Suggestions for Hindu Renaissance

We see various threads in various communities about topics that Hinduism is in danger; Hinduism is facing threats from other religions etc etc. While they may be right, the question which naturally comes to our minds is "what can we do for Hindu Renaissance"

The following are my 2 cents on that subject. Others are welcome to add. Before I go into the subject, there are three points which are to be kept in mind.

Point 1: Hinduism holds that all paths lead to the same goal. Hence, we accept all other forms of worship apart from our own. We accept the Christian way of worship and also the Muslim way of worship. We not just tolerate, but accept them as valid... for the so-called tolerance is just self-righteous attitude- "I am right, you are wrong, but I am still 'tolerating' you". That’s not our attitude.

Our problem with other religions is their dogmatic attitude. We don’t have problem with the way Christians worship their god; we have problem when they dogmatically say that their path alone is true and all other paths are wrong. We have problem when they hurl abuses at us and our gods and call them satanic. We don’t have problem if they call Christianity a true religion, but we have problems when they say Christianity is the ONLY true religion. We have problem when they call Hinduism a false religion and ask people to convert and adopt various means like force and fraud to do it. The same is the case with Muslims.


Point 2: The battle these days is not between two separately standing groups, but between ideologies. The battle now is in the minds of the people.

Many of the so-called-intellectuals (read commies) do not behave anti-Hindu coz they consciously think "ok let’s be anti-Hindu", but coz many really feel that they are on the right side.

The media does not consciously think "ok let’s portray Hindus badly"- they really think that their position is right. So is the case with other institutions in India.

In theory, they are all good institutions.. the problem is in the direction, not in the motives. Same is the case with many p-seculars.

Hence what we have to recognize is that the battle now is in the minds. Things like "I will kick the p-secs", "the media is a demon" etc etc will not help.

Psychological-warfare is the reality today (note: I said psychological, not mere intellectual)


Point 3: The main emphasis of my points is "what we can do", not what we demand others to do.

I can demand that Muslims and Xtians should cease to be dogmatism, I can demand that govt stop its minority appeasement policies... I can demand and demand lot more. But how many of them are going to be accepted? So my focus here is not what we can demand from others, but what we can do in that direction. If others too accept some of the demands, well and good. But we cannot sit and wait for them to do so. We have to act.


Now coming to the points:

1. Character: This is of foremost importance. Though it is universally lacking, it is no justification for us. Nothing can be done by people who lack personal character. Hindus may cry foul about others, but until we conduct ourselves in a righteous manner, nobody can help us. Also, people judge a religion by its followers- if its followers are lacking in character, then so will be the opinion about the religion. Hindus are the brand ambassadors of Hinduism.

2. Strength: Hindus badly lack this. Strength here means Physical, Intellectual and spiritual strength. Why is an ordinary Hindu a coward and justifies his cowardness with various theories?
The first part is physical strength. We should never ignore the importance of having a strong body. We lack intellectual strength also. We simply feel that we have so many problems, but do not have the strength to tackle them ourselves. We just wait for some person to come and do all our work. One more Sankaracharya, one more Vivekananda. But what can even they do, if we do not have the strength enough to preserve what we have.

3. Pride: Hindus have been thought from day one in the schools that their forefathers were bunch of tribals; that their religion does not contain anything except some out dated practices and that their history is just a chronology of defeats. Hindus do not take pride in calling themselves Hindus. They are not even aware of the great philosophical and literary works in Hinduism. They just blindly ridicule everything in Hinduism. So, we have to first create pride among Hindus about Hinduism. We may talk and talk on how to protect Hinduism, but all that will be futile until we tell people why we have to protect Hinduism... what is there in it that is worthy of protection. Once we convince people of that and in taking pride about being Hindus, then the rest wil automatically follow.

4. Unity: The slavish mentality is that if one person tries to climb up, the rest try their best to bring him down. We should rather create unity among the Hindus. We should cease to act as an individual or as a member of a caste or a region, but acts as part of the Hindu society.

And this is not going to come if we sit and shout "come- unity, come- unity"... it comes by acting so. "You may not recognize that you are united, but still I will stay united with you; even if you are not helping me, I will still help you"- must be our attitude.

5. Redundant Practices: There are some old redundant practices like: Caste, Child marriages. Every effort should be made to remove these discriminations. Protecting Hinduism does not just mean protecting it from "others", but also from selfish and bigoted Hindus also.

6. Economy: Money always played and is going to play an important role in the society. You cannot teach the intricacies of the Upanishads to a hungry stomach. So, every Hindu should either directly contribute to the less privileged Hindus or contribute it to some good Hindu organizations. It is a good habit to fix that one will donate this much % of his/her salary to such causes and do so.

7. Service: One should always try to serve the less privileged in what ever means possible to them. Thanks to the NRI culture, people started thinking that they are giving some money and that will take of the service. But we have to remember that the Hindu society does not need our money, but our heart and soul- our services. Money is important, but not the most important. I will say a 30mins of service activity is more worthy than thousands of rs.

And it is two-sided- not just the served, but the person who did the service also transforms himself. It helps in getting a first hand feel and understanding of the real issues. People sitting in a/c rooms and theoretically talking about solutions and giving cheques are no help. What is wanted is a heart that feels. I understand it is very difficult for many; but try to do atleast something, no matter how little it is.

8. Re-conversions: As someone said, there are only two types of religious groups in India: Hindus and ex-Hindus. We should remove the anathema against reconversions and actively reconvert the willing. I am not talking about this from mere numbers point of view. Rather it has the ability to transform the outlook of Hindus from a slavish mentality trying to protect itself and an heroic mentality ready to conquer new frontiers.

Instead of passivity, activity; for the standard of weakness, the standard of strength; in the place of a steadily-yielding defense, the ringing cheer of the invading host. Merely to change the attitude in this way is to accomplish a revolution.

Anyhow, this must be accompanied by even more important thing: Hinduising the Hindus.

9. Awareness: Many Hindus are not even aware of the threats against Hinduism. Simply if a missionary comes in a good dress and speaks in a nice language, they fall for him; some even donate some money for them thinking that they will be using it for service purposes. But hardly do they know that this very money is used to convert some of the Hindus, and then make them stand against Hindus. Awareness is power, and for this all possible means should be explored.

Very very rarely do I come across a Hindu who understands mass psychology. There are people who really feel for the Hindu cause, but they sometimes blabber pathetically leading to the complete opposite of the desired. As I said earlier, the war now is in at the psychological level, hence it is very important to understand how it works and use it properly.


I feel that these are some things we need to concentrate upon. These may not stop the next terrorist from bombing another Indian city; these may not stop the next innocent Hindu falling for the missionary tricks and converting; these may not stop the next bill legalizing illegal immigrants into Assam from being passed.

But they can create a Hindu society which can archive all of them and much much more in the future... naah they can even create muslims and xtians who feel it is "cool" to be a Hindu.