Off late, showering profound love to one’s mother has become a national responsibility. Now, I’m not talking about your biological mother – you can still yell at your mom and get away with it. I am talking about the focal mothers of the moment – Gau Mata, Bharat Mata and Ganga Mata. These are the three mothers the nation wants you to respect, whether you like it or not.
These three mothers immediately remind me of the renowned Sanskrit phrase found in Maha Upanishad, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” which means, “The whole world is one family.”
This phrase has begun to imply that my country, the cow and the sacred river Ganga are my mothers. However, this also implies that this phrase connects me to every other member on this planet – be it someone in another country, another animal, another river or let’s say a sister from another mother with a different religion, caste, creed or race.
This means that the world is my family and I should respect each and every living member in it. So, if a cow is revered and is considered as a Mata (mother), why is a she-goat not considered a mother too? After all, she too gives us milk. Regarding manure, well, goat dung has a high proportion of nitrogen and is quite good for farming as well.
So basically, a she-goat has all the features of being a mother. Yet the same fraternity that hails cow as a mother doesn’t care about her. Religious beliefs or plain hypocrisy?
Coming back to the Ganga Mata. Recently, Yogi Aditynath mentioned that Ganga is everyone’s mother and insulting it is nothing but rashtra droh (national treason). We have been considering Ganga river both as pure and holy, but why isn’t Yamuna treated the same way? And why isn’t Sri Sri a rashtra drohi yet?
Without any doubt, Bharat Mata is an allegory of India our nation-state, so she is our motherland. Respecting one’s motherland is one’s duty but then rioting in her name, giving it a religious angle, is this fair? Besides, how does nationalism become the core value when the spiritual thought “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” is the principle of one’s daily life.
It is rather unfortunate how few opportunists claim to follow Hinduism and “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, but fail to follow the core beliefs of Hinduism. Is it dharma to lynch a human being when all he is doing is his business?
Compassion and intolerance are two of the very intrinsic nature of Hinduism, which obviously isn’t seen amongst the propagators of Hindutva. Nevertheless, the theory of Hindutva is far different from Hinduism, so much that it is an alien theory for those who even understand the very basic principle of Hinduism.
It is really unfortunate that we consider cow as our mother under the pretext of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam but fail to see our fellow countrymen as a part of one family and kill them in rage for following their food habits. It is time we mend our ways and stop blackening the name of Hinduism for our own narrow-mindedness and dogmatism.