Author : Samidha

It is said that the hunter gets to write the story of the hunt and not the one being hunted. That is precisely what has happened with our Sanatan Hindu civilization. The story of our remarkably advanced, ancient civilization is written by invaders and colonizers. Naturally, our scholarly ancestors as well as our heroes with their unmatched valor are nowhere to be found in current discourse! It is not just our responsibility but also a sacred duty to continue their fight to save our civilization from being wiped out. For the continuity of culture and the identity of those who belong to it, preserving old history is the key. As long as our Sanatan roots are strong, we are strong. As we know, our roots give us identity. Identity is important because it is how we see ourselves and not just how others see us. Our enemies want to strip us of our Indic identity; because once we abandon it, they can easily fill that void with something that benefits them. If we do not bother to know the facts and acquire the skills to present them, we will be forgotten in no time!

Antagonists have been using various clever techniques to achieve their goals. One of them being our ignorance and aloofness about our traditions. The caste system, sati, dowry and many more such customs have their origin outside of India and Hinduism; yet everyone is made to believe these are integral parts of Indian/Hindu culture. This kind of misinformation peddling happens effortlessly in the absence of any counternarrative. And even before we know it, lies are accepted as truth! Many times, this lack of counteraction is simply because of a lack of knowledge and thereby an absence of pride. Our enemies take advantage of our indifference towards our heritage. They then supplement it with bottomless funding, technology, opportunity, and motive to create and reinforce power imbalance with the help of agenda-driven narratives.

 Another technic used is cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation plays a big role in suppressing our identity. Cultural appropriation usually means members of a dominant culture copy cultural elements from a minority. These elements are used outside of their original cultural context—sometimes even against the expressly stated wishes of members of the originating culture. Cultural appropriation often degrades cultural elements and makes them acceptable when used by the dominant culture but not in the hands of their originators. This land has been subjected to centuries of looting both knowledge and wealth by invaders. They have succeeded in systematic distortion of our history & culture under their lens. They repackaged and relabeled our culture and knowledge, but conditioned Indians, especially Hindus to think everything “Indian” is inferior and worth discarding. As if that is not bad enough, we have a strange obsession for Westernization, thinly masked under the label of modernity. This makes us feel superior and contemporary by discarding our own cultural and religious traditions. This false narrative is so detrimental that we do not even realize that along with our history, traditions, and languages, our identity is also fading into oblivion.

There are many such obvious and subtle ways in which we are being “erased”. Our invaders know our potential so they make sure to attack everything that could possibly remind us of our greatness. Simultaneously, we are brainwashed into thinking that everything Hindu and Indian is outdated and not worth embracing. Like Mr Rajiv Malhotra says, once you take “sacred” out, it becomes easy for them to get away with theft, but shouldn’t we fight for what is rightfully ours? Isn’t it high time we pay “shraddhanjali” (tribute) to our valiant ancestors by fighting for the resurgence of lost glory? Maybe a small reminder of who we really are, will do the trick. Let us be part of a grand effort to reconstruct every facet of our glorious past for ourselves and our future generations. For this, we have to keep our Indic identity alive!

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