Ban on Durga Puja: An assault on the core of Hindu civilisation [Part IV]

"When economic freedom is lost - subsistence is lost; when political freedom is lost - honour is lost; when religious freedom is lost, everything is lost." – Subhas Chandra Bose, Mandalay jail, February 21, 1926 (when a financial allowance for Durga Puja was refused to political prisoners, which effectively meant a ban on the puja)  p. 232 [40].

In the prequels (read Part I, Part II and Part III) to this piece, we have shown that the worship of Shakti (strength or valour) as Goddess has inspired principal Hindu resistances across ages and throughout the civilisational land of the Hindus. It is perhaps this worship that has  inspired Hindu women to militarily defend their civilisation against invaders, along with, and many times leading their male counterparts. In contrast, Abrahamic religions exhibit a deep-rooted aversion towards worship of Goddess in any form, and provide theological sanctions for disrupting Hindu public worship and festivals, which has in turn inspired dastardly attacks on the same since the beginning of India’s subjugation to foreign powers (Islamic and British). We have also shown that the tradition of denial of the right to practise religion in general, and worship the Goddess in particular continues till date. In this concluding part, we show that the denial of religious freedom to Hindus is the outcome of active collusion of India’s political class with Abrahamic fundamentalists, or complicity of silence in the face of grave atrocities. The state of the affairs is in sharp contrast to the values that India’s genuine freedom fighters had lived, fought and died to defend. The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity may in future alienate Hindus vested in the freedom to practise their religion from the polity.        

Section E: Denial of Hindu religious freedom due to the unholy matrimony of politics and minority fundamentalism 

Given Islamist opposition to the worship of a female deity in particular, it is not surprising that Durga Puja has come in for many attacks, both in public and in private, from the Islamists. What is, however, of far greater concern, is that multiple clear instances of violation of religious freedom of Hindus have not been highlighted in the Indian public discourse. This is, of course, consistent with the persistent religious discrimination against Hindus that is evident in contemporary Indian political discourse [74] [75]. This is perhaps a direct consequence, or even the cause, or perhaps both, of anti-Hinduisation of Indian polity. Many political parties and their affiliated intellectuals have not limited their role to silent complicity, but have joined in this Abrahamic festival of hatred for Hindus. Secular groups and politicians, that purportedly do not take any sides in religious matters, have decidedly weighed in on the side of the Abrahamic fundamentalists. We demonstrate the charges of religious discrimination against each political entity.

One of the two major national parties, the Congress, had made its stand unequivocal when its prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, declared openly that the minorities have the first right on Indian resources [37]. The natural corollary, when one group has the first right on the resources of the nation, is that they automatically turn those who do not belong to the group to second class citizens – the group that may get something only if it is left behind after the minority has had its fill. The religious bias of Congress against the Hindus has become so apparent that the party itself is acknowledging the obvious, if only in its brainstorming sessions: "At a 'brainstorming' meeting Rahul Gandhi had with AICC general secretaries recently to discuss the 'roadmap' for the party’s revival, it was decided to seek out Hindu voters and ask them how they view its attitude towards them. And if they think it is 'anti-Hindu', is that the reason why they rejected it last May swayed by the BJP’s Hindu nationalist claims.’’  (reported by Hassan Suroor on January 3, 2015 in Firstpost [36]). That the Congress should have to ask this of the people is proof enough just how out of touch with reality the party is, and just how loathed its pro-minority stance has become among the Hindus.

Left parties and their ecosystem bear the brunt of the guilt of discrimination against Hindus. We have already shown how the government of West Bengal has allowed systematic targeting of Hindu public worship and festivals at least since 2010; the phenomenon has started much earlier, and the Left was in power for 35 years until 2011. We now describe the animosity against the Goddess worship of Hindus in the Kremlin on the Yamuna, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which till date constitutes a citadel of left intellectuals. JNU research scholar Abhinav Prakash,  writes [18] "Durga Puja is especially hated by the liberal-secular formations in the campus. Perhaps because it is the biggest Hindu festival in JNU and can’t be passed off as a secular festival unlike Holi which is 'rationalised' as a 'peasant' festival. Moreover, Durga Puja brings together almost all sects of Hinduism and people from all castes and regions. The Left has been opposed to it since its inception in the year 2001.

Before this, such was the anti-Hindu terror unleashed on the campus that it was virtually unthinkable to publicly celebrate any Hindu festival in JNU. Even the Bengali students had to go out of the campus, to CR Park, to celebrate Pujo and they were always sure to wipe out any traces of worship before entering the campus. In 2001, the then Dean of Student, MH Quraishi, stood in the front of the Durga Puja pandal and exhorted the Leftists and Islamists to break the 'havan kund' and throw the 'murti' and pandal out of the campus. It almost led to a mini-riot in JNU. The efforts to stifle Durga Puja failed but the Left continues to boycott it and coerce the newcomers to stop them from attending it. Needless, Durga Puja continues to grow in strength and numbers with each passing year and is now among the biggest events in the JNU calendar." As described before, in JNU, during Mahishasura Day, Durga is portrayed as a prostitute who enticed Mahishasura, a tribal leader into a marriage and killed him after nine nights of honeymoon [18]. This is not only pure hatred, but also overtly sexist, and reminds us how the Prophet of Islam and his followers associated pejorative physical characteristics, "nude, disheveled, black woman", with pagan Arabic goddesses, Manat p. 485-486 [61] and Uzza pp. 404-405, [63], p. 359, [42]. Colour bias was quite rampant during the times of the Prophet, and therefore, the characterisation of complexion would be derogatory for then social norms, the rest of the adjectives clearly were pejorative. We are not aware of secular doyens of JNU taking on this particular piece of sexism involving physical and moral descriptions of the feminine. 

As a natural corollary, the Left has been similarly disdainful of Hindu interests. As a specific instance,  we learn from an article in Vijayvaani [38], written by CI Isaac: "Major holders of coconut plantations and paddy lands were Hindus and their temples; their holdings were not brought under ‘estates’ when the land reform bills were drafted. Hence, the entire land of temples became surplus land and temple deity the landlord/janmi. But the land owned by churches was not subjected to land reforms. Thus the ‘revolutionary land reforms’ of Kerala only impoverished the Hindus. At present, the average landholding of a Christian family is 126.4 cents and Hindus and Muslims are 69.1 and 77.1 cents respectively."

We now examine the role of the regional parties. In Kashmir, in August 2014, the National Conference denied permission to the Kousar Nag Yatra [19]. The Rediff [19] reports on August 2, 2014, "The Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday denied revoking permission to Kousar Nag yatra, saying no permission had been sought or granted in the first place. The National Conference government maintained that 'Kousar Nag has never been a pilgrimage site'. 'It has been an adventure tourism site and a picnic spot,' a senior state tourism department officer said.' The refusal of the National Conference government to give permission to Hindus to conduct their Yatra owes to the fact that Syed Ali Geelani, a hardcore Islamist leader, had opposed the Yatra. Rahul Pandita, writing in [20], said, "Mr Geelani, in practice, is opposed to the idea of sharing Kashmir with non-Muslims, especially the Pandits. A few days ago, owing to his strong opposition, the State government withdrew permission to a small group of Pandits to undertake the historical Konsar Nag yatra in south Kashmir. The group comprising 40 people, including women, had to halt its journey midway after Mr Geelani’s supporters resorted to stone-pelting and blocked the road leading to the pilgrim site. The pilgrims took shelter in a temple and were then forced to return to Srinagar. A journalist friend in Kashmir calls Mr Geelani’s strategy to thwart Hindu pilgrimages such as Konsar Nag as a 'multistage rocket'. The first stage involves terming such yatras as a 'threat to [the] environment'. Then, very systematically, they are termed as 'conspiracies to change Kashmir’s demography'. Then, as it happened in the case of Konsar Nag, Mr Geelani fires his last salvo by denying the Valley’s Hindu past. 'The Hindus had no stake over Konsar Nag,' he claimed."

In West Bengal, led by Ms Mamata Banarjee, the Trinamul Congress Party has been in power since 2011. Durga and Kali idols have been continually desecrated, and other Hindu public worship and festivals been obstructed or stopped, with impunity, throughout this period ([25], [70], [71], Bartoman patrika report that we have cited, [80] – [83]). These establish complicity of this regime with the Islamists. TMC MP Nurul Hassan had led desecration of Durga Puja pandals, temples and violence against Hindus during the Deganga riots in 2010 [80]-[82]. Next, the administration has actively violated religious freedom of Hindus by choosing to ban Durga Puja in places where the minorities objected to it. One such event has been in Kanglapahari village, a Hindu majority village in Birbhum district [31]. Starting 2013, the government of West Bengal passed orders banning Durga Puja, for the third year in a row, here [31], [32]. We now reproduce the heart-wrenching application that the villagers of Kanglapahari Committee submitted to the district administration, SDO Rampurhat Sub-division, Rampurhat, Birbhum [32]:

Respected Sir,

We are original Hindu residents of your jurisdiction, of Nalhati police station, Haridaspur region, Kanglapahari village. Sir, in our village, although there live 250-300 Hindu families, we could not commemorate the annual autumnal Durga Puja due to financial limitations. So all Hindu villagers, including the mothers and sisters who fast during the rituals, have to travel 3-4 Km to another village to perform our puja rituals. So we definitely want to perform Durga puja in our village. We therefore held a meeting where all hindu villagers participated, including our youngsters, and decided to organize a puja. A generous gentleman Mohanlal Sao has donated his land for building a Durga temple, and all Hindu villagers contributed to raise funds for the same. We have now built a Durga temple with mud walls, and formed a Puja committee comprising of 25 villagers, and have installed Durga idol in the temple. 

Sir, we could not perform Durga Puja in the last three years since we could not get permission from the administration. We approached all administrative units last time, and administration denied permission, advising us to reapply. Under these circumstances, we are appealing to you once again, Sir, so that we are not denied the opportunity to celebrate our most important festival, the annual autumnal Durga Puja, so that we can perform Durga Puja in our village. We humbly request you to issue the necessary clearances. 

This year the puja needs to start on 24th Ashwin (Bengali calendar) and would end on 4th Karthik. So, if we can not receive the necessary clearances within the next few days, it will be difficult to organise the puja in the limited remaining time. We therefore request you to issue the clearances soon.

Sincerely,

On behalf of the Kanglapahari Durga Mandir Puja Committee

President Chandan Sau

Secretary Madhu Mal  

August 31, 2015

(Copy forwarded to SDPO Rampurhat, OC Nalhati PS, BDO Nalhati-1) 

The application submitted by the poor Hindu residents was summarily dismissed, and the request denied,  as in previous years. We learn the real reason here: "As Kanglapahari Durga Puja Committee president Chandan Sau said: In August this year, we once again approached the Nalhati sub-divisional officer for permission to hold the Durga Puja. But once again, we were denied permission. We came to know that some Muslim residents of our village had voiced their objections on the grounds that since Durga Puja had never been held in our village, doing so now would disturb communal harmony and lead to resentment among the minorities. We believe the authorities took a sympathetic view of their objections and thus refused to grant us permission for the puja…" [31].

When queried on the state of affairs, the TMC MP Saugata Roy arrogantly advised the Hindus to approach the courts, if they feel violated, as may be seen in this NewsX debate [35]. He perhaps knew very well that the poor Hindus of Kanglapahari lacked the resources to sustain a long drawn out legal fight with the government of West Bengal to defend their religious freedom. This does not, however, alter the basic fact that the right to practise a religion of choice constitutes one of the core fundamental rights of any individual; the denial in this case is particularly galling given the deep sentiments Hindus in Bengal associate with Durga Puja. Such sentiments have been best expressed by Subhas Chandra Bose, in letters that he wrote to his sister-in-law and brother while being incarcerated in far off Mandalay jail in Burma. On December 26, 1925, he wrote to his sister-in-law, "Who knows how long we shall have to be in prison? But, all our suffering will be bearable if we get the chance of worshipping the Mother once a year. In Durga, we see Mother, Motherland and the Universe all in one. She is at once Mother, Motherland and the Universal spirit", p.170, [40]. Elaborating further in a letter to his brother, Sarat Bose, a year later on October 16, 1926, he wrote, "It (Durga Puja) is a source of aesthetic enjoyment, intellectual recreation and religious inspiration and affords abiding solace. Today is Bijoya Dasami and throughout Bengal relations, friends and even enemies - children of the same Mother - will be soon embracing one another in fraternal love"; p. 84, [45]. Citing this letter, Bose’s biographer, Leonard Gordon has written: "So Durga Puja was the moment in the round of the year when he (Bose) and his Bengali prison mates felt united with the Bengali people from whom they had been arbitrarily separated"; pp. 135-136, [47]. It is this sense of bonding with fellow Hindus of Bengal – that Subhas Bose and other Hindu Bengali freedom fighters felt on the auspicious occasion from remote Mandalay  - that chief minister Mamata Banarjee, who happens to share his ethnicity, has denied the poor Hindus of Kanglapahari. Ironically, it is their religious freedom that the chief minister of a state in free India is duti-bound to protect, and it is that freedom that Bose lived, fought and possibly died for. 

What is particularly galling is that when Durga Puja was banned in Italy in 2009, Indian ambassador there, Mr Arif Shahid Khan, could get the same reversed after frantic efforts, but villagers in free India could not receive the same success with a state government therein for three years. We quote senior journalist Kanchan Gupta on this incident: "The Municipal Police authorities of Rome have today withdrawn permission, granted three weeks ago, to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome. The cancellation came a few hours before the Ambassador of India was scheduled to inaugurate the Puja at 8 pm local time. No acceptable explanation has been given. This has caused the local Indian community the loss of thousands of Euros spent in preparatory arrangements. The same thing was done in the same manner in 2008 also. Please monitor developments.”….Our Ambassador, Mr Arif Shahid Khan, a feisty man who has in the past taken up the issue of Sikhs being forced to take off their turbans at Italian airports, campaigned throughout the day, calling up officials, including the Mayor of Rome, and contacting members of the ‘Friends of India’ group in the Italian Parliament, arguing with them why permission for the Puja should be restored. By evening, the authorities had reversed their order and permission was granted to celebrate Durga Puja, which will now begin on Saturday, Ashtami — a full 48 hours behind schedule. Provided, of course, there is no last minute cancellation, as it happened on Thursday. Mr Khan will inaugurate the Puja, an honour he richly deserves" [84].

***

Our saga of misfortune of Hindus in Bengal continues. Even in other places where Durga Puja is not banned, the government of West Bengal imposed harsh deadlines for Durga Puja processions.  In 2015, the ritually approved date for bidding the Goddess farewell was on October 23. Yet, as we learn, "immersion of Durga idols has been banned on October 23 and 24 throughout West Bengal. The restriction on immersion of idols on those two days is because the dates clash with Muharram. The announcement with regards to this was made by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on the September 18 during an event at Netaji Indoor Stadium"; [33] (October 24, 2015). Ironically, Muslim-majority Bangladesh allowed immersion of Durga idols on time [33]. Even more, the announcement on the ban was made by the chief minister from Netaji Indoor Stadium, we will shortly learn how strongly the namesake of this stadium insisted on performing Durga Puja rituals on religion-approved times even in British jails.    

Other  regional parties are not far behind Mamata Banarjee as to imposing restrictions on the immersion of Durga idols. In Patna, governed by JD(U) led by Nitish Kumar and RJD led by Lalu Prasad Yadav,  the deadline on the immersion of Durga idols is  even more harsh: "The Patna district administration has set October 23 (2015) as the deadline for idol immersion for Durga Puja organisers. Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vikas Vaibhav told The Telegraph today that because of Muharram on October 24 and the elections in Patna on October 28, the Puja committees have been asked to finish up the immersion ceremonies by October 23 (Friday)….'The administration has asked the organisers to ensure that the idol immersion ceremony is over by 10pm on October 23. The arrangements on the ghats are being made by the agencies concerned. Once the immersions are over, the police will move on to ensure a safe Muharram followed by the elections,' the SSP said"; [34].

As may be observed from the above instances, that almost entire polity (with possibly the exception of one national party, the BJP, whose role we will discuss separately) has adopted a stance that puts them completely on the side of the minorities, irrespective of the merits of the case. They bend over backwards to appease the minorities and have no hesitation compromising on Hindu interests. Their double standards gall everyone with even a shred of conscience. Political parties never compromise on the religious feelings of the minorities, but feel free to do so with the Hindus. An essay competition on Christmas day, which also happens to be the birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, raises shrill screams about secularism from the supposedly secular intelligentsia, but the banning of Durga Puja in West Bengal is met with utter disdain and indifference. By the same token, organising a Tipu Jayanti (which actually is on November 20) on Diwali day is a similar humiliation handed out to the Hindus. The secular doyens casually overlook that Tipu had massacred 700 Hindus at Melukote on Naraka Chaturdashi [77], leading to the corresponding sect of Hindus to observe Diwali as a day of mourning and not a festival. However, they engage in the most hysteric reactions when the feelings of the minorities are violated.

Section F: Is this the freedom India strove for? 

The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity makes us question if this is really the freedom that the genuine freedom fighters strove for. It is well known how Dr Shyamaprasad Mookerjee and Veer Savarkar had resisted discrimination against Hindus. We now present how Subhas Chandra Bose struggled for granting uninhibited freedom to Hindus to practise their religion. We choose him because none on the Left or Centre has so far accused him of playing divisive communal politics, while shrill voices on the right or even right-wing scholars like Sitaram Goel have (in short and perhaps perfunctory analysis)  accused him of Islamism.  

While being incarcerated in Mandalay, Subhas Bose, and a set of others wrote to the Chief Secretary, of the Government of Burma on February 2, 1926, demanding that they receive financial allowance for performing Durga and Saraswati pujas, Holi and Dol Purnima,  in the jail, citing allowances for observance of religious practices provided to Christians:   

"To the Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Burma

Mandalay 

February 2, 1926

Re-Allowance for Religious Ceremonies

Dear Sir,

We submitted to you dated the 16th January, 1926, regarding allowance for the Saraswati Puja to which no reply has yet been received by us.

We have already requested the Inspector general of Prisons that there are three important religious ceremonies which we have to perform here (viz the Saraswati Puja, the Holi and Dol Purnima Festival and the Durga Puja) and that we expect Government to sanction the expenditure in connection with those ceremonies.

...It would not be out of place here to mention that in the Alipore Central Jail a sum of Rs. 12,000 per annum is spent for the Christian convicts in connection with their religious worship (vide report Indian jail Committee 1919-20 vol III page 744).

Yours faithfully,

S.C.B., S.C.M., T.C.C., B.B.G., M.M.B., M. M. G., S.S.C., J. L. C"; pp. 207-208, [40].

And when the prayers of the prisoners were ignored, Bose wrote a stinging rejoinder to the chief secretary, along with a declaration of intent to fast until their demands were conceded. The contrast to the present politicians, who are basically people of straw, should be starkly apparent.

"To the Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Burma

Through The Superintendent of Jails, Mandalay, Dated, 

Mandalay, the 16th February, 1926

Dear Sir,

We are sorry that we have received no satisfactory reply to our representation of the 16th January and the 2nd February, 1926. Neither has the question of the last Durga Puja been yet settled to our satisfaction, though six months have elapsed.

...

By failing to meet our religious demands, your Government has shown a lamentable ignorance of the religious instincts of the Indian people and of their past and present history. To us orientals, religion is neither a social convention nor an intellectual luxury nor a holiday recreation. It is life itself. Religion is woven into the very texture of our daily and social life and it permeates our whole being - individual and national.

…

The pages of Indian history teem with the undying examples of martyrs who suffered and died for the sake of their religious beliefs. They died so that India may live. And in spite of our misery and degradation, India still lives. She lives because of her soul is immortal - her soul is immortal because she believes in religion. We have lost much. Political freedom is no more. Economic independence is a thing of the past - even our national culture is being daily undermined by the subtle policy of peaceful penetration. But we still have our religion. We still claim the right to worship our God after the fashion of our glorious ancestors, and we shall sooner cease to exist than succumb to the religious domination of the West.

…

From the ashes of the dead past India is again rising phoenix-like to take her place among the free nations of the world, so that she may deliver her message, the message of the spirit, and thereby fulfill her mission on earth. India lives today because she still has a mission unfulfilled. For no other reason has she survived the onslaughts of time. Civilisations have risen and fallen, empires have grown and have melted away into thin air; Babylon and Nineveh, Carthage and Greece have crumbled into dust. But Indian culture is as potent a factor today as it was thousands of years ago when some of the foremost nations of the modern world were no better than savages. And do you think, Sir, the people who have suffered so much and braved so much throughout their whole history will obsequiously acquiesce  in an arbitrary infringement of their religious rights ? We hope against hope that the lessons of the war of 1857 and of the Akali and Tarakeswar Satyagraha movements of yesterday have not been altogether lost on this Government.

The action or rather the inaction of your Government constitutes an unwarranted interference with our religious rights. It militates against the spirit of the Queen's proclamation which promises liberty of worship to the different religions and sections in India. Further - and this is of much greater import - it is a violation of God's Law, as we understand it. Spending Rs. 12,000 per annum for the religious worship of a few Christian criminals lodged in the Alipore Central Jail - and refusing to sanction a pie for the religious ceremonies of the Hindu detenus of high education and culture - is not this, Sir, an outrage on justice and fair play? 

The utterly unreasonable and uncompromising attitude of your Government has left us no other alternative and for the vindication of our religious rights as well as the redress of several long-standing grievances, we are being compelled to adopt the only honourable course open to persons in our position. We have accordingly resolved to commence hunger strike on Thursday, February 18, 1926.

..... Subhas Chandra Bose (and others) pp. 221-226, [40].

***

Unlike politicians who change their stances as frequently as the chameleon, Bose never compromised on his early insistence on the rights of the Hindus to worship even while being incarcerated in British jails. Fourteen years since he wrote the above letter, on September 20, 1940, again citing the fact that Muslims and Christians are granted the freedom to observe their religious practices in British jails,  he demanded that Hindu prisoners be allowed to perform the Durga Puja exactly as prescribed by Hindu religious practices and at the time required by astronomical calculations. He wrote to the Superintendent of the Presidency Jail, 

"The Superintendent

Presidency Jail

September 20, 1940

Dear Sir,

...The following points regarding the Durga Puja have to be noted:

(1) It is the great national festival among Hindus in this part of the country.

(2) It is a congregational worship. Hence it is called not merely 'Puja' but 'Utsav' also. 

(3) Three priests are necessary for Durga Puja - including 'Chandi Path' the recital of Chandi. It is physically impossible to do with less than two - and that is possible only by saddling one of the priests with 'Chandi Path', which they often refuse as involving too much strain.

(4) The hours of Puja are fixed by astronomical calculations. For instance, the most important ceremony is 'Sandhi Puja' which is held on the 8th day of the moon - and the Puja hour is often late at night (I do not know yet what the hours for 'Sandhi Puja' are this year).

Durga Puja in Jail will consequently be possible only if the following extra concessions are being allowed:

(1) Since Durga Puja is congregational in character, all Hindu prisoners who are so desirous should be permitted to participate. It may be remarked here that similar facilities are given to Muslim prisoners during Id and to Christian prisoners in Alipore Central Jail during Christian festivals. In any case, there is no reason why all Hindu political prisoners should not be allowed to participate.

(2) At least two priests should be allowed.

(3) They should be allowed to perform the ceremony in the hours fixed by astronomical calculations, whatever those hours may be.

(4) Minimum music should be allowed. Music is essential for 'Arati' ceremony in particular.  (The question of Puja allowance should be considered along with the general question of our status which is under consideration).

If these concessions are not allowed it will mean virtually that Government does not allow Durga Puja in jail. This will be an unjustifiable cancellation of the concessions we gained after considerable suffering injail in the fifteen-day hunger strike in 1926. It will mean, further, that concessions allowed by the bureaucratic regime are being withdrawn by the popular ministry. 

The consequences of such situation will naturally be serious for us...

Yours faithfully

Subhas C Bose.

pp. 182-183, [39].

Chief minister Mamata Banarjee did justice to Bose’s legacy in part by declassifying the files West Bengal state government held on him. It is equally true that she rejected the values he stood for, as shown by the ban her government imposed on Durga Puja in a poor village of West Bengal and also by delaying the immersion by two days beyond that prescribed by astronomical calculations so as to yield right of way to Muslim religious practices? She chose instead to follow in the footsteps of her counterpart of the past, Fazlul Haq, whose double standards Bose had ridiculed in a letter he wrote on September 30, 1940 to the Superintendent of Prison as: "This fast will have no effect on the 'popular' ministry, because I am neither the Maulavi of Murapara, Dacca nor a Muhammadan by faith. Consequently, the fast will, in my case, become a fast unto death"; pp. 187-189, [39]. 

Above and beyond, one wonders what Bose, Mookerjee, and Savarkar, whose chosen ideologies diverged more often than not, would have to say if they could observe the religious freedom granted to Hindus in India, that all of them fought for?   

Section G: What the future portends

The end result of the actions of the Congress, left and regional parties has been to alienate the educated Hindus, except for a few elites invested in the system. The slow and agonising demise of the Left, with violent convulsions, has to do with the Hindus slowly, but steadily turning against it.  The regional parties are no better but have not been divested of public support, by and large,  owing to local equations comprising of caste loyalties, long cultivated party loyalties, disbursement of material advantages, lack of better option, etc.

Among all political parties, the BJP is perceived to be the least anti-Hindu owing to its congenital links with organisations that have associations with Hindus, eg, RSS, VHP, etc. It does not usually actively participate in denial of religious freedom to the Hindus. But, it is not pro-Hindu or even neutral by any stretch, in that it rarely, if ever reverses, the decidedly discriminatory laws and executive decisions adopted by other parties (eg, government continues to regulate Hindu temples but eschews interference in religious institutions of the minorities in its regime; the Right to Education Act, that provides substantially more freedom of operation for minority educational institutions than to Hindu educational institutions, continues too). It acts with alacrity when minorities allege denial of religious freedom, even on state subjects, but rarely if ever when Hindus put forward similar legitimate grievances. BJP has not organised any meaningful and sustained political protest on any one of the instances of violation of religious freedom of Hindus documented in this article. All these are despite the fact that whenever BJP wins, it does because of Hindu consolidation, minorities largely opt for the parties best poised to defeat BJP. So, due to the apathy shown by BJP towards legitimate Hindu grievances, the vote of the BJP, especially among the Hindu professional classes and the well-educated, owes far less to it than to the lack of choice for the Hindus. Hindus, or at least the section thereof that is concerned about the freedom to practise their religion, face the Hobson choice of either having to vote for the less than appealing BJP or vote for the even worse decidedly anti-Hindu parties. As a simple example, two  Hindu citizens, Colonel Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, have been incarcerated for about a decade now, merely suspected of involvement in terror, but without having been charged of any offense. Both allege torture, and one is suffering from cancer. The present BJP government has continued the abuse of the civil rights of the duo, but is still  applauded by the Hindutva supporters, owing to the fear of far worse alternates. The current PM has connected temples and toilets (which he wouldn't do to churches or mosques), did not mention the hardships of the Kashmiri Pandits in a rally in Jammu, nor the plight of the Jats and the Gujjars after the Muzaffarnagar riots in a rally in Meerut, publicly criticized the army in a rally in Srinagar, ignored the riot stricken Hindus of Saharanpur, Kandhla, Nadia and so many other places, while hyperventilating about the far less serious attacks on the churches; but still the Hindutva afficionados proclaim him as the Hindu hriday Samrat and the pinnacle of nationalism – again because the alternatives to him are all infinitely worse. It is again this vacuum in the political space of demanding equal treatment of the Hindus that the least anti-Hindu party has any incentive of righting the legacy wrongs.  

The major problem with the Indian political establishment completely disowning the Hindus is that the Hindus in turn are left with no stake in the system. And those with no stake in the system have no interest in its existence, much less continuation. Thus, the anti-Hindu parties are digging their own graves. The weakening of both the Congress and the Left owes directly to this phenomenon. It is a telling indictment of the system that the present BJP government is less pro-Hindu than even the Narasimha Rao government of the 90s and is still excoriated by the secular intellectuals for following "Hindutva".  The greater danger, in all this, is that the Hindus, especially the educated class, may totally disown the system in India itself. And this will inevitably happen if they are made to feel second class citizens by the secular establishment. And if that happens, only the Idea of India will remain, with the actual real India being defenseless and thus, left to collapse.

या देवी सर्वभूतेषु शक्ति रूपेण संस्थिता

नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमोनमः॥

References:

[1] - Aditi Banerjee, 'Fierce is Beautiful’, Swarajya Magazine, http://swarajyamag.com/culture/fierce-is-beautiful/

[2] – Hindusthan Standard, Puja Issue, 1950.

[3] – Sources of Indian Tradition, Columbia University Press, 1938, pp. 489-490

[4] – ibid, p. 489

[5] – Manasa Mangala, pp. 54

[6] – Hindu American Foundation, Human Rights Report, 2013, http://hafsite.org/media/pr/human-rights-report-2013

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