The Hindu Identity Crisis

The word "Hindu" seems to have become a bad word today. Our own people shy away from using it as if confessing to having a disease. Hindus here in the west almost seem to be leading double lives, where they are a devotional and traditional Hindu at home, but then they take off all signs of being a Hindu, wipe off the tilak or bindi, change out of their traditional clothes into western ones and step out making an attempt to "blend in". To be honest, have been there too so this is not to criticize any way of dressing, but simply trying to get us to think and be our natural selves without going out of our way to fit in. Others wear their faiths and beliefs with pride, then why not us? In a country where diversity is respected, why are we afraid of being different? It seems to point to a deep inferiority complex, a deep rooted belief that being Hindu and wearing it on one's sleeve is not a good thing. This is "sanitization", a scrubbing off of the Hindu-ness or Hindutva, if I may dare to use that word (even if that is the exact meaning!). And now, we are sanitizing even our festivals and traditions. 

I see Diwali has become one such "sanitized" festival where the original intent and reason is getting lost among the fluff of "light and joy and togetherness" etc. While it is great that Diwali is being correctly portrayed as a festival of light and winning of good over evil etc., those are merely abstractions. Most of our festivals are primarily celebrating historical events, they are the reminders of people who achieved excellence and greatness through righteous means, through Dharma. That is the real intent and reason! Abstractions only work when you understand what it is pointing to, how it is manifested. Shri Ram and Shri Krishna are among those manifestations that make us understand the hows, whys and the whats of the concept of good winning over evil. This is why our itihaas, viz., Ramayana and Mahabharata, should be read and understood, especially during festivals. Festivals serve as markers in our calendar for this purpose.

Diwali or Deepawali, which is the original Sanskrit word, celebrates multiple events making it a major festival because so many events are connected to it. It is about the celebration of Shri Ram and Devi Sita's return to Ayodhya. It is about Raja Bali. It is about Shri Krishna and how and why he killed the asura Naraka. It is about Lakshmi pooja and Govardhan pooja and how these connect to the environment among other things. Without remembering, talking about and putting this front and center, the festival loses not only its intent but gets disconnected from the culture/faith/civilization it comes from. It ceases to remind us of what and why we are celebrating and that is our collective loss as a community. 

How do our children here remember such festival celebrations? As gifts given to teachers and community members, food, arts and craft and bollywood dances done on lyrics that their parents have not even bothered to read and understand the meaning of. Nothing against bollywood songs, plenty of great ones out there, but do we spend the time to look for good words and tunes or just go with the latest craze? And in all of this, would our children remember why we are doing all this? 

Our deities are not decoration, they have a much greater significance and import than just being props for photo booths. Because bathroom mats and towels are decorations too, then where and how do we draw the line? And how far do we keep compromising, accommodating and living this double life? Does it help? Has it ever helped? Even a glance at the non-whitewashed truthful history, in the invaders and colonialists' own words, gives an empathetic no as an answer. So, it does not seem to have helped us thus far and seeing that the teaching material in our school curriculums only gets worse with every passing year, where opinions replace reality, and nuance and context are the casualty, it does not look like this approach, call it soft or whatever, has ever worked.

Meanwhile, meditation has become mindfulness, pranayam has become breathing exercises and to add insult to injury our own gurus have declared Yoga is not Hindu at all! 

Saying that celebrating Diwali, sanitized of all things Hindu, is some sort of a soft approach seems like an assumption of guilt and a need to accommodate western sensitivities in some way assuming we are somehow going to offend someone by sharing our festivals as they are. But in the process are we not insulting both our festivals and the broader community with these assumptions? It also implies that using the word Hindu is somehow a "hard" approach. This labeling and incorrect categorizing sends a negative message in addition to it being the wrong one. 

At the end of the day, does it at least address the problem of growing hate being systemically sowed in middle schools and even elementary schools, about Hindus through heavily biased and incorrect curriculums? Would our teachers and children be able to connect the Diwali gifts and food and photos and decorations to the faith it belongs to and ask the logical question of why the portrayal of Hinduism in their textbook does not match what their lived experience is? 

Would we be able to connect the dots and stand up to defend that which is sacred to us? Is it then any surprise that our children want to be atheist and not want anything to do with the "regressive" faith that is taught to them in school as Hindu "ism"?

It is for each of us to think and introspect on what the right approach is. The answer will vary by person and there can be more than one correct answer too of course. But what should not get lost is the end goal. To me, it is a simple one, share and teach the truth, all of it in the right context, in the most simple language possible and then leave it for the student or reader to come to their own conclusions. 

A building's foundation decides how strong that building is but often times people on the higher floors do not realize or acknowledge the strength of that foundation. Hindus are like those people who like to celebrate their festivals, are proud of their culture, their dresses and food and the variety of cuisines etc. but do not want to publicly acknowledge the foundation on which all of this stands, Hindu Dharma. They would rather call themselves atheist, agnostic or any other newfangled label that comes along than call themselves Hindus.  

Hindus do not wear their Hindu-ness, i.e., Hindutva, on their sleeve. The world respects those who respect themselves and Hindus lack this self-respect or swaabhimaana. True self-respect, not to be confused with jingoism, comes from a place of truth, creating a quiet confidence in one's identity.

October is designated as Hindu Heritage month in many states in the US (it is November in Canada). Let us use that as an opportunity to share our rich culture that truly embodies secular, liberal and democratic ways of thinking and living. A dharma that encourages, nay, requires one to question, introspect and realize that divinity that is inherently in every being. As Swami Vivekananda said, the goal of human existence is to manifest the divinity within us. These are high thoughts that can be difficult to grasp and hence the concept of deities. Things like worshiping these deities, the poojas, the celebration of festivals, the reading of stories of Shri Ram and Shri Krishna are ways and means to humanize the divine so that we can divinize the human, as Swami Sarvapriyananda says!

Let us, teach this to our children and by all means, share our festivals with the larger community, adding all the nice labels we like but let us not omit the most important one, "Hindu"! We must give credit where it is due, else we are no different from the thieves who have been stealing this knowledge, appropriating, digesting and repackaging it as their own. This is knowledge that our rishis have handed down to us through the centuries, for free, no copyrights or patents attached, the only requirement being an open mind sincerely seeking the truth.

I hope that Deepawali inspires us to seek that light of knowledge that will remove the darkness of ignorance. That we question and investigate what is the path to that knowledge. That we realize that our rishis have already provided us with a royal highway as this path, a raj-marg, where the stories of greats like Shri Ram, Shri Krishna and the innumerable sadhu sant of Bharat light up this highway making it easier for us to find our way to our own true nature, that truth or Brahman that pervades every last particle in this universe. 

This is what our festivals have been trying to tell us across centuries. Let us own them, be proud of them and celebrate them just as our ancestors did, with devotion and reverence. Only then can we see the oneness in all and only then would it be a truly joyful celebration. 

I wish you all not just a Happy Deepawali but a Shubha Deepawali. Because the meaning of "Shubha" is much broader, deeper and richer than "Happy". Shubha is auspicious, all that is good, all that is beneficial to all of us, children of this universe!

Shubha Deepawali 🙏

ॐ असतो मा सद्गमय ।

तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय ।

मृत्योर्मा अमृतं गमय ।

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Om, lead us from untruth to truth |

Lead us from darkness (ignorance) to light (knowledge) |

Lead us from death (cycle of birth and death) to immortality (knowledge of that Brahman or universal truth that will free us from the cycle of birth and death and thus make us immortal not in the physical but in the spiritual sense) |

Om peace, peace, peace ||

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अश्विनमासः, कृष्णपक्षः, एकादशीतिथिः (रमा एकादशी), २०८१ विक्रमसंवत्सरः, २७ ऑक्टोबर २०२४, रविवासरः 

aśvina, kṛṣṇa, ekādaśī (ramā ekādaśī), 2081 Vikrama Saṃvatsaraḥ, 27 October 2024, Sunday