Can a Hindu Nation be secular?

Before we move further, we need to ask if we ourselves believe in Secularism or not. Yes, according to me secularism is very important, but not the secularism which is currently being propagated in India. I want to see a nation, where we have Uniform Civil Code (UCC) strictly implemented, which is absolutely classless and where we give merit the highest priority. In addition to this, I would like to see my nation in the forefront of economic, scientific and cultural thought. Though this is idealistic, our approach and attitude should be to ensure that we come as close as possible. The current day reality is that we indeed have all the ingredients, but we don’t have the right environment where we can produce a great nation for the generations to come.

The next thought that strikes us is, if we have the right communities which can embrace Secularism and consider it sacred? Well, the fact is that we have a bunch of people who don’t believe that other cultures can exist and consider all the other faiths and ways of life utterly false. Well I am talking none other than the two great sematic religions Islam and Christianity. Firstly, though it is undeniable that some followers of Christianity have reformed and the “Church” is no more strong as it used to be a few centuries ago. But, at the same time we cannot ignore the fact that the proselytization has gone too far and the conversions targets are poor of the poorest and the downtrodden. Secondly, Islam cannot be excused; they time and again have demonstrated to us that they can never ever be secular and can never live in peace with non-Muslims. For example, consider Pakistan which had 10% of Hindu population just before partition and now it is almost NIL, and Bangladesh which boasted of 28% Hindus in 1947 now has less than 10% of Hindus. Forget the Hindus, the entire Persian culture in Iran and Iraq was destroyed by the Arabs, who even today dislike Persians because they continue to speak Persian language and not Arabic.

If we go through our ancient, medieval and modern Indian history, you will never find even one instance, where there was a large scale prosecution of a religions group. Yes, you will definitely find gory details of Pushyamitra of the Sanga dynasty prosecuting the Buddhist, but the fact remains that such history was written by Marxist writers like Romila Thapar who have dominated History book writing in the post-Independence India, because any Anti-Hindu comments always earned them pointers.

For example is it not true that we have completely accepted the Parsis and the Syrian Christians who were tormented by the Arabs centuries ago? Time and again, we Hindus have proved that we are secular and we have always respected other cultures and even helped them to further their cause. The history has clearly demonstrated this. If one day we become a “Hindu Nation”, we will become “truly secular” and is beyond any doubt.

Shun the "fear" and awake

Wherever I go and meet my fellow Hindus and discuss topics like protecting our Sanatana Dharma in some I see a strong dislike to further the discussion and in others I get a supportive nod and that is it. The later bunches are the people whom I call "entitled" and I guess we can live with these people. But the former are the people who are all out to erode our great culture.

I would hesitate to call these people "ignorant", but rather these are the bunch of people who don’t want to get their hands "dirty" and are "afraid". The word "afraid" does not go well with most of them and would clearly defend projecting that they are not "afraid" but want "peace". I don’t understand what "peace" are we talking about here when the "opposite" side does not believe in dialog. Assuming that the word "afraid" may not be exactly correct, then is it that these people are not "confident", not "confident" of how best we can protect our dharma or even worse, what our dharma actually is? Well, I believe that this is a strong fallout of the upbringing and education that we have discussed to a fair extent here. Our target should be here. We need to work hard towards bringing about a large-scale intellectual awakening and "empowering" the Hindu minds which will be our ultimate savior. The colonial and Islamic overlords have taken lot of pains to bring about a strong separatism within the Hindu fold by further inculcating the already existing social evils and making it a part of Sanatana Dharma, but yet we Hindus need to stay united and get connected with an strong feeling for our great culture and heritage the connector being Sanatana Dharma, which is already in place, except that we need to tighten it in a few places.

The foremost requirement is that a few "tigers" need to take the initiative in bringing about this large scale awakening, it is time we shun this idiotically oriented "tolerant" and "fear" tag and have our opinions expressed freely in every forum we enter. We need to take the initiative where ever we get an opportunity to explain to our fellow brothers and sisters on the atrocities being committed and inculcate into them a strong sense of responsibility as an "individual contributor" towards a movement which focuses on the ultimate goal of protecting our great culture and dharma.

It does take some effort to cure a person from the disease called "pseudo-secularism", but let me assure you my friends, that your efforts will not go waste in the long run. We must use all possible mediums to achieve our goal.

"Sorry, we are not Hindus"

This what Ramakrishna Mutt in their petition to the Calcutta High Court in 1985 stated. This was truly a sad day for all the Hindus across India and the world itself. It did really come as a great blow for the cause of Sanatana Dharma. This was the last thing expected from such a great Institution, which goes by the name of Swami Vivekananda, who I consider to be a great Hindu Revivalist of the modern times. Well, the reason for this is due to Article 30 and 29 propounded by our great pseudo-secular constitution.

The articles are as follows

(Ref: - http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p03029.html)
29. Protection of interests of minorities.-
(1) Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.

(2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.

(Ref: - http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p03030.html)
30. Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions.-
(1) All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.

(1A) In making any law providing for the compulsory acquisition of any property of any educational institution established and administered by a minority, referred to in clause (1), the State shall ensure that the amount fixed by or determined under such law for the acquisition of such property is such as would not restrict or abrogate the right guaranteed under that clause.]

(2) The State shall not, in granting aid to educational institutions, discriminate against any educational institution on the ground that it is under the management of a minority, whether based on religion or language.

So, the constitution not only gives complete freedom from interference but also goes on to provide required aid and makes it easy for minorities to establish such institutions. But the same does not apply to us "majorities" who dare not go ahead with such sane ideas; even if you establish one such organization, it gives the government a free hand to poke into our finances and business. Well, this is the very reason RK Mission wanted to disassociate itself from Hinduism and probably call itself “Ramakrishnaism?”

The Calcutta High Court in 1987 actually accepted this fact and declared RK Mutt as “Minority” institution, but later this was taken to the Supreme Court by like minded people who realized that it will bring about a large scale division of Hindus and cause further fragmentation, the court sessions carried on till 1995, when it was declared that Supreme Court has sufficient evidences to declare that RK Mutt was actually a Hindu majority Institution and the Calcutta High Court order was officially overruled. This came as a big victory for all the Hindus who sighed in relief. Similar is the case with other institutions like Arya Samaj, Aurobindo, etc. In fact in a recent discussion with a Jain, he demonstrated signs of separatism, which is very unfortunate for the cause of our great Sanatana Dharma.

Time has come that level-headed decision makers take a second look at Article 29 and Article 30 and give a good rework so we actually become “Secular” in the true sense. We should strongly oppose the pseudo-secular amendments and articles of the constitution. Increase in socio-political awareness among the youth should be our highest priority and will also help in a long way. Arise and awake my brothers and sisters to the gross injustice meted out on our great dharma.