Dear Karan Thapar,
In reference to your article in Hindustan Times dated March 04, 2018.
According to Oxford dictionary Dharma is “The eternal law of cosmos inherent in the very true nature of things.” According to the supreme court verdict in the case of Manohar Joshi v/s Nitin Patel, “Hinduism means the culture of all the people of India as a whole.”
I hope you are not ignorant of these facts. The speech of Dr. Mohan Bhagwat echoes the same underline fact. I hope you very well know that Hinduism is not a religion like other Abrahamic religions. When you put Hinduism in your narrow definition, it doesn’t cut any ice with me too.
When you kowtow to Darwin and put your blind faith in his hypothetical theory, you insult the humanity to much extent. It’s a slander to the whole mankind and especially me because my ancestors taught me that we are “अमृतस्य पुत्राः”, including you.
If I have to put blind faith in someone, I will put it on who says that I am the immortal soul.
If today we are Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis or atheists, it is the manifestation of unity in diversity as rightly said by Dr. Mohan Bhagwat in his speech. He says that Indian Dharma is the Dharma of Mankind, Brotherhood, Universal and Catholic in the literary sense. Today, the world calls it Hindu Dharma. I am unable to understand what is fatuous, mistaken and offensive which you have pointed in your article. I hope you are very much aware that he said Hindu dharma is the Dharma of humanity hence every Hindu is my brother. I think, either you are mistaken in understanding his speech or your hidden agendas not allowing you to see the limpid truth.
Now I will come to your concept of mother and motherland. I would like to tell you that children of India learn “माता भूमि पुत्रोहं पृथिव्या:” from thousand and thousand of years and revere this land as mother. I hope you would not propose that a soldier is ready to die for this motherland just because of the salary he/she gets. Is it not an enough testament to you to prove that the love of motherland is also altogether different thing. My dear, sort of ideology you are trying to infuse in the minds of the people of this country is dumb clear. But I promise you; you will fail miserably.
Finally, if Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Shaivites, Vaishnav, Charvaks, Ramanandis, Nagas, Dadupanthis, Kabirpanthis, Shaaktas, Sankhya Margis, Atheists, Animists consider this land as their Motherland, then they are children of this sacred land. Hence, are Hindus, and evidently, any of them does not deny any individuality or freedom, whether your vested interests could appreciate that or not.
