1 ) In India, with 80% Hindu population, and the only homeland of Hindus in the world, the birthdays of great sons of the soil, Shri Ram and Shri Krishna, are not compulsory central government holidays, while the birthday of Saudi Arabia born prophet Mohammad and both the birth and crucification day of Bethlehem born Jesus, are compulsory holidays throughout India. This seems in sync with the secular hypothesis that Ram and Krishna are imaginary comic characters while Mohammad and Jesus are actual historical characters. There are only 2 Hindu holidays out of compulsory 14, in contrast with 4 Muslim ones.

2) The Constitution of India enables the government to take control of Hindu temples and trusts and appoint its nominees in their controlling body and even control its funds. The government doesn’t have this privilege for the mosques or churches. The government cannot interfere in the functioning of the mosques, madarsas and any minority institutions even if they receive government aid, which is taxpayers’ money. The minority institutions are not bound to comply with the Right to Education act either. This can be seen as a lighter version of Pakistan and Bangladesh’s enemy property laws which enable their governments to confiscate the propeties of Hindus by declaring them enemy properties.

3) Everyone knows that India doesn’t have uniform civil code. Indian muslim males are legally allowed to have up to 4 wives at a time, and can divorce them by saying ‘Talaaq’ thrice, in compliance with Sharia. Hindus and Christians have to follow proper court procedures to file for divorce. The women right activists who organise ‘slut-walks’ to celebrate their ‘rights’ and advocate girls visiting pubs, do not speak on this matter. Shah Bano case stands as a glaring example of how secularism is a constitutionally prescribed drug meant only for one community, not for others.

4) Prayagraj, one of the holiest pilgrimages of Hindus, is called Allah-abad. Kashi, Ayodhya and Mathura, each of these 3 holy sites has been desecrated during Aurangzeb and Mohd Gauri reins and yet not fully restored. The signboards of Auragzeb road in Delhi stand as the testimony to India’s slavery that Indian secularism celebrates so profusely. In 2007, over 1 lakh Indian muslims paid homage to Aurangzeb’s tomb on his 300th anniversary, that’s when Aurangzebtheir ancestor,who is known to be the perpetrator of the largest Hindu genocide ever. Aurangzeb had even got Guru Teg Bahadur beheaded in his court for his refusal to convert to Islam.

5) An instance of our secularism is the 1978 directive to NCERT which instructs publishers andeducationists to erase all medieval history which paints a picture of clash between natives and invading muslims in that era. Consequently, we have a chapter each from Akbar to Aurangzeb, but Shivaji and Maharana Pratap are squeezed into a paragraph each in history books. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, discredited Aryan Invasion Theory is still taught in Indian schools. The history books do not cover the Mahabharata despite a plethora of archaeological evidence available to conclusively establish its historicity.

6) The Archealogical Survey of India in its annual report of 1924-25 published a long list of temples demolished during Islamic rule. Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie and others have published a book each after conducting research and they’ve given a 64 page long district-wise list of Islamic monuments which were constructed by demolishing Hindu temples. This list, in the book, “Hindu temples – what happened to them”, includes around 2000+ temples and gives in most cases, the year of construction of those structures also. Even in Kashmir, hundreds of temples, small and large have been desecrated over during the exodus of Pandits in early 90s. The same, however, is a non-issue in larger secular policy. It’s continued unabted in whichever time or space, Hindus have become weak.

7) From Ram Mandir to Ram Setu and to Bhagwad Geeta, all have been dragged into Indian courts. India is the only country in the world where the faith of 100 Crore people is attemptyed to be humiliated. It’d be silly to look for parallels where in any other community whether Christinity or Muslim majority country, Quran or the prophet, or Bible or the Christ, could be dragged into a court of law. In India, the central government had gumsome to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court suggesting that Ram never existed!. In the same country, Christian missionaries openly preach about Hindus’ false and ‘characterless’ Gods, and so do Islamic missionaries like Zakir Naik, but the tag of ‘hate-monger’ has been attributed to Hindu right wing by secular luminaries in media and otherwise including Arnav of TOI.

8) There are numerous government schemes which are run exclusively for the benefit of minorities at the expense of taxpayer money, despite an apparent prohibition to the same in the constitution. Pashchim Bangal government paying monthly stipend to all the Imams of all the mosques in the state is a GLARING example of this. The same is not extended to any other pujaris. The Haj subsidy, against which the Supreme Court finally ordered, which had been running since Independence even when no other country, not even Pakistan offers it, is another example of fictious or pseudo SECULARISM!

9) The pious Human Right Activists, known for their love for Jihadi terrorists, those who have been running justice for Afzalguru.org for years now, have not spoken for the inhumane treatment meted out to Sadhvi Pragya, and Swami Aseemanand. Their love for those displaced in Gujarat riots, their sympathy on crores of Bangladeshi infiltrators and their disgusting silence and aversion on lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits refugees and Pakistani Sindhi refugees is another jewel of the muddled waters of Indian secularism.

10) The practice of Saraswati Vandana has been discontinued from almost all government events with the rise of secular fanaticism. The TV series Chanakya of 90′s was asked to remove Saffron flags from it, its being indispensable to the picturaization of Chanakya’s Akhand Bharat notwithstanding. Doordarshan’s ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ had also been removed before being brought back. Off late, even the practice of lighting a lamp has been criticised as ‘unislamic’. A litigation was filed in Gujarat high court for inaugurating a room by breaking a coconut for its being a Hindu (not Secular). A case was lodged in Chennai High Court to prohibit the employees celebrating festivals in office space. The beast of secular fanaticism has gone wilder over the years, and if not us, posterity will have to bear the brunt of our callous ignorance.

Source: IBTL

(CHAKRA)

In our Indian context, Dharma did not aim to rule society, rather it tried to explain the forces that makes society work, allowing Dharma to pave its natural course, hence Science, Faith and Government evolved hand in hand in an undifferentiated manner, as one smooth continuum; neither one in conflict with or threatened by the other. Therefore, Dharma is non-separate from its cultural/regional practices. In fact, the culture itself evolved to incorporate the values of Dharma, because it is Dharma itself that explained it.

Secularism, on the other hand, is an ideal handed down to us unwittingly. Ideals should evolve as a need to serve us better, they are not to be inherited from a colonial power without discerning. Most complex living beings have an immune system fortified by a battalion of antibodies, that will identify and neutralize a foreign object and prevent bodily harm. If the immune system fails, the body is susceptible to disease. Extrapolating the same principle to society, we are stricken by an
intellectual disease, and the resulting illness is socio-cultural decay.

The reason is simply this: In India, Secularism aims to separate the culture of the nation- which is inherently Dharmic in nature- from its people. This form of Secularism only facilitates to destroy the nation morally from within, by doing away with the dharmic carpet which forms the basis for our cultural ethos. And of course, if secularism n India isn’t clumsy enough, we have to further contend with it’s more rancid manifestation- pseudo secularism- the dangers of which we all know only too well.

We may accept rights and individuality. We should not, however, accept a forced ideal of sameness. It would be unwise for Indians to fall under such narrow, impaired, imposed and socially awkward definitions such as ‘Secularism. Rather, we must strive to preserve our ‘soft-capital’ through all means possible, in all areas of life, and provide that social ‘immune system’ which we all sorely lack.

I sincerely thank Mr. Rajiv Malhotra ji, for inspiring us to “reverse the gaze” and look at the world from a Dharmic perspective, and also my friend and fellow writer, Karthik Vaidhinathan ji, for his valuable inputs.

By Prashant Parikh

Rahul Gandhi, member of Indian National Congress party and Sonia Gandhi's son relaxes outside of India with his Columbian girlfriend much of the year

By N. Rastogi

New Delhi, India (CHAKRA) - Today, many nations of the world take immense pride in having a stable democratic society with secular values.  One such country is India which is acclaimed around the world for being the largest democracy—but this is only at the surface.  The “democratic” name for India has remained over the years at the cost of the poor and illiterate in rural India as well as at the cost of the majority Hindus in this so called democracy.  The Congress Party has been kept in power for years due to its connection with the Gandhi name and it is up to people living or connected to this nation to question why this party stays in power regardless of unfixed problems related to malnutrition, high illiteracy rates, and corruption.India had enormous potential due to its huge population, rich culture and heritage, fertile river deltas and much more.  It is a great thing for countries to meet the needs and appease their minority populations, but the extent to which India has put its resources into such causes, has caused them to ignore the illiterate and poor population, in addition to treating Hindu’s unjustly.

Now it makes you wonder why a country with so much potential would take such unreasonable action.  The gap between the rich and poor is only advancing and illiteracy rates are going up or remaining constant.  It is a given that any democratic country or a country that calls itself a democracy will put a vast amount of resources into education and a universal education plan but instead the Congress government has focused on other issues related to secularism and appeasement.

It is using these values of secularism to appease the minority and gain more votes to stay in power.  Not only does the government do this for their own gain but allows for missionaries to enter the country and constantly take advantage of the poor to feed them provided that the aided convert.  This forms an equation of minority appeasement plus missionary projects equalling to a positive for the Congress led government. Not only do the appeased minorities now keep the Congress in power for their help, but the poor Hindus who have been aided by missionaries are too uninformed to realize which party to vote for so they go with what they are told to vote for.

Thus keeping the uneducated—uneducated allows for the government to take advantage of them and use their fragile minds to vote for Congress in the name of the one and only Gandhi.

More leadership is needed at the grass roots level where local leaders can have more of an influence on its people, so that at the least people can be taught what their rights are and how they can go about exercising them.  In addition, a government willing to consider universal education needs to be voted into power.  It’s a cycle though that will have a rippling effect.   If more leaders can help at the local level and teach India’s rural population to decide what is right for them, then only can a higher vote bank result in education for example, and greater change for the better.