A global pandemic, cyclones, earthquakes, locust attacks and protests – peaceful and otherwise.

2020 is a year when humanity is experiencing at least either one or some or all of these phenomena!

A churn is underway, at various levels – for the entire world. Is it for the first time in the history of humankind that we are experiencing something together as a collective, across all differences – most of them man-made?

I ask, for, no part of the world is unaffected by this. The challenges being faced are more or less of the same nature. If this does not lead to our collective awakening, one wonders, what will!

This is a time for exploring reality, sans projections and extrapolations. This is the time for honest stock-taking, both individually and as a collective; time for us to step into authenticity for the healing of all sentient beings.

This is an opportunity for us to look back, reflect and resolve to learn from the past and emerge with a renewed awareness that leads to love and respect for all sentient beings, without any discrimination.

This is also a unique moment in history for us in Bharat to undertake the honestly painful journey towards lasting peace and harmony. It is a pilgrimage and can be arduous.

It requires that we tread on a path that begins with awareness and appreciation of facts.

A path that involves honest acknowledgement of facts.

A path that encourages honest apology for the alleviation of centuries old festering wounds.

An apology that is accompanied by changed behavior or else, as is rightly said, it is simply manipulation. An honest apology that lays the foundation of reconciliation and lasting peace.

This path cannot be laden with such guilt-tripping false corollaries as the following shown in the header pic.

These are just few of the many comments that are now mushrooming online. Voices such as these are bound to be amplified to paint a distorted picture of Bharat.

Observe their words very carefully. Notwithstanding the Freudian slip of projecting minorities as not being Hindustani, you will shudder at the prospect of utter fallacies being perpetrated across the country and the world.

Any rational human being, with even an iota of awareness of India’s ancient, medieval, modern and post-modern history would be disgusted at the lies. They would be appalled by the sleight that seems to suggest that somehow “minorities” in Bharat are victims just like African Americans in the United States.

Allowing such deceit to be mainstreamed is akin to placing a roadblock on the highway to healing and harmony. It is bound to make it difficult, nay impossible, for Bharat to reach the desired divine destination of becoming a model society capable of enriching the world in the post-modern era as it did in the ancient times.

You might ask, “What can a common citizen do; what influence can we wield?” I believe that we can do a lot.

To begin with, question, highlight and reject such falsehood being propagated by people through the misuse of their influence and reach to spread hatred against Hindus, directly or indirectly. It is a question of your existence – both individual and collective. Polite, insistent, facts-based assertion can thwart such evil designs and stop them in their tracks before they turn it into an avalanche of lies. It is your right as well as duty.

Do remember that free speech is not a free pass for false speech. Speech perpetually projecting Hindus as oppressors, despite documented successive waves of colonization and oppression of a significant part of our sacred geography by the marauding followers of Islam and Christianity, is not just frivolously false. It is essentially evil. The intent behind such speech is not merely malafide. It is culpably criminal.

Even if one were to go by the latest American example, where the progeny of oppressors and colonizers are apologizing to the descendants of the oppressed group, historical evidence clearly indicates that any such extension to Bharat would mean that the Bharatiyas currently following post Judaism Abrahamic faiths of Islam and Christianity would have to apologize to the followers of every indigenous faith – for both persecution of their ancestors, the desecration of their culture and traditions and the partition of their sacred land. That Hindus and Bharatiyas following other indigenous faiths have never blamed the progeny of the documented oppressors of their ancestors is a testimony to their intrinsic pluralism. They have always believed in giving peace and harmony a chance.

The census of 2011 puts the Muslim population of India at 14.2%, making it the second largest community. Their share of the population has grown from 9.8% in 1951 to 14.2% in 2011. The population is projected to be 311 Mn in the next three decades and would surpass Indonesia as the world’s largest Muslim population. Thus, calling them a minority is dishonest. Appeasing them for electoral gains through minority welfare schemes is fundamentally flawed.

The share of Bharatiyas practicing Christianity is placed at 2.3% of the overall population in the census 2011. However, this cannot be taken at face value for, many converted Christians have been found to retain their Hindu sounding names, simply to benefit from myriad “minority” welfare schemes. These schemes are against the spirit of secularism and the illegal inclusion of Secularism into our constitution requires a separate discussion in itself.

None of the supposedly liberal, progressive voices claiming to fight for minority groups in Bharat are seen to espouse the cause of real minorities such as Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, Sikhs et al. Au contraire, their vitriolic vehemence against granting reprieve to various persecuted minorities from the neighboring Islamic states suggests their utter disregard for these real minorities.

Islam and Christianity are a global majority. There are many countries that officially or unofficially patronize these faiths either as state religions or otherwise. There is NO country that has Sanatan Dharma or Hinduism as the state religion.

Thus, in a way, Hindus do NOT have their own land even after a history of torment by the global majority faiths. Sanatan Dharma is a global minority. Being a major polytheistic faith that also led to three more indigenous belief systems (Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism), it should have been accorded special respect and protection by the progressives and liberals of the world, including those in Bharat. After all, have they not taken upon themselves to safeguard the interests of the minorities and protect diversity? Is Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) not an important symbol of both?

Instead, we have repeatedly witnessed people claiming to uphold progressive, liberal values, comparing the colonizing persecutors from global majority monotheistic faiths of Islam and Christianity to the global minority polytheistic Hindus. History reveals that the latter have been repeatedly oppressed by the former. This tantamounts to dehumanizing a minority group that has not only been repeatedly persecuted by two global majority groups in its native land but has also been left wounded by an unjust partition of their sacred geography.

Does this not indicate that the upholders of liberal and progressive values are merely doing lip-service to diversity? How can they claim to protect and promote diversity when they are essentially facilitating the annihilation of an ancient minority, pluralistic polytheistic belief system that is diverse from the more recently founded majority monotheistic, proselytizing belief systems?

Hindus have braved plunder, savagery, slavery, economic, emotional and spiritual upheaval and desecration, only to be left with a carved out territory.

Yet, they have shown the magnanimity of allowing all faiths, included those of their oppressors, to prosper uninhibitedly in their country which was proclaimed to be secular through illegal, questionable means.

It is the duty of every conscientious human being to make sure that facts are not allowed to be forgotten or erased from the collective memory of humankind.

During the last Kumbh in Prayagraj, our Prime Minister washed the feet of people from the most marginalized community. Have you seen any upholder of liberal values appreciating this act? Have you seen them usher in a movement to emphasize, highlight and correct the civilizational travesty of there being no equal rights for Hindus in Bharat? We have, however, seen them spewing venom against Hindus across the globe, unabashedly and uninterruptedly.

The majority-minority dynamics in the United States could have been extrapolated to Bharat ONLY if Hindus had gone to the land of the origin of Islam and Christianity, colonized, looted and plundered those territories, forcibly enslaved their population and uprooted them from their native regions to be treated worse than animals, denied them human rights for centuries and continued to overtly and covertly discriminate with them.

Just a cursory reading of Bharat’s history (recent and past) would categorically deflate these opinion bubbles being floated by people who clearly are no well-wishers of Bharat and Bharatiyas.

So when they pontificate that their preferred lives matter, remind them of the fact that in Bharat Bhoomi, all sentient beings matter, have mattered and shall continue to matter as long as Sanatan Dharma is our guiding force.

Do not allow dishonest, irrational opinion to be established as the truth. When unchecked, they are capable of savagery even in the present era. Do not forget Ankit Sharma and his mercilessly desecrated, discarded body. Do not let his memory be disrespected by keeping quiet in the face of this onslaught of false corollaries aimed at filling the coffers of a select few who continue to confuse and guilt-trip Bharat for their personal, selfish interests.

Do not forget Ajay Pandita, the 40 year old Hindu Sarpanch of Lukbawan, Larkipora, from the minority Kashmiri Pandit community, assassinated by terrorists in Anantnag (South Kashmir),only  few hours ago.

Do not let their memory, and those of countless Hindus massacred for their faith, be disrespected by keeping quiet in the face of this onslaught of false corollaries aimed at filling the coffers of a select few who  continue to confuse and guilt-trip Bharat for their personal, selfish interests.

I began by suggesting that it is a time for collective awakening.

I conclude by reiterating that it is also the time to embark upon the pilgrimage to reconciliation, healing and harmony.