The desperate attempts to declare Hinduism
as a religion and not “a way of life”, as the Supreme Court had observed twenty
years back in 1995, has obvious political motives. It is basically to prevent
Hindus to unite under one banner and weaken the BJP’s hold on the electoral
politics of India. But the impression given by those who raise the bogey of
Hinduism is that it is the biggest threat to the nation since the Partition of
India. I have often asked myself what exactly are the dangers of Hinduism to
the nation, and in this regard a clear presentation of this perceived threat is
long overdue. Secular scholars do make a lot of noise about unimportant issues
such as beef-eating and the compulsory singing of Vande Mataram, but when it
comes to going beyond these trifles and getting into the nitty-gritty of their
accusation, they simply vanish from the public domain. But before I speculate
further on the underlying reason for feeling threatened by such a harmless
religion as Hinduism, let me repeat an old argument in its favour.
Hinduism has no single unifying code of
conduct which it can impose on the Hindus themselves, so how on earth can it
force it on those who belong to other religions? It has a hundred disciplines
and a thousand rituals, so how can it impose a common system or practice on anybody?
The spiritual philosophy of Hinduism is so wide and universal that it can
accommodate all the religions of the world without any sense of condescension,
which should make every Indian feel proud instead of being ashamed of it. The
three fundamentals of Hinduism, according to Sri Aurobindo are: (1) “the idea
of the One Existence to whom sages give different names”; (2) “the manifold way
of man’s approach to the Eternal and Infinite”; (3) the Divine “can be met by
each individual soul because there is something in it that is intimately one
with the one divine Existence”. More concisely, (1) there is the One Divine
with different names, (2) there are multiple approaches to the Divine, and (3) the
Divine is in each man for him to discover. Mark the impersonality and the
general application of the statement (no names are mentioned), the sheer catholicity
of approach, and finally the dignity accorded to every human being. If these
are the dogmas that Hinduism will impose on others, what is there to be so
terrified about?
But then one cannot expect rationality in
politics, and the spectre of Trishul wielding sadhus running after followers of
other religious denominations has to be created out of thin air for the sake of
political gain. In doing so the essence of Hinduism is deliberately overlooked
and so much negative stress laid on its outer forms that modern Hindus immediately
start hating their own religion and culture, or give the benefit of doubt to
its critics rather than its votaries. Thus instead of going back to the essence
of Hinduism and recreating fresh forms of life which break from the rigid
rituals of the past, present day Hindus are forced to stand on a secular
platform with no individuality of their own. Or, not knowing what to do in the
face of the aggressive propaganda of Western culture, which has weakened the
very foundations of their inner life, they go back to age-old forms with a
sense of vengeance. Both can be done successfully, the creation of fresh forms as
well as the revivifying of the old, provided the spiritual motive is there
behind, for spirituality is after all the essence of Hinduism.
But the question is where does rationality
fit in the current dilemma of India which is now facing a crucial choice of
culture: either to recognise the value of Hinduism or admit with regret that it
can only be used for seasoning secularism, like a housewife adds condiments to the
daily curry. It is the apprehension of this loss of rationality that is at the root
of all objections to Hinduism, and at first sight it would seem a legitimate
fear. But on a deeper look the contradiction disappears. The essence of
Hinduism is spiritual, and spirituality does not at all contradict rationality,
as great spiritual personalities like Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda have
shown the world by becoming living embodiments of such a synthesis. As a matter
of fact, what we see happening on a larger scale nowadays though at a lesser
height is “a rationalisation of spirituality”, which is the reverse of the
cooking example that I have given above. In this case, spirituality is the suprarational
foundation (or the curry) and rationality plays the secondary role of keeping man
in check and saving him from irrational vital excesses. In other words,
rationality peppers the spiritual curry with its condiments and makes it more acceptable
to man. I have perhaps overstretched the simile, but in the case of Sri
Aurobindo, he used the marvellous clarity of his intellect to express his spiritual
world-view, as in his magnum opus The
Life Divine. He had the best of Western education at Cambridge and wrote
impeccable English (this itself should make most seculars scholars jealous of
him). But then he came back to India, had major spiritual experiences, studied
the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and other classics of India, before he
launched the Arya in which he wrote
his major works within a short period of six and a half years. If this is not
an intellectual achievement, then I wonder what is!
The spirituality catholicity of Hinduism is
thus compatible with rationalism and democratic rights, so secularism should
have no essential problem with it. The objection could be raised that
secularism by its very definition is “not religious”, so how could it
accommodate Hinduism? But if you do not insist on “religious rituals” and
insist on the spiritual essence, which leaves everybody free to follow their
own beliefs, then we are just differing over words and definitions while the
actual content remains the same. Hinduism could be thus redefined not as a
religion, but as “spiritual secularism” in order to be the foundation of all the
religions of the world, including the numerous sects of its own. In any case
India certainly needs a good measure of spiritual thought presented in the
modern context at this historic juncture when secularism has literally capsized
after having miserably failed to run the country for the last 60 years of
independence. If there is one single reason for the rampant corruption in
public life and the general slackening of moral rectitude in India, it is the
lack of a national ethos, a national character and personality, which every
Indian can be proud of. After all, it is the sense of a unique individuality
that makes a man or a nation dynamic and successful in life. From this point of
view, Hinduism can certainly fill the gap and provide “the soul of the nation”
as Sri Aurobindo calls it. At the same time it could build the common platform
for all religions to practise unhindered within its larger spiritual framework than
secularism, which only encourages religious fundamentalism in the name of
protection of minorities, and deprives the Hindus of their own culture because
they have taken the responsibility of governance. I end with a beautiful
quotation of Sri Aurobindo which defines Hinduism:
“Hinduism...
gave itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal
adhesion, asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no single narrow path or
gate of salvation; it was less a creed or cult than a continuously enlarging
tradition of the Godward endeavour of the human spirit. An immense many-sided
and many-staged provision for a spiritual self-building and self-finding, it had
some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew, the eternal religion, sanātana dharma.”
(Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL, Vol.
14, p. 122)
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