Good post Vikram Ji. But just wanted to point out that no one has beaten Dharma by any stick so far. No one grew a pair or had a stick that big to beat Dharma. If at all they did want to undermine it, they pretended to be moralistic in XYZs name. It happened with the Islamists, it happened with the Whte Chritisian denominations, Imperialists, colonists. But they all in the name of natural morality tried to impose their warped versions on others. And when they did beat Indic society up, they did so not challenging Dharma, but attempted partly successfully in breaking up Dharmic Indic people into different strands. So they separated Buddhist from mainstream, then Jains, then Sikhs, then Hare Krishna'ites, Arya Samaji's and next in line will be Vaishnavite's and so on, till the majority Indic faith as defined by Hinduism will only be defined in terms of Caste and culturally or socially prejudicial indices.=>While doing the right thing part may resonate with many people influenced by Dharmic thoughts, the inherent contradiction with the stratification of the Hindu society will also confuse those are trying to understand Dharmic society. How can people who believe in doing the right thing, treat so many of their own, poorly? This specifically creates a stick by which Dharma can be beaten down with, and has provided the moral crutch for the White Man's Burden.
That is an excluvist onslaught we have failed to recognize here, and i have attempted to bring that up on several occasions, including advocating a constitution with fundamental Dharmic principles as being central to the Indian nationhood. That would unite different Indic strands and separate/ isolate out the cultural or social prejudices that have crept into our society. By it's isolation we make clear that such prejudices are not Dharmic and will tend to die out faster. By the linkage of these prejudices to 'Hinduism', we raise feelings of inadequacy about doctrine, ideals in our society leading to vast sections revolting from their Dharmic roots also to doctrines like Communism, Maoism and simpler but inherently excluvist doctrines that tend to divide and not unite us as fellow Dharmics.
The mistaken assumption that Dharmics will be soft in battle is just that, a mistaken assumption. Sikhs for example will never hesitate if someone calls their warriors a 'Sword of Dharma', but they will object if you call them a sword of Hinduism. While compassion, equanimity are core in Dharma, and Truth is equated with God, in no way it implies Dharma has no sword. A cursory reading of the Gita shows Krishna himself exhorting Arjun to battle the forces of Adharma. Because Dharma has power, it has soft power too. Most will accept without a fight the principle embodiments of Dharma, because it comes inherent and natural.
Today everyone is claiming Dharma. The Chinese have gained Tibet, because we rejected the plurality inherent in Dharma in favor of the assumed plurality of Secular politics that was essentially a step forward by European states to separate the Church from their internal political affairs. So essentially while the White Christiandom countries evolved a step to Dharmic constitutionalism, we took a step backwards and devolved to Secularism. When we did so, we lost our empathy for the slaughter of Dharmic cultures by imperialist and colonial forces in Tibet. We let the Dharmic institutions die there. Now China too knows India is not living up to it's legacy on Dharma, so why not claim it completely. For that it has isolated HH DL, it has laid claim to ArP, it lays claim to Bhutan, Sikkim, Leh, Nepal and Bodh Gaya will soon come too. White Christiandom too is laying claim, they tried it via the Aryan invasion theory by attempting to say that major Dharmic texts are a result of some hypothetical Aryan white race. Now they are trying to say Christs teachings and Dharmic teachings of Buddhism and Upanishads are similar (note, not Hinduism..which has been relegated by them as a collective of social and prejudicial practices by people who believe in Idols, polutheism etc). They are appropriating Yoga in all it's forms, including creating the excluvism of Christian Yoga..
We must understand that these appropriations are the real core danger to India. The moment these people who seek to divide the Dharmics, know India stands firmly by and for Dharma we have won a major battle. They will also know then India will defend Dharmics anywhere and our sword arms defend them with all our might. White excluvist Christiandom, the Chinese imperialists know they cannot stand up to the forces that a Dharmic united India can unleash. They after all want to be it's claimants. They indeed are welcome to evolve to Dharma, but it will not be defined by them through a warped excluvist principle which they have followed and viewed others mostly in their history. It's India's duty and Dharma to define that. That also is the start of claiming back Indics who have strayed to excluvist doctrine.