( Parading India as a Hindu Nation may lead to the final round of the battle of Kurukshetra!)
There have been
alarming reports about the reconversion of Muslims to Hinduism. It has
been given the name of “home coming” for the Hindus who had supposedly
accepted Islam as their religion. It has also been announced that many
more reconversions will take place. 5000 conversions are allegedly
scheduled for Christmas. The RSS objective is to revert India back to
the ancient Bharatvarsh, the land of Hindus. Bhagvad Gita is slated to
be the “National” Book of India. It is already being formally presented
by the Prime Minister to various world dignitaries as such. Godse has
been declared to be a patriot and Mahatma Gandhi as unpatriotic! People
have been projecting the developmental side of Narendra Modi forgetting
the fact that he is an RSS Parcharak!
Mohan Bhagwat sometime back had said,
“Hindustan is a Hindu nation. Hindutva is the identity of our nation and
it (Hinduism) can incorporate others (religions) in itself.” He is
right only the extent of India being called Hindustan. Truly, India in
the Arab world in earlier times was known as Al-Hind and Indians were
called Al-Hindi! This was of course on the basis of the predominance of
the Hindu religion. Since that time, India has seen many religions
including Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity and Islam. Apart from
religion, India has a total ethnic diversity. At the present moment
calling India a Hindu Nation in spite of the fact that its partition was
on the basis of religion, does not gel. No doubt it has a Hindu
majority yet there are sizeable number of other minorities including
Muslims and Christians. Even though it is starkly evident that there is
always dominance of Hindu religion in all spheres of daily life and
state related functions and even some other actions, yet it is not
correct to call India a “Hindu Nation” in spite of some zealots claiming
it to be so! Going by true definition of nationality as given in the
books of political science, India has over a dozen nations based on
language, culture and history.
The concept of two nations based on
religion was brought in by the departing British. It is alleged,that the
very basis of the partition of the sub-continent was the refusal of the
some Indian leaders especially the Hindutva elements in India’s
majority Hindu population to accept Muslims as equal citizens of the
country once the freedom was granted. Muslims were considered by these
extremist Hindus to be outsiders left over by the invaders. The fear of
getting marginalised and persecuted in the free united India had forced
some Muslim leaders including Mohammad Ali Jinnah to seek a separate
country for them. The western colonialists who never wanted to leave
their colonies, by overt and covert means deliberately fuelled this two
nation theory in the Indian sub-continent. Their main aim was to keep a
hold on these colonies even after their departure.
After agreeing for the division of the
country on the basis of religion, some of the secular leaders of the
Indian freedom movement tried to project India as a secular republic
giving equal treatment to all its citizens regardless of the religion
professed by them. However, these leaders could not change the mind-set
of the common people regarding India being a Hindu country especially
after creation of another country on the basis of religion. They only
succeeded in creating a façade of secularism but failed to change the
perception of the majority of the common masses that the most important
commonality uniting them was the Hindu religion.
The ethos of the real India of ancient
times as perceived by Guru Dev Tagore and Dr. Iqbal cannot be brought
back by physically merging the broken away parts again into Akhand
Bharat. The India of the ancient times can be redeemed only by making
the artificial borders separating these countries irrelevant. If this
Hindu-Muslim divide had not taken place and India had remained as one
united country, it would not only have been a real super power but would
have been one of the best welfare states for its citizens. They can
still remain united by adopting the European Union model. If, after the
most destructive war, Europe can virtually unite as one country, why
cannot India, Pakistan and Bangladesh do the same?
On the contrary,at present both the
countries are spending the major chunk of their budgets on defence and
security against each other! The few “dirty” rich on both sides are
becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer thanks to the western
manipulators whose main thrust is to sell more and more newer and
deadlier weapons of destruction to both the countries! These very
western powers tacitly support and promote this religious divide. It
creates a feeling of mistrust on both sides which suits them. A Jihadi
Pakistan and a Hindutva India would always be at logger heads,
mistrusting each other, arming themselves to the teeth even with the
nukes for the ultimate doomsday scenario.
If both the countries fail to check the
religious extremists from taking over, one never knows these western
powers may even encourage and allow a small nuclear exchange as a lesson
for other similarly disposed countries! Recently a columnist had warned
about the possibility of the western countries preparing for a nuclear
exchange somewhere in Central Asia. Another possibility could be the
Indian sub-continent. The famous epic of the ancient India, Mahabharata
mentions Kal Yug, which is already here. India and Pakistan have become
Korvas and Pandvas and Kashmir is the Drupadi who has been disrobed
umpteen times! Ultimately, this tussle may end in a nuclear exchange
which would definitely be the last battle of Kurukshetra thereby ending
the whole epic of Mahabharata!
No comments:
Post a Comment