CHAND K SHARMA
Chand K Sharma was born in 1940 at Dipalpur, a seventh century town in Sahiwaal district in the region of Indus valley civilization of pre-partitioned India. As a child he witnessed the blood bath that followed partition of India and moved to truncated part of India. He had his schooling at Delhi and graduated with honors in English Literature from University of Delhi. He left his post graduation in 1963 to join Indian Army and was commissioned in the Regiment of Artillery. He served all over India including field service during Indo Pakistan wars during 1965 and 1971, and retired from Army in 1990. Thereafter he served as Senior Personnel Manager in the corporate sector in Gujarat.
Even while on active service the passion for knowledge continued motivating him to earn post graduate degrees in Law, Personnel Management, Human Resource Development, and Master of Business Administration from various Universities. He is well versed in English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and notation systems of Indian and Western Music.
He has varied interests in literature, history, and performing arts. He is a Sitar and Key Board player and still regards himself a learner. He has been sharing his knowledge and experience in varied subjects with others as a free lance writer in English and Hindi.
At present he is settled at Delhi and has been a regular visitor to US.
Audit of Non Hindu Faiths Needed – Chand K Sharma
After partition, we inherited British infrastructure of governance and by large have continued with the same. British rule, was also secular to proclaim. There were no reservations or appeasement for any category. Then:
- What motivated us to replace British rulers at the cost of accepting partition of the country?
- What motivated us to make sacrifices for attaining freedom?
The answer is only one – we wanted to govern ourselves, according to the ethics of our own Hindu ancestral values.
Secularism is Unethical Concept
The concept of secularism is colonial. The colonial powers initially converted the natives to Christianity, which often sparked violent resistance from them. Therefore, British rulers discovered a way out. They detached themselves from missionaries, and posed secular to legitimize their hold on colonized countries. Thus secular governments were established to mask political control over different faiths and lands all over the world including India.
Dictionary meaning of the word secular implies, “not being committed to ethics of any religion”. To Hindus, governance devoid of Dharma (ethics) is nothing but Adhama. In more explicit words it means unethical and opportunist pursuit of power. A government that is non-committal to the ethics of the population of the country is nothing but an autocrat mafia in power. Mafias are viewed secular.
Christianity in United Kingdom
Constitutionally, even secular governments across the globe in advanced countries, are also slanted towards the faith of the land. As back in fifteenth century, when Christianity was at its zenith, England restricted the interference of Roman Pope into national affairs of England. That resulted in emergence of Protestant Church, known as the Church of England. United Kingdom is a secular monarchy, but Monarch of England carries the title ‘defender of the Faith’. All customs and traditions concerning the state are Christianity oriented.
Hinduism is Universal Faith
Why did India proclaim to remain secular when Hinduism in itself is most adequate to the spiritual needs of the entire mankind? Hinduism is a perfect human religion that is concerned with the well being of all-living and non-living things in the environment.
Hinduism is a human faith in true spirit. It is open to introspection, adoption, and tolerance towards dissent, due to which all those who came to India were assimilated within the framework of Hinduism. It is a religion of fine synthesis of faith and Science. It has its own culture and civilization of most refined tastes. India exported advances made in every field of human knowledge. Hinduism assured in practice the right to live and let others also live in the environment under every geographical condition.
There are no fatwas or dictates from the clergy. Hinduism never indulged in destruction of non-believers or conversion of others to its fold. It has been the religion that preferred religious identity of a person on the basis of birth and practice, but kept its doors open to all those who volunteer to assimilate. It is a faith that propagated Vasudeva Kutambkum and treated entire universe as a large family, much before various nations actually knew the existence of each other. Hinduism was never confined to any particular area, or period of time.
It is Religion of Early Man
Why we chose to have 1869 born politician declared as father of the nation? Our ancestral lineage started with Early Man, who could be remembered as Shiva or Adam. The ethical codes of Hindu religion were not dictated by any individual as per his whims, fancies or limitations, but emerged out of introspection, experimentation, and reviews made by learned Rishies and Sages of wisdom par excellence, and are still open to modification. All of us are descendants of those learned sages and not a result of parental sin.
Freedom of thought and Expression
Hindus are free to accept one, many or no God at all. They are free to view Him through symbols, idols, humanized forms, animal forms or through his own image in the mirror. God may be identified by any name or syllable, and can be approached directly by every one without reference of another intermediate. No animal is hated. Hindus never defaced items, places or scriptures of non-Hindu faiths.
As a Hindu, everyone is free to wear any dress and chose menu, subject to the constraints of local environment and decency. Similarly every Hindu is free to pick and chose the literature according to personal choice, in any language and script. Priests are superficial and can be dispensed at the choice of the individual.
New ideas and discoveries are welcome to replace outdated thoughts. What else was further needed, that we had to attach the tag of secularism in India?
Why Magnanimity of Hindus Ignored?
It was due to liberal attitude of Hindus, that even after having been profusely bled and destroyed; Hindus offered a brotherly hand of equality to live in India to those Muslims who had been responsible for the Hindu genocide.
Hindus were prepared to make a fresh start on a clean slate. They had even de-linked themselves with the scary memories of the past. It was not only a mere gesture, but the sincerity was fully demonstrated by bringing back the post partition Muslim migrants to India and rehabilitating them with special treatment. What more was required to be secular from Hindus? Did we accept partition of the country to re-accommodate fundamentalists and keep them amused at their terms all the time?
Audit of Non Hindu Faiths Needed
Our experience has once more taught us that any faith that had its ideologies, religious leaders, pilgrim places and literature originated beyond India; certainly do not come within the framework of Hindu mindset. It needs to be audited that to what extent Christians, Muslims and other non-Hindu faiths in India have adopted the concept of secularism to live with Hindus – the local majority in India?
- It is pertinent to say that even after providing full protection to Christianity under minority status, the clerics emphasize on their religion rather on nationalism. They say,
- “When we talk of Christianity, our first allegiance should be to our Master Jesus Christ and after wards to our motherland”.
- About Muslims, the less said is better. They have now intruded into the individual life styles of Hindus. Today, Hindus cannot celebrate their festivals, worship, build temples; and educate their children safely in their own home land. Hindus did pay and are now again paying Jazia for pilgrimage jaunts abroad for minorities.
- Islam and Christianity do not accept any common grounds with Hindu religion. They believe in killing of non-believers and conversion of Hindus to their fold through all means. Can we ‘Indianize’ Islam or Christianity in today’s secular environment? If not, why Hinduism should give up its place to accommodate other faiths in India that are hostile down to its roots?
As religious affinities always over flow political borders, it will be detrimental to the security of India to have alien religious settlements with political rights. Most of non-Hindu faiths do not accept to be governed by common civil code, adopt National Language, sing National Anthem and accept uniform syllabus for education that are necessary ingredients of national Unity. There is need to question their commitment to secularity.
Reckless Indulgence is suicidal
In the guise of preserving secularism, the communal forces have emerged as power-brokers against Hindus. Selfish politicians have been vying with each other to flatter minorities, by bartering the interests of Hindus to seek their electoral support. Secularism is being grossly misused as a cover, for sectionals and anti-national activities.
There no other secular country in the World that indulged in similar self-destructive appeasements. After partition it has come to be the duty of every Hindu to keep minorities happy at every cost. Hindus and their customs are being disregarded in their own home land due to Nehru-Gandhi doctrines in particular.
Demographic Imbalance of Population
Our national resources are already sinking under the weight of population. Additional numbers add further to the strength of poor, under-nourished, illiterate, and unemployed citizens of this country. While Hindus have adopted smaller family norms, minorities, in spite of living on the verge of poverty line, have been averse to family planning. They have formed this attitude to increase their numerical strength for bargaining special rights and benefits for their community, and ultimately, converting India to an Islamic through ballot strength.
Our politicians have been foolish, but cunning to advertise boom in Muslim population as a credential for our secularism, without foreseeing its adverse implications. Though we claim to be the largest democracy in the world having largest population of Muslims, we have absolutely no say at any of the International Islamic forums. There we are cold shouldered as a Hindu and anti-Islamic country, and are always accused of committing atrocities against minorities.
Unpatriotic Intelligentsia
There are some unpatriotic intellectuals, who have been advocating opening of borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, to facilitate unchecked flow of their nationals that separated from India out of hatred. While no Hindus would be allowed to settle in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Indian Muslims in the name of Islamic Brotherhood will shelter migrants. Once they grow up in numbers, Hindus will be living as they had lived during Muslim rule, because there is no change in their mindset. The stage will be set to re-enact Arab and the Camel episode.
Pakistan has followed the strategy of infiltration not only in Kashmir, but has now widened its scope to cover entire India, by establishing support bases in Muslim dominated areas. Our security forces, though capable of repulsing overt attacks, suffer causalities in home territory, because the militants can mingle with local Muslim population comfortably.
Development without Security
Unless Hindus get politically united, and make concentrated efforts to cope with the environment, Hinduism might be fading away from India in the near future. Political problems cannot be solved through spiritual discourses, but require timely political actions. Social and economic factors are subsidiary to that. Remaining indifferent is nothing, but suicidal escapism.
We do not require our secularism to be certified by other countries. As a sovereign nation, we have every right to re-interpret our secularism in the manner we like. There is nothing for Hindus to feel apologetic or concerned about. We are fortunate and proud to be Hindus! As custodians of this great human heritage, we have a sacred duty to preserve it for the generations to come. We need to replace secularism with Hindu Rashtra to restore Bharat Swabhimaan. Only then India will be a free country.
We have to choose between living freely in our home land as Hindus or hand over secular, fragmented India to others and die.
Chand K Sharma
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