The RSS and BJP are on a mission: to turn Hinduism into something it never was—a religion that mimics Islam and Christianity. They want commandments, prohibitions, and uniformity. Unfortunately for them, Hinduism is not a religion of rules. It is a philosophy, a way of living that thrived precisely because it refused to be boxed in.
Take fasting as an example. In Islamic countries during Ramadan, you don’t eat in public. It’s part of their religious discipline, and it comes from their structure—rules are binding, collective, and non-negotiable. Fair enough, that’s Islam. But in Hinduism, fasting during Navratri was always personal. One family might avoid non-veg; another might not. Nobody cared. No one went door to door to check your plate. Hinduism never needed food police to survive.
Now enter political Hinduism. Suddenly, eating meat during Navratri is treated like a crime. Municipalities impose bans, hotels are told to shut down non-veg kitchens, and it’s all packaged as “respecting sentiments.” Respect? No, this is imitation. A desperate attempt to give Hinduism the Abrahamic makeover it never asked for.
Here’s the irony: the strength of Hindu philosophy lay in its chaos, its contradictions. You could meditate in the Himalayas, or you could roast a goat by the river, and you’d still be Hindu. The tradition absorbed both paths without collapsing. But RSS and BJP seem allergic to this freedom. They want Hinduism to look like Islam—uniform, strict, state-enforced—because only then, in their eyes, will Hinduism be “equal.”
What they don’t realize is this: the moment Hinduism starts banning, policing, and enforcing, it stops being Hinduism. The ascetic and the householder, the vegetarian and the meat-eater, the idol worshipper and the skeptic—they all belonged here. Flatten that diversity into one political script, and you’re left with a hollow imitation.
Hinduism did not survive thousands of years by aping others. It survived because it allowed people to breathe. Strip it of that freedom, and you don’t strengthen it—you strangle it.
If tomorrow Hinduism becomes a religion of bans and restrictions, congratulations to the RSS and BJP. They won’t have “saved” Hinduism. They’ll have killed it.