There’s something fundamentally broken in the way how the country is run, isn’t there? We might differ on what exactly it is but deep down, we are all aware that things are not as they should be. Matters of serious concern do not receive as much attention as they should while trivial matters incur the wrath of the Indian state.
There is a backlog of lakhs and lakhs of cases in the Courts, if not crores, and yet, the Judiciary finds the time to waste its resources and that of the state on the most frivolous of matters. ‘Civil society’ impedes a host of infrastructure projects while the Judiciary continues to entertain them. At the same time, the Judiciary finds enough time to offer numerous edicts on how Hindus should celebrate their festivals. It has been overzealous in recent times in its attempts to reform Hinduism and the political establishment has done nothing thus far to put a stop to it. Needless to say, there’s something more fundamental about the matter at hand here.
The unprecedented and atrocious general trend that has gripped the country in recent times is a matter of great concern indeed. It’s important to understand that people did not vote for this. Democracy claims to be a government by the people, of the people, and for the people. In reality, it is mobocracy at best and the rule by an unaccountable elite at its worst. There appears to be a great schism between the ruling establishment, both the political and the judicial, and the citizens of this country. If such differences are allowed to persist for too long, the inevitable consequence would be anarchy.
People are being treated as criminals for engaging in festivities in the traditional way while governments are too afraid to take action against actual criminals. The ruling establishment is busy criminalizing more and more ordinary victimless activities while it doesn’t even have the capacity of enforcing its own laws. There’s something fundamentally broken in our country today and unless this is addressed, things will not get better.
Who is to blame?
How did we go from bursting crackers during Diwali as a matter of tradition to a point where the practice is not just demonized but banned by law, violation of which leads to imprisonment? Of course, it didn’t happen in a day. The citizenry was exposed to propaganda for over a decade and ultimately, when the resistance of the population was sufficiently broken, firecrackers were banned by the secular state of India.
The ruling political establishment has to take its share of the blame as well. But the fundamental issue at hand here is the fact that the Secular State has an insatiable urge to reform the Hindu religion as they see fit. Since they can’t reform Islam, they overcompensate for their failure by going overboard on Hinduism.
Not just Diwali, the Secular State wants to decide the height of Dahi Handis, it has banned Pashubali in Tripura, it outlawed the traditions of the Sabarimala Temple. And during all this time, the Secular State hasn’t found the moral integrity required to pass judgment on the Ram Janambhoomi case. There’s something fundamentally wrong here and even political parties that claim to respect Hindu sentiments are not immune to the affliction of Secularism.
From what we have seen so far, the urge of Secular States to reform religion, mostly of the dominant religion of its citizenry, is insatiable. We see it in the West and we see it in India. While Secularism advertises itself as being a system of government that does not interfere in religious affairs, in practice, it is reduced to forcibly reforming people out of their religion. In some instances, especially where monotheistic cults are dominant, the consequences could be good. But for a polytheistic society such as India, the results are terrible.
The Perils of Secularism
Something that has become obvious in recent times is the fact that Secularism destroys the immunity of native populations to resist radical alien ideologies that threaten to destroy their native cultures. It could also be said with a fair degree of certainty that Secularism and Liberalism go hand in hand and to speak of one is to speak of the other. The combination of these two radical ideologies could only spell the doom of nations.
In Europe, we see this playing out to perfection. Little children were sacrificed at the altar of liberalism. They were raped and pushed into prostitution by Muslim grooming gangs and the entire political establishment conspired to hush up the entire matter in order to maintain the ethos of liberalism. The migrant crisis in the European Union, that has made the countries much less safe than they were before, was an inevitable consequence of the long march of liberalism.
In the USA, the rabid Left that seeks to transform little children into transgenders with medical procedures is only another step along the path of progressivism. Drag Kids are a thing now in the United States and mainstream politicians are effectively arguing for the abolition of national borders. There are numerous other fundamental matters that have gone awry in both, the USA and the European that are too vast to be discussed here, but it can be safely said that the secular-liberal memeplex paved the way for the monstrosities we witness in both these societies today.
For India, it has several ramifications. Secularism is essentially a monotheist meme that was crucial for maintaining some sort of civility in monotheistic societies. It was a compromise between various factions of such societies that entailed keeping religion out of government so that no one particular sect gets to dominate the levers of power. At its core, secularism decrees that religion is a private affair and public administration should not be involved in such matters.
Read: State vs Hindus – how Indian politics has destroyed the notion of ‘secularism’
However, polytheistic societies are fundamentally different from monotheistic societies. Our Constituent Assembly realized that Indian society was greatly at odds with western societies where Secularism had flourished and thus, had to leave that word out of the Constitution. It was later inserted in the Indian Constitution by Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, at a time when democratic rights of the citizenry were suspended.
It can be legitimately argued that the greatest threat that Hinduism faces today is the lack of state support for its sustenance. Hinduism has over a billion followers across the world, the overwhelming majority of which lives in India. However, there’s not a single country that we could call our own. Radical Islam is on the rise today because it has state support from numerous oil-rich countries who use their money to fund Radical Islamic ideologues abroad. Hindus do not have that kind of infrastructure at their disposal to ward off such threats. Private enterprise by Hindus could not hope to compete with Radical Islam that has the backing of numerous countries and Christianity that is funded by the Vatican and the states of numerous countries.
Secularism in India has essentially destroyed the immunity of Indian society to ward off such threats. Most significantly, it has perverted the Indian State to such an extent that it acts against the faith of its majority community. Electoral outcomes don’t appear to affect such inclinations of the Secular State and that’s because the system is rotten at its very core.
Secularism: An Organized Religion
With time, true to its monotheistic heritage, Secular-Liberalism has turned into a religion of its own. It’s an organized religion that has its own version of clergy, preachers, Satan and God. Thus, Hindu society currently is not just at war with Radical Islam and Christian missionaries but also with the Indian State itself that has adopted the religion of Secularism-Liberalism. The Secular state seeks to reform Hinduism, not because of environmental concerns or animal rights or anything of that sort, these are just excuses. It seeks to reform Hinduism because an organized religion with monotheistic heritage could not ever bring itself to tolerate a polytheistic faith.
The current political system is not working out very well for Hindus, although they have tasted some victories under the current ruling establishment. At the same time, however, Hindu traditions and customs have been under attack consistently from the Secular State and that cannot be ignored. Democracy claims to be the will of the people, and yet, Hindus did not vote for the banning of firecrackers or Pashubali in Temples, they did not vote for the Secular State to regulate the height of Dahi Handis or to desecrate the Sabarimala Temple. Yet, these decisions were forced down the throat of Hindu society against their will.
We have to ask the question here, does the government in a Secular-Liberal Democracy reflect the will of the people? Judging from the events that have transpired in India, it doesn’t appear to be the case. And judging from the West as well, it appears to be far from it. Americans do not want unlimited immigration, they did not vote for illegal wars in the Middle-East, they did not vote for manufacturing jobs to be shifted outside the country, they did not vote for the legalization of puberty blockers for little kids. Yet, these decisions were forced down their throat all the same. In Europe, it is hard to imagine that people voted for its political establishment to engage in a conspiracy to silence the outburst of Muslim grooming gangs. They had to cope with these decisions all the same.
The religion of Secular-Liberalism is not conducive to the health of a society, as is obvious from developments that are occurring around the world. It is a recipe for chaos and disorder and public anguish. People might argue that the fate that has befallen the West is not necessarily an indictment of Secular-Liberalism per se but of the failures of the political establishment itself. There’s merit in that argument on the face of it but the West has turned out precisely how one would expect Secular-Liberal Democracies to play out in societies on a theoretical basis.
Secularism: At War with the Natural Order
Individualism is at the core of Secular-Liberalism. It’s not hard to imagine that a system of governance that is based on the rights of individuals will find it extremely difficult to motivate the individual to perform his or her duties towards the collective. Secular-Liberalism, essentially, is at war with collective identities. It is at war with religion because it is the largest meaningful collective. Religious traditions are a demonstration of the collective identity of an individual and, as a consequence, they must either be ‘secularized’ or banned outright.
After undermining religion, attempts are made to undermine the next greatest collective as well: Nationalism. It is not surprising that Nationalism has become such a demonized word in the West today. Nationalism demands that individuals, on certain occasions, have to go out of their way to perform their duties towards the collective and engage in actions such as standing up for the National Anthem even when they don’t want to as a demonstration of loyalty and affirmation of the greatness of the collective good. Secular-Liberalism cannot tolerate that.
After Nationalism, Secular-Liberalism came for local communities which often tend to revolve around religion. Local communities were portrayed as an impediment towards the free expression of the individual and hence, they ought to be destroyed. It has succeeded in that to a certain extent in urban areas but the innate natural desire of humans to live in societies has ensured that Secular-Liberalism hasn’t achieved the success it thought it would.
After local communities, Secular-Liberalism came for the family. It has demonized the family and glorified rebellions of the individual against the institution. Yes, bad families do exist and sometimes, the greatest enemy that a person faces is his own family. However, it cannot be denied that a healthy family is the bedrock of civilization. Without healthy families, nations could not ever hope to prosper. It is important to remember that bad families are anomalies and the vast number of families help an individual lead proper lives.
A family is the smallest unit of civilization. Sustaining civilization isn’t possible without healthy families. But after decades of Secular-Liberalism, the West sees insanely high rates of divorces, broken families and people who loathe their previous generations. It is a recipe for high rates of crime and there’s a great degree of literature that points toward that. The destruction of the family is also a natural consequence of the breakdown of local communities.
After religion, nationalism, local communities and families, it was inevitable that Secular-Liberalism would come for the next collective, that is, gender. Secular-Liberalism has weaponized gender and has led to the ‘war of the sexes’ and gender been obfuscated beyond measure and if they had their way, gender would become a meaningless word.
Secularism: The Consequences
Essentially, Secular-Liberalism, true to its monotheistic heritage, is up at arms against the natural order of things. It is a testament to the strength of the natural order that despite a barrage of propaganda, religion, nationalism, local communities, families, and gender continue to exist like they always have. However, there have been massive consequences and they have been severe.
The rise of the ‘Trumpian Right’ and the Far-Left of the Bernie Sanders variety that we see in the West today, a similar version of which is being played out in India as well, is a consequence of the war that Secular-Liberalism has declared upon the natural order of things. The youth, predominantly, are attracted to such populist ideologies in the West because the existing order has failed them.
Secular-Liberalism has declared war upon Hindu festivals and traditions because they are an affirmation of the individual’s collective identity. The Secular State banned firecrackers because bursting them is so much fun and while having fun, people also reaffirm their collective identity as Hindus. The Secular State banned the traditions of Sabarimala because men were willing to endure numerous austerities during the pilgrimage and push themselves through the limits of endurance to reaffirm their collective identity as Hindus, as devotees of Swami Ayyappa. Secular-Liberalism cannot tolerate such celebration of collective identities and therefore, they had to be banned.
It also needs to be understood that a nation can strive for greatness only when it is strongly rooted in religion. A nation cannot aspire for greatness while its culture is in a state of disarray. Japan overcame its defeat in the second world war and the devastation it wreaked on the back of a society rooted strongly on Shinto ideals. China is not religious it could be argued but its economic miracle was based on a system of governance based on collective identity as well.
The reason why frivolous PILs from NGOs are allowed to stall important developmental projects is that the ideological beliefs of these NGOs are perfectly in sync with the ideological worldview of the Judiciary. There’s a reason why PILs filed by Hindus aren’t anywhere near as effective as the ones filed by the likes of Prashant Bhushan. The Judiciary is filled by the co-religionists of Bhushan and co-religionists, as we know, tend to treat each other very differently from how they treat followers of other religions.
Can the Rigged System be Fixed?
At the heart of the matter is the fact that under Secular-Liberalism, the State has been hijacked to work against the welfare of its very citizenry. The State has been perverted to undermine the nationalism, religion, local communities and the institution of the family of the population it rules over. In India, they haven’t been very successful yet, but that’s not due to a lack of effort. It is more due to the fact that the social values of India are so strong that the population has been able to resist the continuous onslaught of the Secular State with a relative degree of success.
It’s not to say that Indian society has been able to resist it completely. But compared to the West, India has put up a much greater resistance and it continues to resist with tooth and nail the perversion that is unleashed by Secular-Liberalism. It’s important to under that under Secular-Liberalism, the state directs all its energies towards undermining the interests of its own citizenry. More than being just directionless, it exhausts its effort towards social engineering designed to radically reform the existing culture and prevailing social mores to conform to the will of a deracinated elite.
Is a reset of the system that exists enough or even possible? We cannot say if a reset or restoration is possible because the party that won the General Elections on the basis of Hindu consolidation was only overeager to enforce the ban on firecrackers and even advocated for it. Furthermore, a reset under current circumstances would imply that few decades down the line, maybe two, maybe three, the Secular State may again ban Hindu traditions and customs that have been practised by our people for centuries. In addition to all of this, a reset may require the same amount of collective effort as outright restoration. Therefore, if both options require similar energies, a restoration is indeed more preferable.
But we are dealing with hypotheticals here, we cannot even say for certain if Hindu society has the willingness to demonstrate the strength necessary, which it undoubtedly possesses in sufficient measure, to effect either a reset of a restoration. However, we should not ignore the significance of what happened during Diwali or at Sabarimala following the Court verdicts. Hindus came out in open rebellion against the Secular State and prevented the desecration of the Sabarimala and burst crackers to their heart’s content. In the times we live in, these are indeed signs to be optimistic about.
