ARISE, HINDUS!

I was watching a television debate in the Leftists-ruled State of Kerala which took up the controversy around the CPM minister for Devaswoms (Temple Boards), Mr.Kadakampilly Surendran, visiting the famous Guruvayur Sreekrishna Temple in Kerala, making traditional floral offerings like 'pushpanjali' to the presiding deity in the name of his family members and contributing an amount for annadaanam (offering of food to devotees)! The anchor of the debate went on asking the CPM member on the panel, a senior functionary of the party, what prompted the party to seek clarifications from the Minister belonging to the Hindu Community with respect to the temple-visit when Christian functionaries and ministers of the party could attend religious functions in Churches, and even conduct marriages of their children according to the Xian tradition; Muslim ministers, MLAs and leaders of CPM could be good Muslims and even do Hajj pilgrimage? The CPM leader wouldn’t give a straight-forward answer though the clever, though polite girl phrased the question is half a dozen ways! It was too embarrassing for the Marxist leader to admit that they have one policy towards the majority community, and another for the powerful minority communities in Kerala. But a former Naxalite and now an ideologue of the party, sitting on the panel blurted out that in a democracy, minorities have to be protected and they are unconcerned about the majority community’s religious faith!

For the Communists everywhere, especially in Kerala, being “progressive” is being anti-Hindu! These ‘secular’ people are willing to accept the Protestant Church’s defence of Luther’s intolerance that, after all, he was a child of the 16th Century and his thoughts should be viewed in that perspective. But Manu who belonged to 200BC and is still denied his due for his insistence on earning wealth and enjoying life only by observing ‘dharma’ and giving women protection under all circumstances! Kerala society is historically notable for the rise of secular movements and doctrines founded by self-hating Hindus. What began as a backlash against the caste system and other oppressive social conditions when joined with Communism became a socio-pathology leading to a self-consciously partisan and highly coordinated strategy of minority vote bank politics and Hindu vote suppression using muscle power in CPM strongholds! Communists support religious, caste and communal identities, even arguing against "assimilating away" “cultural differences” that "contributed to Malayalee/Indian identity” while rejecting the all-inclusive Indianness per se!

It is fashionable in Kerala society to cast proponents of Hindutva to increase as bigots and efforts to rule their perspective altogether out of the realm of acceptable public discourse. The Convent education, education given by the Muslim Education society and the text books written by the Leftist authors for the educational system have been effectively disinheriting students in Kerala schools and colleges by either failing to give them enough knowledge of their culture or by giving them a guilt-complex about a certain pagan faith called Hinduism! Things have come to such a pass now that in Kerala, both CPM-led front and the Congress-led political coalitions, whether in or out of power, benevolently bless Islamic fundamentalists and hate Hindu nationalist patriots! They introduce laws and public policies that are "purposefully discriminatory” to favour Muslims and Christians, the two politically powerful communities which technically do not qualify to be given such minority privilegs!

Marxian/anti-Hindu bias is being spoon-fed to Kerala’s college students and sold to them as scholarship which resultantly masquerades as solid erudition by our youngsters. On the campus, this pseudo-scholarship has given an intellectual patina for the hatred of Hinduism and nationalism. Leftists toss out some references and a study or two/a book here an article there, and then pretend that they've disproven reality. Not to mention ethics, law and common sense. Offensive comments by SFI/Maoist students, are publicly broadcast across the schools and colleges in Kerala, both threatening and disruptive to the learning environment a la JNU/AMU/Jadavpur campuses. Fascists-style Leftist violence on those who disagree is rising on campuses and in the streets of towns and villages where Communists are strong. In this situation, the Left-liberal “intellectuals” have been successful even in forcing Congress and other so-called liberal-socialist elements into leftward genuflections on everything from communalism to history and economics!

Christians in Kerala who were moderates except in grabbing forest lands for cultivation and revenue land for establishing churches and educational institutions have in the recent years started being abrasive themselves. SoniaG being the Chief of the Conress party ruling at the Centre and most states prior to 2014, had led to this arrogant behaviour. Kerala Catholic Bishop’s Conference had the temerity to write the “secular” political parties to make sure that they put up Christian candidates in the Assembly constituencies that had 25 percent Christian voters or more!

1.  Sections of Muslims were radicalised into rebel for a “Moplastan” in 1929 and those elements who kept the sentiment alive wre rewarded with a Muslim-majority district by the E M S Namboothirippad-led Left-front government in 1969. That appears to have whet their appetite for more and more power and privileges ever since. Politically Muslims are more or less clung to the Muslim League, though there are more radical and exteremely militant splinter groups clamouring for representation and power. Socially, Muslim youth in the recent years tend to avoid certain attitudes, standard language, clothes and some behaviours because they consider them part of Hindu way of life. They fear that adopting Hindu ways would be detrimental to their collective racial identity and solidarity. They wear clothes to identify themselves different, and avoid hanging around with too many Hindu friends even as students, and participating in extracurricular activities. Hindu parents tend to have higher academic expectations for their kids. Some teachers and education administrators expect less of the Muslim students in terms of performance, even going so far as to de-emphasize the importance of academic achievements. Eventually there is a “learning gap” which in the classic conveyor-belt fashion, communal politicians and civil rights leaders encourages Muslims to see as victimhood! Mullas, moulvis and even “Islamic scholars” are seen openly preaching in Kerala Mosques and in public places the imperative of Muslims in hating and waging jihad on all “infidels”(the meaning is interpreted as non-Mulims more often than not!)until they come under Islamic authority, according to the worldview of Sharia, or Islamic law.

Leftists have incredible compassion for war victims in Syria, for kids who have been trafficked, Palestinians, but no obvious empathy for RSS men getting killed in parts of Kerala and particularly in Kannur for just being members of the RSS. They are all sympathy for the Rohingyans illegally entering and settling many parts of India including Kashmir, but no tears for the lakhs of Pundits who were driven away for just being Hindus in the Muslim-majority State? The Indian secularists are seen keen to fight for the right of Christians and Muslims to be communal and refuse to integrate into the Indian society, and cleverly use the separate identity to serve as vote banks.

Why the intolerant ‘secularists’ who admonish Hindus for being “communal”, sanctimonious leftists and self-righteous liberals, politicians or sociologists among them are unwilling to spell out in the context that the acid test of secularism Muslims/Christians have to take is this: will they be tolerant to the extent they accept other religious beliefs on an equal footing with their own?

The Left, with assistance from the mainstream media, has always been peddling a narrative of supposed widespread hate crimes against Muslims and, Dalits in order to malign Hindutva and stop Hindu consolidation, and now fuelled by the election of BJP-NDA, as part of a continuing effort to delegitimize Modi government. The truth is that of about 20,000 events between 2005 and 2016 Maoist/Left-wing extremism is 35%, Northeast incidents 30%, incidents in Jammu and Kashmir 29% Islamist outside these regions 4.1% and the so-called Saffron terror 0.6% (Rupa Subramanya). There has been nothing fanatical about India’s Hindu heritage. To the contrary, being loyal to that heritage means not only that Indians of all walks of life, all religious creeds can feel at home in India, and all non-Hindu citizens can integrate into the mother society without having to surrender their unique cultural and religious identities. This is the essence of a new national identity called Hindutva.                                                  

There seems to be an intention behind the negative portrayal of Hinduism: Christianity and Islam are meant to look good in comparison. Hindu Dharma, (its off- springs Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism included) is the only religion that is inclusive and not divisive, Christianity and Islam divide humanity into those chosen by God and those eternally damned. Hindu dharma requires regarding all as brothers and sisters. Jews were severely discriminated and persecuted in the Christendom all through history for being the killers of Jesus. The blasphemy laws kept the flock inside the fence. Heresy was punished severely. It was only in the mid-19^th Century that Christians were granted ‘negative religious freedom’, which meant, by which Germans could leave the Catholic Church for the Protestant Church. The Churches are losing sheep from their flock, and a recent Pope had criticised the Protestant Church in Brazil as rapacious rascals thieving his flock! Christianity grew not because its dogmas were convincing, but because those born into it could not leave. The blasphemy laws propped up Christianity as well as Islam. In Islam, the Mullahs, Moulvis and Ayatollas have a hold on the faithful and in several Muslim countries leaving Islam is officially punishable by death; and in liberal democracies like India, leaving Islam invites extreme physical danger. As the Quran itself forbids the followers to leave the faith, it is difficult to forego the blasphemy laws.

The Indian Communists and secularists are seen keen to fight for the right of Christians and Muslims to be communal and refuse to integrate into the Indian society, and cleverly use the separate identity to serve as vote banks. They not only argue passionately for the right of Muslims and Christians to convert Hindus to their faiths, but also oppose converts coming back to their mother society (ghar vaapasi)! So it has to be said that the name “Communist” is seared into the Nationalist consciousness as an organization hostile to everything we stand for!

Shaming the Hindus in the name of communalism, casteism, untouchability, intolerance and even violence has been a strategy using shame for a political shakedown. It worked for almost six decades, but no more! After six decades of Independence the Hindus have now found a voice to speak, without any of the hypocrisy of simulated or engineered secularism, or any of the sham of vote banks. We have a Prime Minister who breathes and works for India, tough, tenacious, resolute and resourceful; with enormous personal charm and astute political instincts to achieve national objectives. Hindu grievances and victimhood would be converted into a wholesome energy for Indian prosperity, nor for Hindus who have of course their deep emotional investments in their Gods, mythological heroes, and even places, rivers, mountains, lakes, and even trees and flowers; but also for all Indians who are proud of being sons of Mother India! Together , we shall make her “Rich with thy hurrying streams, bright with orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Green fields waving Mother of might, Mother free...!”