LETTER PUBLISHED ON 10TH OCTOBER 2022
Both the contradictory nature of Mohan Bhagwat’s statements and the resultant criticisms result from the basic failure of our intellectuals to truly describe India except in colonial terms. Our indigenous phenomenon is Sanatana Dharma, a huge conglomeration of traditions, based on rituals and with the essence of an indifference to differences. What came from alien lands were religions, inherently intolerant, with the idea of ‘My One True God’ against ‘Your Many False Gods’. The transformation of traditions into proper religions (Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism) and then applying the mantra of secularism, a solution for European Christendom at a specific time of its history, is the cause of so many problems, including the so-called Hindutva. The Indian solution to pluralism was ‘traditionalising the religions’ which allowed Sanatana Dharma to absorb any number of faiths. ‘Religionising our traditions’, in reverse, remains the single biggest failure of our academic-political-legal systems. Varna-jati-ashrama is a civil societal system which allowed India to survive brutal invasions from across centuries. Of course, untouchability was a terrible weed which we could address from within. Colonial-missionary narratives with a purpose to break India superimposed Caste, a western idea, on varnas and jatis and then made them into an ‘idolatrous’ religious phenomenon fit for condemnation. Our discourses and counter discourses have not deviated a single bit from the colonial narratives.
RANDOM MUSINGS 