Let’s face it — Hindus are easy target for all the Abrahamic religions of the world. Why? Because we are the only ones who truly believe that all Gods are one. All Abrahamic religions believe that their God is the only true God … for us anything & everything, anyone & everyone is God. Aham Brahmasmi, Tat Twam Asi – both these maha vakyas are accepted by every Hindu as sacrosanct. Yes, our society is ridden with many evil practices, but then which society isn’t? But Hinduism is the only religion which has had so many reformers from time to time, who have tapped into the conscience of the society and have made them relearn their holy scriptures in the right way. When Sri Krishna said, “Sambhavami yuge yuge”, He was just affirming that every time Hindus choose wrong over right, He will come in one form or the other to guide us to the right path. That is why Hindus consider every reformer as part of themselves only.
But in recent times one has come across many attempts to vitiate this thought process and we have seen blatant attempts to divide Hindus and Hinduism. Whether it is some ISKCON devotees saying that they are Vaishnavas as separate from the rest of the Hindus, or whether it is some Kashmiri Pandits saying that they are above other Hindus because they are all Brahmins, or whether it is Lingayats saying that they are separate from Hindus because their Basavacharya rejected the Vedas, or whether it is some Sikhs saying that the Prabhu Sri Rama in their Guru Granth Sahib is a different King than that of the Hindus, or whether it is claiming that Jhuley Lal (worshiped by Sindhis) is actually a Sufi Saint (Shaikh Tahir), or whether it is an argument about the Balaji of Tirupati as being Hindu or Jain or even Shakti – all these represent different viewpoints than the larger Majority. Or so we thought.
What was ‘some’ has now become a clear and present danger to Sanatan Dharma as a whole. Hinduism treated all as part of a whole –
ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
Om poornnam-adah poornnam-idam poornnaat-poornnam-udachyate
Poornnasya poornnam-aadaaya poornnam-eva-avashissyate ||
Om shaantih shaantih shaantih ||
Meaning: That (outer world) is purna (full with Divine Consciousness); This (inner world) is also purna (full with Divine Consciousness); From purna comes purna (from the fullness of Divine Consciousness the world is manifested) ; 2: Taking purna from purna, purna alone remains (because Divine Consciousness is non-dual and infinite).
Thus anyone who worshiped Nature in any form, great souls in any form, animals and other creatures in any form – all were part of Hinduism.
This concept was called ‘heathen’ by the Christians and was derided by them and by the Islamists who hated the thought of Idol worship and called it ‘kufr’. So they went around causing wars and destruction everywhere they set foot in Bharat, in a misguided attempt to make us (rather, force us) to believe in the one true God – theirs. While we saw the same God in various forms, they could not see any God in any of our forms. But still they unleashed great violence on us to make us convert. One knows about what happened during the Portuguese inquisition in Goa and Karnataka, in Kerala and Islamic invasions in all of Bharat. Even vanvasis and tribals who thought they were Hindus were now forced to forget their ancient customs and believe in a new God.
But it is the soft invasion which is now proving to be more dangerous. Christians, especially in the South, have started appropriating Hindu customs and Gods to their own religion – Jesus is shown as Sri Krishna, Subramanya, Maha Vishnu and more, and Mother Mary is shown as Maa Durga. Muslims have launched full scale Jihad through marriages to Hindu girls and other means. Not just this, our temples are soft targets too – renovations with Christian Gods painted on the roofs of our temples, burning of temples to deface them, removal of Vedic schools and replacing them with shops/restaurants, misappropriation of ancient temples as property of the Christians and Muslims, drinking & meat eating in the temple premises by employees, employment to non-Hindus in temples – all are common now in South India.
In all these, one factor is common –politics. The Congress party and the Left-oriented political parties, while clothed in secularism, have rung the death knell for Hinduism. Listen to one such recent speech by Congress President Rahul Gandhi:
This shows clearly how Mr. Gandhi who claims to be a janeu dhaari Hindu and Shiv bhakt knows nothing about the rituals in the temples, which he has himself performed. But still he thinks it is ok to use these rituals to draw distinction between Kashmiri Pandits and other Hindu Pandits (presumably the Kashmiri is not liked by others according to him), to one who sees God everywhere and another who wants the temple beautified, to one political party as against another. When division is the only aim one has, one can use any instance to divide the people. And that is exactly what Congress is doing – the latest being the division of the Lingayat and the Veerashaiva community in Karnataka. They have actively used Christianity to divide people in the North East States of Bharat. They have always supported the Periyar factions in Tamil Nadu. They used Appeasement drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims. And they used Reservations to make all Hindus literally hate each other. All this is known and still we see them using such tactics to their advantage in Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Haryana and almost all over Bharat.
Less said about the Leftist parties, the better. They used their powers to change our History books, our education material in schools and colleges, our media and so on.
It is time that the present government takes a strong stand and refuses to fuel such divisive policies. Politics in Bharat can and will survive even if such division among the Hindus is not made. But Hinduism will find it difficult to survive if the government itself chooses to drive a wedge among the followers of this religion. The fact is that Hindus today are pushed to the wall … anymore and there is a clear and present danger that the one religion which is the most accepting of all, will also choose to become orthodox in their thinking. While other religions have other countries for themselves to fall back on, we Hindus have only one country – Bharat. If even this country is taken away from us, where should we go to? There is no need for playing politics and dividing Hindus to stay in Power – only protect us from further division and we shall keep you in power. Hindus must unite now. And the present government must appreciate the needs of the Hindus to keep themselves safe from more cultural and traditional erosion.
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