DELHI, INDIA, February 10, 2008: Next week in Delhi, Tarun Vijay, editor of Panchjanya Magazine, is launching a book aimed at investigating a paradox: despite India being a Hindu-majority nation and the cradle of Hinduism, a Hindu in his own country can feel low and persecuted. What is missing, the author says, is leadership and a champion for their cause.
Beginning with India celebrating the 150 years of the 1857 revolution against the colonialists, the author points out the irony that Hindus have become their own enemy, with Hindutvavadis and communists in a feud. Tarun Vijay says, “Hindus feel unwanted and Hindu organizations behave as if they were in a minority. Those who take up Hindu causes are rebuked and attacked by Indians.” He asks, “We fear even remembering our dead. How many books in India tell our children about the sacrifices their ancestors made to retain and protect the culture and Dharma of the nation?”
In the second part of the book, Tarun Vijay lists the subjects of his concern, mentioning the arrest of Shankaracharya in the name of law and order on Diwali night, stopping of bhajans in trains and subsidy to Haj opposed to lack of support for Hindu pilgrimages.