Hinduism and ISKCON under attack in Bangladesh – Four levels of response

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
अखेले नहीं है, भगवान But politics in the sense of the system of governance is of central importance to everyone. We may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in us. The kind of government that is there, the kind of taxes that they impose, the kind of wars that they get into, the way they make policies which may be biased for or against certain groups of people, all these matter.
And therefore, for a person to say that okay, I am not involved in politics, that may be a personal preference, but from a philosophical perspective, Krishna is not uninvolved in politics. In fact, when he comes down to the earth, his purpose is at one level to bring about order in society. धर्मसंस्थापनार्थाय संभवामियुगे So this Dharma which Krishna is referring to is social order.
This Dharma is not religion. It is definitely not theocracy. That is something which is a matter of Shraddha, a matter of Bhakti.
And that is different. So the word Dharma, when Krishna says I come to establish Dharma, he is not forcing everyone to become his devotee. On the Pandava side, there was Drupada who was a Shaivite by his family deity and family worship.
And he remained a Shaivite although he was fighting on the side of the Pandavas. On the side of the Kauravas, there were people like Bhishma and Bhurishrava who were Vaishnavas. The point is that maintaining order in society is a vital function of politics.
And in that sense, what kind of government is there that has to be a concern of every human being irrespective of whether they are spiritual or not. Now, of course, if the government is conducive to spiritual and devotional growth, that is good. Krishna talks about that in 4.9 and 10.
But that is voluntary and inspirational. The law and order is something which is established and enforced when necessary. So, what are the threats that may have to be countered for the establishment of Dharma? In today’s world, one major threat is radicalism.
Now, radicalism or extremism can be understood in the context of the Bhagavad Gita as knowledge in the mode of ignorance. 1822 So, take one thing and make it into everything. That is deadly.
Why deadly? So, we reduce a huge complex problem to just one tiny issue. And then, the person works only on that. Feverishly.
Without thinking proper cause and effect. Without seeing the whole picture. Having a meager vision.
So, in radicalism, a person is reduced to one attribute. Now, radicalism can be based on different kinds of ideology. Sometimes it can be religious, sometimes it can be secular.
So, for example, Marxism, especially as it was enforced in Soviet Russia and China was extremely radical. And people were reduced to just one feature. If they are unfaithful to the state, no matter how intelligent, how prosperous, how much wealth creator they might be, they will be destroyed.
So, radicalism is the enemy of humanity. It can come through a secular ideology, it can come through a religious ideology. And when it starts destroying people’s, first their basic human sensitivity, then human decency, then humanity itself, then what happens? They start dehumanizing everyone who does not agree with them.
And that kind of radicalism is what the government needs to stop. Needs to prevent. And dharma, establishing dharma at one level means fighting against this kind of radicalism.
Now, that radicalism can be associated with a particular religion, it can be associated without any religious ideology, but wherever it comes, the attack on radicalism is meant for the protection of humanity. Because radicals may initially target people of other religions. Then they may start targeting people of their own religion if their interpretation of that religion is slightly different from their own.
So, the Bhagavatam also talks about how Shraddha can be in the three modes in the teachings of Kapila. And there it is said that when Shraddha gets joined with Tamas, then the result is that the people whose faith is in the mode of ignorance, they start becoming separatist, then they become intolerant, then they become violent. So, this is a downward trajectory and this kind of marriage of faith with the mode of ignorance is what leads to fanaticism, extremism, radicalism.
And this needs to be stopped. This kind of faith becomes disruptive and destructive. Faith in the mode of goodness is actually cooperative and helps maintain harmony at the material level while people pursue spiritual growth at the individual level.
So, Shraddha is meant to be individual and the state should not interfere with it. The state should prevent any one group from imposing especially at the level of intolerance and violence on other groups. So, secularism to the extent it involves maintaining basic order of Dharma and allowing Shraddha to be practiced in a tolerant way, that is fair enough.
But sometimes when there is theocracy, it can be dangerous because one religious worldview gets imposed. But anyway, the point we are making over here is that one duty of establishing Dharma is preventing radicalism, especially in today’s context. And this cannot be dismissed as just politics.
It will hurt us and it can hurt anyone and everyone over here. So, the third point is that we may think, does God take care? Does God protect? Well, yes. God does protect.
But God often protects through human agents. And it is that we shouldn’t expect that God will do what we are meant to do. We humans have to use our intelligence to do our best and then God will do the rest.
Krishna helped Arjuna in the battle of Kurukshetra. But it was on the day when he had to kill Jaidrath, Arjuna had to exert himself to his fullest capacity. And then Krishna intervened so that Arjuna could attain the final victory.
Krishna spoke the entire Bhagavad Gita so that Arjuna would take responsibility. So, expecting God to do what we can and should be doing, that is not devotion. That is irresponsibility.
So, from the philosophical perspective, we need to take responsibility to establish Dharma in the context by countering fanaticism or radicalism. So now, that brings us from that very broad perspective of philosophy to the current reality. Let’s come to the geopolitical perspective.
So, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, all of these were a part of India not so long ago. Now, ethnically, there are remarkable similarities between the groups of people. Most of the people who are Muslims today were originally Hindus who got converted many times by force at the threat of being killed.
But whatever it is, there are significant ethnic similarities. And now, in today’s world, the radicalism in Bangladesh has portrayed as if those who are devotees there, Krishna devotees, Iskcon devotees, they are against Bangladesh. And because they are following a religion which is a majority religion in India and not a majority religion in Bangladesh.
However, this reducing people to this one attribute, their faith is one aspect of their life. But ethnically, they are Bangladeshis and they will be Bangladeshis. In fact, before Bangladesh was created, Pakistan targeted what was then East Pakistan because they looked down upon them because these people were Muslims, majority but they were ethnically different.
So, that same mentality of looking down on people by reducing them only to one attribute that’s what unfortunately we carried out. India which had helped the Bangladeshis enormously at the time of getting independence is now finding that the current Bangladesh government is largely remaining neutral or passive rather while radical elements are running wild. So, now how did this whole destabilization happen? Bangladesh is in a volatile space.
There is a strong indication that the American deep state was involved and with the government changing over there and with even Trump tweeting concerns about what is happening in Bangladesh with Hindus or Hindu sympathizers like Vivek Ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard likely to come to power. This may well be a last ditch feverish effort to try to target and torment and persecute the minorities before the American government changes and starts exerting greater pressure. So, we don’t know what is happening at the geopolitical level.
Bangladesh is very close to what is the chicken’s wing of India chicken’s neck where the siliguri corridor where China has very great interest so that it can grab on to the northeast. So, the Indian government also has to act with great discretion and caution. So, Bangladesh is something which China is interested in, Pakistan of course is interested in, America is interested in.
So, sometimes when these great power rivalries happen certain groups become caught in the crossfire unfortunately. And geopolitically India’s influence is slowly rising but it has not risen sufficiently that India can actually exert a substantial amount of weight or force on other countries, even its immediate neighbors. So, we may feel that is the Indian government doing enough? Why is it not doing enough? Now, this is supposed to be a government supportive of dharma, why is it not doing enough? But, when some actions are being done which don’t seem to make sense to us at that time we have different options about how we will see them.