Pitching for Hindutva As Caste Preservative

No mistaking it, in India’s socio-religious turf, caste is the divisive creed of the Hindus, largely immune to the cultural credo of the Hindutva, formulated by Savarkar,  which diminishes their demographic strength in its electoral arena, comprising of non-Hindus in considerable numbers, who, in stark contrast, are religiously cohesive and politically emotive, particularly against the Hindu nationalists. But the lazy explanation offered by some for the lack of Hindu communal coherence, though historically they have been under the Semitic threat, is that unlike those faiths, Sanatana dharma, Sanatana for short labeled as Hinduism, is not a dogma of faith but a way of life, which is not as straight-jacketed as that. Whatever, with no sense of foreboding about things in the offing that is in spite of the unmistakable Semitic signals, as the addicts of the caste politicking remain skeptical about the overall political significance of the Hindutva in maintaining the Indian status quo in the long run, pitching for the same as the preservative of their caste identities and interests that are dearer to their hearts above all else, is vital for India’s national integrity.

No denying that Sanatana, evolved in the ancient Arya Varta, from esoteric ideas, such as – narō nārayana (man is God) and vasudhaiva kutumbakam (holds world all in one household) – envisaging a lofty society with varna vyavastha based on varnāshrama dharma (occupation-oriented caste grouping) with swadharma (caste code of conduct) unique to each varna long got distorted beyond recognition. Maybe it was because, while its spiritual focus is on the self, aham brahmasmi (I’m the Spirit) obviated the Semitic need of One God to obey and One Book to revere (as in the tailpiece), its eclectic dictum, ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti (what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly) gave rise to innumerable gods and godmen, numerous sects and sub-sects and umpteen philosophies and theologies, often mutually contradictory. However, with the Brahmins at the intellectual helm, this diverse, yet not divisive social arrangement, managed for the most part by the Kshatriyas, going by the travelers’ accounts of yore, made India a land of milk and honey. But sadly, Sanatana’s broad dharma gave way in time to the narrow swadharmas, thereby each varna becoming a Semitic faith in itself and if anything the Islamic invasions followed by the British colonization of the country of riches impoverished it every which way.

Given their penchant to impose Islam in the conquered lands, though the brute Muslim invaders didn’t make any exception to India, the very fact that they failed to Islamize it in toto, like Persia, Egypt etc., but could only marginally penetrate their alien faith into it, speaks volumes about the inherent strengths of the Sanatana that have never been adequately analyzed or documented. But under the dubious British colonial dispensation, the devious evangelists, so as to serve their Christian cause, started turning the Hindu menial castes into soft conversion targets by polluting their minds with the projection of varna vyavastha as an evil ‘caste conundrum’ that’s debilitating as well as demeaning  to them. And thereafter, as a double whammy, the left-leaning stuff branded Hinduism as caste-oppressive Brahmanism and that began to alienate the intermediate castes as well from it to further upset the Hindu social order for its political disruption, seemingly forever.

Then came India’s independence, which ushered in the overdue universal education and that brought about social confidence in the Hindu middle and lower castes but as the Brahmins continued to remain the face of the Sanatana, be it as temple priests, or as Shankaracharyas (it’s time they’re forced to shut their shops that impede the Hindu caste equity) and even as Sarsanghchalaks of the vaunted Rashtriya Sawayam Sevak Sangh, not to speak of the plethora of its preachers and proponents, the missionary mischief and the left-liberal libel got fillip, with no mean help from the Nehruvian political ecosystem that’s patently ant-Hindu. Even though the Hindu right labours to theorize Sanatana’s egalitarian ethos, given the ground realities, Hindutva, its religio-cultural vehicle in the Indian political arena, got mired in the quagmire of the caste conundrums even after India’s traumatic partition on the Islamic lines.

However, at the same time, Muslims who made up some 9% of the post-partitioned India (if only Dr. Ambedkar had his way, they would’ve all been in Pakistan) have been exploiting its democratic electoral process to further the Islamic demographic agenda of unbridled growth by way of procreation as well as infiltration. The Muslim political strategy has always been to place ummah’s votes on the electoral platter of those Hindus, who enable them to strengthen the Indian arm of Islam without let or hindrance, and what with their ever growing numbers, there was never a dearth of the ‘secular’ takers among the political ranks to India’s democratic detriment. Strange though it is, it is seldom appreciated that in the caste-oriented India, it’s the Muslim ummah, pegged at around 15% (only as of now) of its populace but yet tagged as a minority community, is by far the more populous, that too by a considerable margin, than any Hindu caste group to name!

However, at long last, with the meteoric rise of Narendra Modi the Hindu nationalist to the Indian political helm, what with Hindutva making sense to the backward classes that he happens to belong to, devotedly at that, it seemed as if he has pulled some of the Hindu middle ground out of its caste conundrums. True to the Hindutva, with the parliamentary numbers on his side in his first two stints, he did dare to enter some of the hitherto forbidden Muslim legislative zones to come up trumps. But when he was aiming to bring about ‘earth-shaking’ changes in his third term, while the ummah, so as to curtail his legislative clout, channelized its electoral might to deny him the required numbers, some of the Hindu castes, giving credence to his opponents’ false propaganda that he would do away with their reservations if reelected, turned their backs on him for the same purpose. Yet luckily for Bharat, Modi made it to the top but barely so and bruised at that to face the next electoral round in 2029 and that gives the Hindus enough time to reflect over their collective future.

Hope in the meantime, the Hindu castemen would be able to visualize the political ploy of the ‘secular’ parties in using the Hindutva as a hammer to forge the Muslim-Christian minority vote bank and as the sickle to slice the Hindu majority ballot box into antagonistic caste pieces to stop the only nationalist political force that is there in the electoral tracks. No denying that Hinduism is hierarchical in practice but Bharat, the cradle of Sanatana’s egalitarian ideals, views its children of all castes and creeds with the same benign eyes, which won’t be the case if it were, God forbid, to lose its Hindu credo; dread that say. So, the recalcitrant castemen may realize that by cutting off Bharat’s nose to spite its Hindutva face, there may be no castes in the distant future for their progenies to be proud of, or vote for. Instead, being the overwhelming majority of the Hindus, it’s wise for the so-called middle and lower castes to own up the Hindutva and restore Sanatana’s pristine ideals to shape an egalitarian Hindu polity through a social reformation.

Tailpiece

The Christian chicanery lies in making people vulnerable by propagating that in the eyes of the God their mundane acts are nothing but sins to expiate which His Son had died on the Cross. Even as that proposition makes a compelling case for the possibility of salvation only through the Christ, the regimen of confessions in the meantime acts as a guilt-release valve to make the Christian life merry on the moral ground never mind the violations. No less dubious is the evangelism itself for the Christ clearly told the Commissioned Twelve: “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel – God’s lost sheep.” Be that as it may, despite its founder’s forbiddance, the Christianity has engulfed the best part of the globe to become its widest faith with an active agenda to harvest the Hindu souls to further buttress its ranks.

On the other hand, the Islamic ruse is to inexorably bind the Musalmans in the blind alley of the supposed ‘right path’ of life that Allah ‘the God’ had allegedly revealed to Muhammad their prophet for them to unquestioningly follow so as to stand them in good stead on the Day of Judgment. Not only that, to downplay the mundane bumps on Islam’s right path, supposedly perfected by Allah for the Musalmans, they are made to believe that “naught is the life of the world save a pastime and a sport. Better far is the abode of the Hereafter for those who keep their duty (to Allah). More so, with diktats such as “they only are the (true) believers whose hearts feel fear when Allah is mentioned, and when the revelations of Allah are recited unto them they increase their faith, and who trust in their Lord” Quran turns Musalmans into Islam’s, nay Muhammad’s, bonded labourers. Above all, by dubbing ‘the others’ as kafirs, as Islam incites Musalmans against them with Allah’s quotes like “relent not in pursuit of enemy, If ye are suffering, lo! They suffer even as ye suffer and ye hope from Allah that for which they cannot hope. Allah is ever Knower, Wise”, it can be said that it’s more of a cult than a religion and what’s worse, it too, like Christianity, works to further expand in India.

More on the topic in my free ebook ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More)’ in the public domain.

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

 TxtTale Interview - BS Murthy

https://txttale.com/interviews/the-interview-bs-murthy

Can you share your journey with us? How did you get started in your field?

Maybe it’s apt to sum up my literary journey with an exclamation - Who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in the English language for a rustic Telugu lad reared in the rural Andhra, even in the post-colonial India? So, the possibilities of life are indeed novel and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it – excerpted from my article “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” that’s available in TxtTale besides other sites.

Do you identify with your main character or did you create a character that is your opposite?

It so happened that in Benign Flame: Saga of Love while Raja Rao insensibly imbibed my characteristics, said to be the case in most maiden novels, inadvertently though Prasad, the villain of the piece, came to juxtapose my sensibilities, or is it really so for many of its male readers have felt that there's a Prasad in every one of us.

Are any of the characters in your book based on people in your real life?

What is said about the novel – an exploration of human condition – has characterized my fictional forays into the short story plane and the dramatic stage too, besides the novel space that is, which tended to be led by the experiences of mine own life besides that of those I knew or heard about

Did you have any say in the cover design?

I believe that my books are fortunate for the artful covers bestowed on them by E. Rohini Kumar, Gopi and Mohan, all artists of note, to make them seem apart, if you agree.

What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment so far?

I’ve come see my life and work, literary as well as mundane, through the lens of contribution rather than the prism of accomplishment, maybe for I’ve nothing demonstrable to write home about on the latter count.

   Ra(h)ul’s Split-personality Disorder

In that televised press meet to ‘accept people’s verdict’ in 2014 - 44 seats, down from 206 in 2009 - while Sonia looked crestfallen and her daughter Priyanka appeared gloomy, the real ‘loser’ Rahul seemed unconcerned. But still, even as he took the mike after his mother has done with it, she not only peremptorily stopped him from speaking but also pulled him by his hand signaling their exit. While the entire nation saw the mawkish 44 year-old meekly submitting to his haughty mother, none, as Sherlock Holmes would have put it, had ‘observed’ the abnormality of his personality.

It may be appreciated that when Sonia lost her man to Dhanu the suicide bomber, she was barely 44, her son was nearing 22, and her daughter crossed 19. What with her own flock back in Italy and not a friend to name in her in-law’s family, not to speak of detractors aplenty and leeches no less, in an alien country, where her political ambition made her stay put, she had to fend for herself and her children. So, as any widow would do in such a situation, she too succumbed to the urge of clinging to her son, at once providing support to him, and getting it in return from him, in the psychological sense that is. While that naturally made him a mama’s boy that his genes or fate and / or both rendered half-witted, only made it worse for him in his growing up.  But that’s not all as there’s more to his apparent ‘personality disorder’.

While his mother’s faith ensured that he was christened as Raul Vinci and privately reared as a Christian, his grandmother’s political compulsions labeled him as Rahul Gandhi. No denying the craven media was overindulgent to the family in not exposing this cynical reality to this day – in contrast with western media’s penchant to turn every Hindu fault line into an anti-Christian chasm - but it would be beyond any kid, least of all a dim-witted one like him, to change his religious cap to a political titfer and vice versa, at the drop of a hat, that too for years on, without disturbing his head. Surely, that did affect as is evident from his confused (Raul–Rahul) thought-process that runs on a course of contradictions - his words tend to be incoherent and his acts would be seemingly disjointed. Added to that is his confused demeanour, awkward behaviour and intelligible expression, and that leads to the supposition that Sonia willy-nilly enabled her unfortunate son to imbibe Dr. Dud ‘n Mr. Fraud split personality.

Added to his psychic dichotomy was the inimical influence of his mom’s moral turpitude, first brought to light by Bofors Kickbacks, and his exposure to the assorted skeletons in the family cupboard. It’s thus; his grow up afflicted his mental makeup and stunted his personality development; and so, in whatever he does or does not; his ‘personality disorder’ manifests itself in all its awkwardness, earning him derisive sobriquets such as Pappu ‘n Buddhu. If anything, his vain attempts to portray himself as a janeudhāri Hindu to varnish his and his party’s, anti-Hindu image for political marketing, made him seem a buffoon to boot.

Excerpted from the chapter ‘Italian Interregnum’ of my free ebook ‘Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife ( A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity 'n More)'

 My 'List Kindle Book' Interview 

 https://listkindlebook.com/interviews/the-interview-bs-murthy

What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?

I would like to pass on the advice of my maternal uncle, C. Subba Rao, gave me in my youth that one should begin his reading life with classics for they deepen the thinking, and broaden the outlook besides improving one’s language.

Having fortunately heeded to his advice, later on in life, when I thanked him for his advice that benefited me immensely, he said that he merely passed on his father’s advice to him, which makes me indebted to my maternal grandfather C. Kameswara Rao as well.

So, I recommend readers to read the classics of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Robert Musil et al that is besides my body of work of twelve ebooks in varied genres available as Amazon Kindles (link in my profile page) that can also be Googled for other formats in the public domain.

Have you been able to incorporate your previous experience in [jobs/education] in your writing?

In my maiden novel Benign Flame: Saga of Love, owing to my initial stint as a purchase officer, I was able to help Sathyam in the manipulation of an Open Tender in the chapter, Date with Destiny, which sadly became his undoing in the end.

Likewise in my second novel Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, given my later expertise as a Loss Assessor, I could enable Gautam to pull off a perfect insurance fraud in the chapter, Loss to Order. 

Do you have any unusual writing habits?

If it can be called an unusual writing habit, I tended to write continuously for fourteen hours a day that is with a few fatigue breaks in between, day after day, till the completion of each of my twelve books, most of which took nine months.        

Have you ever experienced writer’s block? How did you deal with it?

Having penned twelve books, now I’m unable to pen another, maybe owing to writer’s block, or lack of enthusiasm or exhaustion of ideas and / or a combination of all. Well, one’s creativity too may have its limits and time only would tell whether or not I reached the end of mine own.

Did you always want to be an author? If not, what did you want to be when you grew up?

What with Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al having become my literary deities, as their devotee, all along, the thought of my entering the sanctum sanctorum of writing never entered my mind, and the interested can see how that had changed in my mid-forties in my article “My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility” available at this site and in the net as well.