Ask a Hindu: What’s Most Misunderstood about Your Faith?
What is most often misunderstood about your faith? Do you think people of different faiths should marry? How has your faith changed over the years? How do you feel when people try to convert you away from your faith or when others criticize or attack your faith? What do you love most about your faith?
What is most often misunderstood about your faith?
Do you think people of different faiths should marry?
Personally, I don’t see any issue in interfaith marriages. Any relationship should be based on mutual respect, love and personal freedom. As long as each partner respects the other’s personal beliefs — including faith — it is no problem. But if conversion (changing one’s faith) becomes a condition before or after marriage, then I do not support that.
How has your faith changed over the years?
We believe that change is the only constant in life.
Faith traditions and people who do not change with time become irrelevant. Our dharma has always embraced change with grace.
How do you feel when people try to convert you away from your faith or when others criticize or attack your faith?
In our history, people in the name of Islam have attacked us and destroyed and looted thousands of our temples. We are still fighting to reclaim our civilization’s heritage as a result. These attackers also destroyed our knowledge by burning down universities with fires so enormous, they were burning for about a month. This lost knowledge put India behind by decades.
Our women were abducted, which resulted in not sending women outside for education and ultimately led to many wrong practices within society. And our men were brutally killed and forced to convert.
Hindu genocide is a topic that is often not discussed. The movie “Kashmir Files” talks about one such attempt, which just is the tip of iceberg of the brutality that we faced. It’s about the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, a secular, Muslim-only militant group, and their role in the Kashmir Insurgency.
Similarly, when European colonists came, they were equally brutal and mostly used a divide-and-rule policy to convert and loot our resources.
Yet, Hinduism survived because of its ability to change and adapt. Vedic culture, science and the desire to learn all go together.
When our books were burned, our age-old oral storytelling tradition passed on crucial knowledge.
Now that we are out of that phase, we are modifying and course-correcting wrong practices that have crept into our culture.
Hindus contribute and adapt to any country they go to without creating any problems. It’s all because of the ability to change and adapt.
When people try to convert us, it makes us feel disgusted, and it is the highest level of hypocrisy on display.
They talk about freedom, but for some, they want to change our and other people’s belief systems.
They actually have no clue about what freedom and rights really mean.
What do you love most about your faith?
There are several aspects that I love about my dharma, but the one I love most is the value of equality and balance. There is no division between believer and non-believers and no burden to convert anyone. Women are also not considered less human than men.
We do not believe earth is created only for our consumption. Therefore, sustainability is part of our mindset.
These are the personal views of the writer.
Ask a Hindu
What questions do you have about Hinduism? Fill out the form below and our writer will get back to you by writing a column in response.
