**THE GREAT INDIAN HINDU GUILT** I would have normally avoided sharing my views about the present political scenario, just as I have avoided it through the last whole year. But today, especially after seeing the fatalistic and depressing updates of some of the friends who have been really working hard towards ‘change’, I feel like sharing this. Many of you will understand this, some will never try to. Truly speaking, as much as I know myself, I myself would have blasted such a post with a nasty critic had I come across it about two years back. The last two years were important. I stayed away from my predictable socio-political life. These two years were years of self-exploration and some study. During these experiences and studies I realized how deeply I was programmed and controlled. I was a complete Atheist and Anti-religion till about two years back, courtesy all the stupid shit that has been happening on the name of Religion in the realm of politics, all the riots I had seen since childhood, all the stupid statements the supposedly ‘right wing’ organizations issue time and again, all the halla-boo I see around in the temples etc in the name of rituals, and above all.. the strong and touching documentaries by Commie intelligentsia criticizing the religion.. specially that one religion that actually is not a religion. My own film InkLab (2011) appeared to have a leftist bent. First time it screened at a film festival, I remember that groups of people approached me asking me what Communist view point I belonged to. I did not know anything more about Communism than..the cool rebel Che’s iconic stamped figure, the hot blooded Indian youth Icon the Martyar Bhagat Singh and ofcourse a lil bit about the Communist manifesto with the serious looking bearded Marx on its intro page. Ofcourse, there is no denial to their concern and contribution of towards upliftment of masses but there was more to it. ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’ is one of the most popular maxims among the amateur communists and ofcourse a dogma for the baptised ones. Marx must be very true in saying it in respect to the ‘church’ controlled ‘religion’ and the state and the political power in west. But unfortunately Hinduism (Sanatan Dharm) which was not based on a central power such as a church and which was more of a multi rooted amalgamation of view-points about life was also analysed through the same lens. One has to read Hegel’s views about India, to learn more about how distorted Marx view about india could be. Hegel was the one, whose nasty, baseless, uninformed, ignorant comments on India shaped up Marx’s viewpoint and who was one of the greatest advocate for Indias colonization by the British Empire. Then there are Hindus ..those who claim to be the ‘Right wing’.. the supposed custodians of Hinduism, who actually unknowingly and ignorantly also are programmed by the very western ‘authority of church’ viewpoint and hence missing the whole point of openness of being a hindu and the mutual respect towards other religions. They infact are one of the worst enemies of what they call Hinduism and set a great example of how not to be a Hindu. A whole set of universities, research programmes, NGOs, scholarships, fellowships, funding agencies are dedicatedly working towards blocking any possible contact of common people and intelligentsia with the great possibilities of exploring the Hinduism in true sense and are rather programming gatekeepers of the society to shun anything Hindu. That is why we will only accept Hindu philosophy coming back to us via West.. be it works of Emerson, Thoreau , Whitman, or repacked in the form of most popular self help books or in form of the philosophical works like The secret. A pity. Then there are many like me (till two years back), who as if live in a constant guilt of being a Hindu. As if being a majority in any country is actually being a threat to minorities. Who pick up the every possible thing from around that can make this sense of guilt stronger and stronger. These are the people who would never want to learn the real truth of teachings of Hinduism ever in their life and straightaway label it with superstition and non-science and try to align with the view points that make fun of Hinduism and promote ‘secularism’. Secularism!! How much we love it. Only if one would read a detailed history of secularism in west and its agenda based implant in India, one would know one of the biggest dupe that has been done to India. Our ‘western’ programming limits us to look at it to be manifested through only ‘Religious Tolerance’ rather than a positive ‘mutual respect’. Well now you would like to label me ‘right wing’ alley of BJP/VHP/Shiv Sena/RSS etc . But I do not consider them as true Right wing either. I would place myself much more Right to them. Yes, because there is huge gap. A gap in.. what we know about Hinduism and what it is, a gap that has to be filled by learning by our ‘true’ history and above all to learn about the immense openness to the viewpoints and human diversity. The beauty of Unity does not lie in Uniformity but in diversity. There is a reason to why the ‘truth’ of Hinduism intentionally remains undefined in a reasonable sense. One can only have a viewpoint. And hence the scope of numerous viewpoints rather than a history centric dogmatic standpoint. A kind of open architecture system. All is welcome. Chaotic beauty. Beautiful chaos. But we have got it all wrong. We have been programmed to get it all wrong. Today, I see my friends updates about concerns to coming of BJP in power and ‘Terror of Hinduism’ and concerns about the ‘Hindu nation’... I feel concerned. Being Hindu is not what many of us think it to be. There is immense need at this hour to learn what Being a Hindu means. You may be a- Leftist, Hardcore right winger, strict atheist, a ‘guilty’ Hindu, any sect or religion, try to learn more about it before rejecting it. If you are able to explore it in a right way, it will only make you stronger in your pursuit for a happier and better world. Also if you see Hinduism has got distorted in wrong hands, this is the best way to also set the things right that are going wrong with Hinduism! The critics of this post would have very predictable things to fall back on to. I would only suggest to be free of ‘constructions’. This post is not about BJP or Modi. This is about Hinduism. And exploring Hinduism deeper has not made me something nasty but only abled me more to offer my love beyond any possible boundaries that cut across people. To get to the root of any problem or issues there is need to de-program and be free of the artificial constructs that govern over perceptions. The core teachings of Hinduism are exactly about this de-programming. These artificial constructs are ‘Maya’. Wearing western spectacles we read it wrongly as ‘This world is an illusion’ ..though it actually only means that your view point could be governed by some undesirable forces, so be free of it. That ‘freedom’ is the ‘liberation’..the Moksha that the western spectacle makes appear like other worldly affair. Truth is that this ‘liberation’ will only empower you in your pursuits in this very world. For those who are open to a balanced analysis I invite you to explore further and very strongly recommend two books : American Veda by Philip Goldberg and Being Different (Book) by Rajiv Malhotra. The second one is much more revealing but i would suggest you to read them in order mentioned above because we still wear the western spectacle. This is no attempt to convert your view point, nor is on my agenda to criticise sweepingly any religion or any other philosophy.. but some misunderstandings surely ought be clarified. This is all what i feel like sharing with many of you at this point of time. Love, Gaurav
Posted on: Sat, 17 May 2014 06:51:32 +0000