A tale of Oxford and Cambridge returned liars
A few days back I went to have lunch in Zeus café in Goldwin
Smith Hall in Cornell University (US). I had gone there to enjoy a laid back
afternoon lunch spiced with the explicit or implicit eroticism of the
‘abstract’, with a mystic, dusky,
poetic, and a dangerously attractive
Indian girl but, sooner than later, I
realized that the political ghosts would haunt my erotic afternoon siestas
also. There I met a Professor, who is supposedly an expert on Indian polity.
The honorable professor was facing some bureaucratic delays in getting Indian
visa to attend a conference. I told the
professor that, since now we have a new prime minister and a stable government
so they will fix these problems, to which the learned professor replied that oh
no, the new prime minster will ‘fix’ all the Muslims. He further gave a grand
conclusion that the days of Indian secularism are now over, with the victory of
BJP. Similarly, a few days back I saw several posts on the facebook from my Stephanian and supposedly Marxist,
and liberal colleagues(though a lot of them wanted a laal batti, red wine, good
cigars and Cambridge University) , which read, “RIP Secular India, Birth- 15th
August 1947, Death- 16th May 2014”.
‘Secularism’ in
India, now it seems that has become a nagging irritant, often used by a motley
garb of intellectuals (mainly the professor-politicians of Congress party ),
feudal and caste-based political parties,
and attention-seeking self-proclaimed coffee-table revolutionaries like
Arundhati Roy and Aruna Roy, to shield all sorts of inefficiency, policy paralysis
and minority-appeasing vote-bank
politics. It is not something which is
hated in India, but something which irritates. The mere mention of the word
brings forth the images of inefficient Congress party and its deracinated group
of intellectual ministers like Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Manmohan
Singh, Kapil Sibbal, and our ‘beloved’ and the only ‘rational and a bit
‘erotic’ soul, Mr. Digvijay Singh . Further, it brings forth the images of
anti-national, provocative, biased and intolerant English writers like Arundhati
Roy, Aruna Roy, Praful Bidwai and some jhola-chap JNU type intellectuals.
The question arises that why this has happened? The answer to this question lies in the
development and socio-academic as well as political projection of the concept
of secularism. Before moving on to deeper exploration, it is worth mentioning
that Indian secularism is essentially rooted in its great cultural and
spiritual tradition of harmony, and peaceful coexistence. Any attempt to impose
pseudo-intellectual versions of secularism which is based on distortion or
denigration of this aforementioned glorious tradition will be met with outright
rejection and rise of NAMO. And the present scenario is the one where the
agenda of secularism is hijacked, distorted and abused by the left-leaning
academia and media of the country. All the above mentioned self-proclaimed stalwarts
of secularism and their discourses to protect the ‘idea of India’ are basically
‘moth-eaten’ attempts at intellectual sophistry, learned and rehearsed in the
patronizing arm of our ‘Nehru-Gandhi’
dynasty, and whose only aim is to please the mother-son duo to get good
offices.
Indian Secularism is primarily a cultural phenomenon which
has evolved over last 5000 years. In fact the word secularism itself is an
incomplete expression. The perfect expression should be ‘peaceful and
harmonious co-existence’. Any attempt to
define Indian secularism, politically and academically must understand the
subtle nuances of this great cultural tradition of 5000 years.
India is a country which has witnessed a tolerant and
respectful attitude towards diverse cultural, ideological and religious
traditions since the dawn of civilization in this sub-continent. In the age of
Buddha, there were about 364 heterodox sects thriving in Bharatvarsha. The
sects included diverse groups such as Jainism, which believed in atheism, pluralism
and non-violence, amoralism of Purana kassapa, Fatalism of Makhalli Ghosal,
materialism of Ajit Kesakambali, materialism of Carvaka, eternalism of Pakudh
Kachchayana and agnosticism of Sanjay Belathhiputta. Throughout the course of
Indian history diverse cultural and religious groups have co-existed
peacefully. Their beliefs were radically opposite to each other like Sanatana
Dharma/Brahmana Dharma believed in soul and God whereas Buddhism did not
believe in soul and God. The materialists and their mentor Carvaka believed in
complete indulgence and denied all other-worldly entities. Similarly, Sankyhas
believed in dualist world whereas Sankara and his advaitvaad believed in
monism. In addition to these there were ultra-heterodox sects like tantriks,
kapalikas, shaktas and saivas and aghoras who believed in sacrifice and even
practiced sexual and orgiastic rituals in their tradition. All these diverse
groups co-existed and evolved together without any major violent clash, for
thousands of years and beautifully crafted the spiritual soul of Bharat varsha
which believes in love and harmony. How deep these values of tolerance and
faith are embedded in Indian mindset is amply demonstrated by the fact that any
Hindu, whenever s/he comes across a religious place of any sect naturally
happens to join his/her hands in reverence.
Further, the tolerance can be seen in the fact that same
Buddha who did not believe in God and began as a rebel against Brahmanism is now
regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu just like Rama or Krishna. In the similar
vein, Carvaka who is an ardent proponent of materialist indulgence and
pleasure, and categorically denies God is mentioned as a pious saint lecturing
Yudhishthira in Mahabharata, which believes in Krishna as God.
In India several ethnic groups came as invaders like Shakas,
Kushanas, Hunas, Greeks and Pahlavas but all of them were assimilated in Hindu
pantheon of the sub-continent. All this
happened with peace and love. In fact foreign rulers like Kanishka organized
3rd Buddhist council in Kashmir. Greeks adopted Bhagwat dharma. The first
historical evidence of Bhagwatism and Gita comes from a pillar built by
Heliodorus to mark his devotion to Lord Vasudeva (Krishna or Vishnu) in
Vidisha. Heliodorus was a Greek ambassador in the court of Sunga king
Bhagbhadra. Similarly, Tormana Huna who
came as barbaric invader became a Saivite. Further, the Southern India which
was linguistically, culturally and religiously different from the mainstream
Aryan faiths and beliefs was assimilated in a very peaceful and tactical way in
Hinduism. Their local deities like Murugan, Menakshi goddess and Balaji were
assimilated as forms of Lord Kartikeya, Vishnu and Durga in Hinduism. In course
of time Jainism and Buddhism which started as separate religions became a part
of hindu cultural and spiritual mosaic.
In medieval India,
due to Bhakti movements and Sufi movements, India witnessed a growth of
‘ganga-jamuni Tahzeeb’ of Hindus and Muslims based on harmonious existence.
Sufi shrines like Ajmer sharif and Auliya sahib in Delhi are worshipped by
Hindus and Muslims alike. The faiths like Sikhism which emerged in medieval
India had elements of both Islam and Hinduism. The peaceful coexistence or
so-called secularism was seen in many strange and funny forms also. The cult of
Kali-worshipping thugs which mercilessly killed traders and pilgrims had both
Muslims and Hindu castes like rajputs, Brahmins and even vaishyas. The community
of Jogis in Mewat (rajasthan) is religiously Islamic but they earn their living
by singing devotional songs of Hindu God Lord Shiva.
India is the only place where Jewish community never faced
any discrimination and the oldest Jewish synagogue still sprawls with all pride
and safety in Kolkata. India has the world smallest minority of Zoroastrians
who migrated from Iran when Turkish Islamic invaders forcibly converted the
people of Iran and massacred millions. Even in the heydays of its power and
military might India had never been an aggressor country. King Skandhagupta of
Gupta dynasty and Lalitaditya Muktapida were powerful enough to conquer Asia
but they never ventured out of India with any sword of aggressive Hinduism.
Mighty King Asoka, the ‘Piyanam Piyadasi’ who ruled from Kashmir to Kanyakumari
and Chittagong to the borders of Iran, went to central Asia and Srilanka with the message of Buddha not with the sword
of religion. India has a rich tradition of ‘Shastrartha’ in which ideological
differences are debated in philosophical dialectics. Such debates were based on
logic and rationality and they never advocated suppressing the opponent’s view
by force. The Upnishads of the vedic tradition propounded the idea of ‘Vasudhev
Kutumbkam’ which implies that the whole world is one family.
The secular-liberal brigade of India never displayed any
understanding of this great tradition or even showed any respect to this great
tradition. In fact, their only agenda was to project secularism as an insult to
this great tradition. This strain of
secularism manifested itself in justifying cow slaughter, caste based quotas,
haj subsidies, writing mercy petitions for Ajmal Kasab, addressing Osama as
Reverend Osama Ji and indicting RSS in 26/11 terror attacks of Mumbai.
The left-leaning intelligentsia has always looked at Hindu
scriptures like Gita, Ramayana , Mahabharata and Upnishads with an attitude of
mockery, derision and hatred. Whenever there was any demand for proper academic
research of Hindu traditions, history and religion the attempts were denied and
insulted with accented English. The people who made such demands were scoffed
at as a bunch of rustic villagers who could not speak in English. Even their
rightful demands like inclusion and academic inquiry of Yoga, ancient Indian
scientific texts like Vimanashastra, Charaksamhita, Mahabharata and vedic
mathematics were branded as communal and venomous. Once in my seminar class in
International Relations with Allen Carlson, we were discussing the dominance of
western world in international relations theory. I was absolutely stunned to
learn that these great thinkers and academicians of western world had no idea
of Acharya Vishnu Gupta (Kautilya) and his ideas on political theory. In the
educational curriculum the obvious villains like Aurangzeb, Muhammad Bin
Tughlaq and Firuz Tughlaq have been glorified. The roads in capital city of
Delhi have been named after them.
The facts have been distorted to satisfy personal agendas.
The NCERT texts and historians like Satish Chandra make a passing reference to
the massacre of 30,00 people ordered by Akbar in Chittor as if the Zill-e-Ilahi
was going to award him the Mansab of 7000 and allow him to sit next to Abul
Fazl (sometimes I feel that he may be a rebirth of Abul Fazl). The brutal
murders and forcible conversions ordered by barbarous Islamic rulers have been
mentioned like a small joke in the history text books and endless chapters have
been devoted to sing the exaggerated glories of Sufi saints. Even the Sufi as
great as Nizamuddin Auliya once said that Hindus recognize that Islam is a
great religion but they do not convert.
Such a great soul looks utterly greedy and helpless when it makes such a
statement.
In the western world whenever I speak to academicians or
anyone interested in India, they ask one question i.e. Is RSS a fascist
organization who worship Hitler and Mussolini, and Is Modi going to fix
minorities?
What shocks me and agitates me is the fact that such a
horrendous lie has been spread over the years systematically by the syndicate
of Congress and left-wing intellectual elites of India? When the leader of the
ruling party and a Cambridge-educated Prime Minister called the prime
ministerial candidate of the opposition party as butcher of Muslims, on
baseless grounds they did the worst damage not to BJP, but to themselves and
India’s international image. The world community never got to know of our
glorious tolerant history but they got to know about this one man who was the
biggest enemy of Congress. The congress government after ten years of revengeful
investigation against Mr. Modi could not prove his involvement in Godhra riots.
Even the Supreme Court gave clean chit to Narendra Bhai Modi. This man was
ostracized my congress and left leaning intellectuals, and the media for about
ten years, without any proven involvement in the riots. This is shameful for
all of us.
In the similar vein RSS has been branded as fascist
organization internationally. This argument is completely baseless. RSS, even
at the wildest stretch of imagination is not fascist. It has never fought for
offices. It has never spread any sort of racial hatred. Even the RSS’s notion
of Hindutva is a cultural notion. It aims for preservation and promotion of the
cultural and religious identity of all the religious groups living in India and
that includes Muslims, Parsis, Jews and Christians also. Despite my
disagreement with RSS leaders on several occasions, I have found them, people
of impeccable character and honesty who devoted decades of their life to public
and social service as opposed to Cambridge-Stephens educated left wing liberals
whose backup plan was always writing a GRE exam. It is beyond any doubt that
RSS has a strong base among common masses of India, where no one knows these so
called secular intellectuals. This base of RSS is not based on Hindutva or any
hate campaign, but it is based on the legendry social work done by them in the
upliftment of tribal groups, cow protection, education and disaster relief. It
has done a pioneering work in civil society movement in India. These aspects of
RSS have never been brought to limelight by media. Why the UPA government could
take Aruna Roy in National Advisory Council, who signed a mercy petition or
Ajmal Kasab, and not anyone from RSS?
The liberal secular brigade found its venomous and
revengeful secularism in falsely indicting the popular organizations like RSS
in fake cases of terrorism, insulting and ostracizing them by calling them
fascist. They found their secularism in catering to the whims and fancies of
characterless sycophants and hindu-haters like John Dayala and Asaduddin
Owaisi. These two individuals were never arrested when they made any
inflammatory speeches. In fact, John Dayal was appointed a member on the
committee on North-eastern states of India. Further, they found their
secularism in insulting Hindu saints like Baba Ramdev and brutually assaulting
them in the middle of night. Well, the surprising fact is that Arundhati Roy who
blamed Indian government for ill-treating Muslims during 26/11, did not speak a
word when Baba Ramdev and common people fasting against corruption were
mercilessly beaten. Aruna Roy, Harsh
Mandar and Mr. Aiyar were not to be seen anywhere.
Tarak fateh, a Pakistani truth seeker, rightly tweeted a few
days back that if Indian liberal intelligentsia can tolerate radical Muslim
organizations like Ittehad -I-Musalmeen then, why can’t RSS? The left wing
stalwarts like Arundhati Roy wrote ‘Monster in the Mirror’ on 26/11 in which
she blamed the Indian government for treating Muslims badly. All these
instances have created a perception in the common man’s mindset that whenever
any Hindu interest is sacrificed the secular brigade people like Harsh Mandar,
Medha Patkar , Aruna Roy, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh, Manishakar Aiyar etc.
will never speak up and they will take extra efforts in minority appeasement ,
which is actually true to a large extent. The common people of India do not
trust these secular liberals. They have lost their credibility.
Coming to the Communal riots, it needs to be mentioned that
the communal riots are a social phenomenon. It is a malaise whose causes are
much deeper than global Islamic terrorism. There is a troubled history in the
sub-continent. The problem of riots exists only between Hindus and Muslims, not
with other communities like Parsis, Jews, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, and
Buddhists etc. Why? The reason is that the forced conversions of medieval India
left a deep impact in the Hindu mindset. It started when Solanki Rulers of
Gujarat allowed Muslim traders a safe and secure existence in Gujarat. First
time in the history of India a foreign ruler came and attacked the holiest
shrine of Hindus i.e. Somnath. That invasion left a deep impact in the minds of
people. Gujarat saw a continuous wave of loot and forced conversions after
that. Not just Gujarat but entire North India including Kashmir saw a wave of
forced conversions. This has never happened in the history of India. The
phenomenon of forced conversion was completely alien to Hindu mindset. This led
to strong resistance from Hindus and the proof is that in the entire region
from Arabia to Malaysia India is the only country where after 1000 years of
Muslim rule 82% population is still Hindu.
The common people are proud of this glorious history of resistance and
their feelings can be witnessed in folklores of Rajasthan and north India. The liberal brigade never accepted this
history. I am not saying that it is true. Whether these claims are true or
false can be found out only if there is a proper intellectual inquiry and
debate. But the liberal brigade completely suppressed the right wing opinion in
academia. The left wing academia and its domination never even allowed debate
on these matters which are so close to Hindu sentiments. In Babri Masjid case,
Supreme Court gave a judgment that there was a Hindu structure there. Now this
is a question of religious sentiments of 100 crore Hindus of India. The
liberals cannot brush it away as a demand of war-mongering bunch of communal
fascists. While looking at Godhra riots, it must be seen that 57 hindu car
sewaks were burnt alive in the train. The riots were knee-jerk reaction to that
and the state has its own limitations in terms of resources etc. to control
such sudden events. However, the left
wing media and intellectuals have never said a word about the burning of car
sewaks.
Hence, to conclude I will say that when liars and the lies
become so obvious and when they are presented with such refined intellectual
sophistry then the common people who are innocent and live on their faith in
their rulers come to hate the liars. The liars, no matter how educated they are,
lose their credibility. With them, everything associated with them like their
Cambridge degrees and Oxford diplomas also lose their credibility because
people see those self-proclaimed messiahs of equality, insult a man just
because he was a poor ‘chay wallah’ in
his childhood. Then, occurs a revolution
in which all the liars are thrown out mercilessly. How this process happens?
The answer to this will be mentioned in detail by Rahul Gandhi in his
autobiography which will be published from Italy after 30 to 40 years.
