British Anthropologist Details Barbarity of Hinduism
“Revelations: How do you know god exists”, is a film by Anthony Thomas (Channel 4). I saw this film on Aug. 16, 2009. I was particularly interested in what the Hindus had to say. I lived in India for 15 years and found their belief system very confusing. The Hindus as well as the others interviewed failed to show us how he knew god exists.
PART-1
The caste system & origins of Hinduism: Hinduism is based on myth. Seven rishis overheard “wisdom” being spoken by the gods. This wisdom they passed on to mankind as the four Vedas:
- Rig Veda
- Yajur Veda
- Sama Veda
- Atharva Veda
The Rig Veda is our principal concern. It is a composition of 1,028 poems. But more of this later.
HINDU & GREEK GODS
33 crore gods: According to Lord Winstone (April 17, 2006) the Hindus have about 330,000,000 gods. Shiva, one of the main gods, has 1,008 epithets. Most deities have consorts: Shiva’s wife is Parvati, Vishnu’s wife is Lakshmi and Brahma’s wife is Sarasvati. Mention must be made of two dther important gods: Durga and Kali. Sitala is the goddess of smallpox. And the Hindu deity Devagana, it is believed, lives in the anus. And so on.
The Greeks also believed in gods and goddesses. The Greek philosophers found that the gods and goddesses resembled mortals too much and the “myths were nothing but human notions”.
Xenophanes who lived about the year 570 BC was the exponent of this view. There followed developments from a mythological mode to one based on experience and reason. The aim of Greek philosophy was to find natural rather than supernatural explanations for natural processes The Greek gods and goddesses were then relegated to the realms of fiction.
But the Hindus on the other hand continue to believe in their gods and goddesses to this day. The Hindu belief that human beings are born unequal is based on a Vedic hymn called Purusha Sukta found in the fourth veda, the Rig Veda.
According to the Purusha Sukta, the social divisions into which all human beings fall are:
(1) Brahmins the highest caste, (2) Kshatriyas – the warrior caste, (3) Vaisyas – the merchant caste and (4) sudras the working caste.
GOD CREATED CASTE SYSTEM
Outside this demarcation based on strict hereditary lines are the outcastes or Untouchables, who do not belong to any caste at all. They are called Dalits today. It was further confirmed by God Krishna in the Bhagvad Gita (4.13):
The fourfold caste was created by me by the different distribution of guna and karma.
It was finally codified by someone called Manu the greatest lawgiver
Who was this Manu?
Manu was born directly of the god Brahma and was hermaphrodite. The human race began from Manu and his family. (Romila Thaper: A History of India, p.28).
HINDU LAWS OF MANU
Gidoomal and Thomson on p. 17 of their book, A Way of Life, say
Manu represents the beginning. A semi-divine mythical creature; he is the first man, the first king of India, the first to light the sacrificial fire and the first and the greatest lawgiver.
Every Hindu man and woman is expected to follow the laws of Manu which came to be called Varnashrama Dharma or Manusmriti They were written down about 200 BC. Hindus follow the laws of Manu to the letter even to this day. And what are some of the laws set by Manu for Hindus to follow?
Here are some taken at random:
(1) The Brahmins are the highest caste. They are the gods among humans.
(2) The drum, the illiterate, the low caste, animals and women must be beaten to make them fit.
(3) A woman must never be independent.
(4) The Brahmin is holy and has a claim to veneration even if he commits shameful deeds.
(5) A Brahmin is born as the highest on earth, the lord of all created things. Whatever exists in the world is the property of the Brahmin on account of the excellence of his origin. The Brahmin is indeed entitled to it all.
(6) The lord has prescribed only one occupation for sudras (the lowest caste). They must perform service without malice to the other three castes.
WOMEN BURN MANU SMRITI
(7) Those who educate sudras will go to hell. A sudra is unfit to receive education. The upper vamas or castes should not impart education or give advice to a sudra. Violators will go to hell, called Asamvritta
(8) If a sudra (low caste) listens to a recitation of the vedas (Hindu holy books) his ears shall be filled with tin or lac. If he recites vedic texts his tongue shall be cut. Only the Brahmins are entitled to receive the teachings imparted in the vedas.
ATROCITIES AGAINST DALITS
It is difficult to credit the misanthropic effusions as law to this man who, it is said, was the son of Brahma, the supreme god. No wonder Indian women in 2000 AD
“publicly burned copies of the Manusmriti declaring that the text was misogynistic”(Introducing Hinduism, Lall & Von Lodon, p.30).
Then there are millions and millions of people in India who have no caste at all. They are without caste because of sins committed by them in a previous incarnation. They are called outcastes or Untouchables. Today they are referred to as Dalits.
The effect of Manu on the outcastes has been devastating. From the time they are born till they die they suffer discrimination and humiliation at every turn of their lives.
GOD ORDERED HINDUS TO KILL DALITS
They have no redress. Here a are a few examples of atrocities chosen at random which are committed Untouchables: against the
(1) 1969: India- A Million Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipaul (Viking): “In 1969, 40 Untouchables (Harijans) were burnt alive in a huť.
(2) April 14, 1992: Commemorating birthday of Dr. Ambedkar: “20 houses belonging to Untouchables were burnt at Kadalur village (80 km from Madras). Reported by Henry Thiagaraj in The Wounded Society.
(3) June 18, 2000: The London Observer. “A Picture showing a village of low castes (Untouchables) being massacred by high caste thugs in Bihar, India.
(4) March 30, 2003: The Guardian: “A young lower caste woman was set on fire and bumed to death yesterday by the upper caste father of the man she accused of raping her
(5) Dec. 16, 2005: Dalit Voice (magazine, p.9). Gohana (Haryana) incident in Aug.2005 when 60 Untouchable houses were burnt with police looking on.
(6) 2006: Indian National Bureau of Crime report. 27,007 crimes had been committed against Dalits. Many go unreported (See box):
In 1999, William Dalrymple reviewing Robert Deliege’s book, The Untouchables of India, says in the London Sunday Times
“Hindus actually believe god has authorised atrocities to be committed against these Untouchables“.
UNIVERSALLY CONDEMNED
Never in any part of this wide, wide world-whether savage or civilised-is systematic murder of human beings given such divine approval, except in India. Dalrymple goes on to say in the same review:
“In many high caste-dominated villages no Untouchable is allowed to ride a bicycle, sit down or even wear shoes in the presence of a high caste Hindu… Reported incidents of serious violence against Untouchables run at about 9,000 cases annually and this is the tip of the iceberg”.
The caste system of which untouchability is the indispensable part is integral to Hinduism.
‘….those whose conduct has been evil will quickly attain evil birth the birth of a dog, the birth of a hog, or the birth of a Chandala (Untouchable).
Chandogya, translated by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and quoted by Pratima Bowes in her The Hindu Religious Tradition (p.57).
The caste system and especially untouchability is universally condemned.
(1) Dr. Karan Singh, a leading Hindu thinker, in his Essays on Hinduism quoted by Gidoomal & Thomson (p.9) described the ill-treatment of Untouchables “over the centuries as a standing disgrace”.
(2) Pratima Bowes, The Hindu Religious Tradition (p.17): The opinion (is) often expressed that the caste system is the centre of the Hindu religion and that the breakdown of this systern means the end of this religion”
(3) Caspar Melville, editor of the New Humanist, Nov.2005 (p.19). Is “against the caste system, the subordination of women and the invested power of the Brahmin”.
(4) Budha to Manmohan Singh: The caste system has been condemned by writers and reformers from Budha, Akbar, Mahatma Phule, Periyar, Gora, Tilak, Guru Nanak, Mahavira, Tukaram, Ram Mohan Roy the Bhakti movement of Southern India to Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India and countless others.
(5) Jawaharlal Nehru in the Glimpses of World History (p.112) says: “The caste system had the seeds of decay in it. It was based on perpetuating inequality and injustice and any such attempt was bound to fail in the end. No sound and stable society can be built upon the basis of inequality and injustice or on the exploitation of one class or group by another.”
BLEAK FUTURE OF HINDUISM
I give you three sources:
(1) Loon and Lall: Introducing Hinduism (p.127):
As knowledge of India grows around the world: Bollywood, Indian fashions, Indian classical music, tandoori cooking and India’s famed gurus Hinduism will come under increasing scrutiny.
On p. 161, they go on to say:
Secular Indians and many others with a humanist vision think of the future of India as bleak.
(2) Ram Gidoomal & Robin Thomson in A Way of Life, (p.150) say:
Whoever is in power, the tensions over caste and class will continue.
(3) Nirad Chaudry in his Preface to Hinduism (p. XI) says:
I have lost faith in the tenets of Hinduism, indeed in all established religions long ago.
CONCLUSION
Hinduism without the caste system is like Hamlet without the Prince.
I would like to ask the Hindu believer in the film wrapped in saffron robes and daubed in symbols of Hindu piety how he could reconcile his Hindu faith without the caste system.
PART-2
ARGUMENTS AGAINST REINCARNATION
Nobody knows the answer to this problem of reincarnation because from that
“undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveller returns”
to report to us about life after death.
(A) The Hindu Religious Tradition: Pratima Bowes on p. 59 declares:
“… for it is not entirely clear who or what is reborn and where in this account of being born again the concept of an eternal life fits in.”
(B) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich (p.755) states:
“The interesting philosophical question is: In what sense does the reincarnation count as the same person deceased?… Any determination of sameness is essentially arbitrary.
(C) Feet Of Clay by A. Storr, p.201 states categorically:
“No one can demonstrate the existence of god. Faiths cannot be tested by experiment proved or disproved.”
The Hindus however, seem to have latched on to the Bhagvad Gita (2.22) where it says:
As a man casting off worn-out garments puts on new ones, so the embodied, casting off worm- out bodies, enters into others that are new.
At 3.15 of the Gita it is declared:
Know karma to have risen from the Veda and the Veda from the Imperishable.
CASTE CONDEMNED FROM BUDHA TO NEHRU
The Veda gave us, as we have seen, the Purusha Sukta (hymns of man x.90) and is contained in Rig Veda. From the Purusha Sukta we have the theory that all human beings are unequal. We then arrive at the so-called caste system. We have shown in part-I that the caste system has been condemned for its injustice and cruelty from Budha to Nehru.
We conclude, therefore, that the Hindu religion is based on very shaky foundations. From this inequality theory-the direct result of reincarnation – several consequences flow:
(1) Paul Brunton, My Father’s Guru by Jaffery Masson, (p.62) declares:
Since all men are obviously not equal, it would be unwise to give all men equal rights.
(2) Ibid p. 112, Paul Brunton was convinced that:
The Holocaust was a result of mankind’s Karma and that Hitler was just a primitive instrument in its hand.
BRAHMIN CREATED CASTE
(3) Jeffery Masson, My Father’s Guru, p. 112. Masson says:
Indian philosophy had long ago solved the puzzle of human suffering by depriving it of its reality…
Suffering, misery and unhappiness were defined as such only from the lower point of view. From the higher point of view there was no difference between the wealthy man and the beggar…
This powerful rationalising phrase was invented by a privileged Brahmin class to distract from the poverty and misery created by this same class…
The appalling poverty and disease I saw when I arrived in Bombay did not really exist. It was Maya: an illusion.
(4) Randeep Ramesh writing in the London Observer (3.10.04):
Despite a Masters Degree in Economics from Gujarat University, the best job Arvind Vaghela (24) could get was one done by generations of his family: a road-sweeper. Dalits (Untouchables) have endured centuries of discrimination and violence because of a social order that consigns them and their descendents to jobs nobody else wants to do and as a tradition all humans are created unequal.
POVERTY DUE TO SINS OF PREVIOUS BIRTH
(5) And finally, Clive Anderson: A London Reconteur, Clive Anderson in reply to the appalling poverty side by side with the enormous wealth he saw in India, was told:
It is the law of Karma. The poor are paying the price for sins committed in incarnations. previous In the circumstances, nothing in fact could be done.
And finally, if Hindus believe that all men are equal, then they cannot be in support of
(i) The American Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) which took it be self evident that everyone had “certain inalienable rights”.
(ii) The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man in France (Aug.26, 1789) where “men are born and remain free and equal in rights”.
INDIA OUT OF STEP WITH THE WORLD
(iii) The Declaration of the Rights of man and citizens (Tom Paine, March 13, 1791) that “men are born and always continue free and equal in respect of their rights”.
(iv) The European Convention of Human Rights (Nov 4, 1950) which emphasises the total equality of all human rights and considers the aim of the Council of Europe is.. the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
(v) The Preamble to the Charter of the UN (June 26, 1945) wherein it is declared
“The purpose of the United Nations Organisation charter is to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights in the dignity and worth of the human person in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”
India (where the majority are Hindu) was a signatory to the UN Charter. India must have done so with tongue in cheek.
India thus finds itself out of step with the whole wide world.
PART-3
MISCELLANY
(A) The Kumb Mela
The story of Kumb Mela is fascinating. There were a battle raging in the heavens between the gods and the demons. The oceans were churned and 14 gems appeared, out of which nectar flowed. There was a struggle to obtain the nectar. Whoever wins the nectar gains immortality. The pot containing the nectar was stolen by a bird belonging to Vishnu. It took the nectar into the sky. The nectar drips into 4 places in India: Ujjain, Hardwar, Allahabad and Nasik. Every 12 years each town has a Kumb. 17 million people meet to celebrate. It is a beautiful story but the Hindus have succeeded in converting this piece of mythology to their religion.
COCK & BULL STORIES
From the Kumb Mela we learn that:
(1) If you bathe in the River Ganga you will be cured of all diseases. The sins of 7 generations will be washed away.
(2) Goswami owns a 5 legged cow. Anyone who drinks, the urine of this animal will receive salvation. They will have to pay for the urine, of course. (Kumb Mela, Channel 4, Feb.2001).
(3) Children are born handicapped. Pots are overturned during the lunar darkness but the utterance of the name of god converts to “loving light”.
(4) Impossible austerities are performed a man stands on one leg completing 21 years of his 51 years penance to gain liberation
So much for Kumb Mela.
(b) Sati
We came to know about sati through Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days.
Sanction for sati is to be found in the Vedas (Hindu textbooks). What is sati? The Hindu wife showing her devotion leaps into the scorching flames of her dead husband, thereby guaranteeing for themselves domestic bliss for 35,000,000 years.
This practice of sati seems unimaginable, incom- prehensible and barbaric.
Between 1815 and 1828 there were over 5,000 recorded cases of sati in Bengal alone. In 1829 sati was declared illegal by the British India. But in 1987 a woman named Roop Kanwar committed suicide on the death of her husband thereby reminding us, that the practice of sati is very much alive. Since “independence” of India (1947) about 50 women may have taken their lives.
The question for our Hindu friend is
Have the Hindus finally repudiated this inhuman practice or is it still part of the Vedic ideal?
(c) Female infanticide
This custom of killing baby girl is associated with but is not part of the Hindu religion. On April 22, 2001, Susan Sarandon, a UNICEF ambassador, wrote this incredible sentence in the Sunday Times.
“In rural India they still kill girl children Upon further investigation she “discovered that female infanticide is widely practised all over India”.
They kill female infants to avoid the marriage settlements which prohibitive are
Caroline Lees (Sunday Times Aug 20, 1995) describes how the female infant is killed either by suffocation on a lump of salt (black) or is simply poisoned with spoonfuls of fertiliser.
Rohinton Mistry (author of A Fine Balance) gives a poignant picture of three sisters who hang themselves because their parents were unable to afford dowries. Coming nearer home, Karia of Southampton (UK) in October 1996 injected a lethal dose of cyanide into his daughters and himself – all because his wife was unable to bear him a son.
(D) GODDESS KALI & THUGS
(1) The goddess Kali is portrayed by Hindus as a divine destroyer of evil. What is not well-known is that this goddess requires animal and human sacrifice in her honour.
On p.20 of Gandhi – A Study in Revolution, Geoffrey Ashe says:
“Human sacrifices to the goddess Kali (were) performed by professional assassins from whose nickname thug originates. The thugs were a secret brotherhood of stranglers who had terrorised travellers for hundreds of years. They worshipped the goddess Kali.”
(2) The Thuggee menace was ended by William Sleeman around 1848. Some 931 murders were committed by one thug with his rhumal – a yellow scarf – with which he strangled his victims.
Kali worship continues to this day.
Kalichuran Banerji (a converted Congressman) looked in at a temple of Kali and was revolted by the blood of sacrificed sheep. (Ibid p.76)
(3) William Dalyrimple in his Age of Kali, (p.220) says:
As recently as 1835 a boy was beheaded every single Friday at the altar of the Kali temple in Calcutta.
Many temples in Kerala still sacrifice cocks, goats and sheep to the goddess. But at Chotanikkara Parashakti requires her full 12 basins of blood every day.
(4) In the British Empire Series, No. 14 (1971) Timelife (p.385):
We see a picture of Hindu villagers sacrificing goats at a shrine to the fertility goddess Durga.
The Hindus are seen imploring her aid in producing rich harvests with offerings of fruit and flowers.
(E) TANTRA & CHILD MURDER
(1) The medieval practice of child sacrifice has been revived in India. An English translation of the book, Kalika Purana written about the 11th century has appeared. There are so-called blood chapters (chapters 67-71) which are largely preoccupied with human sacrifice, the drinking of blood, the drinking of semen and of menstrual fluid.
Nirad Chaudhri in his book, Hinduism, (p.249) has this to say:
It is in the cult of Durga or Kali that sexual intercourse became part of ritual and not merely a mythological adjunct. This element is found only in that part of the cult known as Tantra.
(2) What is Tantra? It comes from a Sanskrit word meaning expand.
It centres its belief on shakti, a feminine force that drives the cosmos. Followers claim they can enhance their powers by tapping into primordial energy using certain rituals including the drinking of menstrual blood and semen. To spill a child’s blood is the ultimate offering to appease Kali, Durga or any of the female deities they worship.
(Children of a Lesser God, article by Adrian Levy & Cathy Scott-Clark, Sunday Times Magazine, 1997). As we said above: Hindu belief in Tantra, the ritual of child sacrifice is once again taking place in India
(3) CHILD MURDER
(i) Asli (3 years old). In October 1996 Asli, 3, along with her 2. brothers Sanjay (6) and Munna (1) was slaughtered by her father Dhiku Kholi in a ritual sacrifice.
(ii) Sandhya (9 years old) abducted from her village in Bihar. She was taken to Assam to be sacrificed to goddess Durga. She escaped. Sandhya said:
“They told me not to be frightened. I had been chosen. I would become a goddess forever.”
(iii) Charano Singh (2 years old) she was lying motionless before scarlet-robed priest had the top of her head “sliced off” by a fat man wielding a scimitar. The priests dipped their fingers into the bowl that caught the flow of blood from Charano’s head-Oct. 1996.
(iV) Pintu Majhi (9 years old). In a farm house in Orissa (east coast of India) Pintu was similarly slaughtered. On Oct 26, 1996, Pradip Samal, the uncle of the victim, signed a confession:
“I consulted a tantric who said that to gain prosperity I should kill a child dear to me and offer it to the goddess on an auspicious day.”
Pintu was another victim of ritual murder
(V) Laljit Patel who “bled to death” on the altar of the Dev Temple, near Rajkot in Gujarat
(Vi) Jesingh Singh, a teenager who met his death in the village of Dunda near Jamnagar
(Vii) Ranjan, a nine-year-old who was sacrificed “on the advice of tantrics”. And many, many more.
Some of the tiny victims are snatched from their homes by strangers, others are lured to their deaths by trusted family members in the false belief that a killing will bring prosperity from the gods.
(Adrian Levy & Cathy Scot- Clark, Sunday Times magazine, 1997).
HORROR IN BENGAL
Sankarshan Ray, an eminent scientist, wrote this in a Bengal language magazine:
There are things going on, practices and rites which no one wants to admit to, that are taking place today. The authorities do not want to look too hard because it reminds us all how basic and tribal our society is.
Stephen Cross on p.94, The Elements of Hinduism:
In Bengal as in some other areas blood sacrifices are made to Durga and Kali (goddesses)
Should we not be asking with Adrian Levy:
How can (these murders) be happening today in the world’s largest democracy.
Our Hindu friends should be asked:
Is Tantra and child murder part of Hinduism? If not, why is it being practiced?
