January 2008

Deficiency of Noble Minds

            To what disgusting venality politicians degenerate is becoming too evident from the competitive populist promises they make namely nine hours free electricity for farmers, free house sites and houses for the poor, waiver of farmer’s loans – Rs. 30,000 crores, rice at Rs. 2/Kg, disburse Rs. 1,00,000 crores as oans to women.

            Innocent Indians may be wondering as to how the vast programmes of poor-feeding, housing and clothing and welfare could be financed.  Gone are leaders who extolled the virtues of work and thrift; who taught people that education, acquisition of skills and life-long learning alone will make people and the country self-reliant and prosperous and powerful.  True leaders must educate people as Gandhiji did; inspire them as Swamy Vivekananda and Lokamanya Tilak did.  The present crop of leaders in their all-consuming hunger for power are competing to please voters, religious communities, caste-groups and even criminal gangs.  They don’t show any zeal to promote education for all and limiting family sizes limited to the parent’s capability and means to bring them up as educated employable, aspiring, cultured citizens.  The results are: deteriorating internal security, social and communal conflicts, growing crime and impunity to criminals, demands for rights and utter neglect of duties, all pointing to decline and destruction of India.  India can still be saved from politicians if we remember and act on the wisdom of Edmund Burke’s words.  “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” and recall Gandhiji’s words!

            “Those who claim to lead the masses must resolutely refuse to be led by them, if we want to avoid mob law and desire ordered progress for the country.  I believe that mere protestation of one’s opinion and surrender to the mass opinion is not only  not enough, but in matters of vital importance, leaders must act contrary to the mass of opinions if it does not commend itself to their reason”.

            “A great civilization is not conquered from without but it is destroyed by itself from within”, said the American historian, philosopher, Will Durant about ancient Rome.

            India’s case by our political leaders in whom, in the words of former great President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam “there is a deficiency of noble minds”!

Excerpt from Editorial, Bharatiya Pragna, October 2007

Mahatma Gandhi on Gandhism

                  For me the road to salvation lies through incessant toil in the service of my country.  There is no such thing, as ‘Gandhism’ and I do not want to leave any sect after me.  I do not claim to have originated any new principle or doctrine.  I have simply tried in my own way to apply the eternal truths to our daily life and problems.  Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.   All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could do.

                   I want you also to grow with me.  I should not care to know what happens after I am gone. Forget me, therefore, cleave not to my name but cleave to the principles, measure every one of your activities by that standard and face fearlessly every problem that arises.

                   Truth and ahimsa will never be destroyed, but if Gandhism is another name for sectarianism, it deserves to be destroyed.

    We have to make truth and non-violence not matters for mere individual practice but for practice by groups and communities and nations.  That, at any rate, is my dream.

- Mahatma

Pope’s Call to Humanity: Restore Order and Harmony in the World

          Everyone is indeed aware how the development and the application of any invention to a military purpose almost everywhere brings harm out of proportion, even in the political sphere, to the advantages which are derived from them and which could be secured by other paths at less cost and danger, or be quite simply postponed to a more convenient time.

          Such quantities of material, such sums of money derived from saving and the result of restrictions and toil, such expenditure of human labour taken away from urgent needs, are consumed to prepare these new arms, that even the wealthiest nations must foresee the times in which they will regret the dangerously weakened harmony of the national economy, or are in fact already regretting it, though they endeavour to conceal the fact.

From the pages of Bhavan’s  Journal, January 31, 1958

July 2008

Hinduism - More than “A Way of Life”

          It became hip and fashionable among some Hindus a few decades ago to say that Hinduism is just a way of life and not a religion.  And this has been parroted by many without thinking ever since. Unfortunately, religions that do not wish Hinduism well have used this to its detriment by saying: “So, Hinduism is a way of life.  This means you Hindus don’t have a religion. Your religion then can be our religion. Why don’t you adopt ours as your own? You may keep your way of life.”  It is thus important for Hindus to insist that Hinduism is a religion, philosophy and way of life all rolled into one. These three are not mutually exclusive categories. A tradition can be all three at once as in the case of Taoism (Dao-de Jiao as the Chinese call it) in China and Shintoism (Kami-nomichi as the Japanese call it) in Japan.  Usually, nationally-based religions tend to be all three at once, as opposed to the missionary religions. Why are some Hindus hesitant to call Hinduism a religion when it has all the elements that characterize a religion? Let’s check each of these characteristics: Deities, piety and worship, scriptures, doctrines, sacred space (sanctified places of worship and pilgrimage), sacred time (feasts and fasts), sacred persons (priests and monastics), liturgy and prayer, sacraments (sanctification of the important stages of life), miracles and mysticism, rituals, code of ethics, contemplative practices, humanism and a concept of salvation.  Hinduism has them all. Over and above this is the culture.  It is this cultural component that makes Hinduism more than a religion.  It also becomes a way of life.  One does not exclude the other. Hindus should celebrate their faith as all three (religion, philosophy and way of life) rolled into one as Taoists and Shintoists have done in China and Japan respectively over the centuries.

Hinduism Today, Jan-Mar 2008                                                                                                           B.N. Hebbar

October 2008

Hinduism is thus both a civilisation and

conglomerate of religions

         Encyclopedia of Britannica writes: “In principle Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. The Hindu is inclined to  revere the divine in every manifestation whatever it may be and is doctrinally tolerant leaving others-both Hindus and non-Hindus – whatever creed and worship practices suit them best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu, and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship strange gods and divergent as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the World and the mankind. Few religious ideas are considered to be finally irreconcilable. The core of the religion does not even depend on the existence or non-existence of God or whether there is one God or many. Since religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms, Hinduism is thus both a civilisation and a conglomerate of religions, with neither a beginning, nor a founder, nor a central authority, hierarchy or organization”.   

Encyclopedia of Britannica 15E Ed. Vol. 8 Page 888

Courtesy: Yuva Bharati, September 2008

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