Hinduism vs. Hindutva – Part II: The true agenda of the anti-CAA movement
The recent issue of the C.A.A. (Citizenship Amendment Act 2020)―which was the headlines-hogging topic before the coronavirus tsunami swept everything else out of the picture―has brought out once more (for the umpteenth time) the true agenda of the powerful Hindu-hating forces.
To understand what exactly the opposition to the C.A.A. represents, and what is the real aim of these C.A.A. protesters, we must understand the situation in India in various stages of its history (and of its proposed future) in respect of religious identity:
1. The first stage: pre-C.E.:
| AREA | IDENTITY |
| 1. UNITED INDIA | Hindu |
2. The second stage: 600 C.E. (a gradual process) till 1946:
| AREA | IDENTITY |
| 1. UNITED INDIA | HINDU + MUSLIM + CHRISTIAN |
3. The third stage: post-1947:
| AREA | IDENTITY |
| 1. INDIA | HINDU + MUSLIM + CHRISTIAN |
| 2. PAKISTAN+BANGLADESH | MUSLIM |
It looks as if the division of United India into two accounts was done with Muslims getting one single account only for themselves, with the second account being a joint account of Muslims with Hindus and Christians!
However, this picture, unjust to Hindus though it should seem to any impartial observer (but strangely no-one seems to think so!), was made even more so in the fourth stage with the application of article 370.
4. The fourth stage: post-1954 (article 370):
| AREA | IDENTITY |
| 1a. KASHMIR | MUSLIM |
| 1b. THE REST OF INDIA | HINDU + MUSLIM + CHRISTIAN |
| 2. PAKISTAN+BANGLADESH | MUSLIM |
As per this dispensation, a Kashmiri Muslim could buy and own land in Kashmir as well as in the rest of India, while a non-Kashmiri person could buy and own land only in the rest of India but not in Kashmir!
The abrogation of article 370 only removed this greater injustice to Hindus, and merely changed the third stage back from 4 to 3, which was only slightly less unjust to Hindus.
But this incensed the Hindu-haters to such an extent that they have taken the pretext of the C.A.A. to demand the fifth stage!
Let us see how this is so: the third stage was actually as follows:
| AREA | IDENTITY |
| 1. INDIA | HINDU + INDIAN-MUSLIM + CHRISTIAN |
| 2. PAKISTAN+BANGLADESH | PAKISTANI–BANGLADESHI MUSLIM |
When United India was divided in 1947, it was not on the demand of any section of Hindus: it was on the demand of all sections of Muslims. The Muslim League, with its Pakistan demand, won the Muslim vote in all parts of United India, including both the present-day Pakistan-Bangladesh as well as (and in fact more so) the present-day India.
But when the division was done, what actually happened (due to the half-baked attitude of both the Congress as well as the RSS-Hindu-Mahasabha―it was only Ambedkar who sounded the warning bells) was that while most Hindus (who had never asked for the division) were driven out of Pakistan (immediately) and Bangladesh (gradually), the majority of Muslims in the Indian areas (who had asked for the division) remained put in India.
Meanwhile, not all Hindus in Pakistan-Bangladesh were able to escape to India. Many remained there, perhaps still in hope that things would improve or simply because it was impossible and impractical and even unthinkable to leave all their ancestral properties and belongings and escape empty-handed to some unknown and unfamiliar area in the rest of India.
Their plight was known to all the politicians in India, and all the Prime Ministers of India―from Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh―are on record stating and promising that the persecuted (mainly Hindu) minorities in Pakistan-Bangladesh should feel freely entitled to escape to India and acquire Indian citizenship as and when it became necessary.
The C.A.A. (Citizenship Amendment Act 2020) has only fulfilled that promise, which was never kept before―and even the C.A.A. fulfils it in an unjustly partial manner: only those Pakistani-Bangladeshi non-Muslims who are in India from before 2014 are to be given citizenship!
[The irony of the politics involved in this whole “debate” must be noted: the CAA was opposed by the Congress, including the Punjab Congress dominated by Sikhs, and in fact even by the BJP ally, the Akali Dal, the party of Sikhs.
Now, one single attack on Sikhs in Afghanistan has led to the Punjab Chief Minister asking for the Sikhs in Afghanistan to be given refuge in India:
In short, when convenient, the Secularists condemn giving citizenship to Indian-religion minorities in the concerned countries who have already been in India since before 2014―which is all that the lame C.A.A. does. The same people, when convenient, ask for giving refuge (and surely later citizenship) to Indian-religion minorities who are even now in the concerned countries!]
Amazingly, the opponents of the C.A.A. (not including the protesters from the northeast, who have totally different objections) object on the incredible ground that this discriminates between Pakistani-Bangladeshi Muslims and Pakistani-Bangladeshi non-Muslims! According to them the C.A.A. should provide similar citizenship to sections of Pakistani-Bangladeshi Muslims as well!
With the abrogation of article 370 for Kashmir, and the reversion to the third stage, these opponents of the C.A.A. are actually demanding that the C.A.A. should be a kind of article 370 covering Pakistan and Bangladesh.
5. The fifth stage: demanded by the C.A.A. opponents
| AREA | IDENTITY=CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS |
| 1. INDIA | HINDU + INDIAN-MUSLIM + CHRISTIAN + PAKISTANI–BANGLADESHI MUSLIM |
| 2. PAKISTAN+BANGLADESH | PAKISTANI–BANGLADESHI MUSLIM |
That is: while India’s people have a direct right only to Indian citizenship, the Muslims of Pakistan-Bangladesh should be given a right to Indian citizenship as well if the non-Muslims of Pakistan-Bangladesh are to be given such a right! In short, the entire present population of Pakistan-Bangladesh should have a joint account in India, while only Pakistani-Bangladeshi Muslims have the right to a single account in Pakistan-Bangladesh! The abrogation of article 370 avenged!
One Muslim friend had the following argument to make: in 1947, lakhs (or millions) of Muslims migrated to Pakistan. Today they are ill-treated and harassed as “Mohajirs” in Pakistan. If Hindus (etc.) being ill-treated in Pakistan are given a right to Indian citizenship, why should these Indian-area Muslims in Pakistan not be given a similar right?
This argument, with the typical double-standard logic of Islamist-Secularist discourse in India, ignores the distinction between (a) Pakistan(-Bangladesh)-area Hindus in Pakistan-Bangladesh and (b) Indian-area Muslims in Pakistan-Bangladesh:
(a) The Pakistan(-Bangladesh)-area Hindus in Pakistan had not asked for the partition of India: they were its victims―the trapped victims of a pact between Indian and Pakistani(-Bangladeshi) politicians, and they deserve a permanent right of migration to India and the acquirement of Indian citizenship to escape persecution.
(b) But the Indian-area Muslims in Pakistan are people who agitated, rioted and voted for the partition of India in pre-1947 elections and then migrated to their desired land. Saying they have a right to return to India and get Indian citizenship is like saying that if a man who fights for a division of his father’s property into two parts between himself and his brother later decides to give up his part to someone else, then he has a right to come back and get a share in his brother’s part of the property!
[All this, apart from the fact that:
1. The truncated C.A.A. bill, in any case, does not really give all the Pakistan(-Bangladesh)-area Hindus in Pakistan-Bangladesh the right to acquire Indian citizenship: only those who are already in India since before 2014, and the procedure is only speeded up.
Further, even individual Pakistani-Bangladeshi Muslims (not even necessarily Indian-area ones) can acquire Indian citizenship through normal procedures.
2. India is not in any case a dharamshala for anyone and everyone: no country in the world is a dharamshala, and no-one has the right to dictate that India should be one.]
This fifth stage is a clear forward movement towards:
6. The sixth stage: the unstated agenda for the future:
| AREA | IDENTITY |
| 1. UNITED INDIA | MUSLIM |
A terrifying prospect indeed.
The future of the whole world, in any case, is bleak and terrifying at the moment. Let us not compound the future problems for India by confusing two different issues. The leftists are clear in their mind. While they cannot, at the moment, openly endorse the acts of China (though they can defend or condone them on the old familiar grounds of non-discrimination―as even the “minor” rapist of Nirbhaya was militantly defended by them), they are busy trying to keep both agendas alive. See the following article by one of the most poisonously India-hating and Hindu-hating journalists of the day, Vidya Krishnan, which, even as it condemns the Indian government for whatever it is trying to do to mitigate the coronavirus menace, keeps the Hindu-hating agenda in sharp focus:
Note the very second paragraph:
“Throughout, another set of events were occurring here in India. Late last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government introduced and passed a controversial new law, ostensibly in support of minorities in neighboring countries, that in fact openly discriminated against Muslims and undermined India’s secular foundations. Then, early this year, protests over that new law snowballed into a pogrom in which dozens of people—mostly Muslims—have been killed.”
Indians should wake up before it is too late!
Hindutva simply means a Hinduism able to deal with attacks by enemies. A Hindutva-based polity will simply be a polity which, unlike the present Indian polity, defends Hinduism from Hindu-hating forces.
A Hindutva polity is beneficial to all Indians, not only to Hindus:
As I put it in my blog article “Hindutva or Hindu Nationalism“, itself an extract from my article published in the Sita Ram Goel Commemoration Volume published by Voice of India New Delhi fifteen years ago in 2005, the central plank of Hindutva ideology should be to provide security and protection to:
“lower caste people in remote villages from the dominant castes in their areas (read, for example, Nalini Singh’s ‘Aankhon Dekhi — Booth-capturing viewed from a BSP field office’ in the Times of India, 18/4/2004); any linguistic, religious, caste, or other minority in any area from the majority in that area; women from predator men; children from predator adults; aged people from ruthless youth; physically or mentally handicapped people from other, ‘normal’, people; inmates of prisons, orphanages, old age homes, mental asylums and boarding schools, workers in factories and offices, or even residents of ordinary homes, localities or villages, from their various tormentors; and the common man from injustice and insecurity, crime and oppression, hunger and want, diseases and natural disasters, ignorance and illiteracy, superstitions and oppressive traditions.
Providing protection, security and aid, to one and all, from all these things, is not a part of any ‘liberalisation’ or ‘reform’ agenda or program. But, it should be a very important and basic part of any Hindu Nationalist socio-economic agenda.
The primary concern of Hindu Nationalist socio-economic ideology should be to evolve an ideal model of economic development: one which benefits all sections of society, but which gives particular importance to the concerns and interests of the poorer, weaker and more vulnerable sections; and which does everything to encourage initiative and activity among all sections, but does not give unfair leeway to the rich and the powerful to loot the public, or to loot public funds.
To sum up: we must evolve a nationalist socio-economic ideology which will try to (1) make India a rich, prosperous, peaceful and happy nation; and (2) see that, basically, for every Indian, regardless of race, religion, caste, sex, profession, or any other mark of identity, India truly becomes a land ‘where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high’, in every sense of the term. The primary guiding principle should be sarve bhavantu sukhinah, sarve santu nirāmayah, sarve bhadrāṇi paśyantu, mā kaścid duhkha bhāg bhavet: “may all be contented and happy, may all be free of pain and disease, may all ever see auspicious times, may no-one be unhappy.
In short, it is time to evolve a Hindu Nationalist socio-economic ideology which will try to be a model and inspiration to the rest of the world, and to future generations of the human race; and which will take mankind as a whole further on the path ‘from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality’ and from animalism to divinity. True evolution is to be measured, not in terms of technological and material progress and development, which are taking place at a breakneck, and continually accelerating, pace, but are only converting humans into a more and more organised, powerful, sophisticated, technologically advanced and materially evolved species of ruthless, selfish, self-centred, cold-blooded and mechanical animal, but in terms of spiritual progress which will make humans more and more humane, considerate, thoughtful and compassionate divine beings.
[To put it in a different way: tomorrow, if a race of aliens, infinitely superior in comparison to the most advanced section of earthlings of that time — as proportionately superior, in the sense of technologically advanced, materially rich and militarily powerful, as, say, the present-day Americans are in comparison to the present-day Andamanese people — were to arrive on earth (admittedly an extremely hypothetical situation), how would we expect to be treated by them? Would we respect them, as genuinely superior and advanced beings, only on the strength of their technology, material wealth and power, if it were accompanied by their treatment of us with the same ruthlessness with which man treats other animals, conquering humans treat conquered peoples, masters treat slaves, the pigs on Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ treated the other animals, Big Brother’s System treated the citizens in Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, or, indeed, Jehovah of the Old Testament treated mankind in general or the Jews in particular? Or would we respect them if they also proved to be spiritually advanced: infinitely more humane, considerate, thoughtful and compassionate than human beings?]”
No-one should be under any delusion. Starting with the anti-CAA agitation, the Leftist-orcestrated Islamicist-Evangelist-Maoist front has declared Open War against Hindus, Hinduism and India. A Fight to the Finish.
If Hindus don’t get it even now, their future, if any, is bleak and stark and terrifying, and it will be of their own making. And it is not the future of Hindus only, it is the future of all Indians. It is only in a Hindu-dominated India that even Muslims and Christians are free to follow their religious traditions, and live in relative peace and happiness in a genuinely secular (because Hindu-dominated) atmosphere. No Indian Muslim in his right senses would want to live in the kind of atmosphere prevailing in any Islamic country―whether Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or any other ―all Indian Muslims know in their minds that a Hindu India is better than an Islamic one for them to live in.
But Hindus should stop allowing Hindu-haters to set the agendas, and to embarrass them from openly declaring that India is a Hindu nation and should officially be a Hindu nation, where people of all religions will live with absolute freedom to practice their religions and will have full personal liberties and civil rights (not as defined by the Hindu-haters, needless to say), but that this Hindu nation will only promote Hinduism and Hindu culture (which means all cultures and religions originating in India) and will not allow non-Hindu religions to attack Hinduism or convert Hindus.
This is the bare minimum that we owe this soil.
If even this much cannot be done, we will reach a stage where India will become the Lebanon of a few decades earlier―a hotbed of Islamism and Evangelism (and also, in this case, Maoism)―and every Hindu will become a potential Swami Kalpavriksha Giri Maharaj.
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