Escaping ‘Hindu uncongenial India’
by Rudra Chatterjee
What was in a detriment to me being a young Hindu was the fact that I was born in India!! This may sound surprising to some, but the fact is that India, the very land that has been almost synonymous with Hinduism and nourished by it for eons is perhaps the worst non-Islamic nation to be a Hindu! The tragedy haunts and the irony blinds.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:37 am
I read with interest the article by Rudra Chatterji. I wish to make contact with him.
June 25th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Thank you for your interest. I can be reached on rudrachttrj@yahoo.co.uk
June 27th, 2006 at 12:06 am
This is an excellent article. I entirely agree. In India secularism has come to mean, for most of the political parties and the media, rank anti-Hinduism. The ‘Muslim League’ - the same political party that caused India’s partition - has been given a place in the present ’secular’ Government! There are school textbooks which glorify Mughal rule and denigrate the achievements of Hindus. THere was an article by Arun Shouri in which he had given specific instances of this in the school text-books approved by the Govt. Now Hinduism is being saved manly by western writers like David Frawley and Konrad Elst and of course people like Sitaram Goel. We have Romila Thapar doing her best in the opposite direction. Please visit my website for articles on Vedanta.
Sastri
June 28th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Great Article - you guys in Britain need to connect to people like Rajiv Malhotra of Infinity Foundation in the US.
June 28th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
I understand and appreciate the sentiments expressed here and in other places (for example comments on Vamdev Shastri’s interview); however, I take issue with the comments on one level.
Having over the past 10 years or so communicated with and met a number of the people mentioned, I fully agree that they are indeed doing wonderful work, particularly the likes of Koenraad Elst, Rajiv Malhotra and so on. However, with all due respect to them, their level of work, whilst highly commendable in its own right (not to mention thoroughly interesting and often even inspiring for a number of us), is not, and should not be, the main focus of Hindu ‘activism’ (for want of a better word) in Britain.
British Hindu youth who are disillusioned with Hinduism (sic) or simply have no real interest are not going to be excited about (re)discovering their roots by the likes of Elst or Frawley. So whilst I agree that they are all doing sterling work in terms of spearheading the defence of Hinduism on the academic level, to say that they are the saviours of Hinduism is somewhat overstating the case if not simply wrong. Indeed, I highly doubt that academics like Elst and such would be particularly happy themselves to be described in this way, for that is not their role and not what they are trying to do.
Focussing solely on the British situation, I would rather place this particular commendation at the door of various organisations and individuals in Britain who are doing excellent work, working at the grassroots level, and making superb contributions to the life of British Hinduism.
June 28th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
I remember this girl (18), who new jack all about Hinduism, who was going out with a Muslim guy, who used to preach Islam to her regularly. She got a copy of “Hinduism: The Eternal Tradition” and “Arise Arjuna” (David Frawley) from a friend of mine, who worked at Hamlyns (toy store) with her. With that, she was emboldened to give a Hindu perspective to his preaching that Islam is blah blah blah. Turned out he wasn’t interested in any kind of inter-religious debate on an equal footing, but rather got quite pissed of at her for talking about Hinduism in that way (end of relationship).
Point of the story - I don’t know any other authors except the ones you have been discussing - who could give an understanding of Hinduism in the robust and articulate kind of way that is needed. And I’ve seen absolute countless number of ground level Hindus learn about Hinduism very receptively through these kind of authors (maybe not R. Malhotra - who discusses obscure academic issues).
As far as Hindu organisations at the grassroots levels - any examples? Because I genuinely don’t think there are any orgs reaching out to people in an innovative way.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:35 am
I completely agree with Dangerous but as far as Hindu organisations at grassroot level goes, i can think of at least one example. Hindu Human Rights…
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:43 am
Hi rudra,
Namaste. Your story sounds quite similar to mine. I often lambasted temples and rituals in my late teens and early 20’s. I remember, when my wife Lakshmi and I (with our daughter Sneha in our arms) visited the Hindu temple in Happy Valley in Hong Kong, ironically, there was a sense of exhilaration in me….not contempt. Mind you, I was exposed to a rigid religious culture at home. I occasionally chanted the Vishnu Sahasranama, I was familiar with Hindu bhajans and devotional music, other Sanskrit chants, there were bhajans and pujas organised in the family quite regularly. However, there was no pride in being Hindu…probably because of the filth, squalor, poverty, dust, noise, absolute social chaos and rudeness and arrogance of govt employees. Now, after spending 16 years in Australia, I feel more sympathetic about India and less angry. We perhaps needed this space, this peace and quiet, this leisure, to recollect our thoughts, do some introspection, associate with like-minded ‘lost’ Hindus, read Hindu literature and the Internet to reawaken our shy and apologetic Hindu consciousness.Also, wanting to be Hindu role models for our children helped.
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:10 pm
I fully appreciate what Dangerous has said here. I agree entirely that these scholars are doing excellent work. Their work is certainly of excellent educational value to a number of people. Like Dangerous, I too have seen cases where people have been influenced primarily, if not solely, by such scholars and their work.
However, in my experience, these cases, whilst certainly important, are relatively very few and far between. I maintain that for the most part, the actual work in terms of inspiring British Hindu youth to take an interest in their religion, culture, heritage and identity is being done by organisations (and of course individuals) who work at the grassroots level. Sometimes, this work will indeed simply be as little as pointing someone in the direction of Arise Arjuna et al; however, far more often, there is work that needs to be done before someone is at the stage where this would be remotely useful to them.
I recall a highly respected lecturer in international relations at a prominent British University speaking on the white supremacy movement in the USA and describing what he called a ‘conveyor belt’ effect, where people are first made conscious of their culture/religion/race, then made interested in issues affecting what has now become ‘their’ community, then helped to the ‘inevitable’ conclusion that there is actually an ‘us’ and a ‘them’, and so on… I think it not hard to see the end result - in the case of his lecture, the end result was Oklahoma. I discussed his theory with him later and he agreed that it is not the process itself that is inherently bad, indeed it can be used in a very positive way, but it is knowing how to use it in a constructive rather than destructive way, and indeed sometimes, this is simply knowing when to stop.
In these terms, the likes of Frawley et al are fairly far along the conveyor belt; I agree they are very good resources, but the vast majority of people are not at that stage yet - the organisations/individuals that I spoke of are what get them there. I put it to you that this early work is the hardest step and, with all due respect to Elst, Malhotra and so on, I feel that this is in many ways, and certainly in the context of ’saving Hinduism’ the most important.
As regards the frequent criticisms of these organisations, they fall down immediately when one accepts that an organisation is only as good as the individuals that make it up - if you think they should be doing better, get involved and make the changes you think they need. I agree, by the way: again despite various criticisms, I feel that Hindu Human Rights is doing sterling work.
July 9th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Excellent characterization of most young Hindus!
Congratulations on finding your roots, Rudra. I hope there are many more like you in this and the future generations.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Rudra, thanks for your very enlightening article about Hinduism & finding your roots. I have a background close to yours though not exactly as my childhood I’ve lived in India unlike you. But now I live outside India for the last thirty years now. It is here that MY interest in Hinduism was awakened, I think, after seeing the epics Mahabharat & Ramayan. Since then I am a seeker taking every opportunity to learn more about it.
Write some more of these articles.
Thanks once again & awaiting your further articles.
Best wishes
Baishakhi Roy
August 24th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
Well you folks should not forget that Hindu and non Hindu is nat as simple as Momin and Kafir. One can be a Hindu and be a rationalist and a nonbeliever.
So Hinduism is not just about gods and spirituality. In my opinion Charavak “a Hindu darshan or philosophy” proves that scientific reasoning and thinking are not western inventions.
To get more information type “Charavak” in to any search engine.
August 24th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Well you folks should not forget that Hindu and non Hindu is not as simple as Momin and Kafir. One can be a Hindu and be a rationalist and a nonbeliever.
So Hinduism is not just about gods and spirituality. In my opinion Charavak “a Hindu darshan or philosophy” proves that scientific reasoning and thinking are not western inventions.
To get more information type “Charavak” in to any search engine.
August 24th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Yogesh what does that have to do with the topic, as far as I can see the Indian intellegentia which claims itself to be rational and secular are nothing but people stuck in the past with a lot of Marxist deadwood which fills their minds, the self proclaimed rationalists and secularists have been at the forefront of falsifying Indian history to appease Muslims and others, some of these rationalists are listed in Arun Shouries book titled “Eminent Historians”.
It is a fact that Hindus are taught false history in India and the general intellectual atmosphere and culture are hostile to Hindus in India more so than the west which is why many Hindus (including me) reconnected their roots after leaving India.
August 25th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Yeah i don’t really believe we should debate them secularists, rationalists, etc…. Just trash and bash. No time for more talk!
February 26th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Rudra, you have sketched an excellent synopsis of your move towards real Hinduism. Yes, it is true in India Hindoos take Hinduism for granted without much thought for what it actually represents. Outside of India, we Hindus get to appreciate our religion more. I have lived in London for more years than I care to remember, the net effect of which has been to draw me more towards Hinduism and now I am also an avid Indophile. Keep up the good work !