Expropriation of Hindu Concepts and Traditions…
On Yahoo-groups, a posting on how archetypical Hindu concepts and traditions like “Ayurveda” and “Yoga” are being expropriated by others and consciously (but in a subtle manner) being de-linked from the land and the Hindu belief system under which they were born, nurtured and flourished – led to this very well argued response from Radha Rajan:
“… Those guilty (of this) are the teachers of yoga, sanyasis who are globe-trotting and are sought by non-indian, hindus and non-hindus.the guilty are a section of expat hindus and their children who seek greater accomodation in the countries of their current citizenship and seek to ‘universalise’ all things hindu by delinking it first from territory and then from hindu religion.
the guilty are those who refuse to use the words ‘hindu’ to describe ourselves and our religion and who refuse to use the word ‘religion’ to describe our faith, our worship, our values and ascribe it to some vague ‘cultural’ or ‘civilisational’ identity without having the courage to define or describe the roots from which our culture and civilisation derive.
…the guilty are the intellectually vacuous, specious, lazy, compromising hindus who in the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘universalism’ de-root our religion, our core identity, our values.
the guilty are those who refuse to take a courageous stand on hindu territory, on dharma=religion=hinduism, on there is nothing in our culture, our practises our traditions including culinary traditions which do not in some manner derive from and reflect our core religious understanding.
our adversaries are only stepping into the vacuum we have created.
Nirmala Deshpande the ‘gandhian’ thinks nation, national territory and nationalism are narrow-minded and bigoted. so she raises her war cry ‘jai jagat’ at every public meeting and she has been allowed to think that she has improved upon ‘sarve bhavantu sukinaha’ or vasudeiva kutumbakam. we hindus have latched on to these catchy slogans without committing ouirselves to our immediate and deepest identities. universalism is the best way to shirk our responsibility to our caste, our village, our village temple, our religion, our language, our nation, our national teirritory, our dharma. RR (Radha Rajan)
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