THE HINDU SOCIETY has been losing ground in a sustained manner since the demise of the Gupta Empire. This erosion has only accelerated after the battered, non-violent luminaries of the Congress party adopted a hotch-potch democracy in 1947. This democracy was the ultimate culinary disaster. It was a dish that was supposed to mean everything to everybody but meant nothing to nobody.
Visualise a large cauldron surrounded by a formidable team of expert chefs, each, a master of his own specialised recipe. First, the halwa master adds his ingredients; next, the Andhra-style chilly chicken master adds his Guntur-grown mix of heady spices and meat; next, the Punjabi Paneer Makhni expert puts in his makings; then the Kashmiri cordon bleu adds his signature rogan gosht…and so it goes on until finally, the Master Chef pours one bucket of sherbet, one bucket of kheer and one bucket of payasam. The whole thing is stirred and shaken and boiled and strained and drained and left to cool down. In the end, the entire team congratulates itself on creating a brand new gastronomical innovation that will assuredly have universal appeal and uniform taste. Or so it convinces itself. The thrill in the kitchen is infectious.
Then the recipe of this new dish is meticulously written down in great detail running into thousands of sheets of papers, which are further circulated for endless rounds of discussion till a consensus of sorts is arrived. Extended debates take place on weighty nuances: I detect a slight hint of Hindu communalism in the saffron powder coated over the one-millimeter-thin strip of meat in the rogan gosht. At this, pandemonium erupts. The debate is adjourned. Similar incidents recur in a loop. Ultimately, all such irreconcilable disagreements are resolved in private dining rooms or bedrooms or both. In these settings, the cancer of irreconcilability is cured with a bandage. In the end, everyone concurs that the innovative dish indeed has universal appeal as agreed hithertofore. They formalise its recipe, get it duly stamped and sealed and printed and vest it with sovereign authority.
Then they give it a sombre name: the Constitution of India.
This culinary metaphor strikes me each time I read the Constituent Assembly Debates. I don’t intend to belittle or demean the formation of our Constitution or its authors. But each time I think about it, I’m reminded of P.V. Kane’s clairvoyant analysis of the Constitution:
From 1950 there have been ten amendments, while in the U.S. A. there have been only 22 amendments during a period of about 170 years. The very first amendment was made within less than a year and a half from the day the Constitution came into force. It affected about a dozen Articles, among which there were three Articles dealing with fundamental rights… One fails to understand the meaning of the words, ‘fundamental rights’ in a constitution which took over two years of deliberations, if they could be changed within a year and a half.
We’ve evidently plummetted down into an awful depth since Kane sounded this ominous alarm. And this has occurred precisely because of a core defect: the Indian Constitution has no solid philosophical and spiritual edifice. Since the day of its adoption, it has discarded the very precept and lived experience that had bonded us as a whole for several millennia: Dharma.
Unsurprisingly, a belligerent, alleged minority has not only been outbreeding but devouring the Hindu society in an unrestrained manner. Our democracy has also been the most fecund enabler of Christian missionary conversions. Indeed, Macaulay and materialism have nearly exterminated Hindu cultural self-confidence over ten generations.
From all this and other perspectives, Ghar-Wapsi has become an even more urgent imperative if we are really serious about our very survival.
But Ghar-Wapsi even on a large scale, is only a partial cure because it is fundamentally a defensive measure. It must be accompanied by a conscious decision on the part of Hindus to birth more children. Here is a verifiable data point from daily life to grasp the gravity of the situation.
Thirty years ago, if someone warned you that Tirumala would soon be infiltrated by Christian missionaries or that Sabarimala would be marked out for destruction or more recently, that Dharmasthala would almost be held hostage, Hindus themselves would brand you as insane. Yet, we’ve lived to witness all of these incursions and we seem to be defenceless apart from launching protests whose success has been rather doubtful. But even more alarmingly, Sringeri — the spiritual nerve centre that had safeguarded Hindu Dharma in Dakshinapatha for 600-plus years — has seen a mushrooming of mosques at walking distance of Adi Sankara’s Matha. Such real-life examples abound throughout Bharatavarsha.
A FOURFOLD CHALLENGE faces the Hindu society today and there is still time to address it with confidence.
One, the challenge of stopping industrial scale proselytisation that comes in all hues and wears every disguise imaginable — until you scan the QR code, you never know the real name of the shopkeeper or the street vendor who sells Puja items outside a temple, even in Mantralayam.
Two, to erect unbreachable nuclear ringfences around the Hindu society. These fences had existed throughout our history in the form of spiritual practices, community rules, certain strict disciplines related to food, but above all, in the enduring Hindu family system. The Hindu family was the strongest safeguard, which is why it continues to be virulently attacked.
Three, to launch a nationwide and concerted campaign of Ghar-Wapsi. This can be done by any organisation that is genuinely committed to Hindu causes. The Jati to which the returnee belongs is actually immaterial given the fact that we are living in a largely materialist society premised not on occupations but jobs.
Four, to develop an expansionist psyche in the mould of say, Chandragupta Maurya, Satavahana, the Gupta Samrats, Pulikeshi II, Rajaraja Chola, Sri Krishnadevaraya, etc. We can understand this in a twofold way. One, the whole world is talking about data ownership and data sovereignty only since the last decade or so. Yet, only a handful of people had foreseen the long-term implications of the rapid growth of for example, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Such companies are born only in countries endowed with this sort of expansionist mindset. These companies are the contemporary equivalents of the phenomenon of the rapid growth of military technology in colonial Europe. Two, we can look at the story of Hindus abroad. One of the first things that happens in foreign countries when Hindus form a community is the building of a temple. This too, is expansionism that occurs on a profounder plane. Hindus simply cannot help but build temples — this is an extraordinary, intrinsic power that we have consistently failed to harness after Muslim rule spread in Bharatavarsha. And these and allied spheres urgently plead for a thorough, in-depth research in the newly-minted “Hindu” universities and allied research organisations that arose after 2014.
ALL THE AFOREMENTIONED four activities need to occur simultaneously and all traditional and non-traditional organisations need to join forces forgetting their individual concerns which are primarily inconsequential. The traditional Mathas have a central role to play in this Raṣṭra-yajña, especially in the societal realm.
Their first endeavour must involve an active effort to retain the spiritual core of their respective Pantha and make it appealing, attractive and beautiful. The human impulse intuitively responds to beauty, which is why our tradition regards aesthetic beauty as the sibling of spiritual joy.
All such efforts must begin early — in childhood — and they will eventually instill and reinforce self-confidence among the adherents. It is a universal truth that confidence makes itself felt in a person who feels beautiful within himself or herself.
Above all, every Matha should incessantly warn its devotees against the menace of conversions and put boots on the ground to proactively discourage and punish proselytisers. It should also have a dedicated cell or unit for undertaking Parāvartana or Ghar-Wapsi.
An honest introspection within the Hindu community — cutting across sects — is yet another urgent imperative. At its most basic, it must ask this question: why are Hindus converting for something as fundamental as an admission to a Christian school or medical treatment in a Church-run hospital or for buying an autorickshaw? The honest answer might be unpleasant for now but it is infinitely preferable to wholesale extinction. Every adherent of a Matha who converts will be transformed into a predator who will work to eventually devour the same Matha.
I dread to see a day when:
The Sringeri Matha is rechristened as OUR CHURCH OF THE HOLY ST. ADI SEBASTIAN - Adi Sankara
Srisailam as THE HOLY CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL — Mallikarjuna Swamy
Tirumala as THE SACRED MOUNT OF ST. VALENTINE — Venkateshwara Swamy
Sabarimala as THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. ANDREW — Ayyappa Swamy
Angalamman Parameshwari as THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF AGNES.
I hope I never live to see the day.
This fanatical usurpation has happened throughout the world for over two millennia wherever Christianity has gained the upperhand, and it has happened with enormous bloodshed of the Heathens. It is happening throughout India even as I write this; subtly in some instances, violently in others.
The question is whether the current Hindu society is willing to awaken to the real existential threat it faces. As Swami Vivekananda memorably assessed, former Hindus pose the gravest danger to Hindus.
THE PROCESS OF Parāvartana has undergone several changes since the time of Devala Muni all the way up to the Arya Samaj. However, its kernel remains intact. In fact, Acharya P.V. Kane — one of the foremost authorities of Dharmasastra of our era — has offered a highly simplified ritual of Parāvartana in the fourth volume of his History of Dharmasastra. The ritual is fully consonant with contemporary needs and can be customised for specific situations.
|| ॐ Tat Sat Brahmārpaṇamastu ||
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