I do not see much more greatness in the proselytising religions, Christianity and Islam, beyond the fact that they spread throughout the world at the edge of the sword and the barrel of the gun. The philosophical barrenness of the two theological systems could hold all nations that had but at the time of conquest a poor philosophical culture, barring Iran, perhaps, and, consequently, failed to capture the imagination of the Hindus and the Chinese who clung to their age-old religious and spiritual traditions. Whatever gains were made in India were at the point of the sword and on account of the weakening of the masses through long-persisting Brahmanical tyranny, a pitiless state of loss of sympathy from their better-placed upper class countrymen that allowed the lower classes to ease into the arms of Islam and, later, Christianity, which apparently promised a more equal station in life with one's fellowmen.
The situation continues to this day despite Constitutional regulations and directives to the contrary, and this is a matter of serious concern and contemplation for all Hindus that they no longer allow it to be so, for a renewal of mass conversion to Islam, Christianity or Buddhism -- as in the Ambedkar case -- or even Communism, would hardly be beneficial to the long-term prospects of Hinduism and even the nation.
Hence, it is meet that we start treating each other with respect, especially, the dispossessed and the disinherited of the means of earthly subsistence, and provide them with the necessary means for decent survival. In this fellow-feeling lies greater religiosity than in infertile ceremonials and grandiloquent political speeches geared to swaying the polity for a favourable mandate.
May India rise in the heart and the head together, and may she activate the fruits of this dual stream of consciousness in terms of fruitful laying of the seeds for a future regenerative harvest !
Written by Sugata Bose
No comments:
Post a Comment