Demographic Dynamics of Indian Democracy

If the body of a nation is formed by its people, its democratic soul gets shaped by its voters. However, in its nascent stages, it was not the case for the lesser souls were unfranchised, robbing it of its egalitarian ethos. But has the later-day all-adult franchise helped it acquire its representative character? Not necessarily, as the elaborate democratic exercise in India (a continuing civilization of over five millennia), involving a complex mix of over 990 million electorate, of regional and ethnic diversity (28 states and 8 union territories; 705 scheduled  tribes and 2,000 ethnic groups), religious and linguistic variations (six religions in the main and scores of tribal traditions; 121 languages and 19,000 mother tongues/dialects) besides social and economic disparities not to speak of the mindboggling caste divisions (3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes) across the regions, indicates.

Even though democracy, in any form, is a number game everywhere, its Indian version is numerically enormous, demographically divisive and politically fragmented like nowhere else. Even then, the competing political outfits spare no efforts to woo the electorate to the polling stations in what is arguably the most daunting of the daunting political exertions in the democratic world. It’s as if to prove itself equal to this herculean democratic task, the electoral apparatus of the state pulls out all the stops to maximise the franchise by way of its voter-friendly, state-of-the-art election process. But yet, some one-third, or so, of the rural and around half of the urban electorate invariably stays away from the periodic polls, characterised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the ‘festivals of democracy’. However, on the face of it, it may seem that nothing could be amiss in this sort of sub-par electoral show for the voting patterns of the absentee voters would have been in political consonance with the collective electoral will of the participative millions.

Nonetheless, a closer look at those who choose to vote and those who prefer to abstain would reveal that which the sizeable electoral numbers fail to bring to the fore - the demographic dynamics of the Indian democracy. In one of the many ironies of the Indian republic, even though the Muslim ummah far outstrips every Hindu caste group there is and the Christian converts (counting the closet characters) outnumber each of the Hindu sub-castes, yet both are prioritised as minorities in its ‘secular’ set-up! So, to put things demographic in the prevailing democratic order, one has to juxtapose the nearly unified 15% Muslim and 5% Christian mandate with around 80% caste-ridden Hindu franchise that the sub-castes and the tribals fracture further.  

More to the point, even as the bulk of the absentee voters happen to hail from the Hindu electorate, the Muslims and the Christians, given their religio-political attitudes, queue up to vote against the proponents of Hindutva, namely the advocates of the Hindu cultural renaissance, read Bharatiya Janata Party and its political associates. It’s thus, in India’s multi-party democracy that entails multi-cornered electoral contests, any one of the relatively populous caste groups, in cohorts with the one-fifth Muslim-Christian voters-combine, can become a dominant political force in a given region. What’s worse, making a mockery of the democratic level playing field, such an unhealthy political nexus can come up trumps at the hustings in conducive states by co-opting a few of the ‘one-or-two percent’ caste groups to the detriment of the rest of the populace, as exemplified by the infamous Muslim-Yadav combine in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.  

That happenstance is owing to the fact that in the rural electoral arenas, it is the socially dominant castes and the politically affiliated voters that turn up most at the polling stations to protect their social clout or to retain their political hedge, and/or both, in their respective domains. However, on the contrary, numerous miniscule castes and various sub-castes, with no socio-political turf of their own, and left to fend for themselves by the competing political outfits for the same reason, constitute the bulk of the rural electoral absentees. But when it comes to the urban electorates, their diverse socio-economic compositions render them unamenable for any large-scale rural-type caste consolidations, and that partly explains the abysmally low urban voter turnouts. Besides, as the urbanites are largely salaried or self-employed, ineligible subjects of the state’s politically expedient beneficial schemes, they fail to become the objects of the political wooing. It’s thus, besides being unaffected by the electoral outcomes, as they remain unsolicited by the political parties, they tend to give a short shrift to the polling process, and bring democratic disrepute to their adopted constituencies.  

That’s not all as political dynasties, false poll-eve promises, endemic mis-governance, pandemic mal-administration and unabashed corruption that came to characterise the Indian democratic order have given raise to widespread public apathy and attendant voter cynicism. So, such of those have come to see the periodic poll process as a futile exercise of choosing between a Tweedledum of a Gog cabal and a Tweedledee of the Magog gang. Not that all of them have no axe to grind, it’s just that they don’t have a grinding stone for that. But still, by not being a part any of the self-serving caste groups, they, with their cumulative votes, would be able to make a qualitative difference to the collective franchise. Hence, it is imperative to impress upon them that as their self-interest is entwined with the national interest, they must back only those political forces that are wedded to the nation’s good. However, though this holistic dictum is applicable to one and all, it is better spread among the poll-shy electorate, in every conceivable manner, by the well-meaning individuals, social entities and political outfits.

Now that Narendra Modi has managed to rekindle vande mataram’s nationalist flame, singed by Jawaharlal Nehru at the outset, it is left for social servers such as Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh and political forces like Bharatiya Janata Party to take the lead in bringing the nation back on the patriotic path so as to put its voters on the right political track. No denying that given India’s putrid political state and its tattered moral fabric, it is no mean a task, but the need of the nation is that all its patriots must apply their minds to come up with ideas that could facilitate the same.  Needless to say, the ways of convincing the rural folks and the urban dwellers about the ill effects of caste politics on the nation and by extension on themselves would necessarily vary – personal interactions with the former and mass communication with the latter – the message being the same – Better our Bharat, better you are; so better vote to better Bharat.

 

 

 

 

     

 

Bhagwat De-squeeze of Hindu Caste-Squeeze 

Addressing a gathering at Ravidas Jayanti in Mumbai recently, Dr. Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanghchalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as cited in the Organiser, dateline Feb 6, 2023, has said  -  “To our Creator, we are equal. There is no caste or sect. If some pundits citing scriptures are talking about caste-based discrimination, then it is false. .. We are confused in the whirlpool of the concept of caste and caste hierarchy. This confusion has to be removed.”

As a corollary, it can be said that without saying as much, Dr. Bhagwat had debunked the diabolical chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ (v13, ch4) and such divisive verses from the eminently egalitarian Gita that were blue-penciled in the author’s Bhagvad-Gita Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations, published way back in 2003. Be that as it may, before the veracity of the Sangh Pramukh’s “If some pundits citing scriptures are talking about caste-based discrimination, then it is false” averment is examined; it is imperative to delve into the cynical Dalit and Shudra Cards in play to affect the Double Hindu Squeeze.   

Whereas the Muslim Sufis were the first to breach the caste fault lines to spread Islam into the Hindu hinterland that eventually led to its partition on religious grounds, in due course, more so in the truncated India, the Christian Evangelists too reinvigorated themselves to poach the leftover Dalit souls into their salvation fold with an eye on future religious dividends. But yet, for too long, the hindsight-less Hindus have been keeping a blind eye to the unbridled Muslim proliferation through procreation and infiltration on one hand and on the other the Christian expansionism through fraudulent conversions of its slighted souls.

However, as the Semitic demographic waters began to rise to their nose-level, the Hindus have realized, belatedly though, that it was the Dalit apathy towards their scriptural discrimination that came in handy for the Abrahamites to wean the embittered away from their tenuous Hindu folds into their respective faiths. So, the nonplussed Hindus began to assuage the aggrieved Dalits by downplaying the underlying caste-discrimination with ingenious propositions such as the Hindu varna is not to be seen in caste colours for to start with all are Shudras at birth and it is guna (nature) that makes one a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vysya, Shudra et al etc. Needless to say, this half-hearted attempt that is insincere at best failed to cut the caste ice and the evangelicals of the alien faiths continued to fish in the Hindu troubled waters to augment their Semitic numbers, catalyzed by the cynical Nehruvian political strategy of unifying the Abrahamic votes on religious grounds and fragmenting the Hindu franchise on the caste lines.

It was this Double Hindu Squeeze affected by the Dalit and Shudra Cards which enabled the Nehruvian forces to retain their political dominance in the post-colonial India for over six decades that was till Narendra Modi managed to unify some sections of the Shudras under his party’s Hindutva flag in 2014 only to add more such in 2019. What with the Hindu consolidation leading to the 2024 hustings is ever on the raise, the unraveled Nehruvians, driven by their craving for power, stoked up the Shudra flames of Ramcharitamanas in the hope of regaining their caste traction in the country’s political arena. Maybe, Dr. Bhagwat’s assertion supra is primarily meant to douse the Shudra political fire but if only carried forward, it has an immense potential to set the Hindu polity on its reformist course like none else before. It could be precisely for this reason that the Indian media, moulded in the Nehruvian ecosystem, by and large, has chosen not to transmit his revolutionary idea to the public though only recently it went out of its way to publicize his ‘Why look for shivling in every mosque’ advice to the Hindus that was in the wake of the developments in Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque.

Whatever, the Sarsanghchalak’s statement should be viewed in the light of the hypocritical explanations meant to downplay the vicious caste system, the hollowness of which was exposed in the author’s Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) that is briefly dealt as under.

It would be apparent to any observant individual that the fake caste punditry began with the insertion of the verse 13 in Purusha Sukta (10.7.90.1-16) of the Rig Veda, the foremost of the four Vedas, thus:  

V13: From His face (or the mouth) came the brahmanas. From His two arms came the rajanya (the kshatriyas). From His two thighs came the vaishyas. From His two feet came the shudras.

However, this interpolation as can be seen under is in juxtaposition to the original template of creation expostulated in,

V14: From His mind was born the moon. From His two eyes was born the sun. From His mouth were born Indra and Agni. From His breath was born the air.

V15: From (His) navel was produced the antariksha (the space between the earth and the heavens). Dyuloka (or heaven) came into existence from His head. The bhumi (the earth) evolved out of His feet, and deek (or spacial directions) from His ears. Similarly (the demigods) produced the worlds (too).

Thus, having disoriented the Vedic egalitarianism with caste discrimination, the pundits went on to pollute the Manu Smriti, an otherwise resplendent legal manual, if anything with caste toxicity, as elaborated in the author’s essay On Bashing Manu Smriti, Or Flogging A Dead Horse Riding a Blind Ass. Of course, the pollution started with the incorporation of the Purusha Sukta invention as 1.31 in the said Smriti is out of the context, as is evident below.

1.28. But to whatever course of action the Lord at first appointed each (kind of beings), that alone it has spontaneously adopted in each succeeding creation.

1.29. Whatever he assigned to each at the (first) creation, noxiousness or harmlessness, gentleness or ferocity, virtue or sin, truth or falsehood, that clung (afterwards) spontaneously to it.

1.30. As at the change of the seasons each season of its own accord assumes its distinctive marks, even so corporeal beings (resume in new births) their (appointed) course of action.

1.31. But for the sake of the prosperity of the worlds he caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, and his feet.

1.32. Dividing his own body, the Lord became half male and half female; with that (female) he produce.

But Bhagwat’s mischievous pundits would have been well-aware that their hitjob would not be complete without putting their self-serving words into Lord Krishna’s mouth in Bhagvad-Gita never mind He declared in ch.9, v 29, ‘None I favour, slight I none / Devout Mine all gain Me true’. So they, inserted the infamous v13, ch 4, ‘chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ / tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam’, which incongruously means that ‘It is I who engineered the division of men into four varna (castes) based on their guna (innate nature) and karma (earthly duties) but yet although I am the creator of this system, know me to be the non-doer and eternal.

Not just that, as if to add the caste salt to the Shudra injury, the pundits (not Lord Krishna for any perceptive reader) having stated in v 41 ch 18 that ‘the duties of the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras—are distributed according to their qualities, in accordance with their guṇas,’ specify that ‘serving through work is the natural duty for those with the qualities of Shudras’ (v 44, ch 18). And what is worse, to tie the Shudras forever to their menial yoke, it is averred that ‘It is better to perform one’s own duty, even imperfectly, rather than indulge in another’s work perfectly for by doing one’s innate work, a person does not incur sin’ (v 46, ch 18) which is nothing but a rehash of v35, ch3, ‘It is far better to perform one’s natural prescribed duty, though tinged with faults, than to perform another’s prescribed duty, though perfectly. In fact, it is preferable to die in the discharge of one’s duty, than to follow the path of another, which is fraught with danger.’

So, it’s for the Hindus to look beyond their caste boundaries to visualize the improbability of their scriptures demeaning the Shudras and the Dalits among them for the most part they were scripted by them only.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

On Bashing Manu Smriti,

Or Flogging A Dead Horse Riding A Blind Ass 

None knows when Manu Smriti had its last sway, if at all, over the Indian polity but still the Hindu castes that it slighted lazily hold it against the Brahmins that it once exalted, and ominously, the evangelists cynically bash Hinduism with it to lure the former into their Semitic fold. However, this essay is not an exercise to endorse the extinct Smriti per se but an attempt to expose the perceptive vacuity and the intellectual dishonesty, as the case may be, of its debunkers.  

No denying that Manu unambiguously upheld the Brahmanical supremacy albeit with an austere life-style that is self-denying to say the least, and even otherwise which society in history has been egalitarian in its concept and construct. But then, to cite but two examples, what about the Islamic bigotry that negates the kafirs and the White racism that rendered blacks into slavery. Why the Muslims have not been able to shed their ill-founded kafir antipathy even in the multi-cultural settings they happen to live. When was it that the racial segregation in the U.S. trains and buses in the Land of Liberty did end but in 1956! So, on the discriminatory note, the Manuwad decry, a euphemism for ant-Brahminism, is a far cry from the ‘Black Lives Matter’ cry.

Besides, Manu’s detractors tend to smear him by amplifying his restrain-female tunes and muting his woman-exalted notes. But then, what was his Smriti’s woman-denial compared to Sharia’s savagery of the fair sex; for that matter, when it was that woman’s vote began to count in the first full-fledged democracy in the modern world but in 1920! And for the starters, democracy took birth in India that is Bharat of yore.

Be that as it may, there’s no historical evidence that the law of Arya Varta was ever based on the Manu Smriti for it was not mandatory,

8.309. Know that a king who heeds not the rules (of the law), who is an atheist, and rapacious, who does not protect (his subjects, but) devours them, will sink low (after death).

This and the excerpts that follow are derived from ‘The Laws of Manu’ by G. Buhler, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1886, available at the Internet Archive.   

Whatever, a tangible expostulation of Manu Smriti would be in order, and to start with, it’s the King, not the Brahmin, above all,

7.5. Because a king has been formed of particles of those lords of the gods, he therefore surpasses all created beings in lustre;

7.8. Even an infant king must not be despised, (from an idea) that he is a (mere) mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.

Besides, belying the perceived oppression of the so-called lower castes, apparently there were rulers among them, never mind Manu is said to have disregarded them -

4.61. Let him not dwell in a country where the rulers are Sudras, nor in one which is surrounded by unrighteous men, nor in one which has become subject to heretics, nor in one swarming with men of the lowest castes.

Just the same, no denying that the Brahmins, nay the pious among them, were invariably posited on the social pedestal - 

3.212. But if no (sacred) fire (is available), he shall place (the offerings) into the hand of a Brahmana; for Brahmanas who know the sacred texts declare, ’What fire is, even such is a Brahmana’.

But that entailed quite a spiritual rigour,

2.162. A Brahmana should always fear homage as if it were poison; and constantly desire (to suffer) scorn as (he would long for) nectar.

Besides a curtailed material means,

3.109. A Brahmana shall not name his family and (Vedic) gotra in order to obtain a meal; for he who boasts of them for the sake of a meal, is called by the wise a foul feeder (vantasin).  

8.102. Brahmanas who tend cattle, who trade, who are mechanics, actors (or singers), menial servants or usurers, the (judge) shall treat like Sudras.

Nevertheless, the Brahmin-incapacitating Manu dharma was not meant for lesser but freer souls.

4.80. Let him not give to a Sudra advice, nor the remnants (of his meal), nor food offered to the gods; nor let him explain the sacred law (to such a man), nor impose (upon him) a penance.

4.81. For he who explains the sacred law (to a Sudra) or dictates to him a penance, will sink together with that (man) into the hell (called) Asamvrita.

However, in case of transgressions,

5.140. Sudras who live according to the law, shall each month shave (their heads); their mode of purification (shall be) the same as that of Vaisyas, and their food the fragments of an Aryan’s meal.

Now coming to women under Manu’s yoke,

5.147. By a girl, by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house.

5.148. In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent.

5.149. She must not seek to separate herself from her father, husband, or sons; by leaving them she would make both (her own and her husband’s) families contemptible.  

No denying that male protectiveness is at odds with women’s lib but then while Manu Smriti, so to say was consigned to flames in the remotest past, the Sharia is still kicking and alive to oppress and suppress the second sex in many parts of the wide world. 

But then what is not conceded is that Manu had valued women more than any at any time in human history,

3.55. Women must be honoured and adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and brothers-in-law, who desire (their own) welfare.

3.56. Where women are honoured, there the gods are pleased; but where they are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards.

3.57. Where the female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly perishes; but that family where they are not unhappy ever prospers.

8.28. In like manner care must be taken of barren women (by the King), of those who have no sons, of those whose family is extinct, of wives and widows faithful to their lords, and of women afflicted with diseases.

8.29. A righteous king must punish like thieves those relatives who appropriate the property of such females during their lifetime.

8.364. He who violates an unwilling maiden shall instantly suffer corporal punishment; but a man who enjoys a willing maiden shall not suffer corporal punishment, if (his caste be) the same (as hers).

9.90. Three years let a damsel wait, though she be marriageable; but after that time let her choose for herself a bridegroom (of) equal (caste and rank).

9.91. If, being not given in marriage, she herself seeks a husband, she incurs no guilt, nor (does) he whom she weds.

However, with the rider,

9.92. A maiden who chooses for herself, shall not take with her any ornaments, given by her father or her mother, or her brothers; if she carries them away, it will be theft.

More relevant to our times, mixed with much of chaff is plenty of all-season grain in Manu’s 2,684-mound granary such as -      

4.12. He who desires happiness must strive after a perfectly contented disposition and control himself; for happiness has contentment for its root, the root of unhappiness is the contrary (disposition).

4.137. Let him not despise himself on account of former failures; until death let him seek fortune, nor despair of gaining it.

4.141. Let him not insult those who have redundant limbs or are deficient in limbs, nor those destitute of knowledge, nor very aged men, nor those who have no beauty or wealth, nor those who are of low birth.

4.159. Let him carefully avoid all undertakings (the success of) which depends on others; but let him eagerly pursue that (the accomplishment of) which depends on himself.

4.160. Everything that depends on others (gives) pain, everything that depends on oneself (gives) pleasure; know that this is the short definition of pleasure and pain.

4.161. When the performance of an act gladdens his heart, let him perform it with diligence; but let him avoid the opposite.

5.109. The body is cleansed by water, the internal organ is purified by truthfulness, the individual soul by sacred learning and austerities, the intellect by (true) knowledge.

7.139. Let him not cut up his own root (by levying no taxes), nor the root of other (men) by excessive greed; for by cutting up his own root (or theirs), he makes himself or them wretched.

But the crown of the Smriti is earmarked for justice and justness,

8.17. The only friend who follows men even after death is justice; for everything else is lost at the same time when the body (perishes).

8.18. One quarter of (the guilt of) an unjust (decision) falls on him who committed (the crime), one quarter on the (false) witness, one quarter on all the judges, one quarter on the king.

8.128. A king who punishes those who do not deserve it, and punishes not those who deserve it, brings great infamy on himself and (after death) sinks into hell.

8.129. Let him punish first by (gentle) admonition, afterwards by (harsh) reproof, thirdly by a fine, after that by corporal chastisement.

8.164. That agreement which has been made contrary to the law or to the settled usage (of the virtuous), can have no legal force, though it be established (by proofs).

8.165. A fraudulent mortgage or sale, a fraudulent gift or acceptance, and (any transaction) where he detects fraud, the (judge) shall declare null and void.

However, the moot point is whether or not Manu can be exonerated on the grounds that his   original composition was subsequently fouled by caste prejudices and vested interests, and it seems to be the case.

It all began thus:

1.1. The great sages approached Manu, who was seated with a collected mind, and, having duly worshipped him, spoke as follows:

1.2. ’Deign, divine one, to declare to us precisely and in due order the sacred laws of each of the (four chief) castes (varna) and of the intermediate ones.

1.3. ’For thou, O Lord, alone knowest the purport, (i.e.) the rites, and the knowledge of the soul, (taught) in this whole ordinance of the Self-existent (Svayambhu), which is unknowable and unfathomable.’

1.4. He, whose power is measureless, being thus asked by the high-minded great sages, duly honoured them, and answered, ’Listen!’

1.5. This (universe) existed in the shape of Darkness, unperceived, destitute of distinctive marks, unattainable by reasoning, unknowable, wholly immersed, as it were, in deep sleep.

As would be evident from the following, 1.2 was a later-day interpolation intended to drag the discourse onto the four caste track from 1.31 onwards with many more insertions, albeit intermittently, though fatally.

1.25. Austerity, speech, pleasure, desire, and anger, this whole creation he likewise produced, as he desired to call these beings into existence.

1.28. But to whatever course of action the Lord at first appointed each (kind of beings), that alone it has spontaneously adopted in each succeeding creation.

1.29. Whatever he assigned to each at the (first) creation, noxiousness or harmlessness, gentleness or ferocity, virtue or sin, truth or falsehood, that clung (afterwards) spontaneously to it.

1.30. As at the change of the seasons each season of its own accord assumes its distinctive marks, even so corporeal beings (resume in new births) their (appointed) course of action.

1.31. But for the sake of the prosperity of the worlds he caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs, and his feet.

And intriguingly, much later in the Smriti it is said,

9.67. That chief of royal sages who formerly possessed the whole world, caused a confusion of the castes (varna), his intellect being destroyed by lust.

However, the true give away of the fouling of the original Smriti that apparently originated before the advent of Atharva veda (1.23) is the mention of Upanishads in it that succeeded the same (6.29)

1.23. But from fire, wind, and the sun he drew forth the threefold eternal Veda, called Rik, Yagus, and Saman, for the due performance of the sacrifice.

6.29. These and other observances must a Brahmana who dwells in the forest diligently practise, and in order to attain complete (union with) the (supreme) Soul, (he must study) the various sacred texts contained in the Upanishads.

So, instead of bashing the Manu Smriti a la flogging the dead horse riding a blind ass, it pays the mankind to discard the redundant chaff to nourish itself on the pristine grain in Manu’s ancient granary.

Have Hindus Become More Intolerant, Or less Indulgent?

 

When the Semitic free run on the Hindu turf under Sonia’s proxy watch ended with the ascent of Narendra Modi onto the Delhi gaddi, the Indian agendas of the Christian west and the Muslim umma faced impediments resulting in the brouhaha over the growing religious intolerance of Hindus towards India’s minorities. Given the racial biases and the religious prejudices of both against the Hindus and that the world media, by and large is controlled by them, a critical appraisal of their propaganda with objective lenses is called for.

Hence, as the accusation is on the religious ground, it is imperative that the theocratic credos of Islam and Christianity as well as the philosophical ethos of santana dharma aka Hinduism, the only surviving ‘way of life’ of yore on earth, are to be reckoned with.

The pristine precepts of Hinduism are -

Narō Nārayana

Man is but God,   

Vasudhaiva kutumbakam

Holds world all in one household, and

ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti.

What is right is One only, describe it wise variedly.

However, in time, as the broad ‘man is but God’ became the narrow ‘caste is the creed’, the so-called Hindu upper castes, so as not to suffer all and sundry, turned head on the unifying ‘holds world all in One household’ into the divisive ‘sunder castes men on earth’. What is worse, they managed to push the so-called lower castes into untouchable dalit ghettos on the peripheries, and far away from temples of their gods.   

It was into such an Indian setting that the Muslim vandals, spurred by the Quranic credo of loot and rapine, made their way to render it unto Islam. However, setting aside the Muslim penchant to force the conquered populace into their alien faith, for the most part, the craving of the deprived-of-god dalits for a religious hold that could have furthered their Islamic cause to convert. Nevertheless, the self-absorbed upper caste Hindus were indifferent to the socially inimical development that began to upset the demographics of their ancient land even as the progeny of the converted began to imbibe the ethos of Islam that underscores their inseparable separateness from the non-believers that is besides inculcating hatred towards them with Quranic diktats such as –

     “Your friend can be only Allah: and His messenger and those who believe, who establish worship and pay the poor due, and bow down (in prayer).”

“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.”

“Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security. Allah biddeth you beware (only) of Himself. Unto Allah is the journeying.”

“Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of idols. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo! the devil’s strategy is  very weak.”

 “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 is not for any Prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land. Ye desire the lure of this world and Allah desireth (for you) the Hereafter, and Allah is Mighty Wise.”

However, the haughty upper caste Hindus, who according to Alberuni thought ‘there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no kings like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs”, never deemed fit to grasp the nitty-gritty of the alien faith and instead could have falsely assumed that it would be but a benign variant of their own dharma, ‘what is right is One only, describe it wise variedly’, and thus saw no need to contain its growth in their midst  for which their progeny paid the Islamic price in the form of Pakistan a millennium later.

In that setting, while the upper caste Hindus, who dismissed the Islamic invaders as mlechchas, also derided the converts as katuas, owing to their circumcision that their new faith ordained, the new-found religious aggressiveness of the latter coupled with their age-old social grievance could have ensconced them in an impotent rage. However, the fact that the intruders happened to lord over their erstwhile oppressors would have afforded some vicarious pleasure to the Indian Musalmans. Yet, in a remarkable social intercourse, the newly minted Muslims that gloated  over the reflected glory of the new rulers and the upper caste Hindus, who laid store on their perceived superiority over all others, managed to live together tenuously though, which, in later days, the left-liberals came to romantically falsify as ganga jamuna tahjeeb.

Then, when the eight-hundred years old Islamic semi-dominance over India was on the wane, the Christianity spread its religious wings under the aegis of the British Raj, ostensibly to reform the Hindu heathens that the Bible holds in utter contempt in psalms such as -

“Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” 2:8

“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” 2:9

“Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.” 9:5

“Thou hast given us like sheep [appointed] for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.” 44:11

“But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.” 59:8

“Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.” 79:6

So, starting from the dalit bastis, the evangelists forayed further into the tribal tandas to spread Christianity by means fair and foul. However, as their catchment areas were peripheral to the Brahmin agraharas and the upper caste quarters, the Christian demographic alarm failed to wake them up from their slumber of indifference though unyoked from the Islamic hegemony by then. And to make matters were for them, Macaulay came up with his Minute on Indian Education, which, among other things was aimed to divest the Hindus from their “false history, false astronomy, false medicine, in company with their false religion” with the right western education.

However, while the Musalmans, fearing that the western education would lead to the dilution of Islamic faith among their wards, avoided Macaulay like a plague, the Hindus embraced him willy-nilly giving up their ‘haughty’ indifference to other faiths end ending up with ‘naive’ indulgence towards them. What is worse, from the Hindu point of view, the Macaulay education, over time, succeeded in making them have a dim view of the sanatana dharma of their progenitors and skeptical about all things Hindu be it its history, astronomy, medicine, culture etc. If anything, Gandhi in later years, to put it in the Hindi phase, turned out to be Macaulay’s baap, for he professed that “Hindus should not harbour anger in their hearts against Muslims even if the latter wanted to destroy them. Even if the Muslims want to kill us all we should face death bravely. If they established their rule after killing Hindus we would be ushering in a new world by sacrificing our lives.” But it was Nehru, who symbolized the fruition of the Macaulay mission for he not only proclaimed that “I’m English by education, a Muslim by culture, just born a Hindu by accident” but also conducted himself accordingly.

It’s thus, when it came to choosing the first Prime Minister of what is left of India after Jinnah had parted with parts of its land to establish Pakistan for the Musalmans, it’s no mere coincidence that Gandhi threw his heavy weight behind the Muslim-oriented Nehru and against the Hindu-minded Patel. Immediately thereafter, true to his character, Nehru strained every nerve to ensure that the Indian Musalmans did not migrate in numbers to Pakistan though the raison d'être of India’s partition was their assertion that they cannot co-exist with the Hindus.  What is worse, he was allergic to the persecuted Hindu refugees from the then East Pakistan and even wanted them to be pushed back into it never mind their annihilation by the Bengali Musalmans therein, so to say, to put Gandhi’s preaching into practice. In the light of the above, and his reported obeisance, besides that of his daughter Indira and his great-grandson Rahul, to the Islamic invader Babur’s grave in Afghanistan, should be seen the conjecture that his own grandfather was a Musalman with Nehru nom de guerre. 

Hence, it could not have been a mere coincidence that Nehru placed Hindu India’s educational reins in the hands of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who publicly voiced his fears that post-partition, the Muslim minority in the Hindu majority India would be disadvantaged. So, so to say, during his decade-long helm at India’s ‘secular’ education, the clever Maulana succeeded in making it seem to the vulnerable Hindu minds that the Muslim rule over their ancient land was but a natural Islamic course all the while downplaying their ancestral resistance to the same. Neither is the fact that four more Musalmans, all appointed by either by Nehru or Indira, reigned supreme in the corridors of Indian education for about nine more years, all of which was during the first thirty years after India’s independence, could be more than mere coincidence. It’s no wonder the Hindus who adorned that office in between these worthies or those that came later dared not alter the Nehruvian educational course set by the Islamic credo that insensibly became the non-violable creed of the Indian school curriculum till date.

It was in this continuing Hindu tragic play, Indira leased the academic stage to the Hindu-allergic and Islamapologic leftists in lieu of their political props, to let them shape and sustain the Hindu-inimical narrative for over five decades. Thus with the State’s patronage, the dubious leftists by adding the deceitful liberal suffix, managed to spread their anti-Hindu tentacles into every sphere of intellectual activity with impunity, thereby unerringly shaping an inalienable idea of India in which the Islamo-Christian communalism is deemed as secular and Hindu cultural assertion is regarded as communal. This obnoxious narrative on one hand gave fillip to Muslim separateness, displayed by skullcaps, even on kids’ heads, and on the other, fuelled the Christian urge to harvest the dalit and the tribal souls for the cause of Jesus, and any Hindu concern on either count came to be derided as religious intolerance. It was as if the Hindu feelings didn’t count in their own country, even after its partition on religious grounds, and when their pent-up anger erupted in Ramajanma Bhoomi movement resulting in the hot-headed demolition of the Babri Masjid, built over Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir in Babur’s time, the left-liberal ecosystem ensured that the entire Hindu community was engulfed in secular shame.

However, ten years later, when a Muslim mob at Godhra torched alive fifty-two Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya to their native places in that Sabarmati Express resulting in the retaliatory rioting in Gujarat, even as the Mullahs tuned in “Islam is a religion of peace”, the Muslim intelligentsia proclaimed the growing Hindu communalism as the bane of secular India, of course to the nodding Islam naïve Hindu heads. It was this Hindu intellectual apathy that failed to produce even a single book on Islam in thousand years of its Indian presence (save Ambedkar’s stray, though incisive, thoughts on Islam and not counting Chamupati Lal’s thirty-four page Hindi booklet, Rangeela Rasool, published anonymously though, some hundred years before then that is available even now in the internet, which, anyway, was only about Muhammad’s unbridled libido that too as a retort to some Muslim derogatory writings in the form of Krishna teri geeta jalani padegi and Uniseevi sadi ka maharshi) that prompted this writer, innately a novelist, to come up with his Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife ( A Critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity ‘n More).

While Rajpal Malhotra, the publisher of Rangeela Rasool, was murdered by a teenaged Musalman in 1929, there were no takers for Puppets of Faith in 2003, even as the rejection slip sent by one desi publisher is a giveaway.

I enjoyed reading the book. But I suggest you read Dr. Zakaria’s “Communal Rage in Secular India”. Your book is a bit Strident and could prove dangerous in wrong hands (Hindu fundamentalist).  

What is to be noted is the Muslim communal grip on the Hindu secular mind, though it is another matter that this writer’s work has been in the public domain as free ebook for long without either raising Islamic hackles or fuelling Hindu fundamentalism, if ever there was.

It was in that Indian setting, the Italian Sonia could catapult herself into such a political position to be able to direct its administrative course to further the Christian evangelical drive, to fuel the Islamic fundamentalism and to demean Hinduism as saffron terrorism. No wonder that the Christian democracies and the Muslim autocracies alike toasted her decade-long proxy rule as the golden period of religious tolerance in the annals of the Indian Republic. But for the media coverage of her unbridled avarice and the idiocy of her heir apparent, she might have had her Hindu-inimical way in India for some more time but then as karma caught up with her in the Hindus’ karma bhoomi, she was busted at the hustings by Narendra Modi, who managed to stir the nationalistic feelings among the Hindus like none before him.

However, the advent of Modi on India’s political firmament coincided with the spread of internet therein that began to reveal unflattering facets of Gandhi and Nehru and the outraged Hindus lost no time in circulating the same through the emerging social media thereby taking away much of the sheen from the duo, whom the Hindu-inimical ecosystem made into demigods. But more significantly, as the nationalist Modi’s ascent to the throne uplifted the Hindu morale as never before, some enterprising began to tackle the tailor-made Indian history to serve the Nehru dynasty’s political interests to lay bare its falsities before the public through their publications, if anything more effectively in their talk shows in the TV channels as well as in the social media platforms that came to abound. The net result of it all is that the Hindus have become more aware of the intolerant Islamic credo and the subversive evangelical creed that were together downplayed by the Nehruvian left-liberal kabal thus far, and so became less indulgent towards both, which is galling to the Hindu-inimical forces within and without that have come to orchestrate the chorus of India’s religious intolerance.

Be that as it may, Narendra Modi, on whom the resurgent Hindu multitudes pin their hopes to blind the Semitic demographic eyes that are cast on India, while going about it must take cognizance of Niccolo Machiavelli’s following advice in The Prince.

 “So it should be noted that when he seizes a state the new ruler ought to determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He should inflict them once for all, and not have to renew them every day, and in that way he will be able to set men’s minds at rest and win them over to him when he confers benefits. Whoever acts otherwise, either through timidity or bad advice, is always forced to have the knife ready in his hand and he can never depend on his subjects because they, suffering fresh and continuous violence, can never feel secure with regard to him. Violence should be inflicted once for all; people will then forget what it tastes like and so be less resentful. Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better. Above all, a prince should live with his subjects in such a way that no development, either favourable or adverse, makes him vary his conduct.”

So, Modi must inflict some secular injuries on the communal minded Muslims and the Christians on the ground that -

i) Muslims aver that all non-Muslims are kafirs and the Christians assert that Hindus are heathens, which flies in the face of the secular dictum that all men are equal.

ii) When all men are equal, as their gods cannot be unequal, the proclamation by Muslims in the Azan that There is none worthy of worship except Allah and the Christian propagation of Jesus’ words, “I am the Way, and the truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (John 14:6), are alike untenable.

iii) What is worse, while Muslims inculcate hatred in the believers against kafirs in the masjids, they let the religious education in the madrasas poison the minds of their youth to perpetuate hatred against the others in their umma, the Christian evangelists falsely propagate that the Hindu gods and deities are false, both of which are detrimental to the communal harmony in our country.

iv) The Muslim goal to usher in Ghazwa-e-Hind by Islamizing India through their unbridled procreation coupled with the illegal Islamist infiltration into it, and the evangelical agenda to bring all Hindus into the Christian fold are at odds with the preservation of India’s sovereignty and integrity.

Hence,

a) The Article 25 of the Indian Constitution that guarantees the freedom of conscience, the freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion to all citizens should be amended to desist any from propagating their religion though they are free to profess and practice the same. (Read the chapter ‘Constitutional Amnesia’ in Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife cited above)

b) All should be prohibited from making divisive suggestions such as, There is none worthy of worship except Allah, Hindu gods and deities are false, salivation is possible only through belief in the Christ, at the pain of imprisonment, punitive fines, and /or both.   

c) The propagation that non-Muslims are kafirs and the Hindus are heathens, both destined to hell, should be prohibited at the pain of imprisonment, punitive fines, and /or both.      

d) Madrasas, under the guise of religious education, should not be allowed to inculcate hatred in its pupils towards other faiths and their followers and masjids should be barred from doing the same through divisive sermons at the pain of their closure (now there’s the French precedent), imprisonment of its mullahs and punitive fines. 

e) All religious exhortations or encouragement for unwarranted population expansion in any community with the intent to upset the existing demographic balance of the Indian polity should be prohibited at the pain of imprisonment, punitive fines, and /or both.

f) All religious personal laws should be invalidated by the Uniform Civil Code for the whole of India.

g) Last but not the least, the Bangladeshi Muslim intruders should be disenfranchised to begin with and to be deported eventually, if need be by coercing Bangladesh to have them back.

Modi may appreciate that while Raj dharma of sanatana dhanrma - ahimsa paramo dharmaha / dharma himsa thadhaiva cha (nonpareil is non-violence / nonetheless is righteous outrage) ordains him to take recourse to the above measures to avert India’s second partition down the line for the Quran that made Musalmans press for the first partition because they cannot co-exist with the Hindus  would remain the same (it’s another matter though that they have become the most pampered lot in India), his political acumen should prompt him into ushering in comprehensive legislative and administrative measures some six months or so before the 2024 parliamentary polls, so that his possible return to power then would be deemed as the public endorsement of the same, once and for all, to silence and all.

Needless to say, it may not be lost on Modi that knowingly or unknowingly, he had been following Machiavelli’s second advice - benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better – for the benefit of his party, and so he can disregard the first dictum of the political genius only at the cost of India’s ruin.