Do political upstarts understand sanatan dharma and idea of Bharat? Or, their smear campaign is designed to push for linguistic subversion?
Vinod Kumar Shukla
Diversity, dialogue, disagreement and harmonious co-existence have been eternal values of Bharat and its Sanatan way of life. But, disrespect, threats and abuses is what they have been getting all long.
Sanatan have always been subjected to onslaught in the past by those active with anti-Sanatan and anti-India narrative ecosystem in the contemporary times.
Apparently, those resorting to abuses against Sanatan, Hindutva and Bharat have actually run out of arguments to put forth their views with logic, reasoning and rationale. Hence, they seem to have unleashed a smear and non-stop campaign against Sanatan, Hindutva and Bharat. This eco-system of anti-sanatan include constituents of the political alliance that they bracket themselves to be I.N.D.I.A.
Also, attempts have been made to cause artificial divide between north and south. These elements however appear to be puppets in the hands of dismantling Bharat brigade active within and outside the country.
Balkanisation of Bharat is a global project that some organisations within the country are also part of. Stirring regional and linguistic sentiments, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader and former Union minister A Raja claimed that India is not a nation but a subcontinent where states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Odisha have their unique identity. He has threatened that these states will secede.
His party colleague Udayanidhi Stalin, son of Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin forcefully argues to eradicate Sanatan dharma and likens it to Dengue, Malaria and AIDS. Udayanidhi Stalin seems to have enlisted support of yet another disrupter in Priyank Kharge, Karnataka minister and son of Congress President Mallikarjuna Kharge.
Even senior Kharge spoke against Sanatan on an earlier occasion A Raja likened the ‘Sanatana Dharma’ to HIV and leprosy. DMK Member of Parliament DNV Senthilkumar S contemptuously said in Parliament, “The power of this BJP is only winning elections mainly in the heartland states of Hindi, what we generally call the ‘Gaumutra’ states.”
Rahul Gandhi too spoke the same language when he described Bharat as a Union of States which means it is not a nation. He made valiant efforts to differentiate Hindutva and Hinduism. This is contrary to Justice J S Verma’s ruling that described Hindutva as a way of life. Communists that have largely become irrelevant in Bharat and elsewhere seem to be seeking to re-establish their relevance by peddling India as a state with multiple nationalities.
Interestingly, parties with Sanatan abusers found some traction in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu or West Bengal having 84.00 per cent, 87.58 per cent and 71 per cent Hindu population by inciting regional and linguistic subversion.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked of decolonising Indian minds, he’s well aware of the narrative fed for ages that replaced ‘Varna’ with ‘Caste’ introduced by Portuguese. English education system that drove Indians from their Sanatani ethos to certainly an alien knowledge system if one hesitates to call it superficial as India respect every knowledge system.
Fortunately, people of Bharat have begun to reclaim their civilisational and cultural glory.
Though India that came into being on January 26, 1950 as a political entity, its civilisational predecessor, Bharat existed for millennia. Bharat intrinsically celebrates diversity since ages in the geographical entity and has been identified as Sanatan from civilizational point of view. Vishnu Puran aptly described Bharat as:
उत्तरं यत् समुद्रस्य हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।
वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम भारती यत्र सन्ततिः ।।
It means, “The country that lies north of the Ocean & south of the Himalaya is called Bhārat and there dwell the descendants of Bharat.”
Apart from trashing Bharat periodically, Lord Ram is targeted by a few leaders to hog headlines or seek relevance. DMK leader Raja said that his party was not concerned if they were dubbed as “enemies of Ram”. C Rajgopalachari (Rajaji) in preface to his book ‘Ramayana Retold’ wrote, “In presenting this English version (of Ramayana) to a wider circle of readers spread all over the world, I think I am presenting to them the people of Bharat just as they are, with all their virtues and their faults. Our classics really embody our national character in all its aspects and it is well the world sees us as we really are, apart from what we wish to become.”
And, most Sanatan scriptures in East, West, South and North India are written in Sanskrit which for them is a language of the divine. Languages evolve over a period and henceTamil, Kannadiga, Malyalam and Telugu etc evolved in southern states while Hindi or Hindavi became prevalent in northern states with more Arabic and Persian effect due to Islamic invasion.
Trinamool Congress leaders in West Bengal brand themselves as Shakti worshipers that have nothing to with Lord Ram. Why do political minions forget that Ram Krishna Paramhans in West Bengal was initially named Gadadhar Chattopadhyay. Gadadhar was in reverence to Lord Hanuman. So, nothing could be more ignorant than to say that Ram only belongs to North India.
‘Dravid’ in Sanskrit obliquely means ‘the land with water on three sides’ – a peninsula referring to peninsular Indians as Dravidians and not a race by any stretch of imagination or definition. Adi Shankaracharya was called Dravida Sishu who travelled length and breadth of Bharat to set up ‘Maths’ in four corners of the country in Sringeri of Karnataka, Jyotir Math in Garhwal, Kalika Math in Dwarka and Govardhan Math in Puri. But, political lightweights of today fail to appreciate Bharat’s essence.
While addressing a public gathering at Thiruvananthapuram in February 2021, Wayanad Member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi said, “For the first 15 years, I was an MP in the North. I had got used to a different type of politics. For me, coming to Kerala was very refreshing as suddenly I found that people are interested in issues and not just superficially but going into detail in issues.”
Minister in Karnataka government Priyank Kharge was quoted as saying that people from south don’t go to north for jobs and a DMK leader said that north Indians sell Pani Puri. Congress Lok Sabha MP DK Suresh had gone to the extent of saying that there was no choice but to demand for a ‘separate country’ for South India.
If this was not enough, Karnataka Congress leaders were mulling formation of a forum for southern states that serves as an ‘economic alliance’ to ensure equal distribution of resources from the Centre. A similar idea was floated by Kerala government in 2018. There is already Inter-state Council chaired by the Prime Minister which was set up under Article 263 of the Constitution on recommendation of Sarkaria Commission which became a reality in 1990.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah echoed similar view alleging injustice by Centre over reduction in tax devolution which he claimed led to more than Rs 45,000 crore loss in in terms of revenue to Karnataka in last four years.
Some political parties continued with a divisive spell by trying to widen artificial fault lines in the country. To put it mildly, their understanding of the nation (Rashtra), dharma (duty) and Sanatan is myopic to say the least.
(Author is a senior journalist and writes periodically for CIHS blogs)