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There is a need to be careful here Re: Religious unity
I have been a bystander - sort of lurking in the darks - and have been
follwoing this discussion on SRH re-org for sometime. But the follwoing
from an otherwise sober Sundaresan caught my eye - the line of argument
that is -
Vidyasankar Sundaresan (vidya@cco.caltech.edu) wrote:
: vijia@pop.jaring.my (Singam) wrote:
<...deletions.....>
: >
: >The land of Hindustan has seen the evolution of a variety of
: >religious/social schools, some of which are happy to identify with the
: >exisiting schools while others choose to claim exclusivity.
: Your statement shows that there is strong connection between the land of
: Hindustan and those who consider themselves Hindus. What about those who
: have no real connection to the land of Hindustan, but follow the teachings
: of a religious leader from Hindustan? Are they also Hindus? Do we have the
: right to force them to call themselves Hindus also? These questions have
: particular relevance in the light of SRV, discussed below.
It is this argument which is used by the BJPites in calling all from
Hindustan Hindus - which many from India oppose - since we rightly or
wrongly consider the word 'hindu' to have religious connotations. It is
a trap which people better watch out for.
<...lines...deleted...>
: Briefly, the reason for not including the
: word hindu was that there are people in the world who have come to consider
: themselves part of a vaishnava sampradaya. But they may not be equally
: comfortable with calling themselves hindu. After all, the very word Hindu is
: only something that we have grown comfortable with. We have no right to expect
: others to also feel so. On the other hand, those vaishnavas who are hindu have
: no such problems. In order to accomodate all people, whether they thought of
: themselves as hindu or otherwise, the simple name of SRV was used.
<...some more lines deleted...>
: Getting back to the applicability of the word Hindu to those who are not from
: Hindustan but follow a religious leader from Hindustan. During the discussions
: about SRV, much was made about ISKCON followers being Hindus or not. One
: particular ISKCON follower said she did not consider herself Hindu. If we are
: to insist that she must call herself Hindu, against her own personal
: preference,
<..a line deleted thru oversight...>
: Kumarajiva and Santirakshita must call themselves Hindu also. After all, these
: teachers were also from the land of Hindustan. That would make a majority of
: Sri Lankans, Thais, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese into Hindus.
It is precisely this argument which is used by the BJPites. They use the
term/word hindu to denote all those who are from Hindustan(India) -
whihc is bitterly opposed by many.
But then as they say wonders would never cease - I never thought I would
be seeing the day when the ideas and thought sof the BJP and its
affiliates are echoed by people one would consider to be fairly liberal!
-Chandrasekhar
