A Dharmacharya’s clarion call for a new Hindu Constitution

Satguru Sivananda Murthy spoke very eloquently at the PS Secondary School Auditorium in Mylapore three weeks ago about the imperative national need for a new Hindu Constitution for India, which takes due note of Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism, Hindu way of life, Hindu culture and Hindu society. During the course of his talk he made it clear that the only thing that the Hindus of India have to fear today is fear itself. Unlike most Hindu Dharmacharyas who choose to remain diplomatically (if not politically!) neutral on the issues of life and death affecting the majority Hindus of India, Satguru Sivananda Murthy is forthright and fearless in his espousal of Hindu causes.
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When the people supposed to be great fail to perform the right act in the right time, righteousness declines and unrighteousness ascends. Mahakavi Bharathi in his ‘Paanjali Sabatham’, condemning the silence observed by great Acharyas like Bheeshma and Dhrona when a helpless Draupati was dragged to Kaurava Court and molested, says they all stood like “Pettai Marangal” i.e. dead wood unable to protect the honour of a woman in distress. The great English Statesman and Parliamentarian Edmund Burke (1729-1797) rightly said for all time: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent and do nothing”. This is precisely what is happening in India today. I fully endorse the view of Prof. Sadhu Rangarajan: “Every time Hindu Dharma has been outraged, the Dharmacharyas have chosen to remain silence spectators not ready to raise their voice against those who, sitting in their highest offices of political power, perpetrate the crime. And the Dharmacharyas have a lame excuse that political happenings are not their look out and Bhagavan is there to take care of the country. They have all to look after only the interests of their own Mutts, Missions, followers and the Ashram properties.”

I was intellectually and emotionally overwhelmed by the moral and spiritual force of the utterances of Satguru Sivananda Murthy on that day. Almost everyone present in the audience felt the same way. Hearing him speak with such passion for Hindu causes, I felt that the Swamiji is only giving a cubic content to the beautiful message of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita:

“Yadyadaacharati shreshthaha tattadevetaro
jannah Sa yat prmaanam kurute
lokasthatanuvartate”
(Sanskrit Transliteration)

The meaning of the above verse in Sanskrit is this: “Whatever action a great man performs, common men follow. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues”.

Satguru Sivananda Murthy said that most of us are not happy with what is going on in this country. We are all aware that something is going terribly wrong somewhere in different spheres of our public life—political, administrative, religious and spiritual, cultural and social. Today we are living in a world of aimless and arid Intellectualism where the mind is more active than the heart. In this sadly inhuman situation, we have to meet the restless questioning mind with an impassioned answering mind backed up by a true feeling heart. Basically our understanding of our national problems, our religion and culture must be deep and penetrating—intensely felt by ourselves in such a manner that it becomes a spring board for swift and effective action. We must learn to feel through our minds and think through our hearts.

Whenever some Americans ask me: “Swamiji when do you think the backwardness of India will disappear?” I never hesitate to tell them that India is not backward. Now to make the Americans understand I can’t quote the esoteric verses from the Vedas and the Upanishads because they are irrelevant to them. They seem to be steeped in materialism and materialistic welfare and therefore it becomes necessary for us to counter their arguments through equally shallow materialistic viewpoints. To such materialistic Americans, I would often say: “More than 50,000 Indian Medical Doctors are working in the Universities and Clinics of America. Nearly 250,000 Indian Engineers are working in different branches of service and manufacturing industry in America. India has never imported a single American Doctor or American Engineer. Who is backward? How do you say India is backward?” In other words, crudely materialistic explanation has to meet four-square the materialistic questioning of the West.

The Constitution of India says ‘India that is Bharat’—that is how and where the Indian Constitution starts. Babu Rao Patel, a great nationalist and an independent minded journalist, always used to say “India that was Bharat”. The founding fathers of our Constitution gave a death blow to Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism, Hindu Religion and Hindu Society when in the Preamble to our Constitution they referred to ‘India that is Bharat’. For them, Age-old Bharat, rooted in time-honoured history and holy tradition was a nominal and unspiritual entity. Their artificial and lifeless ‘India’ was a ‘substantive’, ‘political’, ‘pseudo-secular’ and solid electoral votebank entity.

We got our independence on paper on 15 August, 1947. The main questions we should ask in this context are: a) Who got this independence? b) Was it the independence of the British subjected India? c) Was it the independence of ancient India, medieval India, or modern India? One thing is very clear. Men like Jinnah and Nehru displayed a great sense of urgency and anxiety to assume positions of power even without a clear vision of plan or action as to what we would like to do with Pakistan or India of our own after independence from British Rule. The fact of the matter is after independence a portion of the Muslims in India got a separate nation for themselves in Pakistan. The Muslims who chose to stay in India came to enjoy special privileges under the new Constitution. The Hindus of India lost their ancestral Nation in Pakistan, And the Hindus of India, unfortunately, were relegated to the position of second class citizens in their capacity as Non-Muslims or Non-Christians.

Some solid and irrefutable facts of history relating to our freedom struggle cannot be ignored. During the entire period of our struggle for freedom starting from the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 till the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi on the Indian National scene in 1919 and later during the Gandhian period from 1920 to 1947, the number of people who got killed by the British Government was very much less than the number of Indians (mostly Hindus) who got killed in the first four months of India’s ‘partition’ under Nehru’s maladministration after 15 August, 1947. I was myself an eye witness to the partition riots in Delhi in August, 1947 when thousands of Hindus were killed in the Capital City itself. The untold sufferings of the Hindu refugees who were driven out of Pakistan and who came to squat on the streets of New Delhi and Delhi can never get erased from public thoughts and memories.

In my view, the sad fact is that on 15 August, 1947, Bharat that was India did not get its independence. It continued to be subjected to a New Republic called India. Thus our ancient India was subordinated to this newly created pseudo-secular anti-Hindu, pro-Muslim and pro-Christian Indian Republic. We should realise that India is not ‘Bharat’ but an artificial entity based on a pseudo-secular anti-Hindu philosophy called ‘Indian Constitution’.

In this so called anti-Hindu New Republic, the Muslims and the Christians (State-sponsored minorities!) enjoy special privileges and special rights under Articles 25 to 30 of the Indian Constitution. It has become a routine affair that whenever and wherever the Hindus protest against destruction of their temples by Islamic terrorists, the Government views it as an unprovoked, uncalled for and unjust Hindu fundamentalist reaction! The pseudo-secular mafia of mass media plays a leading stellar role in this dastardly anti-Hindu drama. The foundation for this ‘drama’ was laid by Pundit Nehru when he told Sardar Vallabhai Patel in 1949 to desist from taking any action to rebuild the Somnath Temple which was destroyed by Mohammed of Gazni in the 11th century and later by successive Muslim invaders. In the minds and hearts of Nehru and other Congress Leaders, the glorious heritage of ancient Bharat Varsha and Bharat Bhoomi had no place whatsoever and therefore they went about the task of destruction of Hindu India founded upon Sanatana Dharma with great pseudo-secular finesse and fervour derived from their brief autocratic authority.

We Hindus in majority in India today should come together to drop a new Constitution for Hindustan which creates a new Nation founded upon our ancient traditions of Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism and Hindu way of life. We have to raise ourselves from the present disgraceful condition of second class non-Muslim citizens to the highest status of first class proud Hindu citizens of this ancient land. I call upon all patriotic Hindus—Lawyers, Civil Servants, Educationists and other Professionals—to give a serious thought for drawing up a ‘New Constitution’ for Hindustan which gives the same privilege status to the Hindus in majority as has been given to the Minority Muslims and Minority Christians under the existing pseudo-secular and anti-Hindu present Constitution.

The New Constitution for Hindustan should create a new Hindu Nation-State which will be founded on Hindu ideals; which will conduct its affairs in accordance with Hindu-values; which would work for the all-round resurgence of the Hindus; which will protect Hindu-Interests not only in India but in the whole world; which will represent Hindu culture abroad; which will promote and propagate Hindu ethos in the world; which will create in our younger generations a sense of pride and self-respect in their Hindu Nationality. Such a state we have to establish in our Mother Land. Swami Vivekananda has tirelessly reminded us that the glory of Sanatana Dharma gives us the inspiration and self-confidence that we Hindus are not inferior to any Nation anywhere in the world in any sense. It is our sacred duty to create such a Hindu Nation in the immediate future.

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