Make Hinduism The State Religion Of India

“India” should be formally and officially renamed The “Hindustani States of Bharat”. Why is it perfectly normal, natural and justified for Muslim majority countries to make Islam their state religion? Why is it perfectly normal, natural and justified for Christian majority countries to make Christianity their state religion? The same is also applicable to Buddhism majority countries as well as a Jewish majority nation (Israel) however if anyone demands that Hindu majority India make Hinduism the state religion of India than they are branded as “un-secular”, “communal” “backward” etc? There are 200 countries in the world and out of this list 57 are Muslim states and 21 are Christian states. This means that Islam and Christianity claim nearly 40 percent of them world between them. However the world’s third largest religion as well as the world oldest religious ideology (Hinduism) has been denied even one country which it can call its home. Why does the world only demand secularism from Hindus? Why is it fair for Islam to be able to fall back on 57 countries and for Christianity to be able to fall back 21 countries but the world’s oldest religion has been denied its right to fall back on even one country. Unlike Islam and Christianity, Hinduism never went around conquering other people’s lands, displacing their religion and proselytizing them so why has Hinduism not been granted the same respect and recognition which all the other religions have? Why one set of rules for Muslim and Christian majority countries and another set of rules for a Hindu majority country? Why the global double standards for Hindus? Why the hypocrisy and inconsistent principles? 85% of India is Hindu and Hindus are told that they must be secular however had 85% of India been Christian, India today most certainly would have been a Christian country in the same way that had 85% of India been Muslim it most certainly would have been an Islamic state today. Hinduism is not just a mere religion of India among several religions, it is the heritage of India, and it is the culture, ideology and principles of the overwhelming majority of the country. Hinduism has been the religion of India since 5000BC however Islam has only been in India since the 10th century and Christianity has only existed since the 16th century which when placed in India’s proper wider historical context is only a small period and a very recent one. Why is the mother religion being placed on the same level as foreign religions? Why is the native religion of the soil being placed on the same level as religions brought to India by foreigners, looters, imperialists and invaders? I ask this question to all the congress party and secular politicians who are vociferously opposed to Hinduism being made the state religion of India: If a tenant comes and lives in your home will you give her the same place as that of your mother? Hinduism is not just a religion of India; it is the soul of India. All Indians, irrespective of whether they are Indian Christians or Indian Muslims, are all from a Hindu ancestry. As mentioned already, Hinduism has been the religion of Bharat since 5000BC which means that all Indian Christians and Indian Muslims have far more Hindu ancestors than Christian or Muslim ancestors. The bulk of Indian culture such as yoga, Indian medicine, Indian philosophy, Indian arts, Indian health (like acupressure) and sports (like kushti) all have Hindu underpinnings to them. Like it or not we as Indians owe our existence today to Hinduism. Political states are made, destroyed and remade by man, whereas civilisations characterised by their culture, ideology and customs are eternal. Let us face the bitter truth – India is not an eternal state, because no state has ever been eternal. India has only existed since 1947 and in 500 years time India will not exist in the same form that it does now – however our Hindu identity will (hopefully within 500 years time we would have reclaimed our land which is being illegally occupied by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis). There is no conflict between being loyal to India and being loyal to our Hindu tradition because they both walk hand in hand: India=Hinduism and Hinduism=India. Being loyal to our Hindu heritage does not need to be at the expense of being loyal to India; in fact it will strengthen our loyalty to India. Hinduism is not just a religion, it is the world’s oldest spiritual, ideological and theosophical tradition emanating since 5000BC. The fact that the bulk of this wealthy tradition is concentrated in India means that as Indians we have a moral obligation to safeguard Hinduism. The Indian government should cease with its pathetic and futile endeavour to marginalise Hinduism from Indian public domain and appreciate that by virtue of the fact that it is ruling over the world’s only Hindu majority continent it has a tacit responsibility to the whole world to proactively preserve Hindu tradition in a healthy and coherent manner. After all, Greece (a Christian country) and Egypt (a Muslim country) take pride in the perseveration of their historical pagan past even though they no longer follow the religion but they appreciate that it is not a religion they are preserving rather it is a history concomitantly with culture. Had there been several Hindu majority continents in the world, India’s secularism would have been a non-Issue but the very fact that India is the world’s only Hindu majority continent renders it with a tacit duty to Hinduism which it cannot deny. India is a democracy, and what is more democratic than adopting the religion of the majority population as the state religion of the country? Many ignorant specimens completely misunderstand the whole concept of having a state religion – having a state religion does not at all imply that each and every citizen of that country MUST practice the state religion, but instead it is nothing more than a recognition that the majority of the country’s population have been born into a particular tradition. The state religion of Egypt is Islam even though Egypt has Christian as well as Jewish minorities, in the same way that the state religion of Malaysia is Islam even though Malaysia has sizeable Hindu and Buddhist minorities. Having a state religion is nothing more than recognition or more correctly a statement about the culture of that country. The secularism which has been inculcated into the mindset of the average Indian has been the psychological legacy of being subjects for centuries. Before becoming “independent” we were ruled by the Christian British for 2 centuries who made us feel inferior about our religion, and prior to that we were ruled by the Islamic imperialists for centuries who also made us feel inferior about our religion. In 1947 when were supposedly were “independent” it was our opportunity to place Hinduism and Bharat Mata back on her thrown from where she was thrown off in the 10th century. Much to our dismay the secular elite chose to keep Hinduism in a state of de facto slavery in a pathetic excuse of a “secular” country. We think we are being forward thinking and modern by making India secular but the bitter reality is that we have only shown the world that we have still not gone from being a race of followers to a race of leaders. Irony of the whole secularism issue is that “secularism” as an ideology was born in Great Britain, and Great Britain itself is not a secular country but is officially a Christian nation. Hence if the people who brought “secularism” to the world have themselves not even made their own country into a secular nation than why the hell must we Indians feel that we have to be secular to win the world’s approval? Now more than ever is the time to review India’s secularism in light of the fact that it has only caused problems for India; is causing problems for India and if secularism in its current state is allowed to go unchecked another 13 centuries of slavery await us. Secularism was incepted to ensure that the rights of the minorities would not be infringed upon; however there is now not only a situation whereby the minorities enjoy more privileges but the fact of the matter is that the Christian and Muslim minorities are exploiting secularism for their un-secular agendas. They are exploiting secularism to engage in unscrupulous activities as well as endeavour to alter the demographic predominance of India. Such a state of affairs is actually hurting India in the form of increased communal tension, religious conversion, love jihad campaigns, increased threat of terrorism, increased secessionist activity in places like Kashmir/West Bengal/Orissa and Nagaland. The fact that India is not constitutionally a Hindu nation has crippled it in defending itself against such activity and if such results of secularism are allowed to proceed unchecked than we are increasing the likelihood of a future civil war or a second partition/fragmentation of the country. Making Hinduism the state religion of India shall only engender positive outcomes. Firstly it will be a huge alleviation to the anger and rage that the majority Hindu population is feeling which has manifested itself in the ugly face of Hindu fundamentalism and Hindu extremism. Secondly by unequivocally clarifying the fact that India is a Hindu nation and that minorities are living in a Hindu nation will itself end such nonsensical and preposterous demands that the minorities make in the name of their religion (such as separate legal codes, ridiculous affirmative action quotas as well as state subsidies to go on holiday and build mosques/churches). Thirdly from a practical point of view it shall easily justify law and enforcement measures to diminish anti-national forces. Finally making Hinduism the state religion will actually be very conducive to developing a forward thinking nature in the majority of Indians (who are Hindu), because once the Gita and the Vedas are taught in schools and the average Hindu can himself/herself appreciate the intellectual and philosophical essence of Hinduism then hopefully they will realise that sati burning, caste based discrimination, animal worship, bathing in rivers etc has no sanction in the Hindu scripture. This is important because the distorted understanding which many Hindus (especially rural Hindus) harbour of Hinduism is harming their mental, intellectual and cultural progress and this can only be corrected by ushering a Hindu renaissance which itself is only possible if Hinduism were to made the official state religion of India. Exponents of secularism argue that India is a religiously diverse country with many non-Hindus living in India. Eh, yeah that’s true but then so is every other country in the world. There is not a single country in the world that is religiously homogenous. States that are classified as Muslim states and Christian states are just as diverse as India is in terms of having minorities belonging to a different religion. However that hasn’t prevented Muslims from declaring Islam as the state religion in places like Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq even though these countries have many non-Muslims living them. Likewise it hasn’t prevented countries like the UK, Spain, Russia, Greece, Philippines from having Christianity as the state religion despite the fact that they too have many non-Christians living in them. Indians need to get this naive idea out of their head that India is the only diverse country in the world because India is not the only diverse country in the world. It is the natural order of things that every country has a majority and several minorities. However for some reason only God knows, only in India the majority always feel the need to place itself on the same level as that of the minorities – an erratic propensity that one will find in any other country in the world. Proponents of secularism argue that if Hinduism is made the official state religion of India than minorities will suffer. By its nature Hinduism is a secular and democratic religion – it does not have the equivalent of a sharia law which postulates absurdity such as death for apostasy etc. Moreover India is a member of the UN and must abide with the UN ideals of freedom of religion which it has signed up to hence would not even be in a position whereby it can impinge on the rights of the minorities in any case. Moreover if having a state religion somehow expunges a country of minorities then there would no minorities in any Muslim or Christian states however as we all know minorities are flourishing in every Muslim and Christian state. Truth is that India claims to be secular however if it was truly secular then why would Hindus have fewer privileges than the minorities? Under secularism everyone should be equal however as we all know India is not a secular country it is an anti-Hindu country. The politicians who claim to represent secularism have in fact done nothing but sell Bharat Mata to minorities and foreigners. There is one thing worse that majority tyranny – and that is minority tyranny which is happening in India. Champions of secularism argue that renouncing secularism will hurt India’s progress. Let me ask this question of India’s secularists: After Nepal changed its constitution from being a Hindu nation to a secular nation, what benefits did it reap which it was not able to enjoy before when it was a Hindu nation? What advantages and developments did the country experience directly as a result of making Nepal a secular state? If having a state religion is detrimental to a country’s development than why do some of the wealthiest affluent nations in the world have state religions such as Japan (Buddhist nation), United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (Muslim nations) and much of the Christian European states? China is in the same position as India whereby it is a developing superpower however a revival of the native Chinese belief systems such as Confucianism and Taoism are directly contributing and aiding the development of the country. The Chinese have proven that one can be loyal to their centuries old belief systems concomitantly while being loyal to their country. They are not mutually exclusive but they walk hand in hand. Secularists (or more aptly “sickularists”) claim that India was not founded as a Hindu nation. What they are inadvertently implying is that if the founding fathers (or more correctly founding fools) of the nation committed great acts of stupidity in 1947, then we must simply live with their mistakes. India is a state which was founded by men not by Gods and men are prone to folly. States are made and remade by men. Moreover the whole purpose of democracy is to create a state of affairs whereby people can change their country as they please to better meet their needs or to be more attune to the times. Strictly speaking India was not even founded as a laissez-faire free market capitalist country but was founded as a socialist model. That however didn’t prevent the Indian government from incepting sweeping and radical changes to open up Indian markets. Similarly India was not even founded as a military nation as Nehru did not want a standing army however that didn’t prevent India from creating a huge army after 1962 war once it was realised that in this realpolitik world India had no choice but to have a standing army. In this light to then argue that Hinduism should not be made the state religion because it was not founded as such would be futile, as in a democracy a country should be willing to change in an endeavour to strengthen itself. Further to this as we all undoubtedly know India was created under arbitrary tragic circumstances. India was a created out of a partition that took place precisely because the Islamic minority did not want to live in what they called “Hindurasthra”. If India was created out of a divided society and out of a refusal of Muslims to live in a democracy which would empower Hindus then why didn’t the Indian government just go ahead and make Hinduism the state religion anyway? After all Pakistan made Islam the state religion of Pakistan despite the fact that at that time they had a sizeable Hindu and Sikh minority living there. Did Gandhi and Nehru undertake a referendum to ascertain if the majority of the population even wanted secularism or if they wanted recognition of their Hindu identity after being persecuted because of it for centuries? No...They imposed their views on the country without even make a slightest bit of effort to gauge the sentiments of the people.