to respect other faiths and see them as equal in importance to the respective communities. We respect other traditions and ours is not a proselytising religion.

We also tend to confuse Dharma with Religion, which is incorrect. Only the faiths born on Bharat Bhumi (namely Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism) are Dharma based; the others have no word equivalent to Dharma. So we must correct our understanding through a deeper study and then refer to the traditions of the world appropriately. The confusion about the terminology stems from ignorance of Hindus about their own traditions.

This, the greatest learning tradition in human history, was forced to stop the teaching for nearly eight hundred years! How else would those who wanted control of lands and riches belonging to others achieve their motives of domination? Fortunately, this spiritual tradition has been well maintained by those who understood its value, through immense sacrifice, and is now re-emerging to ennoble the human mind.

India was, till recently, usually mentioned here only for bride burnings, holy cows and the caste system. Mid-nineties saw people of Indian origins flooding the Information Technology revolution in the Silicon Valley first, and then other parts of the world. This and the new booming economy of Bharat have changed this attitude somewhat. However, the neglect of India and its great contributions to the world, as well as to the North American life continue. Voices ridiculing Hindu Dharma are now coming out of even prestigious institutions like Harvard and the University of Chicago.

The promotion of the ‘South Asian’ brand is part of this move by the conservatives who fear the Hindus most, as they are losing their ‘flock’ to the simple and benefiting Arsha Vidya (of the seers and sages) of Yoga, Meditation, classical dance and music.

The fact that India greatly influenced almost all major nations of the world – without colonizing them – bothers many a Westerner to no end. Any keen observer of the Western world, who also is well versed in the Hindu Tradition, can see that these influences are obviously recapturing people’s imaginations again. Regrettably, the attitude of plunder and possess, which has prevailed in these societies, rather than learn and share continues to exist. However, ordinary folk are willing to explore anything and everything, and in time, noble ideas will come to hold their own.

One obstacle to be overcome is that Hindu Dharma is seen as having ethnic connections to India alone, so those who follow its teachings tend to distance themselves from it outwardly. Little is known about the influence of India all over what is referred to as South Asia today – but that was a vibrant world, perhaps much nicer to live in, before the advent of the religions of war!

The Hindu identity is unique because the Dharma is based on a non-commercial spirituality, having concepts of Karma to make an individual responsible, not fatalistic. The foundations of Hindu Samskriti are strong and designed to perpetuate unity and harmony within societies. Hindu identity is a privilege that stabilizes us through the worst of times and we must claim it. South Asian we may be, for those that do not want to give us credit for our immense contributions since ancient times.

In bringing up children outside India, the best thing to do is to give them a strong foundation in the Hindu value system, a sense of family, and the wisdom to handle situations by having a prasada buddhi, that stays balanced no matter what life brings. The achievements of the Bharatiya Diaspora owe much to these ingrained qualities that have stayed with immigrants and so far with the children.

I pray that it will hold for many generations to come and also impact the adopted land and its other citizens positively. Bringing up children in the present day USA is not easy as most families are not structured for stability – a much needed attribute for healthy humanity! Our children are bright because of a value system that teaches but accommodates. Bharat is stable, giving sanctuary to displaced and persecuted people from all over, because of a Hindu identity, not simply South Asian. In Bharat, a jaagriti has begun and our spiritual heritage will help all humankind as it always has been doing.

Critical Paradigms of the Conversion Debate

S. K. Modi.

January 20, 2004

Hindus get stumped by Christian arguments during the conversion debate.

“Christians form only 3% of the population. They render much service to our society through their educational institutions, hospitals and orphanages;” “After all, the poor converts get financial help;” “What is wrong if a Hindu chooses to voluntarily convert to another religion?”; “The Christian minority in India is a peaceful, non-violent community;” “Christians are bringing in Foreign Direct Investment through their charitable activities (sic);” “Conversions occur only because of caste discrimination in Hinduism.” And so on…

Such misinformation serves to stifle opposition, for a confused Hindu is a neutralised Hindu. A confused person has no will to act, or has no clarity of thought that is essential for decisive action. For this reason alone, our society has failed to generate a “critical mass” of public opinion that can force the administration into taking serious note of the raging debates on issues of utmost importance. Otherwise, the secular machine is more than happy to remain indifferent to the plight of a voiceless “majority in moral minority,” as one French writer described us.

Seen from the Hindu perspective, these critical paradigms can be paraphrased into four key issues: unfair and outrageous conversion methods used by evangelists leading to social strife; foreign funding, disproportionate wealth of the missionaries and land-grab; Christian clout in the educational sector; state control of Hindu temples and misuse of temple revenue & attached property.

The solutions to these problems are also not difficult to locate. They have already been proposed and some have also been partially implemented in controlled pockets. What is needed today is a coordinated nationwide effort, which will provide a united voice to the Hindu community in resolving these conflicts.

The Myth of Free and Fair Conversions

The anti-forcible conversion laws passed recently by the Tamil Nadu and Gujarat governments in India seek to crack down on conversions by force and fraudulent means. Does it mean that there are conversions by free and fair means also? Can a Hindu be converted without the lure of financial aid or the fear of social exclusion? Can a Christian propagandist convince us about the superiority of his religion in a philosophical debate? For those who have an inkling of Christian theology or practice, the answer is an obvious ‘no’.

The claim of Christian evangelists that all conversions occur through a change of heart in the convert deserves to be nailed once and for all. All conversions, and particularly mass conversions, are achieved through force and fraudulent means. Hence, it is not difficult to understand the rationale behind the blackmail by Christian lobbies against these anti-conversion laws.

An empirical study recording the experience of thousands of Christian converts is very much needed. Let the truth be revealed from the horse’s mouth. The family strife, social stigma, cultural uprootment, spiritual suicide, and financial dynamics involved in every conversion should be exposed thoroughly.

Financial Scrutiny of Christian Missions a Must

Is it a state-secret that much of the evangelical activity in India is dependent on foreign money? Squeeze the foreign funding and let’s see if the Christians can succeed in changing the heart of a single convert in India; let us demand a bit of fair play in the business of saving souls. On the other hand, Hindu organisations, which participate in the shuddhi and paravartan movements in India, must seek greater participation from their NRI friends.

Public awareness on the foreign funding of Christian missions in India needs to be increased. Let this question be raised again and again in the Indian Parliament and State Assemblies and in every public forum. Foreign money is also the root cause of Christian land-grab in the southern Indian states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. The demographic siege in the north-eastern states is also not without foreign support.

Dubious Role of the Media

The false stereotypes discussed above are largely a deliberate projection, which we have internalised without critical analysis. Hindus must learn to challenge every such stereotype that is doled out to them by Christian or secular propagandists, and particularly by the mainstream English press. Every report and every editorial is suspect; media credibility is at an all-time low today.

Consider recent events which the media turned into headlines for weeks together: the chain mail circulated on the internet about karsevaks molesting a Muslim girl on the Godhra train was simply faked; Dalit lynching in Jhajjar turned out to be a case of police torture. Recently, there were these “Special Correspondents” claiming that the Ayodhya excavations showed no evidence of a temple, even before the Archaeological Survey of India released its report!

Letters and articles from the Hindu perspective are not given any space; events showing the progressive side of Hinduism are not covered; criticism of Abrahamic faiths and minority fundamentalism is suppressed – the list is endless but the conclusion is unanimous: read your news with a pinch of salt. Obviously, these are “pre-paid” columns and “post-paid” headlines. While the press holds everyone accountable to its mighty pen, to whom is it accountable in turn? Virtually none.

[II] The Practical Side

Temples as Centres of Community-Welfare

If there is one issue that Hindus need to rally around today, it is the question of government control of temple revenue. Transparency in devolution of temple funds is woefully lacking. A temple is one institution that receives charity from a majority of Hindus. Where is this money going? Why should secular governments be using this communal money for their survival? Temple revenue deserves to be utilised for the welfare of the Hindu community.

Setting up of educational and cultural institutions attached to temples, renovation of ancient temples, and revival of their cultural significance in the Hindu consciousness are focus points. Tamil Nadu temples have successfully implemented annadaanam programmes and religious lessons; let this be replicated in other states too.

Need for Private Hindu Educational Institutions

A time must come, hopefully in the near future, when parents need not look up to convent schools as inevitable alternatives for primary and secondary education. The early years of the child are the most crucial in inculcating cultural and spiritual values. Educating our children in convents is literally converting them to the Euro-Christian worldview. This minority of English-educated Indians who emerge from the convents are manufacturing and controlling the opinion of the Indian nation today.

The recent historic judgement of the Indian Supreme Court on minority institutions and the right of the majority to establish educational institutions comes as a great relief. Let us not lose any more time in establishing quality educational institutions that will cater to our cultural aspirations, or else we will be losing many more generations to the stranglehold of Christian oligarchy in the educational sector.

The Role of Spiritual Leaders and Ashrams

There are a thousand philosophical and epistemological differences among Hindus of various sampradayas, but a difference of opinion on issues of critical importance such as conversions is not a feature of a robust society.

This weakness of Hindu society becomes particularly conspicuous when we observe the functioning of ashrams and spiritual leaders and their inter-relationship. It was in the not-too-distant past that an attempt was made to evolve a consensus among many heads of ashrams to sign a memorandum seeking a ban on conversions. Needless to say, some of the pontiffs refused to sign the declaration, taking refuge in many flimsy excuses. The conversion issue is politicised, some claimed, and hence did not want to get involved in it. Others said they did not recognise any ‘horizontal’ conversion between religious faiths and encouraged only the ‘vertical’ conversion from worldliness to spirituality!

It is indeed sad to note that the tendency to remain politically correct and the colonised mindset sans self-confidence is more widespread among some of these ashrams than among the common masses. The reasons for this are not difficult to find and have been discussed in detail elsewhere. However, one central point has to be made and hammered into the consciousness of these ashrams by every conscious devotee – these ashrams and spiritual leaders have a responsibility to address the problems of the Hindu society. Their very existence is dependent on the support and respect they receive from the Hindu community and, in turn, Hindus look up to them for solutions to such problems. To let us down in pursuit of their pet agendas is a betrayal of the faith reposed in them.

The Need for a New Smriti

Another failure in our cap is the inability to evolve a new Smriti, in spite of the fact that our shastras permit us to override earlier texts to suit the needs of the changing times. The unfinished attempts of pioneers like Swami Vivekananda and Swami Dayananda to create a new Smriti should be taken to their logical conclusion. Let all our revered acharyas demonstrate some unity now by coming together to compile a universal social text that is acceptable to every Hindu and provides necessary guidelines to address all the above issues.

Such a Smriti, which comes with the sanction and authority of our spiritual leaders, can be more potent and effective than all the laws and constitutional amendments put together.

What Can the Average Hindu Do?

Educate your friends and make them see the debate in proper light. Gift them books on appropriate occasions – books that deal with the deeper foundations of Hinduism or on any of the above issues.

Revive the Hindu tradition of charity. Identify organisations that are involved in grassroots work or dissemination of positive ideas and donate to them regularly. Avoid donating to disguised fronts of pseudo-secular institutions.

Counter the disinformation campaign. Make your voice heard.

Voice Across the World

Sister Nivedita

January 1, 2004

“Apart from being ethnically Indian, a majority of people in the Indian-American community are also Hindus. Further, unlike other religious groups like Indian Muslims, Christians and Sikhs that have independent political organizations, Hindu political representation in the United States largely gets channelled through Indian-American forums. In mainstream American consciousness, India and Hinduism are inevitably linked.”

Beloo Mehra, Sulekha Columnist, USA

“As a student in an American college, I was always surprised by the reluctance of Indian students to celebrate anything that could be considered ‘Hindu’ – it might offend non-Hindu Indians, they said. While I have respect for their humility and concern for the feelings of others, I think what suffered most was my self-esteem as a Hindu. I am an Indian tolerant of all faiths and religions, but I am also a Hindu interested in celebrating my own heritage.”

Agastya Kohli, Seattle, WA

“Yes, we live outside of India, the home of Sanatana Dharma, but we remember that Sanatana Dharma and India live within us.”

Rahul, New Jersey

“I recently went to a function presented by a Christian organization called the Charismatic group. There were around 20,000 people gathered in a huge hall. Eighty percent were young people. The only elderly people there were brought by the youth. What they had was something that was not just religious. It was fun as well. They had a great ‘pull factor.’ Because it was fun, the kids could relate. We Hindus need to use a similar formula to attract the youth. We have to create activities that are fun and interesting.”

Muthukumaran, 29, Publicity Coordinator, Hindu Centre of Singapore, in an interview with Hinduism Today

“In a global community long synonymous with achievement, these mind-benders (people of Indian origin) have used the heady combination of East and West to blast into new frontiers. Bright and confident, they promise to redesign the world… In countries big and small and in professions new and old, overseas-born Indians are excelling beyond the ordinary and redefining the Indian identity.”

India Today

“Shouldn’t Indians make this critical choice of classification and framework rather than being dictated to by foreign think tanks and academics? In this regard, China controls its brand management, while India is simply being led… SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association) illustrates how some institutions with the ‘South Asian’ nomenclature are compromising India’s interests. SAJA consistently placates Pakistan. Its 5 percent Pakistani members leverage the collective power of SAJA to neutralize the 95 percent Indian members. Hence, it cannot write critically of Pakistan, leave alone assert a pro-India stance on Kashmir and other issues. But Pakistanis have a separate Pakistani Journalists Association in parallel, and, are also proud leaders of Pan-Islamic movements on campuses. They, clearly, do not suffer from cultural or identity shame. The Pakistani government is a silent but active force in these situations.”

Rajiv Malhotra, Infinity Foundation, USA

“The ‘secular progressives’ (in India) realize that NRIs, and in particular NRI engineers, especially those who made money in the high tech boom of the 1990s, are not so likely to swallow their propaganda… I do recognize the very real problems a lot of NRIs have, of cultural confusion and displacement, but in the eyes of the JNU-ites, NRIs form a cohesive and frightening force. These NRIs have seen the world and done well in fully competitive circles, do not have inferiority complexes, and do not need to suck up to some white academic like Doniger for crumbs like travel grants, which the ‘sepoys’ of Indology in India crave. In other words, the NRI engineers are shouting from the rooftops, ‘The Emperor has no clothes!’ This is, of course, distressing to those who have been supplying non-existent clothes to the Emperor and profiting mightily therefrom. These NRI engineers have also come to realize that there is something precious in India that is under grave threat from the Sino-Islamic axis and Christian fundamentalists.”

Past

“Mark me, then and then alone you are a Hindu when every man who bears the name, from any country, speaking our language, becomes at once the nearest and the dearest to you.”

Swami Vivekananda

“…let us look to become Hindus, in a true sense, for the first time. For it is a question whether so grand a word ought to be borne by us unless we have first earned and approved our right to it. Ought not the name of our country and our faith to be to us as a sort of order of merit, a guerdon of loyal love, the token of accepted toil?”

– Sister Nivedita

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