When one talks about any achievements of the Hindu society over the ages, the first point that is raised is that they are not meticulously described on paper, with a properly chronology. Many of our scriptures which originally followed the oral tradition, are set aside as a Mythology by those who are today called ‘historians’ even though they were actually ‘distorians’. Many of our scriptures which enumerate our successes in various fields of Science, Technology, Medicine, etc. have landed on shores far away from our country and the knowledge in them have been shown as ‘discoveries’ of the people of those lands. If some knowledge still exists in the original scriptures, such knowledge is treated as fake or an exaggeration by many who refuse to accept Bharat’s Ancient Knowledge systems.

Just like how our ancient knowledge systems are treated flippantly, the miseries heaped on our civilisation by the Abrahamic Cults from across the borders, have also been treated flippantly and the various attempts to destroy our civilization have been brushed under the carpet. Whether it is the numerous genocides over the ages, the destruction of our places of worship, the systematic attack on our society and our rituals, the misinterpretation of our Constitution by our Courts, the distorted history given in our school books, all have added to the physical, psychological and civilizational tortures on the people of the Hindu faith.

Why have we not been able to dislodge the vicious agendas as mentioned above? One of the most important reasons is that it is because we did not put our miseries into words with clinical precision. To overcome this important shortcoming, some eminent people got together and put up the demands for a fair treatment to the Hindu Society by the Government, into words and presented it to the Government of the day. This movement was called the Hindu Charter of Demands and it had its first conference in September, 2018. The demands it put forward were:

1. Provide Equal Rights to Hindus in matters of faith and religion in matters pertaining to :
Ø Management of places of worship (Temples & Religious Endowments).
Ø Entitlement to various benefits from Govt schemes, plans, scholarships etc.
Ø Enabling teaching of traditional Indian knowledge and ancient texts of India in educational institutions.
Ø Establishment and administration of educational institutions of their choice without undue interference of Government and its agencies.

2. Repeal FCRA Act completely and ban all foreign money inflow through FCRA, except for the funds from OCIs and end interference of foreign governments in our Judiciary, Law & Policy making.

3. Enact Freedom of Religion Act to prevent interference in practice and propagation of native Hindu and Indic Traditions, Customs and Rituals.

4. Abrogation of Article 370 and repeal Article 35A of the Constitution, Trifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir into separate states/UTs of Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh. 

5. Ban on Export of beef from India and change in the exclusive use of Halal method for slaughtering, by APEDA.

6. Establish Haindava Samskruti Jeernoddhara Nigam (CPSU), with a seed fund of at least 10,000 Cr for restoration of dilapidated temples and architecture for preservation and propagation of Hindu (native Indian) literature, arts, dance forms, culture and traditions.

7. Guaranteeing Citizenship to the persecuted people, practicing Indian origin religions (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists), by Enactment of a New Citizenship Act Bill and withdraw all amendments to Existing Citizenship Act Bill.

8. Provide Equal opportunities to all Indian languages especially in Education.

Some of the eminent people who were part of this movement and/or the subsequent “Equal Rights for Hindus” movement were RVS Mani, Ritu Rathore, Vikas Saraswat, Divya Soti, Surendranath, Prof. S. Venugopalan, Ratan Sharda, Rati Hegde, Sankrant Sanu, Rahul Dewan, Dr. J K Bajaj, Nithin Sridhar, Dimple Kaul, Ashish Dhar, R Jagganathan, Rahul Roshan, Eeshankur Saikia, Vikram Sharma, M V R Shastri, Madhu Purnima Kishwar, Dr. Omendra Ratnu, Prof Bharat Gupt and many, many more.

For the first time, a list of the basic demands of the Hindu Society was put to paper in a systematic manner and people were able to relate to it. Over the past two years, many of these demands have been further elaborated upon by many groups and it would be fair to say that Hindus have received some success in the above demands. Some of the successes include:

  1. Abrogation of Article 370 and repeal of Section 35A.
  2. Removing of the word “Halal” in the method of slaughter, by APEDA. A blanket ban on exporting beef is something which would be the ideal solution to saving our Indian breed of cows and would stop unnatural breeding and slaughter of buffaloes.
  3. Higher education in Indian languages and not English exclusively. The movement in this direction has begun in the NEP.
  4. CAA where persecuted people belonging to Indic religions (and Christianity) from our neighbouring countries can apply for citizenship in India was introduced. However, unfortunately it is now in a state of limbo.
  5. FCRA restrictions on various Conversion factories masquerading as NGOs resulting in the shutdown of many such NGOs. A complete ban on FCRA permission to conversion factories is still awaited.

While the above successes are not complete in any way and there is a long way to go yet, we are grateful to the current Government for having considered some of the above completely and some, partially.

One of our major points was RELEASE OF OUR TEMPLES FROM GOVERNMENT CONTROL (1st Demand). Unfortunately, this is one demand which has not received any recognition from our Central or State Governments. The importance of this demand cannot be undermined in any way because our whole civilization depends on our Temples and Mathas for survival and invigoration of Sanatan Dharma. Also, the funds from our Temples are illegitimately diverted for causes other than for Sanatan Dharma and its followers.

To spread awareness and work on creating and running a Pilot Project in Andra Pradesh to prevent further damages to our Temples there, Hindu Charter Trust is now running a crowd-funding campaign for the same. Complete details of this campaign can be found on https://www.crowdkash.com/campaign/1025/supporthindutemples

We now request you to support us in this campaign whole-heartedly. Your contribution will help us provide the Government and the citizens with a working model of Samitis in our Devalayas which will work towards saving and running our Temples smoothly for the well-being of the Hindu Society. Our efforts towards releasing our Temples from the clutches of the State Governments will continue.

Rati Hegde

Campaigner, Equal Rights for Hindus

Hindu Charter Trust

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