Hindutva fanatics besmirch Hinduism

 

The biggest problem Hindu society faces today is that many of its professed champions are involved in activities that ultimately result in strengthening the forces inimical to the interests of Hindus. The arrest of alleged Hindu terrorists in the murder of Communist Party of India leader Govind Pansare underlines this fact.

I have not used the term ‘Hindu terrorists’ without deliberation, but I will come to that later.

Sameer Gaikwad, an activist of Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindu organization, was arrested a few days ago. The detention of four more persons, including a woman, has been reported in the media. The woman is said to be Gaikwad’s girlfriend (Prudish thugs also have girlfriends!). The Karnataka cops investigating the killing of rationalist and Kannada writer M.M. Kalburgi are reportedly waiting for its turn to question the three arrested Sanatan Sanstha activists.

Apart from the violent saffron fringe, there are mainstream Hindutva protagonists who are promoting the medieval agenda: they want to ban meat, keep women within the confines of home, and proscribe anything that they don’t like. They are the saffron version of the Taliban.

So, we have an array of bigots whose arsenal comprises bans, threats, coercion, and even murder. The ecosystem of Hindu terror seems to be coming into being.

Hindutva warriors often assert that there is no such thing as Hindu terror; in fact, they go to the extent of saying that there can never be Hindu terror because Hinduism is inherently peaceful. This is pure hogwash, for religion and culture are not some abstractions existing objectively and apart from us; they are what we make them to be: they are us.

By the way, similar things are said about Islam. Intellectuals lecture us that Islam is the religion of peace, but we know better; the terror jihad has spawned from Bali to Boston is for everybody to see. Islam is what it does, and not what its apologists tell us it is.

The argument that there can never be Hindu terror is factually incorrect, for there is at least one instance of it—the assassination of Gandhi. Whatever flaws might have been in his thinking, and howsoever baneful his legacy might have been for India, it is beyond dispute that he did not hurt anybody. And even if did so, the right to punish him belonged to the state, after the due process of law, and not to Nathuram Godse. Only God or nature can kill a human being.

The murder of Gandhi was wrong not only because it was a most foul human act but also, from the Hindutva perspective, a self-goal: it besmirched pro-Hindu politics so badly that it took half-a-century for a Hindu nationalist to become the prime minister of India. Godse, who claimed to be a champion of Hindus, ended up hurting their interests.

Similarly, the fanatics promoting their agenda—yes, their, and not the Hindu agenda, for meat-eating is part of our native tradition, as also is expressing carnal love—are the enemies of Hinduism.

They are also cowards, for they have not been able to redeem any of their earlier promises—the Ram Temple, abrogation of Article 370, rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, and the uniform civil code. Meat ban, terrorizing authors, etc, are diversionary tactics to fool the Hindus.

Photo: Courtesy Wikipedia