Ever since, Udhayanidhi Stalin has disturbed the hornet's nest with his comments on Sanatana Dharma, debate has been razing ad nausium among the politicians, scholars and of course the Swami and Babas, the greatest beneficiaries of this Dharma.
Sanatana means perpetual or eternal and Dharma means code of conduct. But Sanatana Dharma put together means a system of organization of the society and the values that the people should follow to sustain the system. This system is highly generically divisive with iniquitous hierarchical social organization and the religious practices that are designed to perpetuate this despicable dispensation.
It is true that all people are not the same. Everyone is endowed with a different set of talents and is designed not by God but by evolution to rise to a different status of life. But to restrict a person to the status his birth into a caste entails is the most henious aspect of Sanath Dharma that is untenable. Exactly it is this feature of Sanath Dharma and the consequential inhuman practices that it resulted in that Dayanidhi Stalin has attempted to excoriate. But that is a comment on a sensitive issue of religion which has now become a source of political investment by the powerful BJP which is in power in many States and in the country. It amounted to feeding the serpent. So the truth spoken in the context of state of Tamilnadu may be appropriate but in the context of the country with its potential baleful fallout is disruptive of social peace as one could see.
It must be remembered that BJP has been very active in perpetuating this Sanatana Dharma in the name of Indian knowledge systems. The Indian Knowledge System, a book written by Dr Mahadevan et al has been made a compulsory subject for all technical institutions by the all India Council of Technical Education albeit without credits. The amazing achievements in the fields of astronomy medicine surgery mathematics geometry temple building architecture horticulture and yoga described in the book maybe worth following. While all the Indians should be aware of this great heritage, but to follow that in the present times post the movements of liberalism communism and humanism, the components of modernity, is taking the religious and cultural inheritance rather too far.
Scholars, journalists, professors, religious heads have been roped in very imperceptibly to push their BJP's political agenda and to brainwash the people and make them accept the dispensations consecrated in the "dreary desert of dead habit" without questioning, the only basis of progress.
Yuval Noah Harari whose books have set the intellectual ambience in the world on fire in the world has, in one of the books, Sapiens, stated that the Western people could progress more because they started on the basis of ignorance. Whereas, we proud of our heritage, sillily, say we know all and we are world's Guru despite being high in inequity, hunger and Human Development and freedom of speech indexes.
All the science that has been developed in the Western world and a history of evolution which is very well recorded in the books on history of science laying out how different modern concepts of science have developed step by step. So far there has not been published any book by any Indian scholar that establishes links between the growth of science in the western countries in various fields to the concepts of science in our Indian Sanatana literature.
No doubt our heritage was of a high order that after studying it Max Muller wrote " If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richley endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty that Nature can bestow, in some parts are very paradize, I should point to India." Let us be proud of it but to search for solutions of the modern times in the past is dangerous.
History shows that after abundanment of orthodox Christianity and revolting against its exploitative practices, there has been tremendous material, social and political emancipation in the Western world as the alternative chosen has been the reason.
That is what we should do. The inequity that exists now will continue forever but not because of any heirarchcal ststems like caste but because of inherent capabilities of the people who should be given equal opportunities so that there will be a natural and balanced living of the people with different talents rising up to different statuses and accepting each other without envy and rancour, the root cause of bloody revolutions leading to a new kind of exploitative hierarchies.
To be aware of one's a heritage is one thing and to credit it with all the advances in the Western world is baseless hubris
Dr M H Prasad Ra
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