Ghar wapsi: Why the Hindus will never be a minority in India

Only the lower caste have reasons to convert in this country.

POLITICS   |   4-minute read |   19-01-2015

Sohail Hashmi @Dilliwal

There has been a lot of noise on the issue of conversion, the pitch is constantly rising and the gullible are increasingly being told that there is an international conspiracy to reduce the Hindus to a minority in the land of their birth. The ratcheting up of the rhetoric has assumed shriller tones since Nepal, the one country that used to describe itself as a Hindu state decided to drop the sobriquet and chose to declare itself a "secular state". The only people in Nepal who want to go back to being described as a Hindu state are the monarchists and that says something about the relevance of the idea of a denominational state in the 21st century.

All kinds of "histories", in fact more hysterical fulminations than the result of any serious enquiry, are put forward and claims made that Hindus have been enslaved and converted forcefully for a thousand years.

The entire thesis of slavery of the Hindus at the hands of Muslims is a fallacy, primarily because those propounding this thesis have not the foggiest idea of what precisely slavery is and when they club this so-called slavery in the "Muslim period" with the "enslavement of the Hindu nation" by the British, they place under public scrutiny their utter and absolute ignorance of what imperialism is and how it operates.

Aside from their complete unfamiliarity with historical processes and with the various stages in the evolution of societies, these worthies, who also claim to have taught the decimal system to the world, expose themselves further to ridicule by not addressing a question of elementary arithmetic, they have never tried to explain why after 1,000 years of forcible conversion, Hindus continue to be 85 per cent of the country's population. Either those engaged in forcible conversion were extremely inefficient that they managed to convert only about 15 per cent of the population in a project lasting ten centuries, or the entire thesis is based primarily on make believe assumptions.

This constant noise about conversion and the creation of this frenzy of insecurity and of a psychosis of fear, of being reduced to a minority is, in fact, a clever attempt to prevent people from asking the one basic question that the noise makers have no answer for and the question is "But why do only Hindus convert".

The entire discourse on forcible conversion has been developed in order to prevent people from asking this one question. An honest answer to this question will shake the vey edifice upon which rests the Chaturvarnashram or the caste system.

Almost 2,500 years ago, two Kshatriya princes began needling the Brahmanic order, asking questions that triggered the first exodus from the order. This mass departure was the first organised rejection of the idea of intellect being the preserve of some, power the handmaiden of some others, trade and commerce of another lot and existence in servitude, the fate of the overwhelming majority. The questions that the Kshatriya princes asked have yet to be comprehensively answered.

As long as those who control the reins of faith continue to insist that Chaturvarnashram is in fact the divinely ordained division of labour, we cannot escape the situation where large parts of the population are compelled to exist in conditions of absolute servitude, exclusion and marginalisation. The Chaturvarnashram is the Indian version of racial discrimination. Forever perpetuating the dominance of the "dwij jaatis".

As long as this discriminatory construct continues, Dalits and tribals will continue to convert as they have from the time of the Buddha, it is another matter that conversion does not help them escape the brand of being a low born and so carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, butchers, cobblers, tailors, potters, goldsmiths, silversmiths, coppersmiths, performers, and others who had to work for a living have always been treated as life of a "lower intellect" because if they had any intellect they would be Brahmins or Kshatriyas - people who made others do their dirty work.

And it is because of this that entire communities converted to Islam and Sikhism when the opportunity presented itself and it is because of this that the finest craftspeople are to be found among these communities.

Some "upper-castes" also converted in the hope that if they converted to the religion of the king, it will help them rise in life. Whenever the "upper-caste" converted they carried their caste names into the new religion and examples of this can be found in Kashmir, in Rajasthan, in Haryana and in Punjab, but when the "low caste" converted they gave up their caste names because they were not converting for political reasons, they were opting out of a system that treated them with bias and prejudice.

Source: dailyo

Mythology of conversion

Why Hindus never converted but now want to reconvert

POLITICS  |   Long-form |   29-12-2014

Devdutt Pattanaik @devduttmyth

Observe how you react when you read the word "mythology". You are conditioned to believe it means "falsehood". Where did this conditioning, and meaning, come from? It comes from Christianity and secularism and science, the Western kind. And this has been accepted as "the" truth by many educated Indians – from the cult leaders of the liberal Left, to the gurus of the conservative right, even scriptwriters of Bollywood. Reveals how much of education has become indoctrination.

The word "mythos" means stories in Greek. Stories construct a worldview that is transmitted from generation to generation, shaping cultures. It is this story that binds people, turns them into a community. Every community in the world, from the Kalahari bushmen of Africa to the investment bankers of Wall Street, from aborigines of Australia to the brahmins of Varanasi, from the bishops in the Vatican to the Arabs of Mecca, has a worldview, a myth, about the nature of the world. Everyone in the community views their story as the truth. They have to. It is the glue that keeps their people together. The outsider finds these stories strange – weird, fantastic, absurd, stupid. Hence the twin meaning of myth – truth and falsehood. It is the assumption of the insider, and the judgment of the outsider. In other words, subjective truth.

For the Christian, Jesus is the saviour. For the Muslim, Muhammad is the last prophet. For the Buddhist, life is suffering. For the older Thervada Buddhist school, there was only one Buddha. In the latter Mahayana Buddhist school, there were many Buddhas. For the Hindu, there is rebirth. For the Shaivite, Shiva can break the cycle of rebirth. For the Vaishnavite, Vishnu is the cycle breaker. For the Jain, the world has no beginning or ending. For the secularist, religion is bad. For the capitalist, money is good. For the communist, the haves oppress the have-nots. For patriarchy, heterosexual men are superior. For the atheist, god is fiction. For the scientist, that which is measurable is real.

Notice how "myth" stretches from religious world to the non-religious world. For everyone tells stories, incredible stories, that some want to believe and some don’t. Storytelling is human. Story believing is human. Myth making is the indicator of humanity.

This poses a problem: how to distinguish the truth from falsehood? Reportage from propaganda. Ideology from reality. Ontology (knowledge independent of the mind) from epitemiology (knowledge created by the mind).

To understand this, we have to study the mythology of Abrahamic religions.

Why Abrahamic religions? Two reasons. First, Abrahamic religions have a profound political power, shaping Western/modern/global discourse, in more ways than we can imagine. Second, from Abrahamic religion we have our conventional understanding of "there can be only one truth!"

Abrahamic religions speak of "false gods" and "one true God". This idea is rather unique to Abrahamic mythology. There is the jealous god who does not like false gods, the god who refuses to be contained within a form and is formless, though is represented in language and art using the masculine form. Those who aligned to this mythology rejected all other gods. To prove their faith, they actively toppled other gods. Thus, when Christianity spread to Northeast India in the 20th century, the older tribal religions were wiped out. Memories were erased. Rituals forgotten. Exactly what happened in Arabia and Persia after the rise of Islam in the eighth century.

The Greeks did not have the concept of the "false" god. They had many gods. New gods kept coming in and old gods kept losing ground. The strong Olympians overpowered the earlier Titans. Eventually, the all-powerful god of the Christians kicked every god out when the Roman empire turned Christian. This was important to control the empire. The cacophony of many was replaced by the directives of the One. Notice this trend in recent times in India – where many clamour for dictatorship, and reject the vast diversity of languages in favour of a single language.

But then Greek mythology resurrected itself - not the gods, but their story. The dominant theme of Greek thought is about oppression and rebellion. To stay oppressed is to be in hell. The point of life is to fight back such authoritarian oppression, take a stand and be heroic. Greeks loved individualistic heroes and the polis (the city center) where rule was by consensus of individuals. With Greek thought came the European Renaissance of the 15th century, which challenged the church, and the idea of god, the idea of King, and gave rise to the Protestant movement (where the church is rejected but not god) as well as the relatively recent atheistic movement (where both church and god are rejected).

In its purest form, science does not judge. Science says: I know what I measure; the rest I don’t know. But science emerged in Christian Europe and so like the Abrahamic God, science became a judge. Science started to say: What I measure is true; the rest is falsehood. Thus the division of true and falsehood, spread into philosophy and science. Earlier, the Greek differentiated between two kinds of truth: that which is created by stories (mythos) and that which is created by reason (logos). Under Christian influence, mythos became falsehood and logos became truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth. Thus the Abrahamic God, overthrown by the Renaissance, fought back and made its way right into the speeches of the most radical militant atheists. This Christianised Science, where truth and falsehood were repeatedly demarcated, made its way to every corner of the world through missionary schools and the modern education system that adopted the missionary method.

Hinduism is not based on the notion of "false" gods and "true" gods. Hinduism has no concept of "judges". Truth is seen very differently. There is limited truth or mithya and limitless truth that is satya. The finite human mind can never appreciate the infinity of the world. But the mind can be expanded – by practices of propagated by hermits such as yoga and tapasya and tantra. Only the sage can see all. He is therefore Buddha, he whose intelligence (buddhi) is fully formed. He is therefore bhagavan, he who sees all parts (bhaga). In Jainism and Buddhism, the sage is a great teacher. In Hinduism, the sage is god, who defies the mortal body. God of Hinduism is limitless (ananta). This limitless god can "contract" himself and "bring himself down to the level of mortals". From here comes the concept of "avatar" (he who descends). From his mountaintop, Shiva sees all. But he is isolated up there. So the goddess brings him down to the plains, to Kashi, where the gaze is restricted by the horizon.

God who is "limitless" is very different from god who rejects the "false". The one is accommodating of human limitations. The other cannot tolerate human weakness. The one has no sense of urgency for it sees fear of death as delusion. The other wants to save the world before falsehood claims the world. The one is at peace. The other is always at war. Guess which god dominates the modern world.

Ironically, Hindu Right wing have started adopting the Abrahamic version of God. And the Left wing seems to agree with this definition of god. It has become the only definition of god, endorsed even by atheists and Bollywood.

The limitless god is too passive – it does not indulge cult leaders. Cult leaders want to be admired as heroes, and so they need villains. So they construct "false gods" – missionaries and secularists. They reject post-modern definitions of mythology. For them myth is "falsehood" not "subjective truth". The latter definition does not serve their ambitions. There is an epidemic of cult leaders in the Right wing, desperate seeking power, each one a jealous god. They don’t care for any truth but their own. So they tell stories, of how Hinduism is under threat and how everyone needs to be alert and fight back. But there is one key clause in a cult leaders story that often goes unnoticed: to win the battle against Christian missionaries, you have to recognise only their version of Hinduism with them as its true articulator. This they make themselves the chosen one! Other than cult followers, everyone can see the irony.

We often forget that one of the earliest form of "conversion" can be traced to Buddhism. It did this without force, without violence– through one leader (Buddha), one clear doctrine and set of rules (Dhamma), and through institutions (the Sangha). Buddhist monks did not speak of any "true" or "false" god, but he did offer the "cure for worldly suffering" revealed by his leader. For the common folk, this made Buddha, the source of the solution, a larger than life being, greater than man – a god! So eventually, ignoring earlier practices, gigantic images of Buddha started appearing, and being worshipped, in Central Asia, China and South East Asia. He who did not care for the gods, became a god. And when he became god, the many Gods of the Puranas, from Shiva to Kali to Krishna, ended up overshadowing him.

Many believe that Jesus was greatly influenced by Buddhism in his "lost years" and was inspired to create the "church", an idea that was alien to the earlier Jewish faith. When the church became powerful, the Roman empire adopted it. Instead of conquering tax-paying land for Rome, they new generals began conquering souls for the one true god. Later, with the rise of Science, god became secular "money" and the age of enlightenment became the age of colonisation. Secular thought propagated itself on the principles of the church – lessons of conversion informed many a marketing department. Brands became the new gods. Rockstars became the new gods.

We forget that stories influence stories. Just as Buddhism can influence Christianity, and Christianity can influence Capitalism and Communism, and the story of the "one true God" can influence truth-seeking scientists. Likewise, the story of the "limitless god" of Hinduism can also influence the limited truths of terrorists and activists.

Conversion believes that only one story will prevail at the end. Re-conversion believes that some stories are under threat. The tangible form of stories – customs, rituals, symbols – may die. The language (vac, in Vedas) may die but not the thought (manas, in Vedas). The intangible form of each and every story is eternal (sanatan, in the Vedas) and ever-changing (a-nitya, in the Vedas). Thus is how Vedic ideas survived despite the rise of Buddhism - reframing ideas locked in esoteric rituals into entertaining epics. This is why the Hindu concept of "history" is "a-historical". The limits of time are broken. The story, or rather idea of the story, belongs not just to the past but also to the present and the future. It recurs always. Conversion and re-conversion, conquest and liberation, follow each other like the recurring battle of the devas and the asuras. So it was, so it is and so it will be. Iti-hasa, even if the Hindu Right wing does not want to believe it.

Source: dailyo  

PK hits Hinduism more than Islam: But when religion itself is a lul thing, does it matter?

Conversion row: Right to religion is a basic right. Right to propagate is offensive and should be removed. Nobody should be allowed to propagate faith.

POLITICS  |  BREAKING NEWS INTO PIECES  |   6-minute read |   22-12-2014

Kamlesh Singh      @kamleshksingh

Everybody is talking religion. Everybody has one and nobody needs to be a pundit to talk religion. You don't need logic, reason or any basis to have your say because these things, to begin with, are alien to religion. The war zone starts right at our western border and goes on till Greece. The land of continuous conflict. At home, the reconversion drive in our midst that has pushed us into the middle of another religion-centric discourse. And as if that wasn't enough, Aamir Khan's PK is threatening would have made Rs 100 crores by the time you finish reading this. This sweet film has led to calls for boycott from the ones known as "Internet Hindus". They think it is an attack on their faith. It is time to clear the fog and throw some harsh light on hard facts.

PK as a film is overtly anti-religion, not just Hinduism. It attacks Hinduism more directly than other religions because the story is based in India, 80 per cent of which is Hindu. The story is about an alien trying to get help from God. Hindu hardliners' main peeve is that the film handles Islam with kid gloves. I would call that a smart move by Rajkumar Hirani. Hindus are not at the same level on offence meter as Muslims are. The siege syndrome has just infected Hindus. Among Muslims, it is at a critical level.

The boycott call is behind the support call both on box office cash register and on Twitter trends. Because on a meter of taking offence and ignoring to taking offence and killing people, Hindus are at Level Two. That's Boycott level. To demand a ban is Level Three. To enforce shutdowns is Level Four and going totally mental is Level Five. You can show a scared Shiva character running helter-skelter and get away with it. Showing the Prophet is a sure-shot suicidal move only the Scandinavian have attempted till now.

So, full marks to Rajkumar Hirani for keeping it sane. Hirani thought Hindus could take a joke or two. He has been quite there if not spot on. He hasn't been knifed yet. Lunatics, from all religions, have no sense of humour. But there is a greater chance of getting killed in ridiculing Islam than ridiculing Hindus or Christians. Hindus have too many Gods and godmen for everyone to get offended by one film. Hindus are also really old and settled being Hindus. Christianity, over 2,000 years old, is more settled than Islam, which is in its darkest period right now and is perceived to be at war, within and without. The golden rule of rubbing salt is you don't rub it on a fresh wound.

The film comes at a time when there is a fierce debate going on about conversion. As the Hindu Right wants converts to revert to Hinduism. Christians and Muslims believe conversion is a fundamental human right and a one-way street. The government wants the pitch to rise to a point where it can thrust a ban on conversion down everyone's throat.

The Constitution allows the right to follow one's faith and propagate it. Christians and Muslims want it to stay that way. Their claim is conversion, unless by force, fear or allurement, must be allowed. This is where the problem lies. There is nothing called conversion out of conscience. Luring someone in the name of heaven, or by instilling fear of hell, falls in the grey area between forceful and voluntary conversion. These grey areas will always lead to controversies. Missionaries are called missionaries because they have a mission. We all know what that is. It's called saving the soul. From the wrath of God?

The Hindu hardline calls it ghar wapsi, which itself is a can of worms. How long back do you want to go in history? Hindus were peaceful pagans before organised religion came into this land. They worshipped anything from sexual organs to trees to stones and so on. They had too many books and too many gods to be organised under one umbrella. The king was the avatar of Vishnu, revered and worshipped. The land provided plentiful to people who were busy living than looking for meaning of life. Talking to God was not the in-thing here like it was in the dreary deserts of Palestine where life was tough, the sun was harsh and people wondered about the meaning of life. They had a series of prophets until Muhammad put a full stop to it.

The pagans of this land had no problem in accepting Christianity because adding another man to worship in your pantheon full of gods isn't big deal. Hindus would have got Muhammad too into their fold. Depiction of Muhammad wasn't a big deal either. Persians and Indians drew the Prophet with all due respect when it did not invite instant death. But that was then. Islam spread like an all-engulfing ideology and it ruled lands so far and wide that its decree mattered.

Hindus, unless strictly prohibited, fund nothing wrong in pluralism when it came to worshipping all gods and avatars. Mahavir and Buddha were widely accepted as avatars. Guru Nanak founded a unique amalgamation of faiths and Hindus and Sikhs were visiting each other's places of worship. They continue doing so. Since it was allowed, Hindus worshipped Muslim saints as their own and continue doing so. There was no one Hinduism until Hindus were identified as Hindus, by the others. You know where the word Hindu came from and all that jazz. Besides they were no longer rulers of the land and the newly-arrived religious people were, they didn't want to be left out. They brought out their books. They brought out their philosophies and looked for syncretism within. They accepted the moniker Hindu and began identifying with it. What the people of the book called pagans progressed into a religion, sort of. No longer a way of life. They didn't have a word for religion because dharma means principles, not a sect or faith.

Religion, as it happens, tends to consolidate and all it needs is enough centrifugal force. The centuries when Islam and Christianity spread did not belong to Hindu rulers, per se. The siege mentality wasn't as pervasive so they were fighting among sects, caste or language. Like Islam had/has different versions and a central version, Hinduism began acquiring strengths/weaknesses of Islam. If there could ever be Wahhabism outside Muslims, we see that in action today. There is a great deal of pressure to bring homogeneity. A tradition as diverse as Hinduism is being homogenised in a slow, painful process. The all-new assertive Hindutva has replaced the good old inclusive Hinduism. There is no central authority yet but there is a sustained effort to create one. A centre around which everything moves. The BJP's historic victory is generating the centrifugal force to make the Sangh Parivar the centre of political Hinduism. Political Islam has wreaked havoc in places it held sway. Political Hinduism will be equally destructive, if not worse.

The conversion debate will not end until conversions continue. There is need to snip the right to religion and restrict it to that. Propagating one's religion cannot be a fundamental right. Isn't developing a scientific temperament among our fundamental duties? A nation that insists on rights and ignores its duties is a nation headed for a mess. Every citizen should have the absolute right to follow his/her religion as belief must remain a basic right in any democracy. Propagating your belief, which is ridiculously unscientific and fantastically stupid, is a dangerous luxury if we need to move towards being a rational society.

Source: dailyo 

Knights in saffron armour

The unique feature of Hinduism is its diversity and fluidity.

POLITICS  |   6-minute read |   16-12-2014

Devdutt Pattanaik @devduttmyth

The unique feature of Hinduism is its diversity and fluidity.

It is easy to use diversity as a tool to stifle all positive conversations on Hinduism, and reduce popular Hinduism to "patriarchal, casteist, hegemonic Brahminism", a noticeable trend amongst many left wing, even secular, intellectuals of India.

Many Euro-American academicians have also been arguing for some time that there is absolutely nothing common in the diverse communities of Hindus and that "Hinduism" is a false construct created by the British who used the word "Hindu" for the first time in the 19th century for administrative convenience to bundle together unrelated groups who were not "people of the book".

This naturally angers those who strive to create a united Hindu political force that the world cannot ignore. Explaining how Hinduism is a complex adaptive system (a phrase used by author Sanjeev Sanyal is tough). It seems far easier to stifle all conversations on Hindu diversity and seek construction of a neo-Hinduism rooted to one language (Sanskrit), one book (Bhagavad Gita), one system (jati), one way of living (vegetarian, heterosexual, patriarchal) and "reverse" conversions (ghar-vaapsi). This institutionalised religion (sangha) is protected by missionaries (pracharak) who function as celibate, saffron-robed warrior knights who need to wield, according to the fiery Yogi Adityanath, the "book" (shastra) and "the weapon" (shaastra), rosary (mala) and a lance (bhala). They call this neo-Hinduism, rather ironically, a timeless faith (sanatan dharma).

Timeless faiths need no protection. But knights need dragons (secularists, Christians, Muslims) and damsels in distress (Bharat Mata). And they end up throwing the damsel in an ivory tower, restraining her with new rules and definitions, allegedly for her own good!

The idea of chivalrous knights in shining armour emerged in medieval Europe and was popularised by bards known as troubadours. The chivalrous knights did not fight for glory, or spoils of war, but for goodness and righteousness. They were imagined as selfless men who believed in pure love – who stayed celibate in the service of a woman they loved, a woman of high rank, a queen usually, who was married off to another and so unobtainable.

Eventually, she was identified with the Virgin Mary. She was Notre Dame (Our Lady, in French). Did Notre Dame inspire the concept of Mother India? Are the preachers and defenders of neo-Hinduism inspired by the idea of the celibate chivalrous knight? We can only speculate.

The difference between Hinduism and Abrahamic faiths is rather stark. For example, in Hinduism, there is no concept of "false" god or "true" god. Ideas like "Satya Narayana" (True God) emerged in India only after the advent of Islam. More popular is instead the idea that all gods (spelt in plural and without capitalisation) are manifestations of God. Or that every god can be God sometime. Thus Shiva is God. Vishnu is also God. They are different to look at. Their stories are different. But in essence, they are same. Further, Hinduism has the concept of the Goddess. And Goddess is not a female form of God. She is independent of God, one who enables the divinity of God. Thus Shiva is shava (corpse) without Shakti. And Vishnu exists to serve as go-pala (cowherd) to go-mata (the earth-goddess).

Hinduism's complexity, fluidity and diversity has always been problematic to many Hindus. Unconsciously there was a need to get validation from the West. Nowhere is the desire to stifle Hinduism diversity more evident than in the obsession with Bhagavad Gita. Few realise that it is but one of many Gitas. There is Guru Gita, from the Skanda Purana, in which Shiva sings in response to a query by his consort, Shakti, about the meaning of one who facilitates spiritual growth; Ganesh Gita, which is part of Ganesh Purana, where Ganesha as Gajanana explains to king Varenya the truth about the world; Avadhuta Gita, in which the mendicant Dattatreya, first guru to all tantriks, sings about the nature of reality; Ashtavakra Gita, in which the hermit Ashtavakra, following a question by king Janaka, explores the nature of the soul; Rama Gita, from Ananda Ramayana, in which Ram, king of Ayodhya, consoles his brother, Lakshman, after the latter has abandoned Ram’s wife, Sita, in the forest; Uddhava Gita, also known as Hamsa Gita, from the Bhagavat Purana, in which Krishna, before leaving earth and returning to his heaven, Vaikuntha, summarises the wisdom of his life to his companion Uddhava; Vyadha Gita, from the Mahabharata, in which the butcher sings a song to explain to an arrogant hermit that being a householder, performing one’s duties, and serving others, is perhaps as important spiritually, if not more, than renouncing the world and serving only oneself; Anu Gita, narrated once again by Krishna to Arjun, but after the war, when Arjun’s brothers, the Pandavas, have firmly established their rule after defeating their cousins, the Pandavas; Devi Gita, where wisdom is given by the Goddess, not God.

In the late 18th century, the East India Company decided to publish the English translation of the Bhagavad Gita. Before that the Bhagavad Gita was known to Indians through songs of poet-saints like Dyaneshwara of Maharashtra (13th century) and Balarama Das of Odisha (15th century), which captured the spirit of the Sanskrit text but focussed on the path of devotion (bhakti marga). The Sanskrit text itself was restricted to Brahmins scholars such as Shankara (eight century), Ramanuja (11th century) and Madhava (12th century) who wrote long commentaries on it and focussed on its intellectual side (gyan yoga). When it was put down in writing, 2,000 years ago, the purpose was to counter the rise of monastic orders such as Buddhism by amplifying the value of ritual duty and social obligations (karma yoga).

It remains a mystery what made Bhagavad Gita more popular than the others. Was it more comprehensive? Was it more dramatic as it is takes place on a battlefield between two armies on the brink of war? Did its monotheistic tilt make it popular when Muslim and Christian rulers dominated the land? Internal correspondence of the East India Company reveals publication of this document was justified on ground that Gita’s monotheistic spirit aligned with the monotheistic spirit of Christianity, and was less confusing than polytheistic Vedas. This made Hinduism more comprehensible, and less fluid, enabling even many of India’s founding fathers, lawyers mostly, who went to London for further studies, connect with the glory of their Hindu past, for the first time in their lives. This naturally led to the meteoric rise of the Bhagavad Gita, transforming this Vaishnava document into the "Hindu Bible" with its own "One True God".

The saffron knights will argue, Hinduism was always monotheistic! We did not need the British, or the Muslim before that, to make it monotheistic. They hate the suggestion that theism itself emerged later in Hinduism, that the Vedas seem rather agnostic in many portions, and that the Hindu concept of God, with Goddess, is radically different from the concept of God in Abrahamic faiths. Such historical analysis of Hinduism angers the saffron knight. They want their neo-Hinduism damsel to be static and stagnant, defined by their needs and their limited knowledge and their desire to measure up to the Abrahamic faiths. They cannot handle the idea that Hinduism is a self-sustaining (swayambhu, in Sanskrit) evolving entity, indifferent to all those who seek to control, conquer or rescue her.

Source: dailyo

Modi, conversion is a slap in the face of India

It is a shameless mess of anger, bigotry and coercion which threatens our multi-religious nation.

POLITICS   |   4-minute read |   15-12-2014

Rajeev Dhavan

Conversion, reconversion, counter-conversion and victimisation of Hindu converts to any other faith. What a shameless mess of anger, bigotry, threats and coercion.

On December 8, 2014, there was a havan in Agra, by offshoots of the RSS and the Bajrang Dal, who "reconverted" 200 Muslims into the Hindu fold. Muslims were promised Aadhar cards, IDs and registration as BPL (Below Poverty Line). Amidst chants and priestly ceremonies, vermilion was put on Muslim foreheads as they washed the feet of Hindu idols. Most Muslims said they were lured, and asserted that they were Muslims. Farhan, a poor Muslim put it well: “If 40 saffron-scarved persons stand on your head, you do what they want.”

The Hindutva juggernaut is on the roll. The plan is to have 600 conversion sammelans. After Balarampur and Agra will come Ghazipur and Aligarh on Christmas day. The rest will follow. This unrelenting Hindutva crusade in the name of Hinduism is shamelessly subversive by a religion which does not proselyte.

Legislation

The BJP suggested the remedy lay in passing an anti-conversion legislation. Such anti-conversion legislation has been used in the past to terrorise non-Hindus. Before independence it existed in princely states in Rajgarh (1936), Bihar (1942) Sarguja and Udaipur. After independence, the first round of legislation was in Orissa (1967) and Madhya Pradesh (1968). The Orissa legislation was struck down and its MP counterpart upheld by their respective high courts.

In the Stanislaus case (1977), the Supreme Court upheld the acts without examining them. Its logic was that Article 25 of the Constitution specifically guaranteed the right to “propagate” one’s faith, but not to convert. This clumsy judgment was welcomed by Hindu fundamentalists. Unfortunately in the Satya Narayan case (2003), justice Khare and Sinha showed extreme indiscipline, to affirm Stanislaus without a notice to the other side. After Stanislaus, the legislation was passed in Arunachal Pradesh (1978), Chhattisgarh (2202), Himachal Pradesh (2006) and Rajasthan (2008).

When Rajasthan wanted to make its law stricter, governor Pratibha Patil killed the Bill by reserving it for presidential assent. Gujarat’s anti-conversation laws were passed in 2003; with a later proactive amendment by Narendra Modi that conversions between Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs were not conversion because they were part of the same Hindu faith. Governor Sharma ordered reconsideration and Modi withdrew under pressure.

All these statutes decry conversion by force, misrepresentation or inducement. Fair enough. India’s Penal Code (IPC) treats such conversions as cheating and punishes those who promote enmity and outrage religious feelings (Sections 153A, 295A of the IPC). By this test, the RSS and Bajrang Dal initiative in Agra and 600 planned sammelans are illegal as disturbing communal harmony. Anti-conversion acts are not that simple.

Models

The simple model is to introduce criminal consequences, including making them cognisable (investigation by police) and non-bailable. The second model may be called the surveillance model, followed in MP, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. Here, prior intimation of a conversion has to be given to the magistrate who can inquire into any “complaint or information”. Significantly, Parliament has refused to pass the Indian Conversion (Regulation and Registration) Bill, 1954 and the Backward Communities (Religion Protection) Bill 1960. A 1978 bill lapsed. The response of the Modi government on December 12, 2014 to the recent conversions in Agra is to suggest an anti-conversion Bill. Such statutes are designed to harass Christians, Muslims and other minorities through surveillance and punishment.

Technically, conversion by Hindus will also come under the proposed bill. But we all know there is a huge difference of application. Such laws are inflicted on minorities and reticent in their use on Hindus. Modi’s strategy is brilliant in its deceit. First, his rank and file create Agra and then his government suggest this odious solution as a panacea. Create a crisis and propose a solution which Parliament has resisted for 64 years. Freedom of religion by threats and criminalisation is not acceptable.

Tolerance

Hindutva adherents must recognise that Hindus left the faith because of some aspects of Hinduism which can be considered offensive. Buddhism posed a threat to Hindus over centuries because of the caste system and Buddhism’s innate attractiveness. It took the Shankaracharya to simplify the Hindu faith to some extent even as lapses continue. Even if conversions took place in the Muslim era (1206 -1857) and the Christian era (1700-1947) to curry favour with the rulers, after many generations today’s Muslims and Christians remain steadfast in their faith.

Recent conversions from Hinduism are symbolised by Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism. If Hinduism were to introspect, one would find an apparatus of cruel absurdities in an otherwise creditable faith. What we now have is a political Hinduism backed by arrogance, ignorance and threats. When Gujarat burned, Modi was complicit. Today, he is the prime minister of India. What is expected from him is a severe condemnation of the events in Agra, the one planned in Aligarh and the 600 to follow. Is Modi himself truly a Hindu? I think in name only. The RSS "short pants" brigade was modelled on Nazi lines. Modi needs the RSS and others for political victory, even if at times limits of decency have been crossed.

India is the greatest multicultural, multi-religious nation in the world, with traditions of tolerance and co-existence. Mr Modi — don’t let your electoral supporters spoil this.

Source: dailyo