When a perverse politician like Asaduddin Owaisi in a public lecture has the temerity to aver that whosoever is born on earth is born a Muslim, it seems to be the height of our weakness as a self-respecting nation that no action is taken against the deliverer of such an inflammatory speech. He further exhorts all, almost deprecatingly, nay, a trifle comically to the delight of the rabblement, that they should now return to Islam for, after all, they were born into it by divine decree. However, in his comic fashion he cautioned us that as a poor Muslim he could not offer any monetary benefit to us for our conversion to Islam. Here, he obviously made a jibe at Christian missionaries who use economic inducements to make mass conversions in India and elsewhere. He also, thereby, inadvertently revealed one of the methods of Islamic proselytization and we commend him for his unconscious honesty. As he spoke, the rabblement cheered, proof of Mr. Owaisi's camaraderie with his audience.
Asaduddin Owaisi has a younger brother, Akbaruddin by name. This Hyderabadi Mian is an edition updated on Asaduddin Sahib. In a public speech he openly challenged the police of the State to shut down work for but 15 minutes to see the power of the Muslims in the land and promised a wipe-out of all others within that time-frame. Fools abound in our land these days and, fortunately for all, the police did not heed his advice but promptly a case was lodged against him in the court and poor Brother Junior must pay for his terrible indiscretion. Brother Senior is embarrassed as well but you may never trust these politicians who merely whip up communal passions to divide society and so consolidate their vote bank. So far so good. But the moot question arises as to why Muslims and Christians have this penchant for conversion of unbelievers to their faiths.
It is a systemic defect it seems in the Semitic religions Christianity and Islam that compels them to proselytize for sheer survival. The philosophical basis of these two religions is so flimsy, in fact, one may say that they have no sound philosophical basis at all, that they need to bring more and more converts into their fold to be able themselves to repose faith in what they profess. It is fundamental to these faiths that they are the exclusive paths towards godhead, that they solely possess the saving grace whereby man may be redeemed from sin and careered to heaven which is his ultimate abode after his solitary sojourn on earth if he has been duly converted to these religions and has rendered his account well in keeping with the scriptures or else he will burn in eternal hell-fire should he not accept the Saviour Christ as in Catholicism or the words of the Prophet Muhammad who, incidentally, by divine decree, is the last and the final prophet of God and his message the very words of God, inviolable, unalterable and sacrosanct, unbeatable in quality or essence by any other seer or sage before or after. So, our Hindu sages and seers seem to be all doomed to second-class status in the pantheon of sages and we who are infidels are all doomed to servitude on earth here and to roast-status in hell hereafter. Imagine, we, the mildest of races, who have never been, as such, a conquering race or our religion been a proselytizing one, for us to be roasted in hell to serve delicacies for the devils that be! Hilarious! So much for these faiths that attempt to seduce us into submission or else use force to bring about such a malefic effect. We laugh at their childish pranks, knowing full well that like bubbles they are born on the surface of the sea of human consciousness and like bubbles burst on it to be absorbed in the mother-faith of the Sanatan Dharma whence they had sprung like so many delicate dreams that break at the touch of reality. The Hindu is thus patient and keeps pocketing insults by the million knowing that victory is ever for the forbearing and the forgiving, never for the fanatical and the frenetic. The Hindu is calm for he has the experience of ages to go by in the realm of human behaviour while these, his adolescent children, are apt to be up to all sorts of truant behaviour, often painfully mischievous though. But the unshakable stability of the Hindu no provocation may overcome as he ruminates on the futility of phenomenal dreams which are the impelling force of these Semitic faiths. Their earth, heaven and hell are all variants of a single dream, the dream of the senses and, as such, cannot lead to illumination or freedom. Slaves they are of the senses and wish to drag others into the mire, such is their predicament and the plight of billions of hapless people who are in their cultural warp. Far better is a reasoned atheism and evidence-based acceptance of facts as is the scientific mode and the cultivation of the faculties to their optimal scepticism before deeper reflections send the soul careering into meditative introspection into the nature of things whence comes enlightenment from the super-conscious realization of Reality. And this, incidentally, is very much the Hindu method where reason replaces faith and realization finally supplants fragmented reason.
Thus, the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) has no problems with the discoveries of modern science and neither battles against them nor appropriates them for the perverse purpose of validating archaic irrational texts which forsooth have no basis in science. But Christianity has historically struggled against the findings of science and has often settled the score through the persecution of scientists which the Hindus have never done. Rather, many a path-breaking discovery of science seem to be the echo of Vedic principles discovered by our introspective rishis ages ago and the latest discoveries of science seem to describe uncannily accurately and 'in more forceful language', to quote Vivekananda, the very picture of phenomena in its progressively subtler contours as the rishis had envisaged. Thus, there is no conflict between the Sanatan Dharma and science and this is its great validation. The Bible is a revealed text and so is the Quran but they both have issues with science. The Vedas also are revelations of the divine but are in fulfilment of scientific reason more often than not and where they are not in agreement with science or rational philosophy, they are not to be considered sacrosanct, so said Vivekananda. He held that reason must fulfil instinct and inspiration must be in fulfilment of reason. Instinct, reason, inspiration---these form the three steps in the evolutionary ladder. Now, my readers, I leave it to you to ponder the relative virtues of different religions and the hilarity of the Owaisi brothers in their speeches. After all, true to tradition, they are Hyderabadi Mians differing in age and maturity and cerebral content---Bade Mian Asaduddin Oawaisi Sahib with his facile nonsense and Chhote Mian Akbaruddin Owaisi with his verbal vitriol. God bless both for they are, after all, Hindustani entertainers!
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