radha rajan: Article for special independence day edition of Organiser

aug 16th, 2010

we have nominal independence, but not freedom: from tyranny, from want, of thought. 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Radha Rajan

http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1370&Itemid=1

 

Needed - Collective Hindu vision and Political Objective  By Radha Rajan

 

Aspirants to regional or superpower status do not cower before neighborhood punks or walk in the shadows of bicep-ed bullies. A nation which cannot eliminate internal threats to national ethos and territorial integrity, a nation which refuses to stand up to external challenges to national sovereignty, a nation which cannot subdue or contain neighbors less than one-fourth its size, a nation which thinks being proclaimed America's strategic partner in America's war against terror is high honor, a nation which knocks on every doorstep to be invited to the high table called UNSC obviously lacks national vision and objective; obviously, such a nation lacks national pride. We are therefore a long way away from being super power; we are not even on our way to becoming a regional power.

National vision and national objective derive from sustained collective consciousness of the Hindu nation and Hindu nationhood; in short, national vision and national objective flow from national self-identity. Hindus constitute 83% of this nation's populace and far from being a self-conscious Hindu driving force propelling the nation towards becoming a power to reckon with, we thoughtlessly subscribe to Gandhian pluralism that this nation belongs in equal measure to Muslims, Christians, Beni-Israelis, Parsis and Hindus (in that order) and endorse Nehruvian secularism best realized as India's politics of minority-ism; and this Hindus do because they are yet to understand that at the heart of Abrahamic faiths lies the hard-nosed political objective to conquer territories not their own and to control and manipulate world affairs.

Succinctly put, national self-identity of Hindus has been reduced to Gandhian pluralism and Nehruvian secularism. When Hindus proclaim suicidal 'tolerance' as an article of faith even in the face of continuing loss of territory to jihad and increasingly aggressive Christian religious conversion, India's Hindus need to ask themselves, what will be the content of their national vision and what will be their national objective if it is driven by de-Hinduised and even anti-Hindu Gandhian pluralism and Nehruvian secularism. Can this nation of Hindus then realistically aspire to become a power in world affairs if adherents of Abrahamic faiths have their own politico-religious agenda?

India's Hindus can aspire for regional/super power status for their country only when -

We begin to end our floundering sense of nationhood and take pride in being a Hindu civilization

We begin to understand that the roots of our religion, our dharma, our culture and civilization are in the Vedas and that the Vedas tell us why hunger in any living creature is antithetic to dharma

We begin to understand that when we neglect agriculture or fail to adhere to Vedic tenets of relating to nature, we threaten the very survival of Hindu dharma

We begin to understand that the civilisational difference between us and the intolerant Abrahamic monotheisms is that while Hindu civilisational values have always nurtured and sustained everything in creation, the Abrahamic faiths have exploited and destroyed everything in their path

Assuming that India does emerge as a regional power and a major power in world affairs, Hindus must ask themselves, what will be the face of this powerful Indian nation and how will it use this power differently from powerful Christian and Muslim states. A nation's power derives from its core wealth - its territory and its people; all other wealth flows only from these two points of origin. This means a nation whose people constitute one-fifth of the world's populace and a nation where Hindus constitute the majority of this sizeable Indian populace should have answers to every pressing problem confronting the world and the power to implement or enforce solutions. More importantly, a nation must demonstrate convincingly that it will use all means including use of power and force to deal with threats to the nation's core assets - its territory and people.

Even as we entertain fond hopes of becoming a super power, let us look briefly at the state of our agriculture. The country has registered a very modest 4% growth in agriculture; considering we were wallowing in the depths of negative growth in agriculture just a few years ago, this 4% growth is nothing to shout about from roof tops. What the 4% growth in agriculture actually means is-

1. Sixty percent of our people do agriculture and this 60% of our people has grown only by 4%

2. We continue to produce only around 220 million tonnes of food grains annually

3. Of this only 180 million tonnes is consumed by humans; the remaining 40 tonnes includes criminal waste by rotting and also the vastly inadequate share of food grains we set aside for cattle and livestock

4. This translates as 160 kilos per head per annum or 400 gms per person per day which is actually only marginally lower than the recommendation by the Famine Commission Report of 1880 which stated that this was the minimum ration required to keep Indians from starving to death

5. This in turn translates as 2000-2400 calories per person per day while America boasts that a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay would receive at the very least 3500 calories per day

6. China, India's competitor for regional power status has a population of 1.5 billion - 30% more than the Indian population

7. China's total arable land is roughly 1.4 million square kilometers which is only 15% of its total land area but it produces 500 million tonnes of food grains which is more than double India's production

8. India's total agricultural land is 1.6 million square kilometers, which is 54.5 per cent of the total land area

Half of India's total land area is arable land - no country in the world is so blessed and yet, a nation which can feed an entire continent has not ended hunger in its land. Ending hunger would entail doubling agricultural production in the next five years; this would not only return the country to its civilisational moorings, it will ensure that all economic growth and development instead of coming from the services sector and the will-o-the-wisp IT industry, will now be powered by the fundamentals of our economy. More importantly we will lead the world by example - that hunger is unnatural in a dharmic nation administered by a dharmic state. This way we begin to think like Hindus that our people constitute our core wealth. Population is an asset and not a handicap.

Islam and Christianity pose the biggest threat to the Hindu nation and yet, the nation's polity, driven by the bogus political ideology called Nehruvian secularism is yet to find an effective answer to secessionist threats posed by the two Abrahamic religions. The Indian constitution leans proactively on the side of religious minorities and actively discriminates against the native Hindu populace.

The futility of this mindless adherence to Gandhian pluralism and Nehruvian secularism both as governing political ideology and as the defining instrument of foreign policy was best exemplified when our Minister for External Affairs came home from Pakistan with egg on his face, quite oblivious to the fact that egg on his face was egg on the face of the Hindu nation. The minister rubbed the egg off his face with aplomb but exonerating Pakistan of any misconduct, in typical Gandhian style, he blamed our own Home Secretary for the insult.

When Hindus cannot protect their street temples, when Hindus cannot liberate their temples from government control, when Hindus cannot turn around the situation in J&K by subduing the jihadis, when Hindus cannot stop Christian missionaries in their tracks, when Hindu India has no clue about dealing with Pakistan, China, America or Australia, when India piles up military hardware but lacks the political will to use it even in the face of gross provocation by our adversaries, becoming a regional power is centuries away; becoming a super power belongs to another yuga when Hindus will have regained their pride. Perhaps.

15th August, 2010

This was written for the Independence Day Special Edition of Organiser