“Hindus are in danger, Hinduism is in danger.”
You might have been reading this in a lot of facebook, twitter and LinkedIn post, many Hindu leaders also quote it in their speeches during the election campaigns.
Directly talking in the context of India, they mean to say that Muslims and Islam is the biggest threat to Hindus and Hinduism. They feel the Hindu and Hinduism is in danger due to Muslims and Islam. But as a matter of fact, the biggest enemy of Hinduism in India is Hindu itself. If Hinduism ever comes in danger, it will be only due to Hindus itself.
In a country where the Hindu population is 79.8 percent, and the Muslim community is only 14.2%, can you even believe that Hindus and Hinduism are in danger due to Islam and Muslims? The threat is not from outsiders but insiders.
It is a Hindu who is the biggest enemy of Hinduism.
Unlike other religions like Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Jainism present in India, In Hinduism, we Hindus are further sub-divided. There are 3,000 castes and 25,000 subcastes in India, each related to a specific occupation. Some very known caste are Jaat, Rajput, gurjar, baniya, pandit etc. etc. etc. and a lot many more.
Now as a matter of fact, each caste belonging to same Hindu religion has their own belief, culture and tradition, this is one beauty that even after so many differences in their lifestyle, occupation, thoughts, and ideology, they are united under one religion that is Hinduism, but at the same time, the worst and cruel reality is that, they are never united within. Their unity can be checked with millions of matrimonial ads in the newspaper any day of the week and month.
Urgently wanted a bride, must be fair, slim, for a well-settled boy of aged 35, earning in 6 figure, should be from jaat community only.
Urgently wanted a groom, should be tall, must be earning well, own house for a girl aged 38, doctor, well settled, fair slim, the boy should be from Khatri caste only.
As you can see, in both the ads above, both people willing to marry are well established, well educated and settled and have crossed their age of marriage a long time back, but still are unmarried, due to the caste system.
Parents may wait for another 15 years for the marriage of their kids, but can not let their kids marry their daughter and sons to marry someone from a different caste.
It also reminds me of another incident I personally observed. I happened to have visited gurudwara, church, mosque and saw that outside of all these places, there was some drinking water system: some large vessel filled with water and glass to drink. 100+ Sikhs, Muslims, Christians may drink the water from the same glass and vessel outside their religious place, but even 10 Hindus cannot drink water from the same glass and vessel outside their temples.
Hindus are so divided among themselves based on their caste that the strength becomes very small to fight with external forces — most of their energy and power exhaust fighting among themselves.
Taking this opportunity, I wish to tell you a very wonderful story.
A Mughal emperor at the time of invading India came with his army and entered India, most of his military died during traveling, and when they entered India, he had just a handful of soldiers. One of the major told the Mughal emperor that they are short of soldiers, food, and weapons and should not attack Indians and should go back, as they will never be able to win.
Emperor thought for a while and then asked his major to go and check the Indian soldiers during dinner at night. He went to the Indian soldiers camp at night and saw that all the people were sitting, eating their food in small groups.
The major went back and told the Mughal emperor that they are quite large in number, have ample food, and weapons and the Mughal army will never be able to fight with Indians and will lose, but one strange thing that they observe is that they were eating in small groups of 5-10 and not altogether.
The Mughal emperor told his major that we would surely win the war, and they should attack Indians. Suprised the major asked, how can the emperor be so sure. The emperor replied smiling, these people who can’t even sit together and eat with each other, do you think they will fight together?
They are already divided, and it is effortless to attack them and win the war.
The moral of the story is that Hinduism and Hindus are not in danger as of 2019; they were always under threat since the creation of the religion due to division among them.
Hinduism is not one religion; it is a group of 2500+ caste and 30,000+ sub-caste and is divided since the ages and will be vulnerable until Hindus are united, leaving behind this caste system prevailing in India.
