The ruling party has caused a poisonous polarisation in India, mainly along the religious line. Obviously with every engineered riot since 1950, the BJP influence has spread more and more.
Does God reveal institutionalised religions? I do not think that God draws any boundaries. We draw the boundaries. The religious teaching is meant to pull the ego out of the natural quagmire of divisive sectarian view of ‘I and My’ and to lead the attention to unity that underlies all apparent diversity.
India has tremendous religious and cultural diversity, including explosive co-existence of temples and mosques side by side. Today it is sad to see India divided along religious and man-made caste and class lines. Hatred for the ‘other’ predominates all interactions in public life. Tolerance has taken a beating. The hold of sectarianism is so strong that on all sides the objective appraisal of propositions and situations has stopped.
Why has such a hatred-full polarisation become the norm? If you take birth in a country where you encounter people who are different from you — in terms of religion or in terms of any other parameter -- can you live your whole life in antagonism of the other? Can it ever be good for the individual or for the country? But this is what the situation is. Why?
India was subjected to divisive ‘Two Nation’ ideology from two sides — from the Muslim and from the Hindu sides. Jinnah and his party and Shri Savarkar both saw India as constituted of ‘Two Nations’ and the ruling British stoked the idea (See below under “Historical Notes”).
It is not difficult to accept that the many religious and cultural aspects of Hindus and Muslims are not similar. But does that mean that they constitute ‘Two Nations’? Dogs, cats, cows, and human beings are so diverse. Do they constitute ‘Many Nations’? Then how many nations the USA is constituted of?
So, if one is born in an environment of great diversity and one comes in contact with this theory of ‘Two Nations’ from birth, what will be the nature of one’s mind? We are a country of 1.35 billion. If half of the population harbours an idea of ‘the other’ as the ‘other (enemy) nation’, how will country work as one? Will the majority be able to push out the 20% people who constitute the other?
Which of the two ideologies: “Two Nations” versus “Inclusive, One nation” more accurately aligns with the ideals of Hinduism? Which of the two is conducive for peace and prosperity of the individual and the nation?
...
Historical Notes
In 1925, during the Aligarh Session of the All-India Muslim League, Justice Abdur Rahim (1867–1952) openly articulated how Muslims and Hindus constituted two nations. Needless to say that the ruling English administrators and academics supported the Muslim theory and fiercely propagated the ‘Two Nations’ theory. Sir John Cumming (1868-1958), a British administrator in his book Political India (released in 1932), commented: “It is not only in the customs and usages which mark their external life that the two people differ; the sources of their moral and intellectual inspiration are different”.
Diana L. Eck quoted Sir John Strachey (1823-1907), another British civil servant, to note that the idea of India not being a nation "would be echoed by British administrators for many decades" and "was to become one of the undergirding themes of empire”. In 1883 Sir John Strachey asserted, “This is the first and most essential thing to learn about India—that there is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India, possessing, according to European ideas, any sort of unity, …….”.
Two-nation theory (Pakistan) - Wikipedia
These were, in my opinion, very biased-motivated statements of the ruling English people.
Poet Mohamed Iqbal who wrote the famous song "Sare Jahanse Acchchha Hindostan Hamara" was the first to formulate the concept of a separate state for Muslims in 1930. In Muhammad Ali Jinnah's All India Muslim League presidential address delivered in Lahore, on 22 March 1940, he explained “It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality,….…..”.
On the Hindu side, there was a parallel ideology of Two Nations. Many leaders had talked of Hindus and Muslims constituting separate nations long before Partition, but it was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who had formulated the two-nation theory in his 1923 essay Hindutva, published 16 years before Mohammed Ali Jinnah proposed the same idea. The Muslim League adopted the Pakistan Resolution in Lahore on March 23, 1940.
In 1937 at the open session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted: "India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary, there are two nations in the main - the Hindus and the Muslims." (Vide writings Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, Vol. 6 page 296, Maharashtra Prantiya Hindu Mahasabha, Pune). In 1945, he had stated "I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah's two-nation theory. We, the Hindus are a nation by ourselves, and it is a historical fact that the Hindus and the Muslims are two nations." (vide Indian Educational Register 1943 vol. 2 pages 10).
Does God reveal institutionalised religions? I do not think that God draws any boundaries. We draw the boundaries. The religious teaching is meant to pull the ego out of the natural quagmire of divisive sectarian view of ‘I and My’ and to lead the attention to unity that underlies all apparent diversity.
India has tremendous religious and cultural diversity, including explosive co-existence of temples and mosques side by side. Today it is sad to see India divided along religious and man-made caste and class lines. Hatred for the ‘other’ predominates all interactions in public life. Tolerance has taken a beating. The hold of sectarianism is so strong that on all sides the objective appraisal of propositions and situations has stopped.
Why has such a hatred-full polarisation become the norm? If you take birth in a country where you encounter people who are different from you — in terms of religion or in terms of any other parameter -- can you live your whole life in antagonism of the other? Can it ever be good for the individual or for the country? But this is what the situation is. Why?
India was subjected to divisive ‘Two Nation’ ideology from two sides — from the Muslim and from the Hindu sides. Jinnah and his party and Shri Savarkar both saw India as constituted of ‘Two Nations’ and the ruling British stoked the idea (See below under “Historical Notes”).
It is not difficult to accept that the many religious and cultural aspects of Hindus and Muslims are not similar. But does that mean that they constitute ‘Two Nations’? Dogs, cats, cows, and human beings are so diverse. Do they constitute ‘Many Nations’? Then how many nations the USA is constituted of?
So, if one is born in an environment of great diversity and one comes in contact with this theory of ‘Two Nations’ from birth, what will be the nature of one’s mind? We are a country of 1.35 billion. If half of the population harbours an idea of ‘the other’ as the ‘other (enemy) nation’, how will country work as one? Will the majority be able to push out the 20% people who constitute the other?
Which of the two ideologies: “Two Nations” versus “Inclusive, One nation” more accurately aligns with the ideals of Hinduism? Which of the two is conducive for peace and prosperity of the individual and the nation?
...
Historical Notes
In 1925, during the Aligarh Session of the All-India Muslim League, Justice Abdur Rahim (1867–1952) openly articulated how Muslims and Hindus constituted two nations. Needless to say that the ruling English administrators and academics supported the Muslim theory and fiercely propagated the ‘Two Nations’ theory. Sir John Cumming (1868-1958), a British administrator in his book Political India (released in 1932), commented: “It is not only in the customs and usages which mark their external life that the two people differ; the sources of their moral and intellectual inspiration are different”.
Diana L. Eck quoted Sir John Strachey (1823-1907), another British civil servant, to note that the idea of India not being a nation "would be echoed by British administrators for many decades" and "was to become one of the undergirding themes of empire”. In 1883 Sir John Strachey asserted, “This is the first and most essential thing to learn about India—that there is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India, possessing, according to European ideas, any sort of unity, …….”.
Two-nation theory (Pakistan) - Wikipedia
These were, in my opinion, very biased-motivated statements of the ruling English people.
Poet Mohamed Iqbal who wrote the famous song "Sare Jahanse Acchchha Hindostan Hamara" was the first to formulate the concept of a separate state for Muslims in 1930. In Muhammad Ali Jinnah's All India Muslim League presidential address delivered in Lahore, on 22 March 1940, he explained “It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality,….…..”.
On the Hindu side, there was a parallel ideology of Two Nations. Many leaders had talked of Hindus and Muslims constituting separate nations long before Partition, but it was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who had formulated the two-nation theory in his 1923 essay Hindutva, published 16 years before Mohammed Ali Jinnah proposed the same idea. The Muslim League adopted the Pakistan Resolution in Lahore on March 23, 1940.
In 1937 at the open session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address asserted: "India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary, there are two nations in the main - the Hindus and the Muslims." (Vide writings Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, Vol. 6 page 296, Maharashtra Prantiya Hindu Mahasabha, Pune). In 1945, he had stated "I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah's two-nation theory. We, the Hindus are a nation by ourselves, and it is a historical fact that the Hindus and the Muslims are two nations." (vide Indian Educational Register 1943 vol. 2 pages 10).
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