“To save the Sun (which might, one feels, very safely be left to look after itself) a million of Hindus will assemble on the banks of the Ganges. How many, I wonder, would assemble to save India?” – This observation was made by famous English novelist, essayist, critic, and poet, Aldous Huxley in Benares describing what he witnessed during one eclipse when millions of Hindus took holy dip in the river Ganges as part of their rituals.
I think, if my growing age has not made any substantial impact on my memory, I read this piece of composition while I was studying in Higher Secondary. Being born and brought up in a conventional Hindu family and nurtured with RSS ideology of Hindutva from very childhood, I could not be agree with this skepticism from one white colour person and had a heated discussion with the teacher who happened to be alumni of Oxford. Now, with the emergence of each grey hair, I can realize the authenticity of the observation made by Mr. Huxley.
If we carefully look around our surroundings, we can hardly see the existence of our Hindu identity except some rituals. And we, Bangali Hindus, have got so much carried away with these rituals, we have, somehow, conceived them as our identity. We do worship at home but remain alert if there is any call on our mobile. We go to temples on given days for well being of our families but overlook how the properties of temple are constantly being encroached. We donate to deities in the temple but never raise our voice against taking away of that donation by the concerned governments though we know that the government shall never dare doing such thing for funds deposited at masjid or church. We happily pay pilgrimage tax to government for visiting our holy places but never protest against providing subsidy for Haj.
We are happy to live with this because we have compromised our identity with rituals. Somewhere in our mind, we have conceived that mere performance of rituals is the sole way to Moksha (salvation). We have succumbed ourselves in the sphere of only ‘Me and Mine’ and this notion has led us to selfishness. Once Swami Vivekananda said, “expansion is life and contraction is death”. We have voluntarily chosen the path of contraction and that has resulted in death of our identity. That’s why we have become vulnerable to attacks from different quarters yet we cannot protest against that as we are averse to stand by social causes.
Our religion and religious leaders, too, are responsible for such scenario. The flexibility and generosity are the two benchmarks of Hindu dharma and these two features, which have made it the most dynamic religion ever in the history of mankind, have turned it into the target of other Semitic religions. Roles of the most religious leaders are also not beyond question. With huge number of disciples in front of them, they preach for salvation for individuals. They fail to add that no individual can reach the goal of salvation when society is under threat.
