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This is an archive article published on October 1, 2023

Hinduism according to Rahul Gandhi: How the Congress leader has engaged with the religion

From countless temple visits to studying the Upanishads and Gita, Rahul has tried to burnish his Hindu credentials since 2014. In the process, he has attempted to tackle the BJP’s messaging on political Hindutva but without much success.

Rahul Gandhi hinduThis intervention comes even as through countless visits to temples, the 53-year-old has, since 2014, repeatedly tried to burnish his Hindu credentials.
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Hinduism according to Rahul Gandhi: How the Congress leader has engaged with the religion
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To call “Hinduism a set of cultural norms is to misunderstand it” and “to bind it to a particular nation or geography is to limit it,” wrote senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a piece in The Indian Express Sunday. Hinduism, Gandhi says, “is how we mitigate and understand our relationship with our fears. It is a path towards the realisation of truth and though it belongs to no one, it is open to anyone who chooses to walk on it.”

This intervention comes even as through countless visits to temples, the 53-year-old has, since 2014, repeatedly tried to burnish his Hindu credentials. He has tried to tackle, though without much success, the BJP’s messaging on political Hindutva, too, in his own ways — even drawing a distinction between Hinduism as a benign and inclusive religion and Hindutva as a militant and exclusivist political ideology.

Likening life to “swimming through a vast ocean of joy, love and fear”, Gandhi says “a person who has the courage to overcome her own fear so that she may observe the ocean truthfully is a Hindu.”

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“A Hindu looks at herself and everyone in this ocean of life with love, compassion and respect because she understands we are all swimming and drowning in exactly the same waters. She reaches out and protects all the beings around her who are struggling to swim. She is alert to even the most quiet anxiety, the most silent scream. This action and duty to defend others, especially the weak, is what a Hindu calls her Dharma,” he says.

Interestingly, Gandhi’s exposition of Hindu Dharma comes at a time when the Congress and the INDIA alliance are facing scathing criticism from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP over DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s observations on Sanatan Dharma. Modi has since then repeatedly accused the Congress of trying to eradicate Sanatan Dharma.

Gandhi then argues that “a Hindu has the courage to look deeply into her own fear and to embrace it” and that “she learns to turn her fear from an enemy into an intimate friend that guides and accompanies her through life”.

“She is not a victim. And never ever allows her fear to capture her and turn her into a vehicle for anger, hatred or violence,” he says. Gandhi has repeatedly accused the BJP and the RSS of spreading hatred and sowing the seeds of anger in the society with its “divisive politics.” The Congress also believes the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are trying to drill a sense of victimhood into the minds of Hindus.

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Interestingly, Gandhi argues that “a Hindu is humble and is always ready to listen and learn from any being that swims in the great ocean”. He has often accused Prime Minister Modi of not listening to the voice of the people and behaving like a fountainhead of all knowledge.

The article apart, Gandhi has for some years been trying to consistently engage with Hinduism. Be it innocuous observations such as he has found the Congress’s electoral symbol hand in the images of Lord Shiva, Guru Nanak, Buddha, Mahavira and Hazrat Ali, assertion that he was studying the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita since he was fighting the RSS and the BJP, and the claim that he was a “Shiv bhakt”, Gandhi has been trying to address the religion, one of the central themes of post-2014 India.

Gandhi now often visits temples when he is travelling outside Delhi. In 2018, he undertook the famed visit to Kailash Mansarovar. His party once even labelled him “a janeyu-dhari Hindu”. He took his attack against political Hindutva to a new level in 2021 when he argued that Hinduism was not about “killing individuals”, “unlike Hindutva”.

“What is the difference between Hinduism as we know it and Hindutva? Are they the same thing? Can they be the same thing? If they are the same thing, why don’t they have the same name? Why do they have a different name? …why not just use Hindutva if they are the same thing? They are obviously different things,” he had said.

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“Is Hinduism about beating a Sikh or a Muslim? Hindutva of course is. But is Hinduism about killing Akhlaq? In which book is this written? I have not seen it. I have read the Upanishads. I have not seen it. Where is it written that you should kill an innocent man? I am unable to find this. In Hindu scripture, in Islamic scripture, in Sikh scripture. I can see it in Hindutva,” he said.

Addressing a rally in Jaipur in December of that year, he went on to say that he was “a Hindu” and “not a Hindutvawadi”, and that the two words were different, with “totally different” meanings. He said the country’s politics was witnessing a clash between two words. “One word is ‘Hindu’, the other word is ‘Hindutvawadi’. “These two words do not mean one thing, these are two different words and their meanings are totally different. I am a Hindu but not a Hindutvawadi,” Gandhi had said.

“Mahatma Gandhi — Hindu. Godse —Hindutvawadi. What is the difference? Whatever happens, a Hindu seeks the truth. Even if he dies, gets crushed, a Hindu searches for the truth. His way is Satyagraha. He spends all his life searching for the truth. Mahatma Gandhi wrote his autobiography, My Experiments With Truth, which means, he spent his entire life trying to understand and search for truth. And at the end, a Hindutvawadi fired three bullets at his chest,” he had said.

Quoting the Gita and the Upanishads, he has also tried to paint the BJP as anti-women. He once asked why the BJP and RSS chant Jai Shri Ram rather than Jai Siya Ram — his argument being that Siya or Sita or women have no place in the RSS ideology.

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During his Bharat Jodo Yatra earlier this year, he said, “I have read the Gita and the Upanishads. I have never read that Hindus should be aggressive. Hinduism is all about understanding the self, about humility, about compassion… Even Lord Ram felt compassion for Raavan. When Raavan was dying, Lord Ram was gentle, loving and affectionate.”

His latest quip on the BJP’s plank of political Hindutva came during an event at the Sciences Po in Paris last month. Gandhi hit out at the BJP arguing that the ruling party had nothing to do with Hinduism. “They are out to get power at any cost, and they will do anything to get power… They want dominance of a few people and that is what they are about. There is nothing Hindu about them,” he said.

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