India and Hinduism today

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Lets get some facts out first..

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• India is an old country with a continuous civilization of over 5000 years

• India is a young country today with 65 % of its 1.3 Billion population under 35 years of age. Not just that they are skilled and well educated too. Think about that for a moment, thats more than the 'entire' population of USA!

• India is the birthplace of several world religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and practically each of these religions have many sub-religions and schools of thoughts.

• There is no other country on planet earth as diverse culturally, ethnically, racially and linguistically as India.

• India was once the sought after destination of the European explorers and Traders. Columbus originally set out to discover sea-route to India and accidentally ended up in the 'new world' Americas and by mistake he called the natives there as 'Indians'..the name that still continues today but is totally different from the original India of the orient.

• For about the last 1000 years, India has seen several invasions and has become the melting pot of many cultures, races, religions and more. 

• There is no denying that the invasions caused a lot of damage to India, its society, its religion, its economy, its core..

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But do we think all bad things happened because of invaders alone?

Our society had no flaws?

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No. A big emphatic No.

If you analyze deeply, you realize that in course of our history and civilization, we Indians as a society and nation, committed several mistakes and are the chief cause of our own decline.

 

Just look at the way we:

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• mis-understood, mis-applied, monopolized the beautiful social order called Varna-vyavastha (Caste system). Please understand that Caste is beautiful system for the just division of Labor in society. It exists implicitly in every country, every society, whether they know it or not-- its just not explicitly defined as it was done in India. It is meant to be based on 'Merit' and 'character' of a person. Not the monopoly of Bloodline. No one caste is higher than another. But the day the so called higher castes comprising Brahmins (knowledge seekers/teachers), Kshatriyas (military/lawmakers) and Vaishyas (Traders) decided to monopolize the Spiritual knowledge of scriptures and thus the power center of society, within their bloodline and deny the Sudras (masses/working caste) of this knowledge the decline of India began.

• The horrible way our women were (and still are) treated. Just pick a news paper, you will know what I am talking about. Ancient Indians treated women as equal to men in all respects (as a proof, consider this -- even the venerated Lord Sri Ram could not complete his Aswamedha Yagya (Sacred Horse sacrifice ceremony) without his queen Sita by his side and thats why they had to place a statue of hers at his side during the ceremony). But then the moral corruption in our society downgraded women to second grade. Corrupt practices like child marriage and Sati came into being. Women were denied education and society became patriarchal -- simply put Shakti was held in dishonor. 
   

And do you think God does not see that? Do you think God does not implement the Law of Karma on a Society or Nation?

But the above two are just two examples of why India declined. In essence what I am saying is that if India declined over the ages, the chief cause of it was our own societal flaws and the Law of Karma worked on the society as a whole. The situation was simply aggravated by the invaders. I have explained the way the Law of Karma works in my other article. Take a look.

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For those who have studied Swami Vivekananda..he has said much more on this.

I encourage young people of India and especially the bright minds to introduce themselves, their families and especially their children to some study of Swamiji and his solutions for India​. Some books published by Ramakrishna Math press like:

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• Rebuild India,

• To the youth of India,

• Lectures from Colombo to Almora,

• Complete works of Swami Vivekananda, 

• His letters/lectures/essays are very relevant on this..

• Additionally, a good free online resource is www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info

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That said the best thing Hindus can do for our culture's revival is:

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1. Understand our mistakes of the past that led to downfall ( eg: wrong application of caste system, exploitation of masses and women..just study Swami Vivekananda for details)

2. Study and practice at least one scripture - especially The Bhagavad Gita -- an Excellent treatise on how to work and live efficiently; our current academic education system is rotten and blind copy of the poorly thought of archaic British colonial system; its good only to produce coward risk averse sheep..not the tigers needed to build a nation.

3. Unite with others in Nationalist Hindutva pride..minus the jealously and narrow minded factionalism that creeps in whenever one true Hindu stands up (again study Swamiji..even he was victim of jealousy of other Hindus); throughout history the most harm to one Hindu was done by another Hindu..same story with political rivalry between Netaji on one side and Gandhi/Nehru on another. Even today look at how PM Modi gets howled at by the 'sickular' politicians like Mamta, Lalu, Mulayam, Rahul Gandhi..all so called Hindus and of course the Communist comrades..

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Per Swamiji 'India's life blood is religion'; religion based on renunciation and service..religion of realization, not just words. So any solution for India, must include the religion aspect.

 

That said, the other Swamy (Dr. Subramanian Swamy -- contemporary politician and BJP MP) is right..economy is in in bad shape, Rupee is on tumble, Demonetization drive in 2016 was a demon (pun intended)...

And in the middle of all this doom and gloom, you want to rev up the Hindus?

I'd say do something concrete about the Ram Mandir issue.

Dont worry if its via Government of India's domain (ex-PM PV Narsimha Rao paved the path for it in 1994) or via Parliament's Ordinance brought in by the ruling BJP or by a judgement of SCOI (Supreme Court of India)..Just take a step..and see how the Hindus unite.

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Then again, in the long term, India's education system needs a complete re-haul..I have a lot to say about that in my activism around Social Entrepreneurship and Education in particular.

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Education in India must be 'Indianized' with Sanskrit as mandatory subject and Scriptural study.

And in that process, re-write all of current day History textbooks with the proper version of History, not the namby-pamby watered down History written by foreigners; in this start with NCERT textbooks. They are the most widely used books in India's school system today.

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Noted activist Rajiv Malhotra is a good scholar of India and Education. I think he is a good candidate to chair some sort of commission to re-write NCERT books; well if not him, then someone equally erudite and passionate should lead the project. I would be happy to if I am allowed. This website is a small attempt by me to spread the awareness in this matter.

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Last but not least, to end this article, here is a lecture by Dr Chandraprkash Dwivedi..the one who created the series 'Chanakya' TV series in early 90s. Take a look..

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