Pseudo-Secularism

Hindu dharma is implicitly at odds with monotheistic intolerance. What is happening in India is a new historical awakening... Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Expectations from Hindu organisations

What is to be undone?
By Shankar Saran

We haven’t seen any serious effort by any Hindu organisation to fight against any of such dangerous happenings: be it Bills in legislatures, the wilful insult of a revered Shankaracharya, misuse of the temple funds towards Haj subsidy, bringing anti-Hindu bias into school text-books, giving more and more favours to Islamic, Christian institutions and many other affronts.

Swami Vivekananda once said that the most noteworthy weakness among the Hindus is that they do not allow their brother to work in peace and rise in the esteem of the society. They pull his legs. They fight among themselves on flimsy grounds. This consumes much of their energy and ability to the detriment of each other and the society.

A century has passed, but we have not managed to get over this weakness. Many a Hindu organisations have been working for Hindu causes, but they failed or not succeeded up to the expectation, because they are victims of the habit of correcting and criticising fellow Hindus.

The way different Hindu organisations today publicly censor each other, sometimes entire organisations, sometimes individual leaders, is a testimony to the age-old unfortunate tendency. They are doing it at a time when internal-external inimical forces are increasingly pressing us from many corners. Just in the last one year several things happened to the detriment of Hindu society. The 104th Constitution Amendment Bill just passed in the Parliament is the latest, giving a clear message that in this only homeland of Hindus, the Hindus have just three options (in the pithy words of Swapan Dasgupta): “convert, perish or migrate”. But, we haven’t seen any serious effort by any Hindu organisation to fight against any of such dangerous happenings: be it Bills in legislatures, the wilful insult of a revered Shankaracharya, misuse of the temple funds towards Haj subsidy, bringing anti-Hindu bias into school text-books, giving more and more favours to Islamic, Christian institutions and many other affronts.

However, in the very mean time, all kind of accusations, reprimands and ill-considered suggestions and demands have been floating publicly by one Hindu leader or organisation to other ones. Sometimes even within an organisation by one leader to other or others. Is not it the same malaise Swami Vivekananda spoke about?

Every Hindu organisation must have been formed to achieve some particular goal, or to do some specific job contributing to a goal. Isn’t it so? Then why each one is not concentrating on its own piece of work, and is seen instead greatly concerned about what another one is expected to do and say, or not to do and not to say?

Now, it is obvious that almost every Hindu organisation, at least among the mass organisations, has developed a serious misgiving about the role and use of political power and state machinery. Consciously or unconsciously they have come to believe that only through the state machinery they can do any good, or stop any bad. This is a highly erroneous understanding. It is also an un-Hindu thinking. Here in Bharatvarsh the state system has always been a subordinate organ to the larger social system. Kings themselves were guided by dharma, gurujan and various social dictates. And the state had little to do in comparison to various social units towards economic production, education, culture and maintaining order. That social attitude is still with us. ‘Everything through state’ and ‘state is all-powerful’ is a western notion, where village society, kinship and other institutions either did not exist or had almost nothing to offer. In any case, as the western experience (and our experience for the last sixty years) also shows that the state institutions, laws and forces are not able to deliver so many vital things, or to remove so many ills. Rather, as our competitive secular polity demonstrated during the last five decades, it only compounded the problems in many areas and created new ones.

Given such a reality it is sad to observe Hindu organisations and their leaders a great deal enamored with the Government(s), the Parliament and Legislative Assemblies. With passage of time they have developed a false conception about what can or can’t be done with/without the state machinery. Even the Indian experience of the last one hundred years is a proof to the contrary. Every major positive movement owe to voluntary efforts, every creative idea came through non-state individuals and institutions. On the contrary, every harmful proposition and persisting problem in the independent India is largely the making of state leaders: for instance, Partition and Pakistan, Kashmir problem, Article 370, unfriendly China, centrality of public sector enterprises, penchant for reservations, divisive personal laws, permitting organised conversions, socialism, secularism, supremacy of English, west-oriented anti-Hindu education and rampant corruption.

That pretty little can be achieved by way of being in government is evident from the experience of 1998-2004 at the Centre and from various state governments led time to time by Hindu swayamsevaks. This is not to say that conscious Hindus should not aspire to occupy government situations. They should (an Arun Shourie is always desirable over Ram Vilas Paswan), but without illusions that merely being there will solve the problems Hindu society are facing. That without Hindu unity, courage, determination and understanding nothing worthwhile can ever be achieved. Whether it is to defeat anti-Hindu strategy of various forces or to strengthen our own society.

As the founder of the RSS, Dr Hegdewar had correctly visualised, all problems will be solved once the Hindus are united. The organisation was constituted to unite Hindus. The need is still there and the goal is largely unfulfilled, as we can see in competitive Muslim-appeasement among all kind of leading Hindus. That even swayamsevaks are seen in the competition is a proof positive that they have not put their trust in Hindus, that they do no more believe that once Hindus are collectively engaged in national endeavour, disregarding what others ask or do, everything including the ‘minorities’ participation will involuntarily follow.

Although many Hindu leaders believe otherwise, there are, unfortunately, no short-cuts to this essential work. On the other hand, as we have seen time and again the illusion of doing good mainly through state power not only remains an ever distant mirage, but instead it willy-nilly transforms the swayamsevaks themselves into petty self-seekers. We have seen it in New Delhi as well as in Lucknow, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Patna, Kolkata et al. Naming names is not necessary, every newspaper reader knows those dignitaries. With time they became something else—at best a common administrator, at worst as operations ‘westend’, ‘duryodhan’ and ‘chakravyuha’ victims exposed by hidden cameras—which only shows how wrong it is to heavily lean on state structure for doing good to the society and nation.

It is indeed a very big question to formulate a better path of action. In the meantime, a common Hindu expects from the Hindu organisations to consider few points. Which are:

1.

They should concentrate more on educational, creative, propagation work than on politics. They must be more concerned to counter views, theories, doctrines and propaganda of anti-Hindu, anti-national forces on day to day basis.
2.

They must have cooperative feelings towards other Hindu organisations.
3.

Try never to show the failings of each other, at least in public. Nor insist another Hindu organisation to take this or that particular course on any given issue.
4.

Each organisation must try to accomplish its own duty most perfectly. Another will automatically learn from it. On the contrary, the urge to correct other will not only deviate one from its own duty but also infect others to do the same: meddling in others’ work.
5.

Every non-political organisation must keep its non-political character intact. In doing its educational, social or service work, it must have a kind of friendly attitude towards all political parties and outfits. Keeping in mind that persons with nationalist or Hindu feelings are in every political party. A Hindu organisation must perform its duty truthfully, confidently, and without malice to different parties and organisations. If volunteers of a Hindu organisation are so working among the people, with time all around would come to understand the worth of their work. In fact, if the message is transmitted to all, no party would be able to ignore it. At the same time, one must not be worried about it, i.e., a Hindu organisation should work without concern to whether its efforts are influencing parties and people.
6.

Generally speaking, educational, propagation work is considered a bit less important or require less skills or means. It is a grave mistake and must be removed forthwith. Everyday something happens in the world, in the county and locality about which the Hindu society must be fully informed from the perspective of its national interest. If proper education about such happenings is not done regularly, then the Hindu population, especially its so-called educated section comes to acquire erroneous, sometimes harmful views about the events and ideas. Its damaging consequences are not immediately seen but it does affect Hindu interests adversely. Therefore, educational work requires ever more vigilance, dexterity and untiring efforts. Sloppiness in this essential work by the Hindu organisations contributes in equal measure to strengthening of inimical ideas and forces.

The writer is a senior journalist and can be contacted shankshan@rediffmail.com

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