INDIAN SECULARISM IS NOT 

SECULAR

May 2, 2014 · by Maria Wirth – visit http://mariawirthblog.wordpress.com

For years I did not know what opportunities to practice equanimity I had missed,
till I finally got a TV set some 3 years ago. In the beginning, I certainly did not
remain calm under all circumstances. What intense emotions in just an hour of
listening to panelists on the news channels! However, slowly I learned to sit
back. I could admire the quick-wittedness and the amazing ability to talk or
rather shout while listening.

These anchors and panelists are no doubt intelligent, nevertheless their choice of
topics is often pathetic, and they get some points consistently wrong. One such
point is ‘secular’ or ‘secularism’. Since secularism is mentioned daily in Indian
media and since it is a western ‘invention’, I would like to put it into perspective:

Contrary to the general perception in India, secular is not the opposite of

communal. Communal as such is not objectionable either. It simply means
‘pertaining to a community’. In Germany, elections to local bodies are called
“communal elections” (Kommunalwahlen).

Secular means worldly and is opposite to ‘religious’. Now ‘religious’ in this

context refers to Christianity, i.e. to a well-organized, dogmatic religion that
claims that it is the sole keeper of the ‘truth’, which God himself has revealed to
his Church.

And what is this revealed truth? In short: the human being is born in sin, which
dates back originally to Adam and Eve. But fortunately, some 2000 years ago,
God had mercy on humanity and sent his only son Jesus Christ to earth to
redeem us by dying for our sins on the cross, then rising from the dead and
going back to his father up in heaven. However to be able to get the benefit of
Jesus’ sacrifice, one must be baptized and become a member of the Church,
otherwise one will be singled out for eternal hell on Judgment Day.

Understandably, such claims did not appeal to those who used their brains, but
for many centuries they had to keep quiet or risk their lives.  The reason was
that for long the Church was intertwined with the state, and  harsh laws made
sure that people did not question the ‘revealed truth’. Heresy was punished with
torture and death. Even in faraway Goa, after Francis Xavier called the
Inquisition to this colony, unspeakable brutality was committed against Indians.
In many Muslim countries till today, leaving Islam is punishable by death.

Significantly, those centuries, when Church and State were intertwined, when
the clergy prospered and the faithful sheep suffered are called the dark ages.
And the time when the Church was forced to loosen its grip, is called the age of
enlightenment, which started only some 350 years ago. Scientific discoveries,
which could no longer be brushed under the carpet, played a crucial role for
showing the Church her place. Now, more Europeans dared to oppose the
stranglehold of religion. Many went to prison for doing so.
Slowly, the idea that reason, and not blind belief in a ‘revealed truth’, should
guide society, took root and this lead to the demand for separation between
state and Church. Such separation is called secularism. It is a recent
phenomenon in the west.

Today, most western democracies are ‘secular’, i.e. the Church cannot push her
agenda through state power, though most western democracies still grant
Christianity preferential treatment. For example in Germany, the Constitution
guarantees that the Christian doctrine is taught in government schools. Further,
the Churches have retained special labour laws that make it obligatory for
Church employees (alone in Germany over one million) to conform to Christian
norms. Nevertheless, the present situation is a huge improvement over the dark
ages when one had to pretend to believe unbelievable dogmas.

In India, however, the situation was different. Here, the dominant faith of the
Indian people never had a power centre that dictated unreasonable dogmas and
needed to be propped up by the state. Their faith was based on insights of the
Rishis and on reason, intuition and direct experience. It expressed itself freely in
a multitude of ways. Their faith was about trust and reverence for the One
Source of all life. It was about doing the right thing at the right time according to
one’s conscience. It was about The Golden Rule: not to do to others what one
does not want to be done to oneself. It was about having noble thoughts. It was
about how to live life in an ideal way.

However, this open atmosphere changed when Islam and Christianity entered
India. Indians, who good naturedly considered the whole world as family, were
despised, ridiculed and under Muslim rule killed in big numbers only because
they were ‘Hindus’ (which is basically a geographical term). Indians did not
realise that dogmatic religions were very different from their own, ancient
Dharma. For the first time they were confronted with merciless killing in the
name of God. Voltaire, who fought the stranglehold of the Church in Europe, had
accurately observed, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make
you commit atrocities”.

Guru Nanak left a testimony how bad the situation was, when he cried out in
despair: “Having lifted Islam to the head, You have engulfed Hindustan in
dread…. Such cruelty they have inflicted, and yet Your mercy remains
unmoved…” (Granth Sahib, Mahla 1.360 quoted from Eminent Historians by Arun
Shourie).

During Muslim rule Hindus had to lie low for fear of their lives, and during British
rule they were ridiculed and despised by missionaries, and cut off from their
tradition with the help of ‘education’ policies. Naturally, this took a toll on their
self-esteem. In fact, till today, this low self-esteem especially in the English
educated class is evident to outsiders, though it may not be so to the persons
concerned. Swami Vivekananda’s efforts to give Hindus back their spine did not
impact this class of people. Nevertheless, it is a great achievement that Hindu
Dharma survived for so many centuries, whereas the west succumbed
completely to Christianity and over 50 countries to Islam in a short span of time.
Coming back to secularism. Though Hindu Dharma survived and never dictated
terms to the state, ‘secular’ was added to the Constitution of India in 1976.
There might have been a reason, as since Independence, several non-secular
decisions had been taken. For example, Muslim and Christian representatives
had pushed for special civil laws and other benefits and got them.

However, after adding ‘secular’, the situation did not improve. In fact the
government seemed almost eager to benefit specifically the dogmatic religions
(for which secularism was coined) and occasionally had to be restrained in its
eagerness by the courts.

This is inexplicable.  Why would ‘secular’ be added and then not acted upon? And
the strangest thing: ‘secular’ got a new, specific Indian meaning. It means
today: fostering those two big religions which have no respect for Hindus and
whose dogmas condemn all of them to eternal hell.

It is a sad irony. Can you imagine the Jews honouring the Germans with
preferential treatment instead of seeking compensation for the millions of Jews
killed? Yet Islam and Christianity that have gravely harmed Indians over
centuries get preferential treatment by the Indian state, and their own beneficial
dharma that has no other home except the Indian subcontinent, is egged out.
And to top it, this is called ‘secular’!

Obviously Indians have not learnt from the European experience. Hindus have
not yet realized the intention of the dogmatic religions, though they say it
openly: Finish off Hinduism from the face of the earth. Hindus still ‘respect’
them, though this respect is not and cannot be reciprocated as long as those
religions claim that their God wants everyone to worship exclusively Him. Hindus
don’t realize that an ideology that uses God as a front does not become sacred,
but all the more dangerous.

Media and politicians do their best to muddy the water. They call parties that
represent a religious group, ‘secular’, instead of ‘religious;’ which would be the
correct term. When the state gives in to demands by the big religious bullies it is
also (falsely of course) called ‘secular’. But WHY would the government do this?
It clearly plays with fire. Does it want to give its citizens a firsthand experience
of what the dark ages were like? In the interest of all Indians it would be wise
for the state to simply ignore the powerful, dogmatic religions and focus on all
its citizens equally. This means being ‘secular’.

However, western secular states are not role models either. There is a lot of
depression, drug abuse, alcohol and people are generally not happy in spite of
doing everything to ‘enjoy life’. Here, India has an advantage over the west. Her
rishis have left a great heritage of valuable treatises not only dealing with how to
live life in an ideal way, but also how to conduct economy, politics,
management, etc. If those guidelines are considered, and if India becomes a
state based on her ancient dharma, she has good chances to regain the lost
glory as the wealthiest and most advanced country in the world whose citizen
are open-minded and contented. If not, probably the west discovers this
treasure trove and adopts it…..first.
 ARE HINDUS DANGEROUS?

April 18, 2014 · by By Maria Wirth

Whenever news about India make it to the local Nuremberg newspaper,

my mother reads them out to me on phone. Usually, those news portray
India in a poor light, like ‘people died from cold on the streets of Delhi’ or,
especially in the past year ever so often, ‘another gang rape’,
conveniently ignoring the gang rapes on home turf. During recent
months, however, one term clearly dominates the western media, and
going by the language used, it seems to be the most dangerous and
heinous trait that any Indian could have, and that needs to be condemned
by one and all.  The term is “Hindu fundamentalist”.  And the prime
ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who is considered the frontrunner in
the elections, is said to be one.

“A racist is India’s hope – Hindu fundamentalist Modi could win the

election” my mother read out to me on 4 th of April. Another article in the
same paper, sourced from the German press agency (dpa) read “A man
splits India”. In it, too “Hindu fundamentalism” was stressed and the RSS
even being compared to Nazi ideology. English newspapers, too, paint
‘Hindu fundamentalist’ Narendra Modi as highly dangerous for India and
the world. And leading from the front, the Indian mainstream media
freely label any Hindu organizations as ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘communal’
since years and leave no doubt that the secular fabric of Indian
democracy will be endangered if this ‘Hindu fundamentalist’ comes to
power.

The relentless media campaign shows already results worldwide. On my

last visit to Germany, a woman sitting next to me in a bus asked, “What
about the Hindu fundamentalists?” when she came to know that I live in
India. I told her that the fear of Hindu fundamentalists is unfounded. In
fact, I am in India precisely because I treasure the fundamentals of
Hinduism.

I am sure that most left liberal ‘intellectuals’ in India and abroad will come
down heavily on me if they hear me say that. There is so much shouting
in TV debates and living rooms that one cannot get down to the basics
and ask simple questions. To be fair to Hindus, such questions need to be
answered by those who malign Hindus in general and Narendra Modi in
particular.

One question for example is: what makes Narendra Modi a Hindu
fundamentalist? Is it the fact that he acknowledges that he is a Hindu? Or
is it the allegation that he did not do anything to stop the rioting in his
state in 2002? This allegation has been proven wrong in spite of intense
scrutiny and the explicit desire to find him guilty. Yet let’s for a moment
suppose the allegation were true and he really would have encouraged
killing of Muslims as revenge for the killing of Hindus in the train burning.
In that case, he would indeed deserve severest punishment, but it would
not make him a Hindu fundamentalist.

Let me explain: the basic philosophy of Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma, as

it was originally called is in a nutshell: this visible universe, including our
persons, is divine. Everything is permeated by the same divine essence
which is called by many names. Hindus do not, unlike Christians and
Muslims, divide humanity into those who are chosen by God and those
who are eternally damned. Hindus are those rare human beings whose
dharma requires them to regard all as brothers and sisters. Their dharma
requires them further to respect nature and not to harm unnecessarily
any living being. Hindu children are not taught to look down on those who
are not Hindus, unlike children of the dogmatic religions who are taught
that their God does not love those others unless they officially join their
‘true’ religions. Hindus are also comparatively kinder to animals. The
great bulk of vegetarians worldwide are Hindus. Strangely, this fact is
hardly ever acknowledged; nor is acknowledged that Hindus never fought
crusades or jihads to establish their religion in foreign lands. On the
contrary, since over thousand years Hindus were at the receiving end of
such jihads and conversion campaigns and millions of Hindus were killed
in cold blood because they were Hindus.

Now coming back to the media assault on Modi as a Hindu

fundamentalist: Is he called a Hindu fundamentalist because he openly
says that he is a Hindu? Well, this would not be wrong, as he indeed
seems to follow the fundamentals of Hinduism. He seems to be a
genuinely good human being who wants to give his best to develop India
and has the welfare of all Indians in mind.

However, though it is factually not wrong, it is at the same time very

unfair by the media to call Modi a Hindu fundamentalist, because the term
‘fundamentalist’ generally has a negative connotation when it comes to
other religions, and especially westerners are not knowledgeable enough
to distinguish between a Christian or Muslim fundamentalist on one side
and a Hindu fundamentalist on the other. If a Christian or Muslim follows
the fundamentals of his religions too strictly, it is generally considered as
bad for society as a whole. The reason is that such a person will stress his
superiority, as his holy book claims that only his religion is true and
therefore naturally superior to all other religions. Such a person would see
nothing wrong and even might feel it is his duty to convert people of
other religions by hook or crook, or, if they don’t comply, despise or even
kill them. One only needs to look at history to see what havoc Christian
and Muslim fundamentalists have wrought all over the world. So it is no
surprise that no European or American politician is labeled as “Christian
fundamentalist”, when he simply confesses to be a Christian. Muslim
politician, too, are not called “Muslim fundamentalists”, even if they head
an Islamic state.

What most people however don’t know: there is no claim of superiority in

Hinduism. The reason is that it is not an unverifiable belief system that
has to be indoctrinated as the one and only truth, but it is open to
enquiry. Blind belief is not required. The fundamentals of Hinduism are
sound and conducive for a good character. It is actually good to follow the
fundamentals of Hinduism and see the one divine essence everywhere in
this visible universe.

“There is talk about this God and that God. Our country is not like that.
Here we maintain Ishwar  (God) is one. The paths to attain him are
different”, Modi said in an interview on April 12 th, 2014 (Aap ki adalat),
when a woman asked him whether Christians and their churches will be
safe under him. He assured his audience that the motto of his party, in
tune with the Constitution of India, is to treat all different paths equally.
Communal frenzy will not be allowed to retard the growth of India, he
added.

Modi’s words deserve to be taken seriously. He has governed Gujarat with

a population of around 60 million for the last 12 years and no major
communal clash took place there after the riots of 2002, whereas many
riots happened elsewhere. Yet in those 12 years, Narendra Modi managed
to greatly develop Gujarat and make it the envy of other Indian states.
He proved that he is not corrupt and highly capable.

So why is Narendra Modi relentlessly labeled as Hindu fundamentalist by

the world media, which knows fully well that this label will make him look
‘bad’ in the eyes of the world? Could it be that the west is actually afraid
of an economically strong India and uses the bogey of Hindu
fundamentalism to beat Modi and India down?

Maybe it is time for Hindus to tell the world to have a close look at the
fundamentals of Hinduism. They might actually want to adopt them.