Barry Nirmal is the founder of many websites, e.g. www.myads.org, Hinduism Research website at www.myads.org/hindu, and the Journal of Rational Thought at www.myads.org/journal.
He founded the Hinduism Research website at www.myads.org/hindu,
after
returning from Saudi Arabia in 1997 where he spent a few years working
as a computer specialist. He witnessed first hand the hatred of the
Saudi authorities for Hindus and Hinduism.
Barry graduated with a B.Tech degree from the world famous Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur. He also obtained his
Masters degree in engineering from University of Nebraska.
Barry has written six textbooks
on computing published by Prentice Hall, Inc and John Wiley & Sons.
His books can be found by searching Google for ‘Barry Nirmal books’.
Apart from writing many published
articles on computing, he has written numerous essays that have been
published on the Journal of Rational Thought, atwww.myads.org/journal. His essays can be found by searching Google for ‘Barry Nirmal essays’.
In this
essay I intend to show the vital link between the task of building Hindu
India and the task of refuting Gandhi’s pacifist philosophy. M. K.
Gandhi believed in non-violence not only in personal and societal
relations but also in the political arena. He was also an ardent
believer in the Western concept of secularism which stipulates that the
government must support all religions practiced by the people without
making any one religion as paramount. The governments of the West follow
secularism and the United States is the best example of secularism in
practice. The United States adopted secularism because when the U.S.
was founded in 1776, its people, having migrated from Europe, believed
in the many warring sects of Christianity, e.g. Catholicism, and the
Protestant creed. So, the U.S. constitution stipulates that the
government must support all religions and the people are free to
practice any variety of religion. This was the best way to build a
united country. The other option was to adopt atheism for which people
were not yet psychologically prepared. Had the U.S. constitution not
guaranteed religious freedom of the people, and the religious
neutrality of the state, the various states within the union would have
indulged in open warfare, thus greatly weakening the union.
At that
time, Europe had a long history of warfare between the Catholics and
Protestants. The Thirty Year War in Europe that lasted from 1618 to 1648
is the best example of such a warfare. When the modern European states
were founded around the time of the French Revolution that shook the
very foundations of European society between 1789 and 1799, these modern
states adopted secularism because it held the promise of uniting the
populace and avoiding religious warfare. It cannot be denied that
secularism has served these countries well. It has kept the people
united and has avoided religious warfare which has resulted in great
progress in the scientific and industrial arena.
Gandhi
adopted the European model and decided to implement the ideology of
secularism. Gandhi was aware of the deep mistrust and animosity between
Hindus and Muslims. Thus his vision of India was of a nation where
Hindus and Muslims lived in harmony. But the British colonialist rulers
like that of the Roman Empire had used the policy of divide and rule.
They instigated and supported the Muslims whenever their party, the
Muslim League, fought with the Congress Party. When the Muslim League
demanded a separate country for the Muslims, the British rulers
supported them by all means.
Thus the
cunning British rulers of India threw a wrench into Gandhi’s plans to
create an independent India where Hindus and Muslims would live in peace
and harmony. Finally the great calamity of partition befell our Mother
India. The partition of India in 1947 happened due to the bellicose
demands of the Muslim League to separate, and with the active support of
the British. During this partition more than a million people died in
violent religious clashes between the Hindus and Muslims.
In the
years prior to 1947, whenever the Muslim League incited its followers to
attack the Hindus, Gandhi never supported the Hindus. He preached
non-violence to the Hindus and expected them to take the attacks lying
down.Meanwhile, Pakistan had launched its mission to attack and grab
Jammu & Kashmir and was demanding that India hand over Rs 55 crores
(550 million) which it claimed to be its share of the cash reserve
inherited from the departing British colonial Government. The proverbial
last straw was Gandhi’s threat to go on a fast to force the Government
of India to accept Pakistan’s demand.
This
angered the Hindu nationalists who witnessed how trains after trains
arrived from Pakistan to Indian Punjab, full of corpses of Hindus and
Sikhs. The Hindus had become passive and did not fight back because
their leaders, Gandhi and Nehru, were constantly preaching non-violence
to them. Finally the Hindu nationalists got fed up with the non-violent
preaching of Gandhi and Nehru and the great suffering of the Hindus at
the hands of the Muslim mobs, and some of them conspired to kill Gandhi.
Now the
question arises, is secularism as taught by Gandhi and Nehru a wrong
policy? Well, secularism is not a wrong policy for all countries. In
fact, as shown above, it has served the Europeans nations and the U.S.
and Canada very well. But for India, it is not the right policy because
India does not have the same conditions that the countries of the West
had when they adopted secularism.
The
countries of the West had and have Christian majority and Christianity
was not faced with the mortal danger of being wiped out by another
religion. So, it was fine for them to adopt secularism. But India has a
declining Hindu majority and a growing Muslim minority. While Hinduism
does not preach proselytization and does not encourage Hindus to convert
adherents of other religions, Islam and Christianity openly tell their
followers to aggressively convert Hindus by hook or by crook.
To keep
Muslims from abandoning their faith, Islam states and has practiced the
notion that when a Muslim abandons his religion, he must be punished
with death. This is evident from the fact that on February 23, 2015,
the www.jihadwatch.org website
reported that in Saudi Arabia a Saudi was accused of ripping a copy of
the Koran and hitting it with shoe. [1]. He also captured this act on
video and published it on social networks. For this a three-judge panel
handed the death sentence to the man.
In Pakistan
in the past few years many prominent lawyers and politicians who
supported human rights for the minority community have been killed.
Islam
teaches its followers that when they convert a non-Muslim into Islam,
they can expect a huge reward from Allah and their place in paradise
will be assured.
The
Christians too openly and aggressively convert Hindus into their
religion. For material gain and career advancement, some Hindus in the
West embrace Christianity.
So, Hindus
in India have faced a minority Muslim population whose religion is so
aggressive while the Hindus themselves are so passive and their
passivity has been aided and aggravated by the teachings of non-violence
and secularism by Gandhi who is considered ‘the father of the nation’.
In such a situation, for Hindus in India to continue to believe in
secularism is poisonous and self-destructive, to say the least.
In fact
under the present circumstances, the only correct policy for Hindus is
to demand that India be declared a Hindu state, with Hinduism being the
state religion and the state must enact all laws to ensure that Hindus
remain and will remain a majority in India in the future, and the Hindu
religion will be protected by the state.
Just as the
people of India supported the BJP led by Narendra Modi and afforded it a
thumping majority during the national elections of May 2014, the people
now must get united and launch a new movement to demand that the
present Indian government use its majority in the parliament to declare
Hinduism the state religion and to finally and unequivocally declare
that India is a Hindu state. This should be done in the same manner that
the Jews have declared Israel as a Jewish state.
Gandhi was
not a bad man, after all. His teachings of non-violence are not all
wrong. In fact if Gandhi was a Hindu religious teacher, we would have
little objection to his teachings. The Hindu religion, unlike Islam and
Christianity, has always been a peaceful religion.
Our saints
and rishis, unlike Islam, never asked Hindus to kill anyone for
believing or not believing in any doctrine or religion. In fact, Sri
Ramakrishna, the guru of Swami Vivekananda, openly declared that he
found all religions including Islam to be valid and noble. If Gandhi was
a saint like Sri Ramakrishna, it would be perfectly fine with the Hindu
masses.
But the
problem arose when Gandhi being a political leader- and the highest
political leader at that – started to preach non-violence. In the
entire history of mankind, no country that practiced non-violence ever
became a great power. In fact once a journalist asked Gandhi during
Hitler’s reign, if he would preach non-violence to the Jews who were
being slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis in Germany. To this Gandhi
replied firmly in the affirmative. If the Jews had listened to this
charlatan, if they had followed the road of non-violence, they would
never have been able to found a new state of their own, the state of
Israel, where the Jews have finally established a homeland. The state of
Israel is a beacon to all the Jews all over the world, who get
discriminated for being a Jew. They can look to the state of Israel for
moral and political support. They can migrate to Israel and feel safe in
their own homeland.
In the same
way, if India does not become a Hindu state, the Hindus will continue
to be discriminated and attacked in numerous countries where we live. In
February 2015, another attack on a Hindu temple in the U.S. spread
concern among the Hindus in America. A Hindu temple was vandalized in
Washington state with windows broken and the word “Fear” painted on it,
less than a fortnight after another temple was attacked. [2] These
attacks along with the experience of the Jews who after centuries of
oppression finally established their own Jewish state, should convince
all Hindus to demand that India be declared a Hindu state.
References
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