Month: January 2012

Human Devolution:

A Vedic Account of Human Origins

Michael A. Cremo

            In the Bhagavad-gita, the warrior prince Arjuna asks Lord Krishna about the fate of yogis who do not reach the stage of complete perfection. Lord Krishna replied that such souls, after taking birth again, will become automatically attracted to the yoga principles and make further progress. That appears to be the story of my life. I was born in 1948, and even though the place of my birth was America, as I grew up, I found myself attracted to essential aspects of the yogic way of life. I became a vegetarian. I felt much better, physically and mentally. I very much liked reading the Upanisads and the Bhagavad–gita. These books were very satisfying to my intellect. I developed a strong desire to visit India. Over the past 30 years, I have visited India over a dozen times. My voyages have taken me throughout the entire country, from north to south, from east to west. I have felt like a person coming home after a long absence. I became attracted to the teachings of one of the prominent gurus from India, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, and became his initiated disciple, learning from him the practice of one of the ancient Indian yoga systems, bhakti-yoga, the yoga of devotion. In so doing, my initial attraction and curiosity have matured into the commitment of a practitioner who has found a deep spiritual satisfaction.

According to the bhakti-yoga system, one’s work can become one’s yoga, one’s transcendental connection to the supreme conscious personality behind all worldly phenomena. I have always had a tendency toward intellectual work, toward study, and writing, and speaking. I have always wondered about the origin and history of human beings. I am, of course, not unique in this regard. The question of human origins has always been a hot topic among philosophers and scientists. Today, most of them accept the Darwinian account that humans like us came into existence about 100,000 years ago, having evolved from more apelike ancestors.

I myself accepted that account during the early part of my intellectual life. And I probably would still accept it today had it not been for my encounter with the Vedic literature of India. Among this literature, one finds the Puranas, or histories. Had I not studied the Puranas, I would not have had any reason to question the evolutionary ideas I had grown to accept during my early education. In the Puranas I found another account of human origins. I call this account human devolution. To put it in its most simple terms, we do not evolve up from matter but devolve, or come down, from spirit.

The human devolution process, the process by which conscious selves enter human bodies on earth, has been going on for a very long time. According to the Puranas, or histories, humans like us have existed on earth for vast periods of cyclical time. The basic unit of this cyclical time is the Day of Brahma, which lasts for 4.32 billion years. The day of Brahma is followed by a night of Brahma, which also lasts for 4.32 billion years. The days follow the nights endlessly in succession. During the days of Brahma, life, including human life, is manifest, and during the nights it is not manifest. According to the Puranic cosmological calendar, the current day of Brahma began about 2 billion years ago. One of the forefathers of humankind, Svayambhuva Manu, ruled during that time, and the Bhagavata Purana (Shrimad Bhagavatam 6.4.1) tells us: “The . . .  human beings . . . were created during the reign of Svayambhuva Manu.”  Therefore, a Vedic archeologist might expect to find evidence for a human presence going that far back in time. In our book Forbidden Archeology, my coauthor Richard L. Thompson and I documented extensive evidence, in the form of human skeletons, human footprints, and human artifacts, showing that humans like ourselves have inhabited the earth for hundreds of millions of years, just as the Puranas tell us. This evidence is not very well known because of a process of knowledge filtration that operates in the scientific world. Evidence that contradicts the Darwinian theory of human evolution is set aside, ignored, and eventually forgotten.

For example, in the nineteenth century, gold was discovered in California. To get it, miners dug tunnels into the sides of mountains, such as Table Mountain in Tuolumne County. Deep inside the tunnels, in deposits of early Eocene age (about 50 million years old), miners found human bones and artifacts. The discoveries were carefully documented by Dr. J. D. Whitney, the chief government geologist of California, in his book The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, published by Harvard University in 1880. But we do not hear very much about these discoveries today. In the Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1898–1899 (p. 424), anthropologist William Holmes said, “Perhaps if Professor Whitney had fully appreciated the story of human evolution as it is understood today, he would have hesitated to announce the conclusions formulated, notwithstanding the imposing array of testimony with which he was confronted.” In other words, if the facts did not fit the theory of human evolution, the facts had to be set aside, and that is exactly what happened.

Such bias continued into the twentieth century. In the 1970s, American archeologists led by Cynthia Irwin Williams discovered stones tools at Hueyatlaco, near Puebla, Mexico. The stone tools were of advanced type, made only by humans like us. A team of geologists, from the United States Geological Survey and universities in the United States, came to Hueyatlaco to date the site. Among the geologists was Virginia Steen-McIntyre. To date the site, the team used four methods—uranium series dating on butchered animal bones found along with the tools, zircon fission track dating on volcanic layers above the tools, tephra hydration dating of volcanic crystals, and standard stratigraphy. The four methods converged on an age of about 250,000 years for the site. The archeologists refused to consider this date. They could not believe that humans capable of making the Hueyatlaco artifacts existed 250,000 years ago. In defense of the dates obtained by the geologists, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote in a letter (March 30, 1981) to Estella Leopold, associate editor of Quaternary Research:  “The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of ‘Enigmatic Data,’ data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking. Hueyatlaco certainly does that! Not being an anthropologist, I didn’t realize the full significance of our dates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our thought the current theory of human evolution has become. Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that theory, period.” This remains true today, not only for the California gold mine discoveries and the Hueyatlaco human artifacts, but for hundreds of other discoveries documented in the scientific literature of the past 150 years, discoveries that contradict the Darwinian account of human origins..

There is also fossil evidence showing that the current Darwinian picture of the evolution of nonhuman species is also in need of revision. Beginning in the 1940s, geologists and paleobotanists working with the Geological Survey of India explored the Salt Range Mountains in what is now Pakistan. They found deep in salt mines evidence for the existence of advanced flowering plants and insects in the early Cambrian periods, about 600 million years ago. According to standard evolutionary ideas, no land plants or animals existed at that time. Flowering plants and insects are thought to have come into existence hundreds of millions of years later.

To explain the evidence some geologists proposed that there must have been a massive overthrust, by which Eocene layers, about 50 million years old and containing the plant and insect fossils, were thrust under Cambrian layers, over 550 million years old. Others pointed out that there were no geological signs of such an overthrust. According to these scientists, the layers bearing the fossils of the advanced plants and insects were found in normal position, beneath strata containing trilobites, the characteristic fossil of the Cambrian.

One of these scientists, E. R. Gee, a geologist working with the Geological Survey of India, proposed a novel solution to the problem. In the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of India for the year 1945 (section B, v. 16, pp. xlv–xlvi), paleobotanist Birbal Sahni noted: “Quite recently, an alternative explanation has been offered by Mr. Gee. The suggestion is that the angiosperms, gymnosperms and insects of the Saline Series may represent a highly evolved Cambrian or Precambrian flora and fauna! In other words, it is suggested that these plants and animals made their appearance in the Salt Range area several hundred million years earlier than they did anywhere else in the world. One would scarcely have believed that such an idea would be seriously put forward by any geologist today.” The controversy was left unresolved.

In the 1990s, petroleum geologists, unaware of the earlier controversy, restudied the area. They determined that the salt deposits below the Cambrian deposits containing trilobites were early Cambrian or Precambrian. In other words, they found no evidence of an overthrust. The salt deposits were in a natural position below the Cambrian deposits. This supports Gee’s suggestion that the plant and insect remains in the salt deposits were evidence of an advanced fauna and flora existing in the early Cambrian. This evidence contradicts not only the Darwinian concept of the evolution of humans but of other species as well.

Aside from fossil evidence, from genetics and developmental biology also contradicts the Darwinian theory of human evolution. Although the origin of life from chemicals is technically not part of the evolution theory, it has in practice become inseparably connected with it. Darwinists routinely assert that life arose from chemicals. But after decades of theorizing and experimenting, they are unable to say exactly which chemicals combined in exactly which way to form exactly which first living thing. As far as evolution itself is concerned, it has not been demonstrated in any truly scientific way. It remains an article of faith. The modern evolutionary synthesis is based on genetics. Evolutionists posit a relationship between the genotype (genetic structure) of an organism and its phenotype (physical structure). They say that changes in the genotype result in changes in the phenotype, and by natural selection the changes in phenotype conferring better fitness in a particular environment accumulate in organisms. Evolutionists claim that this process can account for the appearance of new structural features in organisms. But on the level of microbiology, these structures appear to be irreducibly complex. Scientists have not been able to specify exactly how they have come about in step by step fashion. They have not been able to tell us exactly what genetic changes resulted in what phenotypic changes to produce particular complex features of organisms. This would require the specification of intermediate stages leading up to the complex structures we observe today. In his book Darwin’s Black Box (1996, p. 183), biochemist Michael Behe says, “In the past ten years, Journal of Molecular Evolution has published more than a thousand papers. . . . There were zero papers discussing detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures. This is not a peculiarity of JME. No papers are to be found that discuss detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures, whether in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature, Science, the Journal of Molecular Biology or, to my knowledge, any science journal.”

Attempts by scientists to use genetic evidence to demonstrate the time and place that anatomically modern humans have come into existence have resulted in embarrassing mistakes and contradictions. The first widely publicized reports that genetic evidence allowed scientists to say that all living humans arose from an African Eve who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa turned out to be fatally flawed. Researchers have attempted to correct the mistakes, but the results remain confused. Considering the complexities surrounding genetic data, some scientists have suggested that fossils remain the most reliable evidence for questions about human origins and antiquity. In an article in American Anthropologist (1993 v. 95, no. 11), David W. Frayer and his coauthors said (p. 19): “Unlike genetic data derived from living humans, fossils can be used to test predictions of theories about the past without relying on a long list of assumptions about the neutrality of genetic markers, mutational rates, or other requirements necessary to retrodict the past from current genetic variation. . . . genetic information, at best, provides a theory of how modern human origins might have happened if the assumptions used in interpreting the genetic data are correct.” This means that the archeological evidence for extreme human antiquity documented in Forbidden Archeology provides a much needed check on the rampant speculations of genetic researchers. This evidence contradicts current Darwinian accounts of human origins.

Although there is much evidence from archeology, genetics, and developmental biology that contradicts the current Darwinian theory of human evolution, it does not tell us anything about the actual origin of human beings. This contradictory evidence simply tells us that we need a new explanation for human origins. But that is also important. Why offer a new explanation, unless one is really required? In my new book Human Devolution, I set forth such a new explanation, an explanation based on information found in the Puranas and other Vedic literatures.

Before we ask the question, “Where did human beings come from?” we should first of all ask the question, “What is a human being?” Today most scientists believe that a human being is simply a combination of matter, the ordinary chemical elements. This assumption limits the kinds of explanations that can be offered for human origins. Inspired by my studies in the Vedic literature, I have proposed that it is more reasonable, based on available scientific evidence, to start with the assumption that a human being is composed of three separately existing substances: matter, mind, and consciousness (or spirit). This assumption widens the circle of possible explanations.

Any scientific chain of reasoning begins with some initial assumptions that are not rigorously proved. Otherwise, one would get caught in an endless regression of proofs of assumptions, and proofs of proofs of assumptions. Initial assumptions must simply be reasonable on the basis of available evidence. And it is reasonable, on the basis of available evidence, to posit the existence of mind and consciousness, in addition to ordinary matter, as separate elements composing the human being.

For the purpose of scientific discussion, I define mind as a subtle material substance associated with the human organism and capable of acting on ordinary matter in ways we cannot explain by our current laws of physics. Evidence for this mind element comes from scientific research into the phenomena called by some “paranormal” or “psychical.” Here we are led into the hidden history of physics (the knowledge filtering process also operates in this field of knowledge).

For example, every physics student learns about the work of Pierre and Marie Curie, the husband and wife team who both received Nobel Prizes for their work in discovering radium. The account is found in practically every introductory physics textbook. What we do not read in the textbooks is that the Curies were heavily involved in psychical research. They were part of a large group of prominent European scientists, including other Nobel Prize winners, who were jointly conducting research into the paranormal in Paris early in the twentieth century. For two years, the group studied the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino. Historian Anna Hurwic notes in her biography of Pierre Curie (1995, p. 247), “He saw the séances as scientific experiments, tried to monitor the different parameters, took detailed notes of every observation. He was really intrigued by Eusapia Palladino.” About some séances with Eusapia, Pierre Curie wrote to physicist Georges Gouy in a letter dated July 24, 1905: “We had at the Psychology Society a few séances with the medium Eusapia Palladino. It was very interesting, and truly those phenomena that we have witnessed seemed to us to not be some magical tricks—a table lifted four feet above the floor . . . All this in a room arranged by us, with a small number of spectators all well known and without the presence of a possible accomplice.” Pierre Curie reported that on such occasions, the medium was carefully physically controlled by the scientists present. On April 14, 1906, Pierre wrote to Gouy about some further investigations he and Marie had carried out: “We had a few new ‘séances’ with Eusapia Paladina (We already had séances with her last summer). The result is that those phenomena exist for real, and I can’t doubt it any more. It is unbelievable, but it is thus, and it is impossible to negate it after the séances that we had in conditions of perfect monitoring.” He concluded, “There is, according to me a completely new domain of facts and physical states of space of which we have no idea.”

Such results, and many more like them from the hidden history of physics, suggest there is associated with the human organism a mind element that can act on ordinary matter in ways we cannot easily explain by our current physical laws. Such research continues today, although most scientists doing it are concentrating on microeffects rather than the macroeffects reported by Pierre Curie. For example, Robert Jahn, head of the engineering department at Princeton University, started to research the effects of mental attention on random number generators. A random number generator will normally generate a sequence of ones and zeros, with equal numbers of each. But Jahn, and his associates who have continued the research, found that subjects can mentally influence the random number generators to produce a statistically significant greater number of ones than zeros (or vice versa).

Evidence for a conscious self that can exist apart from mind (subtle matter) and ordinary matter comes from medical reports of Out of body experiences (OBEs). During traumatic events such as heart attacks, blood stops flowing to the brain, and the subjects become unconscious. But some subjects report separating from their bodies at such times. They report consciously observing their own bodies. The reality of such experiences has been confirmed by medical researchers. For example, in February 2001, a team from the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, published a favorable study on OBEs in cardiac arrest patients in the journal Resuscitation (v. 48, pp. 149–156). The team was headed by Dr. Sam Parnia, a senior research fellow at the university. On February 16, 2001, a report published on the university’s web site said that the work of Dr. Parnia “suggests consciousness and the mind may continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function and the body is clinically dead.” This is exactly the Vedic conception. At death the conscious self leaves the body, accompanied by the subtle material covering of the mind, and then enters another body of gross matter. Memories from past lives are recorded in the mind, and may be accessed by the conscious self in its new body made of gross matter, as shown by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson’s extensive studies verifying past life memories of children.

If the human organism is composed of gross matter, mind, and consciousness (or spirit), it is natural to suppose that these elements come from reservoirs of such elements. This suggests that the cosmos is divided into regions, or levels, of gross matter, mind, and consciousness, each inhabited by beings adapted to life there. First, there is a region of pure consciousness. Consciousness, as we experience it, is individual and personal. This suggests that the original source of conscious selves is also individual and personal. So in addition to the individual units of consciousness existing in the realm of pure consciousness, there is also an original conscious being who is their source. When the fractional conscious selves give up their connection with their source, they are placed in lower regions of the cosmos predominated by either subtle material substance (mind) or gross material substance. There is thus a cosmic hierarchy of conscious beings. Accounts of this cosmic hierarchy of beings can be found not only in the Puranas but in the cosmologies of many other cultures. The cosmologies share many features. They generally include an original God inhabiting a realm of pure consciousness, a subordinate creator god inhabiting a subtle material region of the cosmos along with many kinds of demigods and demigoddesses, an earthly realm, dominated by gross matter, inhabited by humans like us.

This suggests that the universe of our experience should show signs that it was designed by a higher intelligence for accommodating human life and other forms of life. Modern cosmology does provide evidence for this. Scientists have discovered that numbers representing fundamental physical constants and ratios of natural forces appear to be finely tuned for life to exist in our universe. Astronomer Sir Martin Rees considers six of these numbers to be especially significant. In his book Just Six Numbers (2000, pp. 3–4), he says, “These six numbers constitute a ‘recipe’ for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one of them were to be ‘untuned’, there would be no stars and no life.” There are three main explanations for the apparent fine tuning of the physical constants and laws of nature: simple chance, many worlds, and some intelligent providential creator. Many cosmologists admit that the odds against the fine tuning are too extreme for a simple chance to be offered as a credible scientific explanation. To avoid the conclusion of a providential designer, they have posited the existence of a practically unlimited number of universes, each with the values of fundamental constants and laws of nature adjusted in a different way. And we just happen to live in the one universe with everything adjusted correctly for the existence of human life. But for modern science these other universes have only a theoretical existence, and even if their existence could be physically demonstrated, one would further have to show that in these other universes the values of the fundamental constants and laws of nature are in fact different than those in our universe.

The Vedic cosmology also speaks of many universes, but all of them are designed for life, and beyond all of these material universes, with their levels of gross and subtle matter, is the level of pure consciousness, or spirit. Originally, we exist there as units of pure consciousness in harmonious connection with the supreme conscious being, known by the Sanskrit name Krishna (and by other names in other religious traditions). When we give up our willing connection with that supreme conscious being, we descend to regions of the cosmos dominated by the subtle and gross material elements, mind and matter. Forgetful of our original position, we attempt to dominate and enjoy the subtle and gross material elements. For this purpose, we are provided with bodies made of the subtle and gross material elements. The subtle material body is made up not only of mind, but of the even finer material elements, intelligence and false ego (for the sake of simplicity, I have in this discussion collapsed them into mind). The gross material body is made of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Bodies made of these gross and subtle material elements are vehicles for conscious selves. They are designed for existence within the realms of the subtle and gross material elements. According to their degree of forgetfulness of their original nature, conscious selves receive appropriate bodily coverings. Those who are more forgetful receive bodies that cover their original consciousness to a greater degree. The original conscious being in the Vedic universe (aside from God) is Brahma, the first demigod. His body, manifested directly from Vishnu (the expansion of Krishna who controls the material universe), is made primarily of the subtle material elements. He is tasked with manifesting bodies for the other conscious selves existing at various levels of the cosmic hierarchy. From the body of Brahma come great sages, sometimes known as his mental sons, and also the first sexually reproducing pair, Svayambhuva Manu and his consort Shatarupa. The daughters of Manu become the wives of some of the sages, and they produce generations of demigods and demigoddesses, with bodies composed primarily of the subtle material energy. These demigods and demigoddesses, by their reproductive processes, through a kind of intelligently guided genetic engineering, produce the forms of living things, including humans, who reside on our earth planet.

In the devolution process, our original pure spiritual consciousness is covered by layers of subtle and gross material elements. But the process can be reversed. There is a kind of re-evolution by which we can free consciousness from its coverings, and restore it to its original pure state. Every great spiritual tradition has some means for accomplishing this—some form of prayer, or meditation, or yoga. In my own practice of bhakti yoga, I rely on the process of vibrating the transcendental sound of the Hare Krishna mantra to restore consciousness to its pure state. However, I will simply advise each person to look deeply within the spiritual tradition of his or her choice, and find the form or prayer, or meditation, or yoga that is there to help one make progress toward the ultimate goal of life.

FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY

AND THE CONCEPT OF HINDUSTAN

Following is the text of presentation made by Dr Subramanian Swamy at the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, y/day:

Address of Dr. Subramanian Swamy.

Chairman, Center for National Renaissance, New Delhi

to Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha Second Meeting

at Mumbai on October 18,2005.

FUNDAMENTALS OF HINDU UNITY

AND THE CONCEPT OF HINDUSTAN

His Holiness Dayananda Saraswati, and Heads of Mutts and Mandaleshwars and revered Acharyas. I thank His Holiness for the opportunity to address you all today.

I

Hinduism, known as sanatana dharma is uniquely world’s unbroken, continuous and longest in time, and is a religion constituted by its theology, cultural ethos, and civilizational history. India ‘s Hindu society is founded on the content of these three constituents. Hindustan, as India is known abroad even today[ e.g., Yindu guo in Chinese, Hind in Arabic], as a concept is defined as a nation of Hindus and those others in the nation who accept that their ancestors are Hindus and revere that legacy. Parsis, Jews, Syrian Christians come in a special category of Hindustanis, those who were welcomed by Hindus since they came to Hindustan seeking refuge from persecution in their own lands abroad, and who willingly accepted to abide by, and adopt certain cultural customs of Hindus. To the credit of Parsis, they have never demanded any special privileges as a minority. They had even rejected privileges and quotas offered to them by the British imperialists saying that they were comfortable with Hindus.

Over the last two millenniums, Hindu religion has been subjected to threats several times from other religious groups, but these threats have been met, the challenges faced and overcome.

Well before the birth of Christianity and Islam, Hindu religion had been intellectually dethroned by Hinayana Buddhism. But Adi Sankaracharya rethroned Hinduism through his famous shastrathas[religious debate] and caused a renaissance in Buddhism itself, which then came to be known as Mahayana Buddhism, conceptually in complete harmony with, if not indistinguishable from, Hindu theology. In south India , the azhwars and nayanmars also through shastrathas repositioned Hinduism after de-throning Jainism and Buddhism. Since then the Hindu dharmacharyas have always been looked up to when Hindu society faced a threat or crisis, for guidance to meet the challenge to the Hindu religion. Today, we again need the revered acharyas to show us the way. Hence this Sabha is of vital importance for the future of the nation.

II

Hindu ethos provided for sanctuary and home to those of other faiths fleeing from their countries due to religious persecution. As I stated earlier, Parsis, Jews and Syrian Christians are among those religious groups who had sought refuge in India , and survived because the Hindus looked after them. These three religious communities have had and have today a disproportionate share in power and wealth in Indian society, but Hindus have no resentment about it. These minorities had come to India in search of peace and found safe haven in the midst of Hindu society. Parsis migrated elsewhere in the world too, but disappeared as a community in those countries. Jews have openly acknowledged that India as the only country where they were not persecuted. Syrian Christians too are today completely integrated into India . Even early Arab Muslim travelers who came peacefully to settle in Kerala were taken into Hindu families, and hence called Mapillai[meaning son-inlaw– Moplah in English]. That is the glorious Hindu tradition, the ethos of compassion and co-option that is unparalleled in world history.

However, militant Islam and later crusading Christianity came to India , and aggressively challenged Hinduism. They seized power in sequence and established their own state in India . But despite state patronage to the ensuing onslaught, plunder and victimisation, those of Hindu faith could not be decimated, and Hinduism remained the theology of the vast Indian majority.

Defiant Hindus suffered persecution and economic deprivation during Islamic and Christian reigns, such as through differential taxation[e.g., jezia and zamindari land revenue appropriation] and plain brutality, but Hindus by and large refused to capitulate and convert. Even after almost a thousand years of such targeting by Muslims and Christian rulers, undivided India in 1947 was more than 75 % Hindu. This was partly because of the victorious Vijayanagaram, the Sikh reign, and Mahratta kingdoms, and later the Freedom Movement, each inspired by sanyasis such Sringeri Shankaracharya, Swami Ramdas, Guru Nanak, Swami Vivekanada and Sri Aurobindo, who by their preaching about the Hindu identity ensured that the flame of Hindu defiance never dimmed. It was also due to individual defiance of Hindus such as of Rana Pratap, Rani Jhansi, Rani Bennur, Kattaboman and Netaji Subhas Bose. These icons are admired not because they led us to victory[ in fact they were defeated or killed], or had found out a safe compromise[they did not], but because of their courage of conviction in the face of huge odds not to submit to tyranny. That courageous defiance is also is part of Hindus’ glorious legacy. But those who capitulated like Raja Man Singh or Jai Chand or Pudukottai Raja in order to live in pomp and grandeur are despised today by the people.

III

In 1947, temporal power was defacto restored to the Hindu majority. But the Indian state formally adopted secularism, which concept however was never properly defined or debated. For example, it left vague what an Indian’s connection was with the nation’s Hindu past and legacy. In the name of secularism, it was taboo for a public servant even to break a coconut or light a oil lamp to inaugurate an official function on the ground that religious symbols must not invade public life. Such orthodoxy was promoted by Jawarharlal Nehru and his Leftist advisers. But then government took over supervision of temples, legislated on Hindu personal laws, and regulated religious festivals, but kept aloof from the Muslim and Christian religious affairs. The secularism principle was foisted on the Hindu masses without making him understand why they had to abide by legislation but not Muslims and Christians.

As a result, the renaissance that had begun in the late nineteenth century to redefine the Hindu identity [in contemporary terms and norms valid in a pluralistic society], was aborted by the confusion thus created in Hindu minds by a vaguely understood concept of secularism.

Electoral politics further confounded the issues arising out of secularism, and hence the Indian society became gradually and increasingly fragmented in outlook and of confused perspective. Hindu society became divided by caste that became increasingly mutually antagonistic. Attempts were made through falsification in history texts adopted for curriculum in the education system to disconnect and disinherit the contemporary Indian from the past glory of Hindu India. The intrinsic Hindu unity was sought to be undone by legitimizing such bogus concepts as Aryan-Dravidian racial divide theory, or that India as a concept never existed till the British imperialists put it together, or that Indians have always been ruled by invaders from abroad. Incidentally, the Aryan-Dravidian myth has now been exploded by modern research on DNA of Indians and Europeans conducted by Professor C. Panse of Newton , Mass. USA and other scholars.

Modern India was sought to be portrayed by foreign interests through this curriculum as a discontinuity in history and as a new entity much as are today’s Greece , Egypt or Iraq . That curriculum is largely intact today. On the contrary efforts are afoot to bolster the disparagement of our past in the new dispensation today. A rudderless India, disconnected from her past has, as a consequence, become a fertile field for religious poachers and neo-imperialists from abroad who paint India as a mosaic of immigrants much like a crowd on a platform in a railway junction. That is, it is clandestinely propagated that India has belonged to those who forcibly occupied it. This is the theme around which the Islamic fundamentalists and fraud Christian crusaders are again at work, much as they were a thousand years ago, but of course in new dispensations, sophistication, and media forms. Thus the concept of intrinsic Hindu unity, and India ‘s Hindu foundation are dangerously under challenge by these forces. Tragically most Hindus today are not even cognizant of it.

The challenge today confronting Hindus is however much more difficult to meet than was earlier in history because the forces at work to erode and undermine Hindu faith, unlike before, are unseen, clandestine, pernicious, deceptive but most of all sophisticated and media-savvy. Tragically therefore, a much more educated and larger numbers of Hindus have been unwittingly co-opted in this sinister conspiracy directed by foreigners who have no love for India and who also see much as Lord Macauley saw in the nineteenth century, that the hoary Hindu foundation of India is a stumbling block for the furtherance of their nefarious perfidious game.

Adherence to Hinduism is also being sought to be diluted in the name of modernity and this dilution is made a norm of secularism. Religion, it is advocated, is personal. To be a good Hindu today is conceptually being reduced to just praying, piety, visiting temples, and celebrating religious festivals. The concept of a collective Hindu mindset is being ridiculed as chauvinist and retrograde, even fundamentalist.

IV

The concept of a corporate Hindu unity and identity however is that of a collective mindset that identifies us with a motherland from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and it’s glorious past, and the concomitant resolve of it’s representative leadership defined as “chakravartin” earlier by Chanakya, to defend that vision. It is this concept and resolve that is being discarded or is just evaporating under the onslaught of the Nehruvian secularists.

However pious a Hindu becomes, however prosperous Hindu temples become from doting devotees’ offerings, when the nation is in danger it is this collective mindset of the people that matters, and not the piety of the individual in that collective.

Hindu society today lacking a cohesive corporate identity, is thus in the process of becoming fragmented, and hence increasingly in disarray. This fission process is on simultaneously with the reality of millions of Hindus who go to temples regularly or walk to Sabarimalai or participate in Kumbh Mela. This is not what I mean when I speak of Hindu unity to this august gathering today.

I am instead referring to the Hindu consciousness which encompasses the willingness and determination to collectively defend the faith from the erosion that is being induced by the disconnect with our glorious past. What Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chatterjee, Sri Aurobindo, and Subramania Bharati had achieved by raising Hindu consciousness to that end, has now been depleted and dissipated over the last six decades.

Even the patriotic and anguished writings of Dr. Ambedkar, and his oration in the Constituent Assembly for a strong united country have been vulgarized to advocate Hindu society’s disintegration. In his scholarly paper presented in a 1916 Columbia University seminar[and published in Indian Antiquary, vol. XLI, May 1917 p.81-95] Dr. Ambedkar stated : ” It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of it’s culture. It has not only a geographic unity, but it has over and above all a deeper and much more fundamental unity—the indubitable cultural unity that covers the land from end to end”. Ambedkar wrote several such brilliant books, but alas, Nehru and his cohorts so thoroughly frustrated him that in the end bitterness drove him to Buddhism.

Thus, if this degeneration and disconnect are not rectified and repaired by a resolve to unite Hindustanis[Hindus and those others who proudly identify with India’s Hindu past], the Hindu civilization may go into a tail spin and ultimately fade away like other civilizations have for much the same reason.

Of course, this sorry state has come about as a cumulative effect of a thousand years past of Islamic invasions, occupation and Imperialist colonization. But we failed to rectify the damage after the Hindus overwhelmingly got defacto power in 1947. For this transfer of power, we sacrificed one quarter of Akhand Hindustan territory to settle those Muslims who could not bear to live or adjust with the Hindu majority.

That is, by a failure to usher a renaissance after 1947 India lost her opportunity to cleanse the accumulated dirt and unwanted baggage of the past. The nation missed a change to demolish the birth-based caste theory as Ambedkar had wanted to do. The battering that the concept of Hindu unity and Indian identity has taken at the hands of Nehruvian secularists since 1947 has led to the present social malaise. Thus, even though Hindus are above 80 percent of the population in India , they have not been able to understand their roots in, and obligations to, the nation in a pluralistic Hindustani democracy.

Today the sacrilege of Hindu concepts and hoary institutions, is being carried out not with the crude brutality of a Ghazni or Ghori, but with the sophistication of the constitutional instruments of law. The desecration of Hindu icons, for example the Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, is being made to look legal, thereby completely confusing the Hindu people, and thus making them unable to recognize the danger, or to realize that Hindus have to unite to defend against the threats to their legacy. We Hindus are under siege today, and we do not know it !! That is, what is truly alarming is that Hindu society could be dissembled today without much protest since we have been lulled or lost the capacity to think collectively as Hindus.

To resist this siege we first need Hindu unity. Numbers [of those claiming to be adherents to Hinduism] do not matter in today’s information society. It is the durability and clarity of the Hindu mindset of those who unite that matters in the forging of an instrument to fight this creeping danger.

For example, we had a near disaster in Ayodhya recently. Pakistan –trained foreign terrorists slipped into India and traveled to Ayodhya to blow up the Ram Mandir. Their attempt was foiled by courageous elements of the police. But did the representative government of 870 million Hindus of India react in a meaningful way, that is retaliate to deter future such attacks ? Did anyone raise it in Parliament and demand deterrent retaliation ? On the contrary, the Prime Minister assured Pakistan that the peace talks will not be affected by such acts. But what retaliation was there to be for the sponsors of those terrorists who dared to think about blowing Sri Ram’s birth place ?

Hindus are thus being today systematically prepared for psychological enslavement and conceptual capture. Indians are being subtly brain-washed. Hindus are being lulled, while Muslims and Christians are being subject to relentless propaganda that they are different, and are citizens of India as would be a shareholder in a company run for profit.

We Hindus cannot fight this unless we first identify what we have to fight. We cannot effectively respond unless we understand the nature and complexity of the challenge. What makes the task of defending Hinduism much more difficult today is that the oppressors are not obvious maraudring entities as were Ghazni, Ghori, or Clive. The means of communication and the supply of funds in the hands of our enemies are multiples of that available in the past, for camouflaging their evil purposes.

V

My contention here today is that Hindus are facing a four dimensional siege and this siege is pernicious, clandestine, deceptive and sophisticated. It requires an enlightened Hindu unity to combat the threats and get the siege lifted. We have to begin by first understanding the content and scope of the siege before we Hindus can unite to battle it. These four dimensions are:

[1] The clandestine defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions.

Making Hindus to lose their self esteem by disparaging their tradition, which also had been the strategy of British imperialists for the conquest of India . Speaking in British Parliament, Lord Macauley said on February 2, 1835 the following:

” Such wealth I have seen in this country[ India ], such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which[backbone] is her spiritual and cultural heritage. And therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem , their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation”.

That basic strategy of those who want to see a weak and pliant India remains. Only the tactics have changed. Now the target is the Hindu institutions and Hindu icons, and the route is not the creation of a comprador class to subdue the nation, but fostering a psychological milieu to denigrate the heritage and to delink the Hindu from his past legacy thereby causing a loss of self esteem and a pride in the nation’s pa. There are already many examples of this happening.

A false murder case was foisted on the Acharyas of the 2500 year old Kanchi Mutt. Most Hindus have watched it as spectators, and with nagging doubts about the truth, and in fact about the Acharyas themselves. The Supreme Court has however held that the case has “no worthwhile prima facie evidence…” [Court records: (2005) 2 Supreme Court Cases 13, para 12, page 20] and that the alleged confessions of other accused persons implicating the Acharyas “have very little evidentiary value”[para 10]. The case thus is without basis and is bogus because since then the TN police has failed to uncover any further or new evidence to sustain the case. That the apex Court has found the foisted case as without prima facie merit should itself have galvanized the people against the offending authorities. It has not, because Hindus lack the mindset and guidance to retaliate against the willful and disguised defamation of Hindu symbols and institutions. Instead like parrots most Hindus mouth the phrase that “law must take it’s course”. Where is the law in this ? Nor did a single Muslim or Christian organization or their leaders condemn this atrocity, exposing secularism as a one-way obligation of Hindus.

That the obvious perpetrator of this blasphemous atrocity on Hindu religion’s hoary institution is the head of the TN state government, one who also claims to be a good Hindu because she regularly visits temples, has only helped to further confound the already confused Hindu mind from responding.

That this atrocity could not have been heaped on the Mutt without the aid and abetment, or even the instigation of the power behind the throne in Delhi , a devout foreign-born Catholic, has not even evoked any anger amongst the Hindus.

Instead the majority of Hindus have been just passive or satisfied discussing gossip i.e., whether there was some land dispute of the Mutt with the government that triggered it or a money angle row with a politician in power to motivate the misuse of state machinery to frame a Shankaracharya on a murder charge! It is incredible that in a nation of 80 percent Hindus, the democratically elected state government dared to foist a bogus case on a Shankaracharya, and without a spontaneous uproar and mass protest by Hindus. That this atrocity could be the beginning of further assault on the foundation of the Hindu religion to defame and discredit it, should have jolted the Hindus into a fierce protest.

Otherwise, the current Hindu apathy will encourage further assault on Hindu institutions. It is already happening and there is no time to lose. Further assault is also in progress. In July 2005, an uncouth official of the TN Government’s HR&CE Ministry blocked the Kanchi Shankaracharyas from entering the holy Shiva temple in Rameshwaram because, the official said, the acharyas had criminal cases pending against them. Leave aside the fact that anyone is presumed to be innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or that Ms. Jayalalitha, the CM herself is clothed from head to foot in criminal cases, what is significant is the audacity of an official in a 80% Hindu populated country to block a Shankaracharya from performing his god ordained puja duties. His HR&CE counterpart In Andhra at Tirumala has pontificated recently that the Tirumala hills except a small portion do not belong to Lord Venkateswara, making a mockery of agama shastras.

The state government of Karnataka for example, soon after the Kanchi acharyas’ arrest, blatantly patronized the congregation of a Benny Hinn who is under US Internal Revenue Service investigation. US Christian organizations such as the Trinity Foundation have exposed him as a fake. Yet in the admiring presence of the Karnataka Chief Minister with his Ministers in tow, and Central Government Ministers, Benny Hinn was allowed to usurp the Bangalore Air force campus and hold a rally to denounce Hindu concepts and demonstrate his “cure” of the hopelessly and terminally ill or handicapped persons just by placing his hand, in the name of Jesus, on their heads. Bangalore police officers later told the media that the whole exercise was a fraud since the “ailing ” persons were trucked in from Erode in TN a week earlier and trained to fake the ailments and the cry of being cured on stage. Of course they were well paid for this deception. Such obscurantism was however extolled by the Congress Party leaders, while mouthing secularism. Benny Hinn in the end publicly boasted that a “friend of Sonia Gandhi” had helped to clear the way to make the Bangalore event possible.

The existence of nexus had thus tumbled out. Taking a cue other foreign Christian missionaries in trouble with the law such as Mr. Ron Watts, made a pilgrimage to Delhi and received relief from law enforcers on the same patronage.

These visiting fraud Christian missionaries have the intellectual endorsement for proselytizing activities from well established Christian leaders. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict of Vatican, which makes him an acknowledged leader of Catholics world over, had released a Vatican document in 1997 titled Dominus Jesus in which both Hinduism and it’s sister religion Buddhism have been denounced. While releasing the document, the Pope has been quoted as saying that Hinduism offers “false hope” and is “morally cruel” since it is based on the concept of reincarnation that resembles “a continuous circle of hell”. He denounced Buddhism as “auto erotic spirituality”. US based evangelist Pat Robertson has declared that to liberate Hindus from their bondage, “missionaries will seek to convert 100 million Hindus” over the next few years.

For achieving this goal, even tainted money is welcome for any missionary from abroad. Thus, Mother Theresa whose proselytizing activities was perhaps the most camouflaged of all foreign missionaries in India, once wrote to a US Court judge, Judge Ito of Los Angeles not to hold guilty one of her contributors by name Charles H. Keating Jr. who was on trial in his court for criminally defrauding nominees of 17,000 persons of $ 252 million[about Rs. 1200 crores]. Mother Theresa’ plea to the judge was that since Mr. Keating had donated millions of dollars to her Missionaries of Charity he should be let off and not be found guilty or even be prosecuted !

The judge asked the Deputy District Attorney[equivalent of assistant public prosecutor in India ] to reply to her letter. Mr. Paul Turley wrote back to her giving the details of the case[ by then Mr. Keating was found guilty and convicted of fraud]. Mr. Turley in his letter advised Mother Theresa as follows: “Ask yourself what Jesus would do if he were given the fruits of a crime ? I submit that Jesus would promptly and unhesitatingly have returned the stolen property to the rightful owners. You should do the same. Do not keep the money”. Mother Theresa did not in fact hesitate at all. She kept the ill gotten money and ignored the advice !

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, in 2002-03 private bodies with FCRA permission had received Rs. 5046 crores as contribution from abroad. In 2005-06 it is estimated by insiders these contributions at Rs 7500 crores, of which two-thirds was going to Christian missionary organizations. This hefty sum has been used essentially for conversion and to defame Hinduism. Without defamation of Hinduism, conversion is not easy for these missionaries.

Another route to defame Hinduism is the textbook portrayal of Hindu society. Already Swami Ramakrishna Parmahans has been described in disparaging terms in government prescribed text books. Traitor Raja Jai Chand has been described as a hero, and Prithviraj as a coward ! Since English language provides a fast track channel to India from abroad for propagation of ideas, books rubbishing Hindu gods and goddesses, sanyasis, and other icons are being published abroad and imported for use in India ‘s public schools. Lord Ganesha has repeatedly been portrayed in most hurtful terms. Shiva linga has been ridiculed.

Hence this august Acharya Sabha assembled here in Mumbai should resolve to fight this and other such atrocities on Hindu symbols and institutions by aiding mass Hindu mobilization against it.

[2] Demographic restructuring of Indian society.

People of India who declare in the Census that they are adherents of religions born on Indian soil, that is Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains constituted 84.21% of the total Indian population in 2001. In 1941, the proportion adjusted for Partition was 84.44%. This figure hides the fact that Hindus resident in undivided Pakistan have migrated to post- Partition India which is why the share of Hindus and co-religionists have barely reduced since 1941. In the area now called Bangladesh , Hindus were 30% in 1941. In 2001 they are less than 8%. In Pakistan of today, Hindus were 20% in 1941, and less than 2% in 2001. Such ethnic cleansing has not been noticed by anybody. If the figures are adjusted for this migration, then in the five decades 1951-2001, Hindus have lost more 3 percent points in share of Indian population, while Muslims have increased their share by about 3%. What is even more significant is that Hindus have lost 12% points since 1881, and the loss in share has begun to accelerate since 1971 partly due to illegal migration from Bangladesh .

The lack of Hindu unity and the determined bloc voting in elections by Muslims and Christians has created a significantly large leverage for these two religious communities in economic, social and foreign policy making. Although uniform civil code is a directive principle of state policy in the Constitution, it is taboo to ask for it because of this leverage. Politicians fearing backlash anger of Christian and Muslim preachers are also unable to defend the need for continuation of a law to ban religions conversions that occur through inducements and coercion. In the case of Tamil Nadu, in 2004 the US Consul General in Chennai called on the Chief Minister to seek reversal of such a statute [ http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35516.htm%5D. He had been empowered raise this issue by a 1998 Act of US Congress on religious freedom. Incidentally, the AIADMK was administered a blistering defeat in the 2004 Parliament elections by a total consolidation of Muslim and Christian votes against the party because it’s government had got passed such a law. After the elections, a humbled Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalitha capitulated and got the law annulled. I have now put the US administration to test by asking the Ambassador in New Delhi if the US would be even handed by asking the TN Chief Minister whether she will withdraw all the bogus cases foisted on the Kanchi acharyas.

The continued rise in the share of Muslims and Christians in the total population is a threat to the Hindu foundation of the nation. And we have to find ways and means to meet this threat. Kerala is a state where the Hindu population declined from 69% in 1901. In 100 years to 2001, the share has fallen to 56%. Muslims are now 25% and Christians 19%. But Hindus share in agricultural activities has fallen to 24%, while for Christians the share has risen to 40%. For Muslims it is 33%. In commerce and industry too the same proportions obtain, while in foreign employment, Hindus share is just 19%, Muslims 49.5% and Christians 31.5%.

In the land fertile districts of Western UP, from Rampur to Saharanpur , Muslims due to a much higher population growth rate are now 40% of the population. Six of the 14 districts of Assam in the northeast are already Muslim majority, and by 2031, all fourteen will be Muslim majority if present trends of differential population growth rate and illegal migration from Bangladesh continue.

In northeast India , minus Assam , 45.5% of the population is already Christian. Every one of the seven sisters states has a galloping Christian population. Arunachal which had zero Christian population in 1971, now has over 7%.

These two communities today fiercely safeguard their control of institutions spawned on public money besides receiving funds from abroad. Take for example the educational institutions. Jamia Millia Islamia University has been reognised as a central university with liberal government grants. But 88% of the faculty is Muslim. American College , Madurai ‘s faculty is 66% Christian. It’s junior faculty is 95% Christian. Union Christian College at Aluva, Kerala has 83% Christian faculty. There are no exceptions. All institutions run by Muslims and Christians have grossly disproportionate share of their religionists.

Thus, differential application of family planning, non-uniform civil code, illegal migration, and induced religious conversion have together created a serious looming crisis for the Hindu character of the nation. We see what Muslim majority will mean to Hindus when we look at the situation in Kashmir . We can learn from how Muslim majority will treat minorities or even women of Muslim faith when we look around the world and study Islamic nations. This is because Muslim believe the world is divided as Darul Islam where Muslims are in a majority and are rulers, and Darul Harab in which Muslims are in a minority and are entitled by the Koran and Shariat, by hook or crook to transform these countries to Muslim ruled and/or Muslim majority. At present India is viewed as Darul Harab, and unless the Hindu majority compels or persuades the Muslim minority to enter into a contract to live in peace, whence India becomes Darul Ahad, the Muslim population will always play host to fanatics bent upon creating upheaval in India . That is why I am emphasizing that Muslims in India must declare that their origin and ancestors are Hindus, and that Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Christians too have their view of the world as divided between heathens who have to be ‘saved’ by conversion and followers of Jesus Christ. Now with the publication of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and revelations about Opus Dei organization, Hindus have to go on high alert about Christian missionaries from abroad.

Hence, Hindus have to hang together or ultimately be hanged separately. This is no inflamed psychosis. Not long ago, despite being the overwhelming majority, Hindus had to pay discriminatory taxes to the Muslim and Christian emperors who were ruling India . Lack of unity was the reason, and not poverty. In fact when the onslaught and enslavement took place, India was the richest country in the world. Within 150 years thereafter we were reduced to the poorest in the world. Now if the demographic restructuring described herein goes on unchecked, then the danger becomes several fold than before. This Acharya Sabha may therefore please address this issue and give a guideline to the Hindu society.

[3] The Rise of Terrorism Directed at Hindus

If one were to study the terrorism in Kashmir and Manipur, it is apparent that Hindus have been the special target. The driving away of the Hindu population from the Kashmir valley by targeted terrorism of Islamic jihadis is the single biggest human rights atrocity since Nazi Germany pogroms against the Jews. Yet it has hardly received noticed in international fora. Why ? Hindu population in Bangladesh has declined from 30 percent to less than 8 percent of the total population by deliberate targeted ethnic cleansing by Islamic fanatics aided and abetted by their government[see Hindus in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India’s State of Jammu& Kashmir: A Survey of Human Rights, June 17,2005, http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org] and yet there is no outcry. Why ? This is because of the lack of Hindu mindset to retaliate against atrocities against Hindus. When in 1949, anti-Hindu riots took place in East Pakistan, Sardar Patel had declared that if the government there could not control it, then India was quite capable of putting it down for them. Soon after the riots stopped. Terrorist attacks against India and Hindus in particular thus is growing because we seem today incapable of retaliating in a manner that it deters future attacks.

According to the well known National Counterterrorism Center, a US government body, in it’s report titled A Chronology of International Terrorism for 2004 states that: ” India suffered more significant acts of terrorism than any other country in 2004″, a damning comment. India is suffering on an average about 25 incidents of terrorism a month. India ‘s Home Ministry in it’s 2004-05 Annual report to Parliament acknowledges that 29 of the 35 states and union territories are affected by terrorism. Moreover, all India ‘s neighbours have become hot-beds for anti-Indian terrorists training.

Because of a lack of Hindu unity and a mindset for deterrent retaliation, terrorists have become encouraged. In 1989, the Indian government released five dreaded terrorists to get back the kidnapped daughter, Rubaiyya, of the then Home Minister. Kashmir terrorists got a huge boost by this capitulation. When the Indian Airlines plane with 339 passengers was hijacked to Kandahar , Afghanistan , the government again capitulated and released three of the most dangerous terrorists. Today three of the most murderous terrorist organizations in Kashmir are directed by these three freed terrorists. Then there is the case of the LTTE which murdered Rajiv Gandhi. We have made no effort to apprehend the leader of the LTTE who had ordered the assassination. On the contrary, those MPs[of PMK, MDMK, and DMK] who publicly praise that leader and hold the assassination as justified, have become Union Ministers in a coalition led by the widow of Rajiv Gandhi !

Terrorism cannot be fought by appeasement. But that precisely is what the government is doing. Tragically, innocent Hindus have invariably been the victims of this capitulation. To combat terrorism, there has to be a determination to never to negotiate a settlement with terrorists. Citizens of a country have to be educated that there will be hazards when faced with acts of terrorism, but that the goal of the government will always have to be to hunt down the terrorists and fix them. Only under such a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, will the ultimate good emerge. For example in the Indian Airlines hijack case in order not to risk 339 passengers’ lives the government released Mohammed Azhar from jail. But Azhar went to Pakistan after his release and formed the Jaish-e-Mohammed which has since then killed nearly a thousand innocent Hindus and is still continuing to do so. How has the nation gained by the Kandahar capitulation then ?

Hence I appeal to this Acharya Sabha to call upon the national political leadership to treat the fight against terrorism as a dharmayudh, as fight to the finish and a religious duty not to negotiate, compromise or capitulate to terrorists. The government must also safeguard the nation by adopting a policy of “hot pursuit” of terrorists by chasing them to their sanctuaries no matter in which country they are located.

[4] The Erosion of Moral Authority of Governance

The well known organization Transparency International has graded about 140 countries according to the corruption levels from least to the most. India appears near the bottom of the list as among the most corrupt. Recently The Mitrokhin Archives II has been published wherein KGB documents have been relied on to conclude that shamefully ” India was on sale for KGB bribes”. If India is the one of the most corrupt countries today and purchasable, it is because the core Hindu values of simplicity, sacrifice and abstinence have been systematically downgraded over the years. Wealth obtained by any means has become the criteria for social status. There was a time in India when persons of learning and simplicity enjoyed the moral authority in society to make even kings bow before them. Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi and later Jayaprakash Narayan without holding office were here exercising the same moral authority over political leaders. In a very short period, that Hindu value has evaporated. India is fast becoming a banana republic in which everything, person or policy is available to anyone for a price. The proposal, now implemented in some states, to have reservation in government employment for Muslims and “Dalit” Christians is one such sell-out. Reservation quotas are strictly for those whom the Hindu society due to degeneration had suppressed or had isolated from the mainstream. But those who were ruling classes in our nation, such as Muslims and Christians, and that too for a total of 1000 years, cannot claim this facility. But some political parties in reckless disregard for equity and history, have sold out for bloc votes the national interest by advocating for such a reservation proposal. In such a situation the nation’s independence and sovereignty slides into danger of being subverted and then rendered impotent. This has happened before in our history, not when the nation was poor but was the richest country in the world. India then was ahead in science, mathematics, art and architecture. And yet because the moral fibre weakened, all was lost. We had to struggle hard to recover our freedom. But by the time we did, we had lost all our wealth and dropped to the bottom of the list of countries in poverty.

In this time of creeping darkness in our society, there are still venerated souls who draw crowds of people who come on their own expense to hear such evolved souls and follow them. These are our dharmacharyas, many of whom are sitting here in this Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha. Just as Rshi Vishwamitra picked his archers and hunters to put an end to asuras and rakshasas, the same way I urge and implore this Sabha to pick a political instrument to cleanse the body politic of the nation. It cannot be done without Hindu unity in our democracy, and hence formulating a code of ethics and moral principles is essential for creating a meaningful and purposeful Hindu unity. The nation looks to you all on this today, for guidance in this hour of need.

VI

Therefore my call today is first and foremost for the undiluted unity of Hindus, a unity based on a mindset that is nurtured and fostered on the fundamentals of a renaissance [see my website http://www.indiaright.org for a detailed elaboration]. Only then Hindus can meet the challenge of Christian missionaries and Islamic fundamentalists. I can do no better here than quote Swami Dayananda Sarasvati:

” Faced with militant missionaries, Hinduism has to show that its plurality and all-encompassing acceptance are not signs of disparateness or disunity. For that, a collective voice is needed.”

Non-Hindus can join this Hindustani unity, but first they must agree to adhere to the minimum requirement: that they recognize and accept that their cultural legacy is Hindu, or that they revere their Hindu origins, that they are as equal before law as any other but no more, and that they will make sacrifices to defend their Hindu legacy just as any good Hindu would his own. In turn then the Hindu will defend such non-Hindus as they have the Parsis and Jews, and take them as the Hindustani parivar.

India can be only for those who swear that Bharatvarsh or Hindustan is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi. Since the task to defeat the nefarious forces ranged today against Hindu society is not going to be easy, we cannot therefore trust those amongst in our midst whose commitment to the motherland is ambivalent or ad hoc or those who feel no kinship to the Hindu past of the nation. We partitioned a quarter of Hindustan to enable those Muslims who could not live with Hindus in a democratic framework of equality and fraternity. Hence only those are true children of Bharatmata who accept that India is their matrubhoomi and karmabhoomi.

As Swami Vivekananda said to Hindus: “Arise, Awake and Go Forth as Proud Hindus”. But what does being a proud Hindu entail ? The core of what it entails can be found by gleaning the writings of our sages and interpreting it in the modern context. I have tried summarizing the distilled wisdom in the following axioms:

First, a Hindu, and those others who are proud of their Hindu past and origins, must know the correct history of India . That history which records that Hindus have always been, and are one; that caste is not birth–based and nor immutable. India is a continuum, sanatana. That ancient Hindus and their descendents have always lived in this area from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean , an area called Akhand Hindustan, and did not come from outside; and that there is no truth in the Aryan-Dravidian race theory. Instead Hindus went abroad to spread learning.

Second, Hindus believe that all religions equally lead to God, but not that all religions are equal in the richness of it’s theological content. Respecting all religions, Hindus expect from others that respect is two-way. If Hindus are to defend the right of others to adhere to one’s own religion, then other religionists have to stand up for Hindus too. Thus secular attitude, as presently defined, is a one-way obligation for Hindus, and hence Hindus must reject such a concept because of its implied appeasement. At the same time enlightened Hindus must defend and protect vigorously those non-Hindus who identify with the concept of Hindustan . A vibrant Bharatvarsh cannot be home to bigotry and obscurantism since that has never been Hindu tradition or history.

Third, Hindus must prefer to lose everything they possess rather than submit to tyranny or to terrorism. Today those in India who submit to terrorists and hijackers must be vehemently despised as anti-Hindus. They cannot be good Hindus just because they are pious or go regularly to the temple or good Hindustanis just because they are citizens of India .

Fourth, the Hindu must have a mindset to retaliate when attacked. The retaliation must be massive enough to deter future attacks. If terrorists come from training camps in Pakistan , Bangla Desh or Sri Lanka , Hindus must seek to carpet bomb those training camps, no matter the consequences. Today’s so-called self proclaimed “good” Hindus have failed to avenge or retaliate for the attack on Parliament, Akshaya Mandir, Ayodhya, and even a former Prime Minister’s[Rajiv Gandhi’s] assassination. On the other hand those who defend these assassins and praise the terrorist organization behind them are central government Ministers today.

Fifth, all Hindus to qualify as true Hindus must make effort to learn Sanskrit and the Devanagari script in addition to the mother tongue, and pledge that one day in the future, Sanskrit will be India’s link language since all the main Indian languages have large percentage of their vocabulary common with Sanskrit already.

These five axioms if followed will constitute the virat Hindu unity, a bonding that Hindus need to be in a position to confront the challenge that Hindu civilization is facing from Islamic terrorists and fraud Christian missionaries from abroad, who are also aided and abetted from confused Hindus within the country. Without such a virat Hindu unity and the implied mindset, we will be unable to nullify and root out the subversion and erosion that undermine today the Hindu foundation of India . This foundation is what makes India distinctive in the world, and hence we must safeguard this legacy with all the might and moral fibre that we can muster. In this we can get great moral support from Hindus resident abroad because of their sheer commitment to the motherland. Free from economic constraints, aching for an identity, and well educated, I have seen them organize effectively to challenge the attempts to slander Hindu religious symbols and icon. Overseas Hindustanis have contributed during our Freedom Struggle, the Emergency and in enabling our acharyas to spread the message of the Hindu religion abroad. This has been done without demeaning other religions.

I urge and implore this Acharya Sabha, that since in a democracy the battle is in fighting elections, therefore to resolve to foster a Hindu consciousness that leads to a cohesive vigorous Hindu unity and mindset, so that the Hindustani voter will cast his ballot only for those candidates in an election who will be loyal to a Hindu Agenda drawn up by the Dharmacharyas.

Thank you, I seek your ashirvad and offer my pranams to all the Acharyas present here.

HINDU DHARMA ACHARYA SABHA

Second Meeting, October 16,17,18, 2005

in Mumbai, Maharashtra

Text of the Speech

By  Dr. SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY Ph.D (Harvard)

Chairman, Centre for National Renaissance, New Delhi

Fmr.Union Cabinet Minister for Commerce, Law&Justice

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