One of the primary issues of the 2024 national election campaign has become Sanatana Dharma. The BJP accuses the Opposition of insulting Sanatana Dharma. The Opposition rebuts this by saying that the BJP is deliberately politicising the issue, and misguiding ordinary voters. Elections will come and go. Political parties will win and lose. But in a country where the overwhelming majority is Hindu, the debate is one of pivotal importance, transcending transient political dividends.
It has a bearing on the very nature of Sanatana Dharma, its evolution, its philosophical wisdom, its inherently eclectic and inclusive character, and all the factors which make it different from Abrahamic faiths.
Let me clarify at the outset that I am a proud Hindu. The number of books I have written on the Hindu faith, and the sheer profundity of its thought as well as the remarkable achievements of Hindu civilisation which forms the foundational period of our history, bears testimony to this. My real worry, however, is that this acrimonious political wrangling on Sanatana Dharma could reduce this great religion to a new level of fundamentalist illiteracy. And such a consequence goes far beyond the immediate political fortunes of expedient politicians.
The crux of the matter is: what is Sanatan Dharma? Is it an unchanging monolith? Is it compiled in a single text, like the Bible or Koran, which cannot be transgressed by believers? Is it written in stone, to be interpreted by one Pope or Ayatollah? Or, has it evolved to be what it is precisely because it is none of the above?
It is exceptionally significant that in its entire history, not a single Hindu has been burnt on the stake or killed for blasphemy, as is not uncommon in some other faiths. What this means is that Sanatana Dharma has allowed for differences of opinion within its fold, including trenchant criticism of some aspects of it, by its own followers. The Hindu faith had not one but six systems of philosophy attempting to understand the truth behind the vast and bewildering plurality of the cosmos. Each of them had a different interpretation. In addition, there is the Lokayita Charvaka school, which cogently argued the materialist school of thought, denied the existence of God, and considered the Vedas, regarded as Shruti or revealed texts by many Hindus, as devoid of all sanctity.
But the Charvakas were not ostracised, or worse, beheaded for blasphemy. Instead, they enriched the dialogic debate within Hinduism and were countered in a civilised manner by those opposed to them. In the 8th century CE, Adi Shankaracharya, who is considered the ‘reviver’ of Hinduism, could say without fear: na mantro na teertham na veda na yajnah: neither mantras, nor pilgrimages, nor the Vedas or yajna (rituals), matter. What matters is: Chidananda roopam, Shivo hum, Shivo hum: bliss and awareness, I am Shiva, I am Shiva.
In many religions, the declaration of equating oneself with God would be considered blasphemy. For instance, in Persia, a Sufi mystic, Al Hallaj (858-922 CE), almost contemporaneous with Shankaracharya, was put to death for having the temerity to say: ‘Ana’l Haq: I am the Truth’. But not so in Sanatana Dharma.
The basic point is Sanatana Dharma is eternal for the grandeur of its philosophical vision, and not only for its religious practice; it is eternal for the diversity it allows for in thought, and not necessarily its rituals. Therefore, narrowing the interpretation of Sanatana Dharma to exclude all differences of opinion is distorting its greatness and, indeed, the very reason for survival.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what we see happening today. Anybody and everybody is ‘hurt’ by anyone who does not blindly endorse everything that is deemed by the ‘hurt’ to be a part of Sanatana Dharma, including those ills that urgently need reform, such as the pernicious caste system and gender disparity. If this is the criteria, then Veer Savarkar, the icon of Hindutva, would be hounded today, because he wrote extensively and consistently about what is wrong in the Hindu faith and practice. He called these the ‘seven fetters, including the misinformed religious sanction given to the caste system, inter-dining between castes, inter-caste marriage, gender disparity (beti-bandi) and untouchability’. So would Dr Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Vivekananda and Jotibhai Phule.
The language used by Udhayanidhi Stalin against Sanatana Dharma—as I have written strongly about before—is abominable and unpardonable. But the original inspiration for the revolt against the social evils that were sanctioned by the upper castes against ‘inferior castes’, as part of Hindu religious practice, in Tamil Nadu came from E.V. Periyar, who is the ideological inspiration for both the DMK and the AIADMK. The language of Udhayanidhi was emphatically wrong, but the idea behind it of attacking the discrimination, oppression and exploitation of Dalits and the backward classes, is still valid, especially in Tamil Nadu where 70 per cent of Hindus are of the backward classes and 20 per cent are Dalits.
Tamil Nadu is the very citadel of the Hindu faith. The people of the state have consistently voted for the DMK or the Anna DMK. Are they lesser Hindus for that? This attempt to foist a northern India-centric definition of Sanatana Dharma on the South, is treading on very dangerous grounds.
The big looming challenge before us is to ensure that Sanatana Dharma does not acquire, due to the misguided extremism of some Hindus, the very inflexible features of Abrahamic faiths—for which otherwise I have great respect—which they decry. This challenge is beyond immediate politics. It relates to the very survival of what makes Sanatana Dharma the great faith it is.
The author is a former diplomat, an author and a politician. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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