Need for Kailaasa

History

When HDH Swami Nithyananda Paramashivam announced the birth of Kailaasa, the world’s only Hindu nation on <date>, it created an uproar in the Indian media (MSM and SM). Reactions all across the spectrum from warm embrace to outright ridicule were noticed. But fundamental questions about the necessity of such a nation and the vision of its founder were never debated. This write-up is an attempt to provide some details on these topics.

Diminishing Hindusphere (Hindu-sphere of influence of thought)

Literary/Archeological evidence from many centuries ago, indicate that the Hindu sphere of influence extended all the way from Afganistan in the west to the Indo-chinese countries in the east. In these countries, Hindu philosophy, culture, religion and spiritual practices were widespread in practice until the European imperialist era of 18th century CE. But currently there is not even a single country that is officially a Hindu nation. Almost all countries in this space have either become Islamic or Communist nations. Nepal was the last country to shed its Hindu identity and it adopted a communist identity in the recent decade. India, which hosts the world’s largest Hindu population is officially a “secular” nation (#2). This fact about the diminishing Hindusphere cannot be stressed enough. HDH’s vision to establish a Hindu Nation should be seen in this light as a need to gain a foothold on this planet for the vanishing Hindusphere.

Denial of Hindu rights under Indian constitution

Though it might sound far-fetched, the truth is that Indian constitution privileges “minorities” and dis-empowers Hindus explicitly. While it is understandable that downtrodden sections of Hindu society need affirmative action, multi-national religious sects who are global majorities are accorded the status of “minority” according to the Constitution of India (COI). In this article, the following 5 areas will be elaborated as implied by COI and as practiced by Indian judiciary:

Discouraging Hindu educational institutions
Denial of control of Hindu religious institutions
De-legitimizing Hindu religious practices
Exclusion of Hindus from receiving public goods and services from taxpayer money
European enlightenment values vs Hindu civilizational values

While practicing Hindus can blame politics/politicians, other religious entities for their plight, the hard truth is that they are not protected under a legal framework in any country. HDH’s Kailaasa initiative provides such a framework to guarantee constitutional protection for the practicing Hindus.

Discouraging Hindu educational institutions

It is hard to convince even practicing Hindus that they are legally disempowered and discouraged to run educational institutions of any kind, be it religious or “secular”. Even if relevant sections from COI is quoted, it is too hard for anyone to believe that claim. However strange it might look, it is the truth. According to the 93rd amendment to COI, which inserted article 15(5), severe “implied” restrictions are placed on Hindus, while no such restrictions are forced on other religious minorities (#3). In common man’s language, these are forced on the educational institutions of Hindus ONLY (#4, #6):

25% of seats to be given free to SC/ST caste members
Restriction on fee structure
Restriction on teacher/principal selection
No-Objection certificate requirements
Prohibitive/Demanding clauses on school infrastructure
Restrictions on curriculum

Religious minorities, who are not burdened by such demands, have completely taken over the educational landscape of India. Though article 15(5) sounds noble with its “Right To Education” tag, it should be appropriately called as “Right to Educate”. The point being, the right to educate the population rests with the religious minority institutions, by design. Some Hindus hide behind the Language-minority tag to continue to run their schools and tend to stay under the radar. One may ask, “how can such a discriminatory law escape the scrutiny of judiciary?”. In the TMA Pai vs Union of India judgement, a 11 member judical bench gave a verdict that Hindus had the same rights as minorities in running educational institutions (#7). But this equality of all religions to run educational institutions was a big no-no for vested interests. So, another case became the legal battlefield to overturn this sane judgement. In the Pramati educational trust vs Union of India case, it was overturned and minorities were accorded a special status to run their educational institutions. The judgements clothed in heavy legal vocabulary have escaped MSM scrutiny. But prominent bloggers like “RealityCheckIndia” and “Pranasutra” have written ample material on the same (#5, #6).

This virtually dissuaded Hindus from pursuing any ventures in the educational field. Even an educated, practicing Hindu will not be able to explain clearly why he/she is disinterested in setting up an education institution or a traditional Gurukul. At the most they can lament that the sheer number of legal requirements and procedural obstacles are just not worth it.

Denial of control of Hindu religious institutions

Hindus are legally discriminated from running their own religious institutions in India. Though there are no central/federal laws that deny them that ability, almost all state governments have passed their own version of anti-Hindu laws that do that. For example, the Tamilnadu HRCE act (#14) denies autonomy to Hindu religious/spiritual leaders to run temples/monasteries etc. The clauses of this act are interpreted extremely and rigidly enforced on Hindus by the beaurocracy, while non-Hindus are allowed to manage their affairs with complete autonomy. Any flimsy reason could result in the temple being tranferred from the hands of centuries-old communities to a secular beaurocrat. Again, the pertinent question here would be: Why does a “secular” government want to run Hindu temples? Temples are treated as cash-cows by all governments irrespective of political ideology. But temples are prevented from using donations of devotees for temple-upkeep, cultural and educational activities, and spreading Hindu Dharma. While there are few recent voices against government control of temples, it is largely a fragmented effort across India (#15). On top of this government control, the governing bodies which are expected to be at least “secular” are frequently caught in controversies over the religious affiliations of the members. Non-Hindus are legally planted in temple administration to sabotage from within (#16, #17).

Delegitimizing Hindu religious practices

Almost all Hindu religious practices are up for scrutiny in the recent past. Hinduism with its wide spectrum of religious practices and thousands of sects (sampradayas) is literally toyed according to the whims and fancies of the government of the day. There is no constitutional guarantee to protect Hindu religious practices, while other religious minorities are explicitly accorded the same thru Article 30 of COI (#19). Also, the FCRA act of India (#18) has become a vicious weapon in the hands of “conversion mafia” in recent times. Funds from foreign entities pour into Indian NGOs through the FCRA route (#20). Social Media has exposed the benign-sounding entities that receive funding from such conversion mafia (#21). These entities aided by “anti-superstition” laws (#22) specifically target Hindu religious practices. Each and every large-scale public exhibition of Hinduness is challenged in the courts. Courts interfere in religious festivals like Dahi Handi (#23), Diwali (#24), Ganesh chaturthi (#25) and Jallikattu (#26) under the pretext of child safety, animal rights and pollution. The same reasons are never used against other religious festivals. But the important culprit here are the NGOs that receive FCRA funding who almost always file a public-interest litigation in the Supreme Court of India against Hindu festivals.

Exclusion of Hindus from receiving public goods and services from taxpayer money

Another shocking fact is that legally Hindus are denied participation in public welfare schemes that are run using taxpayer money. Hunar Haat(#12), Nai Manzil(#9), Nai Roshni(#10), Padho Pardes(#13), Minority-only scholarships, MSDP (#11) are some of the schemes run by the central government where Hindus cannot participate. While Hunar Haat tries to preserve cultural wealth of “minorities”, those of Hindus are not given any official support to survive. For example, the Hindu culinary science of Bhaagashastra will not qualify for this program. Even educated secular Indians never care to ask: “If poverty is the criteria, why not poor people of all religious affiliations benefit from these schemes?”. It is just beyond the intellectual boundary of secular Indians to question something as basic as this. So, the real cunningness is in the fact that Hindus are legally encouraged to move to “suitable” and “beneficial” religions.

Western universalist values vs Hindu civilizational values

Hindus are often blamed for the “caste problems” of India. Though “caste divisions” and “caste census” originated during British times <ref>, Hindus bear the burden of such stereotypes till today. No one denies that social inequalities exist everywhere in the world. As HDH stated, fear-based/greed-based social/economical/political structures exist everywhere in the world, which naturally lead to discrimination. While people belonging to western societies are allowed at self-correction, Hindus are denied the same. At the foundation of this problem lies the fact that Western universalist values are superimposed on a diverse Hindu population and any non-adherence to such values is seen as uncivilized/uncultured etc. As Hindus do not have any control over their educational/religious institutions, they are unable to pass-down their knowledge systems and civilizational values to subsequent generations. This goes on to strengthen the same stereotypes about Hindus even in the minds of Hindus. As a result Hindus have become alienated from their own social, cultural, religious values for fear of being branded illiberal or fascist or Hindu supremacist etc.

Need for Kailaasa

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