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Articles: My Thoughts | Cry for a Hindu Nation
- Miss swatireddy swati
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We remained subjugated for more than 1000 years when foreign rulers ruled over our country. By barbaric persecution or economic inducements, they compelled certain segments of our nation to abandon their ancestral culture and adopt the culture of those foreign invaders. These segments of our population forgot that the culture they had adopted was a foreign culture, a culture that belonged to another nation and had been forced on them.
But subjugation cannot by itself destroy the nationhood of a nation. Nor can the nature of the nation, the basic characteristic and disposition of the nation, get altered or changed by the fact of enslavement. Nations do not get destroyed. We Hindus are a nation just as the Germans are a nation, the Armenians are a nation, the Kurds are a nation, the Jews are a nation. Germany was divided into two after the II World War. But this did not abate their nationhood. Within 50 years, they achieved reunification of their motherland and the nation has been restored to its original character and complexion.
The fact that 'We Hindus are a nation' is by no means a new idea. This idea has been with us from the dawn of history. Without going into the hoary past, let me trace it from the latter half of the 19th century. If we read the writings of Swami Dayanand Saraswati of Arya Samaj, we can see the underlying notion that 'We Hindus are a Nation'. We can see the same refrain in the writings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee of Bande Mataram fame and Sri Aurobindo. In their writings we find a clear and confident assertion that 'We Hindus are a Nation' and not just a religious community.
The basic perception of Vir Savarkar was also the same which he forcefully presented in his book 'Hindutva'. However, the saint, sage and seer Swami Vivekananda made the most powerful pronouncement of this idea. Throughout his brief but momentous life, Swami Vivekananda proclaimed loudly, clearly and consistently the fact that 'We Hindus are a Nation'.
In his brief 5-minute first address, Swami Vivekananda declared at the inaugural session of the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893: 'I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects'. Then he spoke three sentences which were most significant. First, he said: 'I am proud to belong to a Religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.' In the second sentence he said: 'I am proud to belong to a Nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth'.
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