Hinduism

"So never think that you can become wise by collecting wise sayings. That is not possible. In this age many people have tried that. In India, Mahatma Gandhi was trying it – take a few things from the Koran and a few things from the Bible and a few things from the. Gita and a few things from the Dhammapada, and collect them and make a concoction. That concoction he used to call the synthesis of all religions. This is just meaningless. You cannot create a synthesis of all religions. It will be like you cut off one of my hands and a leg of Krishnamurti and the head of Meher Baba, and put them all together and call it synthesis of all religions. It will not be of any use. It will stink! It will be ugly. That’s what Mahatma Gandhi has done."

"A major influence on the budding RSS was the Arya Samaj. Somewhat like the Brahmo Samaj earlier, it called “true” Hinduism monotheistic. Nowadays, very many Hindus will tell you that in essence, Hinduism is a monotheism. These Hindus are not even aware of the proper meaning of this word. Monotheism does not mean that you worship one God (already requiring a serious reinterpretation of the many Gods effectively worshipped by most Hindus, from the Vedic rishis on down), the way some Hindus choose one God to worship from among many, a phenomenon that scholars of religion call henotheism. Nor is it the inclusive oneness of a divine essence underlying all the gods, or monism, as enunciated in the profoundest Vedic verses. It means an exclusive worship of a jealous God banishing all others. Mono- does not mean “one”, as Hindus seem to think; it means “alone”, hence “not tolerating another”. It does not say: “Allah and Shiva are one”, it says: “Only Allah is true, burn Shiva.”"

"Gandhi's sarva-dharma-samabhava did not stop at equal respect for all religions; it went much further and stood for equal validity of all religions. The Mahatma had spared no ink or breath to inculcate the belief that all religions embody the same truths, pursue the same goal, and lead to the same spiritual fulfilment. .... So we are left with Mahatma Gandhi as the first and real prophet of sarva-dharma-samabhava. (...) The explanations for [Gandhi's] pervert behaviour can be many... Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that he bound the Hindus hands and feet with the shackles of his sarva-dharma-samabhâva, and made them helpless in the face of Islamic gangsterism. At the same time, [Gandhi] gave full freedom to Muslims to deal with Hindus as they pleased. The record of what Muslim did under the leadership of the mullahs and the Muslim League exists in cold print. It never occurred to him to appeal to Muslims even once to practise sarva-dharma-samabhâva vis-à-vis Hinduism. That he thought was against their religion with which he could not interfere. The dope was meant only for Hindus. (...) The temptation to become the spokesman of all religions was irresistible for him, as for many Hindu gurus before and after. He ended by being the spokesmen of none, and made a mess of whatever religion he touched. He never evolved a criterion for distinguishing dharma from adharma."

"Sarva-dharma-samabhava was unknown to mainstream Hinduism before Mahatma Gandhi presented it as one of the sixteen mahavratas (great vows). in his booklet, Mangala-Prabhata. It is true that mainstream Hinduism had always stood for tolerance towards all metaphysical points of view and ways of worship except that which led to Atatayi-Achara (gangsterism). But that tolerance had never become samabhava, equal respect for all points of view. The acharyas of the different schools of Sanatana Dharma were all along engaged in debates over differences in various approaches to Sreyas (the Great Good). No Buddhist acharya is known to have equated the way of the Buddha to that of the Gita and vice versa, for instance. It is also true that overawed by the armed might of Islam, and deceived by the tall talk of the sufis, some Hindu saints in medieval India had equated Rama with Rahim, Krishna with Karim, Kashi with Kaba, the Brahmana with the Mullah, puja with namaz, and so on. But, the sects founded by these saints had continued to function on the fringes of Hindu society while the mainstream followed the saints and acharyas who never recognized Islam as a dharma. In modern times also, movements like the Brahmo Samaj which recognised Islam and Christianity as dharmas had failed to influence mainstream Hinduism, while Maharshi Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda who upheld the Veda and despised the Bible and the Quran, had had a great impact. This being the hoary Hindu tradition, Mahatma Gandhi’s recognition of Christianity and Islam not only as dharmas but also as equal to Sanatana Dharma was fraught with great mischief. For, unlike the earlier Hindu advocates of Islam and Christianity as dharmas, Mahatma Gandhi made himself known and became known as belonging to mainstream Hinduism. ... No other slogan has proved more mischievous for Hinduism than the mindless slogan of Sarva-dharma-samabhava vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam."

"Nehruvian Secularism had stolen a march under the smokescreen of Mahatma Gandhi’s sarva-dharma-samabhava"

"A man delivers a sermon before an assembly in which non-Muslims such as Hindus are present, the querist informs the ulema of Dar al-Ulum, Deoband; the man says that there is no difference between Hindus and Muslims, and that we create differences because of our foolish doctrines; he says that the idol house as well as the Kaba are both made of stone and that there is no difference between blowing the conch and calling out the azan; he compares the scriptures of the Hindus and the Holy Quran, and says that the two decree the same things—all staples, if I may add, of the speeches of our leaders, of the writings of our secularists, of the panegyrics to secularism in the judgments of our courts. What is the law in regard to such a person?, asks the querist of the ulema of Deoband. These are utterances of kufr, they declare. A person who has such beliefs and teaches such beliefs is not a Muslim but an infidel and an apostate, they declare. He is a reprobate and a heretical inventor, in fact an infidel and an apostate, they repeat. Muslims should keep away from him rather than listen to his infidel utterances. Yet, whenever our courts and leaders recall those Sarva Dharma Samabhava passages they address them to the Hindus, asking them to live up to these ideals. They never address the passages to the ulema who staunchly and openly denounce the ideals, who proclaim from housetops that to countenance such parity—even for the sake of form, even nominally and verbally—is to be out of Islam!"

"Great debaters like Yajnavalkya or Shankara would not be proud to see modern Hindus fall for anti-intellectual soundbites like “equal respect for all religions”. Very Gandhian, but logically completely untenable. For example, Christianity believes that Jesus was God’s Son while Islam teaches that he was merely God’s spokesman: if one is right, the other is wrong, and nobody has equal respect for a true and a false statement (least of all Christians and Muslims themselves). Add to this their common scapegoat Paganism, in India represented by “idolatrous” Hinduism, and the common truth of all three becomes unthinkable. It takes a permanent suspension of the power of discrimination to believe in the syrupy Gandhian syncretism which still prevails in India. The Mahatma’s outlook was neither realistic nor Indian. Not even the Jain doctrine of Anekantavada, “pluralism”, had been as mushy and anti-intellectual as the suspension of logic that is propagated in India under Gandhi’s name. It could only come about among post-Christian Westerners tired of doctrinal debates, and from their circles, Gandhi transplanted it to India."

"There is no similar record of any Islamic authority who has said that Shiva and Allah are one, nor Ram and Rahim, nor Kashi and Kaaba. All this "oneness of all religions" rhetoric is a strictly Hindu projection of the oneness of the different Hindu gods and traditions on a juxtaposition of radically incompatible notions from Islam and Hinduism. Whereas the opposition between Ram and Rahim, between Kashi and Kaaba, led to endless persecutions and a Partition, such things have not happened between Shaivas and Vaishnavas."

"The only mention of religion is the worn-out Gandhian slogan (which numerous Hindus wrongly believe to be “Vedic”) Sarva-Dharma-Samabhava, more or less “equal respect for all religions”, moreover usually misinterpreted as “equal truth of all religions”. However, while this wording obviously means to avoid any specifically Hindu agenda, the slogan itself, analyzed beyond its conspicuous superficiality, does reintroduce some Hindu desiderata. Thus, whatever the slogan really means, it speaks of some kind of religious equality. Nothing about it points to the anti-majority discrimination inherent in the Nehruvian interpretation of Art. 30 (inviolabilty of minority schools) or in Art. 370 (special status of Kashmir) of the Constitution, let alone the existence separate of Civil Codes, one reformed by the secular Parliament (Hindu Code) but the others the preserve of the respective religious establishments. That is why Hindu activists have wanted to abolish or change the relevant laws. These are perfectly sensible and genuinely secular demands, but the BJP secularists avoid them because they are still in thrall to the ideological hegemony of the Nehruvians."

"This view of Sarva Dharma Samabhava has been turned into a political principle in modern India. ... The correct term for the common Western idea of religion, which is a particular belief, in Hindu thought would not be Dharma but “mata” meaning a belief, view or opinion. There is no such possible statement as “Sarva Mata Samabhava” or the equality and unity of all opinions. Opinions are as diverse as the minds of creatures. Nor need we seek to make all opinions one and the same. Diversity of opinions is necessary as part of freedom of seeking the truth....Sarva Dharma Samabhava has been used to court the favor of various religious groups and to uphold vote banks based upon religious belief. It is often a one-way street. Hindus are told to accept Sarva Dharma Samabhava which means that they should not mind if Hindus are converted to Christianity and Islam and should avoid criticizing these religions even if what they believe appears to be a violation of what Hindus hold to be true. On the other hand, under the same principle, Muslims and Christians are not expected to reciprocate, stop their conversion efforts, or to become Hindus. The result is that Sarva Dharma Samabhava has only served to erode the Hindu view of truth and encouraged Hindus to give up their critical faculties in matters of religion. It is contrary to the spirit of the Yogis and Rishis in which all manner of debate was encouraged in order to arrive at truth. ...We are entering a new era in civilization today, in which religion must be radically recast, if not discarded. Only those religions willing to undergo a radical transformation are likely to survive. This change will be in the direction of experiential spirituality, in which the individual’s direct experience of God or truth becomes the most important thing, and religious dogma and institutionalism is set aside. This is the real Sarva Dharma that no group can claim to own or dispense. One should not forget the Dharma in Sarva Dharma Samabhava."

"A number of Indians have tried to define secularism as sarva dharma samabhava (equal respect for all religions). I cannot say whether they have been naive or clever in doing so. But the fact remains that secularism cannot admit of such an interpretation. In fact, orthodox Muslims are quite justified in regarding it as irreligious. Moreover, dharma cannot be defined as religion which is a Semitic concept and applies only to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Hinduism is not a religion in that sense; nor are Jainism and Buddhism, or for that matter, Taoism and Confucianism."

"Hinduism applauds diversity and consequently accepts that people of different temperaments, circumstances and levels of understanding develop different viewpoints and different forms to express even the same view point. In that sense, it has always paid equal respect to shrarnanas and brahmanas, to jnana and bhakti etc. It showed samabhava to all traditions, which counted as dharma. This respect was never extended to adharma practices and doctrines such as Christianity and Islam, the religions for whose benefit the slogan is used mostly."

"The confusion has by now become very widespread, and is symbolized by the sanctimonious slogan of sarva-dharma-samabhava. This slogan was coined by Mahatma Gandhi and included in his Mangala Prabhata as one of the sixteen mahavratas. The result was an unprecedented appeasement of Islam starting with the Mahatma’s support of the Khilafat movement. The Mahatma had believed sincerely that he could touch the heart of Islam and win over the Muslims to nationalism by paying handsome tributes to the Quran and the Prophet... In the final upshot, he had to pay the price with his own life, and the nation had to suffer partition of the motherland."

"Jeffery Long, a Professor of Religion and South Asian Studies, defines Hinduphobia as “an intense and deeply rooted aversion — a fear and hatred… of Hindus and Hinduism [which manifests itself] as a set of intellectual claims that portray Hindus and Hinduism in a negative light.”"

"“You train and educate and clothe and pay men to do what ? To come over to my country to curse and abuse all my fore-fathers, my religion and everything…… They walk near a temple and say, ‘you idolaters, you will go to hell’. But they dare not do that to the Mohammedans of India, the sword would be out.... And whenever your ministers criticise us, let them remember this : If all India stands up and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesimal part of that which you are doing to us."

"However, and this is a key point that Elst notes, the sheer demographic scale of Hindu populations also means that in absolute terms even a small percentage of Hindu populations being exterminated implies a very large number of casualties, mass slaughter by any lens imaginable. According to his framework, Hindus have been subjected to at least two forms of genocide listed in his schema above; the slaughter of the “backbone” or spiritual and cultural leader ship, and mass negligence or indifference to deaths due to colonial, racial, or religious bigotry as in the case of the famines under British rule. More recent cases of Hindu genocide, such as their slaughter in East Pakistan in 1971, and the forced displacement of Hindus from Kashmir in the early 1990s, are also rarely acknowledged as a sufficient real-world cause of concem in the scholarly literature to perhaps justify taking the study of media whitewashing of violence against Hindus seriously. However, what media researchers need to engage with in order to further develop the rationale for the scholarly study of Hinduphobia is not only the phenomenon of silencing and exclusion of Hindu victimhood in media discourses but also the deeper question of “epistemicide” (Viswanathan, 2019) and dehumanization that continues through the prolif eration and normalization of essentially colonial-era anti-Hindu tropes from the imagination of racist-eugenicists like Katherine Mayo even in present-day entertainment like the movie Slumdog Millionaire. By erasing Hindu views of our own symbols, sacred and secular, by overwriting our own languages and meanings with their own propagandistic terminology such as BBC’s translation of “Jai Sri Ram” or “Victory to Lord Ram” as “Hail Lord Ram” with its close insinuation of the Nazi “Heil,” media Hinduphobia also involves an act, through brute force of technology and capital investment, of cultural genocide. There are no human rights, essentially, is what this machine seems to say, if you are Hindu. If you erase the name “Hindu,” then and only then can one bedeemed worthy of human rights discourse, just as Hari Kondabolu sought to do in the space of pop culture."

"[Radhakrishnan describes the state of dejection he experienced as a student at Madras Christian College:] 'I was strongly persuaded of the inferiority of the Hindu religion to which I attributed the political downfall of India.... I remember the cold sense of reality, the depressing feeling that crept over me, as a causal relation between the anaemic hindu religon and our political failure forced itself on my mind.'"

"A violent propaganda campaign was launched by Carey and his associates against Hinduism in Bengal which seemed to them to be in a state of dissolution. But Hindu orthodoxy reacted vigorously and Lord Minto felt obliged to prohibit such propaganda in Calcutta. Minto's letter to the Court of Directors is worth quoting: `Pray read the miserable stuff addressed specially to the Gentoos (Hindus) in which . . . the pages are filled with hell fire, and hell fire and with still hotter fire, denounced against a whole race of men, for believing in the religion which they were taught by their fathers and mothers. . ."

"“India is like a mighty bastion, which is being battered by heavy artillery. We have given blow after blow, and thud after thud, and the effect is not at first very remarkable; but at last with a crash the mighty structure will come toppling down, and it is our hope that some day the heathen religions of India will in like manner succumb.”"

"A country cannot be defeated politically unless it is defeated culturally. Our alien rulers knew that they could not conquer India without conquering Hinduism - cultural India's name at its deepest and highest, and the principle of its identity, continuity and reawakening. Therefore Hinduism became an object of their special attack. Physical attack was supplemented by ideological attack. They began to interpret for us our history, our religion, our culture and ourselves. We learnt to look at us through their eyes.... The long period created an atmosphere of mental slavery and imitation. It created a class of people Hindu in their names and by birth but anti-Hindu in orientation, sympathy and loyalty. They knew all the bad things and nothing good about Hinduism. Hindu dharma is now being subverted from within. Anti-Hindu Hindus are very important today; they rule the roost; they write our histories, they define our nation; they control the media, the academia, the politics, the higher administration and higher courts. They are now working as clients of those forces who are planning to revive their old Imperialism... During this period our minds became soft. We became escapists; we wanted to avoid conflict at any cost, even conflict and controversy of ideas, even when this controversy was necessary. We developed an escape-route. We called it "synthesis". We said all religions, all scriptures, all prophets preach the same things. It was intellectual surrender, and our enemies saw it that way; they concluded that we are amenable to anything, that we would clutch at any false hope or idea to avoid a struggle, and that we would do nothing to defend ourselves. Therefore, they have become even more aggressive. It also shows that we have lost spiritual discrimination (viveka), and would entertain any falsehood; this is prajñâ-dosha, drishti-dosha, and it cannot be good for our survival in the long run. People first fall into delusion before they fall into misfortune."

"Starting with the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, this flattering of Muslims by praising Islam culminated in Mahatma Gandhi’s sarva-dharma-samabhava - the opiate which lulled the Hindus into a deep slumber such as they had never known vis-à-vis Muslim aggression."

"If we would reveal our intentions, without hiding them at all, we hold that the Hindu Puranas and Hinduism must disappear from this land; and the sooner they disappear, the more welcome."

"The present-day progressives, leftists and dalits whose main plank is anti-Brahminism have no reason to feel innovative about their ideology. Anti-Brahminism in India is as old a the advent of Islam. Our present-day Brahmin-baiters are no more than ideological descendants of the Islamic invaders. Hindus will do well to remember Mahatma Gandhi’s deep reflection--“if Brahmanism does not revive, Hinduism must perish.”"

"If a scholar were to refute the very existence of Allah..... it would be called Islamophobia. .... An analogous situation exists in the way an attiutde gets classified as anti-Semitic. Hindus should be alarmed by the existence of a double standard in Western academics, because the same sensitivity and adhikara to speak for our tradition is not granted to Hindus. ..... We need to define a level playing field for characterizing a work as Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Hinduphobia, etc."

"Thus, to depict Rama as a virile warrior was a sin against Hinduism, an imitation of colonialist virility myths, a betrayal of the feminine passivity of genuine Hinduism. Or, to organize the Hindu religious personnel on a common platform (the Dharma Sansad, more or less 'religious parliament') is an un-Hindu imitation of the Bishops' Synod in the Catholic Church. Or, to alert the Hindus against Muslim or Christian conversion campaigns is an abandonment of the cheerful Hindu indifference to sectarian name-tags, the only thing which really changes upon conversion. Indeed, anything that could play a role in upholding and preserving Hinduism was found to be un-Hindu, while anything that could make or keep Hinduism defenceless and moribund, was glorified as true Hinduism. Anything that smacked of vitality and the will to survive was dubbed 'Semitic'."

"While one should always be vigilant for traces of totalitarianism in any ideology or movement, the obsession with fascism in the anti-Hindu rhetoric of the secularists is not the product of an analysis of the data, but of their own political compulsions."

"Elst, Koenraad, Who is a Hindu, (2001)"

"I do not know the meaning of the secularism. Yet I do not understand. Of course the dictionary meaning is absolutely different. There was a time when people were talking about the secularism, they were about the simply [sic] religious harmony. Slowly it changed the colour. Then, secularism means a lip sympathy to the minorities. Then slowly the colour changed. Then, secularism was [...] means appeasement to the minorities. Then the secularism changed the colour. Focus only on the Muslims' votebank in the name of secularism. Then the secularism changed the colour. Then, hate Hindu means secularism."

"The symptom of the kings being the protectors of religion is this:- When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced…"

"The only resolute defender of Hinduism in this intellectually hostile atmosphere was Bankim Chandra Chatterji. He was well-versed in Western literature and philosophy and his knowledge of Hindu Shastras and history was deep as well as discerning.... “If the principles of Christianity,” he wrote, “are not responsible for the slaughter of the crusades, the butcheries of Alva, the massacre of St. Bartholomew or the flames of the Inquisition... If the principles of Christianity are not responsible for the civil disabilities of Roman Catholics and Jews which till recently disgraced the English Statute Book, I do not understand how the principles of Hinduism are to be held responsible for the civil disabilities of the sudras under the Brahmanic regime. The critics of Hinduism have one measure for their own religion and another for Hinduism.”"

"Alexander Duff was convinced that “of all the systems of false religion ever fabricated by the perverse ingenuity of fallen men, Hinduism is surely the most stupendous” and that India was “the chief seat of Satan’s earthly dominion.”"

"But some media outlets have chosen to craft a false narrative of intrigue by profiling and targeting all of my donors who have names of Hindu origin and accusing them of being “Hindu nationalists.” Today it’s the profiling and targeting of Hindu Americans and ascribing to them motives without any basis. Tomorrow will it be Muslim or Jewish Americans? Japanese, Hispanic or African Americans? I too have been accused of being a “Hindu nationalist.” ... To question my commitment to my country, while not questioning non-Hindu leaders, creates a double standard that can be rooted in only one thing: religious bigotry. I am Hindu and they are not. ... Religious bigotry and attempts to foment fear of Hindus and other minority religions persist. During my 2012 and 2014 elections, my Republican opponent stated publicly that a Hindu should not be allowed to serve in the U.S. Congress and that Hinduism is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. In the 2016 race for Congress, my Republican opponent said repeatedly that a vote for me was a vote for the devil because of my religion. ... Those who are trying to foment anti-Hindu sentiment expose the dark underbelly of religious bigotry in politics and must be called out. To advocate voting for or against someone based on religion, race or gender is simply un-American."

"God and Muhammad engaged you to extinguish the idolatry of the Indians."

"One might think this position (that the English colonialist should convert their Indian "brethren" to the Gospel) would have endeared Max Muller to missionaries, but in fact it did not. Rather, they found him entirely too sympathetic to the "heathen" and suspected him of being insufficiently committed to the faith. Accordingly, in 1860 he was passed over for Oxford's Boden chair in Sanskrit, which carried responsibility for preparing the Sanskrit-English dictionary, both of which were intended, under the terms of Lt-Col Boden's will, to advance the conversion of Indians to Christianity, not to foster English understanding or respect for India"

"What has caused confusion and misunderstanding about his Hinduism is the concept of sarva-dharma-samabhAva (equal regard for all religions) which he had developed after deep reflection. Christian and Muslim missionaries have interpreted it to mean that a Hindu can go aver to Christianity or Islam without suffering any spiritual loss. They are also using it as a shield against every critique of their closed and aggressive creeds. The new rulers of India, on the other hand, cite it in order to prop up the Nehruvian version of Secularism which is only a euphemism for anti-Hindu animus shared in common by Christians, Muslims, Marxists and those who are Hindus only by accident of birth. For Gandhiji, however, sarva-dharma-samabhAva was only a restatement of the age-old Hindu tradition of tolerance in matters of belief. Hinduism has always adjudged a man’s faith in terms of his Adhara (receptivity) and adhikara (aptitude). It has never prescribed a uniform system of belief or behavior for everyone because, according to it, different persons are in different stages of spiritual development and need different prescriptions for further progress. Everyone, says Hinduism, should be left alone to work out one’s own salvation through one’s own inner seeking and evolution. Any imposition of belief or behaviour from the outside is, therefore, a mechanical exercise which can only do injury to one’s spiritual growth. Preaching to those who have not invited it is nothing short of aggression born out of self-righteousness. That is why Gandhiji took a firm and uncompromising stand against proselytisation by preaching and gave no quarters to the Christian mission’s mercenary methods of spreading the gospel."

"…Shivaji, the great founder of the Maratha Empire, established a council of eight ministers, viz. Mukhya Pradhana, Amatya, Saciva, Mantri, Senapati, Panditarao, Nyayadhisha and Sumanta. The jurisdiction of the Panditarao extended over all religious matters…There are letters which show that the Panditarao convened meetings of learned brahmanas and with their approval declared prayascitta in the case of a [Hindu] who had been forcibly converted by Mahomedans and who was thereafter restored to [his] caste."

"A letter I received from a Hindu leader in Sindh makes it clear that the condition of Hindus in Sindh is worrisome. There is a caste called Sanyogi in Sindh who were converted by force centuries ago, but they have retained their Hindu roots and customs. They want to become Hindu again, but their Hindu caste panchayats are not willing to accept them back. The organizations that want [sic] to get these people back into Hinduism face a stiff resistance from the Muslim organizations of Sindh, who are saying that such efforts will go against ‘Hindu Muslim unity’ in the region. But the unity that tells only Hindus that they shouldn’t propagate their religion even by talking about it, but we are free to spread our religion using force, you should not do ‘shuddhikaran’ but we will do ‘bhrashtikaran’, is not unity. It is a division that must be fought."

"The folly of disallowing reconversions to Hinduism is a self-destructive one. How easily Hindus converting to Islam or Christianity merge in their new milieu. Yet the same facility is not available to a non-Hindu who might earnestly wish to return to his or her fold or adopt Hinduism as a matter of faith. This shackle seriously depletes our numbers and makes the Hindu community a ready preying ground for the conversion factories that are always looking at swelling their numbers, many times by stealth or inducements. I have nothing against those who convert to another faith by sheer conviction. But such examples are rare. Why should we not allow the enhancement of our numbers due to some antiquated idea that does not even have any scriptural sanction that we cannot convert to Hinduism?"

"The salvation of man lies in dying in his own religion . . . We will no longer let any Hindu boy or girl, man or woman, however fallen they may be, pass into another religion, and we shall not fail to re-convert those whom you may have duped into embracing your faith . . . It is the duty of every Hindu to persuade a Hindu to remain a Hindu. It is a principle to be followed as vital to his community and culture for the preservation and progress of both."

"“I want to see you, Swami,” I began, “on this matter of receiving back into Hinduism those who have been perverted from it. Is it your opinion that they should be received?” Certainly, they can and ought to be taken... And then every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more. .... Again, the vast majority of Hindu perverts to Islam and Christianity are perverts by the sword, or the descendants of these. It would be obviously unfair to subject these to disabilities of any kind."

"[Asymmetry was the principle as in the case of Islam;] conversion was held to be and acted upon as something that was an essential principle of Christianity; but when a person like Swami Shraddhananda argued in favour of taking back into the Hindu fold the converts who wanted to return, they were condemned as persons who were inventing a practice for which there was no warrant in Hinduism.”"

"In my opinion, they are not examples of real conversion. If a person through fear, compulsion, starvation or for material gain or consideration goes over to another faith, it is a misnomer to call it conversion. Most cases of mass conversion, of which we have heard so much during the past two years, have been to my mind false coin… I would, therefore, unhesitatingly re-admit to the Hindu fold all such repentants without much ado, certainly without any shuddhi... And as I believe in the equality of all the great religions of the earth, I regard no man as polluted because he has forsaken the branch on which he was sitting and gone over to another of the same tree. If he comes to the original branch, he deserves to be welcomed and not told that he had committed sin by reason of his having forsaken the family to which he belonged. In so far as he may be deemed to have erred, he has sufficiently purged himself of it when he repents of the error and retraces his step."

"If the agitation in the Andamans . . . had only awakened the conscience of the Hindus to the possibility that a Mussalman can also be converted to Hinduism, I would have achieved a great deal. For up to that time the question that was always put to us was, ‘A Hindu can become a Mussalman, no doubt; but how can a Mussalman be admitted into Hinduism?’ Hundreds of Hindus had asked me that question and sincerely believed that there was no answer for it. But none put such a conundrum before us any longer. For the Shuddhi movement had shown that it could be done, and we had done it. The food touched or prepared by the Muslims could be eaten by the Hindu without tarring his stomach and making him lose his caste and religion. Hinduism was not so anaemic as that; and the Hindus in the Andamans had realized the fact, as they had not done it before. This was a great achievement of the Shuddhi movement in that part of the world. For there are in the so-called wise and liberty-loving Hindus of India bigoted champions of Hinduism who, seriously enough, still seek to confound us by the same conundrum. This awakening in the Andamans was not confined to the few but had spread all over the place and the roots of the new feeling had gone deep down into the soil of the Andamans."

""Then as to names," I enquired, "I suppose aliens and perverts who have adopted non-Hindu names should be named newly. Would you give them caste-names, or what?" "Certainly," said the Swami, thoughtfully, "there is a great deal in a name!" and on this question he would say no more."

"It is a notorious fact that many prominent Hindus who had offended the religious susceptibilities of the Muslims either by their writings or by their part in the Shudhi movement have been murdered by some fanatic Musalmans. First to suffer was Swami Shradhanand, who was shot by Abdul Rashid on 23rd December 1926 when he was lying in his sick bed."

"Muhammad Ali's observation on the sudden manifestation of zeal by the Muslims and Hindus for conversion and reconveision to their faith is worth quoting : “My own belief is that both sides are working with an eye much more on the next decennial census than on heaven itself, and I frankly confess it is on such occasions that I sigh for the days when our forefathers settled things by cutting heads rather then counting them'"

"Swami Shradhanand relates a very curious incident which well illustrates this attitude... He says :— "It was from the beginning a Hindu Conference in all walks of life. The only Mahomedan delegate who joined the National Social Conference was a Mufti Saheb of Barreily. Well! ... Then the Mufti asked permission to speak.... There was no loophole left for the President and Mufti Saheb was allowed to have his say. Mufti Saheb's argument was that as Hindu Shastras did not allow remarriage, it was a sin to press for it. Again, when the resolution about the reconversion of those who had become Christians and Musalmans came up. Mufti Saheb urged that when a man abandoned the Hindu religion he ought not to be allowed to come back.""

"The Hindus naturally resented the attitude of the Muslims toward the Suddhi movement and felt themselves perfectly justified in converting or reconverting otherL to their own faith, — a right which the Muslims had fully exercised all along without any restraint, and which alone accounted for their number in India."

"Shaukat Ali to Savarkar: But you do realize that you polarize the minds of Muslims with your activities. Muslims have been converting Hindus for such a long time. It is not a new thing that has come up now. It is your shuddhi that is a new phenomenon that sows seeds of discord amidst tranquil society. Isn’t it blatantly anti-Muslim? Savarkar: But whose fault is this, Maulana Sahab? If a religion as tolerant and peace-loving as Hinduism—that never proselytized anyone forcibly and even forgave or forgot the coercive and violent attempts made on its faith—has to today take the help of shuddhi, where should the blame lie? On the victim or the aggressor? Till date we trusted people and kept the doors of our houses open. Thieves from across the world came in and looted our possessions. Today we have gathered some sense, become alert and have decided to keep our doors locked. And if the same dacoits come and tell us, ‘We have been looting for so long, putting a lock on your doors is being unfair to us and this will spoil relationships between us’, what are we to reply? Such a lethal unity is best broken in my view."

"I have said many times in my talks that Ramakrishna Mission is the real crest jewel of Hinduism.... But if the other religious minorities are allowed to run their educational institutions, why are Hindus being discriminated against? My view is that there should be no reverse discrimination on the basis of religion. It should be uniform."