Anand Ranganathan is a well-established academic – he has studied at Cambridge, and currently holds an Associate Professor rank in the Department of Molecular Medicine at JNU. His work includes serious research on pathogens for tuberculosis and malaria. However, in a sign of the times, he’s perhaps best known for his debates on nightly TV panels.
One of his most famous techniques is to quote several verses from the Quran that most ‘liberals’ will find questionable at best in any other context. The viewer becomes more educated and also entertained, as the so-called liberal panellists either squirm in discomfort or try to maintain a studious look. He usually ends one of his rapid-fire recitals with the punch line, ‘why are you snaring the fundamentalist, but sparing the fundamentals’. Said differently, many people decry fundamentalism such as the one practised by the Taliban but turn into Gandhi’s three monkeys when it comes to speaking on the fundamentals, i.e. the Quran itself.
Borrowing Dr Ranganathan’s framework, what we see in current discourse is the snaring of the fundamentalists, for example, those advocating for the wearing of a burqa (slyly referred to as a hijab in most media) in the classroom, but sparing the fundamentals that even allow this question to come up. The fundamentals, in this case, are the Articles and directives in our constitution and how they are put into practice downstream. This includes the judiciary that passes judgments based on it and the state institutions that are caged to operate within key constitutional limitations.
While the burqa (hijab) battle went in the favour of schools and not fundamentalists, for now, the greater war will be lost as it’s played out on an uneven field. A field that is the constitution with certain colonial undertones – one that, in part, sees Hindus as heathens that need to be civilized, while incentivizing minorities with vested interests to take up maximalist positions. A few examples of how Hindus face state-sanctioned second-class treatment:
– Hindus have no right to set up their educational institutions while minorities do.
– Minorities have the right to govern themselves based on their own laws while Hindus have to follow a common code. This and the above is why you have the example of many Hindu groups asking for minority status.
– Major Hindu temples that have been destroyed and replaced by churches or masjids have no right to ask for a reversion to the original structure.
– (Mostly) Hindu land captured by Islamic tyrants and British colonizers and given subsequently to Waqf boards and Churches have no right for recapture by the modern democratic state.
– Constitutional muzzling of any criticism of Abrahamic beliefs, supported by muscle power on the street that only allows for one-way traffic of abuse of Hindu Gods, beliefs, and practices.
– A judiciary that rules through an Abrahamic lens of ‘essential practices’ which by its very nature, seeks to erase the diversity of Hinduism. In the absence of ‘one true book, one true prophet’ Hindu practices can mostly be deemed not essential and hence banned.
– Institutionalized support for increasing fissures in Hindu society through an unfair reservations system. A system that incentivizes brain drain and forces students to go to faraway lands to pursue higher studies.
More specifically, Articles 25 – 30 of the Indian constitution serve as a double sword – one that cuts down Hindu society at the knees and lifts up minorities through state-sanctioned support. One must read those Articles (to get the full effect, the reader may choose to read these rapid-fire, in the voice of Anand Ranganathan).
While Articles 25 – 30 sound rosy in their titles, the interpretations are poisonous for Hindu society. Here is each article and a summary of what it means in reality:
Article 25. Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. The detailed text clearly calls out Hindu heathens as needing to be civilized and this clause is what enables States to take over temple boards.
Article 26. Freedom to manage religious affairs. Enables parallel systems such as Sharia law to be setup.
Article 27. Freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion. Enables institutions such as Churches to avoid paying taxes for the common good while Hindu temple boards already get ensnared based on Article 25.
Article 28. Freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational institutions. While this clause has not been actively utilized by Hindu haters, expect court cases to come up to challenge any references or teaching of dharmic values and practices such as Yoga in schools.
Article 29. Protection of interests of minorities. Explicit promotion of minority rights versus common protection for all faiths, cultures, and linguistic groups.
Article 30. Right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. This article and its tyrannical child, the Right to Education Act, enable minorities to set up their own institutions but deny the same to Hindus.
Until Hindu samaj gets honest with itself on the real problem, there is only a slow and steady march to the fires of annihilation, regardless of the mini-victories during the journey.
