These days’ lots of discussion and resentments
are being expressed on the politics of religious conversion taking place in
India. In fact this topic was also echoed in the four walls of the Indian
parliament. Media is also agog with this topic and trying to represent views of
different sects of people although it shows their biasness towards the majority
which is obvious and apparent. This topic has been further aggravated by the
release of a new film called PK and it is being seen as a calculated ploy to
throttle the belief system of the majority Hindus in India.
Social media is also filled with
discussions on the topic and it seems that majority of people are confused with
Hindu religion and its background. People are mincing words with half knowledge
and without credible answers for a common man to understand the cause of their
discussion. Therefore instead of participating in lunatic debates, I thought of
writing this article and hope to clear some of the misunderstanding people have
about one of the oldest belief system of the world. Before discussing on the
current developments, it is pertinent to describe the background of this belief
system which is called Hinduism.
In my previous articles, I have already
quoted the words of great philosopher and economist Karl Marx that the “Religion
is the opium of man” as such this issue cannot be discussed with a
large segment of people under intoxication of the religious ‘opium’. Only healthy, unbiased and awakened minds have
the capabilities to think and analyze the rationale behind certain happenings
in the world. There is also a proverb that the ‘Rome was not built in a day’ and it means that whatever we see
today religiously, culturally or socially has a historical background of thousands
of years, and unless we go to the root causes of its current build up, any
argument or analysis would be foolish and futile.
Therefore under the backdrop of above,
I will like to describe scenarios and why a large segment of people are confused
as far as Hindu religion is concerned. On social media, this debate is being
conducted without historical base, hence the confusion. Therefore it requires
some clarifications before harping on the topic.
1. When a painter starts painting on a canvass,
it is always White and as the time progresses, different color starts being
added to give it a texture and feel. The
story of humans and their belief system has similarity of a canvass and ‘Time’ is
the painter which starts putting its strokes over a large span of time. Thus
the portrait of Hindu way of life (religion) which we see today has the history
of thousands of year in making.
The origin of Sanatan Dharma is unknown as it was a
part of early evolution of humans on planet earth. While evolving, human race was
exposed to the nature for the shelter, growing food and saving their lives from
disease and calamity. It was a matter of survival for them to keep the fury of
nature under control. It is also the nature of humans to respect or bow down or
pray to supreme and powerful. Hence in order to keep those natural forces under
control (this is what they thought that time) they started performing certain
rites and rituals and gave forms and names to those forces so that they are
able to recognize and invoke them while performing those rituals.
In order to
maintain a civilized society in early days certain rules were also propagated based
on natural experiences and that is how Sanatan
Dharma (Sanatan means Eternal which has no beginning or end and Dharma came
from the root word “Dhri” means to hold together) came into existence. Dharma
in English language means “Righteousness” and has no connotations with a
particular religion as it was the dictum's to be followed by people with righteousness
in a civilized and orderly society.
2. The Vedas and especially the Rig Veda describes
the importance of these natural forces with their names and how to invoke them.
It was nothing to do with Hindu or Hindu religion as the term ‘Hindu’ was given
much later by early visitors to recognize people living on the bank of Indus River
having the earliest civilization called ‘Indus
Valley Civilization’ (3300 to 1300 BCE or 3315 to 5315 years from now). The Indus Valley Civilization was the most
developed civilization of its time. Therefore, Hindu or Hinduism was never a
religion but a way of life. People feared wrong doings and respected natural
forces and hence worshipped them by giving human forms so that they are able to
correlate themselves with the natural Gods.
3. As the society evolved, people who mastered
the hymns to invoke these natural Gods were called Brahmins. Therefore Brahmins
have an association with the mind and intellect. It had nothing to do with the caste or creed
but with the human knowledge and education. In modern terms - all those who are
educated and use their intellect to understand the worldly affairs are Brahmins.
4. There is another proverb- “Absolute
power corrupts absolutely”. In order to maintain superiority of their knowledge
over less knowledgeable people Brahmins become arrogant and they developed superiority
complex over others. They also restricted the use of their sacred text books as
a result they were largely confined to them. During the course of time the gulf
between educated Brahmins and non-educated mass comprised of Kshetriyas,
Vaishya and Sudras started growing. Being a warrior class Kshetriyas gained advantage in ruling the land and hence connived with
Brahmins for getting the knowledge of scriptures. Businesses and trading of
goods and services were managed by Vaishyas
hence they controlled money and were affluent. Those who could not be educated
or fight wars or do trading were left to do the menial jobs and were treated
with disgrace in society and called Sudras.
5. Vedas and Srimad Bhagwadgita two important Hindu
scriptures have no mention of the caste system. Lord Shri Krishna has already
described types of people in the world having the qualities of Brahmin, Khsetriya, Vaisya and Sudra. In Srimad Bhagwadgita he has elaborately described these qualities. Therefore
anybody can fall under these qualities irrespective of their birth. Since most
of the sacred texts were written in Sanskrit
language and the knowledge of this language remained in few hands, as a result rulers
and pundits exploited the situation by distorting the meanings of sacred texts
in their favour. Therefore as far the Hindu sacred books are concerned they do
not differentiate between people simply because of their birth.
6. Buddhism was the first religion which gave
shelter and hopes to religiously and socially suppress people. This was the
reason that Buddhism became popular in India and remained a dominant religion from
6th century BC to 700 AD.
7. Hinduism was never a religion but a way of
life with open ended commitments towards it. It means that if a person is born
in a Hindu family can remain Hindu, even if the person does not worship or do
not believe in Hindu Gods or do not go to temple even once in his life time. This way of life also provides the
flexibility of prayer which one can perform either in a temple or home or
forest or in one’s heart and mind. Hindus accepted the believers and non
believers equally as long as they follow the way of life which is righteousness
in thought and action, truthfulness, compassion, non violence not only towards
people but also towards plants and animals, respect towards each other,
sacrifice for other’s happiness, helping poor and needy etc.
8. Until AD 312, Romans also believed in all
types of gods and goddesses such as Jupiter (Master of all Gods), Juno (Wife of
Jupiter and goddess of women and fertility), Mars (The God of war), Venus
(Goddess of love & beauty), Minerva (Goddess of wisdom and learning),
Neptune (God of Sea), Ceres (Goddess of harvest), Vulcan (God of the
underworld), Diana (Goddess of hunting), Bacchus (God of wine and partying),
Mercury (Messenger of the Gods), Vesta (Goddess of the hearth and home) etc.
Pictures and statues of all theses Gods and Goddesses can be seen in Rome even
today. Their belief system was switched from different gods and goddesses to
Christianity by the Emperor Constantine in the year AD 312 when he won an
important battle under the belief of his dream about the Christ.
9.
Therefore modern Europe also believed in idol
worship of their gods and goddesses until 1703 years back from now. Now the film PK makes a mockery of the
idol worship and Hindu’s belief in different Gods and Goddesses. They have
failed to understand that these idols represent the very essence of our life
and they help us in balancing the outside and inner world of ours. For example
the Varun- the God of air not only represents the air in the environment but
also the life source which we breathe constantly. Agni- the fire God represents
the vital source for our survival and the energy inside our body. Indra- the
rain God again a vital source for our survival. Our body also contains three
fourth of water in the blood and by religious practices, a Hindu try to balance
the outside as well as the inside corresponding sources of energy.
10. Hindu’s do not
get deterred by believing in several gods and goddesses as they believe that they
are manifestations of the same God. Hence literally they worship the same God
through different means. They also accept gods of other religions as manifestations
and messengers of the same god. This is the reason that in Vedanta Society
established by Swami Vivekananda there is a picture of Christ to who we all
pray. In their closing chats they also pay reverence to Isha (the Christ) and
Moosa (the prophet Mohammed).
11. Now due to its
flexible concept, all the visitors who came to India in the garb of visitors or
traders or invaders converted the fence sitters (those who were illiterates or oppressed)
into Christianity or in Islam. Those who were converted to these two religions could
not understand the difference between the religion and the way of life; between
freedom of thought and action and the bondage and compulsion of the holy books
of other religions. People were forced to be converted in to other religions
due to the poverty and the helplessness.
12. The religious conversion
became a disease in India which continued unabated even after the independence of
the country by promoting and sheltering missionaries, madarsas and NGO’s. Until
now nobody objected these conversions and no press or media debated on the
topic. Now because a small segment of non hindus were being converted back to
their original belief, there is so much of hue and cry and media is not tired of
organizing debates on the national channels. This demonstrates the biasness of
our leaders, intelligentsia and media towards their own belief system and unfurls
duplicity of their character and motives.
I do
understand that if a person is hungry then a loaf of bread is more important
for him then which caste or religion he belongs to or going to adopt. It does
not make a difference to people in switching their religious allegiance if they
are assured of bread and butter. However motives for helping to poor and destitute
by the mercenaries and NGO’s needs to be evaluated and assessed on merit.
I do not promote
or endorse religious conversion of any type and India should pass a strict and
enforceable anti-conversion law to stop this menace. If anybody wants to go for
religious conversion then due diligence must take place in understanding the cause
leading to such decisions.
My intention
is not to create a debate on religions of the world but to clarify certain
points which is relevant today and what is happening in India.
Your comment
on the topic is very much solicited and I wish you a very happy New 2015.
Suman Saran
Sinha, CMC
Toronto, Canada.
