Recently, an individual named Amir Khan, using a UK-based email address, wrote to us, suggesting that Hindu Dharma is undergoing a decline, and provided a rather arrogant analysis of the presumed underlying reasons. Our initial response can be accessed here.
However, recognizing the need for a more thorough response to address specific points raised in his note, we present this opinion piece as our second reply. Following our response, you’ll find Khan’s unvarnished analysis outlining why he perceives Hindu Dharma to be in a steep decline.
Hindudvesha Response No. 2
Dear Mr. Amir Khan,
Thank you for exposing your ignorance of Hinduism, and your devotion to Islamist stereotypes of the more intellectual religious traditions, such as Hinduism. You write well; it’s just too bad that you are using it to advance medieval interests.
It is eminently clear that You understand little about Hindus or Hinduism except what you have been taught by maulvis in sermons. And that, my friend, is wrong and repulsive on purpose: you have to be misled to be a good soldier of Allah. Since you don’t know any Hindus with whom you can discuss your prejudices freely, let me give it a try.
Individual freedom and pluralism built into Hinduism are strengths, not weaknesses. That’s why Hindus run Google and Microsoft while Muslims refuse to educate girls in anything except the Quran in Arabic. Indian Muslims struggle with poverty because they shun modern education. Most Islamic theocracies including Pakistan are oppressive and backward.
As far as Hindus’ survival skills, we are the only ancient civilization still alive and well. Your dreams of Hinduism collapsing on itself aren’t going anywhere. It is because we can reinvent ourselves and adapt to changing externalities quickly. The more that people like you, Thenmozhi Soudarrajan, Gurpatwant Singh, Pieter Friedrich, C J Werleman, and various Islamists, attack Hindus, the more you inspire us to organize, unite, and resist as always.
The Hindu spiritual system is complex to the casual foreign observer but extremely simple to the practitioner. You can have any relationship with God that you as an individual prefer, and still be sure that you are with the one and only nirguna Brahman. You can live your life according to your individual conscience and incur the consequences (positive or negative) thereof. Yet you can thrive in the modern world as a modern person and contribute to the fullest. In India, it is only the Muslims that drag their feet in economic progress. All the other religions, without exception, follow the Hindus’ lead and participate in building their own country.
Muslims on the other hand are tied to their medieval, violent scriptures. Not only are your sects mortal enemies, you also cannot identify with any country. Your world begins and ends with Allah. Your holy books cannot reflect the times, but our holy books are to be interpreted by wise men according to place, time, and circumstances. Your rigidity is a negative, not a plus.
An example of the rigidity is your relatively high birth rate, especially among the uneducated masses. You may think that it will allow you to take over the world in time. But Western-style democracies (including India) will not allow Islamist values to take over. More likely they will change the voting qualifications to prevent a slide back to the Middle Ages.
All that being said, we Hindus do not think that we are perfect. We know that there are social attributes that need to be improved, and we are moving rapidly to fix them. For example, we moved quickly to accept a modernized family law. Our leading organizations such as RSS as well as our government are determined to eliminate caste-based differences. Our women have made staggering progress in the workplace in two generations. And so on.
To summarize, Hindus are adaptable and creative whereas Muslims are frozen and dogmatic. In the world that’s coming, being inflexible can be fatal. So many Muslim resistance (aka terrorist) movements have already been brutalized in this century. You need to make a real effort to escape the fanatical mullahs and modernize your civilization.
Amir Khan’s email (as received)
Dear Hindudvesha,
Below are the reasons for the downfall of Hindus, Hinduism and India. look forward to debating this in further detail.
Many of Hinduisms doctrinal beliefs and laws are not in conformity with higher eternal truths and reality, since they lack divine legitimacy, its core ideas are not focused on a single immutable truth, this singularity is neither doctrinal , nor ritualistic, for this reason there is no concept or virtue of congregational prayer or other forms of worship. Hinduism promotes the individual only, it is a individualistic religion, its ideas ,beliefs, practices and social norms all lack societal virtues, it may explain why India historically has been ruled by so many small competing independent kingdoms, in comparison to Muslims who were able to establish some of the largest unified empires in History, for this reason in India no one can care less about anyone else, everyone is concerned with just him/herself, a cursory study of Indian Hindu society today will reflect this, gated secure housing communities, massive palaces with shanty towns, low rates of charity, little to no interaction between the wealthy and the poor etc.
Also the belief in Karma has made Hindus docile, lethargic and inactive, for this reason majority of the Hindu population has continued to suffer their misery and humiliation as a predestined part of life’s struggles.
On the other hand, the Monotheist faiths take legitimacy from a all-powerful creator, ,who is also legislator for their respective divine books, whose truths are eternally binding, in Hinduism it is the opposite , its beliefs and ideas have been thought out by fallible beings, regardless of their erudition, wisdom and intelligence, being fallible they are bound to make errors, for this reason Hindu scriptures have been revised and abrogated, Hindu society has been doing this from the beginning. Many of the ideological and Socio cultural flaws inherent within Hindu society today are a direct effect of these flawed teachings of the Hindu scriptures.
This lack of Hinduism to galvanise its practitioners on to a single immutable truth, as we see in the Abrahamic traditions has led to its downfall, every aspect of Hindu society has been effected as a result, in Hinduism there is no obligation to believe in anything, you can believe in whatever you like, and still be called Hindu, or Dharmic, for this reason both animate and inanimate objects have been worshipped, for this reason also Hindu society has been prone to accept almost every kind of thought, ideology and religion that has entered the region. Hinduism cannot be made uniform in its beliefs and practices, there is to much diversity of thought for this ever to happen.
i personally have never met a single Hindu, learned or layman who has been able to expound to me what Hinduism is clearly, some have said it is a way of life, others a eternal religion, others a philosophy, others still a thinking and wisdom tradition, and others spiritual tradition etc.
It can be said with some certainty that Hinduism and India will be defeated and subjugated once again within the next few decades, Pagan, Polytheistic and Idolatrous cultures will never have legitimacy and dominance. They have lost their validity and credence with the arrival of the Abrahamic faiths, especially Islam which is the last, final and pure message as expounded by all the Abrahamic faiths. the Hindutva brigade knows very well their defeat will be at the hands of the Muslims, it is something Muslims know very well and are prepared whenever such a act takes place, , but this time when their defeat does take place, it will be a total subjugation, humiliation of Hindus, the result will be the shock and misery will lead to most Hindus losing their faith and trust in Hinduism itself. Hindus will be made subordinate by force, or by willingness! the ink has dried and there is nothing more left to say!
i also wish to ask you the reasons why many Indians, Hindus in General and Brahmins in particular, and i would say in a rather prejudiced manner seek to vilify, castigate, demean and caricaturise Indian Muslim History , in all its various parameters, from its historical, cultural, literary, to its religious and dogmatic, in my dealings with many Indian Hindus, among British Hindus also these last 5 years i have found vast majority to be very prejudiced in regards Muslims of South Asian descent, sometimes bordering on the fanatic, personally i believe most are ridden with feelings of deep inferiority, due to the long rule of various Muslim dynasties in India, they have a socio cultural narrative which they wish to implant throughout India today, as is being done by the current ruling BJP and its ideological affiliates, this nationalistic discourse of the Hindutva breed has its roots within the scriptures , as much of Hinduisms society, culture and dogma has been formed by the scriptures, either doctrinally from the Vedas or the legal as from the Manusmriti, as are the historical boundaries of India which have also been delineated within the Manusmriti, as according to it west of Hindu Kush encompasses ancient Bharat, it is no surprise than that most right wing Hindu groups have this idea of Akhand Bharat, which they religiously believe in, and as many Muslim invaders of the past came directly from Central Asia, it is no surprise most even today view them as outsiders, invaders, pillagers etc, no surprise than that they are fond of carrying out character assassinations of Muslim personalities of the past who do not conform to their particular brand of socio cultural nationalistic discourse, most of which is based on religious dogma, in short Hindus have never been able to accept that a people with a foreign ideology and foreign gene pool, Muslims in particular, have ruled them for so many centuries, established strong and wealthy dynasties throughout India and left their legacy throughout the length and breadth of India today, as we see in Indias dress,food,architecture, literary traditions, music etc , no wonder Hindus are know seeking to fill these feelings of inferiority complex, envy, hatred and jealousy by harking back to a alleged pre historical “golden age”, in which there were space ships, nuclear weapons, internet, Aeroplanes, the latest scientific and technological inventions, much of which is based on myth.
also, don’t you think Hinduism itself is to blame for the downfall of Hindus and India and their continual subordination by Foreign Powers, the Caste System, Socio Cultural and religious values the Scriptures perpetuate Afterall has doctrinal basis within Hinduism?
kind regards
Amir
