THIS DEEPAVALI

THIS DEEPAVALI 

This Deepavali I wish that you all be filled with sraddhaa for the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism). There is so much irreverence among the Bengalees. Difficult to digest. A sad spectacle indeed. It is time to refresh our memory of the 'Svadesh Mantra' articulated by Swamiji. That is the due course correction for those among us who revel in abusing our deities.

If there are so many irreverent at home, that is, within the body politic of the Hindus 🕉 themselves, small wonder it is that we fail to withstand enemy attacks on us from proselytising Islam and Christianity. And it is not merely irreverence that speaks out. Often it is outright onslaught on our epics, our traditions, our sensitivities and on the sanctity of our gods and goddesses. Seeking merely anthropological and sociological roots to defame the Goddess Kali and the Great God Mahadev, calling Shree Radhika and the Gopis names that are profane for me to even utter with respect to their divine love for Shree Krishna, totally misunderstood by these subscribers to sensual love at its lowest, describing Hindus 🕉 as lowly idolators, drinkers of cow urine and worshipper of Nagpur cows is an insult that we are made to bear every now and then, and we out of great forbearance do so with dignity. These same ones, licentious liberals, have not the guts to speak thus against Islam or their iconic figures or their scriptures for they know full well the possible gory consequence of their indiscreet remarks. When Hindus 🕉 suffer at the hands of Muslims in Bangladesh or in Pakistan, in Kashmir or in Afghanistan, these self-styled liberated liberals do not feel the slightest sympathy or pain for their butchered brothers, their savaged sisters and their molested mothers but they have the gumption to ridicule unduly every article of faith that Hindus 🕉 cherish as holy.

Added to this we have a host of bystanding brethren not conforming to the Sanatan Dharma but owing allegiance to alien theologies and political ideologies who make no bones about quick-labelling us as cow-urine-drinking affiliates to a Nagpur Mission, meaning the Rashtriya Svayam Sevak Sangha (RSS), in a most detestable, derogatory manner that exposes their true colour in terms of national affiliation in effect. These trends are unhealthy and can only weaken national unity.

This Deepavali it is in right earnest that I exhort all Hindus 🕉 who have strayed, to return to the fold, and all those who owe allegiance elsewhere, who choose to be silent when their fellow Hindus suffer in Islamic or near-Islamic countries or in Muslim-majority areas within India, to alter stance and raise their voice of protest. Whenever Muslims suffer anywhere in the world, it seems it hurts them much for reasons they know best, but I see in them a studied silence with regard to the brutalisation of Hindus 🕉 in Bangladesh or in Pakistan at the hands of fanatical Muslims. This seriously raises questions of qualified sympathy for fellow citizens along pronouncedly religious and political lines which is regrettable indeed for it goes against the grain of national integration to which every citizen ought to contribute. Perhaps, to many, if not most, of them religion comes ahead of nation despite surface pretensions. This ought to change. But will it?

Written by Sugata Bose