The latest version of conversion – Making Hindus shy away from worshiping their gods & practicing Sanatana culture
Hindus converted to other religions will modify their pooja room settings according to the new religious order is all that we know. For example, in place of Rama, Jesus, or something scripted in an unknown language hung on a piece of wood to replace Shiva. Remove the human pendant from the neck chain to replace it with a cross or a black thread blessed by a black magician. Converts change their names, food habits, and mother tongue to please their imported religious order. After converting the greedy, innocent, poor, dull, and confused Hindus, the Abrahamic religions targeted people who were considered the cream of the Hindu society. The latest version of conversion is not directly attacking the Hindu Gods, nor that they name any religion. Instead, they make Hindus shy away from worshiping their gods and practicing Sanatana culture. We can call this a new generation conversion. Unfortunately, we don’t know that many within us became prey to this new generation conversion and get converted unknowingly. These unknowingly converted don’t modify their pooja room nor change their names. They are in the belief that they are still Hindus. But their intellectual ability fails to perceive getting trapped in some unknown imported religion. So many Hindu families or one or two members in the same family are drifting away from Hindu practices. They are shy to call themselves Hindus and embrace some strange culture similar to the Abrahamic religion.
Hinduism is not a mere religion or a word but encompasses a range of emotions and traditions, believing the God in various forms, unlike Abrahamic religions, through various ancient practices. Knowing the fact that the gambit of Sanatana Dharma is woven closely by frail cultural practices, these predatory religions try to dismantle the Sanatana traditions by tearing the cultural fabric. Abrahamic faiths have understood that Hindus living across India have different ways of praying to the Gods of various forms and paths; irrespective of apparent deviation, the cultural core is the same. For Hindus, if other religions dismantled one structure of God, they would create another form of God, posing a challenge to dismantle the belief of God. Hence, the attack is on our traditional practices to steer away from the faith in God.
Long back, predatory religions converted Hindus through swords and guns. But, today, swords and guns are replaced by pay cheques, perks, foreign tours, etc.
How are we indifferent to our Gods – Let us peep into our families and see what is happening in each home. Elderly parents tell their sons on Shivratri day, ‘look, today we both parents are chanting Rudra Ekadashavara, so you sit and do the Jalabhisheka.’ Similarly, the mother tells her daughter ‘look. I have arranged Bagina (some 20 to 25 essentials are packed and arranged in a cane tray) to give Dan to the ladies. So, come home early to do pooja and bring the children dressed in new clothes.’ But, both son and daughter echoed the same reply, “sorry ma, we have no holiday.” Mother, to her dismay, responds, “what is that nonsense you are talking about?’ Shivratri and Gowri and Ganesh Chaturti are important festivals to us. How come you people don’t get a holiday.’ But, the reply is more shocking than the previous one, ‘ma, it may be an important festival for you but not for the company we are working with.’ If at all they care for their mother’s invite, they come for festival meals after the pooja, wearing one old dress without bindi, bangles, gajra, and mangalsutra. Ask our menfolk to wear Tilak and Vibhuti on the forehead; they laugh to say it is outdated. People dress in saree, dhoti, pants, half-pants, and sleeveless teeshirts to go to our temples, ignoring the Sanathana Dharma’s discipline. Cultural destruction has taken place willingly by our own people.
Grandchildren are unaware of the values of Dharma, God, and pooja because of their education in schools where secularism is taught. Additionally, their parents have no time to impart the traditional values linked with Dharma to their children because they care for two hoots as long as their income steadily flows. In almost all houses across India, the younger generation is disinterested in Sanatana Dharma. The present generation, with no remorse, is violating certain inviolable rituals and customs.
My friend visited her son on the day Ayodya’s verdict was pronounced. She was standing on her son’s house balcony and was happily sharing the news with her friend. Hearing his mother talking about Ayodya, her son was furious and snatched the phone from her to say, ‘it is not you who is staying in this apartment. It is me here. What would people think of me? Sure, her son was not a convert. He is undoubtedly a Hindu but feels shy to accept that he is a Hindu in public. Her son, an IIT graduate, works for a big corporate company with a hefty payscale. I saw my friend was in tears while narrating this to me.
A few decades ago, I worked as a nutritionist for an international company. The rule book in the company stated that all should follow secularism, and no public holiday was declared on Hindu festivals. If an employee wished to apply for leave during the festival, it was allowed, but our work demanded touring, so there was no question of taking a break during Hindu celebrations. On the contrary, all employees, even those on tour, should report to the office on December 23rd to participate on December 24th, Christmas Eve, followed by a public holiday. The celebration of grand Christmas Eve with many courses of food was mandatory. Employees bore the party expenses, not the company. Office rule books and norms are designed in such a way to impoverish us culturally.
I hear a common complaint from my patients who come for dietary services: diet practice is challenging in December. When I inquired about it, I was shocked to know the reality. Many corporate companies observe secret Santha for the whole month of December, followed by a lot of eat-out, mostly junk. So the money spent is borne by the individuals to practice an alien custom. Makara Sankranti followed after fifteen days is not practiced by distributing Gingily laddu, ground nut laddu, or a mixture of til, copra, jaggery, chanaputana (roasted Bengal gram dal), and ground nuts as practiced in Karnataka. I encouraged many girls to practice distributing Til (sesame) mixture at Sankranti, but they feel shy as they don’t want to look odd before others, but the others are none other than their Indian counterparts. However, practicing alien culture did not make them feel weird.
The call centers attack our culture more glaringly by changing our people’s names and training them to speak English with a foreign accent. The reason given by them is that foreigners don’t want to know that the other person on the line is an Indian. See how tolerant these foreigners are. Once our people accept the changes imposed on them in terms of language and dress, they start thinking slowly in foreign ways. Unknowingly, our people drift away from our traditional culture, which is a path to Sanatana Dharma. Corporate companies, owned mainly by Christian heartland, are imposing their language, dress, and eating practices and are converting our people to tow into their line. Otherwise, why would our news readers, even local TV channel anchors, wear a suit than an Indian saree or salwar kameez? I have not seen any male anchor wearing Indian dress, even at Hindu festivals like Ramanavami and Deepavali. Take away a person from his roots, and he will go directionless. Lack of direction makes one vulnerable and will become easy prey to predators.
The geopolitical strategy pressures hapless Hindus to turn their back on the Hindu cultural ecosystem. It has been seen in recent days that some forty or more American universities conducted a conference on international global Hindutva to dismantle Hinduism. More than a thousand academicians and some Tamilian forums signed to dismantle global Hindutva. So, it is not comfortable to think that a good number of so-called academicians and some so-called Indians joined their hands in destroying this ancient culture. Textbooks in California schools projected anti-Hindu views, but Hindu American Foundation and Vedic Foundation jointly protested the act. Unfortunately, our protests fell on deaf ears because those people were hell-bent on dismantling our culture for political reasons. During ancient days the predatory religions that were forcing an individual or luring an individual to convert were gone; instead, they made the entire Hindu society impoverished and inferior to practicing Hinduism.
Conversion is not necessarily changing one from worshipping one God to another. On the contrary, it is broader and more sensitive, and attacks are made in any direction to dismantle the belief. Hindus were made to believe that Kshirabishek to Shiva is a waste of milk, spraying holy water is a waste of water, sprinkling Akshate on bride and groom as an act of blessing is a waste of rice, and Chanting Bum Bum Bhole on the way to Amarnath disturbs the ecosystem. Predatory religions, NGOs, activists, and communism attack our Gods indirectly by attacking our cultural practices. If the trend continues, everything cultural and beautiful, including our food habits, art, customs, rituals, and traditions, will get wiped out shortly. The responsibilities we have before us are to revoke, restore and glorify the Sanatana Dharma to its vitality to pass them on to our next generation.
Hindus’ way of love for the universe believes in ‘Ekam sat vipra bahuda vadanti‘ and ‘Kankad Kankad me Shiv Ji hai‘ should be the future religion.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
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- Conversion through invisible version - August 17, 2022
