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Hindu Dharma Part II: The Unfortunate Present

August 1947 marked the political independence of India and the end of a dark millennium in Bharat’s civilizational history. But the beginning of this new political era, unfortunately, did not herald the much-hoped-for resurgence of the Hindu Samaj, which had been heavily oppressed and traumatized in the preceding thousand years.

The new nation’s founding ideas were shaped to a large extent by the Gandhi-Nehru duo.

Nehru adopted Russian-Chinese socialism as the economic model for the country. Socialism made it a prominent point to denounce traditional religions in all forms and promote “collective work for collective good” as the new faith. It is not surprising that Nehru referred to dams and factories as “temples of the new India”. One knows where the influence was coming from.

Nehru also carried within him a strong disdain for all things deemed religious, especially his native religion Hinduism. “Hindu only by accident of birth” is how he described himself once. His socialist interpretation of the term ‘secularism’ also resulted in him taking actions that were detrimental to the interests of Hindus and beneficial to other communities.

Gandhi, on the other hand, shaped the social conscience of the new nation. His lofty-sounding but faulty spiritual ideas of ahimsa and ‘Sarva-dharma samabhava’ scarred the national psyche forever and made weaklings of its people. He publicly and prominently displayed the “Hindu-guilt” syndrome, repeatedly asking the majority community to be accommodative of the Muslims who were projected as being at a relative disadvantage.

This was supremely ironic as it was the Muslim rulers who had been ruling over vast swathes of undivided northern India for almost eight centuries before they were unseated by the British, and it was Hindus who had been at the receiving end in their own land.

He laid the burden of achieving Hindu-Muslim unity entirely on the good Hindu’s doorstep. His unpardonable defense of the 1920 Moplah massacre of Hindus showed his deeply flawed worldview. This‘Hindu-guilt’ is a cross that the Hindu community is still carrying on its shoulders ever since it was foisted upon them by Gandhi.

Since 1947, Congress has been carrying forward this legacy of Gandhi and Nehru. Socialism and secularism have been the core tenets of its policies. The Hindu-guilt sapling was zealously nourished till it turned into a giant tree of minority appeasement, which kept bearing the luscious fruits of electoral success not only for Congress but also for any party that stood under its shade.

Hindus have been enslaved to the Congress propaganda that has conditioned their minds to somehow see Muslims as a helpless group that needs the protection and indulgence of the State to save them from a ‘barbaric and aggressive’ majority.

To support this narrative, the centuries of Islamic torture, persecution, plunder, forced conversions, rapes, destruction of temples and heritage structures have been surgically excised from the history textbooks and all other popular media.

The relatively less cruel Muslim rulers like Akbar and Sher Shah Suri are painted as benign and tolerant emperors and are given disproportionate footage in the History textbooks while the ‘evil’ ones like Khilji, Aurangzeb are glossed over.

A cursory glance over the contents of history textbooks confirms the popular allegation that the Congress version of Indian history begins with the Delhi Sultanate.

Any attempt to correct this historical whitewash is met with howls of protest and cries of “let us avoid raising this ruckus in the interest of communal harmony and to avoid hurting the feelings of our Muslim brethren.”

Even when a non-State medium like the movie Padmavat tried to depict the Muslim reality in the mildest possible manner which the current social milieu would find digestible, it still raised the hackles of Muslims, and surprisingly even of Hindus, who objected to the manner in which the Muslim king’s ruthlessness was portrayed. These people would like even true historical facts to be altered to fit their present-day narratives.

It was due to these political policies that the Hindu majority could not reclaim the land and build a temple for one of their major deities in one of their most sacred sites for over 70 years. In any other country in the world, such a situation would be unthinkable. It is indeed a humiliating chapter in the history of Hindus.

All these politics and machinations have ensured that the Hindu mentality has become subjugated to a diffidently secular state, judiciary, media, and liberal ‘civil society’.

In another far-sighted strategic move, Congress turned Gandhi into some sort of a modern deity to whom India was supposed to owe its independence and virtually everything else. He was systematically made synonymous with the new nation’s identity. Currency notes of ALL denominations have his face and no other national icon from our great nation’s history has been deemed worthy of this honor.

Almost all major cities have the eponymous MG Road running through their center. All sorts of buildings, government schemes, awards, etc are named after him. His policies of non-violence and tolerance have been interpreted to mean submissiveness, non-aggression, and cowardliness, even in the face of gravest provocation. “Turn forth the other cheek” has been taught to be the standard national response to a slap.

To buttress the point, let us take one of the biggest myths that have been built around Gandhi – that he delivered independence to us. The fact is, Gandhi had no particular role in it. After the end of the Second World War, colonialism lost its legitimacy and was gradually dismantled in the subsequent two decades.

Between 1945 and 1965, more than 60 states and territories in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or independence from their European colonial masters. More than half of these were freed from the British alone. In fact, some observers suggest that the confused and weak-willed policies of Gandhi and Congress actually delayed independence by two to three decades.

Congress seems to have turned Gandhi into an invaluable brand to which it owns the exclusive copyright. It seems mass hypnosis has been cast over the public of India that nobody seems to be questioning how Indira Nehru, who married Parsi Feroze Ghandy, ended up becoming Indira Gandhi and merrily foisted further generations of fake Gandhis upon the nation.

Besides the political front, Hindus have been systematically conditioned and brain-washed on the cultural front as well. Through books and cinema, there has been a continued misrepresentation and conditioning of the mind with Hindus being oppressive and regressive.

Another attack on the cultural heritage that has become quite normalized is the denigration of Hindu festivals and traditions. Public litigations are continually filed against traditions such as the Sabarimala pilgrimage, Jallikattu, or Dahi Handi by people who aren’t followers of Sanatan Dharma.

Mocking the festivals and shaming the Hindus who celebrate them has become the new national sport. Holi has been made synonymous with eve-teasing and water-wastage, Karva Chauth has become a symbol of male domination and female oppression, and, of course, Deepawali is now spelt as ‘p-o-l-l-u-t-i-o-n’. During Raksha Bandhan 2020, bizarre hoardings were put up by PETA asking the good Hindu to avoid using ‘leather rakhis’.

The net result of 70 years of this systematic political and cultural assault is that the Hindu today finds himself cornered from all sides. They have been reduced to a helpless condition in their own land. They are the victims, yet painted as the perpetrators. The most unfortunate part is that a big section of Hindus has ended up becoming deracinated and alienated from their own civilizational heritage.

Wherever the Hindu is being shamed, the loudest cheer comes from this ‘woke’ Hindu group. This section distances itself from all tangible Hindu symbols as it finds them embarrassing and lives in a blindfolded world where the Congress version of secularism is considered normal and even desirable, not realizing the extent of their conditioning.

That is the greatest tragedy of the Hindu community, that they have become hostage to the narrative that has turned the word “Hindu” into some sort of an insult.

So, in such a grim scenario, what does the future hold? Is there any hope left for the great Indic ship that has weathered so many storms? This shall be explored in the final part of the series.

To be continued…

Explore Hindu Dharma Part I

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author. Indic Today is neither responsible nor liable for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in the article.

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