 |
| The
Hindu Phenomenon |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE
NEHRUVIAN FRAMEWORK
|
|
|
| This
un-Hindu disregard for power, economic and military, and the
illusory belief that social equity is possible in conditions of
economic weakness is also the product of minds nurtured in the
tradition of Chaitanya's Bhakti movement which Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee criticized in Anandmath. It is not an accident either
that this tradition among Hindus has weakened since independence, as
it weakened among the Sikhs when they battled the Mughals and the
Afghans, or that it is invoked by all those who swear by a composite
culture and are alarmed at the reintroduction of the Kshatriya
element in the urban Hindu's personality. In my view, the second
phase of the freedom struggle, the struggle to regain its Hindu
identity, will involve a reconstitution of the fragmented Hindu
personality along lines different from the one pursued so far, so
that the missing Kshatriya constituent of the old Hindu personality
is restored. As for secularism, supposedly the third leg of the
Nehruvian tripod, two points have to be made. The first is the usual
one, which is that Hinduism is tolerant and, therefore, secular.
This is valid and it is sheer dishonesty or naivete to suggest, as
is being widely suggested these days, that Hinduism can admit of
theocracy. That is a Muslim privilege which no one else can
appropriate.
|
|
[ Back ] [ Hindu Phenomenon ] [ Up ] [ Next ]
|
|
|
| About
The Nehruvian Framework |
|
|
|
|
