When Germany is Christian, is India Hindu?

Love it 😀

Ananya’s response here is the classic argument of the Indian Left who are masters at self-contradiction and deception. They will fight ‘imperialism’ and rant against ‘colonialism’, but rush to the UN for help in all matters Indian despite knowing well that the UN is controlled by the West and is used by it to arm-twist and browbeat countries into submission. The Indian Left despises the US and Europe for what they do in the middle-east but happily welcome their intervention in India in almost all matters. They rant and rave against the predominant Hindu-ness of India only claiming to be against religious identity but in the same shameless breath they encourage and even work with Islamists and christian missionaries to maintain THEIR religious identities and increase tensions with the Hindus . They strive to unite the muslims and christians of India on various platforms but do their best to divide the Hindus by caste. They will fight what they call majoritarianism but will sit by idly as minoritarianism becomes selfish, anti-national, and tyrannical. They will foam at the mouth and abuse the Hindus for the destruction of the Babri mosque but either ignore the breaking of the bamiyan Buddhas or minimize it. Or in the guise of scholarship spread false revisionist theories from academic perches about how the destruction of scores of ancient Hindu temples or the disappearance of Buddhism from India was due to the Hindus themselves and not muslim invaders. This, despite the records left behind by embedded historians of the invading islamists in India and abroad and the murderous, intolerant, and iconoclastic activities of their modern day avatars. They encourage the muslims and christians who want supremacy for their religious laws over Indian secular laws while militating against the Hindus who would even dare to ask the State to respect their rights. They delegitimize Hindus and desacralize Hinduism while actively promoting to legitimize other religions and endorsing their demands regardless of how narrow they might be and how intolerant of progressive values. Even Anjana’s willingness to make a small jab at Islamic law by calling some of it “archaic” and to softly scold the Indian Christian church by citing a rather trifling incident are insincere and meant to deprecate Hinduism by contrast.

The Left succeeded in helping provide the Indian Govt the power to interfere with the day-to-day administration of Hindu temples and the right to use temple finances but violently pressure the Govt to stay out of mosque and church managements.
They seem to oppose, as Ananya does here, the labeling and categorization of India but only if that favorably highlights Hinduism. She (and they) stands exposed for many reasons not just because of her underlying prejudice against Hinduism (showing her deep-seated bias, she cites only the Ayodhya temple issue and caste as examples of the maladies afflicting India and claims that they are problems of religious identification). Neither Islamic terrorism nor aggressive Christian conversion activities are problems of religious identification for her.

Ananya in all likelihood will never admit that Hindu religious identification is not the problem because the Hindus don’t wish to convert anyone and there is no competitive religiosity from their side. Religious identification is a problem because the muslims and Christians want special laws and both of them wish to convert all Hindus (if Hindus want such laws now it is to counter these demands). Hindus cannot and should not sit idle and let themselves and their culture be demolished (after centuries of helplessly watching conquest, conversion, and killing) because some brain-washed, westernized Indian and a white-liberal-wanna-be wishes to sacrifice them on the altar of some half-baked ideal she picked up in the US academy!

Unless Ananya doesnt mind getting converted (the rest of us do mind), she had better start targeting only intolerant-religious-identification and not all religious identification. Because, without the spirituality of the Hindus, India will lose its culture which, whether she likes it or not, is indisputably unique because of its Hindu-ness . Whether we call it a Hindu country or not is not important as long as India always retains its essential hindu identity. Or else it may well become like one of the several intolerant countries of the middle east. Even America for all its secularism is based on Judeo-christian culture which reveals itself at every turn and everywhere and is the predominant cultural element in American life. But people like Ananya would not dare to change that as long as they can get a visa to live there and a job in the academy that they end up serving to the detriment of their birth cultures. Let her try to alter the status quo and she will face reality and the full wrath of the average American.

How does digestion of Hinduism by Christianity works

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=147676145424557

One of the outrage heard from the Leftists Pseudo secularists who I call “Sick”-ularists is the caste system.. OMG..the horrors of the Caste system they wail. Although I have to admit the caste system is nothing to “Jim crowe” about, it never went down as evil as the christian caste system of slavery and lynchings and the Holocaust. Let me not even mention Islam and its iconoclasm of destroying others faith.

For the most part the Caste thingi was an offense of giving slight to someone..not physical violence (with some anecdotal exception of course). The caste endogamy is not very mcuh different from the caste endogamy practiced by the Amish christians of western Pennsylvania.

IF some Brahmins (I am not a Brahmin..BTW) felt that they need to have a bath after coming in touch with me….although I may feel offended, all I can do is accuse them of giving me slight.. They have done nothing that would be construed as illegal even today in the United States.. Every individual has a fundamental right to thinking they are the king of the hill. or that they are Gods own chose lot, .PROVIDED they do not use that to exert dominion over others.

If in the last 5000 years of Indian History, all the evil others can show about Hindus and Hinduism is the caste system… It should be crowned as of the best religions in the world along with other Dharmic faiths like Buddhism and Sikhism, JAinism, Zorastrianism and even Judaism (A non evangelical Abrhamic faith)

The Left of India is working diligently to make India the Haiti of Asia.

Poverty and churches everywhere.

I as a “secular” “liberal” Hindu am willing to burn any Hindu religious text (The ManuSmrithies) while the “secular Muslims and secular christian are willing to burn the Quran, the Hadiths and the babel”. respectively

What say you Bengali lefties. named Banerjees and Mukhrajees and other vile names such as that….. you “secularist” “Liberals” of India..would you join me in this symbolic rejection of all things vile in each others religion? You tell me what o part of Hinduism is an abomination to Humanity and I will burn in public provided Muslims and Christians burn their scriptures that we Hindus find offensive

What say ye You phony “secularist” and phony “liberals” of India?

LORD McAULEY succeeded in his started in 1835 AD !!!

I began by wondering about why Europeans or Americans are occasionally found, who are all hot and bothered about such an erroneous perception, about something they are usually incompetent to hold opinions. It then struck me that they usually interact with a very thin slice of Indian society, one that likely lacks any sustained religious engagement of any kind because they recoil from the sort of ritualistic, mythology-based practice that goes for Being Hindu, especially since the rise of political Hinduism which is both chauvinistic and far removed from Hinduism’s rich philosophical foundations. This slice of society is very easy to condemn as ‘westernised’ and disloyal to their culture. I thought I would write to set right this western (in this case, German?) misperception about either the representative character of those nominal Hindus they met or the understandable basis of the latter’s reluctance/unwillingness to be identified with ‘political’ Hindus, who constitute a vocal minority spread around the world.
Only on getting ready to enter my reply, and reading some of the ongoing correspondence, did I realise with a shock that this site is actually dominated by precisely the sort of Hindu chauvinists who give Hinduism a bad name and offend the sensibilities not only of the thin westernised slice of the Hindu.community but also Hindus of greater spiritual depth, who are not in thrall to mediaeval xenophobia, ignorance and superstition, whose engagement with the religion is based on its deep philosophical content and not on their most ignoble instincts. Judging by the tenor and tone of most comments – with a site like this one, who needs ‘phony Hindus’?
.

Nice try, Probir. You don’t leave the impression of being a Hindu of “greater spiritual depth”. You just reinforce the idea that some people like you use your Hindu names to ambush Hindus and delegitimize them! Why don’t you try using your “deep philosophical content” to protect India from the Islamic terrorist and aggressive Christian proselytization which has used democracy to homogenize India and reduce its pluralism and in effect christianize India. Kanyakumari is now 50% Christian and many other Indian towns and cities are changing rapidly. Don’t fool yourself and others who know something about what is going on the ground. You can meanwhile sit crosslegged and keep floating in the clouds (that is if you are even Hindu) while the rest of us work to save the likes of you from becoming the victims of swords or crosses! Otherwise you types will take us all and India down with you.

Hindu India or Secular India, what difference does it make, when India cannot feed half its kids with a simple meal? That said, to say that Hinduism is better than Christianity is all nonsense. All Religions are hogwash, period. Religions are there for the business of making money. Religion began in the world, when the first fool met the first trickster, and has since continued to fool the gullible and weak-minded people. The primary goal of religion is collection of money, is it not?

In Hinduism, there is no concept of equality of people. It is built on the crap called Manu Dharma. It is all about division of labour, division of people and the users and the used, racist to the core.

One should go to the local Hindu ‘Temple’ in Pearland Texas and see what they do. The main goal is making money, just like all the Churches. It is all about the Collection Basket or the Hundi. How much money can we collect, that is their primary goal!

Hinduism or Christianity is not important in life. The primary goal for kids should be to get good education and skillsets and develop confidence in life, to take proper decisions and think out for themselves in this competitive world.

feel free to translate it. kindly give a link to the original article when it is published.

Growing up, in the 60s, we learnt that ‘secular’ meant equality of all religions, majority or minority, a far cry from the shrill Hindu bashing that seems to have taken over the discourse today, especially amongst our ‘TV’ intellectuals! As right thinking Indians and Hindus, we speak up against atrocities perpetrated in the name of Hinduism. How often have you seen something similar with the minority religions? Unless of course, our secular friends would have us believe that no atrocities are committed in the name of our minority religions!! Godmen

Ghosh? another Bong. Iearned recently that they actually teach Maoism and other communism as part of Bengali school education.

Ha Ha Ha!

In the true spirit, yes… it is true. But this philosophy should be acceptable to other religions too which is not the case. Unfortunately it is the Hindus only who speak like this… bending their backs for others to climb on and dance! Several generations of such a stance has resulted in the Hindus being marginalized in their own country… The relaxed stance of our fore-fathers in India have resulted in the present plight of the Hindus. The privileged minorities have started misusing the special privileges they got to overpower the meek and unresponsive Hindus! I’m not arguing in favor of the Hindu fundamentalist… but certain level of organized activity is essential at this point to ensure that our future generations also live a decent life.

I agree completely with Subhashji… we have to be practical at this point of time… and if not, our remnants will remain in museums and libraries (if they don’t destroyed like what happened to the Bamiyan Buddhas!)

[…] response to something that I stumbled across here -a post titled ‘WHEN GERMANY IS CHRISTIAN, IS INDIA […]

No matter what you say, even the worst in Hinduism or the worst eviI Hindus have done is no where close to 1% of the evil done by christians, Muslims and Communists.

Do you even understand taht simple fact?

http://www.nobeliefs.com/luther.htm

Although Luther did not invent anti-Jewishness, he promoted it to a level never before seen in Europe. Luther bore the influence of his upbringing and from anti-Jewish theologians such as Lyra, Burgensis, (and John Chrysostom, before them). But Luther’s 1543 book, “On the Jews and their lies” took Jewish hatred to a new level when he proposed to set fire to their synagogues and schools, to take away their homes, forbade them to pray or teach, or even to utter God’s name. Luther wanted to “be rid of them” and requested that the government and ministers deal with the problem. He requested pastors and preachers to follow his example of issuing warnings against the Jews. He goes so far as to claim that “We are at fault in not slaying them” for avenging the death of Jesus Christ. Hitler’s Nazi government in the 1930s and 40s fit Luther’s desires to a tee.

So vehemently did Luther speak against the Jews, and the fact that Luther represented an honorable and admired Christian to Protestants, that his written words carried the “memetic” seeds of anti-Jewishness up until the 20th century and into the Third Reich. Luther’s Jewish eliminationist rhetoric virtually matches the beliefs held by Hitler and much of the German populace in the 1930s.

One needs to understand the origin of Roman concept called Religion. By design it has less individualistic spirituality. They twisted Buddhist Sangha to create fanatic utterly materialistic cannon-fodder for their imperialism. They first divided Jews by using the name of Jesus / Yeshu, whom they had persecuted because he was a threat in tax collection, by enticing some of the native Jews court promotions and material wealth and a promise of seat in heaven (for which they had to write a new book called -Bible). This cannon fodder was used to attack natives of Europeans and same thing was repeated to create bigger cannon-fodder of new converts.

MohMad Bedouini of 7th century perfected this Roman technique. Result is civilized Persians, Kurds, Assyrians, Coptics were all destroyed. They lost their culture, language, connection to their ancestors. One Book, One Khilafa, One Language but no spirituality or humanity. One type of Khajur trees being planted every where, even in lush green tropics and also in cold frigid Himalayas.

Colonialism, Slavery etc are AbraHaramic offshoots! One Race superior.

Marxism is also AbraHarami! One book, One Politburo, One type of governance. One type of culture for which they do Cultural Revolution in China and 10s of millions perish. They do mass killings in million in even peaceful Busdhist Combodia. Natives do not need to learn from alien book “equality”, true spiritual leaders try to achieve it even before Boshvik revolution wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Chandra

Less said about Islamic and Christian killing the better.

Present dispension ruling India is merely a proxy for AbraHaramis, who will try to destroy the roots of the natives. If that happens then world will have yet another ten times bigger Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Its becuz/// in india..when we say india is hindu country — minorities like islam population… starts saying that hindus are not secular … so hindus try to keep india as everyones equal country..not just of hindus but also of muslims and christians and other minorities ../but if this is to be continued.. hindu roots would permanently vanish away- as hinduism never converts any1 to own religion .. christian and muslims convert hindus to their religion … 🙁 some1 should pass anti-coversion bill for whole india –

[…] When Germany is Christian, is India Hindu? […]

It is good that this fellow calls himself a moron, because the first step towards change is to recognize the faults within. For that I congratulate you, for you are indeed a moron in everything you have said above.

1) Your long blather about ‘hindutva’ adds or elucidates nothing and creats merely a strawman argument. Noone is the Hindutva movement has ever claimed that their ought to be a monolithic version of ‘Hinduism’. Hindutva is merely about the preservation of Hindu cultural values, which is the same as Indian cultural values as Hindu and Indian mean exactly the same thing (‘Hindu’ from ‘Sindhu’ to mean inhabitants east of the river Sindhu, ‘Hindu’–>’Indoos’ (greek) from which ‘India’ and ‘Indian’ are derived). And that preservation is aimed squarely at the aggressive predatory abrahamic faiths that engage in cultural genocide via conversion and demand for complete obedience to their and only their way of life. Look up Savarkar’s writings and notice that he himself was agnostic and anti-caste, you fool. Yes, the temple issue in Ayodhya is about preservation of ancient Indian monuments, not about cleaving to a monolithic version of the faith. The Greeks demolished the mosque the Turks built on the Acropolis the moment they freed themselves from Islamic yoke. Hindus desire the same thing. If the Greeks reconquer Constantinopole, I am pretty sure they will want the Hagia Sophia back as well.

And merely asserting that

“And in the tussles that ensued between warring kingdoms they were brutal, killed their enemies and antagonized the opponents on basis of religion. One would be naive to believe otherwise. ”

does not make it true moron. Where is the data? The evidence? Remember, leftism is supposed to be about rationality and evidence based reasoning. Are you suggesting that there was anything resembling the bloodletting that Islamic warlords engaged in done by Hindu or Buddhist kings? Ever heard of Ashoka?

2) More rubbish about manners, cleanliness etc that has absolutely zero to do with the previous point. Like it is only leftist morons like you who see all this. It is instructive to compare the general level of development of West Bengal, ruled precisely by commie leftist morons like yourself, with the general level of development of Gujarat. It should be to your eternal shame that despite all of your contempt for religion and culture, that an Albanian nun had to come and provide services to the poor of Calcutta, and that under your watch, Calcutta became synonymous with extreme Third World poverty. How will you leftists ever live that down? It doesn’t matter, as you are beyond shame.

Oh Dear Fat Pashtun,
Finally you have shown me some light. I was doomed in darkness my lord 😀 While I cannot argue in anyway with you righteous Sir, may I as a moron lacking the gift of conviction just state some if-not-considered-facts-but-interpretations?

1) The most important and accepted cultural similarity beyond Indus was and is caste. (Even presently in a 93% Hindu dominated Bali, Indonesia while other cultural similarities though exist are also different. They actually sacrifice pig and even ‘holy cow’)

2) Coming to the ‘holy cow’ what is your stand on it, enlightened sir? Is beef-eating permissible?

3) Also I would like to ask you sir, that in certain ancient versions and folk traditions SIta is considered Ravana’s daughter. What do you think? If true, is Rama an male-chauvinist or is incest subtlety implied?

4) Depending on your answer for 3, I would like to ask dear Sir, if you consider the whole fuss about an Ram temple justified? Because, in case assuming that you say its possible for alternate interpretations of Ramayana, Ram might not be considered a big deal by many Hindus? Then on what basis is the destruction of a Mosque built like ages ago that was destroyed?

OR, i f you consider that alternate Ramayana versions are not possible, then sir please permit me to ask if this isn’t a monolithic interpretation?

Oh I get it – you consider Mosques to be non-Indian! But sir that structure was standing there for 450 years, by the founder of one of the most influential (no judgement on good or bad) empires which unlike the colonials lived, bred and died here. Sir, please elucidate the moron that is me with the criteria to judge something to be as Indian or not.

5) Are you a Savarkar groupie?? I somewhere Savarkar eulogizing ‘Manusmriti’ as second only to Upanishads (Maria, please note… this is where the ideologies of RSS/VHP stem from)

6) Plead you to google terms like ‘persecution of Buddhists in India /by hindus’ or ‘persecution of Jains’. Also sir read about how Jainism and Buddhism (which is more popular outside its country of origin) spread and waned in India. Also sir, if my memory of history serves right, Ashoka had this epiphany of non-violence in the battle field after gruesomely pulverizing the Kalingas.

7) Sir, also plead you to read about Genghis Khan. It is said that every sixth person today carries the genes from the great Khan and his armies. Despite the ‘Khan’ tag, he is not even a Muslim. He submerged an entire city of Urgench by razing a dam. Such was the havoc and ferociousness of the hordes that set out from Mongolia and central Asian steppes that the ancient Chinese kept on building walls for more than 1500 years to defend itself from the invaders. India, thanks to distance and terrain by and large was sparred the burnt of those invaders for long time (even Europe hadn’t been spared). The point being is that please not classify the atrociousness of such attacks on India by Persina/Central Asian origin kingdoms had anything to do with their being Muslim and rest being Hindus. It is also the classic difference between invaders and conquerors – the former will pilferage the riches of invaded territories, rape the women and burn down any standing structure as trophies of wars. The conquerors would want to save something from destruction and rule over the subjects. Why, Persian and Central Asian invasion continued over the Mughals. So religion has less than pure gain from the pilferage to do with invasions.

8) Sir, the left-right classification exists on two parameters (i) belief system: left = liberal, right = conservative (ii) economic preference: left = commies; right = capitalists (for your benefit, there is an emerging voice saying that capitalists are synonymous with corporatism)
So while I am leftist in the belief system I am not sure about my economic preferences. Also if it is not complicated for your understanding, I am more of anti-corporatist but not anti-capitalist. But I hold certain socialist values also. If you are still with me, I am also a libertarian.

9) Oh Sir, you have touched upon my favorite topic- Gujarat’s development (by Modi I presume). Plead you to enlighten a moron on the miracles of Modi. I am looking hard to find any objective evidence to prove that Gujarats development is any better than the top performing states and also vis-a-vis its own development before 2002. Incidentally Kerala with communist tendencies, TN with their corrupt dravidian politicos compare interestingly with Gujarat.

10) I have no clue you use Calcutta in your last part. Did I sound like a bong?

– Moron

India secular crowed is the family of Gunga Dins

1) “The most important and accepted cultural similarity beyond Indus was and is caste.”
More idiotic assertion pulled out of your ass. And who deemed this “most important” and introduced “cultural similarity” to you in your Marxist study group? Or were you all circle-jerking off to a portrait of Macauley?

2) “Coming to the ‘holy cow’ what is your stand on it, enlightened sir? Is beef-eating permissible?”
Straw man argument. It is quite clear that the vast vast majority of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains do not eat beef. Whether it should be banned completely in deference to cultural values (as horse, dog, cat slaughter is banned in the US and UK) can be politically debated and reached accommodation on. Interestingly, MacDonalds defers to Indic sensitivity and does not serve beef in India. Guess they are “communal” and “anti-muslim” as well.

3) ” Also I would like to ask you sir, that in certain ancient versions and folk traditions SIta is considered Ravana’s daughter. What do you think? If true, is Rama an male-chauvinist or is incest subtlety implied?”

So let me get this straight. Someone says that Sita is Ravana’s sister, and this makes Rama a male chauvinist? Or you think that this same “folk tradition” celebrates incest? You really live up to your moniker don’t you.

But you are indirectly making my point. The fact that these traditions exist, and noone has gone and beheaded them itself is proof of the plurality of Hinduism. But how does that take away from the desire of the *vast majority* of Hindus who believe in the standard version of the Ramayana to restore the temple in Ayodhya? I mean I think Christianity and Islam are ridiculous religions, but does that take away the holiness of Bethlehem or Mecca to their believers?

4) “Depending on your answer for 3, I would like to ask dear Sir, if you consider the whole fuss about an Ram temple justified? Because, in case assuming that you say its possible for alternate interpretations of Ramayana, Ram might not be considered a big deal by many Hindus? Then on what basis is the destruction of a Mosque built like ages ago that was destroyed?”

You should proofread what you type. As I said in 3, yes, it is justified as there are significant numbers of people who consider it their heritage and holy land. The mere existence of people who do not does not change things regarding the temple, just as the presence of Catholics does not change the significance of the Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox, or the presence of Sunnis changes the significance of Karbala to Shiites. The temple that was destroyed to build the mosque is far older, so what exactly are you going on about? And you do realize that people have been rioting over that for the past 200 years at least. There were demands to raze the mosque and rebuild the temple back in 1852 also, when the mosque was only 300 years old. Dismissing the demands of a huge number of people who are natives to the land is not going to lead to lasting peace. The temple will be rebuilt, despite the howls of your ilk, just as the mosque was torn down. Muslims could demonstrate their own Indianness by supporting the demand to build this temple.

“Oh I get it – you consider Mosques to be non-Indian! But sir that structure was standing there for 450 years, by the founder of one of the most influential (no judgement on good or bad) empires which unlike the colonials lived, bred and died here. Sir, please elucidate the moron that is me with the criteria to judge something to be as Indian or not.”

No, mosques that have been built by demolishing Hindu temples need to go, especially one built by a murderous thug who boasted about it, and never considered himself an Indian. He was as much of a “colonial” as the British, even though the British did not demolish any temples to build a church on top. There is plenty of evidence to support what happened there, despite the revisionist tactics of Marxist historians who have tried their level best to rewrite history. Apparently the ASI, and the High court in Alahabad agree. Also, for some odd reason. the Babri masjid was called “Masjid-i-Janmasthan”. Why do you think that is?

Here is a translation of the Baburnama by Beveridge:

The D.G. of Fyzabad (H.E. Nevill) p. 173 says “In 1528 AD, Babur came to Ajodhya (Aud) and halted a week. He destroyed the ancient temple “(marking the birth-place of Rama)” and on its site built a mosque, still known as Babur’s Mosque….It has two inscriptions, one on the outside, one on the pulpit; both are in Persian; and bear the date of 935 A.H.”. This date may be that of the completion of the building.

Another one from the Baburnama, from Babur himself, showing his love for Indians:

Chanderi had been in the daru’l-harb [Hindu rule] for some years and held by Sanga’s highest-ranking officer Meidini Rao, with four or five thousand infidels, but in 934 [1527-28], through the grace of God, I took it by force within a ghari or two, massacred the infidels, and brought it into the bosom of Islam … (p 331; emphasis added.)

He was also moved to poetry through his savagery:

For the sake of Islam I became a wanderer;

I battled infidels and Hindus.

I determined to become a martyr.

Thank God I became a holy warrior.

More on destroying the idolators:

“Three sides of Urwa are solid rocks, not the rocks of Biana but one paler in colour. On these sides people have cut out idol-statues, large and small, one large statue on the south side being perhaps 20 qari (yds) high. Urwa is not bad place; it is shut in; the idols are its defect; I for my part, ordered them destroyed.”

He did not like the heat of India, he found its towns and country “greatly wanting in charm”, “its people have no good looks, no manners, no genius, in work no symmetry or quality, no good horses, no good dogs, no grapes, no musk melons or no first rate fruits, no good bread”.

But other than all that, he is a great Indian, isn’t he?

5) Here is what Savarkar said about Manusmriti, in his own words, and not “what you heard somewhere”

In 1933, during the festivities of Ganeshotsav and Navratri, he delivered lectures on the Manusmriti for nine days. “Women in Manusmriti” was the title of four articles that Savarkar wrote in 1933. These were published in the progressive Marathi monthly “Kirloskar”. Savarkar’s article titled, “Excess of religious simple-mindedness” was published in February 1937 issue of ‘Kirloskar’. There is also an article by Savarkar entitled “Which is the true Sanatana Dharma?” In short, Savarkar says, “It is impossible to live acording to Manusmriti today because times have changed and the rules in the book are not applicable for all times…Manusmriti, just like any other religious text, contains many contradictions. If we regard Manusmriti as divine, we cannot explain the contradictions. However, if we regard it as a historical document, we can easily explain the contradictions. Savarkar openly differs with several things recommended in the Manusmriti. For example, Manu says that one should not marry girls who are named after constellations, trees, rivers, mountains, serpents, servants or monsters. Savarkar comments that “our conservative friends would now realize how impossible it is to abide by the rules of Manu and regard his commands as valid for all times. He further says that it is absurd to impose greatness on such texts. That attempt is laughable and prohibits progress.
In his article, “Women in Manusmriti”, Savarkar says, “We may find many passages in Manusmriti which can provide valuable guidance to today’s problems. but we should accept them because they are beneficial today, not because they were found in an ancient text and certainly not because manu’s orders are not to be transgressed. Whatever we find in Manusmriti to be harmful or ridiculous today should not be followed, but that does not make Manusmriti harmful or ridiculous. On the contrary, when compares Manusmriti with codes of other societies such as Babylon, Egypt, Hebrews, Greece and Roman, Manusmriti stands high above the rest. It deserves our respect for that”

6) Yes, that is why Buddha is regarded as the 9th avatar of Vishnu, and why Hindus name their kids “Siddharth” and “Gautam” etc. Must be because we hated them and massacred them. That must also be why the Dalai Lama is in India, and why Hindus have been protesting day and night at his presence here. Must also be why Hindus and Buddhists are at each others throats in Ladakh, Arunachal, and Sikkim, and why Bhutan has such poor relations with India.

7) Moron, read up on the cruelty committed by the Mughals and other Islamic assholes. I quoted you some from Babur, who is neither the first, nor last, nor the worst. Noone cares about Genghis Khan here. The Islamic invaders say time and again that they “do it for the glory of Islam”, and fools like you want to believe otherwise. You really are a retarded lot.

8) “Anti-corporatist” but “pro capitalist”. Your confusion knows no bounds. Look, don’t bother with right, left etc. What you are is terribly confused, ignorant, and brainwashed by leftist history. You should consider yourself a victim.

9) and 10). Gujarat has a higher GDP than West Bengal even though West Bengal has 50% more people. Start with that fact. Also google “west bengal vs gujarat” and do some reading. Kerala’s high HDI is due to its enlightened Hindu kings from before. Many princely states in India had better development than British ruled parts, which even Nehru himself stated.

Calcutta is brought up because it should be a metric by which the governance performance of leftist parties can be measured. That it is such a poverty stricken cesspit gives lies to all the other leftist assertions about the irrelevance of religion, culture etc, and only economic upliftment being a priority. Well, that being the case, what is the result on the ground? Calcutta?

It’s high time for Indian hindus to fight for their identity, INDIA IS A HINDU STATE, ALMOST 100 crore out of 121 crore population are HINDUS and rest is minority.. 80.6% of population is Hindu so why it shouldn’t be called a Hindu state? Educated class Indian hindus should stop this pseudo-secularism and read India’s history during and after muslim invasion.. Around 90 million hindus were murdered just because they
didn’t change their faith even when they were facing a sword.. You don’t know how hindus were persecuted in the past and you talk about secularism? Why only hindus have to be secular in this country? Why can’t muslims be secular? Why when a hindu talks about hindutva being labelled as a communal person? Why not a muslim be called a communal
when he/she talks about Islam? This is not secularism. So please I urge all hindus to understand the true culture of India and adhere it, Don’t just blabber about secularism.. If Nepal with It’s 80.7% hindu population is known as Hindu state, Why not India?

Moron,
(sorry, this answer did not get posted in the right place)
You got me wrong on 2 points.
A I thought I had made it clear that unverifiable and unfortunately also highly divisive ‘belief systems’ like Christianity and Islam are more harmful than a blessing. So, if belief system is religion, no, man needs no religion, but since human being are interested in what is true about them and this world, the amazing insights of Hindu Dharma are definitely helpful.
B Hinduism is not only more ‘flexible ‘ and traditionally accommodative of divergent views but is based on reason and experience and scientific insights, like all is basically one Whole. So it is clearly superior to ‘unbelievable’ stories about a separate, rather vengeful God, eternal hell etc. which are merely ‘claimed’ to be the truth.
C yes, you got me right. Indians have every reason to be proud of their heritage, and I wished they, including western educated Indians, would know more about it. There is however now a language problem thanks to the British.
Moron, did you once ask yourself why you are so uncomfortable with ‘Hinduness’? OK, media has since long derided anything Hindu, but can’t you see through it? Does it make you not suspicious, when Hindu organizations are put down, but those of other religions are respected? Or that even in Bollywood movies or TV soaps the villain more often than not has a big red kumkum mark on his forehead?

India is not a hindu state. The idea of India that belongs to everybody irrespective of religion caste and creed is a powerful idea and sets india apart from nations that define themselves narrowly on the basis of religion.This idea itself emerges from the vedanta and other hindu writings which gives equal respect to all religions.As a proud hindu, i see no contradiction in the big inclusive idea of india and my own identity as a hindu.Any true believer in India or in Hinduism must fight forces that attempt to dilute the essence of this great ‘idea’ called INDIA!

Thank you writing this!

Very good question to ponder over.. I wonder if it is due to about a thousand years history (which is a long long period to mold psyche of a nation) where foreigners ruled over Hindus and everything about Hinduism was branded inferior and worthy of contempt (it can still be seen in attitudes of converts today who consider their new faith superior just because it came from outside India), and somehow we all got fixated into this position…

May be the question should be why India should not be like the countries most similar to her, like Pakistan and Bangladesh. I am sure there will be no ambiguity about the answer.

So true.

Crap article.You seem to have a deep rooted hatred for Christianity.I appreciate your respect for Hindu culture and beiiefs.Please don’t try to fool Indians who have almost NIL idea about Western Christianity but writing lies in your blog
PS:I am an Indian catholic

you don’t represent the whole country…if u don’t think India is not a Hindu nation it is your illusion…

Maybe you ought to think about the origins of the concept of India. If all of Europe was clubbed together as one nation and Germany was only one state of the European republic you wouldn’t be so baffled by why a Dutch European is disturbed by being called an Italian.

Further, that Germany is indifferent to being called a Christian nation isn’t reason enough to follow a similar indifference. Perhaps you would like to get off your high western horse and think ‘why’ Indians are so disturbed at being called a Hindu nation.

Lastly, that Indians who dont want India to be called a Hindu nation dont mind if India is called a Muslim or Christian nation deserves a special garbage bin treatment. This thought is pure fantasy. You may love Hinduism and you may be attracted to India because of it. But leave me out of it. I do object to India being called a Hindu nation.

The British brought India all the way from Kashmir to kanyakumari and sindh baloch to Mizoram and Nagaland under unified rule for the first time ever. Post independence this entity unified by the British (and later divided by British influence) adopted a secular non Hindu constitution. And that is how my country is to be known.

I currently saw this post. I would like to say its a very well reasoned post. There are follow up comments regarding the pseudo secularists and that also sounds pretty logical. However I just want to ask all the readers, why don’t we learn Sanskrit at school? We are already bilingual by the age of 5, so learning sanskrit as a child would not be much of a problem. Why is it an optional subject?
Ananya mentions about caste system and other atrocities. But if one has ever read History books,
in the ancient Vedic system, caste system depended on your jobs, in other words it designated your jobs. In my opinion, over the course of time, as much as we would like to ignore the problems of caste system, the fact is we don’t know anything about our religion. And for starters Hinduism is not a religion (I know many will be offended at this statement),it is a philosophy.
There is no beginning to it neither an end, it represents absolute truth. Therefore there is no concept of conversion, which is quite prevalent in other Abrahamic religions. Coming back to the caste system, if it is actually dependent on the jobs we do, then why even after 67 years of independence, we are not able to make this information available to the majority?
India again can’t call itself a “Hindu” country, because according to the constitution we are Secular, socialist, Republic sovereign country, and therefore unlike our neighbors, we have to be content with the tag of democracy.

I agree with some comments, how the Leftists run to UN for every problem in India, and despise the same UN, when it fails to make a stand against the military intervention in the Middle East. I would like to say perhaps the Leftists would not have even been formed in the 1970’s , if there was no atrocities committed on the poor farmers. I am not justifying their actions, but what i’m saying is that land less laborers till this day are exploited, and to an extent we have laws protecting them (credit to the Left). Majority of the leftists come from the supposedly religious families, and were conditioned to see much of the atrocities and corruption, to the point(by the society, families) that they were disgusted with it, and formed well-entrenched prejudices(the period of 1960-1970).

However the main issue still lies in the fact, that we are simply not aware of the religion, and much of the constitution, and therefore, we are probably ashamed of our own culture, heritage, and principles

Ananya,

Maybe these days it’s lot easier to retaliate and express your own thoughts and even call them democracy.

Quite frankly how many of us know how deep is the Roots of Sanatana Dharma is ? Do we know how many vedas ( not just the 4 main but their offshoots including art, science and sports) of these ?

While it is easier to say we didn’t follow the British but unfortunately it’s also hard to deny that the young and old alike are being influenced heavily by the modern age east India company ( read western culture).

I think it is time we took such writings in a positive stride and truly work on helping realise our roots.

First of all India is not a Hindu Country. It is a secular democracy where the majority of people follow Hinduism. Ananya’s reply shows no leftist attitude. It is just the reply of an educated sensible India who has been shocked by the atrocities committed in the name of religion whether Hindu or not. A country ruled in the name of religion cannot be called a free country. Hinduism may have sacred texts and roots which give their own philosophy about the world. But it should be upto the citizens to follow that philosophy. The agitation of today’s ‘ westernised elite’ as you call them is not over the these texts or practices. The agitation is over the crimes and riots committed in the name of Hindutva and moral policing in this country which claims to have a secular constitution. And this agitation is not just over Hindutva but over any religion which claims to know better and decides the fate of the people living here.

Dude understand the basics and be proud to say you are a hindu. In your opinion, you miss out the very fact that hinduism is not a CASTE. Its just the way of life.wake up.It is OK to worship Allah and christ in hinduism. This is the result if you study in some St.XXX school. Go and study Hindu literature first. Hindus are the only people on earth who never invaded any country and forced someone to accept hinduism. Be proud and educate yourself.

‘@Ananya I think several factual mistakes have to be noted here. Firstly India has always been under threat from foreign invaders of different religion even 1200 years back. Mohmd of Ghazni invaded India in the 10th Century and plundered Hindu temples. And these were in the pretext of religion. However India as a whole has been a tolerant society due to the very principles under which hinduism was established. Secondly there is a larger political manipulation of these religious principles which leads to a negative personification of the religion itself. The caste system in itself was twisted by the political elite of India in ancient times to enable greater control over the masses. Today religion is used as a scape goat for political gain. I believe we have to see root cause here and not superficially blame a culture/ideology that has developed over 2000 years. This is not true of only Hinduism but of all religions in the world and in fact any belief system, be it atheism, universalism, liberalism, socialism etc. Fundamentally the root cause is the way human society develops methods to gain control over sections of society. It is a primal drive that makes us do it. It is something that has to be trained and beaten out of our system. The truth is our society would not change one bit even if we rid ourselves of religion because we are genetically programmed to fight to establish our belief system no matter what the cause is.

people who are intellectually opposed to the Hindu or Hinduism should opt to live in a closed Islamic country before offering any advice to the educated Indian who understands the spirituality of the Hinduism IN his heart . World will survive iff it understands the spirituality and the philosophy expounded in its scriptures or else Huttington will prove his relevance in not a very distant future.

Hats off to you ! very well said. People like Ananya should realize every word said above.

Not all bengalis think like those suckers for muslim dick- left..
I m a bengali and I believe in what you say.. It’s high time for all hindus to take a stand or soon we would become refugees in our own land like persians..

The only reason India is inclusive is because it is Hindu! Being a Hindu is a virtue because only a Hindu Nation could have been so tolerant and inclusive. We would not be having this discussion in a Muslim majority nation – that is an undeniable fact.

Hindu itself means secular – we do not need any other definition of secularism

It was the Buddha who said, “He who NURTUREs a life, has greater effect/control on that life than he who PRODUCEs it”. The producer being the physical progenitor – that is mother & father. If for any reason the Nurturer (one who raises the child/creature) is NOT the producer (father/mother) – which is quite common among humans – then the child/creature will believe/behave as per the beliefs implanted by the Nurturer. This was experimentally proved by Konrad Lorenz, for which he got the NOBEL PRiZE in 1973. I have used the word “child / creature”, because this is applicable equally to humans as well as animals. Indeed Konrad Lorenz experiment was with birds=geese, which are creatures – not human – and he NURTURED a large group of newly hatched geese into believing/behaving like humans by living with them for a period. When a real female goose (who actually laid the eggs from which these geese were hatched) was brought into the enclosure, the baby geese followed Lorenz as if Lorenz is the mother, totally ignoring the actual goose which was the actual physical progenitor/mother. The EMBEDDED system in the geese was the genetic code of geese, which got over-written by the EXTERNALLY (after birth) IMPLANTED system (the baby geese thinking they are human) as proved by Lorenz.
RELiGi0N therefore is an EXTERNALLY IMPLANTED system (=software) AFTER BiRTH, and the child/creature believes/behaves as per this EXTERNALLY IMPLANTED system (=software).
I think Abhay (see comment above – dated 17.September.2013) says it correctly.
Today SOFTWARE rules our life. 80% of the world uses WiNDOWs and 20% use LiNUX.
The source code of WiNDOWs is OWNED by Bill Gates, it is his monopoly, just like the source code (WiNDOW to god?) is owned by prophets of Semitic religions.
Hinduism is LiNUX, an open & free source code, nobody’s monopoly. Every user of LiNUX has to write his own program. Hinduism has no prophets dropping out of the sky who have exclusive ownership of the source code. Hinduism is LAW OF NATURE. Hinduism is what was proved by Charles Darwin – Survival of the Fittest. Hinduism is Sigmund Freud – as proved by the Khajuraho temples.
The PRiMAL FEAR in every creature is the fear of death. It has nothing to do with religion. Animals have no religion that we humans know of. Yet all animals fear death as much as we humans do. Do animals have a concept of god? We do not know.
In ancient days when when we did not have scientific knowledge, whenever cataclysmic events happened (Thunder / Cyclone / Earthquake / Flood / Tsunami / Volcano) we humans thought it was being caused by some unknown power. Some smart people (prophets?) said it was a specific entity (god?), gave it a name and a ready-made system to appease this specific entity. This system became religion.
The so called educated / intellectual / (intelligent?) Hindus, who were beaten by Ghazni / Ghori etc. and later by Robert Clive, suffer from an inferiority complex due to the 0pen source code of Hinduism, which if it be considered a religion, has no single prophet, no single god (Hinduism has 330 million gods), no single symbol, no systematic compulsion, no single book.
It is simply Law of Nature. Because the Semites conquered and ruled them for a thousand years, this dis-similarity between Semitics and Hinduism is what rankles them. That is why they feel inferior to Semitics and hence do not want to be known as a Hindu country.

The KEY is ORGANiZATiON !
Because: Democracy is NOT the rule of majority.
Democracy is the rule of 0RGANiZED MiN0RiTiEs !

Okay, Then go and live in a muslim majority country like pakistan and try to convey ur message of secularism to them.. Please read India’s history before commenting bs about hinduism and hindus.. Hindus faced the worst genocide in the history of mankind..90 million hindus were brutally murdered by these so called secular muslims… Aurangzeb demolished ram mandir in Ayodhya 300 years ago and built babri masjid that spot..How come that was right and demolition of babri masjid in 1992 was not? Please keep ur secularism shit with you and let us true hindus- The real sons and daughters of this land live.. Everyone just gung ho over Gujrat riots but no one even cares abt Hindu genocide by muslims from 1200-1700 AD.. Don’t believe me? Go and read “Persecution of hindus” on wikipedia before you comment again.. 90 million hindus were butchered in the name of conversion.. Secularism is nothing but Gandhi’s monkeys’ shit..

Pandit is absolutely correct.

We Hindus must unite to save our Holy Mother Land & MUSt Vote for BJP
THE congress SMAJWADI cOMMUNISTS ARE BLACK SHEEP & TRAITER

When I read some Upanishads, I was stunned at the profundity. Here was expressed in clear terms what I intuitively had felt to be true, but could not have expressed clearly. Brahman is not partial; it is the invisible, indivisible essence in everything. Everyone gets again and again a chance to discover the ultimate truth and is free to choose his way back to it. Helpful hints are given but not imposed. —– THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH. spending more time in self inquiry and following the great sage -KANCHI ‘s forum [ maha periyavaa wordpress.com ] by all the believers of this faith would change the scenario of INDIA quite soon.jaya jaya shankara hara hara shankara

Even then we can find the original manuscripts and copies of old texts in German universities. So dont worry.

you white devils are just jealous because you tried to steal our religion and your history is tainted with thievery and lies.if whites are so good then why did they come to non white continents and steal from them? why did germans use our symbol for their 6.5 million jew deaths? why couldnt you white nuissances stay in europe? you people are infidels and have the highest divorce rates and are gay and lesbians get the hell out of here and mind your own business loser!nobody likes white trash!ya keep drinking tea doing yoga watching hockey which is a native sport.

Reply to True Secularist>>Semitic, prophet based religions are Windows Religions, whose prophet is Bill Gates who SELLs you a “cut-and-dried” package. All you have to do is “CLiCK”, and prest0>>there is the package that does the job! Hinduism is LiNUX. There is No ready made package. You have to write your own program and create your own “package”. And everybody knows who is making more money: Bill Gates ! NOT Prof. Linus Torvalds !

[…] friend GV shared an article by a German named Maria Wirth yesterday, where she tells that many ‘modern’ Indians are against […]

accept your religion is great but for gods sack dont torture christians.media also doesnt report torturing and killing of christians.in india politicians and media are more inclined towards first muslims and then hindus.other religions take a backseat as they are not votebanks.

Dear Author, you have not seen the Political aspect of Hindutva. That is a group of political leaders and clergy wants to USE it for own benifit. They have done violence and crimes against humanity, in the name of religion. Hinduism is wise, and sane, but its different from being a religious person than a fanatic. To state from Swami Vivekananda, these fanatics are very sincere in their doings, but they are nothing more than a lunatic who are too very sincere in their lunacy(from ideas of an universal religion). The problem of Hinduism is that the greater texts were not spread, its thoughts not developed and discussed. There is the caste system, sati dah was made into compulsory(good thing no longer), and a lot of external rituals were presented as “the religion”

But what lies beneath? Is the caste system , and oppression of women the Pillers of Hinduism? NOT AT ALL. The religion stands on the vedanta, and the high philosophy, seeking trut, and tells to injure no one.
Then what are these? There are and were customs, rituals, dogmas, ways the “society should run”. Made by men (and some women) of Brahmin community (I belong to that though i hate caste system myself), often distorting the facts, and texts of scriptures( For example the caste was supposed to be on the work you do, not your birth. But discriminating on work too is not nice,but a lesser bad than birth caste.)
NOW, Why they did this? Bring in Karl Marx, and everything is clear. No, not the opium. Hinduism, the vedanta are not opium, they dont block you seek truth. They tell you to seek the truth. Its the CLASS. The vedantic principle should grant equal rights to all humans and rights of creatures, since brahman is in everything. But The Ruling Class, the Brahmin and the Skhatriyas wont like that due to their CLASS nature, and try to make themselves more comfortable there. They would not let women and lower caste study the scriptures so their fraud is not caught, make Social Rule Books like Manusamhita , and we saw the dark age that came after the vedic times. Its dialectics. Its only natural that lots of lower caste people converted when they saw the opportunity, apart from the forced conversion in later years.
So in a nutshell there is this beautiful source of wisdom, tainted by lots of mud of class conflicts and the mudshell is so thick people are considering the mud as the religion itself. So, instead of burning up the whole thing, we need to clean up the mud.

Fortunately there was no “central authority” in Hinduism , otherwise this mud cleaning would be fought all along.
So it needs an “update”
1.Hinduism, the core philosophies of vedanta must remain the same. Its the truth, and knowledge that the ancients left for us.

2.The ways of seeking the truth, can be left alone or modded a little bit, since its now difficult to go to forest leaving your family, and forests are now either being turned out to promoters or are maoist territory.

3.The social customs and rituals: Need an overhaul. These could have been fought, but fortunately since these were not much substancial and mostly a social function, the dialectics of the classes and society already did it for us. The festivals are already updated to the latest, nobody wants to get rid of them, and the use of LED lights in Deewali is already in. In next years there will be holograms…so we really need not worry.

4. Social exploitations must be destroyed. These are hurting both people and hinduism. Caste system is a madeup, and must be fought. There WILL be resistance, since there are Class Interests involved. But this battle is a socio political one and the class forces will make their ways here untill the class conflicts cease. When the deprived castes will understand that the quotas are not enough to lift the caste out, they will demand abolition of caste system , hopefully. But I am not going to do a class analysis of these here.

So , we would be needing an update by someone with deep spiritual knowledge to dig the real thing out of mud and give us a workable field.

Fortunately Swami Vivekananda and Sri ramakrishna did most of the works. Their Distro of Hinduism is brilliant. Its the same old thing, minus the bad stuff accumulated , mostly usable as it is now a days. Maybe you need to mod it to your preference a bit..but its mostly done work.

In my closing statement i would request the author to change her views about the “Hindutva” Since, this Hindutva movement, a political one is more concerned about
1. Restoring the medival muds. Like limiting womens freedom
2. Covering up the ancient wisdom. Harm no one does not go well with riots.
3. This is the most horrible thing, THEY want to claim THEMSELVES as “central authority” of Hinduism, therefore making DOGMAS and making hinduism like the abrahamic religions.
That would damage hinduism badly.

Thus we must not become a religious fanatic if we are to seek the truth and wisdom.

R we not silent on Hinduism topic. We simply keep murmuring on FB. Why we r not vocal? The politics in Indian has in past and at present nurtured the Minorities in the name of upliftment. We r the victims of such dirty politics. Hindus in past and at present “MINORITY” status. Its high time time that we should unit to fight and end this DISCARDED attitude by our successive political brass. Lets fight to resolve irrespective party to unitedly elect such leadership who will not only look after the need of an hour to boost the hinduism but also keep it as national agenda. So called SECULAR status is enough now. Lets stop saying that we live in secular country where mejority is being not given its due

could you give me your definition of Hindu?

OK my turn.

Why do US based scholars (Wendy Doniger, Martha Nussabum et al) malign Hinduism? What threat do they see in the old religion? Why do they keep bringing Nazis when the know very well it was the Roman Catholic Church which supported Hitler and was silent during the Holocaust? Not to mention most of the West was silent too till later in the War.

So what is the reasoning that brings them to demonize Hindus.

If you take a broad look at European history you find two main streams: Latinism and Germanism. Ancient Greece got absorbed into the Latin stream and led to Imperial Rome. Even Imperial Rome was checked by Germanic tribes (Battle of Tautoberg) and finally sacked. In the late Middle Ages it was the Christinaised Germanic tribes that were crowned as Holy Roman Empire. Depsite Charlemagen killing most of the Saxony tribal leaders(~4500)This German primacy shattered with the break-up of the empire into dukedoms and principalities. And the Gauls became Latinised with development of French. So we see the Germans becoming ahistorical for quite few centuries from 11th onwards till 18th century. Yeah, they had Martin Luther in the 16th century but it divided them more.

Napoleon’s(Franks) empire was a revival of Charlemagne’s empire and again it was the modern Prussians(old Germans) and British(Anglo-Saxons) who defeated him at Waterloo.

It was the discovery of Sanskrit and the literature that rekindled the German imagination and led to the revival of the German culture and state leading to the formation of Germany in late 19th century by Bismarck. In late 18th century we see tremendous output coming form German scholars based on ideas in Sanskrit. They started re-imagining a new world view that enabaled their rise in a sudden fashion. It took less than 100 years after discovery of Sanskrit to the creation of German nation state.

However Hitler had others demons and came up with theories to de-Judafy Christianity and go on to a new order. and that led to the Holocaust. His error was to link the Judaisation of ancient Rome via Christianity. His slogan was “Without Jews, Without Rome, We will create new order!” He did not accept the kind alternate world view in the Hindu frame of mind as reflected in Shakuntala and Gita Govinda.

When US scholars look at the picture they see that German revival which is against the Latinisation of Europe as understood by Ancient Rome, Spain, and Britain is spurred by access to the alternate world view represented by Hindusim. So they seek to prevent future Nazi Germanies by demonising Hinduism. The real issue is to kill off alternate world views to Christian Europe, even if its secularised Europe that is.

Religion is externally implanted SOFTWARE implanted AFTER BiRTH by someone who MUST have an ulterior motive in implanting it. All Semitic religions based on “Single exclusive Prophet=Moses, Christ, Mohd ; –Single exclusive 0erating manual=Torah, Bible, Koran ; –single exclusive 0perating System=Rabbi, Padre,Mullah—–are based on WiNDOWs whose prophet is Bill Gates, 0perating is the windows manual and 0perating system is MS DOS. On the other hand, Hinduism is pure LAW OF NATURE. It is based on the Linux source code which is open to all.

[…] “When Germany is Christian, is India Hindu?” got amazingly good response with thousands of Facebook likes. However, some readers felt I made a mistake by not distinguishing between good, tolerant Hinduism, which is a private belief, and bad, intolerant Hindutva, which stands for the ‘communal agenda of an extreme right Hindu party’ that wants to force uniform Hinduism on this vast country, an act which is completely un-Hindu and against the pluralism of India. […]

A great article madam. Feel a little ashamed that we sometimes hesitate or forget to remember our own heritage and greatness and tend to be blind followers. The total westernisation of our educational system ( in some ways) has lead to people not even bothering to understand hinduism – leave alone think and analyse. Superficial ritualistic adaptation is not reflective of the whole hindu philosophy. I think a lot of educated indians know it but have no easy means of correcting it due to lack of means or sheer laziness! The sheer nature of the hindu philosophy of allowing room for multiple points of view and thought process has resulted in the majority remaining silent even when the basic philosophy and faith is presented in a distorted manner! I guess it will get corrected hopefully through such informed debates and realisation!

Dear Pankaj, Hinduism is neither “That you will be pig in your next birth if you don’t do enough ‘good’ in this birth? “. and nor “ne’s who demolishes Mosque , cuts open the belly of a nine year old, and kills people for loving someone”. Here author is taking about a way of life and sins of people who belong to a caste. I hope you will read and try to get more info on Hindutva. Till then, I can only smirk at your lack of knowledge. Once you will read and get knowledge, you won’t comment like this. 🙂

Agree with everything said in the post. Modern education in India is such that in the name of empirical studies, the ancient systems of knowledge are not taught. Of course there’s a problem with the state-run institutions: They have to include all the religions in the curriculum or none. India is not Germany, and therefore, while the government of India controls the funds of all major temples—not mosques or churches—they still find it unacceptable to teach ancient Hindu texts.

The cause of this is—to put it bluntly—an enslaved and apologetic state of mind, where we, the majority Hindus, find it objectionable to protect and nurture our ancient knowledge but we don’t find it wrong that most other countries in the world profess allegiance to one particular religion—mostly Islam or Christianity.

Therefore, as someone who has studied in a Christian missionary school followed with a degree in English literature, I had the good fortune of reading the Bible in English—with things explained to me by teachers—but I’ve also had the misfortune of not reading the vast majority of the ancient Hindu texts. I’ve read the Bhagavad Gita in English too, but with no one to explain it to me. My upbringing is Hindu, my morals are Hindu, but apart from a smattering of Sanskrit shlokas, I really know little about my religion. And there’s little resources available to learn Sanskrit.

This is the situation for most Indians. The only difference is that I consider it my misfortune and try to read as much Hindu texts as I can, but that doesn’t solve the problem of millions. Because unlike me, others do not have the patience, the access to, and the money for books. As a result, most of us—and this is reflected in some of the comments—equate ancient Hindu philosophy with rituals and crude suppositions like “being born as a pig in the next birth”.

We are living in a time where the intellectual discourse is aiding the process of devaluing Hinduism instead of checking it. People with high degrees in liberal arts and sciences—which has become the benchmark of intellectual thought—make repeated references to the injustices of the caste system. But they either do not know or—by design—fail to mention the philosophy of the Upanishads and the Vedantas. This polarises the discourse on Hinduism heavily against the Hindu way of life—and the superior facets of Hinduism is pushed out into the shadows and out of “intellectual” discourse.

However, the fears of many regarding a “Hindu” revival is both real and selfish. Real, because there are elements that equate their Hindu identity as being anti-Others. This “Other” can be anybody—a Muslim, a Christian, or a thinking Hindu like myself who doesn’t agree with the Manu Samhita in toto. And selfish, because the brand of “intellectualism” that has gained currency in the past 60 years will probably fail to find buyers—quite literally—and therefore fear of losing their influence and losing their money makes them badmouth something that they fear but don’t really understand. For many therefore, it’s profitable to fear and hate “Hindutva”.

In several other forums I’ve been called colourful names by both camps—such as “secular dog”, “rabid communal hate-monger”, “Sanghi”, etc.

For me, I neither fear Hindutva, not hate it—I’m a Hindu and it’s a part of me, a part that I would like to understand better. For many it means a violent repercussion against Muslims in particular (including others) because of India’s long, bloodied history of Muslim persecution of Hindus—but for me, it’s about spreading the message of the ancient Hindu texts that upholds the validity of all faiths, accepts the divinity in everyone, and encourages one to stand “for” Dharma.

Nothing other than education will solve the average Hindu’s identity crises and anxieties about Hinduism. And unless the govt takes it up, I don’t see it happening.

Thank you Maria Wirth for this thought provoking article I will recommend you to read this Arthamulla Indhumadham by Kannadhasan in Tamil.

Dear Maria,
That was the best article, and unbiased, I’ve ever read on religious subjects. I may be able to help you understand why Hindus in India hate being called Hindus. Hindus are vastly divided on the basis of caste and even language. People live in the neighborhood where other are of the same caste and speak a similar language. people even sometimes dislike or hate people who are not of the same/similar caste. This practice is still prevalent. It is believed that Aryans came to India thousands of years ago and ruled the tribal/aboriginal population of India and they were the ones who created the caste system. People who were put into lower-caste were mistreated and not given any privileges. This went on for a long time. Now, it is not so bad as it used to be in the past. But it is the reason why people are still divided on terms of caste.
Our politicians know this fact very well and so first they dived the states on basis of language and not the conditions or terrains of the areas. Divide and rule was the formula. Then the politicians started influencing the people and kept telling them how people from other caste were bad in the past (not referring to the present condition where there is hardly any caste bias other than among the illiterate population ). Now we have innumerable regional parties which have caste leaders and the whole party ideologies are based upon caste. You must have heard/read about Ms.Mayawati and her party BSP. She started her politics on the grounds of improving the condition of lower-caste people but she did nothing except for hundreds of scams and building her life-size statues. So, the politicians know that they have to do certain gimmicks to stay in power.
Now I’ll try to tell why we are not a ‘Hindu’ country anymore. As you know, Muslims have 8-10 children per family as opposed to 2-3 (or one) of the Hindu families. The Muslim population stands at (close to) 25-28 crore ( 1 crore = 10 miilion) i.e. about 20% of the population. This is according to the official government figures. The population and census figures are released every 10 years. Last one was in 2011 but the Muslim population figures were not made public. The actual numbers are much higher. Muslims are a sizable vote-bank and the politicians know it. In the state of West Bengal, the Muslim population is 30% (or more) and the Chief Minister (head of the state), Ms.Mamta Banerjee knows this. That is the reason why she is often seen attending Islamic functions and wearing the skull cap. Despite being a Hindu, she was never seen attending any functions or rituals of Hindus or Christians. Most, if not all, Muslims vote for her. She secured 37 out of 39 parliamentary seats in the recent elections. You know the reason now.
Same goes for our oldest political party Congress (Indian National Congress). This party is the best example of appeasement politics. They massacred 3000 people from Sikh community in 1984, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was murdered by her Sikh bodyguards. But now we had a Sikh Prime Minister for 10 years, just to convey the Sikh voters that “Look we are secular”.

The so-called secular politics has created a divide between Hindus. Hindus in the apparently lower-class are often told that they are being mistreated and they have a future while they are still Hindus. So a large number of people convert to Christianity and Buddhism every year. While there is nothing wrong in being Christian or Buddhist. In case of India, these 2 communities and few other (Jains, parsi) have been very peaceful and there are no cases, in my knowledge, of reported act of violence against anyone from the community. But I think a person should have religious-freedom, i.e a right to choose his/her religion by free will and not by force or brain-washing. Say for example, I wish to become a Buddhist in a few years from now, it’s the best religion (or way of life) but I don’t want anyone forcing or convincing to do so.

Apart from politicians, there is a second kind of community, the Journalists. Well, Journalists are biased all over the globe but it is, I think, a bit more in here. Most of the news-channels are owned by national and regional parties (most by Congress). So they show the “dark-side” of people who talk in the interest of Hindus. Actually I’ll be branded communal after posting this reply, much like every Hindu/Non-Hindu who tells the truth.

Then there is a third kind of ‘Hindu’ population (non-political), the elite-class. The rich ones are not bothered about any caste or religion and they care about the country or religion. All they think of is money and in order to earn more of it they have to have good relations with every section of the society. The priority for them is Bank first nation later (or not at all).

The last kind of community and the most dangerous one is the “Pseudo-Secular”. It is the class which practices it’s religion at home, do all the rituals, offer prayers and conduct ceremonies but they oppose Hindus and Hinduism in public. They are Hindus at Home and “secular” outside their walls. This is the community which you would find most on public forums (such as this one), Facebook, Twitter and on News Channel debates. I am sure, after posting this article you must have got most negative responses from Pseudo-Secular Hindus than from Non-Hindus.

This thing is very prevalent among the younger generation which knows all about Justin Bieber and Madonna but nothing about their own country. They think those who talk about Hinduism are illiterates and down-market. These guys are so fake that when they go the US or the West, they’d put on a fake accent and would talk in the same accent when they come back home. Some even go to the extent of having forgotten their language (Indian regional one) and those who could still remember their language would use it with the British or American accent. It is a way to be cool and to show that one is Western or actually Non-Indian. These cool guys can’t even recite the national anthem and some pretend that they don’t know who Mahatama Gandhi was. It is, again, cool.

These are the reasons Maria, why we are not a Hindu nation and will never be. And this is the reason the world would witness a civil war in the coming years and a total jeopardy.

Our Governments never think about the national problems such as growing population, poverty, corruption, lack of basic amenities or good roads, education. And those who do think about the country are termed communal. Say for example, the newly elected Prime Minister Mr.Narendra Modi is a true nationalist. He is called a murdered because there were riots in the state of Gujrat while he was the head of the state. He did what he could to contain the riots, he even installed Military there but he was still accused of supporting the rioters. 400 people were killed in police shootings, does that tell you he was supporting rioters ? These riots started when a Train compartment, full of Hindu-pilgrims (women, children and men) were burned alive by a mob of Muslim men. There was no inquiry done, no reports made. It was called an accident when there were solid evidences and witnesses that pointed out a conspiracy.
There were riots in Gujrat between 1967-69, 3000 men and women were killed but the Congress Chief Minister was not called a murderer. 3000-4000 Sikhs were killed by Congress-men in 1984, but Congress party was never called communal. Gujrat is the best state in terms of development, it happened under the rule of Mr. Narendra Modi but all the ‘secular’ society could think about is his religion.
The Bhatiya Janta Party (BJP) is the political wing of RSS (National Volunteer Organization) which favors a Hindu-nation (but equal rights for every religion). RSS runs many schools and supports NGOs working for the betterment of society. There were floods in the state of Uttarkhand a year back, 5000 people died there. The RSS volunteers went there in large numbers to help, they even surved food to the military (which was at work there) and those who could not find food. But this act of selfless act was not reported by the media. The RSS is called a terrorist organization here. They say that, an RSS man killed Mahatama Gandhi, but it was later proved wrong by the Indian Courts. It’s a crime to be a Hindu in India now.

This is now a country of greedy, pseudo-secular and ignorant people but not a Hindu nation anymore.

Mr. Aryan Guru:::Your analysis and expose of Pankaj is brilliant!

PLS DONT WATCH THESE TRP HUNGRY TV CHANNELS …. THEY DONOT TRUE INDIA …. TRUE INDIA TODAY IS ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK AND DISCUSSION FORUMS

Quite and Interesting argument that speaks for a large number of Hindus who think similarly.
But one would need to note that the observation ‘ hinduism is also untouchability, atrocities against lower castes, bride burning for dowry, female infanticide, sati, devdasi……….. the list is endless’ is arguable. These are social evils, nothing to do with any religion, and probably practiced because of greed, prejudice, or poverty. It is most likely that these deplorable practices are also perpetrated in the Indian society by followers of Christianity and Islam etc but gets highlighted for Hindus because of their larger numbers. One may also say that Hinduism is a tolerant, inclusive and compassionate way of Life and Hindutva is an ideology that promotes fanaticism, divisiveness and strife. Once I begin bragging that my religion is the best, you are actually provoking non-Hindus to become even more strident in the defense of their religion and drive them to organize themselves along communal/religious line.

Dear Dilip

Everyone has a different version of Hindutava, and that is the problem. There is the rabid, hate filled version of Hindutva (VHP, Bajran Dal, RSS) and there is Maria’s version of Hindutva and there is absolutely no similarity between the two. Not even 1% of Hindus follow or are even aware of Maria’s version. But they are using her articles (which may be right as far as religion is concerned but absolute non sense and dangerous for socio political issues of our country) to push their agenda and harm the country.

The Kahlistan movement is dormant but still alive as the recent attack on Lt Gen K S Brar proved.

Software, source code, OS blah blah is for machines, not humans, because humans can think for them selves.

Please do not fool your self that the recent election results mean that people of the country endorse hindutva. The BJP victory is only because of the monumental misgovernance and corruption of the UPA.

When did Hindi become the national language? Who made Hindi the national language?

Please educate your self before making such ludicrous claims.

Jai

But hate & killing is the essence of islam. The declared goal of islam is world domination. Did Md. Bin Kassim come to Sindh in AD746 for a picnic?
Did the Parsis run away from Iran in AD689 and come here because islamics came into Iran to drink coffee? Did Ghazni AD1000 break Somnath Temple bcoz it was a traffic obstacle? Did Ghori AD1200 make PrithviRaj Chauhan blind as a joke? Did Babar come here in 1526 to have tea with us? What about Capt. Vikram Batra? And the Indian soldier whose neck was cut off recently? Come on Sir facts of history are staring you in the face. But if you want to be Shaturmurg=0strich and/or Khangress paid historian like Romila Thapar, then all I can say is 0m-NaMo-Shivayah! First recognize a spade, then call a spade a spade and then deal with it as spade, not as a flower! I believe in Gabbar Singh: JO DAR GAYA WOH SAMJHO MAR GAYA! You ask: When did Hindi become the national language? It became the national language when I accepted it. Who made Hindi the national language? Gabbar Singh did!

Hate filled version of Hinduism?? That is an oxy-moron! Hinduism is the ONLY religion which respects other religions. The only reason why we are having this debate is that India is a Hindu majority state. You would not even have the liberty to criticize Islam in an Islamic country. This is precisely the problem Maria is talking about. India opened its doors to people of ALL faiths and did NOT ever persecute its minorities. Now people are trying to teach HINDUS the meaning of religious inclusiveness!!!. Hinduism is the only religion which NEVER said that ‘My God is better than yours’ This had never happened anywhere before. The presence of social problems does not mean there is any problem with the CORE, every society has its issues, there are always outliers but that does not take anything away from Maria’s contentions. There is nothing debatable there

If you want to counter any move directed at you–be it social, financial, physical, moral or 0n any other plane–has to be COUNTERED ON THE SAME PLANE. That is LAW OF NATURE – pure and simple. EL Krist0 tried to counter a slap by offering the other cheek–and see what happened to him! Gandhi baba did the same thing–see what happened to him! The declared goal of eslime is WORLD DOMiNATiON ! Do you want to be dominated? In eslime there is a concept named Takkaia which recommends Lies, Cheating, misinformation, fraud, force or whatever to achieve your objective. How do you reconcile with that?

I agree that Vedic Dharma may be a better word, as indeed it denotes an ideal way of life based on knowledge/ science. However, Hindu as a geographical term meaning “the dharma that evolved and was followed at and beyond the Indus river” is also not wrong. Maybe slowly the termini of the discourse can be changed and explained, but at present, “India’s religion” is known as Hinduism…
Many Indians don’t know the difference between Abrahamic religions and their Dharma, and take it to be just another “religion”. And many even foolishly consider it inferior. This article may clarify some aspects:
http://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/is-hinduism-a-religion/

I am very happy that a German sister is learning about our sanatana dharma. Perhaps after sister nivedita, my sis, u are the one of the first people who are crusading for our dharma. I am not talking abt the so called hindus who do not know the names of a 10 upanishads , but consider themselves ‘soldiers’ of sanatana dharma. Plss read the gospel of sri ramakrishna paramahamsa and ‘the Web of Indian life’ ‘kali the divine mother’ if you haven’t! In a society where we caricature our own culture, lo here is a woman so proud of it. SIS, PLEASE LEARN ABT SRI CHANDRASEKHARENDRA SARASWATHI MAHASWAMIJI AND READ HIS BOOK ‘HINDU DHARMA’.HE IS CONSIDERED AS A SAINT OF RECENT TIMES.A MAN WHO WAS CALLED BY DALAI LAMA AS ‘THE ONLY REAL ASCETIC OF 20 CENTURY’ WHO INSPIRED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

‘@Jason, Is this satirical or are you serious? If you are serious it would need urgently a check on what Christian priests tell their flock. I know they talk bad about Hindus, but did not expect such nonsense that is meant to stir up hate.

Hello Ma’m,

You may kindly recollect me, I communicate with yourself on twitter. Your thorough study and deep analysis of Hindu religion is exhilarating. I wish we Indians would have also realized the importance of our scriptures and studied them and embedded them in our life. I would like to communicate with you and send you something written by me for your esteemed views. You would have got my email id from here. Kindly reply to me so that I may be able to send it to you.

Regards,
Manoj Ahuja

Kumar Mangalam, you seriously need to study our religion and read history. You need to open your eyes, look around and travel to rural India; rather than be a keyboard ninja. For a start you can read ‘Riddles in Hinduism’

It is the Marxists and Macaulites in India who follow this tradition of denigrating everything Indian,

Cultural Bolshevism is what is destroying the Hindu tradition of India.

According to the Marxists, Hinduism is a cast based aristocracy which is oppressing the Indian masses and then you have the Macaulites – Followers of Thomas Babbington Macaulay.

These people like to pretend that they are more Anglicized than the average Englishman. In Indian culture, the term “Macaulay’s Children” is used to refer to people born of purely Indian ancestry but adopt Western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by colonizers (“Macaulayism”) – and hate their own skin color and culture.

The new regime which came to power in 2014 will make sure that both these kind of people will be extinct in India in the near future.

The Marxists also act as shameless handmaidens to the Islamist agenda of Islamizing the whole of India and making Hindus extinct in their own home land. They also vociferously support the agenda of the Christian missionaries in every possible manner.

They are the eternal enemies of the Indian “Volk” who want to make Indian Nationalism a crime in India.

Mr Jay,

I am copy pasting the last part of your rant here.

“We have to live in the real India where hinduism is also untouchability, atrocities against lower castes, bride burning for dowry, female infanticide, sati, devdasi……….. the list is endless.”

I am really not concerned whether you or white etc; but this list that you have put here shows your ignorance about the Sanathana Dharma, I prefer to use this term rather than Hinduism, the things that you listed above are social evils purely gotten into practice out of extremely selfishness, utter ignorance and has nothing to do with the Eternal Religion.

Hindu Audiobooks not only strengthen your spiritual life, but also provide a great opportunity to get in close contact with ancient Hindu culture audio books, learn proper pronunciation of slogans and widen their spiritual knowledge.

Dear Maria, I am following you on tweeter from last few months. By reading your posts I am definitely thrilled to know more and more about my religion. I want to understand from you, where do you get ancient Upnishads and Vedas to read…. Can you share some of them. If you have created a library or any online storage of this our treasure vedas/upnishads, please share the link.
Truly inspired…
Amit Gupta

Thank you!

I have learnt a lot from Maria and other comments. Dr Nat K

Next time you want to blabber on internet, don’t let out your Islam-bred biases “will be pig in your next birth”.
Only one religion thinks about pigs to any degree. You know which one 😉

I love u so much maria,u r written in a very nice way but one day will come when world becomes vasudhaeva kutumbkam

Please see https://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/christians-are-not-under-attack-in-india/
Please find out whether you or anyone you know have been ‘attacked’ or whether you trusted blindly the media which obviously has an agenda.

Saptarshi, maybe this article clarifies some points. i agree Hinduism is not a religion as Christinity and Islam is. Should not be put into the same basket.
Humility is fine, but truthfulness is also needed.It is not arrogance to say it is superior to religions that demand if not enforce blind belief in unverifiable dogmas. Do you have any problem with those relgiions freely advocating their superiority? If so, please say it loud.
https://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/is-hinduism-a-religion/

??? did u read the article?

I AM A TAMIL! WHAT kind of NONSENSE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?

YOU ARE A GODDAMN LIAR! my Tamil ancestors proudly adopted Hinduism by their own free-will! how dare you insult my TAMIL ancestors!? Dravidians are the ones who have resisted the Muslim cultural Invasion the most! you “Aryan” north Indians on the other hand have EMBRACED their culture&customs!

I don’t care what your DMK/Periyar worshipping brahmin hating Tamil friend has to Say TAMILS ARE HINDUS NOT BY FORCE BUT BY THEIR OWN FREE WILL! Tamils NEVER accept anything by force.

“then what is left for those who don’t want religious identity”
Well its your problem! i am proud of my Tamil culture,architecture,dance,architecture which is I MAY INFORM YOU 100% HINDU! so if you want to avoid the “hindu” label you might to look elsewhere mate! because Tamil = Hindu has been since thousands of years now.

“Isn’t Hinduism also dogmatic”
No it isn’t! last time i checked there are no “rules” to be a Hindu Hindus do whatever they want… there is no “dogma”.. seriously when was the last time your parents told you that there was an infallbile source of book that YOU HAD TO follow to be a Hindu?

I am a confessed Atheist in my Home and my family STILL treats me like a Hindu..you still think Hinduism is Dogmatic?

“namely the caste system?”
Firstly its not Caste system its called “VARNA” and social hierarchies is something ALL feudal societies followed its not unique to India,what most people refer to as “Caste system” is not varna its clan system.. where communities of people have banded together for various reasons.

Technically the clan fighting&discrimination has nothing to do with Hinduism in particular… and the original social stratification where the brahmins&upper classes had all political power is long gone.

“How do you justify that a cobblers son can only be a cobbler and cannot read and write by law?”
What law? i’m pretty sure the only reason why cobbler was not able to read and write in the old days was because the education was not widespread like it is now not.

The article made a good reading and certainly boost up the moral of Hindus. But it also raises fundamental questions. Attempting answers may satisfy our patriotic soul if not enlighten Hindus.

Her profound: “They don’t realize that India would gain, not lose, if it solidly backed its profound and all inclusive Hindu tradition.”

1. What do you mean by (or she) ‘inclusive’? It cannot be spiritual as spiritual is a unique individual experience and cannot certainly bind people under one religion. Then what is this ‘inclusive’ mean? If it is not socio-ecultural it is hollow!

2. Is there any acceptable (specially to subaltern castes which Sanatana Dharma brands as untouchable and other Shudra castes lowest in Varnashram) definition of Sanatana Dharma? If so what is it? If not how can we identify what is it?

3. Christianity and Muslim religions are violent religions but is Hinduism any less? Hindu violence is covert but more effective at oppression: cases like Shambhuka vadha (more effective than Bruno burnt at stake) seem exceptions but the real violence is the way women and the downtrodden were (and still are) kept outside the purview of humaneness! The greatest tragedy is that the oppressed accepted the oppression as their lot! (incredible poorvajanma karma!) Or else how can we explain female foeticide, female infanticide, untouchability, honour killings (not to mention Sati, Widow suppression, etc), caste violence, etc. By what standards we are tolerant!

4. We claim that 85% Indian population is Hindu! But is it practically true? If so why more than 25% are not permitted in to temples (people who do not know rural and even urban psyche may say it is passe)! Mind you no less than Mahatma Gandhi was not permitted to enter the santum of Vaikom temple in 1935 (he was made to sit in the lawns) and the temple was ceremonially cleaned after his departure as Mahatma is a Vaishya and the priests were sure that he was not permitted by Sanatana Dharma to enter that place! Why only one caste is priestly caste while in other religions anyone can become a priest? I am not against any caste but this is a rational issue. Why honour killings when the same religion (but different castes) boy and girl marry? Why thousands of people belonging to some castes (Hindus only!) are killed by their own co-religionists (Hindus only)? By what yardstick we are tolerant or inclusive!

5. The truths found by ancient rishis are profound; we take genuine pride in them. Similarly our science is great and we are proud of it. If so how a tiny country (1/20th of India) could subjugate us and ruled us for two centuries? Is it their merit or our grace in becoming slaves! Or is it our socio-cultural system hamstrung us disabling to face invasions?

6. We are still blaming them (thanks now she and her ilk joined the blame game) but why did it happen in the first place! Can we (if not in the past) introspect now and see whether the socio-religious, sociocultural ethos and institutions that our religion created, nourished and still hope to revive has any role in this vicious consequence?

7. Why all these great truths and scientific knowledge were not spread across wide cross section of population? Was it not because 95% of the population (including women, so this staggering number) was positively debarred from education? What do we do now to reconstruct the society on just and egalitarian principles and if you call it Hindu nobody should have any objection as long as it is JUST order!

8. Taking pride in the past is one thing and making it great (again if it was great once) is entirely another thing. Then what is the remedy?

9. No point in telling that our religion is great but practice is bad; Sanatana Dharma did not intend cancers like caste! I am, as a common man, not interested in pious religion but concerned about how is it practiced! How are you proposing to make it ‘inclusive’ as she innocuously put it? Making India casteless society (by aggressive inter caste marriages so that caste vanishes) is the only remedy as I see with my limited knowledge. Are you and the Sanatana Dharma ready for this drastic remedy? If yes what is the strategy and if not what is the alternative (practical dears, please remember).

10. I don’t care what other religions do to their followers but I mightily care what our religion does to its adherents in making them worthy human beings. If our religion leaves multitude from its purview how can we call it ‘inclusive’! What are we supposed to do is the question!

Sorry dears for the long harangue but it is the cry of a common man! Many of you may be upset with me and feel like abusing! I humbly plead guilty of inviting your wrath. But is my concern pointless!

It is nice to see views expressed freely here glad to note that we are here debate discuss not to
abuse spread hatred etc. Firstly I would like to say that there is nothing like Aryan or Dravidian it is all the creation of the British who ruled us to create an inferior complex among us. We Indian right from Kashmir to Kanyakumari Punjab to Arunachal Pradesh Manipur are all one all our DNA are one. Dravida is Sankskrit word coined by Adhi Sankara when he was asked who he was when he was touring North India to this he said I am a Dravida Sishu Sishu means Child Dravida according to Adhi Sankara is the meeting point of three oceans that is Bay of Bengal Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

We Indians are still under the British Influence since we were ruled by them for centuries we have to change this for this we should read more of Indian History what we are reading today are History Books created by British where Akbar Shah Jahan Mahmud of Ghazni etc are all given each chapter whereas our Indian Kings like Maratha King Shivaji Vijayanagara Empire from Karnatka Veerapandiya Kattabomman Prithviraj Chauhan etc Prithviraj Chauhan who fought and won against Muhammad of Ghor five times each time he pardoned him and let him go, but on the sixth occasion he attached Chauhan and killed him that is because we Hindus do not fight after the dusk we fight during day time Muhammad of Ghor knew this and attacked Chauhan during night time because he was a coward.

This is how our history goes but we will not find any mention about our great Indian kings and warriors in history books created by the British. We are all Indian first let us be known as Indians we should unite as one to fight against any extremist forces that are trying to confuse us with all disinformation. Also let us have in mind we are majority Hindus let us not be ashamed to admit his fact like how Americans are proud of being and American and Christians like how British or German or proud to say I am a British or German respectively and a Christian. This does not mean muslims or Christians cannot live in India like how many Indians are living in USA Britain or Germany.

India has been a land of all religions look at Parsis emigrated to India centuries ago and made India their home we have welcome them and they are staying here without any murmur for reservations they are all highly placed in our society. We have to take leaf out their dedication and sincerity towards India. So is the case with Jews we looked after them unlike many parts of the world who did not welcome them we took care of them.

For Hindus all religion are one all God is one let us wake up to the reality of this fact and shun violence in the name of religion

Sorry dear your observations about India and Hinduism if with prejudice.

Our country was rulled by mogals & britishers for more than 600 years, who lead country for independent India the leaders dna change & learn British policy, ‘divid people & rulled the country, for long tenure after independent congress dna adopted same policy because for fathers leaders had mix blood of old rollers, so what happened even in congress party may not agree on many national issues with leadership, but they do not have voice to speak, leaders are using; ‘Sam dam dand (deth even) bhed’, to keep as slave & they use media purchase policy through many power, looking this beneficiary politics business so many regional parties took birth & on similer Anamat game keep dividing people because their leaders are also came out from same roots of Congress, by playing successful cast & anamat card leders become karods pati, unbelievable inlegal properties, the people of country remains in divisions, poverty, unadulterated & always in anxiety. Today people have no faith in media they work as poppet of political parties through money power, some journalists have lost ethnics, good moral and even carectours & involved in looting country with helping politicians.

[…] The article first appeared as – https://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/when-germany-is-christian-is-india-hindu/ […]

Great article. Worth spreading.

you have highlighted all relevant details thank you they could not convert Indians to Islam or Christianity why? can any one explain the reason for this? so it means they failed to convert Indians so they continue with their modern tactics to do the same now with money power donations etc We Hindus should unite forgetting our caste and raise our voice

please learn about the doctrine of the dogmatic religions before claiming it is people who misunderstand and not the doctrine. is it not unacceptable that they claim Hindus, Buddhist, atheists.. burn for ever in hell if they don’t convert to the true (there are two claimants) religion?

Check this link and watch the video. Where is the peace?
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10154227300037714&id=570072713&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&notif_id=1490365695990270

As B R Ambedkar said once, “I believe in a religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity”.

Here is a typical non Hindu, whose forefather was a HIndu perhaps. It has become so explicit that in supporting their own faiths, they become more Christian than the Pope and more Islamic than Mohammed, and that gives its own inimical push to becoming anti Hindu. Sanatan Dharma says that all people on earth are born Hindus , whether you like that concept or not is another story. It is time INdia realised its potential as India and Hindutva provides the passage for such a transition. In every country the social issues are governed by a single law, where as in India a Catholic funded hospital can refuse a termination of pregnancy for medical reasons, and thats illegal to deny medical help, and Muslims can generally get away saying our religion runs ahead of the nation.

But we must be careful about what is passed off as Hinduism Only in the last hundred years after the birth of the RSS this controversy of “Hindutva” has cropped up. As majority of Indians are Hindus from time immemorial it is like asking the fish why they are in they are in water But what are the so called fringe elements are representing ? A violent and aggressive face of Hinduism ? No they are not because there is no aggressive or violence that is perpetrated by Hindus down centuries . Why did Great and enlightened Hindus like Raja Ram Mohan Roy , Dayanand Saraswathi or Bankimchandra Chattopadyaya fought for reformation of the ” Hindu” society in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries if all were hunky dory with Hinduism ? Why there were movements against untouchability in South India ? Why should our own ” Hindu” people had to enter the temples forcefully ? The present day “Hindu” activism is nothing do with a civilised past but it is an attempt to hoodwink people into a barbaric past of suppression and oppression. It is a blatant attempt to bring back brahminical hegemony of Manuvada as education and technologies are erasing the boundaries between the castes . But only these fringe elements are at the forefront and not the elitist Hindus like the sauvvy politicians and intellectuals who wear saffron ? After all saffron is a symbol of detachment from worldly affairs. But Alas now people wearing saffron have made their way into the portals of power . May I ask you now, Who is distorting Hinduism ?

Religion is a sensitive issue to discuss in India. Especially when it comes to talking about the sense of Hinduism, there are two contrasts that happen. One, most people from the highly-educated brackets of India suddenly adopt the “secular” image to project that they believe in the higher goal of “No Religion” as their only religion. Two, most people from the illiterate brackets still believe in the caste system. Please note that while the initial origin of the caste system was based on karma (or work), soon the roots were forgotten to give way for the system to be based on birth.

Roots, we see, have been forgotten, which is the real cause of the problem. Interestingly, forgetting the roots is still a result in itself. It was the systematic brain-washing during the British Raj that triggered us to forget our roots and modify the reality to believe in something that was never from the Hindu origin. Being a Hindu, I know that the real “secularity” is in realizing that the god is omnipresent and formless. He (or She, because Hindus have goddesses, too) is in each one of us either rich or poor, either literate or illiterate, and is devoid of what karma they follow.

I like your approach of putting things in perspective. And, the more they remain in our perspective, the more likely we are to consider them while making decisions and forming and giving opinions. It is time, I agree, that we must look into our ancient texts for answers. Bharatvarsha, as it was called before being Indianized, was about exploring and maintaining the state of oneness with the supreme power that resides within all of us. The essence of being Hindu is not in following a religion, but in making sure that the tenets and root knowledge be spread to acquire wisdom, logic, and awareness across all levels of the society.

Great reading and comments: I went to a Protestant school, have Moslem neighbors, and acquired Catholic cousins. We all participated in every major facet of life without imposing our views. Non-Hindu ways of life (See Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan) ) are only compared by surface thinkers (noy Maria -..) to the HINDU Views of life -because they see the exterior practices as Hindu! On the other hand, even by today’s metrics, HINDU is not a dogma (although some may claim some pathways are dogmatic) until they evolve – much like after learning multiple languages. Truly we are not Hindus. So what are we? Think of a great Christian as a Great Hindu; Great Moslem as a great Hindu; Great person – anywhere a Great Hindu except a Great son or daugher of Bharat Maata.Mother India stretches beyond the current geographical boundaries.and thus to consume oneself that people in Indus/ India are mostly Hindus is actually imposing the notion that Hindu Indians forget the rest of humanity. No educated indian need to show that they are hindu. You either live the life of a Hindu or not! And as such you become a greater or lesser Hindu for th e western mindset. No need to be Hindu. Mai insaan huun. Hamare Matribhumi rahate hain.Bharat Maata ke Jai.

Great article, well researched thoughts.
Maria, you write awesome, I love your aptly put logical analysis and understanding. Thankyou for your contributions to Hindu.
My respects

Wonderful analysis. Hit the nail on the head.

This is a master-class! When we detach/distance ourselves from our cultural roots, we end of forgetting our WORTH and that’s when SATAN/Shaitan/Rakshasa imposes itself onto us!

Very well said. Fortunately, Indians who don’t come from old English missionary schools don’t carry the baggage you describe.

Perfect and pin pont study of contemporary struggle of Hindu dharma, which is being attacked by its own religion hunters..Thanks madam Maria for your eye opener article

Modern Hinduism is no where near bringing back brahminical hegemony of Manuvad. I wonder whether educated Indian Women would agree with you on this.
In general India or Bharat would not support it. I also wonder whether Saffron on our National Flag indicates detachment.I feel present day India is more concerned about worldly affairs,and is generally doing quite OK.Remember Congressi years??