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The Emerging National Vision

Sita Ram Goel

VOICE OF INDIA
2/18, Ansari Road,
New Delhi - 110 002.

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1st Edn.: 1986
Pdf 2015.

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Speech delivered by Sri Sita Ram Goel on Sunday the 4 th December,

1983 at the Yogakshema monthly meeting at Calcutta.

Dr. Dhar, Mr. Ghosh and Friends,*

What Mr. Ghosh has said about me has added to my
diffidence which was there from the very beginning
because I am not used to public speaking. I do not know if I
am a good writer at all. But I know it for sure that I am a
very poor speaker. You will, therefore, forgive me if I am
somewhat slipshod, if I become abrupt and incoherent at
times.
In fact, it would have been in the fitness of things if the
speaker today had been our friend Sri Ram Swarup,
because whatever I have written and whatever I have to
say today really comes from him. He gives me the seedideas which sprout into my articles, long and short. He
gives me the perspective. He gives me the framework of my
thought. Only the language is mine. The language also
would have been much better if it was his own.
My language becomes sharp at times; it annoys people. He
has a way of saying things in a firm but polite manner,
which discipline I have never been able to acquire.
I wonder if he will be able to add some comments at the end
of this meeting.
Now, coming to the subject of today, that is, the
Emerging National Vision, I feel that perhaps it is
presumptuous on my part to speak about the National
Vision before an audience from Bengal, particularly before
an audience from this city of Calcutta. It was in this land of
Bengal, it was in this city of Calcutta in the opening
decades of this century that we obtained a clear picture of
the National Vision. You have only to read the works of
Bankim Chandra, Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo and
listen to the songs of Rabindranath in order to know what
* Dr. Sujit Dhar and Shri Amitav Ghosh.

The Emerging National Vision

that National Vision was, as also to understand what that

Vision is likely to be when it revives and is reaffirmed.
I have nothing to add to what these great men have written
and expounded and what they have shown in their own
lives. I am only a poor interpreter of their Vision as it
should unfold, as it should emerge in the present situation.
The National Vision which was expounded by these
great men rose to its heights, reached a high watermark,
attained its acme in the Swadeshi Movement. The same
imperialist forces, that is, Islamic imperialism (or the
residues of Islamic imperialism) and British imperialism had
combined to partition Bengal, to partition a hand which
God had made one. But at that time, the conspiracy was
frustrated. The game was defeated because the National
Vision was very clear, very firm. In fact, the Swadeshi
Movement was the beginning in real earnest of the
National struggle for freedom which was earlier confined to
some distinguished people meeting together and passing a
number of resolutions. It was for the first time that India
witnessed in the history of the freedom movement a mass
mobilization of her people. The echoes of the Swadeshi
Movement were heard far and wide, all over India,
particularly in Maharashtra and the Punjab, as also the
mantras that were given during the Swadeshi Movement
the mantra of Swadeshi, the mantra of Swarajya, the mantra
of Vande Mataram which pulsated with all the aspirations
of an awakened nation. That was a complete picture of the
National Vision as it had to be.
But, unfortunately, in the hands of the latter-day
leadership, in the later phases of the freedom struggle, that
Vision got diluted. It was obscured by certain other visions.
It lost its clarity and the result was the tragedy of partition.
We know what happened and how the events unfolded.
Bengal has suffered the most due to that tragedy. The
wounds which Bengal has suffered and which have now
become running soreswell, I do not have to dwell on the

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subject. You know it all. I have only to point out, it is my

painful duty to point out, that this land of Bengal which
has suffered so much due to the loss of the National Vision
has neglected that Vision to a greater extent than the rest
of this country. It is, therefore, the duty of Bengal to
resurrect that Vision, to recover that vision, to reaffirm that
Vision, and thus reclaim its lost leadership of India.
Bengal today feels neglected. But the fault is not of the
rest of India. The fault lies with Bengal itself. Bengal has
neglected its own heritage. Bengal has ignored its own
Vision which it had once given to the whole of India and
which, in turn, had given to Bengal the leadership of India.
I need not go into details. You know what is happening in
Bengal today. It is not only the perspective but also the
personal character of its great men which is being
questioned. As I read the various debates going on in the
Bengali press, in Bengali novels and other writings,
I am really pained. How can things go down to such a low
level in a land which had once raised India to such great
heights?
What was that National Vision which these great men
gave us and which inspired India to launch such a great
struggle for freedom? Remember the revolutionaries which
India produced at that time. They were great men and
women, those revolutionaries who mounted the gallows
with the Gita in hand and with Vande Mataram on their
lips. They were not like the latter-day revolutionaries. I can
say with a full sense of responsibility that quite a few of the
latter-day revolutionaries sound like ordinary criminals.
The earlier revolutionaries were of a different character
because their Vision was of a different character.
What was that Vision? In a way, it was nothing new. It
was only a restatement in modern language, in a modern
setting, of the ancient Vedic Vision as unfolded in the
Vedas, in the Upanishads, in the Jainagama, in the
Tripitaka, in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, in the

The Emerging National Vision

Puranas, in the Dharmashastras and in the latter-day

poetry of saints and siddhas. We have had countless
spokesmen of that Vision throughout our history.
The first dimension of that Vision was that India was
the land of Sanatana Dharma. That was the first and
foremost point of that Vision. In fact, Sri Aurobindo had
said in his Uttarpara Speech that India would rise with the
rise of Sanatana Dharma, that India would sink if Sanatana
Dharma sank, and that India would die if it were at all
possible for Sanatana Dharma to die. This is not the
occasion for me to talk about Sanatana Dharma. All I want
to say is that Sanatana Dharma is a natural religion, that it
is in harmony with the development of human nature, with
the growth of human aspirations. It is not something
artificial like Christianity and Islam. It is not a set of
mechanical beliefs constructed by the outer mind of man
and imposed upon its followers.
The second dimension of that Vision was that of a vast
and variegated culture. According to adhara and adhikara,
the various sections of our population, various segments of
our society, various regions of our country, developed their
own culture, developed their own art, developed their own
literature. We have a vast literaturesacred, secular and
scientificwhich grew in different regions of this country,
in different social and cultural surroundings. We have a lot
of art, architecture, sculpture and music, etc. It is a vast
fabric, this art and literature. But its spirit is the spirit of
Sanatana Dharma. It is informed by Sanatana Dharma in
all its details. That was the second dimension of that
National Vision.
The third dimension of that Vision was that this great
society, the society which we describe as Hindu society
today, was reared on the basis of spirituality, on the basis of
Sanatana Dharma, on the basis of a great culture created
by Sanatana Dharma. The Varnashrama Dharma which
has shaped this great society has been corrupted today into

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a single English phrasethe Caste system which

everybody is busy accusing of all sorts of crimes. But it was
Varnashrama Dharma which created a complex social
system that has survived till today with vitality and vigour,
in spite of all vicissitudes of fortune, in spite of so many
foreign invasions, throughout these countless ages.
Varnashrama Dharma has been defended by all our great
men in recent times. It was defended by Swami Dayananda,
it was defended by Bankim Chandra, it was defended by
Vivekananda, it was defended by Mahatma Gandhi, by
Madan Mohan Malaviya, by Lokamanya Tilak. All these
great men have been unanimous that Varnashrama
Dharma has saved Hindu society from destructionthe
destruction which overtook so many societies outside India
at the hands of Christianity, Islam and Communism. That
was the third dimension of that National Vision.
The fourth dimension of that National Vision was that
this great society, this Hindu society, had a history of its
owna history of how this society arose, how it developed,
how it created a spirituality which was akin to the
spirituality of many ancient nations like Greece, Rome,
China, Egypt, Persia. We were told that history of India was
the history of Hindu society, of Hindu culture, of Hindu
spirituality, that it was the history of the Hindu nation and
not the history of foreign invaders as we are being
taught today. That was the fourth dimension of that
National Vision.
And the last dimension which these great men stressed,
which they affirmed again and again, was that this land of
Bharatavarsha was one indivisible whole; that it was the
cradle of Hindu society, of Hindu culture, of Hindu
spirituality; that it was the homeland of the Hindu nation;
and that other communities were welcome to live in this
land provided they came to terms with Hindu society
and Hindu culture. They did not think in terms of
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan and Bangladesh. Today

The Emerging National Vision

Bharatavarsha stands divided into several units which are

not only politically but also culturally hostile to each other
and we seem to have become reconciled to that division.
But the Vision that was given to us by our great men was
that of Bharatavarsha as an indivisible whole, not only
geographically but also culturally. That Vision rose before
us during the Swadeshi Movement, in the first decade of
this century.
There were some other visions also struggling for
supremacy at the same time. Those other visions had an
advantage on their side because of the educational system
provided by the British, imposed on us by the British. This
was the same educational system which we have in this
country today. This educational system has been
sponsoring and spreading those other visions of India.
There was the vision of Islamic imperialism. It said that
India like pre-Islamic Arabia and pre-Islamic Persia and
like so many other ancient lands conquered by Islam, was a
land of darkness. It said that India had to be brought to the
light of Islam, converted into a Dar-ul-Islam.
Later on, another vision was provided by Christian
imperialism. It also said that India was a land of darkness,
of heathenism, of paganism, of unbelievers. It said that the
light of Christianity had to be brought to India, that India
had to be converted into a land of Christ.
A third vision came to us in the shape of the white
mans burden. This vision shared something of the
crusading zeal of Islamic and Christian imperialism. But it
spoke in the language of rationalism and humanism. It
spoke in an enlightened language. It said that India was a
land of poor, illiterate, down-trodden, exploited and
emasculated human beings who had to be given bread,
who had to be educated, who had to be given health, who
had to be given some sort of self-confidence by the British
mentors or by Western culture imported from this foreign
country or that.

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Later still, another imperialist vision came from the

West in the shape of communism. This vision said that
India was a colonial and semi-colonial society, divided into
exploiting and exploited classes, into the oppressors and
the oppressed and that it was the duty of the Communist
Party to liberate India from all this sloth and exploitation,
this deadening of the forces of production. This was the
fourth imperialist vision of India.
The cumulative effect of all these imperialist visions
combining together has been rather serious, rather
disastrous for us. Today the vision that prevails,
particularly amongst our ruling classes, amongst the
Hindu intellectuals, amongst the Hindu elite, is quite the
opposite of the National Vision provided by the Swadeshi
Movement, provided by our own great men.
Today we are told that Bharatavarsha is not one
indivisible whole, that it is not one country. We are told
that India is a subcontinent and that its division that has
taken place into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan and
Bangladesh is the natural outcome of various nationalities
struggling for their own pieces of homeland. As a result,
India can no more be claimed as its own homeland by any
particular society, least of all by the Hindu society.
Then we are told that the history of this sub-continent
is not the history of Hindu society, of the Hindu nation.
This country is now regarded as some sort of dharmashala
into which all sorts of invaders have poured in from the
West and the East and other directions. The history of India
has become the history of foreign invaders. So when you
look at the teaching of history in our universities, colleges
and schools, you find that there is an ancient Hindu period,
you find that there is a medieval Muslim period, and you
find that there is a modern British period. Now we are also
informed of a contemporary period, the post-independence
period, with its own architect and father.

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Next we are told that Indian society is not a

homogenous society. India, we are told, is multi-racial,
multi-national, multi-linguistic and multi many other
things. We are also told that Indian culture is not Hindu
culture, that it is a composite culture made out of many
cultures, indigenous and imported. It makes me laugh
sometimes. When we talk of Indian music, we find that it is
Hindu music. When we talk of Indian sculpture, we find
that it is Hindu sculpture. When we talk of Indian
architecture, we find that it is Hindu architecture except for
a few minor details added by foreign invaders. Indian
literature, almost ninety-nine percent of it, is Hindu
literature. All this is Hindu heritage. It was the Hindus who
created it, it is the Hindus who have sustained it. It is the
Hindus who are still adding to it, elaborating it and
expanding it. Yet, when it is pointed out that the culture of
this country is Hindu culture and that the history of this
culture is Hindu history, everyone seems to get annoyed.
People who talk of Hindu culture are accused of being
communalists.
But the strangest thing that has happened is that the
religion of this country is no more Sanatana Dharma.
Sanatana Dharma is now supposed to be some sort of a
primitive superstition. Some people take up Vedanta and
talk a lot about it. Some others take up the Gita and talk
about the Gita. Some others take up and talk about other
aspects of Sanatana Dharma, Yoga and so on. They acquire
name and fame, write books and give lectures. But when it
is pointed out that it was Sanatana Dharma which created
all this spirituality, all this philosophy, all these laws, all
this culture, not many people are prepared to accept it. A
new religion has taken the place of Sanatana Dharma. This
new religion is secularism.
We are now told that it will be through secularism that
India will become a united nation, that there will be
national integration on the basis of secularism. So we have

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a National Integration Council. It gives instructions to the

Ministry of Education that the history of India should be
re-written so that Muslim invaders of this country are not
regarded as foreigners, so that Islamic imperialism is not
regarded as something obnoxious, as something foreign, as
something which came from outside. We are now required
to accept Islam as an Indian religion, as a religion which
must have as much pride of place in India as her own
Sanatana Dharma. The logic has not yet been extended to
the so-called British period of our history. But tomorrow
there may be voices which demand that the British should
not be regarded as invaders and injurers because, after all,
they gave us English education, English literature,
hospitals, schools, colleges, roads and all sorts of modern
paraphernalia.
This is the state of things that is now prevailing in this
country. The National Vision which had arisen during the
Swadeshi Movement, which had mobilized the masses in
India and which had taken her ahead in the fight for
freedom, is now more or less completely eclipsed. It is not so
much eclipsed elsewhere in India as in Bengal or in Kerala
or in certain other parts where English education has
spread faster than in other places. This is the situation that
obtains today.
Let us take secularism. It is a concept which we have
imported from modern Europe. The Christian Church had
created a lot of bloodshed in Europe, 100 years wars and
200 years wars. A dark night had descended over Europe
with the coming of Christianity. Humanism, rationalism,
universalism and all other values which are known as
human values had been buried under the dead-weight of
Christianity. Some people in Europe started questioning
the character of Christianity, particularly the stranglehold
of the Church over the State. There was a revival of
humanism, rationalism and universalism due to Europes
contact with India, China and some other great ancient

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civilizations. There was a struggle against the Christian

Church and over a period of time the State was freed from
its stranglehold. It was this struggle which gave birth to the
concept of secularism in Europe. It was a very healthy
concept, particularly for those countries which were
suffering under the yoke of theocracy, under the inhuman
theology of Christianity. This is still a very healthy concept
for countries suffering under the yoke of Islam.
But in India today people prescribe secularism to Hindu
society which has never known any religious conflicts,
which has never known any religious strife. Recently I was
traveling in the Far East and met some Buddhist monks
from China. I said to them: Buddhism came to China from
outside. But you had ancient religions of your own. You
had Confucianism. You had Taoism. Did Buddhism come in
conflict with Confucianism, or Taoism? They said: No,
never. There was not a single instance of conflict because
Confucianism also came from the same deepest source of
the spirit, because Taoism also came from the same source
from which Sanatana Dharma springs, from which Jainism
springs, from which Vaishnavism springs. All these are
different names of the same spiritual message for mankind.
I also talked to some people in Japan in order to find out if
Buddhism came in conflict with Shintoism which is their
ancient religion. They also said, no, the two religions never
came into conflict. The two religions are co-existing in
mutual harmony till today. I met a taxi driver who was
quite an intelligent man. He said: I am both a Shintoist
and a Buddhist. So also in ancient Greece, in ancient
Rome, in the whole ancient world, all over Asia and
Europe. The world had never known any religious wars
before the rise of Christianity.
Religious wars started with the coming of Christianity.
They became very, very bloody with the rise of Islam. But
Europe had a wave of humanism, rationalism and
universalism which broke the stranglehold of Christianity

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over the State. That is how the concept of secularism arose.

As I have said, it was a very healthy concept in the context
of Europe. As a result of it, European society has traveled so
far, European science has developed, European technology
has developed, and the social welfare system for the people
of Europe has improved. All these things have come out of
the concept of secularism.
Hindu society, however, has always been a naturally
secular society. Hindu society has never known any
theocratic state. You take for instance any Hindu king.
You will never find a bigot who favoured this or that sect.
Personally he may have belonged to Buddhism or Jainism
or Vaishnavism or any other sect. But in his court, in his
kingdom, all religions were equally welcome, all religions
were equally patronised. In fact, it was the religious people
who patronised the king rather than being patronised by
him. It was not like the Archbishop of Canterbury who has
to wait on the king of England, the king being the Defender
of the Faith. The Hindu king had to go to rishis, munis and
sadhus in order to seek their advice.
It is in such a land, in such a society that the concept of
secularism has been imported from Europe. Not only that.
The concept of secularism has also been turned against
Hindu society. Today you know what secularism means.
Whenever the word secularism is uttered you can sense an
anti-Hindu animus. Secularism in India today means
denunciation of Hindu society, denunciation of Hindu
culture, denunciation of Hindu history. It means
denunciation of everything which is Hindu. The word
Hindu itself has become a dirty word. In the language of
secularism, Muslims are a minority, Christians are a
minority. But the Hindus are a brute majority. This is the
religion of secularism which is replacing Sanatana
Dharma. This is the new vision which has replaced the
vision of Sanatana Dharma, the vision of a society and a
culture and a history and other things based on Sanantana
Dharma.

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The excesses of this secularism, its anti-Hindu animus,

have gradually led to a wide-spread feeling among the
Hindus that there is something seriously wrong
somewhere. The so-called minorities have become more
and more aggressive under the protection of this
secularism. The Christian missionaries bring billions of
dollars into this country from the Defence and Intelligence
and other departments of the governments in Western
countries. They spend this mammoth finance for building
missions and churches and for making converts. The
light of Christianity is being spread. So also Islam. Ever
since petro-dollars have come into play, ever since the
Arab nations have become rich, Islam in India which had
got a little frightened after the partition in 1947, has
re-acquired its old self-confidence of the Muslim League
days. You have only to read the language press of Islam,
particularly the Urdu press, to witness the wave of
aggressive self-confidence on which Islamic imperialism is
riding at present.
It is due to all these circumstances, due to this seeing
through secularism, due to a renewed aggression from the
old imperialist forces which were lying dormant for some
time, that Hindu society had experienced some sort of
reawakening, some sort of resurgence. We find that Vishwa
Hindu Parshad is playing a leading role in consolidating
this resurgence, in giving leadership to this resurgence. But
I feel that this effort will not get completed, will not acquire
a strong core unless the National Vision of the Swadeshi
Movement days is recovered, resurrected, reaffirmed and
reinterpreted in the new situation. This is what I am trying
to do today in my own small measure.
The first thing we have to do to re-assert the National
Vision is to proclaim to the whole world, without any fear
or hesitation, that this ancient land, this Bharatavarsha is
one indivisible whole and that we do not recognize its
partition into Afghanistan, Pakistan, Hindustan and

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Bangladesh. It has often happened in the history of many

countries that certain imperialist forces have encroached
upon them and have run away with some parts of their
lands. We must be very clear in our minds that what are
known as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh today are
parts of the Hindu homeland and that we are going to
reclaim them. We should say it fearlessly that the
consolidation of Islamic imperialism, a thousand years of
Islamic aggression against India, in the shape of
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh is not going to be
tolerated, that sooner or later we shall undo this division of
the motherland, and that we shall reclaim our brethren
who have been alienated from us by Islamic imperialism.
Some of our people are now known as Muslims, some
are known as Christians. All these are our own people.
We have nothing against them. But we shall not tolerate
imperialism surviving in this country in the form of Islam or
in the form of Christianity. Islamic imperialism has been
defeated and dispersed. There is no place for Islam in India
today. Christian imperialism has been defeated and
dispersed. There is no place for Christianity in India today.
We have to say it all in very clear terms.
The second thing which we should say very clearly and
fearlessly is that the history of India is the history of Hindu
society, of the Hindu nation, and that we do not recognise
any Muslim or British period of this history. We do not
recognise any age of Mamluks or Khaljis or Tughlaks or
Lodis or Mughals. We shall instead read our history
in terms of our own heroes, in terms of an age of Prithvi Raj
Chauhan, an age of Rana Sanga, an age of Krishnadevaraya,
an age of Rana Pratap, an age of Shivaji and so on.
We shall not concede that there ever was a Muslim empire
in India. We shall instead interpret that period as a longdrawn-out war of national resistance, of national
liberation, in which Islamic imperialism was worsted.
Similarly, we shall not recognise any British viceroys or

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governor-general except as imperialist intruders.

The imperialist versions of Indian history which are being
taught at present in our schools and colleges have to go.
Take the case of the so-called Muslim empire in India.
Within a few years of its prophets death, Islam had
conquered large chunks of Asia and Africa. But it took it
70 long years to put its first step in India, another 500
years to reach Delhi, and a few hundred years more to
reach South India, Soon after, Islamic imperialism started
retreating before a national struggle for liberation.
It started folding up with the rise of Shivaji. So what we had
was a long drawn-out war, a prolonged national struggle
against Islamic imperialism. This war, this national
struggle should not be described as the Muslim conquest of
India or as the Muslim period of Indian history.
The third thing which we have to proclaim in order to
reaffirm the National Vision is that the national culture of
India is Hindu culture, the culture of Sanatana Dharma.
It is a vast and variegated culture. But at the same time it is
a culture which is natural to mankind. There is nothing
artificial about this culture, nothing which has been
constructed by the outer mind of man, nothing which has
been imposed by force as is the case with the cultures of
Christianity and Islam and Communism. Any culture
which is not prepared to come to terms with Hindu culture,
the culture of Sanatana Dharma, has to go. There is no
place for any alien culture to flourish on the soil of India in
the name of minority rights.
The fourth thing which we have to proclaim is that
Hindu society is the national society in India. This is a vast
society which has permitted endless expressions of human
nature, which has sanctioned all types of social traditions.
Today we are accused of neglecting our so-called tribals.
This is an accusation which is made against us very often.
But when you read Hindu history, you find that we never
interfered with the life-style of any segment of our society.

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We wrote 40 Dharmashastras in order to accommodate the

customs and traditions and institutions of various regions
and communities. Then we wrote 4000 commentaries on
the Dharmashastras adapting them to different jatis, to
different varnas, to different regions. So Hindu society is a
vast and complex society. Any community which is not
prepared to come to terms with Hindu society has no place
in India any more. We shall not permit such alien
communities to call themselves minorities and claim special
rights and privileges.
Finally, we have to proclaim that the only religion
which Hindu society recognizes, which has a place in
Bharatavarsha, is the natural spirituality of Sanatana
Dharma. It is a religion which accommodates all types of
human aspirations including atheism, agnosticism,
materialism. What it cannot accommodate is force and
fraud practised in the name of religion. Any religion which
wants to flourish in India has to come to term with the
spirituality of Sanatana Dharma. There is no place in India
today for ideologies like Islam and Christianity which
harbour imperialist ambitions.
This, then, is the Emerging National Vision. The whole
of Bharatavarsha is the Hindu homeland. The history of
Bharatavarsha is the history of Hindu society. The national
culture of Bharatavarsha is Hindu culture. And the
national religion of India is Sanatana Dharma. This is the
National Vision which we have to reaffirm.
There are certain implications of this affirmation which
we should hold clearly before our minds. Unless we are
clear in our minds, unless we are ideologically equipped,
unless we acquire knowledge about ourselves as well as
about the forces against which we have to fight, the contest
will be decided to our disadvantage. Several ideological
aggressions have been mounted against Hindu society,
against Hindu culture, against Sanatana Dharma in the
past as well as in the present. There is the ideological

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aggression from Christianity. There is the ideological

aggression from Islam. There is the ideological aggression
from Communism. We have taken a defensive posture
against all these aggressions. This will not do.
Today in India, a Hindu has only one parichaya, only
one name by which he is known. He is known as a
communalist. Islamic ideology, Christian ideology,
Communist ideologyall of them have made such
inroads that a Hindu is being called a communalist in his
own homeland. This is the ninth or the tenth wonder of
the world. I do not know how many wonders there are in
the world at present. But this is surely the greatest
wonder of the world. This had happened because Hindus
in their ignorance have recognised Islam and
Christianity as religions. This recognition has to be
withdrawn. This is the first implication of the Emerging
National Vision.
Today, by pretending that they are religions,
Christianity and Islam are claiming special rights,
special privileges, special protection. Take the case of
Islam. Its holy books are full of calls for crusades and
mass slaughter. Its history has been blood-soaked. Its
mosques have always been party offices and arsenals.
Yet it pretends that it is a religion. I am not going into
the deeper reasons for not regarding Islam and
Christianity as religions. The simple fact that both of
them divide humanity into mutually exclusive camps of
believers and unbelievers, Kafirs and Momins, is sufficient
to prove that they are not religions but only political
ideologies. They have to be rejected outright. No matter
how many libraries have been equipped in defence of these
ideologies, no matter how many tons of dogmatics,
polemics and apologetics have been marshalled, we have to
reject them. We have to proclaim from the house-tops that
we do not recognize Christianity and Islam as religions.
But we shall not acquire this courage unless we are

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convinced of the truth of what we have to say. And

conviction will not come to us unless we study these
so-called religions in depth. I have had an opportunity to
study Islam and Christianity under the guidance of Sri Ram
Swarup who has a deep knowledge of their so-called
scriptures and sacred traditions. There is a lot of theology
in these books, there is a lot of ideology. But there is no
spirituality in them. Can there be a religion without
spirituality? Religion has something to do with mans
spiritual quest, has something to do with mans soul,
with mans deeper drives, with mans larger and loftier
aspirations. But we find nothing of this sort in the books
of Christianity and Islam. What we find there is political
ideologies of aggression, what we find there is imperialist
ambitions of conquering and converting other people
by force.
The second implication of the Emerging National Vision
is that Muslims and Christians who have been forced into
the fold of alien ideologies, into the fold of imperialist
ideologies masquerading as religion, have to be brought
back to their ancestral fold. They are our own people.
When we reject Islam, we do not reject Muslims. When we
reject Christianity, we do not reject Christians. They are
our own flesh and blood. They have to be rescued from the
prison-houses of Islam and Christianity, from the dark
dungeons of deadening fanaticism.
These are the implications which we should understand
very clearly. Hindu society has to be ideologically
equipped. It has to know its own history, its own scriptures,
its own culture in depth and width, its own identity as a
nation. At the same time, it has to know from the horses
mouth, from the original sources the character of Islam and
Christianity, the character of Communism and the
character of modern materialism which is now coming to
us as American consumerism. Unless we have this
knowledge, the battle will not be really joined.

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The old enemies will use the old weapons over and over
again so long as Hindu society remains on the defensive.
They will go on calling us communalists, etc. Hindu society
has been on the defensive since 1920 when the Congress
took up the cause of Khilafat. Since then Islam and other
alien forces have been on the offensive. Islam has been
saying that it stands for monotheism while Hinduism
stands for polytheism, that it stands for a casteless society
while Hinduism stands for caste hierarchy, and so on. Now
if we do not know the character of Hindu society, the
character of Varnashrama Dharma and how this social
system has been our great saviour throughout our history,
we are taken in.
Very few people know that the Muslims in India have
always divided their own society into three separate
sections, apart from the fact that there are as many, if not
more, castes among the Muslims as among the Hindu. The
descendents of foreign invaders like the Arabs, the Turks
and the Persians are known among the Muslims as ashraf
which is the plural of sharif, which means the noble ones,
the exalted ones. The converts from the higher Hindu
castes like the Brahmins and Rajputs are knowns as ajlaf.
And the converts from the lower Hindu castes are known
as arzal which is the plural of razil, which means the
ignoble, the mean. This common language of casteism
among the Muslims we do not know. Therefore, when they
talk of Hindu society as caste-ridden and their own society
as casteless, we are taken in.
Again, take for instance this Islamic talk about
monotheism. This is a monstrous idea. It is not a spiritual
idea at all. It puts god above the cosmos and makes all
manifestation bereft of divinity. This is a theological idea.
This is an intellectual concept. But we have been trying to
prove all these days that we are also monotheists. We have
to know the spirituality of Sanatana Dharma as also the
ideology of Islam in order to see through monotheism and
to reject it as an intellectual bluff.

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An ideological battle has to be waged in order to avoid

the other battle, the physical battle. Societies which fail to
fight an ideological battle, which refuse to repel ideological
aggression, invite physical aggression sooner or later. If
ideological aggression is not stopped, a society gets taken
for granted and physical aggression follows. This is the law
of Nature. We did not fight against the ideological
aggression of the Muslim League which was later on joined
by the Communist Party of India. It was the CPI which
collected facts and figures and gave respectability to the
ideological aggression from Islam. I know it personally
because I was myself a communist at that time. And we
know what happened. Physical aggression followed. The
country was partitioned. Millions were rendered homeless,
millions were killed.
So, if we want to save our society from physical
aggression, from physical clashes, from street riots, from
bloodshed, we should take up this ideological battle
immediately. But we have to be equipped in order to fight
this battle. We have to know our own Hindu society, our
own Hindu culture, our own Hindu history, our own
Sanatana Dharma. We have also to know Islam and
Christianity and Communism from their own sources, from
the horses mouth. We should not have any private
versions of these alien ideologies. We should know them
as they are in themselves, as expounded by their own
spokesmen.
We Hindus have a very bad habit, a suicidal habit, of
finding in our own traditions, in our own scriptures,
whatever the alien ideologies claim for themselves. We try
to find Christianity in our scriptures, we try to find Islam in
our scriptures, we try to find Communism in our scriptures.
This is a very bad habit. We must know the enemy as he is.
Otherwise the ideological battle is not really joined.
Today in India, Christianity is ideologically equipped.
Over the last so many years, Christian missionaries have
been studying Hindu religion, Hindu society and Hindu

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culture and tearing them to bits. They know when and

where to attack, when and where to retreat. They know all
the strategic points. They know all the tactics. Islam has
not been studying our religion or society or culture. But it
knows that when it says that it stands for monotheism, that
it stands for equality, that it stands for human
brotherhood, the Hindu tends to run away. Whenever
Islam calls the Hindu a communalist, the Hindu runs away.
So far as its own ideology is concerned, Islam has a lot of
centres where Islam is taught in depth and detail.
A lot of finance is also available for these centers. New
Islamic universities are coming up. You may have read in
the newspapers that a 15 crore scheme has been made for
an Islamic Cultural Centre in New Delhi. Hidayatullah has
spoken about it. The money will come from the Islamic
Cooperative Bank floated by the Arabs. The Government of
India will also make a contribution.
But there is not a single Hindu centre worth the name
in India. We have lots of ashramas and mathas and some
publishing houses. We have many swamis and lots of talk
about Hindu religion and Hindu culture. But there is no
Hindu centre which develops Hindu scholarship, which
studies the whole range of Hindu heritage, which tries to
know and to make known Islam and Christianity and
Communism inside out. There is no Hindu centre which
can provide comparative studies and a clarity of vision and
which can equip us for an ideological battle. The National
Vision which is emerging has not only to be re-affirmed, it
has also to be ideologically equipped.
As I come to the end of my talk today, I should like to
add one more point. We should not see this ideological
battle as taking place in India alone. That will narrow
down our perspective. The ideological battle which is
taking place in India is part of a world-wide battle. We are
not alone. We also have our allies abroad. Our allies are
not foreign governments and foreign financial institutions.

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Our greatest ally is the indomitable and immortal human

spirit, the deeper culture of the human soul. The wave of
humanism, rationalism and universalism which has been
sweeping over the Western world is our strongest ally.
Christianity, for instance, is almost dead in the West today.
They give money to the Christian missions under the
mistaken impression that the missionaries are doing social
service in India. But if we make it known to the West, to the
people over there, that the Christian missionaries are using
this money for subverting Hindu society and Hindu
culture, we shall find many allies.
Islam is a hard nut to crack because Islam is still living
in a world of die-hard dogmatism. Islamic lands are under a
deep spell of darkness. It is very difficult to penetrate
these lands physically. We can go into the homelands of
Christianity. We can speak to them, we can appeal to them,
we can discuss with them. Their minds have opened up.
But the mind of Islam is a closed mind. It is not easy to open
it up.
I have discussed this problem of Islam with Sri Ram
Swarup. He says that ideas can penetrate every wall, travel
everywhere. May-be we are unable to go physically into
Islamic lands with our message of humanism, rationalism
and universalism. But we can give a call to them to throw
away their closed creed and feel free. We can invite them
into the open sunshine of natural spirituality which is
Sanatana Dharma. The Islamic lands are in the throes of a
deep crisis. Most of their students who go to Western
universities, who come to Indian universities, do not want
to go back to their Islamic countries, Iran and Iraq and
so on. They find the atmosphere at home suffocating.
They are our allies.
So we should not see this ideological battle which is
raging in India today in isolation. It is a world-wide battle.
Christianity has its allies abroad. Islam has its allies abroad.
So has Communism. But we also have our allies abroad.

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Our allies may not have money as their allies have.

Our allies may not have physical power, military power, as
their allies have. But we must remember that our ally is the
human spirit everywhere. We must appeal to this human
spirit, seek succour from this human spirit, as we go into an
ideological battle. We are bound to win.
I thank you all for giving me a patient hearing, for
sparing so much of your time.