Vivekanand Jha Ranchi: The gravest of ironies that Hinduism, the first religion as well as civilisation on earth, has confronted is this: How could a religion which has taken to its bosom all the persecuted races, would stand diminished and degraded for millennium, caused a tremendous amount of agitation in this writer as it had stirred in such greats as Swami Vivekananda, Great Rishi Aurobindo, Swami Dayananda, Veer Savarkar and others. Where exactly we went wrong, inordinately agitated this writer into hours of rumination? Especially when the doctrinaire belief of ‘ Vasudaiv Kutumbakam’, which envisages the liberation of humanity as it’s raison d’etre and summum bonum, where exactly we missed out, where resulted in the degeneration of our religion for almost eight hundred years, deeply disconcerted me? After significant churning out, I reached to this conclusion: whereas the philosophical depth kept us overwhelmingly preoccupied, we neglected the very basic rule of survival: The Swordsmanship to protect ourselves from an outside invasion. Moreover, the overwhelming rituals kept us unnecessarily involved as we have two hoots to the basic lesson of disciplining ourselves with arms and ammunitions. Added to this, the concept of Avatarhood has left no stone unturned in emasculating us physically, so much so that, even for small issues of aggressively confronting our belligerent neighbour, appeared an inordinately excruciating task. Hence, Hindus, over millennium, became the ‘ peace loving cowards’. Regrettably, our Somnath Temple, the prized heritage of the nation, was desecrated time and time again, yet, our priests and the devotees, in exhibition of the worst form of pusillanimity, remained mute spectators to few marauders’ depredation in broad daylight when they escaped with booties while everyone looked around; none had the minimum guts to resist the terrorists. This was the reason of the aboriginals of this country preferring to live like slaves, rather than resisting the persecution with swords. Unless the arrival of great Chhatrapati Shivaji and Guru Govind Singhjee, the Hindus remained irreversibly cowards. Small wonder then, only the Swordsmanship of Chhatrapati Shivaji had saved Hindus from being converted into Muslims. Hence, Shivaji Maharaj should be placed alongside Great Adi Shankaracharya as India’s raison d’etre and summum bonum.
With the benefits of hindsight, Hindus, unfortunately, have failed to learn even the basic lesson of survival; the fact that someone else will come to save them, is the mistaken and mischievous presumption which has hobbled Hindus even today: Their donning the role of cheerleaders to Modi and Yogi will not help them; in fact, their own collective strength will. Individually, Hindus will have to be strong, and collectively they have to be a strongly knitted monolithic force. Hence against this backdrop, Swami Vivekananda’s famous prescription that, ‘ You should play football, rather than reading Bhagvad Gita’, was the sad commentary of physical emaciation of Hindu Community. Unequivocally, the weakness and vulnerability has gone so deep that, from being the owner of this landscape, we ironically assumed the mantle of being eternal apologists. Such was the misplaced notion that we erroneously felt that, keeping others, especially Muslims, in good humour, was our sanctified responsibility. The duplicity of secularism, along with Communal Violence Bill, were the handiwork of the notorious Gandhi- Nehru family to slowly, yet steadily, transform into a Muslim nation. Worse still, the name of the son of Priyanka Vadra, Rehan was deliberately chosen to surreptitiously make him the successor of Rahul Gandhi, presuming that, in decades to come, Muslims would have substantially increased their population, and the name Rehan would adequately resonate with Muslims. Significantly, Gandhi- Nehru family works out a meticulous plan to keep itself relevant in changing political landscape. However, 2014 had a divine intervention in Indian politics: A Yug Avatar, Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist, arrived in scene with a bang to awaken the hibernating Hindu Consciousness of being ‘ eternally Apologists’. ‘ India belongs to us, Hindus, and therefore, we should no more live like Apologists’. ‘No more apologists’ was the Mantra invoked by Chhatrapati Shivaji, Bal Thackeray, and in 2014 by Narendra Modi. This mantra is for every single Hindu, for Hinduism is India, India is Hinduism, other religions have their genesis outside India and consequently they claim no right tracing their roots with Bharatvarsha. Yes, if they irreconcilably agree to subscribe to the reality that they had their Hindu ancestry, they can trace their roots from India. Therefore today, being the New year of Bharatvarsha–let us no more be apologists to call it as Hindu Nav Varsha–it is the new year of this nation. The invigorating Mantra is for one and all: Live like No More Apologists; identify yourself as the aboriginals of this great Punyabhoomie, Bharatvarsha, for Hinduism is Bharatvarsha, Bharatvarsha is Hinduism.
Happy new year to fellow compatriots of Bharatvarsha.
Vivekanand Jha, author of an upcoming book No More Apologists.
