Hindus are under siege: Dr Subramanian Swamy
Sunday, 08.26.2007, 11:29pm (GMT-7)


India Post News Service

NEW JERSEY: Hindus in India should vote as a Hindu block to counter the Muslim and Christian vote banks which have been cultivated by political leaders in India, said former Indian Cabinet minister Dr. Subramanian Swamy. This was one of the many solutions Swamy offers to counter what he calls "the siege" that Hindus are under in India. Giving a talk on 'Hindus Under Siege' - a topic on which he has also written a book - at the Dwarakadhish Temple in Parlin, New Jersey, Swamy said, "Muslims and Christians vote as a block, so Hindus should also do the same.

To bring about political change, people's resolve is important because it is they who make the leaders." Swamy, who is currently fighting legal and political battles in India to save Hindu temples from government interference; the preservation of the Rama Setu (the bridge Lord Rama is known to have built between India and (Sri) Lanka); and restoration of the dignity of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, who was implicated in a murder and incarcerated by the previous Jayalalitha government in Tamil Nadu, has taken on a crusading role to reverse the severe anti-Hindu tendency of political leaders and mainstream media in India.

Having been in the US over the last two months as a visiting professor at Harvard University, he addressed the Indian American community in New Jersey and the Hindu Sangathan Diwas celebrations in Queens, New York over the weekend of Aug 18-19. According to Swamy, the biggest problem facing India today is religious conversions.

"It is always the Hindus that are converted to Christians or Muslims," Swamy pointed out. Why is it that one never hears of Muslims or Christians being converted to Hindus? That is because the government immediately intervenes to stop such conversions." Swamy said that all kinds of Western riff-raff are coming to India to undertake mass conversions of Hindus and the Indian government is doing nothing to stop it.

"These indiscriminate conversions of Hindus are a key dimension of the siege," he said. Another aspect of Hindu denigration, Swamy pointed out was the misrepresentation of Hindus and Hinduism in text books in countries like the US. The next is the rubbishing of Hindu religious icons, he said, citing the example of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi. Swamy pointed out that in India, only Hindu temples are subject to controls under the law - under the Hindu Temple and Charitable Trust Act -- while all other religious institutions are completely autonomous.

He said that only 6 percent of the temple income (Hundi collections and donations) is utilized for the upkeep of the temples, while the government takes away 94 percent of the money given to temples by Hindu devotees, for subsidizing Mosques and giving Muslims Hajj subsidies; and for Church renovations. The reason the governments get away with such injustice is because there is no united protest from Hindus, said Swamy. To show how a little protest and a united front can go a long way, Swamy cited the example of how the sacred Tirumala Hills were saved from government take over when Hindu religious leaders led a protest against the move.

"The government of Andhra Pradesh had made a move to take over four of the seven Tirumala hills in Tirupati, which house the sacred Balaji Temple. But they had to quickly withdraw their move when Swami Dayanand Saraswati rallied a huge protest. So, all we need is a little protest and they will fall in line," he said. On the Rama Setu issue, Swamy said he is fighting a legal suit to stop its destruction to make way for the Sethusamudram tunnel project as proposed by the government of India. Having received a stay from the Supreme Court, Swamy assured, "Nobody can touch the Rama Setu, and I can assure you that. It is sacred to Hindus and the Lord himself is there to protect it." In order to fight the anti-Hindu forces, it was not enough for Hindus to merely affirm their Hindu identity by visiting temples and celebrating Hindu festivals like Diwali, he said.

"That is no enough. All tormentors of Hindus in India are Hindus themselves. It is the politicians who do this for votes. If you want a genuinely secular government, Hindus must unite. They should follow a Hindu agenda." Elaborating on the Hindu agenda, Swamy said, "First and foremost we need to be clear about our identity. We are an ancient Hindu nation and all others living here have to acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus." Second, he said, Hindus have to develop a common language.

"Hindi as the national language is doing well. However, the base for most Indian languages is Sanskrit. Start learning Sanskrit and make it a vehicle to connect all Hindus," he exhorted. Swamy further said that NASA too had concluded in its journal that Sanskrit was the most perfect language to use as a medium for the preservation of its artificial intelligence.

Third on the agenda, Swamy said, was to learn the correct history of India. He said it was not true to say that India had been ruled and subjugated by foreign rulers over the centuries. "India is the only country where despite the Islamic and British rulers over more than a thousand years, has retained its Hindu identity. Hindus could never be subdued. We are the only ones who successfully fought outsiders." Lastly, he said, Hindus should adopt the concept of retaliation to deal with terrorism, especially in Kashmir.

"You cannot deal with terrorists with reason, the only way is to retaliate," he reiterated. Following the talk, a short film on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits, who have been languishing as refugees in their own country for more than a decade now, was shown to the gathering. The Q&A session that followed reflected the concern the audience felt over the potential threat to Hindus in India.

SRIREKHA N. CHAKRAVARTY