One day, during one of our math class break-time periods, a usual chit-chatting between my friends drifted to a topic about religion—more specifically Hindu culture and Hinduism.
We weren’t really talking much in-depth, but then one of my friends said that ‘The Hindu religion is bad’. That friend who shares our religion background was lecturing me about my own religion and culture.
In my mind, I was thinking, ‘How can you tell me what my religion is? How can you even define my culture, when you don’t even follow or understand it?’ The sad thing was that I did not have the guts to stand up to her words. After all, those words, ‘Hindu Religion is bad’, is literally pasted across all websites in the world. Even if I try to stand up to her words, she would prove me wrong by showing ill-informed sites online.
Even worse: my other Hindu friend who was listening to this whole conversation also didn’t have the guts to stand up to my friend’s words. In fact, my Hindu friend just agreed, submitting and endorsing to fallacies that are already rampantly prevalent.
I was wondering how all this could even be possible in the first place? How can this be possible? How can we let anyone define who we are?
This is not just a one-time thing that just happened to me. In fact, I am sure this happens to every Hindu living in America, and may be in India too! There are millions of Hindus who are facing this every day—they are actually not just facing but embracing their inability to stand up for their religion in society. They are scared about what the other person will say, they are scared if the world calls them ‘Hindutva’, and they are just scared about what other people might think.
This is what will cause the decay of Hinduism.
I can guarantee you that if this continues, the so-called ‘continuous religion’ of Hinduism, will only last for one or two centuries – slowly sliding to extinction.
But if we are strong, assertive, and if we never let outsiders define who we are, we can stop the slide. When outsiders say that our religion is ‘bad’, first think logically: do they even follow your religion or culture? Do they know what is written in ancient scriptures (Upanishads, Vedas)? Or have they just read up a source that is not accurate and which displays inaccuracies of Hinduism?
What we can do about this? When we are bombarded multiple directions of Hinduism being ‘bad’, we also start to feel a tinge of shame for our religion. Like, ‘is what she is saying true? Is my own religion really bad?’.
How do they get the audacity to say so openly that Hinduism is ‘bad’? This is because they know that we, Hindus, are submissive and give up too easily. But what I have realized is that Hinduism is not ‘bad’. I can show you so much proof in researching thousands of scriptures, texts, and books; but, that is for another day. Ultimately, what I am trying to say is that we should never allow anyone to define who we are. After all, outsiders have no idea who you are and what your religion is like, thus they have no right in the world to judge your religion. And because of that reason, we should never allow people to define Hinduism. We should never give up too easily—we should always stand up.