Skip to main content

For those special friends



Many people on Facebook have advised me to go to Pakistan though I have time and again stated clearly that what I dislike about present India is that it is becoming increasingly like Pakistan. The Sangh Parivar has more or less succeeded in creating what Dr Shashi Tharoor has tersely named ‘Hindu Pakistan’.

This morning broke with someone dispatching me to Israel. If the “Indian Hindu culture” was not as “tolerant” as it was, I “would have been born in Israel” – that’s what the Facebook pundit wrote sounding rather ominous. I don’t know why this person wishes to consign me to Israel. There is tremendous irony in the suggestion since Israel was created for a people who were victimised by Fascism which seems to sustain the ideology of the Sangh Parivar.

I’m writing this to make one thing clear to these Facebook champions of the “Indian Hindu culture” who assume that I am an enemy of that culture. I am NOT. I have great respect for the profundity of the Upanishads. I am convinced that there is no better religion than the advaita (non-dualism) of those inimitable works. I am unambiguously certain that if god does exist, that god is within ourselves. God is the divinity we discover or create within us. God is the love in your heart, the love that overflows from your heart towards the entire reality outside you. God is what unites you with the cosmos. God is the realisation that everything that exists is as sacred as you are. Tatvam Asi.

What then is the problem? Why do I irk so many people who claim to be the champions of “Indian Hindu culture”? The answer is simple: they are not championing anything of the sort. They are all, without any exception that I can recall, champions of a political claptrap that has been popularised by a small group of people with an acutely myopic worldview which seeks relentlessly to project itself as a contemporary messianic version of the Sanatana Dharma.

I have analysed the writings and profiles of quite a few of these recent champions of India’s ancient wisdom. My findings led me the following conclusions:

1.     None of these champions know anything deeply about India’s real greatness.
2.     None of them is interested in knowing about that greatness.
3.     Most of them believe that Hindus and Hinduism are under serious threat from other religions and/or secularism.
4.     Almost all of them love to blame the Congress party, particularly Jawaharlal Nehru and occasionally Mahatma Gandhi, for all the ills that have plagued the nation since Independence.
5.     Most of them seem to have blind if not jejune faith in Narendra Modi’s messianic prowess for redeeming Hindus, Hinduism and India.
6.     Most of them believe, or seem to believe, that anyone who questions the Sangh Parivar is anti-national.
7.     Most of them lack the etiquette required in public debates.
Let me assure them, anyway, that I don’t regard any person as my enemy. What I question are certain ideological views and positions which I know are dangerous for India’s pluralism which is also India’s identity.



Comments

  1. Rajeev MoothedathFebruary 12, 2019 at 9:40 AM

    "Why do I irk so many people who claim to be the champions of “Indian Hindu culture”? The answer is simple: they are not championing anything of the sort". - You said it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amit PattnaikFebruary 12, 2019 at 3:59 PM

    Dissent is just not being tolerated. And in a way, rabid misuse of social media has only furthered their hate-mongering. What's really disturbing is that the party wants all people to confirm to their notion of nationalism (which has right now taken a fascist avatar). Whoever disagrees with their opinion is taken as an enemy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 12, 2019 at 4:14 PM

      Precisely. I hope the situation will change after the next election though my optimism seems to be misplaced as there is no sign of a good leader emerging.

      Delete
  3. suhavijayFebruary 13, 2019 at 9:08 AM

    You have captured the real truth of today's politics. Its all came down only to mud slinging these days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 13, 2019 at 9:18 AM

      This has to change if we are to achieve real development.

      Delete
  4. KPFebruary 16, 2019 at 3:37 AM

    Well written Mr Matheikal. I read those comments in fb while scrolling. Am not justifying him, but it might due to the insecurity every sanatana dharma believers are feeling due to the recent things happened in kerala..


    Its absurd the way thT hindu talked to you an another Hindu..am sorry. And i dont agree with him..

    Se are the sons and daughters of bharathamba

    I disagree with you if you say JN was the nicest PM or human being. And nobody can be so..

    It seems to be you hate Namo in politics and your opponents may not lole JN.. Thats their freedom.

    I think its a wrong term if you use Indian Hindu culture..WhT you mean..

    Thanks for being a Fan of Sanatana Dharma..or who am I to thank you..Its intelligence that seeks

    Best regards
    Krishna

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 16, 2019 at 4:02 PM

      I was quoting the fb comment when i used the phrase 'Indian Hindu culture'.

      Modi doesn't deserve the position. His language and culture (lack of it, rather), his hatred of non-Hindus, hindi chauvinism... are a threat to the very identity of India as a country of diversity.

      My admiration of Nehru is a different matter. He was a statesman, scholar, writer and, above all, a dreamer. All dreamers make mistakes, yet they remain a notch above the mediocre.

      Delete
    2. जितेन्द्र माथुरFebruary 18, 2019 at 10:47 AM

      Your views about NM and JLN are absolutely correct and to the point. Albeit let me correct you that NM does not hate any particular religion or group or language or the like wise. His sole aim is to expand and perpetuate his power to the longest possible range and for that he can do anything. He can even ditch Hindus, Hindu religion and Hindi language if that gives him the desired political advantage. His attitude is simple - My Way or Highway. He is a pure dictator and a unique person whose selfishness goes to the hilt. He believes in Joseph Goebbles'famous quote - If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it'.That's what's been happening in India for the past few years courtesy himself. Neither the RSS, nor the BJP, nor the Hindu community, nor the Hindu religion, nor India, nor Indian culture matters for him. He firmly and sincerely believes in only one thing - I'm here to rule'.

      Delete
  5. moulaliAugust 8, 2019 at 5:44 PM

    Learning French will surely make your portfolio more attractive. POLYGLOT conducts a french classes in hyderabad which will help you attain proficiency in this language.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more