Seventy Years of Secularism: Unpopular Essays on the Unofficial Political Religion of India

by Sandeep Balakrishna

The resultant western educated left-sympathizing Indian intellectual today dislikes his own country, does not study or honor its cultural traditions and is often actively working to replace them with what is deemed as more progressive models from the West. Though living in India, such individuals follow a mindset that represents western political and psychological theories that have no comparable concept of dharma or recognize any higher consciousness behind the body and the material world that has been India’s predominant world view through the centuries.

“to uphold, to support, to nourish, sacrifice, study, charity.”

Social reforms and politics have to be preached through our age-old religion and philosophy.

Indeed, it does evoke a sense of awe when we try and fathom what it must have taken in terms of mathematics, engineering, building technology, craftsmanship, artistry, design, planning, and the entire project execution when we recall that this “project” took over 150 years and spanned at least six generations of experts in all of these fields. It also throws light on the political stability and economic prosperity that the Rashtrakuta Empire must have sustained in order to carry this activity on for over one and a half centuries. The Kailasanath temple covers twice the area of the Parthenon in Athens. [29]

This singular temple is also akin to a university that imparts education in almost all of the Indian epics, and some Puranas. In a way, it is the architectural encyclopaedia of Hinduism.

Initially, significant numbers of “upper caste” Hindus converted, most notably in Bengal. However, the gains were insignificant because almost in no time, the Hindu response was swift. A strong tide of Hindu resurgence led by the likes of Swami Dayananda Saraswathi and Swami Vivekananda pretty much scuttled such conversion attempts. The Church then realized that it could not win converts if it challenged Sanatana Dharma purely on philosophical grounds. That was when missionaries targeted the poorer sections of Hindu society, a tactic that remains unchanged till date.

However, the greatest damage that British rule did to India was to carve out what is now infamously known as the Macaulayite class of Indians. Needless, majority of this Macaulayite class are upper caste Hindus. Our Marxists, secularists and liberals are the descendants of the worst of this Macaulayite class. To their credit, creating this class was perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the British, something that the eight-hundred-year-long Islamic rule couldn’t accomplish by force: pitting Hindus against each other by making them ashamed of their own identity.

The other and greater threat is the fact that Sanatana Dharma today, more than at any other time in history, is being relentlessly assaulted from almost all quarters: the ongoing global Jihad with India as a prime target, the worldwide Christian conversion industry, the Reinvented Marxists, the English media, minority-vote-bank-pandering politicians, compromised academics, think tanks and NGOs. Unlike the earlier eras where physical force formed a major arsenal, today, the name of the game is infiltration and subversion from within.

Hindus there routinely face attacks on their way of life, their women, places of worship, and institutions from Muslim goons.

One of the best ways to gauge the importance and vitality of the awe-inspiring heritage of an India before secularism is to observe what continues to be attacked the most in an India under secularism. In no particular order, the Vedas, Ramayana, and Mahabharata continue to face the severest brunt. The temple tradition (and everything associated with it) is dismissed as a conspiracy of the upper “castes.” Sanskrit literature is derided as outdated, elitist, oppressive and useless.

Tipu Sultan tied the naked Christians and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants to move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces. Temples and churches were ordered to be burned down, desecrated and destroyed. Christian and Hindu women were forced to marry Mohammadans and similarly their men were forced to marry Mohammadan women.1

British, Colonel William Kirkpatrick discovered more than two thousand letters in his palace written in Farsi in Tipu’s own handwriting. In these letters, Tipu refers to Hindus as “kaffirs and infidels” and to the British as “Christians” who needed to be “cleansed (or converted) if the rule of Islam is to be firmly established in India.”

Enter ICHR But Majumdar’s banishment was only the foundation but an incredibly firm foundation. One of the first structures to be built on top it was the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR). The distinguished archaeologist and scholar Dr. D.K. Chakrabarti provides an explanation of this episode: I find [Romila] Thapar’s emphasis on ‘freedom of expression’ very intriguing. The historical group of which Thapar is an eminent member came into being in the early 1970s “to give a national direction to an objective and scientific writing of history and to have rational presentation and interpretation of history”, as the [then] web-site of the Indian Council of Historical Research declared. To argue that there was no “objective and scientific writing of history” till this group moved into government-sponsored power to control the funding and job-opportunities of historical research in India was distinctly reminiscent of a dictatorial streak in itself. By then historical research in the country had flourished for about a century and to argue that the previous historians were unaware of ‘objective and scientific writing of history’ was a vicious piece of self-aggrandisement on the part of this group. In fact, since the coming of this group to power, the world of Indian historical studies has been largely criminalised. When Thapar preaches in favour of historical tolerance, one does feel amused.[89] [Emphasis added]

The distinguished archaeologist and scholar Dr. D.K. Chakrabarti provides an explanation of this episode: I find [Romila] Thapar’s emphasis on ‘freedom of expression’ very intriguing. The historical group of which Thapar is an eminent member came into being in the early 1970s “to give a national direction to an objective and scientific writing of history and to have rational presentation and interpretation of history”, as the [then] web-site of the Indian Council of Historical Research declared. To argue that there was no “objective and scientific writing of history” till this group moved into government-sponsored power to control the funding and job-opportunities of historical research in India was distinctly reminiscent of a dictatorial streak in itself.

Before it was destroyed at the end of the 12th Century, the fact that it attracted the best talent in droves from nations like China, Korea, and Japan is recorded by the Chinese traveler, Huien Tsang whose praise of Nalanda’s greatness is widely known.

Amartya Sen has justified the inherent, barbaric violence and iconoclasm of Muslim invaders as “but this nature is in their blood.”

In the same vein, Amartya Sen’s wisdom-laden thesis denies Hindus the right to avenge this unprovoked violence. Indeed, Amartya Sen grants only Muslims the right to take pride in this “nature is in their blood.”

This is the answer why millions of Indians are offended by M.F. Hussain’s perverse paintings, but regard as sacred the nudity and eroticism depicted in medieval Hindu temples. But popular consensus in contemporary public discourse claims that it is the nudity that offends these puritan Hindu fascists whose minds have been hijacked by the “pathology of Hindutva[99],” which in turn has hijacked the true Hinduism which celebrated sexual openness. But Monier Williams, quoted by Coomaraswamy[100], more or less accurately understood how sex is regarded in Indian thought:

…in India, the relationship between the sexes is regarded as a sacred mystery, and is never held to be suggestive of improper or indecent ideas.

Indian thought assigns only a secondary significance to Mind. A common refrain of Indian philosophy is the stress it lays on tempering and transcending mental impulses. This could perhaps be one reason why the abstract and impersonal philosophy of the Vedanta—and not psychology—has left lasting roots in India.

Darshana (the term for “Philosophy” in India) with well-defined tenets, guidelines, methods and practices, and having a tradition harking back to timeless antiquity is very rarely, if never, taught.

the Germans discovered that it was far more useful to trace their origins to India than to the Semitic roots, and they began calling themselves as Aryans. The story of how this culminated in Hitler’s Nazism with all the attendant consequences is only well-known to bear repetition.

Equally, one of the strongest edifices that helped Western Europe’s influence to reach various corners of the world was the distortion of the history of ancient cultures.

This might sound ridiculous and funny now. However, in the colonial period, Western Europeans clung to and operated from an important article of faith derived from the Bible: the whole world was their inheritance from their ancestors. It was on th...

However, the consequence of this perverted history was not limited merely to the intellectual domain—it spread to the realm of political power and was directly responsible for the genocide of millio...

The following are the two main threads that permeate the Aryan Invasion Theory and have been parroted in different ways and under various guises for about 150 years: Aryans and Dravidians were two separate races The behaviour of the upper-caste descendants of these Aryans is responsible for all of contemporary India’s societal ills

This “theory” was initially used by the British to retain colonial control over India but eventually became an important cornerstone of Tamil Nadu politics. This mythical invasion theory was also used a device to foment separatism amongst different groups of people in India. A measure of the extent to which this went became evident when most of India’s sacred literature—for example Ramayana, the epic that the entire country revered— came to be painted in a different hue. However, the following are the main reasons why this baseless theory was propagated almost unhindered for years: Its propagation was backed by political support. Any theory or policy or movement that contains strands of enmity, malice or spite will garner support quickly. Any attempt that is aimed at splintering the society will be backed by the enemies—caste and religious groups—of that society.

An important stepping stone in this “Dravidian Campaign” is a person named Bishop Robert Caldwell who floated a groundless theory of linguistic differences, as well as an equally spurious theory racial theory to support his linguistic theory. The Christian missionary apparatus put Caldwell’s formulations almost immediately to their advantage. A whole new history was woven. Balloons like “the Shaiva Siddhanta was not a part of Sanatana Dharma but had its roots in Christianity” were floated. The Ramayana was turned on his head with Ravana as its hero. In 1960, “Ravana Kaaviyam,” a Tamil poem, was officially patronized and widely disseminated by the then DMK Government, and thanks to the popularity of such twisted work, societal tensions escalated. Then, in the post-Independence period, an adharmic force named secularism greatly contributed to further intensify social disharmony.

Atrocity literature[119], which had formed an important backbone of the colonial administration as well as Evangelism, now became even more widespread. At the root of atrocity literature lies a simple formula: there has existed one class/group of people who have attacked and oppressed another class/group throughout history. Post-independent India’s society-breaking enthusiasts contributed generously to this atrocity literature—and continue to do so.

A colossal nexus supported by establishment intellectuals, media, and political power almost ensured that the voice of truth would be suppressed forever. However, it took a significantly...

Kamil attempted to create confusion among and divide South Indians by floating yet another counterfeit theory in which he claims that Subrahmanya or Muruga was originally a Christian God. Even worse, such “scholarly” formulations from Kamil’s pen were patronized by such prestigious institutions as the Institute of Asian

Studies!

At the bare minimum, those who undertake this task will face determined opposition from the Government, bureaucracy, academia, and the mainstream media. Therefore, the basic qualities required for a person to tread on this path by ignoring such opposition include insurmountable courage, intellectual brilliance, and an investigative and research-minded outlook.

In this difficult effort, the contributions of the founders of Voice of India, Sitaram Goel and Ram Swarup, Arun Shourie, Dr. N.S. Rajaram, David Frawley and others have been truly monumental.

The truly dazzling and multi-faceted accomplishments of Hindus have either been ignored or have been subject to wilful, perverse interpretations. Looters have been glorified. When one examines closely, the period before the British rule is a basket case of history writing. As we noted earlier in this essay, European scholars themselves admitted that India was at the pinnacle among all of world’s civilizations during the medieval period.

To get a glimpse of the kind of networks—and internal enemies—that have formed to break India, one can cite the findings of Professor Pradip Ninian Thomas who has exposed the nexus between the disgruntled local groups in Purvanchal and the American support that backs them.

These societies are backward, regressive, and in a state of perpetual internal conflict. Only Christianity has the message, means, and equipment to end these conflicts and rescue these societies. There is a need for political intervention from powerful White-Christian Western countries to aid the work of these Evangelicals.

The first Evangelists who set foot in India undertook a painstaking process of studying every single aspect of the Hindu society and identified practices, traditions, heritage, heroes, languages, grammar, laws, epics, prose, poetry, puppetry, sculpture, art, painting, dance, and drama that glued it together. And then they developed elaborate strategies to unglue the Hindu society using precisely these elements. These strategies were multi-pronged, ranging from outright abuse of Hindu gods and goddesses, modes of worship, practices etc, to showing that their “roots” actually lay in Christianity. As we see today, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Church-inspired narrative. Also, Veena Oldenberg’s book “Dowry Murder” gives detailed instances of British officials encouraging Indians to narrate dowry cases in an exaggerated fashion in order to pin the blame on the native culture. Today’s aggressive feminist literature and laws unjustly favouring women are direct holdovers of this narrative.

NGO Monitor’s numerous reports also show how Amnesty International has taken to supporting Palestinian terrorists and has consistently painted the state of Israel as the villain.

In the words of Nobel Laureate David Trimble, “One of the great curses of this world is the human rights industry. They justify terrorist acts and end up being complicit in the murder of innocent victims.” His words drew an angry reaction from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, two of the world’s biggest human rights groups, with more than a million members worldwide. [145]