In this very important talk, Hariprasad N highlights the need to amend Articles 26 to 30 of the Indian Constitution if Hindu community wants to thrive as a Dharmic society.
He also highlights that the subsections of these Acts are misinterpreted and it’s only the Hindu religion that suffers the most because of these Acts.
Our temples are controlled by the govt but religious institutions of other faiths are allowed to operate freely under the same constitution, because they are ‘minority’ religions in India. What is the way forward?
To restore the sense of pride among the Hindu society, Hariprasad suggests that the community should have control over schools, temples and family and that can happen only when legislature agrees to amend Articles 26-30 of the Constitution.
The talk is an eye-opener in the sense that the common Hindu is not even aware that he’s being discriminated by the same Constitution, upon which he has reposed his faith to get justice and equality.
Transcript: –
Thanks, everyone, I am Hariprasad N. I worked in the software industry in Bengaluru. So for the past few years I had the opportunity to study some of this, area related to the discrimination of Hindus, from various prospective and from a legal and constitutional prospective, though that’s not my domain, in terms of my work that’s interested me more, because this seems like the most foundational element and biggest damage, I think, for discrimination against Hindus is coming from what’s encoded in our constitution. So that’s interest.
Let me to explore and study this field a little bit more and over the past year, we had opportunity to work with Srijan foundation and various other people in coming up with the Hindu Charter of demands, and the first of those demands is clearly the need for amending four or five of the articles of our constitution. So, this talk is about why we asking for some fundamental changes to some of the critical article of our constitution. A number of people have contributed to making this slide sheet in of view presented it in various form. So I have the opportunity here and I thank full.
So I will go through the slide side first forty five minute and then we can have, based on our questions and we can have discussion. Before we get to the actual details of each article, and then you what the issue with those are and then what change we are asking. I will take three and four minutes may be trying to explain, Why the handicap introduced by these articles are especially troublesome for Hindus.
So this s not about the case for removal of constitutional disparity, so some of the theory, that’s why I skip through very fast, but we all know, when we talk about Hindu, we are also we are talking about greater set of Dharmic religion so to say. So, the discrimination is actually against all sets and subsets of the Dharmic tradition.
Basic Philosophy of Sanathana Dharma
Sanatana Dharma says ‘Serve Dharma, So Dharma shall protect you’, which means the every personal, individual level, group level and the government level needs to first give to dharma to expect dharma to protect it and give back, that is like the fundamental philosophy which was almost all of us know. So I mean where this come does from, what does the philosophy behind this.
The fundamental premise of Dharma
Our philosophy believe man is inherently and interdependent being! And this is where the I have next slide which compares our philosophy with the prevalent philosophy of the day, that we say we are interdependent being and the prevalent notion is that we are in depended beings. So that where the basic difference in terms of what the constitution achieves to grant and what we actually want comes from. So we are depend on number of things, fellow humans, nature, society overall, and therefore I can make a case for myself by actually helping, being of help to others, that’s the premise, if I give, I qualify to get. So, there for the Dharmic society is a society of give and take, in that order.
Premise of modern culture
And off course the Premise of modern culture, which is, what is reflects now our constitution also, is about a right based society. So, the moment an individual is born, he is guaranteed a certain rights, everybody else has to work towards making that happen, to that particular individual. So its fundamentally, its orthogonal and these privileges and these rights are invaluable in sense irrespective of the contribution of the individual, forget contribution, but even is the individual is harmful to society is still guaranteed those rights. When we are multiples cases from the past decade or so where even, hark or criminals there are petition and let them free or accused there from the gallows. That is all derived from this believes.
Conflict between the Dharmic and Liberal approach
So, the conflict between the Dharmic and liberal approach is that, Dharmic society expects individual approach with the sense of duty, whereas prevalent notion is that we approach it with the sense of entitlement. So, because our basic premise, harmony with fellow humans. So if we give and take then this harmony between individual and in groups and the society and so on, whereas, the first result of a right based society is that, instigate conflict with others, because obviously everybody can’t get the same right, there is a limit, there is a pie and there is a limited share, that everybody get, but we guaranteeing the whole. So, one man’s rights another man’s obligation.
We have seen numerous laws in this country where, we know, the burden is transports one section of society to other, there are numerous excuses, you know, in some cases justification. But it is true, it is the transfer of burden. So that is not what the Dharmic society is. So it actually insist a sense of scarifies and enjoyment, and therefore the basic point I want to make about all three four slides is that, such as my slides, when we say we want to cultivate a Dharmic society, we want to be a Dharmic nation, so on and so for, whatever we saying, whatever Lakshana we are calling, whatever attribute that an individual and group should develop, it cannot be imposed. It has to be come from within, that is like the fundamental problem with why right-ways approach will not work for us.
So, it is difficult to impose and therefore at least three institution become is critical for us. Now many will argue, some you also may share that outlook, that when I talk about these three institutions in a next line, that it is important for all religions. Now I am talking about schools, temples and family. But it is especially important for a Dharmic region. That’s the point I am bring to make and perhaps if we have shouted of hierarchy of what is important, this is number one for us because like as said, you cannot impose, you cannot view a check list or a check sheet and follow all of this, five times a day, you do this once in a life time. We go there, we do have all of that, but that secondary, you pick up for example the Smriti of any Rishi and we have tone of them, all of them talk about the Lakshanas of Dharma. How can I identify an individual is Dharmic or not? The surprising thing is that almost none of them talk about devotion or worship of god. When this make come as surprising to you, but I don’t want to highlight about what Manu says on this, that’s like difficult Smriti to talk about.
But you take about any Smriti Bhakti, worship, archana etc. they do not figure in the list of the main Lakshana or attribute of Dharma when we have vastav, we have sathya, we have Kshama, we have Dhairya and so on, and each person differs. But those are fundamental qualities that an individual has to develop and express the others which are important. They are secondary, so they are in terms of, we need to do them in order to help develop these primary attributes. So, in that way, very strictly speaking a Dharmic society need not be even be religious and we have a ton of example. We also include some ethics philosophy in our list of Dharshna and so on it is the basic premise comes from.
Developing a Dharmic Outlook
So because of this, because the focus is not on the rich wells part or the following the rules part these things need to be cultivated and practiced , so we need to be educate people, we need to help them in leading a Dharmic life style and we need instrument to propagate this. So, therefore those three-requirement translating to control of these three institutions school, temple and family, we need control of these three institutions if Hinduism as a Dharmic society should need to survive and grow.
Critical Institutions for Dharmic Society
And leading from that, what is the current reason, in my opinion, for what we call as Dhimmitude. This is the term, I think, we use very frequently in all our presentations and you see that subsequently as well here.
Reasons for Hindu Dhimmitude
So, what is the primary reason for this lack, this Dhimmitude or this lack of pride and confidence is this because we don’t have control over these three institutions? So again, here there may be a question. There are thousands and thousands of Hindus running school and we have hundreds and thousands of temples. So what we really mean by control of these institutions? So the reminder of the slides that actually about, while we do run these institutions in one way or the other, we don’t really control them in the sense of, you know , what we can do, what we can teach, whom we teach and so on and so forth.
So basically, Dhimmitude is lack of knowledge, lack of pride, and there while lack of confidence. So, this is the three typical symptoms you will see with any Dhimmi in Hindu nowadays. So It has, of course, multiple angle there is a problem with education, there is a problem with how we are progressing as a society, some political angles it and so on. There is also a constitutional and legal angle which is what the reminder of my slides are going to focus on.
Is Hindu dhimmitude encoded in constitution?
Yes, so the constitution start with the premise of equality, absolute equality so to say through Article 14: it says the “state shall not deny to any person equality before the law”, in that specific sub-section where we have started to talk about individual rights in the constitution, this is the first, and here we are declare that everybody is equal and there are no if stand buds in this class.
And then the reminder of that subsection of the constitution is all about the exceptions and that’s where we have the problem. So where is this come from. Before we are getting to the specific problem areas, what is the reason for this discrimination. Obviously there was a lot of work 1930’s during the round table conference and so on, which kind of served as input material for our constitution and many other conference and discussions with various sections of society of various leaders, but I think, around 1945- 46, when some pre cards are work to that in the formation of the constituent assembly and then 1950, of course, we came republic and the constitution came in to effect. So those 4-5 years, when the actual, the trucks of the work happen for writing our constitution and co incidentally, of course the partition also take place at that time.
So that was the big factor. So if you look at all these constitutional assembly debate and the various committee, that were formed and sub-committee formed and the deliberation in almost every single committee and every single issue, they were trying to analyze the issue of minority rights, issue of protection for minority, that was the basic factor, in some sense righty, because obviously they was concerned and especially after the independence, after Manhattan given the violence and the number of people who died and soon, became a big concern. So, the concern is very genuine, but the way it has translated, it’s become an anti-pattern document, so to say. It started to have a opposite effect, what it was meant to have, but that was the background.
So, there were explicit minority rights, encoded in various article. And in many places the maker of constitution actually talks about how the Hindu society, the majority community will actually take care of itself. So one thing you will notice in all those debates and discussions is, there was never any problem in discussing about majority and minority, they will always open discussions. So people talking about religion, people talking about what is needed for my religion, your religion, Hindu and Muslim. Its flatted all over the discussion. There was no taboo talking about these issues, because they obviously they excepted the truth on the ground. That was the important factor during the formation of the nation. Unlike now where, some of us arriving challenges even talking about the Hindu Charter of demands because “oh! How can you talk about religious basis”? But the whole constitution itself talks on that basis, that’s parts we also trying to highlight and help or try and correct.
So they actually stated the Hindu society can actually take care of itself, we are always going to be majority in India, you will have the power to votes, you will get the government of your choice , you get whatever you want, that is like the basic assumption, and I think the previous video by Sri. Mohandas Pi ji, beautifully brought out that problem, how it is actually not translating in to the assumption under this declaration.
So almost nowhere in the constitution there is anything explicit declare for Hindus. And the other thing go all on with this is, the makers of this constitution many of them were like me in a sense, do not have deeply or position of authority to judge on religious and spiritual matters. They were lawyers they were political leader, and various economist and so on. All of them got together and took up this roll off, we will reform Hindu religion, and that also again features prominently in the discussions and with led to many classes.
Present constitution position of Hindus
Ineffective or no existent cultural, religious and educational rights. So if you recall the three institutions right day, closing tying to these three – schools, temples, and family. Article 25-30 specifically of the constitution heavily loaded against the Hindus, and therefore, impart step-motherly treatment and systematically overtime institution are weakened. So the first factor here, only Hindus are deprived over the control over their temples and religious affairs. So we will get two article out of the Article between the Article 25-30. The first, we will go slightly the reverse order just to emphasize the point.
Article 26: Freedom to manage religious affairs:
So every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have establish and maintain institutions for the religious purposes; and manage its own affairs and own and acquire property and administer such property in accordance with the law. So there is no clear definition of what is the religious denomination. Eastern, western concept that we have borrowed, in the ideal sense, it should have translated into every subsection, every creed that we have even in the Hindu fold and that should have been identified as religious denomination, and therefore all of those the Vaishnava, the Smartha or the Agories, for example, and so on. Every single subset which has unique identification to it and unique practices that should have been called out as a denomination. That’s not the case.
Article 25: Freedom of religion
we have Article 25, which norms the first part of the, at least is kind of, subject to a couple of things., Morality, Health and public order each person will have the freedom of conscious and the right freely profess and practice and propagate religion. So everybody has the right to practice religion. But then this section the class II under the article and then the two subclasses under that, bring it a lot of restriction and allow the government to excise a lot of control. So it says the state shall not be prevented from regulating or restricting any economical financial, political or other activity which may be associated with religious practice. And then there is a competition between class A and Class B which is more damaging the second one, says, providing for social welfare and reform of the throwing open of Hindus religious institution of public character. Now over time this second subclass again in terms of interpretation split into two parts, providing for social welfare and reform. That’s the way the courts interpret one part, so the constitution give us that right, we can going for social welfare and reform and then also the opening up of the Hindu religious institutions.
Class A here regulating or restricting any activity, is a healthy amount of debate during the formation of a constitution and they sighted may examples where no religious institution, religious Gurus, some of the Baba’s and all were misusing their position and basically making money and running other stuff, non-religious stuff. So, they said how do we control, if you give unrestricted freedom to practice religion. Then how does the state will interfere if somebody is like profiteering, exploiting people? That was the basic premise behind putting in this class. But that’s been forgotten now. So, what did says the state can enter and it can control all of these activities.
Also, the other angle to this was, they said, if lets a running a temple, obviously they will be no income, there will be money spending on the needs of the temple. That is the fundamentally economical and financial in nature. But that is not what was counted here. The regular financial or economic activity to sustain the institution is not what was meant here. If you are doing, I am there, is a clear example. I think one of the examples is, somebody says in the debates, you somebody runs a lottery. For example in the temple, Baba, he runs a ponzi scheme and under the garb of the institution that is what they wanted to prevent over here, when they say it may be associated it actually meant apart from the religious practice, but that is not how interpreted now . So even the seva amount that we go and offer in a temple because it obviously money its currency that’s has been counted as economical and financial activity and so the state has the right to entre and control. So that is a kind of distortion of the intent of the constitution makers.
A Fundamental Question
So how can a secular government control and manage religious places that of only one religion. Now that may be a one question here. In those articles, there is nothing specific about Hindu right except the last portion about Hindu religious, Hindu temples. But in terms of the interpretation and application by the courts and also by the numerous laws that has been made by various state ant central governments, it’s all not translated into only laws, acts and judgments against, at least the majority of them are against the Hindu religion. Based on how it transpired, we can safely say that this is happening only for one religion, the Hindu religion. This is of course explain, I mean acceptable if there is Hindu Rashtra you know, obviously there are people suddenly says the examples of the Vijaynagar kingdom and various other Kingdoms. So the kings on a daily basis use to interfere, meddle and run the affairs of temple, but we are not a Hindu Rashtra, we are so call a secular nation, so how can we do this.
So, the other angle to look at this is, I mean, this is a weak angle, but we want to call it out if you want to meddle in the affairs of religious institutions. Then, it is little better if you equally with the institution of all the religions, that’s again it’s not happen. So, it cannot pick and choose over only Hindu temples. So, what was it resulted into loss of pride? You know, is it that we cannot manage our temples, is again those who believes that Hindus cannot manage temples. This is question No. 1, that we here saying, who will manage? We have slide out to on that and will discuss a bit about that, but we manage so many other institutions, we have been doing for thousands of years like suddenly to declare that, post-independence, suddenly incapable of managing temples, you know because people are corrupt and mismanagement and so on. But that should have been every case of, every kind of institutions that Hindu Runs today.
So, you see the result of state control of Hindu religious affairs. There are so many examples. Week after week, we hear about the Tirumala Tirupathi priest controversy, there are actually multiple angles there, prevention of chanting of Mantras and something and so on. Commercialization of many temples, there are various Sevas that the money you can give, you can get a different kind of treatment in the temple and then people go for only those Poojas and so on, misuse and misappropriation. This is like the biggest norms effect of this especially in south India where the almost all the southern India states have been loss the control in temples. This is the one big side effect or may be the main effect of this rule. We simply don’t know what quantity of a land, a temple has, and it’s has gone off. So, it’s strange to its real contracts right for thousands and thousands of years. You pick up any History material related to Bharata, you will see that Kings actually donated lands, granted land to temples, and now we have the opposite since the last seventy years, that this land has been taken again and nobody knows where they were going.
And various other issues as well. They actually not manage it well, that’s the summery. Government meant to take over the temples so that they can rid the temple of the problem of management. They are aggravated the problem. And the last one is also especially serious — appointment of non-Hindus and temple boards as temple employees and this is happening, in the few of the biggest temples most precious and most holy temples for us. Tirupathi, for example, big controversy going out. So Dharma dies without temples, so they are the life and soul of a Dharma. So today it has become like, I would say, many of these temples right run by government as if you are running a museum or a library. There has a certain stated function on paper and that’s what happens, so they would have appointed some people and even so it needs to be clean, they need to be one Archaka and then there will be certain timing and we will do certain Poojas, all of that is fine. But that’s not elementary in any temple, our temples served numerous other purposes all of which have been discounted now.
So it have deprived as institutional capacity for self-correction self-defense and organic growth of religious leadership, so because it’s like this notionally running so many of this temples, there is no organic growth from within, and religious and spiritual out from this temple are not up to the mark. There for we must gain control all our temples again.
Demand: Amend Article 26 to restore temple to Hindus
So as a result of all of this material what we are asking for or demanding as part of charter the first of the sub demands under point 1 is that, we amend the Article 26 to restore the temple to Hindus, you would recall that there is a phrase in the current Article which says for any other non-religious activity , the state can interferer, what we are asking for is not withstanding anything contain in any of this Article, the state shall not control, administer or manage any institution established for religious purposes.
Explicitly take back this right, that the state has, there are numerous other laws, tax laws, criminal laws which are sufficient, which are enough to take care of problems with correction, mismanagement, we don’t have similar laws for commercial entity, commercial organizations. So, the same thing can apply and then a couple of sub points, just to make sure the withdrawal of state right is complete. That’s, all laws in force the territory of India will be wide at this point. For example, we have many state governments which have the HRC acts; Hindu religious and charitable endowment Acts, through which they take over temples. So, then the other will be like small legal loophole saying, will existing laws continue to work? and so on. So that’s why we will make it explicit, saying none of those, no valid anymore and in future also the state shall not make any law to take over. So that’s some substance of this demand. Withdraw your right, void all existing laws, and you should not have the right make any laws in future.
So, what happen, how to fill the void if the state withdraws. So, this is like the favorite question of those who don’t like this proposal. Now, who take this, actually there are various angles. In many of the south Indian states, right, when the state actually takes over, its actually coming in a just supreme authority there, in terms of the management committee of the temple, the people who are involved in today administration, they actually remain the same. But every single action that they take subject to the control and approval and permission of the government and therefore ninety percent of the cases, the question is actually void, because there are people who are traditionally managing and the village or the town people there have the arrangement, there to manage the temples, only in some big temples the state has really completely taken over, you know many of them government employees and so on.
How to fill void if state withdraws?
So there the question is valid and what we are saying is the central government has the power to interfere in this matter because, administration in the religious places is on the concurrent list which means both the state government and the central government can make the laws related to this. So, the central could act a law taking best practice from the existing acts that are there, and it can give a frame work for management. For example, if you see the related to education, right to education (RTE) act, its similar in nature; it’s a concurrent subject, and the Article Act passed by the central government use a frame work, in each state government has made its own rules and regulations derived from it and based on local needs. So the same things actually can work for temples if needed, so I think covered in previous.
Benefits
As it is a number of benefits basically, it will restore our pride and confidence and we can use our temples for many other purposes, Dharmic purposes. So, the second topic, state has become the biggest Proselytizer by encouraging conversion of Hindus by misuse of public fund etc. This may sound a little alarming of shocking to say, but that’s kind of reality of now transpiring.
Article 27:
So we have Article 27 in the constitution which says this, “no person shall compel to pay any taxes, the proceeded of it specifically appropriated in payment related to any religious activity, promotion or maintenance of any religious activity”. So, this is actually bars. The states because it’s a self-declared secular nation. Actually, if it is interpreted in the spirit of what this was meant to be, the state cannot spend its money, the money collected from the public on any particular religion or religious denomination”. But, then again, they have got and clever here. So, you see the serious word here, which says specifically appropriated in payment. So, the interpretation of this is, if I am actually collecting a new tax, lets impose tax A from today, say this is going to be spend on Masjids and churches, but then I collected from all citizens of India. So the interpretation is in that case, that particular tax collected is specifically appropriated for religion also and therefore, happily say it’s not allowed. But as long as this is coming from some pool, that we are all paying taxes, and just goes into a consolidated fund and nobody knows how it been split, therefore it is not specific appropriation, therefore this is not applicable. So that’s like creative interpretation of this class to do now, whatever appeasement that has to be done.
Consequences of ambiguity in Article 27
So, the consequences of the ambiguity is false narrative of minority is in this created. The main thing is here, the minority politics and appeasement by misuse of public fund to the determined of majority, there are multiple angles here, right. One is the whole financial angle. We have a department of minority affairs in the centre and mini state governments, numerous policies and acts targeting minority religions and the corresponding majority act of the benefit is not whether its scholarship whether it is easy access to loans, reduce interest rates, many other forms of appeasement. They have a separate minority commission, ministry, separate budget and so on.
So, one is the tax angle, is money in the secular state, is spending the second thing, is we have declared has to be secular. We wanted a notion of religion-based treatment to go away, but then you create policies and schemes based on religion. It will only deeply on the sense of religious identity, from the consumption of public goods prospective, for example we have this, first point talking about, this Sachar committee report and as a result of various schemes were created, targeting minority community. One of them says, that wherever there are minority constant treated districts, it’s called MCD particular region. They have some geographical specification for that, if the percentage of minority is greater than twenty-five or something, then there are special schemes which include, things like focus on creating roads, streetlight, easy access to loans in that area and so on.
Multiple issues with this. First of all, if you creates scheme targeting concentrated areas, people are going concentrate more and easy access to resources there and secondly, it deep on the money, something like a road, or a streetlight or bank loan is a public good. There is no religious identity or a religious tagging. Each of us based on needs and whatever other non-religious criteria should be equally qualify to apply for that and get in. But this is specifically targeting. That’s so. It can only deep on the sense communal identity in the country. If we go this round, I think that’s the bigger problem with this approach.
So obviously, the electoral politics and voting block is a big factor and even BJP falls into this trap, the reason the numerous of these schemes are still continuing, some new ones have been added. So, there is a sense of discard, there is a sense of what has been stated, and what has been done, there is some discontent there, and therefore, the net result of this is state incentivizing and encouraging conversion of Hindus to take this benefits. So, this based again sound a little strong, but that’s the reality.
Again, if you go down this path and make availability of public goods easy, if you belong to a certain set of religion, unlike caste for example, you can actually convert from one relation to other. So in some sense is encouraging that, it may be slow, it may be happen over a long time or whatever or may be not even happen, even the sense of lack of confidence, lack of pride that the majority community feels saying, that we are not deserving of these. That’s itself is enough, that’s itself is like defense in incentivizing at least, if you are not incentivizing that actual move.
A fundamental question on the nature of Indian state
So, when the state patronizes minority so much and thereby encourage us that how is different from missionaries and others in the character. So how is doing it thinks differently, has the constitution even inadvertently envisaged such a type of state. So that’s even not hint of such a wish from makers of our constitutions.
Demand: Amend Article 27 to maintain religious neutrality
So, our second demand is amend Article 27 make it explicit, no money out of the consolidated fund of India or of a state shall be appropriated for advancement of promotion of a section of citizens. So again, if you see the first and second demand also its very neutral and the point, we want to emphasize in the end also, in this section, in this demand of the Hindu charter. We are not asking anything explicitly for our community only. There are certain deficiencies, please take them away. So here also we are saying the same thing, let it not be appropriated for the promotion of any religion. So, this will end the politics of appeasement obviously. If the state simply cannot do, then you cannot promise anything. Now they promise because a portion of it can be implemented, and therefore it will bring much needed neutrality, and thereby restore the pride and self-confidence, at least stop the incentivizing like I said.
Dhimmitude No. 3
The deracination of Hindus to self-loath and disown their religion, culture and history. So there are a bunch of Articles, will quickly go through them and then will get to some points about how this is leading to deracination of Hindus.
Article 15(5), 28 & 30
So, Article 15(5) was introduced in 2005. Now there was a famous judgment in 2002 related to educational institutions and I think it was a eleven judge bunch TMA Pai. Fantastic judgment, long one. Summary relevant to our discussion here is, it says, for most of the aspects are running the an educational institution, minority and majority are the same. That’s the summary of the judgment especially unaided institution. if a particular institution is not getting help from the state in any form, then both majority schools and minority schools have the same rights.
I just want to pause on one second. When I say majority schools and minority schools, are you familiar with what that means? So this is not a term invented by our group, just to get some changes made here. The constitution actually leads to the formation of the so call minority schools, minority colleges and non-minority schools, non-minority colleges and its only based on the religion of the trust, I mean the members of the trust that will run the institution, and if we simplify, religion of the management , nothing helps counts. So, if two third of the members of the managing trust, managing committee of the schools, for example are Jains or Parsis, is the minority schools. If they are the Hindus, they are the majority school. Similar distinction exists on a linguistic basis.
Also, Mohandas Pai Ji covered it very well and there is a similar thing, but he already made the point. I will come to that again. There also, it’s a kind of not beneficial to Hindus. So, this is actually encoded in the constitution, it actually calls so. In fact, you try to open a school you realize it in the first few sections of the form they will ask you, what is your religion, are the religion of the committee, how many are Hindus. In effect, they are asking them. So, it’s not invented by us. We have heard that this particular acquisition of few times saying, why you want to classify schools on religious basis? We are not doing, its already exists and this is introduced to nullify the judgment, which I spoke about 2002 judgment, which treated both institutions on equal footing, regard to admission or students.
Now the state wanted to cavort a certain percentage of seats. I want to be able to ten percentage, fifty percentage, twenty percentage of the seat is determined by me. Then, there was an objection, say, you can’t do that for minority schools. There was a doubt and the judgment while talking about that aspects. Now the judgment covered a lot of things, but it said NO, if it is an unaided minority school, and an un-aided majority, if they are equal. But if it is an aided minority, the state can still interfere and say I have aided you the formation of your institution. So, I can impose that you keep twenty percent of your seats for whom ever I determined. So, they nullified it. They said the state shall have the power to impose, admission to educational institutions. I want to go by word by word, but this whole section I highlighting here, the state grant itself the right to interfere in the matter of admission and then look at this class, that any type of institution whether aided or unaided by the state the government can interfere other than the minority institution. So, they, its explicitly left it out. So, this is again encoded. So, we will not touch minority school in terms of seats, any other school we have the right, and this was to negate that judgment, this is one class.
The second class we are going to talk about, no religious instruction shall be provided in any institution wholly maintained of government funds. On paper it’s like good. Right. Secular state cannot interfere in religion and so therefore we will not teach. But even today 70 percent over all nationwide, 70 percent of the schools were government schools, and may be eighty or eighty-five, I don’t know, maybe even ninety percent of our kids go have secular education, because they want a job, they want skills. So a majority of student go and spend the peak of their youth in institution which shall not teach religion and then we complain saying you, ‘why don’t they have any prayers Dharmic attitude in them, we are setting them up for that, there is always an argument, we can teach it at home and all of that is fine. But the peak of their youth and the peak duration, during that the active time, from, let’s say, three or four years kid, till about eighteen, he spends in schools and colleges, and the exposure there is totally opposite. So, we don’t stand a chance unless we correct this, irrespective of what theories we come up with. There is home schooling theory, there are some theory saying culture and religion shall be thought by the parents. All of that is good but if this deracination does not happen, only then that will be effective.
The important point therefore in this discussion, right, is, if dig it to, how many of this institution which are doing fantastic job? how are they managing to do it? It is an exemption through the linguistic root, I am pretty sure, in a franchise model or some other model. They will create, there is a loop hole, and you know, you put, I am from Karnataka, I will fund the money and I create a committee and two third of my friends are Tamil or Telugu or some other language. I grain and still I need flout will the government, and I declare myself, when I declare myself as a linguistic minority. Then I am able to teach all of those, but a bigger problem there Is, in our own nation, in our own state, why should we follow this root and how many can do it. Not everybody can do it. And then of course in many opinions that killer Article in our constitution, which is, all minority whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institution in their choice. Absolutely nothing wrong with the way, it is written. But everything wrong with the way it is interpreted. It says the minority shall get it, courts and our government are said it only the minority shall get it. It’s almost inexplicable why somebody would interpret unless you have some other agenda, but that’s how this is been interpreted.
So, there are various reason, that is led to deracination of Hindus. Banking on that three Article that I talk about, at least two of them, Article 28 and 30, have been, since inception and banking on those systematically, we have been deracinated, helped by some of the initial people, who are education ministers. So, there are some clue here I think, whenever I share this material, you can go and do some research on it why we highlighted? Obviously, there will be a certain flavor to what get highlighted and what we had tried to show here?
What did they do?
Industrial scale distortion of our history, negation and the opposite, also glorification, you know, the highlighting of the rest, and enormous patronization of pro-left, pro–minority academicians. So, therefore, we are in a situation where formal education means deracination. That’s what it become. So, there was phase in between, were due to some inadvertent development in our society, the kind of sated coming back track on, so to say, and some stage figures, you all know, may be not the audience is mostly quite young. Some of us at least, we have experienced in this in Ramayana and Mahabharata. Nowadays, street used to be empty, coconut have to be broken in front of TV, everybody is starting to go to temples, and I don’t know how many lakhs of copies of Ramayana and Mahabharata got sold. But they did served their purpose, they was like at least halt to the speed, which they were eroding, and then they came back. So realize this and then from the ninety’s onwards I think the control was rested back again, and may be on serial terms, some of these really carped, TV serial started taking back over from that and that made up for the loss of whatever time they lost there.
So, our syllabus also there for completely Abrahamisation and there are some examples here Karnataka social science Text book, in terms of what they talk. Again, its fine. I think we have talk about a little bit, Sri Lanka have open policy, they openly teach about all religion to all kids. They say, let there be some basic ground work done. That’s fine. But if you look at this, it doesn’t look like you are teaching all religion here and there are numerous examples, and this is just in some pages from the Karnataka syllabus and on social media you will find so many threads and so many poses related to this. This is not social, this is not science, this is not social studies. So, this is religion, all colleges and schools will teach this, this is like NCERT syllabus who are adopting even state syllabus. Many of them do this, so again like as said, ready, if you, if the question is ok. The birth place of Jesus Christ is. This is fine. But birth place of Shankaracharya along with that. Then the child gets a neutral opinion on this. Then the only question is this. Then over fifteen years of training, you know what will happen?
So, it’s not in academics, in cinemas. I am sure this is like a favorite topic, you know, I have seen one favorite example. I would like to gorgeous; it will not take the name. But there will be series of comedy movies that comes, in every movie, I have noticed every time there is at least the ten minute segment were, there is some serious thing happening, and the leading lady is upset and things are bad, and then they go to church and pray, throughout the comedy movie also, they will insert that, you pick any mainstay movie. I think there is no dispute at least on this fact on what they promote. So, fragmentation of society has happened through this.
Thus, the result of all of this that our children are denied access to our own text and their civilization knowledge. The older system, between three and or may be between five to eighteen is when the child used to learn about our scriptures, and Shastras and Dharma and now the exact face that we will not teach them. So we are doing the opposite of what we are meant to do So what to do? So, there was the Bhakti movement in the medieval ages. Sri. Tilak used many instruments to rekindle the spirit of Dharma and like I mention the brief phase there. So therefore, if you rekindle it, it is impossible to prevent its fragmentation.
So, from a legal constitutional angle to do all of these numerous steps are required from the legal angle. What we are asking, this, repeal this Article 15 (5), make that class applicable to all of them and then inserting Article 28, nothing in this constitution shall be deemed to forbid the teaching of traditional Indian knowledge. So, this is absolutely right allocated.
So, there is this, an argument that you know, the movement that you start teaching Hindu kids about Hindu religion; Sati may come back, varied arguments; Untouchability may come back, sati may come back, we have given up Untouchability, there are exception. I don’t deny it. ok. But a larger society we have accepted that it’s not acceptable and the question of sati, it’s a ministerial problem. Even then our scriptures, our book will be taught about be truthful, Ahimsa, don’t injure another person, don’t take money from another person, like I mention about Dharmic Lakshanas. If you teach kids about these, how it going to create a problem? In fact, they may become soft, I would say, that is the stronger argument, if you want to argue against this, not the argument currently being done and in Article 30: which grades numerous rights replace the word minority with all section of citizens.
So very briefly I want to touch up on Article 30. So, there are three categories of powers, that this article grants. What can you teach, whom will you teach and who will teach? Very vital for any school or college, any educational institutions today. The minority education have completely control and freedom to do all of those, the syllabus they can decide, they can choose to accept NCERT or whatever, or they can teach in addition any other subject, they can decide on their principal, headmaster, teachers, and they can decide whom to take. So, all the three have complete freedom. We do not have freedom on any of this. So that’s the really grave problem, and just replacing one word will actually take care of it. So, we are requesting.
A bit of background made in 2019 election are going to be due and we have a private member bill introduced by Dr. Satyapal Singh ji in 2016, which actually ask for the exact same thing covered in this presentation, in amendment to five Articles. But it is a private member bill. It had to be adopted by the government and then passed in both Rajya Saba and Lok Saba. We simply don’t have any time left any more, though I think technically one budget section still pending, it’s not going to happen and obviously we will not give up. Hope so. We have revised our demand now. What is we are saying the new Lok Saba term under the assumption that government favorable to this demands will come again. So, we are saying, please introduce either a government bill or if you want, for whatever reason, you want to take an alternate approach, go the private member approach bill approach, again introduce it, adopt it and please pass all of these amendments we are requesting for.
Will this bill be Anti Minority?
I think I need not explain it further. It’s clear. None of this Anti-minority. Thus, I am given them whatever we want in fact like it. Thus, the summery of this line, it also furthers the mission of RSS. I will skip this and I will go to this slide.
This is the appeal all of you write to the Prime Minister asking for this end to this discrimination, write to our local MP or MLA whatever, email or note, or whatever and ask them to read about Hindu charter demands and may be make public statements give some public commitments if they agree with us and try to get it to include in their respective party manifesto. We may not be able to do all of this together, but a bit of pieces if you keep including, at that level, state government, central government, this is possible.
We have a Hindu charter website whether there is a petition that you can sign, that we want to collect at least a few lakhs of signature and banking on that, we want to go to some of these government authority, the Prime minister, the president may be and make a petition, So please helps us for signing. Please ask your friends and family to refer them the website and ask them sign and then we would really love, if you can help us to arrange Hindu charter talking in your city. So, we have covered the few of the major cities, there still a lot of work, partly because we are not interested, partly because we are not capable, there are no Dharna, protest related to this, the Sattvic way of doing things and talks and confidences and so on. So, if you can join there and Srijan Foundation is the best place of start up on this. So from there any of this can be done, that can be another important activity the solicit and help on.
