Rising in-tolerance

On the east of river Indus, between Himalayas and Indian Ocean was born a civilization that was eons ahead of other human races in different parts of the world of its time. This land had everything the nature offers – rivers, forests, mountains or sea.  A description quite resembling with the ‘Promised land’ and so full of life, this land was God’s own country. So full of gratitude, people started revering everything that was life giving, be it rivers, Sun, plants or a Cow. But that was not all, people here always believed in exploring nature beyond its physical dimension. Hence born the spirituality. So blessed was this land that so many great saints, seers and scientists were born here.  So rich in culture and literature, science and medicine, math and economics, this land was ‘Vishwa Guru’ then.

With so much around to content a human yet it was concluded here that this is not the ultimate. Its rather a bondage and the ultimate is rather ‘liberation’ from this bondage. There were different paths suggested for this ‘liberation’. Different people of their times followed different paths to attain it.  But there was never any concept of ‘religion’ here. The scriptures here say -  एकम् सत्, विप्राः बहुधा वदन्ति. (Truth is one, sages call it by different names). So ‘tolerance’ and ‘secularism’ was very fundamental in this region.

When the first events of globalization took place in history, this land came in contact with the other parts of the globe. First came the merchants and gave the people on the east of river Sindh/Indus a name ‘Indu’ which overtime was modified and became ‘Hindu’. Then came the “Religion” and we were introduced to a new concept of ‘mine holier than thou’.  A concept just opposite to the concepts of ‘tolerance’ and ‘secularism’.  So intolerant, to differentiate and discriminate they added the suffix “ism”to Hindu and hence the term “Hinduism”was coined, which was never read or heard of in any old Hindu scripture or history book.

Hinduism is so vast in its meaning that it takes every other religion into its fold. Being secular and tolerant we always welcomed everyone here and practice any faith or worship any God here as God was never the ultimate in Hinduism. Liberation was the ultimate and God was just a medium.  And whatever medium one choose, it’s his choice.

We never invaded anyone outside because we never had to, we had everything here, literally everything. But the plethora of wealth here lured everyone. Stories were written about it which tempted the sailors so much that they went on the journey of this land and reached what the world know as America today. But not all missed the target. We were invaded, tortured and ruled by tyrants for almost a millennium. Our great kings who were on the verge of become another Alexander or Genghis Khan, embraced peace and shunned violence. The Ashoka is a great example. Another King Prithvi Raj Chauhan forgave the tyrant Mohd Gauri multi-times while he didn’t reciprocate in same fashion when positions reversed. Our greatness was seen as our weakness which was taken advantage of and we became slaves. We were shamed, looted, tortured and we were deprived of our legacy. Substantially impaired, they could not kill the essence of Hinduism.

Even after such dark era, secular fabric was still there. Both Hindus and Muslims had common ancestry. Different people converted for different reasons. But by the mid of 18^th century we had a common enemy. The greatest imperialist power of the time had enslaved us. We struggled and strived and gained it back. But India did not gain Independence to throw the British out. It was to live our lives our own way. To live with self-respect and not being mocked for worshipping a Cow, fight cases in courts to build a temple and face protest on introduction of Yoga in schools and restore our rich culture.

But unfortunately it didn’t happen. There was only one Gandhi and then pseuso-gandhis took over. They belittled our history further and wrote their own glories. Manipulating the definitions of secularism they replaced it with ‘’appeasement’’ and ‘hypocrisy’. They used it well to create hysteria. The culture of dynastic politics, corruption and appeasement earned them minions and boot-lickers in every field who returned what they owe them.

Today the self-proclaimed seculars and liberals are trying to portray the picture as – “There was once a land, so perfect, where religious intolerance is unheard of, no violence ever took place and then in 2014 came a man called Modi and ruined everything.” The hysteria they are creating is dangerous. Every major religion of the world has one or more land where it practices its own faith, Islam infact has only one country with the concept of secularism. India is secular because the majority here believes in ‘secularism’ and ‘tolerance’.

‘’Secualrism” was a concept born in India, first practiced by the Hindus, crippled by the invaders, claimed by the West and abused by the politicians.