🕉 HINDUS, AWAKE ! ... 7

🕉 HINDUS, AWAKE ! ... 7

We, Hindus, are not just 'a wounded civilisation', as V.S. Naipaul puts it, but a suicidal civilisation headed towards annihilation. Our numbers are declining, our enemies on all sides are multiplying, and, yet, we are busy entertaining ourselves with the frivolities of life while our torpedoed national ship keeps sinking. 

How long will the Sikhs and the Jats, the Rajputs and the Marathas, and the intrepid Gurkhas die along the borders to defend our motherland? What will be our contribution as Bengalis to our national defence -- song and dance, poetry and drama to entertain the soldiers?

Our men were exhorted by Swamiji to be manly but they are busy singing soft and sentimental songs that have not a modicum of martial strength in it? This popular culture, utterly hollow and lacking in spine, this use of the intellect to serve roguish antinational ends, this overriding ambition to serve petty self-interest, this apathy towards the suffering of the masses beyond sending out loud proclamations of the Communist Manifesto, how long will such betrayal of national interest go on at a moment in history when the imperilled world looks to India for spiritual guidance? Weakness and the trading instinct masquerading as spirituality cannot fool the intelligent races of the world nor wean away the toxic elements from their preferred path of perfidy that threatens humanity everywhere.

A valorous stance is necessary, not a singing and dancing mode, to awaken the masses unto lifebuilding and civilisation-saving activity. In language, in movement, in behaviour, in attitude of every sort the martial spirit of service and sacrifice must shine, discipline of a higher order marshalling the forces towards a life of ceaseless activity that will save civilisation. Hundreds of thousands of men and women need to feel inspired unto leading the higher life, not of passive piety full of sentimental songs adorning life but of vigorous display of energy that will transform oneself and one's neighbour unto serving a sublime end.

It is a pitiable situation right now and needs immediate redress. Despite Swamiji's unceasing exhortation to awaken manliness among the polity, his fellow Bengalis today have let him down. But this is a general trend. Commercialisation of culture is devitalising the nation and careering it towards its doom. Awake, my countrymen, and hearken to what Swamiji says. Give up this effeminacy. 🕉 

Written by Sugata Bose