In our quest for eyeballs, click-baits, and partisan ideological posturing, we often ignore the long arc of history. For the longest time in human history, the world was inhabited by what we now call pagan civilisations. In this era of climate change and 'green' livelihoods, pagan civilisations teach us a lot about how to live in harmony with nature. Pagans worship trees, planets, water, fire, forests, animals, and more.
They realised the value of community and social good long before Marxists perverted the idea. They respected individual choice long before Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill endorsed those values. Yet, starting with Egypt, pagan civilisations like the Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, Mesopotamians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans completely disappeared from the face of the earth.
The only truly pagan civilisation that survives is Bharat. Call it Sanatana Dharma or Hinduism or whatever, but there you have it. For this author, more than Hindutva or displays of religiosity, the consecration of the idol of Ram in Ayodhya is a powerful message that the Idea of Paganism has come back with a vengeance. I am a Hindu and a pagan. For me, the events today mark a renaissance of Hindu civilisation. The 500-year-old struggle that ended today with the return of Ram to his birthplace is something that every genuine Hindu is celebrating.
So far, so good. The pagan Hindus have reclaimed their civilisational heritage. But what next?
A Single-minded Obsession With Ram is Not Going to Help India
Let’s look at some things of which Hindus can be genuinely proud of their ancient pagan past. The first one is a keen eye for things in the realm of sciences: medicine, astronomy, algebra, and more. The second is to be open-minded. Throughout history, India has been not only open-minded when it comes to new ideas, philosophies, and facts, but also to people who are culturally different.
The third, most important facet has been the ability of Hindus to accept diversity and difference; even a staunch atheist can claim to be a Hindu. Now, these are tools that India needs even more as it transitions from a desperately poor Third World economy to a middle-income one.
A single-minded obsession with Ram is not going to help India become a middle-income country in the next decade. Hindus need to focus on economic growth ad development. In any case, the two are not mutually exclusive. To its credit, the current regime has done what should have been done decades ago. It has ensured that an overwhelming majority of citizens, irrespective of caste and creed, have access to drinking water, toilets, electricity, clean cooking fuel, decent infrastructure, concrete houses, and bank accounts.
For the author, the biggest failure of previous regimes has not been the neglect of 'Hindu' causes. It is the failure to provide these basic needs to citizens in their obsession with 'secularism'. Even a critic of the current regime and many of its policies will, if she is objective, acknowledge these changes. But when it comes to quality of life and standards of living, Indians are still miles behind other Asian countries that got rid of colonialism much later than India. Forget Europe and North America, it would be wonderful if the quality of life of the average Indian matches that of the average citizen in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia in the next ten years when the Indian economy approaches the $10 trillion GDP milestone.
Triumphalism is Not the Path to Prosperity
Any student of political economy knows that sustained growth in terms of economic output and infrastructure is possible only when private investors feel confident enough that they will be assured of an enabling environment. When disputes and disagreements are managed and negotiated in a largely peaceful manner, investment pours in. Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu often see bitter, ideologically divisive disputes and disagreements. Yet, they attract massive amounts of investments.
Compare that with Bihar and West Bengal which no sane investor or serious entrepreneur wants to touch with a barge pole. The reason is the incipient and persistent threat of violence and violent disruptions. Getting out of the vicious trap of no investments, persistent unemployment and chronic poverty is possible even for poor states and regions. Over the last two decades, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have demonstrated that. In this moment of civilisational reawakening, Hindus must imbibe this basic lesson.
Neither Triumphalism nor inflammatory displays of identity will pave the path to prosperity. Magnanimity and a willingness to absorb differences will ensure India gets more and more investments from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, Airbus, Meta, LG, Samsung, Toyota, Sony, Foxconn, Bayern Munich, Volkswagen and sovereign wealth funds of Singapore, the UAE, Kuwait and more. Making even more efforts to attract them will in no way diminish the significance of Ram. In fact, the author would dare say to suggest Lord Ram would approve.
But there is another critical factor that needs attention. And that is the attitude and mindset of the second largest majority of India: the Muslim population. To the dismay of the author, an uncomfortably large number of educated and allegedly liberal Muslims have been lamenting is that the second-class status of Muslims in India has been cemented and officially ordained by this event.
Sure, prejudice against Muslims exists in India. But to suggest they are victims of state and society-sponsored systematic discrimination is dangerous. Brevity prevents the author from laying out a wealth of hard data that exposes their lies. But just think: if Muslims were getting such a raw deal in India, why are Muslims from Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Afghanistan so keen to settle in this country? If Hindus need to be magnanimous and graceful, Muslims too need to be magnanimous and graceful. Accept Islamic invaders did destroy monuments intrinsically tied up with the Hindu faith. But those days are gone. It is time to look at the future.
For the author, the only future that is worth talking about is one where the average Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist Indian has a per capita income of $5000 a year (it is less than $2500 now) to begin with. Lord Ram will applaud that milestone, as much as he appreciates the hauntingly beautiful Bhajans sung in his name.
(Sutanu Guru is the Executive Director of the CVoter Foundation. This is an opinion article and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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