THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 5 HINDU RASHTRA

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 5

HINDU RASHTRA 

Liberals who speak against Hindu Rashtra, think what will happen to Bharatvarsha should it with dangerous demographic change become an Islamic state in the not too distant future. Where will your liberalism be? Study the history of Islamic republics worldwide and find out. Near home itself study the fate of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to come to enlightened understanding. If you still do not see reason and believe in the survival of universal human rights in a Muslim-majority, Hindu-minority state which is where we are heading slowly but surely, you are in a state of self-imposed blindness. Hence, a Hindu Rashtra of sorts with checks and balances is in the judgement of many the only way ahead where proliferation of alien antithetical cults must be curtailed somehow. But whither democracy then? And whither democracy as well in the not so long a run if its very clauses are systematically used to subvert it as is the modus operandi of subversive forces at present.

The question is whether declaring India a Hindu Rashtra will at all address the present problem which is hinged on the relative fertility of the followers of two competing religious ideologies, the intolerant of the two threatening to snuff out the all-accepting other like it has done throughout its gory history since its bloodstained birth. These are deep questions and their answers need to be realistically sought keeping the text of our Constitution in mind. How is scripturally sanctioned fanaticism to be tackled? How may perverts from Hinduism be brought back to the Sanatan fold? May it be that civic training of the citizenry in dutiful citizenship will iron out core ideological differences in so far as their practical application is concerned and lead the nation along the progressive line of the Vedanta with its universal philosophical acceptance of all sects? But the Abrahamic religions are scripturally exclusive. Will their adherents ever accept the wisdom of the Vedas by relegating the intolerant doctrines of their own faiths to secondary significance? These are moot questions which need answering.

The Partition of undivided India has left a permanent suspicion in the minds of Hindus about the true intent of Muslims in this regard. It is a brutal historical experience whose wounds are still festering here and daily being opened up and cast afresh in the Muslim-majority severed sections of the great motherland. The Great Calcutta Killing of 16 August, 1946 and the Noakhali and allied genocide of Hindus in East Bengal whose bloody persistence for nearly three months forced the hands of the Congress leadership to accept Partition following quite the plot laid down by Muhammad Ali Jinnah is still fresh in Hindu memory, a gory horrific memory though it may be. Hindus are being persecuted in many parts of India today where, disunited and meek as they are, they are being subjected to all sorts of violence periodically with vote-seeking political parties remaining passive bystanders to such aggression. Hence, the Hindu reaction is coming one of which is the demand for declaration of India as 'Hindu Rashtra'. Of course this has been a longstanding demand of the Sangh Parivar. What the repercussions of such a Constitutionally validated declaration, hypothetically speaking, will be within the many-branched body politic of the Hindus is of prime concern here as well. And the aforementioned moot question will yet remain---How long will this Hindu Rashtra remain so with the demographic balance ever tilting bit by bit in the other direction? 

Is an Islamic State of India inevitable then within the next several decades? Gloomy proposition but a realistic prospect.

Is liberalisation of the Indian Muslims utterly impossible? I do not believe so. If political parties are forced by people's pressure to stop minority appeasement and illegal immigration, perhaps we may find a way out of this knotty problem with liberal, scientific education replacing ideological indoctrination in madrassas. But it is an onerous task given the corrupt character of the political class in India from top to bottom. Hence, dangerous days are ahead for India. We must find a way out. But what is it?

Written by Sugata Bose