A price to serve the Hindu cause

Author: Shyam Khosla
Publication: Organiser

Anti-Hindu forces are determined to pursue their divisive policies and actions. They are at work all the time spreading canards about Hindu nationalism and making all out efforts, each in its own way, to weaken the Hindu society. Their aim is political domination and personal glorification, even if national unity and glory of India is the cost. V.P. Singh’s dream of emerging as the Messiah of the backward communities led to Mandalisation of the society. It divided the society deep down the middle as no other action of concept did. The jinn unleashed by him under the garb of social justice played havoc with social harmony and caused social strife that refuses to die down. The distorted version of secularism, propounded and practiced by the Congress, communists and other ‘secularists’, is yet another divisive instrument that marginalised Hindus and filled them with anger over being treated as second-class citizens in their own land. Whether it was the Shah Bano case or the Godhra carnage and the communal strife that broke out in its wake or Islamic terrorism, the anti-Hindu contours of ‘secularism’ were manifest. The kid gloves with which the ‘secularists’ dealt with terrorism in J&K and in other parts of the country and the Congress party’s secret understanding—“votes for lifting the ban on PWG”—with communist terrorism in Andhra Pradesh are some of the deep causes of concern for the nationalists.

The latest in the series of attacks on Hindu icons is the arrest of Sri Jayendra Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, for “conspiring to kill a former employee”, and the shabby treatment meted out to the Swami by the Tamil Nadu police. Besides being a spiritual and religious leader that is revered by millions and millions of Hindus across the country and outside, he is a holy man with traditional values and modern ideas. He was the one who reached out to the depressed and deprived sections of the society. When there was resistance to entry of Harijans in temples, he took idols to Harijan bastis saying if they could not go to the Lord, He will come to them. The number of hospitals he built for the poor and the needy, the number of schools he opened for the vast multitude of under-privileged children, the countless dilapidated temples he restored, all stand testimony to his vision and dedication to the cause of the society and dharma. He was the bedrock of Hindu resistance against the Dravidian movement launched by separatists. He was the voice of Hindus after the mass conversion of Harijans to Islam in Meenakshipuram and the one who addressed the concerns of the Harijans. He played a major role in creating public opinion against fraudulent conversions by missionaries.

He had to pay the price for his services to the Hindu causes. Anti-Hindu elements ganged up to malign the Swami to undermine his stature as a Hindu spiritual leader. That the Swami has been falsely implicated in a murder case is evident from the evidence given by the two accused in the case that told the court that they had been tortured while in police custody to falsely implicate the Acharya. Jayalalithaa, the egoist, is obviously behind the deep-rooted conspiracy to destroy the immense respect and popularity the seer enjoys. However, certain elements in the police department are so rabidly anti-Hindu that they seem to have gone beyond their brief to heap insults on the Shankaracharya by arresting him on the eve of Diwali and leaking “clinching evidence” against the Swami, whereas they have yet to get hold of the killers. It is ridiculous to say the “law will take its own course” while the statements made in the court by two of the accused show how the law is being abused to malign Hindu leaders. The Tamil media, particularly the channels owned by the two major Tamil parties, is playing the dirty game to the hilt to serve its narrow partisan ends. Nakeeran Gopal, who was close to Veerappan, is in the forefront of this vicious campaign. Does one need a better proof of the involvement of criminal and anti-Hindu forces in the conspiracy to malign the Hindu icon?

Hindu nationalism is a concept and belief that commands total commitment to Hindu ethos, national unity, territorial integrity and the glory of Bharat-mata. It transcends narrow religious, caste, linguistic and territorial loyalties as was proved beyond a shadow of doubt during the Ayodhya movement. The temple at Ayodhya is one of its symbols. The concept is too wide to be identified with only one or two symbols. It encompasses countless icons and issues that fortify Hindu unity, identity and causes. It is for the Hindu nationalists to work in unison to frustrate the onslaught from ‘secularists’ and communists, Jehadis and separatists.