Counterpoint: Hindu Spirit Needs a Snappy Lift!
By Vivekanand Jha*
Bharat’s Dharma: Unity or Ritual Rut?
The vision of ‘Hindu First’ is to re-awaken the glorious spirit of cultural civilisation of Hinduism, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement from the ramparts of Red Fort, about the constitution of the Demographic Commission, is a welcome step for the nation of saints and seers.
No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come. The vision of ‘Hindu First’ is nothing but Humanity First. Apart from the Vedas and Upanishads, it draws inspiration from Tathagata Buddha’s compassion, Chhatrapati Shivaji’s swordsmanship, Adi Shankaracharya’s interpretations of Brahman, Swami Vivekananda’s Vision of ‘Aek Bharat, Sarvashresht Bharat‘, and Maharshi Sri Aurobindo’s vision of supramental beings.
Ashoka’s embrace of Buddhism, where he issued an injunction for non- killings of cattle and goats and lambs, did not mean that he was sacrificing or compromising with the strategic interest of his vast territory; in fact, the Emperor Ashoka, notwithstanding his transformation as a peacenik, in the immediate wake of Kalinga War, neither did he downsized his Army, nor did he abolish the capital punishment. This vindicates Ashoka’s statecraft, never succumbing to the charm of his embracing non-violence and peace as his raison d’être and summum bonum.
Ashoka, even took the mighty stride in terms of spreading the Buddhist philosophy across Asia to enable the peace and non- violence return to the vast stretch of land encompassing the substantial portion of Asia, for Ashoka was shrewd enough to realise the fact that, so long as the mantra of peace and non- violence infiltrated across the length and breadth of Asia, all his embracing of Buddhist philosophy, would prove infructous, for the language of swordsmanship does not have any provision for peace; what it appreciates, is soreading mayhem by unleashing death and destruction, where the broadminded philosophy of Lord Buddha seldom finds its place.
Ever since the reign of Ashoka ended, his successors, not being equally valiant, took the geographical land of Bharatvarsha into the state of pusillanimity, the state of unmanliness, manifesting in the form of rituals galore, the existential consciousness at its nadir, the Hindu civilisation’s irreversible degeneration could seldom be arrested!
A deeper scrutiny of the mental state of Prithviraj Chouhan to ascertain the unfolding scenarios which ensued in the immediate wake of Prithviraj falling casualty to the shenanigans of Mohammad Ghori, suggests that he, paradoxically though, stuck to his unwarranted rigidity by sweeping aside the productive counsel of Mir Hasan, the cousin of Mohammad Ghori, living in exile with Prithviraj. Mir suggested the latter chase and kill the fleeing Ghori. However, Prithviraj, uncannily though, took recourse to scriptural injunction: not to chase and kill the fleeing enemy. Regrettably, Prithviraj was defeated in the 2nd Battle of Terrain, 1192, his eye gouged out, taken to Kabul, which could be dubbed as the historic humiliation meted out to any Indian king.
But then, what followed was the brutal persecution that history never took cognisance of, far less chronicled, the unleashing of the barbarity of unprecedented scale by the Afghan soldiers.
The anarchy spread by only five thousand Muslims entering into Persia, eliminated the community of Parsis; those who survived, expediently converted into Islam, or a microscopic section of them, who could flee to India, finally found peace and harmony with Hindus, as they integrated with the ‘Punyabhommie of Bharatvarsha’.
As Swami Vivekanand took an immense pride in introducing Hinduism to the American intelligentsia, saying, ‘ I belong to that religion which took fleeing Parsis to its bosom’, the grandeur of Hinduism, despite its degeneration, over time, sustained its lustre, is the vindication of the inherent strength of this most ancient religion on earth, still going great guns, especially when its contemporary civilisations which flourished once, like Greek and Roman, stood nipped in the bud, their remnants of traces being finally obliterated.
That Hindus survive is the living testimony of this religion being closest to the Creator, which manifests in the form of the Vedas and Upanishads. Better still, the revelations of Sunita Williams that she took a copy of the Bhagavad Gita to the International Space Station in December 2006, and took an Om symbol and a copy of the Upanishads in July 2012, and so many other things which the Vedas irreversibly strive to establish, are the glaring instances of the Vedas and Upanishads being the most authentic testaments encapsulating the primordial sound of Creation and its sundry aspects and dimensions.
When the great Yajnavalkya, the first knower of Brahman, had debated on Brahman with Gargi, the first erudite woman on earth, it lends credence to Hindu Civilisation being the primordial civilisation which taught humanity the existence of the Creator. Ostensibly, the sacred land of Mithila, the perfect template for the sages and seers to spread the vision of universality, irrefutably establishes the vision of ‘Vasudaiv Kutumbakam‘.
But then, the past glory, which has been fast fading away from the society, where Hindus appear to be vulnerable from all sides, needs to seriously introspect as to why the race which had discovered the Creator had so pitiably fallen victim to the multiple vices entrapping them. The overwhelming rituals engulfing people in rural, urban and metropolises, where people continue to celebrate their mundaneness, while giving short shrift to their existential challenges, is sure to debilitate them into a state of physical and mental reservation.
The political shenanigans to keep Hindus divided along caste lines are proving pivotal for breaking the backbone of Hindus in no ambiguous terms. Hindus should recall how their forefathers suffered brutally in the hands of Mohammad Ghori’s soldiers; the situation has all the potential to duplicate if their Hindu consciousness continues to be in hibernation. No political party, nor the purported cultural organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, can protect Hindus; what indeed can protect Hindus is their innate Hindu consciousness.
If Hindus live, humanity lives; if Hindus are extinct, the sun will refuse to shine on the horizon, the clouds will cease to bring rain, and the Buddha’s compassion, which is still there, even though in its infinitesimal fraction, should vanish from the face of the earth.
*Vivekanand Jha is an Author, Academician and a Public Intellectual. The views presented are personal.
