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Guest Paper
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October 24, 2000
Buddha insulted in His land of birth
By V.B.Rawat
Those
of us, who have always taken pride in our rich rational heritage, were shocked,
that Lord Buddha, whose very preaching were an anti-thesis of racist
brahmanical system, and who has been systematically being assimilated into the
Hindutva fold, has been held responsible for India’s sorry state of affair
today by a great saffron sympathizer Francois Gautier, a Frenchmen, living in
Delhi for the last 20 years.
Writing
in the Indian Express on 25th September, Gautier claimed that it was Buddhism
which made Indian coward (Buddha’s Ahimsa) and he covered a very large part of
Indian history through his great analytical brain which has many takers in
India since the Hindutva always needed a certificate from a western whites
about our great culture.
The
article must have delighted those who want to build India of their dream and I
have been getting them through email by people who want to prove their point
how great is Hinduism. After another ideologue of Hindutva, Arun Shourie
attained Moksha ( he became a minister of state and had to shut his mouth when
his colleague Vasundhara Raje presented a bill in Parliament to extend
reservation for Dalits which Shourie so passionately opposed ) when Atal Bihari
Vajpayee asked him to construct India of his dreams. Now since Arun Shourie
cannot do both the work: writing and constructing India of his dream hence
people like Francois Gautier are good. In India the words of Brahmins and Goras
carry great weight. It give the great proponent of Rastrabhakts,( most of whom
are living abroad and left India when it needed them) a glimmer of hope in
their culture who we dirty seculars are condemning. See how great our past is
that French men, English and every body is turning to Hinduism. True but they
cannot find their caste.. Can anyone who has converted to Hinduism tell me his
caste. Caste is the soul of Varnashram dharma.
All
those Deshbhaktas who would beat their breast when Mandal report was
implemented or something is done for the Dalits but they would not mind this
country being sold to the near and dear one Francois G or when they prefer
career to the country.
It
is great that the learned friend of India, realised our potential to be super
power. Perhaps he must have been aware of the fact that Hitler realised this
long back from the Manu Smriti. He realised that he should eliminate those who
he did not like and this can only be done through having a great racist
ideology which he found in Swastika and saffron. Great dreams for a European
Indian. You remember India’s destructive heritage while we want to remember
India’s constructive heritage. We want India to be of Buddhas dream. Buddha is
not what Sinhalas are preaching in Sri-Lanka but it is also people of Japan,
Korea, Taiwan, Mangloia and a large tribe in Europe, India and America who are
rationalist and who love to respect the other faiths.
Let
me be very clear. People of India know this vicious cycle which Francois G and
others are spinning. By making Buddha responsible for India’s ill what they
want to portray. India killed Buddhism and has come to this stage. Buddha
wanted a Prabudha Bharat i.e. an enlightened India. Who destroyed the
Buddh-viharas in our country? Let there be a new research to find as who killed
the Buddhism in this country and who destroyed Buddha Viharas, whether it were
the Mughals or the Caste Hindu Rajas misguided by the Brahmins. Any way, there
is no point of discussing these things
with the people who can support and defend the killing of innocent
people like Graham Stains and his two young children. But definitely we are
proud of Buddha and all those rationalist will liberated millions of Indian
from ignorance. He revolted against a system who Gautier feel very proud off.
Of-course, we cannot be proud of Gautier but definitely the likes of Prafulla
Bidwai and Arundhati Roy who have courage to say things in dissent. That tribe
is not reflected in news-papers but it is still in very large number. All of
them may not have got education abroad or won a Brooker Prize to get the
attention of our media but definitely India still has a vast following of those
who believe in social change. Gautier and the likes feel happy that this
dissent is there in India due to great tolerant Hinduism, a great brahmanical
tolerance which has allowed people like me or other to say these words so
courageously. Don’t forget that people like Gautier may be in a majority in an
otherwise mercenary media but people like us are in a majority in our country.
And that is the reason why despite all
their problems even the Sangh Parivar is ready to say jaibheem, Buddham Sharanam
Gachchami. If they have the courage to disclaim these great legend, they should
come in open and say Buddha and Buddhism is an insult to India otherwise they
should condemn Gautier and his fascist writings which support every attack on
minorities and Indian media jumping on his idiotic articles as a certificate
for their great tradition.
Gauiter
must remember that the majority in this country are constituted by the Dalits,
backwards-minorities and not the ultra nationalist one whose only work is to
write letters to editor or a few articles in the press and whose nationalism
wake up during Kargil, Nuclear bomb and other such rehoterics. Hence we have
this courage to speak the truth about you and your peers. So forget about this
great tradition. Had there been no Buddha, Nanaka, Kabir, Pariyar, Ambedkar and
Phule, where would have been these majority of people. You would have killed
them like the nazis in Germany. So please don’t talk about this tolerance of
the Hindus. It is just a hoax. Now the non brahmin communities are coming up
and hence a challenge to their hegemony which people like you are hell-bent to
destroy through your ill-conceived theories.
Gautier
blamed Buddhism for making Hindus coward by Buddha’s Ahimsa. It is for the
first time that an author has claimed Ahimsa was cowardice. Secondly, India
became enslaved not due to Buddha but due to the subjugation of its 3/4th
population who were termed as Shudras and Ati-Shudras and not as human being.
Had there been no caste system, India would not have become enslaved. Since Buddha revolted against system, he became the first target of the
Brahmanical forces. He was the first human rights educator of the country at a
time when education was the domain of the Brahmins only, where an Eklavya could
just be denied justice because of his caste. Who was a great archer : Was it
Arjuna who was forced upon us as one of the greatest warrior or Eklavya. If we
put the point raised by Gautier to a dalit living in the outskirts if any
village or those who converted to Islam in Meenakshipuram, their two sentences
will expose entire thesis of Gautier, and perhaps he will not find a place to
hide your disgust and illusion.
This
rejoinder does not mean that Indias heritage is nothing.. It wants to portray
what exactly is Indias heritage and it is not those philosophies, which were
kept outside the purview of the people. It is the reform movement which Buddha
led and which gave hope to millions of Indians who were not treated human
being. I think he still does not think that there are millions of Indians whose
very sight pollute a brahmin or upper caste person. It still exists. You only
need to go a little beyond your ashrams in Delhi and other metros. Those of us,
who have been watchful in what’s happening in media know Hindutva background of
these authors very well. Gautier has been exposing the so-called secular elite
of this country. Granted. I belong to this country and condemn your writing and
the Hindutva brand of politics and my secularism has not come from either
Gandhi or Nehru. I take it from India’s rich tradition of Lokayata.
Gautier
must ask this question to himself as who destroyed this country? Who created
millions of Dalits and shudras and subjugated them for 5000 years? You do not
feel shame in India’s caste system, which is most racist in the world, in fact
you try to defend it by terming it as based on Karma. The Karma theory of Gita
who every Hindu considers as the best written words in the World.
They
don’t want to talk about it nor do you want to see its ugly face and the
philosophy behind it. You have only great Sanskrit Mantras, which were denied
to Dalits and Shudras. You denied knowledge to vast masses of Shudras and
ati-shudras and then talked about Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam. Your great friend Arun
Shouries first book expose Hindu dharma in which he says: Hinduism is a very
tolerant religion until its very structure is threatened. You have seen how the
upper caste hatred against VP Singh still exist due to implementation of Mandal
report, which would have given them a few government jobs in this age of
globalisation. And this hatred is not
confined to communal but also a very large number of secular also form this opinion. So if your fight is
with those seculars then you can fight with them but don’t fight with those
whose secularism come from our very own tradition.
Perhaps,
Gautier will find time in his Aurbindo Ashrma about India’s great rationalist
past, which began from Lokayat. Every religion that came to India was not
because the Hindus are very coward or non-violent or tolerant but because of
the inherent racism, which existed in this system. People will continue to
convert as long as your matrimonial are made of caste, as long as caste will
rule Indians. Indian can take pride in going abroad, being a software giant but
will not forget their caste. What is Hinduism? It is a castle caste and if you
eliminate caste you eliminate Hinduism. Gandhi recognised this and told
Ambedkar (his letters are there) : If you don’t believe in caste, you can not be Hindu.
There
is no word like Hinduism. It is these sophisticated people who give Brahmanism
or Varnashram dharma this Hindu name. Please start calling yourself a believer
in Varnashram dharma, which is a shame to India, which claims to be the biggest
democracy of the World. If Francois Gautier love so much to Hinduism, he must
convert to Hinduism and find a Jaat (caste) for himself and write an article
later on its virtues. You can see that Indira Gandhi could not go to Tirupati
Devashthanam or what happened to V. Ravi’s in the Guruvayoor temple. Is it what
we call civilised society?
Buddha’s
was a revolt against caste system, so was of Mahavira’s and Nanaka's. Kabir,
Rahim, Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar and all those who fought against this racist
caste system were not anti- Indian, they were more Indian then these khaki
nikkarwallahs. They served the poor people. All of them were not educated in
London and Paris so don’t say they learnt this from Oxford University Press’s
book.
They
had Bharitya Samskaras bhartiyata.. All of them were rationalist to the core of
their heart and preached the same to their followers. They did never do any
miracle like numerous babes doing today.
Please write about these miraculous Goodman, where all our educated
elite and political glass go for a prostrate.
I
would also suggest that given the nature of columnist these days it should be
written in their bylines that they belong to Sangh-parivar school of thought.
He better advise the Sanghi’s not to talk of Buddha these days as they are
trying to portray him at 9th incarnation of Vishnu also it would be better for
the Sangh to disown Ambedkar given their hate campaign against him. It is not
easy for people like Francois to understand Ambedkar and the plight of Dalits
as perhaps he think that only upper caste Hindus are Indian and no body should
talk about any other community in India.
I
hope he will talk about non-brahmins also and then say a few words. In the
meantime, we must wait who is the next target..
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