Hindu muslim unity. These Instances Of Hindu 2022-10-22

"Hindu

Then the more fanatic followers of this religion will find various means of exploiting their minority status to blackmail the majority community. It confirmed friendly relations between the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. A fourth revised edition of this was published in 1937. The mosque, which is a century old, was badly damaged by rain. The blind obedience to an authority, whether that of a text, or of a person, or of some set rules, and the waning of the inner spirit of religion, its spiritual core, are blights that can affect the followers of any religion. We have often reached such flashpoints of communal tension in India by not being honest and straight about these problems and by taking a diplomatic attitude and resorting to political conciliation in such situations. This symbolised his affinity and respect towards the Hindus.

These Instances Of Hindu

In this way unity may come about under whatever form — the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. We want to lead mankind to the place where there is neither the Vedas, nor the Bible, nor the Koran; yet this has to be done by harmonising the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran. If espousing the cause of spirituality makes Sri Aurobindo a fundamentalist, then that would make Jesus Christ and Buddha too fundamentalists! Man realizes his highest station not by indulging but by abstinence. As in other religions, in Islam too there are highly evolved people who are capable of transcending this exclusiveness. Hinduism has to learn to face the challenge of fundamentalism without either pampering or imitating it.

Lucknow Pact of 1916

Since he held that unity must first be realised within before it can manifest without, he firmly believed that the best approach to fostering the unity between the two communities was still the spiritual approach. That would be to limit ourselves and to attempt to create our spiritual life out of the being, knowledge and nature of others, of the men of the past, instead of building it out of our own being and potentialities. Despite most ideas, we do witness moments of unity and brotherhood between the Hindus and Muslims in India. We should refuse to give into the temptation of exploiting them as communal vote banks, because that is a sure way of marginalising them. Therefore, the Khaddar programme is the only effective and successful programme that I can place before the country at present. But Islam in India and in most places outside India as well has not yet undergone the churning process of liberalisation Hinduism underwent in India under the impact of the intellectual, rationalistic, cosmopolitan, mundane and humanistic thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Our attempts should be to strengthen the hands of the liberal elements and not to pamper to the whims of the extremists for winning their votes.

Pioneering Hindu

A purely opportunistic and political approach in such a situation is bound to aggravate it. I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the Light which enlightens the heart of every one. But that must not be. His noble status and modern upbringing shaped the way he thought about the world. It is not even the question of racial and cultural blending which has taken place in many parts of the world. I venture to suggest that, when Khaddar comes universally in use, the boycott of foreign cloth will automatically follow.

Hindu

In this, Swami Vivekananda embodies the spirit of modern Hinduism. One can never conciliate Islam on the basis of such weakness. It is easy to whip up among the Hindus passions of revenge and hostility over the humiliation and oppression they are believed to have suffered according to history books during the long years of Muslim rule in India. Man becomes then not the lord and master of all creation but he is its servant. However, the pact brought a change in that view.

It is to be hoped that the Congress and the nation will not accept the settled fact as for ever settled or as anything more than a temporary expedient. . We must try to remove the causes of misunderstanding by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unfaltering love of the patriot to our Musalman brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a perma-nent place in her bosom; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice. To do this we must first nourish the sentiment ourselves. Sri Aurobindo makes a distinction between two aspects of religion — religion as spirituality, and as religionism. He believed that mankind was entering the age of universal spirituality.

It must be sought deeper down, in the heart and in the mind, for where the causes of disunion are, there the remedies must be sought. Sri Aurobindo was opposed right from the time of the Morley-Minto reforms to the deliberate attempts being made by the British regime to encourage the notion that Hindus and Muslims were two separate political units, having separate political, economic and cultural interests because he felt that this would preclude the growth of a single and indivisible Indian nation. Because of this, a certain kind of sectarian universalism comes natural to it — those who profess the creed, no matter of what nation, race, or community belong to a universal Islamic Society, and those who do not accept this creed cannot be part of this Society. As we all know, the Hindu-Muslim problem has been rendered so very difficult because of the tormenting memories of our history. The universal adop¬tion of Charkha and Khaddar, therefore, would awaken India. However, a large section of people raised doubts about his contributions to this community.

But this thing does not disturb me. Therefore if I can live well on goats, fish and fowl surely enough in all conscience it is sin for me to destroy cows for my sustenance. When Sir Syed founded the scientific society mentioned earlier, he made sure that it would have nothing to do with religious affiliations. Modern Hinduism reflects the influence of such reformist movements as Brahmo Samaj, Prarthana Samaj, Arya Samaj, the Ramakrishna—Vivekananda movement, etc. I immensely appreciate the idea so emphasized by Islam that special worship must be reserved for the Creator of us all. Besides, there have been some mischievous attempts in recent years to portray Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo as primarily Hindu nationalists, or champions of militant Hinduism. One of the weaknesses of Hinduism during the last millennium has been its excessive world-negating stance; it tends to take for granted that this world is meant to be given up, since it is jada, mithya, the field of incurable ignorance.

The impact of Islam on India was psychologically cataclysmic; India could not just go back to being what she was before. Hinduism should be more dynamic and world-affirming and revive its commitment to the ideal of making our terrestrial life perfect. He was a free-thinker and had progressive views about the rights of women and the education system. It is essentially a spiritual approach and I am convinced that there is no purely external, legal or diplomatic solution to this problem, although we may have to find the external means to give a practical shape to this inner spirit of Hindu-Muslim unity. Sir Syed always participated in Hindu festivals, such as Holi and Basant. The liberal elements within Islam should be encouraged.

I do not want to give the impression that every Hindu is a shining example of this liberal spirit. Some Muslims donated lands and others helped and supported us to purchase their land for the temple. In other words, the concept that this world can be changed and made the dwelling place of the Divine or of the Supreme perfection has to be the new emphasis of Hinduism today. Religionism has not been the only perversion of true religion. If that has to happen, we must encourage within the country the liberal spirit of the kind which was the inspiration behind the Indian Renaissance.