|
|
By: V Sundaram, IAS, Retd.
February 21, 2007
Views
expressed here are author’s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer
is at the bottom.
Feedback
The Congress Party and the UPA Government have been hectically busy trying
to market the carcass of Mahatma Gandhi through what they call "the
celebration of the centenary of Satyagraha" launched by Mahatma Gandhi in
South Africa in 1906. The Congress party has moved away from truth in 1906
to blatant untruth in 2007. The descent from Mahatma Gandhi in 1906 to
Sonia Gandhi in 2007 has been cataclysmic and catastrophic. To quote the
intellectually, emotionally and rationally rapier-thrust words of N. Mohan
in this context: "Can a Hindu woman married to an Alitalia Pilot become
the Prime Minister of Italy? No. Such things can happen only in our
country. What has Sonia got to do with Mahatma Gandhi except for her being
married to a person in the Indira Gandhi family? Mahatma Gandhi stood for
truth, honesty and simplicity. Both Sonia and the Congress party have
nothing to do with these golden qualities".
What is a nation? What is true nationalism? What is our mother country?
Like all great mysteries, our Hindu nationalism is also a great mystery
and is a matter of faith. By any attempt at explanation, in order to make
such mysteries matters of reason, we would only be injuring the soul and
spirit of our nationalism. If such mysteries could be explained, they
would cease to be mysteries. As all our great Hindu saints and sages
through the ages have declared that a thing is not necessarily against
reason because it happens to be above it. In dwelling on such divine
mysteries, these great saints have always declared as follows: "In
dwelling on divine mysteries, keep thy heart humble, thy thoughts
reverent, thy soul holy. Let not philosophy be ashamed to be confuted, nor
logic to be confounded, nor reason to be surpassed. What thou canst not
prove, approve; what thou canst not comprehend, believe; what thou canst
believe, admire and love and obey. So shall thine ignorance be satisfied
in their faith, and thy doubt be swallowed up in thy reverence, and thy
faith be as influential as sight. Put out thine own candle, and then shall
thou see clearly the sum of righteousness."
It is in this context that the clarion call of Aurobindo Gosh on what is
true nationalism becomes totally relevant. He declared all the time that
our nation is not a piece of earth or a figure of speech, nor a fiction of
the mind. It is a mighty Shakthi, composed of the Shakthis of all the
millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhavani Mahisha
Mardhini sprang into being from the Shakthi of all the millions of Gods
assembled in one mass force and welded into unity. That Shakthi we call
India, "Bhavani Bharathi", is the living unity of the Shakthis of over
1006 million people today. But this vibrant Bharat Mata has been reduced
to the state of a corpse by the pernicious and malicious policies of
minority appeasement followed by the Congress Party after independence.
Through the discriminatory and partisan policies pursued with total
devotion to and focus on minority vote bank, the Congress party has been
trying to divide the Indian society through false concepts. The first
concept is that the Hindus being the largest community, are potentially
more dangerous for the other communities. Secondly, since this community
poses a potential threat to other communities, the more it could be
weakened, the better it would be for the health of the nation. Thirdly,
the good in other communities is the only relevant thing from the point of
view of the total national good and that everything else is of no
significance or importance. According to this concept, Hindus as a whole
are non-entities and dead entities.
Based on these concepts, all the Congress Governments after independence
have been declaring from time to time through their partisan programmes:
"Make the Hindu community as weak as we can, by creating internal
divisions in it, by denigrating its culture, by inflicting insults on it,
and by whatever other means you can afford". I do not have to enumerate
the various efforts that have been made during the last sixty years
starting from the days of juvenile Jawaharlal Nehru to weaken us Hindus in
pursuance of this theory.
Based on the above concepts, a new idea called - "Sarva Dharma Samabhava"
was propagated. It ridiculously suggested that since our "nation" was
constituted by the assemblage of several religious communities, we should
regard the ideology or religion of every community as India"s national
heritage and hold them all with equal respect. That is, we should yield
the same place to the Koran and the Bible in our thinking as we do for the
"Bhagavat Gita". We should have the same reverence for Sri Rama, Sri
Krishna and Bhagavan Buddha. We should accept Mohammed and Jesus also as
part of our national pantheon and conduct ourselves accordingly. The idea
of regarding alien cultures also as our own gained political currency
through the convenient slogan of "Sarva Dharma-Samabhava". Since the
distinctiveness of the largest community was "Sanatana Dharma", it was
necessary- we were made to believe, for the good of other communities to
run down the "Sanatana Dharma" as well. As far as possible, therefore,
condemn the whole of Hindu culture - Hinduism is nothing more than a
bundle of superstitions and castes and idolatries. Thus, a strong cult of
denigrating the Sanatana Dharma was promoted, directly or indirectly by
these and many other similar calumnies by the Congress party.
Aurobindo Gosh convincingly, categorically and clearly declared that
Indian nationalism can be raised only on the foundation of Hinduism and
Sanatana Dharma. That was the view of Swami Vivekananda, Bipin Chandra
Pal, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Dr Hedgewar,
and Sri Guruji Golwalkar. To quote the words of Aurobindo Gosh in this
context: "This great and ancient nation was once the fountain of human
life, the apex of human civilization, the exemplar of courage and
humanity, the perfection of good Government and settled society, the
mother of all religions, the teacher of all wisdom and philosophy. It has
suffered much at the hands of inferior civilizations and more savage
peoples. It has gone down into the shadow of night and tasted often of the
bitterness of death. Its pride has been trampled into the dust and its
glory has departed. Hunger and misery and despair have become the masters
of this fair soil, these noble hills, these ancient rivers, these cities
whose life story goes back into prehistoric night. But do you think that
therefore God has utterly abandoned us and given us up for ever to the
mere convenience for the West, the helots of commerce, and the feeders of
its luxury and pride?"
No wonder, Bepin Chandra Pal (1858-1932), paid this great tribute to
Aurobindo"s fiery Hindu nationalism in 1909 in these inspiring words: "The
youngest in age among those who stand in the forefront of the Nationalist
propaganda in India, but in endowment, education, and character, perhaps,
superior to them all". Aravinda seems distinctly marked out by Providence
to play in the future of his movement a part not given to any of his
colleagues and contemporaries. The other leaders of the movement have left
their life behind them: Aravinda has his before him. Nationalism is their
last love: it is Aravinda"s first passion".
The sham conference on "Satyagraha" recently organized by the Congress
Party with the full official backing of the UPA Government in New Delhi
made me ask the question whether Satyagraha or non-violence purifies the
man who practices it. When I was finding it difficult to get a clear and
convincing answer, I was delighted to see the following reply given by
Aurobindo Gosh to one of his devotees on 23 July, 1923: "I believe Gandhi
does not know what actually happens to the man"s nature when he takes to
Satyagraha or non-violence. He thinks that men get purified by it. ...
When you cannot oppose the force that oppresses, you say that you will
suffer. That suffering is vital and it gives strength. When the man who
has thus suffered gets power, he becomes a worse oppressor. What is
necessary is to transform the spirit of violence. But in this practice of
Satyagraha it is not transformed. When you insist on such one-sided
principle, what happens is that cant hypocrisy and dishonesty get in and
there is no purification at all."
The nationalism being promoted by the Congress Party is, to say the least,
subversive. The Congress Party has become a shining and unbridled global
symbol of cant, hypocrisy and dishonesty. And hence for Congress and
Congressmen, "Satyagraha" means only "SATYAGRAHA".
V Sundaram, IAS, Retd.
Send your views to author
Do you wish to reach our readers?
submit your guest column
Copyright and Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and not of this
website. The author is solely responsible for the contents of this
article. This website does not represent or endorse the accuracy,
completeness or reliability of any opinion, statement, appeal, advice or
any other information in the article. Our readers are free to forward this
page URL to anyone. This column may NOT be transmitted or distributed by
others in any manner whatsoever (other than forwarding or weblisting page
URL) without the prior permission from
us and the author. |
Previous articles by:
V Sundaram, IAS, Retd.
"Churchianity" - An artifice for aggression
Congress-sponsored communal brutality
Archbishops" guilt march
UPA government is no less racist!
Moment of infamy for TN govt
Christianity-embracing, Islam-wooing...
Brutal murder of Sukhanand Shetty
"M K Hussen" of Tamilnadu
UPA bonanza for Hindus in minority (!)
Gandhi, Moulana of Muslim appeasement
"Shall India die? spirituality will be extinct"
Criminal Union Cabinet Ministers
A National Program For Organized Looting
Tamil barbarous language, Tamilians barb..
Rejoinder to puerile purveyors of hate
All articles by:
V Sundaram, IAS, Retd. |
