WHY I AM A HINDU

The following is a post I received from a friend and fully subscribe to the views contained there-in:

A Hindu was flying from JFK New York Airport to SFO San Francisco Airport CA to attend a meeting at Monterey, CA.

An American girl was sitting on the right side, near window seat. It indeed was a long journey - it would take nearly seven hours.

He was surprised to see the young girl reading a Bible unusual of young Americans. After some time she smiled and we had few acquaintances talk.He told her that I am from India

Then suddenly the girl asked: 'What's your faith?' 'What?' He didn't understand the question.

'I mean, what's your religion? Are you a Christian? Or a Muslim?'

'No!' He replied, 'He am neither Christian nor Muslim'.

Apparently she appeared shocked to listen to that. 'Then who are you?' “I am a Hindu”, He said.

She looked at him as if she was seeing a caged animal. She could not understand what He was talking about.

A common man in Europe or US knows about Christianity and Islam, as they are the leading religions of the world today.

But a Hindu, what?

He explained to her - I am born to a Hindu father and Hindu mother. Therefore, I am a Hindu by birth.

'Who is your prophet?' she asked.

'We don't have a prophet,' He replied.

'What's your Holy Book?'

'We don't have a single Holy Book, but we have hundreds and thousands of philosophical and sacred scriptures,'
He replied.

'Oh, come on at least tell me who is your God?'

'What do you mean by that?'

'Like we have Jesus and Muslims have Allah - don't you have a God?'

He thought for a moment. Muslims and Christians believe one God (Male God) who created the world and takes an interest in the humans who inhabit it. Her mind is conditioned with that kind of belief.

According to her (or anybody who doesn't know about Hinduism), a religion needs to have one Prophet, one Holy book and one God. The mind is so conditioned and rigidly narrowed down to such a notion that anything else is not acceptable. He understood her perception and concept about faith. You can't compare Hinduism with any of the present leading religions where you have to believe in one concept of God.

He tried to explain to her: 'You can believe in one God and he can be a Hindu. You may believe in multiple deities and still you can be a Hindu. What's more - you may not believe in God at all, still you can be a Hindu. An Atheist can also be a Hindu.'

This sounded very crazy to her. She couldn't imagine a religion so unorganized, still surviving for thousands of years, even after onslaught from foreign forces.

'I don't understand but it seems very interesting. Are you religious?'

What can He tell to this American girl?

He said: 'I do not go to Temple regularly. I do not make any regular rituals. I have learned some of the rituals in my younger days. I still enjoy doing it sometimes'.

'Enjoy? Are you not afraid of God?'

'God is a friend. No- I am not afraid of God. Nobody has made any compulsions on me to perform these rituals regularly.'

She thought for a while and then asked: 'Have you ever thought of converting to any other religion?'

'Why should I? Even if I challenge some of the rituals and faith in Hinduism, nobody can convert me from Hinduism. Because, being a Hindu allows me to think independently and objectively, without conditioning. I remain as a Hindu never by force, but choice.' He told her that Hinduism is not a religion, but a set of beliefs and practices. It is not a religion like Christianity or Islam because it is not founded by any one person or does not have an organized controlling body like the Church or the Order, I added. There is no institution or authority..

'So, you don't believe in God?' she wanted everything in black and white.

'I didn't say that. I do not discard the divine reality. Our scripture, or Sruthis or Smrithis - Vedas and Upanishads or the Gita - say God might be there or he might not be there. But we pray to that supreme abstract authority (Para Brahma) that is the creator of this universe.'

'Why can't you believe in one personal God?'

'We have a concept - abstract - not a personal god. The concept or notion of a personal God, hiding behind the clouds of secrecy, telling us irrational stories through few men whom he sends as messengers, demanding us to worship him or punish us, does not make sense. I don't think that God is as silly as an autocratic emperor who wants others to respect him or fear him.' He told her that such notions are just fancies of less educated human imagination and fallacies, adding that generally ethnic religious practitioners in Hinduism believe in personal Gods. The entry level Hinduism has over-whelming superstitions too. The philosophical side of Hinduism negates all superstitions.

'Good that you agree God might exist. You told that you pray. What is your prayer then?'

'Loka Samastha Sukino Bhavantu. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti,'
लोका समस्ता सुखिनो भवन्तु !!! ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः !!!

'Funny,' she laughed, 'What does it mean?'

'May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. Let there be Peace, Peace, and Peace every where.'

'Hmm ..very interesting. I want to learn more about this religion. It is so democratic, broad-minded and free' she exclaimed.

'The fact is Hinduism is a religion of the individual, for the individual and by the individual with its roots in the Vedas and the Bhagavad-Gita. It is all about an individual approaching a personal God in an individual way according to his temperament and inner evolution - it is as simple as that.'

'How does anybody convert to Hinduism?'

'Nobody can convert you to Hinduism, because it is not a religion, but it is a Culture, a way of leaving life, a set of beliefs and practices. Everything is acceptable in Hinduism because there is no single Authority or Organization either to accept you or to reject you or to oppose you on behalf of Hinduism.'

He told her - if you look for meaning in life, don't look for it in religions; don't go from one cult to another or from one Guru to the next.

For a real seeker, He told her, the Bible itself gives guidelines when it says ' Kingdom of God is within you.' I reminded her of Christ's teaching about the love that we have for each other. That is where you can find the meaning of life.

Loving each and every creation of the God is absolute and real. 'Isavasyam idam sarvam' Isam (the God) is present (inhabits) here everywhere - nothing exists separate from the God, because God is present everywhere. Respect every living being and non-living things as God. That's what Hinduism teaches you.

Hinduism is referred to as Sanathana Dharma, the eternal faith. It is based on the practice of Dharma, the code of life. The most important aspect of Hinduism is being truthful to oneself. Hinduism has no monopoly on ideas. It is open to all. Hindus believe in one God (not a personal one) expressed in different forms. For them, God is timeless and formless entity.

Ancestors of today's Hindus believe in eternal truths and cosmic laws and these truths are opened to anyone who seeks them. But there is a section of Hindus who are either superstitious or turned fanatic to make this an organized religion like others. The British coin the word 'Hindu' and considered it as a religion.

He said: 'Religions have become an MLM (multi-level- marketing) industry that has been trying to expand the market share by conversion. The biggest business in today's world is Spirituality. Hinduism is no exception'

He said "I am a Hindu primarily because it professes Non-violence - 'Ahimsa Paramo Dharma' means - Non violence is the highest duty. I am a Hindu because it doesn't condition my mind with any faith system.

A man/woman who changes his/her birth religion to another religion is a fake and does not value his/her morals, culture and values in life.

Hinduism is the original rather a natural yet a logical and satisfying spiritual, personal and a scientific way of leaving a life..

 

WHY I WILL SUPPORT NARENDRA MODI IN 2014

Below is an article by Ajay Shukla, IAS that was forwarded to me through email by a retired friend of mine. There could not be a better summation of the situation in the country. The options he has outlined for concerned Indians too are logical and well balanced.

Why I shall support Modi in 2014?

By: Avay Shukla July 1, 2013 20:30

I have been getting more and more worried over the last year or so at the direction( or lack of it) in which our country is headed. It is like a runaway plane falling from the skies and we are plummeting past one alarming indicator after another– inflation,economic slowdown, falling rupee,complete break-down of law and order, ever emboldened Naxalites, total internalization of corruption, an administration that answers to no one,complete lack of governance, cronyism on a scale never seen before, a brazen lack of accountability, public intimidation of constitutional authorities, a judicial system that has all but collapsed,environmental disasters that no one knows how to cope with, complete paraplegia of decision-making at all levels in government,appeasement of ” minorities” and other sections that is reaching ridiculous and dangerous levels, dynastic politics at the Centre and the states reminiscent of the Mughal era…….

I could go on and on but after some time the mind becomes numb and registers only one emotion——-IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE.

 

Another five years of this and we would be well on our way to becoming a failed state and joining the ranks of Pakistan, Haiti and Somalia.

The general elections of 2014 offers us one last chance to redeem ourselves. I have been on this mortal coil for 62 years and have never voted for the BJP but have, after much thought, decided to support MODI in 2014. This is considered a heresy in most neo-liberal circles in India today but we have to go beyond mere labelling and stereo typing to understand my decision.

But before I go on to Mr. Modi himself, let us review the context in which this decision has been taken. The state of the country is self evident in para one above.

The next question then is: What are the alternatives or choices that we as voters have?

The Congress will only perpetuate the present mess-even more worrying and dangerous is the fact that, were the Congress to return to power, it would consider it had a renewed mandate to carry on as before.

In any case, who in the country would lead the Congress- a reluctant dynastic or an ageing economist who has discovered his true skills lie in politics, or a backroom puppeteer? Or, God forbid, all three? ( Seriously, this is a possibility- after all not one of these three want to shoulder sole accountability, and they may reason that if a dual power center can ensure two terms, a triple may be good for even more!) No, to my mind the Congress is not an option.

Who else, then?

Well, if we scrape the bottom of the barrel assiduously we will come up with Mamta Banerjee[ TMC], Mulayam Yadav[ SP], Nitish Kumar[JDU], Naveen Patnaik[ BJD], Jayalalitha[ AIADMK], Sharad Pawar[ NCP] and Mayawati( BSP). There is no need to discuss their achievements or ideologies at a national level ( incidentally, not even one of them has a remotely national outlook or ideology since they cannot see beyond pandering shamelessly to the vote banks in their respective states) because they are state( not even regional) leaders and none of them can hope to be Prime Minister on the strength of their own parties.

They all realize this, of course, hence the idea which periodically emerges like a skin rash, of a Third or Federal Front. This didn't work even when a Third Front could agree on a leader( as in the case of I.K. Gujral or Deve Gowda). How on earth will it work when every one of the state leaders mentioned above feels that he or she has been reincarnated precisely to become the Prime Minister of India?

The negotiations for choosing a PM( if the Front comes up with the numbers, that is) will resemble one of those WWF fights where about six hunks are put into the ring to beat the daylights out of each other till one of them is left standing to claim the crown. I cannot see all of them agreeing on even one policy issue, whether it is reservations, industrial stimulus,foreign policy, disinvestment, environmental protection, center-state relations etc.

 

If they come to power at the Center, the paraplegia of today will become quadriplegia tomorrow.

 

Fortunately, in any case, they can never muster the 274 seats required-it will be difficult for them to reach even hundred even if they do very well in their states.

 

So a Third Front is a non-starter, and voting for any of these parties will only help the Congress by dividing the anti-congress vote. [ You will have noticed that I have not mentioned Mr. Karat of the CPM. That's because he's become like a flat bottle of Coca-Cola- earlier he was all fizz and no substance: now even the fizz has gone].

That leaves only the BJP, with its historical baggage of the RSS, Hindutva, Ramjanmbhoomi ( by the way, this baggage also includes five years of exemplary governance under Vajpayee from 1999 to 2004)-perhaps enough baggage to dissuade me from voting for the party. Except that this time the BJP has an add-on: Narender Modi.

 

And that, to my mind, adds value to the party and makes the crucial difference.

Modi has been reviled ad-nausea  by the “secular” parties and sections of the elite media for many years for the 2002 riots in Gujarat, by the former not because of any love for the Muslims( as I hope to show later) but simply in order to appropriate the Muslim vote, and by the latter because they have to keep whipping somebody in order to get their TRPs- in India only extremes succeed. Modi has been tried and condemned by them not on the basis of facts but by an opportunistic mixture of innuendo, presumption, speculation, half-truths, hear say. Look at the facts.

There was a horrendous orgy of killing of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 where about 2000 of them were massacred. Some of Modi’s ministers and many BJP/ VHP workers were involved: quite a few of them have also been convicted, the trials of many still go on.

The Supreme Court set up at least three SITs and is itself monitoring the investigations. Many PILs have been filed in the SC and the High Court accusing Modi of master-minding these massacres. In not a single case has either the Supreme Court, the High Court or the SITs found any evidence of Modi’s personal complicity.

Yes, they have held that he could have controlled the situation better- but nothing beyond that in-spite of ten years of frenetic drum beating and sustained vilification.

Now look at the other set of facts. Under Modi’s current watch, perhaps for the first time in India, people have been actually convicted for communal rioting and murder- more than 200 convictions, with about 130 of them sentenced to life imprisonment.

All the communal massacres in India since Independence have not resulted in even one tenth of these convictions.

Modi’s government has to be given some credit for this: yes, the investigations were carried out by the SIT and not by Modi’s police; yet Modi could, if he was so inclined, have interfered covertly in the whole process by asking his officials not to cooperate, by intimidating witnesses, influencing judges, conveying hints to prosecutors- something which, as we all know too well, governments of all political hues in India have mastered.

Modi could have done what the Congress has done so successfully in Delhi in three other high-profile cases being monitored by the Supreme Court- the Commonwealth Games Scam, the 2G case, and Coalgate ( not to mention also the Sikh massacres of 1984): have these cases made any headway? has wrong-doing been proved in a single instance? has anyone been convicted?

No,sir, these investigations will drag on and on till they are lost in the mists of time.

Supreme Court monitoring cannot ensure justice unless the govt. of the day allows its agencies to function- it is to Modi’s credit that he did so allow them.

Compare this with the manner in which the police in Delhi have been emasculated to protect some senior Congress leaders in the 1984 Sikh carnage- everyone in Delhi knows, even after 27 long years, that their hands are dipped in blood, but the evidence will never reach the courts; the recent acquittal of Sajjan Kumar only confirms this.

The biggest stigmata on Modi is the charge that he is ” communal” and not ” secular”.

All ( non-NDA) political parties never tire of tom-tomming this from the roof-tops and consider this their trump card to ensure that he will never achieve his Grand-slam at the centre. But after eleven years this is beginning to wear thin and people are beginning to question the assumptions behind this charge and even the definition of what constitutes ” communal” and “secular.”

Nirad Choudhry had long ago given his opinion that India is the Continent of Circe where humans are turned into beasts-it is also the graveyard of the Oxford Dictionary where the meanings of words are turned on their heads to suit political exigencies! So ” communal” today means a Hindu who is not ashamed of saying he is a Hindu, and ” secular” means a Hindu who panders to other religions in order to get their votes at the next elections!

By this inverse definition Modi is considered communal- notwithstanding that not a single Hindu- Muslim riot has taken place in Gujarat under his watch since 2002, notwithstanding that the BJP got 17% of the Muslim vote in the Assembly elections in the state earlier this year, notwithstanding that the party won five of the eight seats which had a dominant Muslim voter base, notwithstanding that the average Muslim in Gujarat is much better off economically than his counterpart in Assam, UP or Bihar( headed by ” secular” parties).

Compare this with the record of the Samajwadi party in UP where more than a hundred communal riots have taken place in less than two years, with the Congress in Assam where hundreds of Muslims were butchered last year and at least three hundred thousand of them are still languishing in relief camps with no hope of ever returning to their villages, with the Congress ruled Maharashtra where hundreds of Muslims were killed with the active help of the police after the Bombay blasts. ( Needless to say there do not appear to have been any convictions in any of these pogromes). And MODI is communal?

I am a Hindu but I stopped going into any temple twenty years ago because I was sickened by the rapacious behavior of their pundits.

I am no longer a practicing Hindu in a public, ritualistic sense and frankly I don’t know how many of the religious beliefs I retain, but I still consider myself a Hindu because Hinduism is more than just a religion- it is a culture, a civilisation, a way of life.

But in the Kafkaesque India of today if you were to proclaim that you are a Hindu ( even though you have equal respect and regard for all other religions) you would be branded ” communal”- this is what political discourse has been reduced to by our politicians.

And being ” secular” no longer means treating all religions equally: it means splintering society into a myriad ” minorities” ( another perversion of the Oxford Dictionary) and then pandering to such of them as suit you in your naked pursuit of power.

In the process India has been converted into a complex jigsaw of minorities, castes, tribes, classes, sections and what have you.

The British could have learnt plenty from us about Divide and Rule! 

But more and more right thinking people are beginning to question this recipe for disaster, and I am one of them.

India is 80% Hindu- why should one then have to be apologetic about proclaiming that one is a Hindu ? We have been ruled and exploited and vandalized for eight hundred years by Muslims and for another two hundred years by Christians, and yet we have accorded these two religions a special status as ” minorities” with privileges that the Hindus don’t have.

Has any other country in the world ever displayed such a spirit of accommodation and egalitarianism?

Is there a more secular civilisation in the world?

And yet, a Hindu who says he is a Hindu is considered communal!

Does a Hindu have to prove his secular credentials time and again by greater levels( or depths) of appeasement of other religions simply so that they can continue to be vote bank fodder for political parties?

Modi has had the courage to raise these questions and is therefore being reviled by those political parties whose apple carts he is threatening to upset. But people are beginning to pay attention. Modi is not considered secular because he is proud to be a Hindu and refuses to give doles or concessions to any religious group( including Hindus, but that is conveniently glossed over) beyond what is provided in the constitution and the laws of the land. He believes this weakens the social fabric of the country and that even handed development is the best guarantee for equitable prosperity for all. He is not considered secular ( and instead is branded as communal) because he says publicly that he is proud to be a Hindu. And has he done anything blatantly or provocatively pro-Hindu in the last ten years?

There is not a single instance of this and yet he is vilified as communal and anti-minorities by the same party that presided over more than two hundred anti-Muslim riots in the seventies and eighties in Gujarat, that massacred 6000 Sikhs in 1984, that lit the fuse in Ayodhya by installing an icon of Ram in the mosque there, that failed to take any action when the Babri masjid was being razed to the ground! Modi has carefully distanced himself from any public support of Hindutva, has kept the VHP and the Bajrang Dal on a tight leash in Gujarat ever since he came to power there, and has even incurred the wrath of the RSS for not toeing the line on their purely religious agenda. It takes time, and some mistakes, to attain maturity; the Modi of today is not the Modi of 2002: then he was still in the pracharak mould of the RSS, inexperienced in the exercise of power, lacking administrative experience. He has now developed into a politician with a vision, an administrator who has delivered to his people and caught the fancy of the entire corporate world in India and abroad. Rahul Gandhi has been around in politics for almost the same length of time but has still not progressed beyond his epiphanic perception that India is a bee-hive.

Pause a while to honestly compare Modi’s qualities with his peers in the political firmament. His integrity is impeccable, both personal and vicarious. Even Mr. Manish Tewari has not been able to charge him on this score, and that’s saying something! I am not aware of a single major scam unearthed during his term( compare this with the Congress either in Maharashtra or at the Centre: the Congress has more skeletons in its cupboard than a graveyard does).

Modi has no family to promote or to insure against inflation for the next hundred years( compare this with any other party leader, all of whom have given an entirely new meaning to the term ” joint family”- brothers, uncles, wives, sons, sons-in-law, nephews-all happily and jointly looting the nation’s resources).

Modi has a vision and a road map for the future and he has demonstrated in Gujarat that he can implement his vision.

No other major leader of the parties that are vilifying him comes even close to comparing with him in this respect- Manmohan Singh once had a vision but his unique concept of ” coalition dharma” has ensured that he now cannot see, or hear, or talk; Rahul Gandhi cannot see beyond bee-hives and boats that rise with the tide, Sharad Pawar cannot see the woods for the sugar-cane stalks, Mulayam Singh has been fixated on the Prime Minister’s chair for so long that he has now started hallucinating; Nitish Kumar’s vision is a peculiar bi-focal which enables him to see only Muslims and OBCs; Navin Patnaik, being erudite and sophisticated must be having a vision but he has not deigned to share it with anyone yet; Mayawati cannot see beyond statues of herself and of elephants; and as for Mamta Banerjee, she is colour blind-she can only see red. Modi’s track record as an administrator inspires confidence in his ability to play a role at the national level.

He sets specific goals, provides the resources and then gives his bureaucrats a free hand to operate.

He has ensured water availability to towns and to greater number of farmers, Gujarat now has 24X7 power and has even offered to sell power to other states.

Modi has realised long before his peers that future growth can only come from the manufacturing sector since the past stimulus provided by the service sector is now bottoming out, and has prepared his state to attract capital: perennial roadblocks which have bedeviled other states- land acquisition, labour issues, law and order, lack of decision making, cronyism- have all been sorted out. It is no surprise then that Gujarat has been receiving the second highest amount of investment funds after Maharashtra.

His opponents, looking for anything to denigrate his achievements, cavil that Gujarat has always been a progressive state and no credit goes to Modi for all this. True, Gujarat ( and Gujaratis) have always been entrepreneurial and progressive, but any economist can tell them that the higher you are on the performance scale, the more difficult it is to make incremental gains- and these gains Modi has been making year after year.

Gujarat has consistently been among the top five states in just about all economic, social and human development indicators, and far above the national figures. Here are some figures I picked up in the Hindustan Times of June 12, 2013:

[a] Infant Mortality Rate

                                   2005           2010

     Gujarat                      54              44

     Haryana                    60              48

     Orissa                        75               60

     INDIA                       58               47

[b]  Access to Safe Drinking Water( in %)

                                      2002           2011

      Gujarat                    84.1            90.3

      Maharashtra          79.8            83.4

      Andhra                    80.1             90.5

      INDIA                     77.9            85.5

[c]  Poverty Reduction ( in %)

                                     2004-5         2009-10

     Gujarat                    31.6            23

     Karnataka               33.3            23.6

     MP                            48.6            36.7

     Orissa                       57.2            37

     INDIA                      37.2            29.8

[d]  Annual GDP increase( in %) from 2005-6 to 2012-13

     Gujarat                       10.3

     Uttarakhand                 12.36

     MP                                  8.82

     Maharashtra                 9.97

     Delhi                              11.39

 

 Modi is no paragon of virtue. He is arrogant, does not allow a second rung of leadership to emerge, brooks no opposition, is impatient and authoritative, is not a consensus builder. But then we are not seeking to canonize a saint but looking for a political leader who can get this country out of the morass that its present stock of politicians has got us into. We are looking for someone who can be decisive rather than justify inaction under the garb of seeking an elusive ” consensus”. We are looking for someone who has the courage to have a vision and the skills to translate it into reality. We are looking for someone who will work for the country and not for his ” joint family”.

We are looking for someone who can restore our identities as INDIANS and not merely as Brahmins or Scheduled castes or Muslims or Backward castes.

We are looking for someone who will not pander to religions and be truly secular.

And we are looking for someone who will not be ashamed to say that he is a Hindu in the land that gave birth to the most tolerant and enlightened religion this world has seen.

Modi may fail- in fact, there are good chances that he will. But he at least promises change, whereas the others promise only more of the same. He offers us Hope. Shouldn't he be given a chance?

==============================================================

** The author retired from the Indian Administrative Service in December 2010. He is a keen environmentalist and loves the mountains- he has made them his home.