Freedom of thought, conscience and religion are among the fundamental individual liberties which are protected at the constitutional and national / international level. They may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public order, or public morality. One of the challenges of modern times in trespect of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, both at the international and national level, is the rise in religious intolerance. All the non-economic problems in India today---social, cultural, religious and spiritual----have been created by a planned perversion of India's polity by the Government of India by its dictatorial imposition of the inviolable doctrine of pseudo secularism upon the nation. According to this mischievous political doctrine, the Hindus of India in majority have to tolerate Islamic Terrorism and induced and fraudulent Christian conversion as fundamental minority religious rights. At the same time, the minorities have a fundamental right to treat the time-honoured sacred religious rights of the Hindus with hatred, intolerance and contempt.
The coming of independence on August 15, 1947 proved a boon for Christianity. The Christian right to convert Hindus was incorporated in the Constitution. Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru who dominated the Indian political scene for 17 long years, promoted every anti-Hindu ideology and movement behind the smokescreen of counterfeit secularism. The congress regimes that followed continued to raise the bogey of 'Hindu Communalism' as the most frightening phenomenon.
Our Constitution makers, through the enactment of Articles 25, 26, 27 and 28, ensured Right to Freedom of Religion and through Articles 29 and 30, the cultural and educational Rights of Minorities. With the birth of the new Indian Constitution on 26 January, 1950, things were made quite smooth for the Christian missions in India. They surged forward with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. Nehru gave a command performance in this sphere by becoming a vocal champion of pseudo-secularism. Nehru became the most despicable demagogue in India's hoary history by borrowing the word 'secularism' from Western political parlance by making it to mean the opposite of what it had meant in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. For him it became a glorious Fixed Deposit Account for minority- vote-bank politics. 'Secularism' in Europe symbolized a humanist and rationalist revolt against the closed creed of Christianity and stood for pluralism such as had characterized Hinduism down the ages. But Pundit Nehru had perverted the word and turned it into a shield for protecting every closed monotheistic creed prevailing in India at the dawn of independence in 1947: Islam, Christianity and Communism.
The subject of Hindu Human Rights has been deliberately ignored by the Pseudo Secular Coterie of Mass Media for too long, and this has led to the build-up of a helpless feeling among members of the majority Hindu Community that they have been reduced to the status of children of a LESSER PAGAN, AND OF COURSE HEATHEN, GOD in their own ancient Homeland. While the 'Secular' political class, the National Human Rights Commission and multiple NGOs are often seen clamouring at the drop of a hat for protection of the Human Rights of Minorities, no tears are shed or any concern ever expressed about the pitiable plight of the members of the shattered and battered majority Hindu Community in different parts of India.
The most glaring example relates to the callous disregard of the pitiable plight of lakhs of Hindus ethnically cleansed from Jammu and Kashmir – particularly the pundits - with the tacit political consent of the pseudo-secular Government of India and the anti-Hindu Government of Jammu and Kashmir. Not a word has been said about helpless Hindu women and children who were burnt alive in a railway carriage by marauders at Godhra. No one, however, seems to be bothered about such abominable violation of Hindu Human Rights. There is a longstanding complaint about the misuse of the funds and lands of Hindu temples by avaricious State governments.
With GANESH PUJA round the corner in the next few days, it is very relevant to point out that the Muslims of India take special delight every year by attacking the Ganesh Idol Immersion procession in all parts of India. Their main objection is to the loud broadcast of devotional music. If that is so what about the loud broadcast of Koran Prayer several times every day of the year. Do the fundamentalist Hindus throw stones and soda bottles at the mosques?
Unlike Mahatma Gandhi who was not afraid of proclaiming from the housetop that he was a devout Hindu and a staunch supporter of Sanatana Dharma, Nehru took special pride in running down Hindu religion and Hindu culture from all public platforms. Jawaharlal Nehru promoted his concept of false nationhood under the label of 'secularism'. According to this concept, it does not matter if the state-aided minorities dismiss the time-honoured culture of this country 'Sanatana Dharma' as abominable and as a path of the Devil. Nehru had total contempt for Hindu religion, for Hindu culture, for Hindu society and above all for the average Hindu. This concept of perverted 'Nehruvian Nationhood' as opposed to 'Sanatana Dharma', meant State-engineered opposition to the Hindus in all walks of life. ANTAGONISM TO HINDUS EMERGED AS THE CORNER STONE OF STATE POLICY. The ideology of Nehruism came to be lauded, acclaimed, promoted and propagated under the name of 'Secularism' till it came to be treated as beyond reproach, beyond debate and beyond discussion. In short, all the Hindus of India became second class citizens depending upon the sufferance even patronage of the minorities. Dressed in brief mortal authority, Nehru's purblind audacity reached its climax when he wrote to Kailash Nath Katju in 1953: 'In practice the individual Hindu is more intolerant and more narrow-minded than almost any person in any other country'.
To sum up, after our independence, we were taught by the Government to look at the history of Bharatvarsha from a new angle of State-sponsored distorted anti-Hindu vision. We were asked to regard Indian history as one of pseudo-secular synthesis. We were asked to overlook the barbaric tyranny that was perpetrated on us in order to force Islam down our throats from 1025 AD till 1707 AD. The horrible persecution, the blunder, the vandalism, and the massacres should all be forgotten. Or we should assume these acts of Islamic compassion to have been the personal aberrations of a few Rulers. So, we don't really have a 'National Culture' of our own but only a 'Hybrid Composite Culture' politically manufactured by the Government to electorally pander to the sectional feelings of the Minorities.'
THUS, I AM OF THE CONSIDERED VIEW THAT THERE IS GROSS VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS OF HINDUS IN INDIA. What are Human Rights? The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.'
Hindu Human Rights must commonly include the following Cluster of Rights:
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Security rights
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Liberty rights
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Political rights
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Due process rights
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Equality rights
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Welfare rights
Group rights
All the above rights are being denied to the Hindu majority under the umbrella of secularism. Ensuring the rights—legal or illegal—of the Muslims and the Christians seems to be the only concern of the Government and the State. We have to discard the present Indian Constitution and to give ourselves a new Constitution of our own rooted in our own national, cultural, spiritual and religious ethos.
In order to understand and know the extent to which there is a gross violation of Human Rights of Hindus in India, we have only to pose the following simple questions:
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There are nearly 52 Muslim countries. Which Muslim country provides Haj subsidy?
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Which is the Muslim country where Hindus are extended the same special rights that Muslims are accorded in India?
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Which is the country where the 85% majority craves for the indulgence of the 15 per cent minority under its own Constitution?
Which is the Muslim country that has had a non-Muslim as its President or Vice President or Prime Minister?
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Why are temple funds spent for the welfare of Muslims and Christians, even when they have all the freedom to spend their money in any way they like only and only for themselves?
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Why does the Government of India consider Sanskrit as communal and Urdu and Latin as secular, Mandir as communal and Masjid and Church as secular, Sadhu as communal and Imam or Bishop as secular, BJP as communal and Muslim League as secular, Vande Mataram as communal and Allah and Amen as secular?
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at
vsundaram@newstodaynet.com
