The prism of the present is too narrow a looking glass to view the happenings in the country. Whether one desires it or not, India ‘ s future lies in the past and it would take a truly biased outlook that is also steeped in ignorance, to believe otherwise. Unfortunately the secularists of the nation are endowed with such a bent of mind and they are entitled to their illusions.
But the tragedy is that these are the people who hog the political debate in the country and the din raised by their secular chorus is so overpowering that other voices are rarely heard above it. The larger picture exists and would be more revealing, but the people rarely get to see it in all its profoundity owing to the lop-sided projection by the politicos and the tunnel-vision of the media.
Hardening of the Hindu psyche is a happening reality, despite the dis-inclination of a motivated few to accept it. And by denying its existence they are doing a greater dis-service to their own intellect as well as to the nation because as they are also the people who matter – vested with political power and presiding over public policy – the solution is delayed and even denied.
The typical argument of the secular sponsors is that conceding this would tantamount to condoning it but it is n t difficult to see how puerile this line of reasoning is. No diagnosis will aggravate the disease; on the contrary lack of it will. And worse is the scenario where there is a patently clear diagnosis matched only by gross refusal to accept it based on some skewed morality. Even those who care to mention it make it a point to sound apologetic and tentative, thus trivialising the problem. Such self-inflicted reticence is even more damaging because it leads to the symptoms being targetted and taken to task, while the real ailment is allowed to fester.
The disillusionment of the Hindus in the current scenario is not just a throw back to past injustices meted out to them, their land and their culture, but its continuation into the present under the guise of secularism and the ominous prospects it holds for the future if the prevailing secular trend is allowed unchecked. But what is being projected of the Hindu backlash is that the Hindutvaites want to take back the country by five thousand years while even tiny tinpot dictatorships and just born nations are aiming to move forward towards growth and prosperity.
Such a line of thinking stems from the fallacied premises that the current upsurge is purely orchestrated by a few fringe elements and that if they are put under leash, the country can live happily ever after. It may be true that those at the vanguard of the Hindutva movement towards the end of last century are the chief architects of what is taking place now and they may still constitute the core, but it is also a fact that a large section of the Hindu mainstream, which includes the intellectuals, educated and the middle classes who are also feeling opressed by the wholly one-sided secular state of affairs. The inflammable discontent is much broder in spectrum and wider in sweep to be dismissed as just an aberration.
Now to suggest that this throbbing majority want to go back to ancient methods is to insult their intelligence, individual as well as collective. It does not also mean that the people at large hold no value for their past heritage and culture and that they are merely reacting to the present in paranoia. The truth is somewhere between.
Hinduism and Hindus would rank as the most oppressed and tormented religion and people in the history of mankind and for the longest ever period, continuously.
The symbols as well as the psyche of the Hindus have been at the receiving end of the worst kind of marauders of other faith, with one alien religion laying waste the former by the sword and another invading the latter by enticing words. The silent majority do know that it is difficult to reverse history, much less reinstating what is lost and have in fact been disproportionately tolerant and polite when compared to the magnitude of destruction let loose on them. But with secularists championing the cause of these very same religions whose proclivities have seen very little change despite of passage of centuries, it is but difficult for even the lambs amidst the Hindus to see a virtue in tolerance.
When it is pretty obvious that what is lurking behind secularism is the rank religious agenda of other faithful, then what is wrong if a Hindu rises in self-defence? If what ‘ s in the offing is just another faith ‘ s more intolerant dispensation, then what is the fun in chasing the secular mirage? We have enough gods to call our own and we may as well stick to them.
But allowing reckless infiltration of other faiths does not only queer the cultural and religious pitch, but even more worryingly for the Hindus, lays the road for a power shift, given the political activism of the minorities and their secular backers. We know what happened to the Constitution when the judiciary passed a verdict that ‘ offended ‘ the tenets of one particular religion. If such a coup could be enacted just by secular pressure tactics from outside, one could well imagine what could be achieved by political power in Parliament.
What insurance do Hindus have against such legitimate fears? If anything, such mis-trust is only getting aggravated by the day because no such assurances are fothcoming and on the contrary are again being directed the other way. Little wonder, there is a wide spread feeling amidst the Hindus that the issue of secularism has to sorted out and put behind once and for all, if the country has to move forward.
And there is a sense of urgency that it has to happen in this generation as it is a case of now or never, given the obstinate refusal of the secularists to see the Hindus point of view as also the stridency of the minorities in their religious agenda which is their only concern. This is the only lesson that the present is teaching us. But alas, the students seem to be on vacation.
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