The aam admi Hindu, the traditional acharyas, gurus and maths have been and are
the backbone of Hindu civilisation. Protecting them is the responsibility of
the Hindu elite, especially the Hindu intellectuals. This duty had been
discharged in earlier times with the labours of the Swami Vivekananda
generation (19th century) and in our times by vigilant Hindus, Hindu
organisations and publications.
Unfortunately, the same is not true of the new fangled methods of ‘dialogue’
which show a dismal record of retreat and capitulation before the enemy so to
speak, especially the Catholic Church and its allies in the evangelical
movement. The goal of this generic Church as it has been rightly called, has
always been the single minded aim of the conversion of the Hindu population, a
process which started systematically with the Goa Inquisition of
1560 when a variety of methods were used, including torture, murder, and
mayhem, to convert the local population and destroy their ancestral faith.
This process has been written about by several authors, the most well
known being late Ram Swarup and late Sita Ram Goel. The latter’s many works
include The History of Hindu Christian Encounters (1996). Their work has been
carried on by other writers such as Swami Devananda Sarasvati, Radha Rajan,
Sandhya Jain, Tamizhchelvan, Virendra Parekh, to name the best known of the
recent writers on the subject.
For a brief and most recent survey of the trajectory of the Church’s changing
tactics, including its tactics of Inculturation, the reader is referred to
Sandhya Jain’s article ‘Inter-faith Dialogue, What’s in it for Hindus?’ For an
historical survey the above writers are good sources. One can also include the
book Breaking India by authors Rajiv Malhotra & Aravindan Neelakandan
(2011). The above is not a comprehensive list of works, but it will help the
reader to understand how and why the latest tactic of Inter Religious Dialogue
is a manifestation of the process of Inculturation by the Church to infiltrate
Hindu culture and subvert it by co-opting Hindu intellectuals in the process.
The present writer has written several articles on the topic.
The aam admi Hindus continue to practise their faith in ongoing fashion. This
has been well expressed by Sandhya Jain in her above mentioned article:
“India has hitherto withstood the missionary assault because of the devotion of
the ordinary citizen, especially the denizens of villages and tribal belts, to
their ancestral faith as represented by the grama devatas, kula devatas and
sthana devatas who form a protective shield around their devotees and save them
from harm. Then, there are the great gods in the larger temples and peeths and
pilgrimages which gird the whole country in a protective grid, along with the
spiritual strength and leadership of the traditional acharyas, gurus, mathams
and so on.
The traditional acharyas are not expected to know their Shakespeare and Milton or the Bible and
scriptures of non Dharmic faiths. They do their job of maintaining their
existing Hindu traditions very well. To distract them from their main task
which is the expounding, explication and propagation of the Hindu scriptures
and the maintenance of the rituals of the tradition is unconscionable. It might
well be that there may be some traditional acharyas who are also versed in non
Dharmic religions, but this is an accidental phenomenon and should not be the
criterion to judge whether the former are doing their task adequately.
It is the responsibility of the Hindu intellectual to engage, only if
NECESSARY, in the task of interacting with non Dharmic faiths and the present
record of producing coffee table books does not bode well for the new fangled
method of ‘dialogue’ which the Church has imposed on Hindu India. There cannot
be any two opinions that it is THEIR considered strategy of drawing Hindu
intellectuals into the orbit of Inculturation and thereby accomplishing both
that specific task as well distracting Hindu intellectuals who are prone to
imagine that their adventure of ideas is somehow a world shaking event. At best,
it might keep the well heeled upper classes satisfied that something is being
done for Hindu India, and /or that it demonstrates how well informed Hindus are
about their faith. It might even provide some educational value to the upper
classes who are increasingly getting distanced from their ancestral faith. But
it cannot and never will be a substitute for the ongoing aam admi Hindus’ daily
practice of his/her faith and the traditional acharyas, gurus and mathams. To
attempt to do that is a sign of hubris.
And these are the targets of the Church, not the Hindu intellectuals, who may
fondly imagine that their self importance has been validated and vindicated by
invitations to Dialogue, since after all important representatives of the
Church have conferred their blessings on these projects.
And to continue to believe that this is so is in reality, a danger to the Hindu
Samaj. The Church merely toys with these intellectuals in the interests of its
larger agenda.
Since the method of ‘dialogue’ is essentially part of Church strategy, there is
only one way left for Hindu intellectuals and that is to reject the fraudulent
dialogue outright. The rejection of globalisation in the Indian economy is
being advocated in the realm of Economic Nationalism by able advocates of the
same. Precisely that same approach is required at the intellectual level. And
just as the Economic Nationalists have a well argued and well presented agenda,
likewise the Hindu intellectual must resist the siren call of globalisation and
develop a well thought out scheme of meeting the ‘enemy at the gates’ so to
speak.
A contemporary scholar has, after the recent debacle in dialogue, suggested
that a growing team of well educated, well prepared Hindu scholars and
intellectuals can engage with the enemy in aggressive fashion, knocking down
their pretensions at theological and religious superiority vis a vis the
Dharmic faiths, while at the same time develop Hindu Siddhanth. This would be
in line with the Hindu tradition of Purva Paksha, for which the REFUTATION of
the adversary’s arguments is central to the whole project.
Such an ever expanding project (a non fraudulent one) requires team effort and
the participants must surely be team players. It also requires vigilance in not
entering arenas without adequate preparation and indeed not entering them at
all, if not NECCESSARY. The writer Tamizhchelvan memorably said that there was
no need to create artificial battlefields. As he pointed out in a comment to an
article in Haindava Keralam: since the start of interfaith dialogue there has
been no benefit to the Hindu Samaj. In fact, there has been a dramatic increase
since the start of interfaith dialogue in evangelisation and conversion, the
mushrooming of Christian NGOs (working against Hindu interests), the
construction of prayer houses and churches next to temples, the acquisition of
huge lands and properties, the menace of Inculturation and the increasing flow
of foreign funds to these dubious organisations (the detailed comment can be
viewed in the comment section of ‘Purva Paksha and the Siren Call of Hindu
Christian Dialogue, Haindava Keralam, 27/12/2011).
Hence, it is important for any new initiative for aggressive interfaith
dialogue not only to be able to meet the adversary fully armed and fully
prepared (metaphorically speaking), it is incumbent on these non fraudulent
dialoguers to keep their ears close to the ground. There is absolutely no need
to wade into a morass, to walk into something set up by the adversary. It is
pertinent to remember Sita Ram Goel’s words:
“The non- Christian religions have persevered on their own, their truths, their
social life and culture throughout these long centuries; they certainly do not
stand in need of help from an apparatus which has tried its utmost to uproot
them. The stark truth seems to be the other way around; it is the Church of Christ which is seeking desperately the
help of non-Christian religions in order to save whatever little is left of its
superstitions. That is the meaning of the “dialogue” for which Christian
theologians and missionaries are crying now-a- days. The “dialogue” does not
seem to be a sincere attempt at reconciliation; on the contrary, it is only a
strategy for survival on the part of Christianity.”
(Preface to the First Edition, ‘The History of Hindu Christian Encounters,’
1996)
Therefore, there are two dangers that the new dialoguers need to avoid: create
artificial battlefields and make their project an elitist one, while ignoring
and downgrading the aam admi Hindu and the traditional acharyas, gurus and
mathams. Should they not heed these dangers they will be repeating the mistakes
of the last two decades whereby they have been unable to stop the following
dangers to the Hindu Samaj (which Tamizhchelvan has listed, as mentioned
above). They will be unable to:
1. Stop evangelisation and conversions
2. Stop the mushrooming of Christian NGOs that work against Hindu interests
3. Stop the construction of prayer halls and churches near temples
4. Stop the Church from acquiring huge lands and properties
5. Stop the menace of Inculturation
6. Stop the flow of foreign money
If these dangers are not heeded then once again we will have a project that
merely entertains the Hindu intellectual elite and will not benefit the Hindu
Samaj. It will become another round of distraction from the central goal of
protecting the aam admi Hindu and the traditional acharyas, gurus and mathams,
whose very existence has frustrated the goal of asuric forces down the
centuries to defeat Hindu civilisation.
(The author is a political philosopher who taught at a Canadian university. Her
academic training is in Philosophy, Political Science, Political Economy &
History)