Why Rationalist Hindus have become right wing.

I was reading up the anti superstition bill of Maharashtra assembly, when a thought struck me. What is it that makes rationalists and agnostics become "Internet Hindus", or "Sanghis" as the left routinely derides the nationalist Hindu.

That anti superstitions bill outlaws the misuse of religion by crooks who mistreat,  cheat, murder or engage in other such  criminal activity.  That such criminality is already outlawed in indian penal code is a debate for another day.

But I want to be on the point of irrationality and superstition. And the spectacular rise of the so called "Hindu Right", who can routinely be seen outraging on one issue or other on social platforms nowdays.

A number of religions rever the moon when we know without doubt that man has walked on it. The blind faith in a book or a stone or an idol or a planet is all very much irrational. The competitive irrationality of its followers and criminality due to such irrationality  should ideally be outlawed too!!

On the other hand, Perhaps religion has its uses, in that, faith in a larger bigger power, by itself, could be self healing and give (rather irrationally) the resilience to man to live his life's journey.  The promise of the afterlife to motivate a person to share and care and generally become more altruistic, which by itself are irrational acts. To check us from becoming downright hedonists, or installing a self-check from behaving unjustly or unfairly. All of these virtues of humanity, it can be argued, are equally irrational as religion,  because rationality demands that if you have a lever, you'd use it.

Lets take my example. I am quite open to debate the premise of religions. I admit its irrationality. I do not believe in the exceptional holiness of Godmen whether Sai baba or other. But I am at peace with the concept of aham brahmasmi too, believing that godliness is federated in all living beings, and is the choice of the individual. I like such Hindu philosophical discourse but dislike the ritualis and pesky pandas who haven't read enough.

So what makes these western-educated people, who are wired as rationalists otherwise, to take offence to the portrayal of religious symbols in bad light in media or cinema or theater or even by the communists and atheists. Why do rstionalists (like us) mind the portrayal of bindi and mangalsutra and dhoti and sanskrit and other such symbols of Hinduism as backwardness, or of patriarchal order. Why does the IH instinctively take offence when realists mock the Godmen they may themselves despise?

I have realised that this defence of religion is driven by selfish motives. Gaining political power for one's community is a rational objective. And whether we like it or not we are bracketed at birth with a religious identity. And given the constraints of our identities,  it is but rational that the IH see to it that s/he is least unjustly treated.  It is but rational to analyse the portrayal of their identities in media and cinema and text books and other means - the brand of Hinduism.

It needs just a basic analysis to note that Hinduism has been at the receiving end of government sponsored proselytizing, first by invaders, then by theological sultanates and then by a secular government, which ironically protects the evangelist's cause to complete the missions of their previous political establishments. The Modi government is perhaps the only dispensation in Anno Dominni that is sympathetic to the Hindu cause.

The vast residual of governance apparatus (from the evangelical dispensations earlier), along with its propaganda machinery in the public and private space, however, remains to be sensitized to the fate of the natives. A quick study of the fate of natives in other continents and nations, when faced with the same global forces of proselytizing, can be a good pointer. It will provide with the very valid case for protection of a Hindu nation, under existential siege, on the lines of similar conservation of aborigines in Australia,  red Indians in USA, Jews in Israel,  or the sheduled tribes in India. It is indeed a miracle that Hinduism has actually survived through more than a millenia and a half of foriegn  onslaught.

The Hindu political fight therefore is a rational fight for self preservation, of existential anxiety, rather than one of expansionism or proselytizing. To compare it with Taliban and Christian groups, whose avowed aim of Ummat or other such expansionism is a direct threat to our preservation, is to run with the hound in pursuit of the hare.

The propaganda arms of proselytizing, like the English media and bollywood cinema of the Hirani and Haider variety, should do well to address this anxiety which was recently manifested in the political upheaval at the center and may well reach their ivory towers next.