Why is "Hindu Nationalism" spoken of in a pejorative sense?

[shiv]

If you go back 1000 years, every Indian was a Hindu - i.e. resident of India. As the Subramanyam Swamy says, even those who converted to Islam were Hindus. Hindu is not a religious term. It was made a religious term after British laws for India were created. British law imposed on India classified people according to "religion". They called some people "Muslims", others as "Hindu" and some other religions. But Hindu is not a religion. Hindus had any number of religions. Some had no religion.

It is not possible to classify India by religion unless you say "Hinduism is a religion" and then compare the Hindu religion with Islam and Christianity. If Hindus accept that they follow a religion with holy book, one God etc, they also have to accept that religions can get corrupted by false practices and devils work which need to be opposed by the religious fathers of Hinduism. We have to then define the holy books and religious scholars/fathers which starts looking like utter nonsense ultimately.

Hindu was a secular, non religious term. We need to revert to that secular non religious term. Ironically it is "secularism" that has tried to box Hindus in religious terms because it was unable to understand that people could exist outside the narrow box of "religion". And instead of understanding that "religion is a narrow box" we "Hindu religionists" have agreed to fit ourselves in that narrow box and define ourselves adversarially with other narrow Christian/Islamic boxes that we see around us. We have become them and unless we recover what we were we have lost everything.

[peter]

....
Hinduism, even if it is taken to be a religion, plays zero part in any Hindu on Muslim violence. Yes, Dharmic reaction to Adharma, self-defense, nationalism, rage (justified or unjustified) may play a part in Hindu on Muslim violence, but never faith. Faith should be kept out of this.

Why should faith be kept out? Hell it should be said that Hindus have always defended faith and if anyone hurts places of religion or innocents then Hindu faith demands that Hindus not let that injustice continue.

Because our actions are determined not by our "personal faith", but rather by our "ethics", by Dharma, which may be a subject of treatment in our scriptures, but it is not subordinate to anythiing there. It exists independently.

No. Our actions are determined by how strong a personal faith we have in our dharma.

We Hindus, for some reason, also have adopted such thinking, that Karma is not individual, but rather Collective. A Hindu's wrongful actions somehow smear his upbringing, his community, his faith everything, and all have to share in his dishonor. Perhaps at some point, Hindus were given collective punishment by the Islamic rulers and the British.

There is a different reason for your observation. In olden times a Hindu could be thrown out of the caste and it routinely happened. This was based on their actions. Lot of people do not know this but something similar happened in medieveal India when rajputs started giving their daughters to mughals. Pratap of Udaipur and Chittor stopped all intermarriages with the daughter giving group. In a way he demoted these rajputs. Had his way continued or had his successors become the lords of the land over mughals and these other rajputs there is a good chance the daughter giving rajputs would have never been admitted to the rajput fold.

[peter]

There is no widespread Hindu movement in India to eliminate Muslims. There is social harmony in most places. A very large majority of Hindus are both nationalists and not in the business of belly-ripping of Muslims as alleged by "secular" parties.

The characterization of Hindu nationalism as extremism, bigotry and murder is unfair and motivated. Hindu nationalism is merely a movement to keep India strong and united without either fake suppression of Hindus and mischaracterization of Hindus or elimination of minorities. That was what Hindu always meant.

Question is: what if there were "Hindu Nationalist" movements who were to try to eliminate Muslims, considering them as Pakistanis, working for subversion of India? What if there was indeed Hindu extremism which considered Islam as Adharma and Muslims as supporters of a system of Adharma, and thus declared war against Islam?

This brings out the point I had raised that information or rather lack of it is the cause of many misconceptions.

Indeed many many instances where Hindus have just done what you have written.

[shiv]

If your religion is not Hindu, do you have a religion? What does it mean to be "Hindu" if it does not mean religion? Or should we say, OK all that history is all very well, but now we have accepted the religion box of Hindu-ism, we will stick in that familiar box and see how we can work things out? That would be very tempting - to stay in the comfort zone.

But a whole lot of problems that we face in India and are likely to face are related to this stupid boxing of Hindus into the religion box. The first is the disapprobation that Hindus face from others and the self hate that we have for ourselves because we are taught that "caste" and "racist caste discrimination" is a Hindu religious trait. We have screwed up our chaddis intoa knot with upper caste lower caste business imagining that "pour religion" says that. Heck there is no "religion" called Hindu-ism. The word caste cannot be found in 5000 years of Indian texts just as the word "dharma" cannot be found in 200 years of Christian texts. We now have caste but no dharma in our law books. So do we accept this as the new truth? the "New History of India? We have jatis that we still follow - and by and large we are none the worse for it. varnas were discarded long ago, but the cock and bull story that "varna was frozen" is still with us. Why do we retain these corruptions?

Because you see, Hinduism is our religion and we accept that caste is part and parcel of our religion. Everywhere else in the world this is "social stratification". Not religious. But we Hindus are special, we have gone back in time to invent a religion and encode "caste" into it and writen that "new History" into our law books. Smart people. Hindus.

So we are a fundamentally racist non egalitarian bunch with our egregious texts and Nazi clone high castes. The lower castes converted to Islam you see, to escape the religion and Hindus are out to eliminate Mulsims. That is why we need secularism.

Fortunately secularism is secure in India. We have all out little boxes of religions, each with its personal laws, and a benign secular government holding and protecting everyone. Fine. if we are happy with this, I am sure we can continue to accept this as I am asked to "accept" the label that Hindu nationalism indicates a particularly vicious and hateful brand of killer jingoism led by the high priests of the Hindu religion. We can live with that.

[vishvak]

<SNIP>

We Hindus, for some reason, also have adopted such thinking, that Karma is not individual, but rather Collective. A Hindu's wrongful actions somehow smear his upbringing, his community, his faith everything, and all have to share in his dishonor. Perhaps at some point, Hindus were given collective punishment by the Islamic rulers and the British.

There is a different reason for your observation. In olden times a Hindu could be thrown out of the caste and it routinely happened. This was based on their actions. Lot of people do not know this but something similar happened in medieveal India when rajputs started giving their daughters to mughals. Pratap of Udaipur and Chittor stopped all intermarriages with the daughter giving group. In a way he demoted these rajputs. Had his way continued or had his successors become the lords of the land over mughals and these other rajputs there is a good chance the daughter giving rajputs would have never been admitted to the rajput fold.

This is also why we need to be very clear on power grab aspect of so-called religions. It is OK on this forum, or in MSM, to refer to RSS members as 'chaddis', but put some words -even shortforms- and down comes grievances (not here) and punishments.

Therefore, the focus should be on how to treat power grab done under cover of religion and quantify (reminds of 'quants' words-quantitative analysis) activities. Not surprisingly, power grab -and cover up- seems to be more about quantitative and qualitative in vote-bank politics where more votes=more power.

[Tuvaluan]

Peter:"No. Our actions are determined by how strong a personal faith we have in our dharma. "

I am not sure I understand what this means. Dharma is not faith and having faith in Dharma without upholding it is useless. A more accurate statement would be "Our actions determine whether or not we are sticking to dharma or not". Faith is only associated with religions, and dharma has nothing to do with religion AFAIK.

[harbans]

Shiv ji, must say really excellent posts from you on this thread. One thing i have noticed for a long time. We Indics have this really great propensity to take to generalized attributes even to ourselves like the proverbial duck to water. That includes cliched rhetoric and over the years i have pointed many out. Take a few examples:

1. An Indian expert in a Western gathering of experts on South Asia policy is complaining about Paki terrorism and why the world must react. He's doing a great job and has a full 847 page dossier of Pakistani propped atrocities on Indian soil. They hear him a bit then say look what can we do. A Stable Pakistan is better than an unstable chaotic nuclear armed Pak. Now our bespectacled mandarin can't beat that logic. 847 pages of dossier deal in intricate detail with Pakistani atrocity not with the atrocities of a chaotic, unstable Pakistan. A Stable Pak is even what the PM has endorsed, so how can one argue against it? So the experts go for nice cocktails and dinner give the necessary speeches calling for stabilizing Pak etc etc and the Indian experts dole out exactly the cliche which stumped them " A Stable Pakistan is in everyones interests". He passed that off to the PM and assorted untrained in FP nuances Ministers who keep harping this till every Indian coming back from work and switching on NDTV, Timesnow etc hears these cliches being mouthed again and again. Similarly "We can't change Neighbors" talk was inflicted and our experts lapped it up wholesale. The capacity to challenge these so called established and great/good/mice sounding 'self evident' truths barely exists in our policy circles as of yet. Always always do note the so called experts are the last to come up with solutions to geo strategic issues. Even the other day BC was parroting Neighbors can't be changed line on twitter and i challenged him on it.

2. For long i have asked if the Caste system is so endemic and deep rooted, how come we have an Ambedkar writing our constitution, or so many so called low castes authoring so many holy texts or a MA Amritandamaya, or a Narendra Modi, or a Valmiki or why no one in college asks the other what caste are you from etc etc.. then i asked folks what is the Caste System and people gave me examples that i said but that is an example of Feudalism or Tribal supremacy why Caste? They say that Brahmins didn't teach Vedas to everyone. But then i learnt to get into MIT, Harvard required a lot of studies, getting 99%iles, having ace grades etc etc. Similarly transmitting the Veda's or in most cases even being a Brahmin required Brahmins getting up 4 am, taking a cold water bath, saying no to wealth, living off alms etc. I doubt the success rate of those who smoke pot, drink in high school is particularly high to gain entrance in MIT or Harvard or IIT for that matter. So certainly if one says to get into MIT or Harvard i prefer people who don't pot, smoke, get up 12 am it isn't exactly wrong or discriminatory. What MIT/Harvard types have done for their cosy club is make an exam that almost certainly eliminates those that smoke pot, drink, get up a 12 am in high school. Many Moksha Margs within our country required temple priests certainly to be vegetarian, never drink alcohol recite vedas well etc. This made it impossible for other professions to be priests. Again how many Harvard Professors does one see in the local pub sipping a beer with Joe the plumber? Its the same everywhere. Having standards even behavorial is not discriminatory in my opinion. But imagine the Beef eating Christian missionary or even a British high society Colonel of the 17th Century out of Britain judging the Brahmin and people falling at his feet. They never knew what he does is specialized that the knowledge he has kept safe over millenia because of that very frugality is not for everyone. Many of the things that Indians did would seem high brow but they were actually standards which even today we personally like to evolve to. These standards are described by Krishna for example as Tamas, Rajas, Sattva and another that goes beyond these 3. A Brahmin was supposed to be in Sattva, eat in Sattva, think in Sattva, act in Sattva. His non association with those still in Tamas or Rajas whether as individual or group or tribe is not discrimination just like one tells his school going child not to hang with those kids that smoke pot or drink or are in Tamas. But for the Muslims, British and other Europeans this seemingly high behaviour smacked of so called Caste discrimination.

Yet most discrimination we see and hear Thakur feuds with Dalits are land based issues and feudal in nature. Many are just pride issues that other tribes around the world have. We have Jat pride, Gujjar pride, Rajput pride etc. So we see that we cannot accuse Brahmins wanting to associate with Sattva as much as we would like to accuse a parent telling his kids to be with the kids that concentrate on studies, not drink etc.

3. Hinduism: This was originally a term used to describe all people of Non Muslim/ Non Christian people in the regions East of Indus. Imagine someone from 8th Century Islamized Arabia landing today in the US. What would he say/think? He'd say in US people follow many Gods. He'd say Harvard Professors are snobby with Joe the plumber and drink in higher class bars and eat in higher class restaurants. He'd say they take only people who have very regularized disciplined lives into institutions like Harvard or MIT. He'd say they don;t believe in one God and he counted 300 different kinds of Gods being worshipped all over New York itself. To this 8th century Muslim in NY today the reaction would be similar to what he got when he arrived in Sindh or any city in India. There is one Stupa here with monks meditating, there is this Temple that people are worshipping some Shiva, another Temple that is worshipping Vishnu etc. Even the practice and ritual varies within cities and region. What he cannot see is the diversity exists in the US for example because of the Constitutional Meta Ethic system of the 18th century and amended as per popular mandate. That the same kind of plurality in India was due to the Dharmic Meta ethic that society and ruler always heeded. Both the US and India of yore had a meta ethic code that encouraged the diversity that couldn't be read correctly by someone coming from a forcibly homogenized background.

Once they branded us Hindu's we never took it serious as it wasn't ever codified. Tribes remained fluid, many moved up and down the Dharmic ladder over periods. This was just tacit and nothing more. The Dharmic meta ethic was not an absolutist scheme it encouraged evolution to it's code/ethics/ values. But everyone knew and endorsed these values. The same thing happened when Xtian missionaries and Europeans started arriving. Too many gods, discriminatory Brahmins and hence texts on Brahiminsm. Of course Mughals/ Nawabs were there to give their version of evil Brahminism to the Europeans and the Caste system was thus soon to be codified. Tribes were to be stratified into Varna mostly without their knowledge. So now once codification commenced, Caste became synonymous with Hindu.

However once Caste became synonymous with HIndu and it got published in texts it was logical for Sikhs for example to reject being Hindu. It was also logical for Buddhists to say Hey we're not the ones who discriminate. The pointing of fingers at the 'Hindu' brethren had started. The fact that all Buddhist canons were penned by Brahmins didn't matter, neither the fact that first borns of Dharmic families became sikh. The other day my neighbor a Hindu came and was giving an example about his youngest son (he's a sikh). This family visits a gurdwara nearby regularly. The son became a Sikh and no one even blinked an eyelid. This cross temple movement certainly has reduced but never stopped. It was in fact so heavy that the Indian constitution makes a special provision till date to allow entry of those of different Dharmic faiths into the premises of other Dharmic faiths. The denizen of homogenized 1 faith countries when in contact with medieval India would have shook them. But the subsequent codification made people run saying Hey we are not Hindu. Then the Hindu's started trying to define themselves. The learned from some Panths started to define themselves by Vedas etc..some by saying it;s a way of life etc. But however we tried to define Hindus the trap got bigger. Hare Krishna/ Arya Samaj/ Jains started to slowly pull out of the codified definitions. In all of this we saw that Dharma lost as it was crudely equated to mean 'Religion'. Today it has come to such a pass when even Yoga is not being linked to Hindu's but to Buddhists or certainly not to Hindus. They are slowly bracketing Hindu to mean == Caste System, Sati, trishul wielding Tilak dorning, Idol worshipping, RSS attending Indic plus obviously any cultural or social evil of the medieval or ancient times ==Hindu. But remember all this definition translates to HIndu religion. Not some cultural or social ills. Caste is religion, Sati is etc. The more i see it it's like the more harder one tries to define what Caste is or what HIndu is the deeper in the break up trap one gets. This may not be intentional but a consequence of something fitted onto us that was not natural to our shape and existence.

[RajeshA]

harbans ji,

agree with everything you have written. Good write-up.

[Prem]

harbans ji,
agree with everything you have written. Good write-up.

Hari's Vansha Ji, All the anguish will disappear once the economic and military might is accumulated to the point we go on smashing few air heads in Near Abroad Colonies. Lion must kill to claim the supremacy.Its Lion's Dharma , and Dharma's Lion must do same. Logic Wogic is for civilized Baudhiks/intellectuals few , Silver & Stick do stupendous service to straighten Suarullahs and Smithoneanderthals. Asking wont convince without forceful prodding by power.

[shiv]

"Hindu nationalism becomes shameful because of the "Hindu" connection. On this thread we have had people say that the word is "toxic" or that we should avoid using the words "Hindu nationalism" but should us something else, like "dharmic nationalism". Even we don't want to touch that bad word, Hindu. We want to tippy toe around it and avoid the truth. Or that we should simply accept it and move on.

Every one of these viewpoints fails to ask why it has been made shameful to associate oneself with the word "Hindu". It is easy to blame the "seculars" and say "It is the seculars who have done this". It is true that the seculars have added fuel to the fire but they did not light the fire. What lit the fire was the conquest of the Indian "Hindu" mind by the British.

As I have repeatedly stated, because the British came with the idea that everyone has religion, they looked for and classified "the religion of India" as "Hindu". And since every religion comes with practices that are unique to the religion, the British classified idolatry, "caste" and sati as part of the Hindu religion. They did not do this on their own. they were ably assisted everywhere by Hindus who were never accustomed to asking themselves the questions that the British came with - like "What is your religion?". The British were unable to comprehend the idea that there were Shaivaites, Vaishnavtes, Jains, Durga worshipers, Krishna worshipers, Skanda worshiper and others all living together. Technically every one of these groups should have been called a separate religion. But the British could not understand how each of these "separate faiths" did not consider other faiths as "false religions" or Devil worship. From the British viewpoint the whole goddam country was a mess of devil worshipers with a polytheistic, idolatrous "religion" called Hindu-ism. And this Hindu-ism had caste and human sacrifice and all sorts of other nasty things as part of it.

And guess what? When the British wrote all this down and made this a description of the "Hindu religion of India" most Indians did not know. Those who knew did not care. They could not comprehend what was happening. They could not predict how the "British way of looking at Indians" was going to affect them in future when they were encoded into "secular laws" where "Hindu-ism" would be frozen in this British interpretation of Indian society dubbed as "the Hindoo religion"

And affect us it did. After 1857, British education to get more Indians into working for them filled the brightest Indian minds with this fake view of India, "You are followers of a polytheistic, idolatrous "religion" with egregious practices like caste and sati. The British themselves did not understand that in India, society had gone way beyond "religion" and created a liberal society where all religions were tolerated and allowed, and even beyond that into the allowing of concepts like atheism, agnosticism and variations of gnosticism. Indians did not even understand or know these words when they blindly jumped like lemmings into the "Hindu religion" box

What the creation of this class of British educated Indians (like me) did was to set up a group of Indians who were ashamed of "their religion" and wanted to reform it. Very few Indians had the world view to understand what the British did not understand. The British were clubbing all of Indian society, with good and bad social practices in the box of "Hindu religion" and were critical of "Hindu religious praciices" as if everything bad in India was a religion dictated by some Devil or false Prophet . Secular Hindus were by and large those who were ashamed of this and were opposed to anyone who rocked the secular boat built in this British framework. Hindutvavdis were rocking the secular boat, but they were not rocking it for the right reasons. Hindutva vadis were as ignorant as the seculars. They were saying "We have a religion - the Hindu religion and accusations against this religion are false". The seculars argued that "if accusations are false, it means you support caste, sati, etc"

Neither seculars nor Hindutvavadis have yet manged to figure out how this mess came about. For that both seculars and Hindutvavadis have to understand how European society viewed themselves and the words they had to describe what is religious, what is secular, what is sacred, what is profane, what is atheist, what is agnostic, what are laws, who is a sovereign etc. even the brightest Indians have no clue about these fundamental concepts that the west have when they see us. Heck we don't even know what "religion" means in the west - a term that has arisen from their Christian past. Unless we can learn and understand the terminology we will never understand how the west saw India and how we changed to see ourselves the way they misinterpreted our society. Knowledge of English and great erudition and rhetoric is not enough. New gyan needs to be absorbed, by reading.

Once Indians, in their ignorance, got themselves boxed into a "religion" with blind acceptance of what is said by Europeans, we have not even attempted to do a mirror image sociological and historic study of European societies to understand where they came from. We have not been smart. Hindu "smartness" is restricted to where we are praised by white man as being smart. We need to get beyond this.

I owe it to "Balu" - Prof. SN Gangadhara for opening my mind and turning on so many lights.

[johneeG]

My 10 paisa. The reason is that "seculars" routinely hit the hindu nationalists for a six in the debates. Be it television, newspaper, or the various internet fora.

One reason that the hindu nationalists (HN) are getting hit so badly is Information! Rather lack of it. HNs read some info on the net which is not complete and then they become internet warriors with half baked data.

This can only get fixed if HN is given info in a manner similar to how the historigraphy standards of today dictate (with complete references, etc).

Bector is saying that Hindu nationalism is bad for various reasons. Perhaps I missed it but has he defined what hindu nationalism is?

As far as bringing the "Eeendoo" right wing bomb makers like the army colonel etc may I pose a simple question: Harpal Bector ji it is agreed (please let us know if you dont) that overwhelming majority of terrorism cases in the last couple of decades have been done by Moolahs and a miniscule amount by right wing eendoos.

What is the expectation from "secular topiwalas" that ordinary Eeendoos should just allow terrorists to bomb their places of worship, places of livelihood? Especially when they perceive that "secular topiwalas" aint gonna a do a thing in stopping these attacks?

I think you have not been in Bhaarath lately, otherwise you would not have said what you are saying. The whole point is that the radiamedia has been hand in glove with the ruling establishment and has partaken in the total propaganda against the Hindhus. This generated a backlash(intellectual, social and political). Intellectual reaction to this anti-Hindhu propaganda and activities can be seen on social media and works like Rajiv Malhotra. Social reaction is seen in the movements of people like Swami Ramdev. Political reaction can be seen in Modi's victory.

So, the main point is that the political establishment and its cronies in various departments(including radiamedia) have been pushing biased policies and debates against the natives(particularly Hindhus). Using such biased forums as a measure of success or failure itself shows that you have no idea about the issue.

The next thing is that you use the west has a standard to measure Hindhu nationalists' success. Again, this is totally naive. Why will west agree that Hindhu nationalists right? They will never do so. It is not about presenting evidence. No matter evidence is presented, the west will not accept. As long as west has any semblance of influence, it will try to push its own pet narratives.

Its laughable to think that west or its lackeys can be convinced by providing 'evidence'.

When the British first came to India there were no seculars and no Hindutva-vadis. (there may have been nationalists - as there have been for millennia). The Britiesh asked Indians (Hindus) questions that Hindus had no answer to give. Hindus never looked at the world with the frame of reference that the British were asking about.

The British asked them "What is your religion?". Hindu had no concept that they had a "religion" that stood apart from other "religions" with well defined lines between X religion and Y religion that would cause anger if crossed. The British asked them "Who is your God? Who are your prophets? What is your holy book". Hindus had no clear specific answer to any of these questions and questions were probably answered contextually depending on who was asked.

The British then built up a picture of a "Hindu religion" about which they found a lot of seriously bad and immoral things. Then in the process of re educating Indians they fed Indians with the idea that "This is your religion. These are the things that your people say that your religion does. This stands apart form Christianity and Islam which are different religions". Good Hindu students promptly mugged up and internalized this information along with the three R's. Even at this time there were no secularists and Hindutvavadis. But Hindus had now been taught by the British that they too had a "religion" called Hindu-ism. they had their prophets, holy book et al, but were idolators which was wrong, and that their "religion" made them a degraded people. This too was internalized.

Shiv saar,
I think this portrayal is wrong. The brits had a clear agenda. They did not accept any answer that they did not like. They had an agenda and they went about establishing it. It just didn't matter what Hindhus said or did not say. And its not correct that Hindhus did not have an answer to the questions posed by the brits.

Brits just accused Hindhus and were not ready to listen because they were interested in proving that the Hindhus were barbarians who required the colonialism of the brits. The brits and their EJs did not have answers to the questions posed by Hindhus(like Dayanand Saraswati).

Further, its not true that there were not clear divisions of religion. Even by the time of muslim invasions, there seem to clear divisions within the Bhaarath between Buddhism, Hindhuism and Jainism.

The only thing is that the word 'Hindhu' was not used prominently. Instead, the word 'Sanathana Dharma' was used.

After the invasions of muslims, there was a clear division of Hindhus and Muslims. Hindhus considered the Non-Hindhus as Mlechchas.

The word 'Mlechcha' seems to be used to refer to 'barbarians'.

Its wrong to say that Hindhus did not have a conception of a religion and its framework. It also wrong to say that Hindhus did not have answer to the question "who is your god?" There were fights of serious kinds among Hindhus also based on this question. So, its not true to say that this question was alien to Hindhus.

Among malsIs, X-ists, buddhists, ...etc sectarian fights of serious kind are seen. So, brits would obviously know that sectarian differences are not a unique situation but a norm. Yet, they refused to accept Hindhuism as a religion. The brits said that Hindhuism is a combination of different paths. In a way, you are actually repeating the brit line.

This line is similar to denying the unity of Bhaarath. Famously, brit PM Churchill said that Bhaarath is not a nation just like equator is not a nation. The same thinking was reflected in denying the unity of Hindhuism. Infact, denying the unity of Hindhuism was a first step to denying the unity of Bhaarath.

1. An Indian expert in a Western gathering of experts on South Asia policy is complaining about Paki terrorism and why the world must react. He's doing a great job and has a full 847 page dossier of Pakistani propped atrocities on Indian soil. They hear him a bit then say look what can we do. A Stable Pakistan is better than an unstable chaotic nuclear armed Pak. Now our bespectacled mandarin can't beat that logic. 847 pages of dossier deal in intricate detail with Pakistani atrocity not with the atrocities of a chaotic, unstable Pakistan. A Stable Pak is even what the PM has endorsed, so how can one argue against it? So the experts go for nice cocktails and dinner give the necessary speeches calling for stabilizing Pak etc etc and the Indian experts dole out exactly the cliche which stumped them " A Stable Pakistan is in everyones interests". He passed that off to the PM and assorted untrained in FP nuances Ministers who keep harping this till every Indian coming back from work and switching on NDTV, Timesnow etc hears these cliches being mouthed again and again. Similarly "We can't change Neighbors" talk was inflicted and our experts lapped it up wholesale. The capacity to challenge these so called established and great/good/mice sounding 'self evident' truths barely exists in our policy circles as of yet. Always always do note the so called experts are the last to come up with solutions to geo strategic issues. Even the other day BC was parroting Neighbors can't be changed line on twitter and i challenged him on it.

+108. It shows the power of repetition. People keep repeating something and then believe its the truth.

2. For long i have asked if the Caste system is so endemic and deep rooted, how come we have an Ambedkar writing our constitution, or so many so called low castes authoring so many holy texts or a MA Amritandamaya, or a Narendra Modi, or a Valmiki or why no one in college asks the other what caste are you from etc etc.. then i asked folks what is the Caste System and people gave me examples that i said but that is an example of Feudalism or Tribal supremacy why Caste? They say that Brahmins didn't teach Vedas to everyone. But then i learnt to get into MIT, Harvard required a lot of studies, getting 99%iles, having ace grades etc etc. Similarly transmitting the Veda's or in most cases even being a Brahmin required Brahmins getting up 4 am, taking a cold water bath, saying no to wealth, living off alms etc. I doubt the success rate of those who smoke pot, drink in high school is particularly high to gain entrance in MIT or Harvard or IIT for that matter. So certainly if one says to get into MIT or Harvard i prefer people who don't pot, smoke, get up 12 am it isn't exactly wrong or discriminatory. What MIT/Harvard types have done for their cosy club is make an exam that almost certainly eliminates those that smoke pot, drink, get up a 12 am in high school. Many Moksha Margs within our country required temple priests certainly to be vegetarian, never drink alcohol recite vedas well etc. This made it impossible for other professions to be priests. Again how many Harvard Professors does one see in the local pub sipping a beer with Joe the plumber? Its the same everywhere. Having standards even behavorial is not discriminatory in my opinion. But imagine the Beef eating Christian missionary or even a British high society Colonel of the 17th Century out of Britain judging the Brahmin and people falling at his feet. They never knew what he does is specialized that the knowledge he has kept safe over millenia because of that very frugality is not for everyone. Many of the things that Indians did would seem high brow but they were actually standards which even today we personally like to evolve to. These standards are described by Krishna for example as Tamas, Rajas, Sattva and another that goes beyond these 3. A Brahmin was supposed to be in Sattva, eat in Sattva, think in Sattva, act in Sattva. His non association with those still in Tamas or Rajas whether as individual or group or tribe is not discrimination just like one tells his school going child not to hang with those kids that smoke pot or drink or are in Tamas. But for the Muslims, British and other Europeans this seemingly high behaviour smacked of so called Caste discrimination.

Yes, caste system is similar to class system or tribal system. And its discriminatory and thus wrong. The unique problem in Bhaarath has been to confuse the caste system into varna system.

The problem is that these two concepts have remained fused for a long time. This leads to all kinds of theological, social, political and cultural problems.

The first step is to clearly distinguish between the tribes, castes, classes, ...etc vs Varna. This should be done by the religious heads of Hindhuism. Unfortunately, they are also steeped in the same social malaise that inflicts all of us. They are also caught up with the same flawed thinking.

However once Caste became synonymous with HIndu and it got published in texts it was logical for Sikhs for example to reject being Hindu. It was also logical for Buddhists to say Hey we're not the ones who discriminate. The pointing of fingers at the 'Hindu' brethren had started. The fact that all Buddhist canons were penned by Brahmins didn't matter, neither the fact that first borns of Dharmic families became sikh.

harbans saar,
Caste system was followed rigorously, it was followed by all Bhaarathiya systems. When caste system was not followed, then it was not followed by any of the systems. Its not as if one followed and the other did not.

Infact, it seems that Buddhists were far more keen on caste system than Hindhus. They used to call their missionaries as 'Kula-Puthras' i.e. caste-borns.(or caste-sons).

Further, Buddhist texts say that the buddhist royalty indulged in incest(between brother and sister) to preserve the caste 'purity'.

It was much later that Buddhism turned around and started accusing the Hindhuism of being caste oriented.

It seems that when Sikhism was born, it was just another path of Hindhuism. The Gurus were persecuted as Hindhus. Sirhindi and his ilk were happy that the Hindhus and their Gurus were being persecuted by the Mughals.

During the Brit regime(after the bengal division), brits started patronizing the Sikhism and wanted it to become separate from Hindhuism. This was done to have a loyal supporter group... a sort of vote-bank. This is similar to saying that Dalits are not Hindhus.

During the Brit rule, this line was internalized by the Sikh groups and has been in vogue. Well, its up to the Sikh groups as to which path it takes. But, its not correct to say that the division of Sikhism from Hindhuism was due to differences on caste. Differences on caste are quite reconcilable. But political differences are not reconcilable.

[shiv]

When the British first came to India there were no seculars and no Hindutva-vadis. (there may have been nationalists - as there have been for millennia). The Britiesh asked Indians (Hindus) questions that Hindus had no answer to give. Hindus never looked at the world with the frame of reference that the British were asking about.

The British asked them "What is your religion?". Hindu had no concept that they had a "religion" that stood apart from other "religions" with well defined lines between X religion and Y religion that would cause anger if crossed. The British asked them "Who is your God? Who are your prophets? What is your holy book". Hindus had no clear specific answer to any of these questions and questions were probably answered contextually depending on who was asked.

The British then built up a picture of a "Hindu religion" about which they found a lot of seriously bad and immoral things. Then in the process of re educating Indians they fed Indians with the idea that "This is your religion. These are the things that your people say that your religion does. This stands apart form Christianity and Islam which are different religions". Good Hindu students promptly mugged up and internalized this information along with the three R's. Even at this time there were no secularists and Hindutvavadis. But Hindus had now been taught by the British that they too had a "religion" called Hindu-ism. they had their prophets, holy book et al, but were idolators which was wrong, and that their "religion" made them a degraded people. This too was internalized.

Shiv saar,
I think this portrayal is wrong. The brits had a clear agenda. They did not accept any answer that they did not like. They had an agenda and they went about establishing it. It just didn't matter what Hindhus said or did not say. And its not correct that Hindhus did not have an answer to the questions posed by the brits.

Brits just accused Hindhus and were not ready to listen because they were interested in proving that the Hindhus were barbarians who required the colonialism of the brits. The brits and their EJs did not have answers to the questions posed by Hindhus(like Dayanand Saraswati).

Further, its not true that there were not clear divisions of religion. Even by the time of muslim invasions, there seem to clear divisions within the Bhaarath between Buddhism, Hindhuism and Jainism.

The only thing is that the word 'Hindhu' was not used prominently. Instead, the word 'Sanathana Dharma' was used.

After the invasions of muslims, there was a clear division of Hindhus and Muslims. Hindhus considered the Non-Hindhus as Mlechchas.

The word 'Mlechcha' seems to be used to refer to 'barbarians'.

Its wrong to say that Hindhus did not have a conception of a religion and its framework. It also wrong to say that Hindhus did not have answer to the question "who is your god?" There were fights of serious kinds among Hindhus also based on this question. So, its not true to say that this question was alien to Hindhus.

Among malsIs, X-ists, buddhists, ...etc sectarian fights of serious kind are seen. So, brits would obviously know that sectarian differences are not a unique situation but a norm. Yet, they refused to accept Hindhuism as a religion. The brits said that Hindhuism is a combination of different paths. In a way, you are actually repeating the brit line.

This line is similar to denying the unity of Bhaarath. Famously, brit PM Churchill said that Bhaarath is not a nation just like equator is not a nation. The same thinking was reflected in denying the unity of Hindhuism. Infact, denying the unity of Hindhuism was a first step to denying the unity of Bhaarath.

No johneeG. No. You are way waay off track. You are defending what "Hindus" did without acknowledging the problem. You are saying in one go that they were clever and stupid.

Hindus knew about religion, but they did not view religion the way Europeans did. Ask yourself Do you know that yourself? Do you know how religion was viewed in Christian Europe and how differently i t is viewed in India. Are you saying Indians viewed religion in exactly the same way? Not at all. I put it to you that you are simply assuming that the "Hindu" view of religion was an exact same clone of the Western Christian view of religion. That is totally wrong. The Western view was unknown to Indians because that was alien and silly from the Indian viewpoint. It did not belong to any frame of reference that Indians had.

Some Indians may have had the same view of religion as Christians - but every Indian could not be clubbed in that group. But yet, the British boxed in Hindus into that one view of religion. Why did Indians accept that? Was it Indian malice? Was it Indian stupidity? It was neither. It was ignorance.

It is high time we moved out of such half-truth justifications that "Hindus knew but the Brits were bad". The Brits may have been bad, but their badness took hold because Indians did not see the differences and the harm it can cause. They just could not see the world in terms of one God as sovereign, one prophet, one religion, one single way of building society. Hindu never had the Christian concept of what is the one God who is a sovereign. What are the rights of a sovereign, which are absolute rights. What is the domain of the one God sovereign - which are heaven and earth. What is the relationship between man and his one God which must be absolute obedience. What is religion - "It is the relationship between man and The Lord God the absolute sovereign with absolute rights over everything" If you are saying that Hindus saw religion and God in this way that is totally, totally wrong. You don't seem to know how the west viewed religion and how they needed to box everyone into their view. Saying that "Hindus knew" is false. Hindus did not know. They did not understand. They still do not understand. I am asking, begging that we open our eyes. Please move out of this fake dogma.

There is a very definite Christian way of viewing religion. I put it to you that it has no commonality with most religious doctrines in India. The religious doctrines of India cannot and should not be boxed into the western Christian view of religion. When the Brits declare something as "religion" it is absolute law! Laws cannot be broken. When the British declared caste and Sati as part of "Hindu religion" they implied that these are "absolute Hindu laws". Are you telling me that Hindus knew this as true and accepted it because it is truth? No JohneeG saar. No. That is wrong. Hindus just did not know how these would be incorporated into the secular laws of India, and how all sorts of non religious concepts would get bundled with "the Hindu religion"

[johneeG]

No johneeG. No. You are defending what "Hindus" did without acknowledging the problem. You are saying in one go that they were clever and stupid.

Hindus knew about religion, but they did not view religion the way Europeans did. Ask yourself Do you know that yourself? Do you know how religion was viewed in Christian Europe and how diferently i t is viewed in India. Are you saying Indians viewed religion in exactly the same way? Not at all. I put it to you that you are simply assuming that the "Hindu" view of religion was an exact same clone of the Western Christian view of religion. That is totally wrong. The Western view was unknown to Indians because that was alien and silly from the Indian viewpoint. It did not belong to any frame of reference that Indians had.

Some Indians may have had the same view of religion as Christians - but every Indian could not be clubbed in that group. But yet, the British boxed in Hindus into that one view of religion. Why did Indians accept that? Was it Indian malice? Was it Indian stupidity? It is high time we moved out of such half-truth justifications that "Hindus knew but the Brits were bad". The Brits may have been bad, but their badness took hold because Indians did not see the differences and the harm it can cause. They just could not see the world in terms of one God as sovereign, one prophet, one religion, one single way of building society

It was neither. It was ignorance.

There is a very definite Christian way of viewing religion. I put it to you that it has no commonality with most religious doctrines in India. The religious doctrines of India cannot and should not be boxed into the western Chrstian view of religion.

Shiv saar,
the reason I am saying you are wrong is that you are coming with wrong diagnosis. Wrong diagnosis leads to wrong solutions.

If ignorance is the problem, then the problem will be solved by enlightenment.
If the problem is the defeat of Hindhus, then the problem will be solved by the victory of Hindhus.

The points that you have made are the points that have been made in the past about muslim invasions also. Muslims came to Bhaarath. They asked questions to Hindhus and Hindhus were unable to give good answers. This kind of naive portrayal seems to ignore that neither the brits nor the muslims were here with good intentions.

They came here with specific agenda. Even after what the brits and spanish did in America, people think that brits would have been open to Hindhus talking about their religion?

Anyway, addressing the specific questions:
Was the Hindhu idea of religion same as the brit(or western idea) of religion?
Sure, no one can say that the ideas of any conception would be same across all regions and people. But, there would be a general understanding of a concept. For example, is the Hindhu understanding of marriage same as western understanding of marriage?

This question can be repeated on all concepts and difference of opinions can be highlighted. But, there would be a general uniformity of understanding of concepts.

I agree that Hindhu understanding of religion was different from the brits supposed understanding(I say 'supposed' because I think it was pretence). What the brits did was that they delinked some of the aspects of society of religion and put them under the secular category. Brits said that they will not interfere in the religion, but will actively interfere in secular items. So, this was their strategy to meddle with Hindhu society without directly being blamed for the meddling. So, marriage is treated as secular thing not a religious thing. Education is treated as a secular thing not a religious thing. Inheritance is treated as a secular thing not a religious thing.

If a religious group cannot decide about marriages, schools/colleges, inheritances...etc. Then, the religion loses its social relevance and becomes a 'mythology' or a 'superstition'.

Why didn't Hindhus resist?
Well, some Hindhus did. But, they were defeated and their resistances didn't matter. But, it was not naivete or ignorance. It was defeat.

Brits introduced secular macualyte education in english with emphasis on AIT. They created a nice system which glorified the west and looked down upon on natives. This has continued in the kongi rule.

As they say, yatha raaja thatha praja. So, people also imbibed these attitudes because this attitude was encouraged by the regimes. That means it was a cultural enslavement after defeat.

If it was merely ignorance, then it would have been very easy to treat. On the other hand, if it was defeat, then one has to see why they were defeated and what they have to do to remain undefeated.

----
One of the important agendas of the brits was to deny that Hindhuism was a religion. They said that it was a confused mish-mash of different cults. They said that Bhaarath was not a country. It was a combination of different nations just like equator. This portrayal was pushed by the brits and their cultural inheritors.

AIT tries to prove this by saying that Aryans and Dhravidians are different people who followed different religions and fought among themselves.

Hindhus were not even allowed to define their own religion. Even today, courts pronounce their definitions of what constitutes Hindhuism and what not. This is a strange situation. Why are Hindhus not allowed to define Hindhuism.

You see even this basic right is not given to Hindhus. This shows that the Brits were not at all interested in listening to the Hindhu view.

[svenkat]

johneeGji,
I am editing my post.I have no intention to offend you.

I cannot understand your dismissing the caste system.I understand conflating it with varna is immoral.But caste has been around in India for a long time.It has had correlation with varna for some(how long I do not know)time.Thus almost all dalit castes were agricultural workers about 50 years back in many parts of India.They were not farmers or even tenants.Ofcourse,things have changed dramatically in fifty years.Dalits are today land owners,artisans,shopkeepers,professionals,enterpreneurs etc.Again sub caste identities remain strong as pallan,paraiyan,mala,madiga,meena,paswan,holeya,chamar etc though paraiyan,chamar,pallan have been rechristened into more acceptable names.I dont want to give the impression that dalit empowerment and progress could have taken place without govt intervention but how can you dismiss the caste system as sub castes are found among dalits too and govt positive intervention is based on that marker.

Surely the kamma,the golla,the thevar,the jat ,the rajput have the right to organise themselves as castes when they have 'always' had more autonomy in hindu society.And these were based on class factors like land ownership,cattle grazing,warriors which existed in every pre-industrial society.

[johneeG]

johneeGji,
Your inputs are valuable as the only self identified 'dalit' hindu in the forum.There was one another tamil 'dalit' with buddhist affinities who is no longer posting.

My views are my views. I don't claim to represent any grouping. I would appreciate if you don't start branding my views as 'Dalit' or some such thing.

Should I start branding your views based on your region or caste and then creating a caricature of that entire region or caste? Thats a sureshot way of bring down the quality of discussion. Till now, I have never reported any post(as far as I remember), but your post is quite offensive to me and I will report it if this line is pursued next time.

I cannot understand your dismissing the caste system.I understand conflating it with varna is immoral.But caste has been around in India for a long time.It has had correlation with varna for some(how long I do not know)time.Thus almost all dalit castes were agricultural workers about 50 years back in many parts of India.They were not farmers or even tenants.Ofcourse,things have changed dramatically in fifty years.Dalits are today land owners,artisans,shopkeepers,professionals,enterpreneurs etc.Again sub caste identities remain strong as pallan,paraiyan,mala,madiga,meena,paswan,holeya,chamar etc though paraiyan,chamar,pallan have been rechristened into more acceptable names.I dont want to give the impression that dalit empowerment and progress could have taken place without govt intervention but how can you dismiss the caste system as sub castes are found among dalits too and govt positive intervention is based on that marker.

Surely the kamma,the golla,the thevar,the jat ,the rajput have the right to organise themselves as castes when they have 'always' had more autonomy in hindu society.And these were based on class factors like land ownership,cattle grazing,warriors which existed in every pre-industrial society.

Institutionalized discrimination based on castes(or any such feudal conception) is wrong in my view. Sure, people can use their family backgrounds to their advantages. But, stopping others from entering the field by creating discriminatory policies is wrong.

As you yourself point out that the castes are comprised of sub-castes. So, caste system is clearly based on Kulas or Jaathis i.e. extended family groups. Why should it be conflated with Varnas?

Conflating the Varnas with Jaathis or Kulas seem to have been the main problem for Bhaarath.

Castes, tribes, classes, ...etc are inherently a social setup and are interested in their own power. They try to perpetuate their power. And if possible, they try to institutionalize their hold on power by creating systems which stop others from coming up.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ do answer: what makes Advaitins and Buddhists into rival religionists rather than something else, say, rival philosophers?

[johneeG]

^^^ do answer: what makes Advaitins and Buddhists into rival religionists rather than something else, say, rival philosophers?

Was the question put to me, saar? If so, then I didn't the question.

If the question is that what makes Buddhism a distinct religion from Hindhuism, then the answer would be Vedhas and Buddha. Within Hindhuism, there would be several different schools and sects. Similarly, within Buddhism, there would be several schools and sects. There may be similarities and dissimilarities across the board.

To distinguish two religions, one needs to know its core dogma and its derivatives. In Hindhuism, infallibility of Vedhas(including Upanishads) is the core dogma. In Buddhism, belief in Buddha is the core dogma. In x-ism and Mo-ism, belief in their respective prophets is the core dogma. (I was thinking: whats the core dogma of modern science: evolution?)

Frequently, people say that Hindhuism is not based around a book while X-ism and malsI are. But, I think its the reverse. Strictly speaking, the only thing that is important for malsIs and X-ists is the belief in their respective creeds. The book is just an instrument to implement it. On the other hand, in Hindhuism, the Vedhas themselves form the basic foundation.

So, it is Hindhuism which is based on a particular literature. The freedom is the ability to interpret the Vedhas within the rules of Vedhanga. So, the literature is there and the rules to interpret are there and people are free to come up with any different interpretations and argue among themselves about which is the correct interpretation.

[ShauryaT]

^^^ do answer: what makes Advaitins and Buddhists into rival religionists rather than something else, say, rival philosophers?

This is OT. But Buddhism cannot be understood, were it not the lexicon of Vedanta. Hell, even I will go and find another religion if I find all these diverse 'systems' and sampradayas as Siddhartha encountered during his times. Anyways OT here.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ do answer: what makes Advaitins and Buddhists into rival religionists rather than something else, say, rival philosophers?

Was the question put to me, saar? If so, then I didn't the question.

If the question is that what makes Buddhism a distinct religion from Hindhuism, then the answer would be Vedhas and Buddha. Within Hindhuism, there would be several different schools and sects. Similarly, within Buddhism, there would be several schools and sects. There may be similarities and dissimilarities across the board.

You have only answered what makes Buddhism and Hinduism distinct. You have not answered what makes them into distinct religions rather than distinct philosophies, or distinct subjects like chemistry and physics.

To distinguish two religions, one needs to know its core dogma and its derivatives. In Hindhuism, infallibility of Vedhas(including Upanishads) is the core dogma. In Buddhism, belief in Buddha is the core dogma. In x-ism and Mo-ism, belief in their respective prophets is the core dogma. (I was thinking: whats the core dogma of modern science: evolution?)

So science is a religion, too?

Do you know what "to believe in" means? Can a person believe that Jesus is a historic personage, was resurrected, spoke the truth, and still not be a Christian? (Answer: such a person may be a Christian, but a nominal one only, to be a Christian, one has to "believe in" Christ, the previous description is insufficient to say this person "believes in" Jesus. An easy example is the Devil in Christianity. He accepts that God, Jesus, etc., are true, real, but the Devil is no Christian).

[johneeG]

Was the question put to me, saar? If so, then I didn't the question.

If the question is that what makes Buddhism a distinct religion from Hindhuism, then the answer would be Vedhas and Buddha. Within Hindhuism, there would be several different schools and sects. Similarly, within Buddhism, there would be several schools and sects. There may be similarities and dissimilarities across the board.

You have only answered what makes Buddhism and Hinduism distinct. You have not answered what makes them into distinct religions rather than distinct philosophies, or distinct subjects like chemistry and physics.

Hmm... then, I'll have to ask: what is the difference between philosophy and religion? When does a distinct philosophy become a distinct religion?

I don't think there is a clear separation. One can only say whether a particular philosophy meets the basic criteria of a religion.

In Hindhuism, the basic criteria is Vedhas(including Upanishadhs). If Buddha says,"Believe in so and so thing because it is the right teaching of Vedhas", then Buddha's teachings would also become Hindhuism. But, if Buddha says, "Believe in so and so thing because thats my view or my experience", then that would be Buddhism.

Following personal views and experiences of Buddha would be Buddhism.

Following personal views and experiences of Nehru would be Nehruvianism.
Following personal views and experiences of Gandhi would be Gandhianism.
Following personal views and experiences of Mo would be Mo-ism.
...etc.

The basis for this kind of grouping is very arbitrary when the personal views and experiences of an X itself are not properly known or defined. This creates many competing schools claiming that their own version is the right one.

On the other hand, in Hindhuism, the literature is there and the rules to interpret are also there. And people are free to come up with interpretations which best suit their circumstances as long as the basic Vedhanga rules are not violated while interpreting.

To follow someone's personal views or experiences, you need to believe them and trust them. You have to believe that their views and experiences are infallible. To believe that someone is infallible, one has to believe that they are somehow superhuman or divine.

Thats how gurus become prophets and prophets become gods or godsons and then supergods.

To distinguish two religions, one needs to know its core dogma and its derivatives. In Hindhuism, infallibility of Vedhas(including Upanishads) is the core dogma. In Buddhism, belief in Buddha is the core dogma. In x-ism and Mo-ism, belief in their respective prophets is the core dogma. (I was thinking: whats the core dogma of modern science: evolution?)

So science is a religion, too?

What is a religion?

A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that are intended to explain the meaning of life and/or to explain the origin of life or the Universe.

Wiki link

Modern Science is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems and world views. The world views are western universalism based on human rights implemented by UN.

There are sacred theories about the origin of universe and origin of life.

I'd say that modern science qualifies as religion. It is an atheistic religion so far. Similar to communism. Communism is also a religion without god.

Anyway, there are also explicit religions based on modern science. Like scientology and raelism.

I guess you are asking a more basic question: when does an ideology qualify as a distinct religion?

Frankly, I don't know. I think its a subjective opinion and the opinion differs from person to person.

[svenkat]

johneeGji,
I have no intention of being offensive and I have edited my post.

[johneeG]

johneeGji,
I have no intention of being offensive and I have edited my post.

Thanks.

[Gus]

imo, first we should get rid of this thinking among ourselves that hindu is a bad word. i know people who say that they are hindu - apologetically, sheepishly, in low tones as though they are embarrassed.

[Arjun]

To distinguish two religions, one needs to know its core dogma and its derivatives. In Hindhuism, infallibility of Vedhas(including Upanishads) is the core dogma. In Buddhism, belief in Buddha is the core dogma. In x-ism and Mo-ism, belief in their respective prophets is the core dogma. (I was thinking: whats the core dogma of modern science: evolution?)

I don't think the core dogma you've outlined for Hinduism and Buddhism can be equated to the ones for Christianity & Islam. Belief in the respective prophets is also a prerequisite to salvation in the Abrahamic cults. On the other hand, belief in Vedas is not a prerequisite for Moksha nor is Belief in the Buddha a precondition for Nirvana.

[shiv]

Shiv saar,
the reason I am saying you are wrong is that you are coming with wrong diagnosis. Wrong diagnosis leads to wrong solutions.

If ignorance is the problem, then the problem will be solved by enlightenment.
If the problem is the defeat of Hindhus, then the problem will be solved by the victory of Hindhus.

The points that you have made are the points that have been made in the past about muslim invasions also. Muslims came to Bhaarath. They asked questions to Hindhus and Hindhus were unable to give good answers. This kind of naive portrayal seems to ignore that neither the brits nor the muslims were here with good intentions.

We are going to continue to disagree on some very basic issues.

The same questions may have been asked when the Islamic invaders came, but they did not end up creating the model for modern Indian laws and the modern Indian constitution. According to the viewpoint you have expressed caste is a fundamental part and parcel of the Hindu religion. That is what you are saying, if you have understood my point.

I need to know what is "Hindu religion". I need to know how caste become part of Hindu religion.

The real point is that there is NO WORD in Indian tradition that translates to religion. Bhakti is not religion, Dharma is not religion.

It was definitely the British who set the ball rolling in reluctantly clubbing all people who were not Muslims as followers of Hinduism in the 1891 census of India:
https://archive.org/stream/cu3192402317 ... 8_djvu.txt

Hinduism, is returned by more than 72 per cent, of the population of India. The
clumsy name is only justifiable by convention, and only definable by the same process,
of successive exclusion as was used above with reference to the application of the
term Animism. Primarily and historically, it is the antithesis of Islam, and thus
includes all Indian forms of faith in which the uncompromising Unitarianism of the
adherents of the Prophet detected signs of the worship of idols.

Indians picked up the idea that they were a "religion" from the Brits and then created the Indian constitution that recognized "Hinduism" as a religion. You can call it sanatana dharma. But don't tell me "Hindu-ism" is a religion

[harbans]

Rajesh ji, thanks. Adding further, one must realize than anything exotic, exceptional is added to the Hinduism banner. An example, a feudal businessman in Nepal sometime in the 18th century had a dream. He dreamt his business would grow if he slaughtered all the cattle in his farm. So he did it. He made it a ritual and constructed some shrine to the ritual. This now is termed a part of "Hinduism'. So Xtians/Muslims beat up Hindus who say cow is sacred by telling there are temples which slaughter cows. And yes, if one looks up wikipedia its there! All this is not helping the Dharmics and certainly not those who call themselves Hindu. I would prefer keeping things very simple:

1. We are Dharmics.
2. Dharmics follow Dharmic Tenets.
3. Dharmics try to live by Sattvic Gunas and eliminate Tamas and Rajas (Through evolving higher and not forced absolutism)
4. Dharmics also have the opportunity to rise above the Gunas.
5. Yoga is intrinsic part of navigating through the Gunas as well as rising above the Gunas
6. Many Moksha Marg orthodoxies are available to the Dharmics personal dispensation to choose from.
7. The Dharmic can even create his own Moksha Marg panth. There is no bar on this.
8. The process is evolutionary. The concept of Reincarnation is part of the evolution.

[shiv]

Rajesh ji, thanks. Adding further, one must realize than anything exotic, exceptional is added to the Hinduism banner. An example, a feudal businessman in Nepal sometime in the 18th century had a dream. He dreamt his business would grow if he slaughtered all the cattle in his farm. So he did it. He made it a ritual and constructed some shrine to the ritual. This now is termed a part of "Hinduism'. So Xtians/Muslims beat up Hindus who say cow is sacred by telling there are temples which slaughter cows. And yes, if one looks up wikipedia its there! All this is not helping the Dharmics and certainly not those who call themselves Hindu. I would prefer keeping things very simple:

You are correct Harbans. Hindus may do all sorts of different things ranging from worshipping cows to killing and eating them. Yet whenever some oddball thing is done by a Hindu - like drinking cow urine - an act that is disgusting to many - it gets clubbed along with the practices of the "Hindu religion".

This is like spotting a pedophile in a Christian nation and saying pedophila is a Christian tenet. This came about because Hindus with varying social practices allowed themselves to be clubbed as part of a "religion". Too many Hindus never understood and still do not understand that from a Christian viewpoint, religion means unbreakable laws and absolute superiority of God oven man. That is how they vie the meaning of "religion". When something is a religious practice , or a practice sanctioned by religion it is an unbreakable law mandated by God.

Consider this for example - This is the relationship between man and God in Christianity
http://www.godonthe.net/evidence/relation.htm

The relationship between God and Mankind is totally unique.

• God is sovereign.
  A sovereign is a government. This means that God is the ruler of mankind. By definition, a sovereign makes, interprets, and enforces laws.
• God is King over all Creation. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
  As King and Lord, honor, worship, adoration, respect and obedience are His rightful due. They are not simply good ideas or things we should do. He has the right to expect and insist on them.
• God's government never has been and never will be a democracy.Many Americans and an increasing number of Western Europeans have been misled into a false understanding of the proper relationship between man and God by the principles of democracy. But consider the beginning of the American Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ...." God is not the equal of man. God deliberately and intentionally made man inferior to Himself, limited in power and knowledge. Hence, it is only right for the Supreme Being to have authority to lay down the law for inferior beings who are His subjects.
• God is Lord of all creation but He is not in charge of earth. God gave Man dominion over all the earth.

Or this

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/a ... nants.html

How does God relate to man? Since the creation of the world, God’s relationship to man has been defined by specific requirements and promises. God tells people how he wants them to act and also makes promises about how he will act toward them in various circumstances. The Bible contains several summaries of the provisions that define the different relationships between God and man that occur in Scripture, and it often calls these summaries “covenants.” With respect to covenants between God and man in Scripture, we may give the following definition: A covenant is an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship.
Although this definition includes the word agreement in order to show that there are two parties, God and man, who must enter into the provisions of the relationship, the phrase “divinely imposed” is also included to show that man can never negotiate with God or change the terms of the covenant: he can only accept the covenant obligations or reject them.

What this means is that when India's constituent assembly accepted Hindu-ism as a religion they irrevocably accepted that practices like "caste system", etc were part and parcel of the Hindu religion, sanctioned by the one Hindu God and not to be broken by Hindu man, who is inferior to God in all ways just as the Christian and Muslim are totally subservient to their respective Gods. The Hindu God has said "X and his children shall be superior forever, Y and his descendants shall be untouchable. Forever". The Hindu God has said "The widow of a Hindu shall burn herself in her husband's pyre". Therefore this is all Hindu religious stuff. It's all there in the Hindu holy book.

This is utter nonsense

Hindus who demand that "Hindu-ism" is actually a religion do not have a clue what "religion" meant when the British used it and when it worked its way into the law books. Rationalization that "Of for us religion is xyz but for Christians it is abc" is useless. Religion is religion with a specific meaning for 3 billion Christians and Muslims. Not some Hindu equal but not equal explanation

The Brits could never understand dharma and Hindus never manage to understand the British mind enough to explain it to them. We simply said "yes" to religion. In the links above it is clear that for religion God is a superior creature, man is inferior. man must follow God's rules.

Among the followers of Hindu dharma this is nonsensical. Man can elevate himself to a god like level. God does not set rules. The rules already are as part of the universe and being which is God. The guidelines are dharma. It is up to man to uphold dharma. God is not going to come and interfere. Such a concept is so totally alien to a person with a Christian background that Hindus simply dumbed themselves down by accepting religion status and allowing the clubbing of Indian social practices among "Hindu religious rules"

[shiv]

Here is what the supreme court has to say about religion.

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/sm ... temid=5047

The following is the complete text of the judgement of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of the Ramakrishna Mission's petition to be declared a non-Hindu, minority religion, under the Indian constitution. For a full story on this, see Hinduism Today August, 1995, issue. The petition was denied. The court determined that the RK Mission is Hindu and there is no religion of "Ramakrishnaism" as claimed by them.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NOs. 4434A-34D OF 1986

WITH

CIVIL APPEAL NOs. 4937/85, 5676-78/85

WITH

I.A.No. 1 in C.A. Nos. 5676-78/85 and CMP
No. 23111/86 in C.A. No. 4937/85

The court stops short of putting a definite definition of religion because of the difficulties involved

The word `religion' has not been defined in the Constitution and it is a term which is hardly susceptible of any rigid definition. In an American case [Davis v. Benson, 133 US at 342] it has been said `that term `religion' has reference to one's views of his relation to his Creator and to the obligations they impose of `reverence' for His Being and character and of obedience to His will. It is often confounded with cults of form or worship of a particular sect, but is distinguishable from the latter.' We do not think that the above definition can be regarded as either precise or adequate. Articles 25 and 26 of our Constitution are based for the most part upon article 44(2) of the Constitution of Eire and we have great doubt whether a definition of `religion' as given above could have been in the minds of our Constitution makers when they framed the Constitution. Religion is certainly a matter of faith with individuals or communities and it is not necessarily theistic. There are well known religions in India like Buddhism and Jainism which do not believe in God or in any Intelligent First Cause. A religion undoubtedly has its basis in a system of beliefs or doctrines which are regarded by those who profess that religion as conductive to their spiritual well being, but it would not be correct to say that religion is nothing else but a doctrine or belief. A religion may not only lay down a code of ethical rules for its followers to accept, it might prescribe ritual and observances, ceremonies and modes of worship which are regarded as integral parts of religion, and these forms and observances might extend even to matters of look and dress.

However the court accepts Hinduism as a religion

In that context, Gajendragadkar, C.J. who spoke for the Bench considered the questions elaborately as to who are Hindus and what are the broad features of Hindu religion, thus:

"(27). Who are Hindus and what are the broad features of Hindu religion, that must be the first part of our inquiry in dealing with the present controversy between the parties. The historical and etymological genesis of `the word `Hindu' has given rise to a controversy amongst indo-logists; but the view generally accepted by scholars appears to be that the word “Hindu” is derived form the river Sindhu otherwise known as Indus which flows from the Pujab. `That part of the great Aryan race", says Monier Williams, which immigrated from Central Asia, through the mountain passes into India, settled first in the districts near the river Sindhu (now called the Indus). The Persian pronounced this word Hindu and named their Aruan brother Hindus. The Greeks, who probably gained their first ideas of India Persians, dropped the hard aspirate, and called the Hindus `Indoi'.

(28). The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. VI, has described `Hinduism' as the title applied to that form of religion which prevails among the vast majority of the present population of the Indian Empire (p.686). As Dr. Radhakrishan has observed: `The Hindu civilization is so called, since it original founders or earliest followers occupied the territory drained by the Sindhu (the Indus) river system corresponding to the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab. This is recorded in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures which give their name to this period of the Indian history. The people on the Indian side of the Sindhu were called Hindu by the Persian and the later western invaders [The Hindu View of Life by Dr. Radhakrishnan, p.12]. That is the genesis of the word `Hindu'.

(29). When we think of the Hindu religion, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to define Hindu religion or even adequately describe it. Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion of creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more.

(30). Confronted by this difficulty, Dr. Radhakrishnan realized that ` to many Hinduism seems to be a name without any content. Is it a museum of beliefs, a medley or rites, or a mere map, a geographical expression [The Hindu View of Life by Dr. Radhakrishnan, p.11]] ?. Having posed these questions which disturbed foreigners when they think of Hinduism, Dr. Radhakrishnan has explained how Hinduism has steadily absorbed the customs and ideas of peoples with whom it has come into contact and has thus been able to maintain its supremacy and its youth. the term `Hindu', according to dr. Radhakrishnan, had originally a territorial and not credal significance. It implied residence in a well defined geographical area. Aboriginal tribes, savage and half-civilized people, the cultured Dravidians and the Vedic Aryans were all Hindus as they were the sons of the same mother. The Hindu thinker reckoned with the striking fact that the men and women dwelling in India belonged to different communities, worshipped different gods, and practiced different rites [The Hindu View of Life by Dr. Radhakrishnan, p.12] (Kurma Purana).

(31). Monier Williams has observed that it must be borne in mind that Hinduism is far more that a mere form of theism resting on Brahmanism. it presents for our investigation a complex congeries of creeds and doctrines which in its gradual accumulation may be compared to the gathering together of the might volume of the Ganges, swollen by a continual influx of tributary rivers and rivulets, spreading itself over an ever increasing area of country, and finally resolving itself into an intricate Delta of tortuous streams and jungly marshes ...The Hindu religion is a reflection of the composite character of the Hindus, who are not one people but many. It is based on the idea of universal receptivity. It has ever aimed at accommodating itself to circumstances, and has carried on the process of adaptation through more than three thousand years. It has first borne with and then, so to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated something from all creeds [Religious Thought & Life in India by Monier Williams, p. 57]'..."

Note what Dr Radhakrishnan said

the term `Hindu', according to dr. Radhakrishnan, had originally a territorial and not credal significance. It implied residence in a well defined geographical area.

India has accepted Hindu-ism as a religion without being able to define how it is a religion (see above). That is an obvious fact. We need to relook the circumstances under which this happened and understand that Hinduism is not a religion in terms of the standard definitions of religions. Hinduism is simply the socio-cultural practices of a libertarian people living within a geographical area called India. Hindus are people who live in that area with a common culture based on Dharma.

Religion is authoritative and monoarchic. Hindu tenets are libertarian and based on free will.

[Karan M]

In a world set up to be dominated by religions, removing the tag of religion from Hinduism just opens it up to more attacks by other communities and folks.

[shiv]

In a world set up to be dominated by religions, removing the tag of religion from Hinduism just opens it up to more attacks by other communities and folks.

In any case this cannot be done without changing the Indian constitution. But your words indicate that it is already too late. I hope it is not

What can be done is to point out specifically that Killing Muslims is not a religious Hindu mandate We can take the trouble (and this is an absolute must) to sort out the "caste" imbroglio. There is no such thing as "caste" in the "Hindu religion".

This is going to require a great degree of scholarship - to explain the way things have insinuated themselves into the law books and public knowledge.

In 50 years all Indians who are Hindu will be ashamed of their heritage because they will all realize that their "religion" is full of crap because we failed to point out that a lot of crap has no religious basis. And there there will be no chance for redemption all because we are afraid today that we will be "attacked more" This only means that Hindu dharma is in its death throes. It has no chance of surviving because the problems are too complicated for Hindus to figure out or set right and we typically react by saying "Well, taking the trouble to do something only causes new difficulties so let us do nothing and muddle along"

The educated Hindu mind is now happy with the dubbing of Hinduism as a religion with all those faults. we are happy to accept that the word Hindu is "toxic". We would rather tippy toe around and say "forget Hindu, use some other words to describe what we are"

We are a nation in a different type of denial than Pakistan. We can attempt to sort out these things by good scholarship - but just do not have that any more. We have good technicians and workers - but few people go as far as to try and address these issues. The minute anyone tries he is dubbed a Hindu fundamentalist or a righwinger and we get anxious and cop out.

But we don't really understand what we are and we are not trying to understand. For example India the nation has become stronger despite the fact that jati survives to this day. Jati is a fundamental social unit. But we are ashamed to talk about it because we are too ignorant to explain what is jati and why "caste" is a nonsensical term for jati. We continue to use the word "caste" and continue to be embarrassed by the fact that jati is a useful social unit with no special "religious mandate" to screw the next jati. We use British English terminology like "religion" and "caste" without understanding the way these words came into use. Every asshole in the world tells us that "caste is part of Hindu religion" and we are unable to tell them about Dharma and how "caste" is a nonsense word, and jati is a social and not religious unit. Pakis have jatis. Christians and Muslims in India have jatis. But no. We have "caste" for which we have to be forever apologetic and defend ourselves in the UN. How stupid must we be for not figuring out that this is unfair to us? This is the behaviour of slaves. Not free men.

We are unable to explain Indian social units and the Hindu concept of man as God and the presence of God everywhere, including within man. This may be abhorrent to religionists but its they who are ignorant. It is we who are negligent for being embarrassed and apologetic - cocooned as we are in our colonized minds. In fact a lot of things about Hindu practice is what falls under "devil worship and false religion" for Christianity and Islam. And yes, they are mlecchas. We are Pagan. We do not want religious war. But we need to say what we are and fight if anyone wants a fight. We are cowing ourselves down apologetically and trying to say how what is pagan/false religion for others is actually religion just like them equalequal. We don't need their definitions. It is another matter that it is in our law books. but we can sort that out over time in a civilized way as we have always done

[Karan M]

Shivji, agree with all your points.

Only thing I have a quibble with though is why throw out the baby with the bathwater. Granted Hinduism is a way of life, but we can position it as not just a religion but a way of life.

The thing is sometimes being made out to be homogenous can actually work to our advantage.

The Brit colonialists & then the Indian Left ran a campaign basically a) denying anything like Hinduism existed as a homigenous entity existed b) what existed was some forced fed "Brahminism" to exploit everyone c) there is so much diversity in what constitutes Hinduism that any attempt to speak for all Hindus is brahminical & Hindu extremism by creating an artificial entity.

The aim was "salami slicing" - take every group and either disassociate them from their meta identity and then digest them via conversion or keep them antagonistic to other groups within that meta identity for political reasons

My point is stuff like this was Sanathan Dharma various sampradayas with significant commonality, yet diverse.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/The ... uet/263788

Exclusive extracts from the much awaited first novel, The Temple-Goers: The world of Delhi’s power dinner.
Aatish Taseer

This last remark concerning the tearing apart of the country was understood on the table in very different ways. Somewhat elated, Shabby said, “I know, I know. I keep telling these saffron types that this was never a country; the British made it a country. It can never be ruled as one country. It must be ruled in small, manageable portions.”

“You want it to be partitioned again,” Chamunda flared. “Do you see, Mr Vijaipal, what our so-called ‘intellectuals’ want?”

Raising his old lion’s face up to Chamunda’s, a comic gleam entering his eyes, the writer said, “I think they would like to make India destroyable. Isn’t that right, Chamunda?”
Chamunda clapped her hands like a little girl. She took the writer’s huge face in them, with their reddish orange nail polish matching, I could see now, the diamonds on her sari, and kissed it. “Now this is a writer!” she exclaimed. “Not a bit like our treacherous lot who feel that to be an intellectual means betraying your country.”

The writer purred contentedly. My mother laughed out loud. I caught Sanyogita’s eye and saw that she was embarrassed. In that instant, I wished for her not to be embarrassed and for her to be a little bit more like her aunt, not always so correct.

At the table, Shabby was far from defeated. “What country, what country?” she was saying, readily taking up Chamunda’s challenge. “That’s what I’m asking. You tell us, Mr Vijaipal, was India ever a country until the British came along?”

The writer, who after his mischief-making had retired to the affections of Chamunda, became interested in what Shabby was saying. “I’ve always been intrigued,” he said, “by how this bit of babble left behind by the British, and taken up by the Leftist historians, has survived in India till today. When people say India was not a country until the British arrived, what exactly do they mean? They could not really be saying that India wasn’t a nation-state. That would be absurd. The idea of the nation-state, even in Europe, is a relatively recent idea, a 19th-century idea. So what they must mean, then, is that there was not even an idea of India, the way there was of Europe, or of ancient Greece; that there was never in the minds of its people the notion of belonging to a land called India.”

“There wasn’t!” Shabby asserted. “You ask the average Indian, and he would not think of himself as an Indian. He would think of himself as a Gujarati, a Punjabi, a Tamilian, an Assamese. He wouldn’t have the faintest idea of India, ‘the land’.”

The writer seemed caught between the interruption and Shabby’s raised voice, and what he was going to say next. He lowered his head and muttered, “Not the temple-going Indian, not the temple-going Indian.”

Then raising his head and voice at once, he silenced Shabby. “Not the temple-going Indian. People like you perhaps, but not him. He knows this country backwards. He forever carries an idea of it in his head. For him, it possesses a sacred topography. He knows it through its holy places. He knows it from the mountains in the north where the rivers begin, and from where the rudraksh he wears around his neck come, to the special place from where the right stones for the lingas come. He knows the rivers when they widen and the great temples and temple cities, with their stone steps, that have been set along their banks. He knows the points where those rivers meet other rivers, and their confluence becomes part of the long nationwide pilgrimages he will make several times in his lifetime. In fact, it could be said that there is almost no other country where the countrymen are as acquainted with the distant reaches of the land through their pilgrimages as in India; perhaps no country where poor people travel more. They think nothing of jumping on a bus or train, for two or three days, to journey to Tirupathi in the south or Jagannath in the east. And in this way, the religion itself is like a form of patriotism.”

Shabby was nodding her head vigorously even before he had finished. She took a chopstick out from her grey bun and began playing with it in her fingers. An arch smile rose to her lips.

“Ah!” she said. “So you have a communal agenda. I get it now.”

“Communal?” the writer said, with genuine confusion in his eyes.

“‘Communal’ in India,” my mother explained, “means advancing the interests of a particular community or religious group; to be divisive.”

The writer chuckled happily.

It had been very affecting to hear him speak, very affecting to watch his distant observations coincide with smaller, more particular observations of my own. I had thought only of Aakash as he spoke and was feeling some relief that the appeal he held for me was not mere obsession, that there was something more abstract, more general, behind it. But it was an unstable feeling, edging on euphoria and hysteria, and what the writer said next broke my composure.

“You know,” he began, looking deeply into the room, where illuminated foliage could be seen beyond darkened windows and the orange coils of an electric heater burned steadily, “they say that Benares is a microcosm of India. Today, most people take that to mean that it contains all the horror and filth of India, and also, loath as I am to use these words, the charm, the beauty, the magic. But Benares was once a very different kind of microcosm; it was a very self-conscious microcosm. The streams that watered the groves in its Forest of Bliss were named after all the rivers of India, not unlike the avenues in Washington, DC, being named after the American states. All the princes from around the country had their palaces along the river. And they would come and retire there after they had forsaken the cares of the world. The Indian holy points, the places of the larger pilgrimage, were all represented symbolically in Benares. It was said you could do the whole pilgrimage in miniature in Kashi. And Kashi too was recreated symbolically across the country. It wasn’t a microcosm; it was a kind of cosmic capital.

“And on certain days the moon would appear in the afternoon and the water from those symbolic Indian rivers would run through the groves and flood the Ganga, which at one particular point curls around the city. The ancient Hindus, with their special feeling for these cosmic changes, would gather at high points in the city to watch, like people seeing a fireworks display. That was how people, common people,” he added pointedly, “were brought in touch with the wholeness of the place, in just the same way as someone crossing a street in Manhattan might feel when, looking to one side and seeing the sweep of the avenue, he says, ‘I’m in New York!’ It’s my dream to see that wholeness restored in India.”

There was an interruption from an unexpected quarter. “This thing you describe,” Shabby’s husband asked urgently, receiving a dirty look from his wife, “can one still see it in Benares?”

“No. What is there to see now?” the writer replied sadly. “No one has seen it since the thirteenth century, since.... They destroyed it six times, you know, the invaders. Six times, over hundreds of years, they smashed its temples and carried away its stones until they had broken its orientation.”

IMHO, and this is based on what I read, multiple Hindu leaders gave this country a common social and spiritual identity in Sanathan Dharma, the most famous one being the Shankaracharya, who reconciled conflicting POVs.

We need this common umbrella to persist as it can help us in the future as well, and many of us do have common interests.

At the same time, we should also actively rebut the conventional view of Hinduism as just yet another religion and point out how it is so much more.

Keep the advantages of political identity.

IMHO, this is where the RSS etc score. They realized, with their ethnic experience of the Maratha empire, that spiritual commonality alone is not enough. To protect the way of life, a political identity also has to be created & sustained. Otherwise, under the garb of diversity - you have nothing in common with each other - each group under Sanathan Dharma will be gradually attacked & subverted, with the other group being told, you can't speak for these guys or protest, you were never one group.

[Karan M]

The above extract IMO represents what Shri Naipaul may have said (the entire dinner table is based on real folks) & while fictional, represents several other depictions of "way it was" (just referencing in case somebody points out its mere fiction etc ).

[ShauryaT]

Shiv ji: I had compiled this post earlier to essentially indicate "Why" Hindu Nationalism is spoken of in a pejorative sense. To me, it provides an authoritative finality to the question - within constraints of the historical evolution of the term. However: The pejorative question should be settled by the below. It uses the same reference points as you have in the judgment.

What do the terms, Hindu, Hinduism or Hindutva mean as per this judgment of Justice Verma in 2002.

As Dr. Radhakrishnan has observed; "The Hindu civilization is so called, since its original founders or earliest followers occupied the territory drained by the Sindhu (the Indus) river system corresponding to the North West Frontier Province and the PUnjab. This is recorded in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures which give their name to this period Indian history. The people on the Indian side of the SIndhu we re called Hindu by the Persian and the later western invaders" ("The Hindu View of Life" by Dr. Radhakrishnan, p.12). That is the genesis of the word "Hindu". When we think of the Hindu religion. We find it difficult, if not impossible, to define Hindu religion or even adequately describe it. Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion or creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more.

The term `Hindu', according to Dr. Radhakrishnan, had originally a territorial and not a credal significance. It implied residence in a well-defined geographical area.

Monier Williams has observed that "it must be borne in mind that Hinduism is far more than a mere form of theism resting on Brahmanism. It presents for our investigation a complex congeries of creeds and doctrines which is its gradual accumulation may be compared to the gathering together of the might volume of the Ganges, swollen by a continual influx of tributary rivers and rivulets, spreading itself over an ever increasing area of country and finally resolving itself into an intricate Delta of tortuous steams and jungly marshes.... The Hindu religion is a reflection of the composite character of the Hindus, who are not one people but many. It is based on the idea of universal receptivity. It has ever aimed at accommodating itself to circumstances, and has carried on the process of adaptation through more than three thousand years. It has first borne with and then, so to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated something from all creeds". ("Religious Thought & Life in India" by Monier Williams, p. 57).

These Constitution Bench decisions, after a detailed discussion, indicate that no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms `Hindu', `Hindutva' and `Hinduism'; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage. It is also indicated that the term `Hindutva' is related more to the way of life of the people in the sub- continent. It is difficult to appreciate how in the face of these decisions the term `Hindutva' or `Hinduism' per se, in the abstract, can be assumed to mean and be equated with narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry, or be construed to fall within the prohibition in sub-sections (3) and/or (3A) of Section 123 of the R.P. Act.

Thus, it cannot be doubted, particularly in view of the Constitution Bench decisions of this Court that the words `Hinduism' or `Hindutva' are not necessarily to be understood and construed narrowly, confined only to the strict Hindu religious practices unrelated to the culture and ethos of the people of India, depicting the way of life of the Indian people. Unless the context of a speech indicates a contrary meaning or use, in the abstract these terms are indicative more of a way of life of the Indian people and are not confined merely to describe persons practising the Hindu religion as a faith.

Considering the terms `Hinduism' or `Hindutva' per se as depicting hostility, enmity or intolerance towards other religious faiths or professing communalism, proceeds form an improper appreciation and perception of the true meaning of these expressions emerging from the detailed discussion in earlier authorities of this Court. Misuse of these expressions to promote communalism cannot alter the true meaning of these terms. the mischief resulting from the misuse of the terms by anyone in his speech has to be checked and not its permissible use. It is indeed very unfortunate, if in spite of the liberal and tolerant features of `Hinduism' recognised in judicial decisions, these terms are misused by anyone during the elections to gain any unfair political advantage. Fundamentalism of any colour or kind must be curbed with a heavy hand to preserve and promote the secular creed of the nation. Any misuse of these terms must, therefore, be dealt with strictly.

http://indiankanoon.org/doc/925631/

[ShauryaT]

The courts do not stop there. They do not allow bigotry and hate to be the incorporated in the way of life terms.

From Speech of 29.11.1987 "We are fighting this election for the protection of Hinduism. Therefore, we do not care for the votes of the Muslims. This country belongs to Hindus and will remain so."

From Speech of 9.12.1987 "Hinduism will triumph in this election and we must become hon'ble recipients of this victory to ward off the danger on Hinduism, elect Ramesh Prabhoo to join with Chhagan Bhujbal who is already there. You will find Hindu temples underneath if all the mosques are dug out. Anybody who stands against the Hindus should be showed or worshipped with shoes. A candidate by name Prabhoo should be led to victory in the name of religion."

From Speech of 10.12.1987 "We have gone with the ideology of Hinduism. Shiv Sena will implement this ideology. Though this country belongs to Hindus, Ram and Krishna are insulted. (They) valued the Muslim votes more than your votes: we do not want the Muslim votes. A snake like Shahabuddin is sitting in the Janata Party, man like Nihal Ahmed is also in Janata Party. So the residents of Vile Parle should bury this party (Janata Party)."

Our conclusion is that all the three speeches of Bal Thackeray amount to corrupt practice under sub-section (3), while the first speech is a corrupt practice also under sub- section (3A) of Section 123 of the R.P. Act. Since the appeal made to the voters in these speeches was to vote for Dr. Ramesh Prabhoo on the ground of his religion as a Hindu and the appeal was made with the consent of the candidate Dr. Ramesh Prabhoo, he is quality of these corrupt practices. For the same reason, Bal Thackeray also is guilty of these corrupt practices and, therefore, liable to be named in accordance with Section 99 of the R.P. Act of which due compliance has been made in the present case.

We cannot help recording our distress at this kind of speeches given by a top leader of a political party. The lack of restraint in the language used and the derogatory terms used therein to refer to a group of people in an election speech in indeed to be condemned.

Same case as above.

[vivek.rao]

This last remark concerning the tearing apart of the country was understood on the table in very different ways. Somewhat elated, Shabby said, “I know, I know. I keep telling these saffron types that this was never a country; the British made it a country. It can never be ruled as one country. It must be ruled in small, manageable portions.”

Wow! this is how far this brainwashed trash thinks! Divide the country to 100 pieces

[RajeshA]

johneeG garu,

I know Rajiv Malhotra ji got this whole idea off the ground with his "Being Different" and Purva Paksha methodology. However where he has really disappointed me is with not taking the process to its logical conclusion. He too failed to get the gist of the difference between the two. History-centricism, Integral vs Synthetic Unity, Comfort with Order and Chaos, etc are fine and good, but he kept those differences confined mostly to "manifestation of difference", but did not venture into "reason for the difference". Secondly he restricted himself too much to the philosophical realm and did not venture into the politics, where the main difference lies. Thirdly he accepted a face value, the "religion box" of Hinduism as has been prepared by non-Indic interests.

I tried to explain to him, but he said "Let's not get too carried away, with terminology! More important is to embrace the differences, and feel comfortable with them".

I think he was uniquely qualified to bring out this subject out into the open, and he failed.

In the The Bharatiya - Identity, Vision, Agenda, Proposition Thread, one of my focus has been todifferentiate Dharmic traditions from Abrahamic religions.

Religion is a brotherhood claiming to be divinely sanctioned, making exclusivist claims of universalism, with authority vested in those acting as guardians of theology and dogma around the divine sanction, pursuing a sociopolitical agenda.

Bhaktipanth is a collective though non exclusivist pursuit of spirituality, philosophy, mythological reenactment, ritualized symbolism and devotion, in abidance with Dharma, often under the guidance of a founding traditional lineage.

Continuing on the subject, I would say a socio-ideological system touches upon various questions on life. These are for example:

1. What is the nature of existence? How was the perceptible universe created? Is there a transcendental consciousness overseeing creation? What is the purpose of creation? How will it all end?
2. What is the nature of man? What is the relationship between man and the transcendental consciousness if it exists? What are the limits of 'Free Will'? What is the purpose of Life? How can man be happy? Why does man suffer?
3. How should man think, behave, and act? How does man's actions influence his destiny? Where does man receive guidance to this effect? Is that guidance mandatory?
4. How should mankind structure their society? What laws should govern society? What laws should society impose on each individual?
5. Who oversees society's governance? Who oversees man's behavior?

Abrahamic and Arya socio-ideological systems answer these questions very differently, and dependent on how they answer, one can determine whether they are religions or not.

The first two sets of questions, I would say, form the philosophy and faith backbone of any system - the Darśanams, the Moksha Margas, the Bhaktipanths. It is for these set of questions, that Hindus say, "sarva pantha, sama bhava"! We don't discriminate. Religions propose various views on this, but so do Dharmic Bhaktipanths.

It is in the answer of the next questions, that Dharmic socio-ideological systems differ from Abrahamic religions. In religion the laws and its upholders derive from top boss - from God. In Christianity, it is the Church, allegedly instituted by Jesus, Son of God, himself, when he told Peter, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church". In Islam, it is the Ulema (and Caliph), who are best knowledgeable about the Holy Koran, the word of Allah, as conveyed by the Khatam an-Nabiyyin, the Seal of the Prophets, by Muhammad.

In case of Christianity, it is the ten commandments from the Old Testament, which form the basic laws, and to some extent to their simplicity and lack of need of interpretation, that the responsibility for upholding of implementing these laws has been passed on to the monarch, to the state, which allowed a certain degree of secularism to blossom. However the "obligation" of Evangelism which allegedly derives from Matthews 28:19,20 has remained the domain of the Church.

Islam, in form from Shariah, however posits a comprehensive way of life based on Holy Koran, the word of Allah, and on the life of Muhammad and to some extent the later Caliphs. That means one would always need the Ulema who understand Qu'ran and Allah's Rasool and they would remain the last arbitrators of Islamic Law. So no chance of secularism here.

Now the Exclusivism in the Moksha-Margas of Christianity and Islam shouldn't as such matter. After all it is only a question of belief of an individual. But when the Moksha-Margas start impinging on the answers of the last 3 sets of questions, then exclusivity leads to authoritarianism, to tyranny.

In Dharmic socio-ideological systems, the premise is totally different. There the answers to the first set of questions, do not directly influence the next set of questions. The next set of questions are dealt through the medium of Dharma and not the Moksha Marga.

Dharma is the Ārya system of Meta-Ethics. Dharma exists autonomous of Moksha Marga.

What one encounters often in our scriptures is that often not even Vishnu, Shiva or Brahma can intervene is the laws of Karma, and change the vardaans and shraaps given to a person. At the most they can suggest a means to mitigate the effects of a vardaan or a shraap. Even Vishnu, Shiva or Brahma have to bow to Dharma, and their Avatars try to live according to Dharma. That means Dharma itself is external to their existence.

I say Dharma is meta-ethics, because it is not a list of do and donts given to us, but rather it is the conditioning of our Ātman to act conscientiously. Since Ātman is a manifestation of Paramatma, in ways one can see Dharma as a form of guidance from Paramatma Himself. Different Darśanams may explain it differently. Development of a Dharmic conscience is as such knowledge intensive and requires critical thinking.

Thus each and every Dharmic becomes responsible for right and wrong, and if someone fails to do it correctly, the Sovereign takes it upon himself to carry out Raj Dharma.

Also social organization and social codices among some groups have developed by building on the foundation of Dharma.

So religions shows following characteristics:

1. Exclusive Transcendental Entity (Creator God) which demands Obedience and is Law Giver.
2. Laws and Obligations (Books, Ten Commandments) sanctioned by the Creator God.
3. Representatives of Creator God (Emissaries, Prophets, Sons) and thus Law Givers allegedly chosen/determined by the latter.
4. Organization or Network (Ulema, Clergy) which governs society and implements divine obligations deriving sanction from these Emissaries of God.
5. Pious Society which shows uncritical obedience to such Clergy.
6. Group Identity deriving from this religious system, which is used by the Clergy and their secular sponsors to sway society and politics.

I would here suggest that neither "Hinduism", nor Buddhism, nor Jainism and to a large extent nor Sikhism really fit into this schema, and thus they cannot be called religions.

Hinduism is not a religion!

[shiv]

Shivji, agree with all your points.

Only thing I have a quibble with though is why throw out the baby with the bathwater. Granted Hinduism is a way of life, but we can position it as not just a religion but a way of life.

Fair enough.

But I would prefer a better single word name that works in English. I will state a name I have in mind, and then explain. I think a good English term for Hinduism would be a system of "Cosmognosy". Hindus have many sub religions and a libertarian social outlook, united by a something higher than religion which I would term Cosmognosy. Cosmognosy is knowledge of the cosmos - which is a rough approximation of the Hindu concept of realizing the absolute.

Why do I suggest a name that is not religion (but beyond religion)?

The simplest dumbed-down answer would be, "Because it is beyond religion and superior to religion"

A more pragmatic answer comes from a question. The word religion is a suitable term for Christianity and Islam. When these religions came into being, whom, or what were they fighting? They were not fighting any single religion. They were fighting multiple religions, multiple Gods followed by multiple tribes, some of whom had images of Gods represented by statutes or other icons (idols). Both Christianity and Islam invented a words for these "multiple enemies" - and the words are "pagan" and "kufr" respectively.

Where were these pagans and kufr who has multiple Gods, idols and different social systems? They were all over the world. They were in Arabia, Europe, the Americas and India. These kafirs or pagans all had different concepts of the origins of the universe life and what was holy for them. They were all replaced by Christianity or Islam everwhere in the world except India. Barring a few bits of information here and there we have no idea exactly what these multiple extinct religions knew - but it would be wrong to assume that they were stupid or bad. After all humans have been around for over 100,000 years or so and these people have been eliminated only in the last 2000 years.

The only place where kafirs have survived more or less intact with their ancient beliefs and traditions is India. They never called themselves a religion. Even Christianity and Islam did not accept that they were "religions". To te latter, Hindus were followers of false Gods, devil worshippers.

Why then are Hindus so keep to slot themselves side by side with religions whose main aim was to eliminate Hindus. Why are we so keen to explain to the world that our ancient knowledge of the origins of the universe are simply a variant of this dumb "One God and his book". Especially when the One God and his book religions are jealous of others and actively anti-Hindu. We are the pagans. wee do not belong to one religion. We are multiple faiths and creeds united by a higher knowledge. That higher knowledge is dharma. The point of dharma is that it shows the route to cosmognosy - the state of ultimate peace.

Our "religion" is their "false religion". Our Gods are their devil. No wonder everything we do is termed rubbish. We are different and we cannot begin to show that by either trying to slot in with them or by simply making war - which is what the religions do anyway.

We have to pull away from the terminology and definitions that the religions have imposed on us and point out that religions are smaller than Hinduism. Hinduism encompasses all religions en route to a higher cosmognostic consciousness. i admit this is all heavy stuff. But Hindu dharma and our philosophy is heavy stuff and it is our duty to study and understand what we have been stopped from studying and understanding.

[ShauryaT]

Shiv ji: Either Hinduism is the only religion or Hinduism is no religion at all. Hindus should not be afraid to reject this bracketing of our ways with that of religion and affirm that our ways are beyond this narrow bracketing. Our way of life has its own terms. We are Aryas, who follow our Dharma.

[shiv]

So religions shows following characteristics:

1. Exclusive Transcendental Entity (Creator God) which demands Obedience and is Law Giver.
2. Laws and Obligations (Books, Ten Commandments) sanctioned by the Creator God.
3. Representatives of Creator God (Emissaries, Prophets, Sons) and thus Law Givers allegedly chosen/determined by the latter.
4. Organization or Network (Ulema, Clergy) which governs society and implements divine obligations deriving sanction from these Emissaries of God.
5. Pious Society which shows uncritical obedience to such Clergy.
6. Group Identity deriving from this religious system, which is used by the Clergy and their secular sponsors to sway society and politics.

I would here suggest that neither "Hinduism", nor Buddhism, nor Jainism and to a large extent nor Sikhism really fit into this schema, and thus they cannot be called religions.

Hinduism is not a religion!

Perfect. +1

[shiv]

Shiv ji: Either Hinduism is the only religion or Hinduism is no religion at all. Hindus should not be afraid to reject this bracketing of our ways with that of religion and affirm that our ways are beyond this narrow bracketing. Our way of life has its own terms. We are Aryas, who follow our Dharma.

Hinduism actually steps beyond religion into a common uniting philosophy and therefore allows multiple religions to coexist. religions are a subset of Hinduism, which encompasses all religions as well as atheism and agnosticism in a libertarian social framework.

It is not for nothing that many religions have arisen from among Hindus and that many others have sought refuge among Hindus. Hindu dharma is more like a nursery for religion and non religious society rather than a straitjacketd quasi-fascist religious dogma.

If religions are rivers, Hinduism is the ocean, to paraphrase Vivekananda (MHPBUAH) May His Peace Be Upon All of Humanity