However,
Hinduism is a pluralistic religion quite unlike exclusive
monotheistic religions that can easily create a fundamentalism of
One God, One Savior and One Book. There is no history of Hindu
Jihad, nor of any Hindu terrorist activity comparable to that of
many Islamic groups. There is similarly no comparable Hindu
missionary aggression as that of the Christians. The fear of Hindu
militancy is more a fear of Hindu activism by groups that profit
from a lack of Hindu political activity, mainly leftist and
communist groups in India.
On the contrary, it is communist
youth gangs who attack Hindu sadhus in Bengal, and it is Hindu
workers who are murdered in Kerala under a communist - dominated
state governments. There clearly
is a point between Hindu passivity that has no political activity,
and an imagined fascist Hindu militancy that has probably never
existed. There obviously can be a Hindu activism that is Dharmic but
does not go the extreme of a militant fundamentalism.
The idea that Hindu activism has to
be avoided so as to prevent Hindu militancy, is like saying a person
who has been beat up should not be allowed to stand up on his feet
again because he is likely to become an aggressor like the person
who trampled him down in the first place. Only Hindus seem to be
willing to accept this politics of masochism. But they should at
least recognize that no other group in the world does, nor did
Hindus in classical India. |