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| The
Hindu Phenomenon |
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THE
CIVILIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
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do I think in terms of a whole millennium which, on the face of it,
is fragmented at so many points? My reason is simple. The beginning
of the millennium witnessed the beginning of the assault on Hindu
India and as we approach its end, we can clearly see the approach of
the end of that assault. Only on a superficial, so- called rational,
view can it be regarded as an accident that the millennium which
began with the destruction of hundreds and thousands of our temples
should be drawing towards a close amidst an unprecedented upsurge on
the question of the construction of a Ram temple at a site millions
of ordinary Hindus regard as the avatar's janambhoomi. For me as an
analyst, the condemnation of the campaign in favour of the temple as
Hindu communalism, obscurantism, relapse into
medievalism and fascism is as besides the point as
condemnation of the destruction of Hindu temples, including the
famous Somnath, by Mahmud Ghaznavi at the beginning of the eleventh
century. As a Hindu, I, of course, welcome the former and feel
saddened by the memory of the latter. But analysis is a different
matter altogether. It has to be clinical in its rigour. By that
yardstick, the first is an expression of Hindu resurgence and the
second of the second Islamic explosion centred on Central Asia, as
the first was centred on Arabia.
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