WHO WANTS A HINDU RASHTRA?

Whenever the tide turns you can see a different landscape, at the peak of high tide water takes over and drowns every life form while at the peak of low tide you get to see the dirty debris at the bottom. Neither is very pleasing to watch, neither complete by its own and neither very long lasting because slowly and definitely the tide has to turn. This metaphor also applies to the return of the apparently pseudo but mighty Hindutva sentiments of intolerance, insecurity, impatience and violence. Political, philosophical or religious turmoil is commonplace all over the world and my country cannot claim exception to this universal phenomenon. Such troublesome occurrences are not new to this land and its people. If I may dare say so, its old hat really! I risk being considered or bracketed as far too simplistic in my approach but never the less, so be it.

Sporadic incidences of communal abuse, fights, violence, bloodshed has been happening in this land from time to time since ages. Every new thought, new philosophy or a new religion has always had a uphill task in establishing itself and thereafter in maintaining. According to recorded history since some 2500 years ago, since the time of Gautama, the acts and words of these pro Hindutva groups against that great man were legendary. Again since some 700 hundred years ago when Islam militarily took command and started handling the political reins of this land, such incidences have surfaced time and again, all over the place, decades after decades. We can very safely proclaim that Islam is some kind of a friendly enemy, someone whom we know now since many births. That says a lot about their resilience and also about the tolerance of the Hindus. Then again since some 250 years ago when the East India Trading Company took over the political management of this land such sentiments could be seen in pockets, at that time we used to call them freedom fighters, and the funny part was that they also fought our own countrymen because not everyone liked their methods. Going back to before 2500 years during the time when history was not recorded, when the people of Indus and Saraswati river civilization migrated to the Gangetic belt, we can only imagine the huge problems this would have created.

If I would chose to be critical of this pro Hindutva group’s method, I would wonder why they no more rake up the Hindu superiority on subjects like the four caste segregation, second grade treatment to women and the insistence on child marriage, older men marrying young girls and the more infamous one of no remarriage of widow. Somehow for reasons better left silent these topics no more interest them today. However to their credit they still carry that big ancient canon which still smokes fire and has never been silenced, the cow mother. Listening to their words and its shrill pitch I probably would dare to assume that these groups most certainly must eat, sleep and breathe the Vedas and the Gita, follow all its teachings, lead a life of purity in thoughts, words and action and ofcourse regularly sacrificing animals on a ritual pyre to appease the powerful one above and garner favors. Hope I never am disappointed here. Speaking in a tongue in cheek manner, a very interesting thought occurs to me, which is that since Hindus strongly believe in rebirth and also since as an unborn soul I cannot choose my parents, what if I in the next cycle am born to a Muslim couple or a Christian couple or a Dalit couple. Would I not suddenly become the victim, suddenly be sitting on the other side of the fence and suddenly be called beef eaters! Who would then protect me from my own friends with whom today I rub shoulders! Strangely not a single Hindu raises this question. Maybe our faith in rebirth is not so real after all. Just a stray crazy thought of this monkey mind.

But coming to the point, what I would like to register here is that such robotic-warrior elements have been in existence in society since donkey years and yet the Hindu society has survived. These are old arguments, old methods, of certain thinking processes which are also an integral part of the Hindu society. These people won’t let up and neither will they accept that the Hindu culture survived till date inspite of them and not because of them. Then why do we all need to point fingers at them today, why do we need to make them more fierce than they actually are, I fail to understand.

Taking the discussion forward, it brings us to another interesting question, what makes a Hindu and has it really remained unchanged since Vedic times? This is important because time and again, we hear that the past was glorious, and that old traditions are being abandoned. This is a subject fit for discussion by scholars and I am not one. My thoughts on this are far too simple. Primarily Hindu was a generic term referring to the people who live on and beyond the River Indus, which sounded quite logical. However as time proceeded the term went on to include the culture of the people, their philosophy, their ways of living, their science, their art, their mathematics, their warfare, their economic theories, their kings, their spirituality, their religion, their rituals, their food, clothes, physical structure, language and what have you. The term Hindu had taken gigantic proportions and we are now talking about a very huge subject. We claim that Ram walked the earth some 9000 years ago, but can we also say with the same confidence that all the above aspects of the Hindu lifestyle have been the same since the time of Ram. Factually speaking none of its distinctive parts of the Hindu way of life has remained consistently similar over ages, and what to speak about time, it has not even remained consistent beyond geography of 100 sq km. During the times of Ram, he was yet another ordinary guy, Vishnu was unknown amongst the Gods, a few intelligent folks owned flying machines, and the Bhagwat Gita wasn’t uttered. We have been constantly changing over time, improving on some matters and degrading on other fronts. New scientific discoveries were made, new philosophies were explained and some of them became a new religion, new ways of commerce were exchanged, new food items were introduced into the culinary, new materialistic things were created and used, new diseases are happening and coupled with new medicines being discovered. The Hindu individual has changed too, his desires changed, his needs changed, his style of living changed. How could anybody have stopped these changes from happening? If change is inevitable then why do we now wish to glorify the past?   

I am neither on the side of the pro Hindutva so called conservative group to the right nor on the side of the so called modernist and progressive left and center. I am simply amused to find that there in a mismatch in their present stance and the common experienced history till date. The inherent confusion in all the noise about intolerance that is created today is hilarious. This is purely a political struggle, a misguided one-upmanship. Each side is accusing the other about being intolerant. The conservative right, who have just recently got the whiff of nonrestrictive power, want to create in a few months what they couldn’t for six decades, while the modernist left and center who had unbridled access to authority till date are unhappy suddenly finding themselves being displaced and extinguished. Both want to adopt the moral high ground as their principle argument. Few from the remaining society are taking sides but the majority is just watching.

They are just watching because fundamentally there is a deep rooted fallacy in the argument on both sides. They realize that while religion and community strength is important to maintain a good life however it is not sufficient to create a happy life in the very first place. To create that you need modern development and age old traditions cannot bring new developments. Development in the world always comes with risk-taking, risk-taking needs finance and financing needs a peaceful environment. Thus more the unrest, less the development. The Hindus would be happy if their traditions alone are considered sacrosanct and their beliefs alone are upheld and respected as the supreme word in this country. But this can’t be acceptable to the Muslims, Christians and Dalit, who also happen to be the natives of the soil, at the cost of their fundamental rights and privileges promised by the Constitution.  My guess is that majority of the Hindus are keenly aware of this duality and it is playing in their mind. The Hindus have to make their stand clear; whether they want Ram mandir or they want development. Both cannot happen simultaneously. The whole fiasco, if potrayed as an emotional issue can get out of hand, but  if rightfully seen  as a struggle between politics and economics, then the solution becomes clear.