What is religion?
The word ‘religion’ has not been defined in the Constitution of India. The first case considered by the seven Judges’ Bench of Apex Court defined religion in the judgment,
(The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt. In Paragraph-17)
The Apex Court has observed as follows:
“Religion is certainly a matter of faith with individuals or communities and it is not necessarily theistic. There are well known religions in India like Budhism and Jainism which do not believe in God or in any Intelligent First Cause. A religion undoubtedly has its basis in a system of beliefs or doctrines which are regarded by those who profess that religion as conducive to their spiritual wellbeing, but it would not be correct to say that religion is nothing else but a doctrine or belief. A religion may not only lay down a code of ethical rules for its followers to accept, it might prescribe rituals and observances, ceremonies and modes of worship which are regarded as integral parts of religion, and these forms and observances might extend even to matters of food and dress.
‘The term ‘religion’ as used in tax exemption law, simply includes (1) a belief, not necessarily referring to supernatural powers; (2) a cult, involving a gregarious association openly expressing the belief; (3) a system of moral practice directly resulting from an adherence to the belief; and (4) an organisation within the cult designed to observe the tenets or belief, the content of such belief being of no moment.
Considering the definition of religion as settled by the Apex Court detailed above, India consists of two kinds of religions,
(1) the religions born on foreign land and brought to India such religions are Islam, Christianity, Zoroastrian and Parsees and
(2) religions born and developed in India which are Buddhism, Jainsim, Sikhism, Aryasamaj, Brahmsamaj, Radhaswami, Lingayats, Kabirpanth, Adwaitvad by Adi Jagat Guru Shankaracharya, Religion based on Philosophy of Ramanujacharya, other Saint; and Philosophers, Vaishnav Panth, other different religions of Bhakti Marg including Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, ISCON, Saint Nimbarkachsrya, Philosophy of Saint Ramanand, Theosophical Society of India, Nirankaris, Panth founded by Swami Vivekanand on the basis of philosophy of Rama Krishana Paramhans, Religion believing Lord Rama as God, Religion believing Lord Krishna as God, Aghorpanth, Sufism, Saint Ravidas, Saint Tukaram and other different beliefs, thoughts and religions and different religions believing on different God and Goddess, Tribals who worship the Nature, Tribals have their own God/Goddess in India, hundreds of such Tribal groups who worship different God/Goddess (mostly not connected with each other) throughout India from North East, West Bengal, Orissa, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, Gujrat, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattishgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Considering the definition of religion as defined by the Apex Court, all these are religions born, developed and existing in India.
Who are Hindus?
‘Hindu’ which we in India are proud to be, is not a religion! We have been filling in government forms and school / college admission forms ‘Hindu’ as our religion! There have been censuses undertaken where ‘Hindu’ is always listed as one of the option for religion. All the Census Reports indicate Hindu as religion of majority. We have been duped by sustained governmental efforts to believe it to be so! But, nowhere in legal framework ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hinduism” as religion has been defined. There have been several indirect references, oblique connections and long-drawn surmises in various government records, courts’ orders and parliamentary records on the subject but nowhere ‘Hindu’ as religion have been defined clearly.
Hinduism is a unique faith! The most obvious misconception about Hinduism is that we tend to see it as just another religion. To be precise, Hinduism is a way of life, a dharma. Dharma does not mean religion. It is the law that governs all action. Thus, contrary to popular perception, Hinduism is not just a religion in the tradition sense of the term. Out of this misinterpretation, has come most of the misconceptions about Hinduism.
Western scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder. Among its roots are the Vedic religion of the late Vedic period and its emphasis on the status of Brahmans, but also the religions of the Indus Valley Civilisation, the Sramana or renouncer traditions of north-east India, and “popular or local traditions”. This “Hindu synthesis” emerged around the beginning of the Common Era, and co-existed for several centuries with Buddhism, to finally gain the upper hand in most royal circles during the 8th century CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism
Hinduism: A Modern Term
Words like Hindu or Hinduism are ananchronisms. They do not exist in the Indian cultural lexicon. People have coined them to suit their needs in different points of history. Nowhere in the scriptures is there any reference to Hinduism.
Legal definition of Hindu and Indian Constitution:
India’s Constitution does not give a definition of the term Hindu, but it does define to whom the Hindu Law applies. It has to do this because in spite of its pretence to secularism, the Indian Constitution allows Muslims, Christians and Parsis a separate Personal Law. In a way, this separate treatment of different communities merely continues the communal autonomy of castes and sects accepted in pre-modern Hindu states, but it exposes the credibility deficit of Indian secularism. At any rate, the situation is that Personal Law is divided on the basis of religion, and that one of the legal subsystems is called Hindu Law.
‘Hindu’ refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word “Hindu” is attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion (i.e. Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism or Sikhism). In common use today, it refers to an adherent of Hinduism. Article 25 (2)(b) of the Constitution stipulates that the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion. Whereas Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism as religion have been well defined in laws of the land, Hindu or Hinduism as religion is yet to be defined. Though it is easy to conclude that excluding those religion which have been defined, whatever is left of the Indian population is Hindu by religion. It is easy to say but have dangerous implications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu
“Hindu culture and civilisation consists of several hundred religions and the Hindu Society is divided in caste, creed and several ethnic groups and as such each and every religious group forming Hinduism.”
(Bench: Justice S Srivastava, Allahabad High Court – Committee of Management, Anjuman Madarsa Noorul Islam Dehra Kalan, Ghazipur v/s State Of U.P. Through Secretary, 5 April, 2007) http://indiankanoon.org/doc/9615/
The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 goes in greater detail to define this legal Hindu, by stipulating in Section 2 that the Act applies:
(a) to any person who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms and developments, including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo, Prarthana or Arya Samaj,
(b) to any person who is a Buddhist, Jain or Sikh by religion, and
(c) to any other person domiciled in the territories to which this Act extends who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion. (1)
The contradictions in defining Hindus:
This definition of the legal Hindu, though explicitly not equating him with the Hindu by religion, is exactly coterminous with the original Islamic use of the term Hindu: all Indian Pagans are legally Hindus. The Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are explicitly included in the Hindus by law but separated from the Hindus by religion: at this point, the law follows the usage established by Western scholars, contrary to the original usage.
Note that the changes in Hindu Law imposed by an Act of Parliament (on top of the very existence of separate Hindu and Muslim Law regimes) constitute a further measure of communal inequality. The secular government would not dare to touch the other religion-based law systems, as has repeatedly been shown in the past decades regarding items of Christian and Muslim Personal Law. An interference in Hindu Law by a national legislative body only makes sense in an avowedly Hindu state; in a sense, therefore, the Hindu Marriage Act constitutes an admission by Jawaharlal Nehru that ultimately India is a Hindu state.
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/wiah/ch3.htm
Separatist Sikhs have at times criticized the inclusion of the Sikhs in the legal Hindu category. When Law Minister Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar first introduced the Hindu Code Bill in 1951, Sikh spokesman Sardar Hukum Singh regarded the Bill as a dubious attempt on the part of the Hindus to absorb the Sikhs. Dr. Ambedkar replied: The application of the Hindu Code to Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains was a historical development and it would be too late, sociologically, to object to it. When the Buddha differed from the Vedic Brahmins, he did so only in matters of creed, but left the Hindu legal framework intact. He did not propound a separate law for his followers. The same was the case with Mahavir and the ten Sikh gurus. The Privy Council had as early as 1830 laid down that the Sikhs were governed by the Hindu law. (2)
This at once explains why Ambedkar’ s neo-Buddhist followers have not objected to their inclusion in the legal Hindu category. On the contrary, this inclusion later served to justify their inclusion in reservation schemes and other benefits for Hindu ex-Untouchables: as Un-touch ability was a problem of Hindu society, it was reasonable that special benefits for this section of Hindu society only apply to ex-Untouchable members of the Hindu, or at least the legal Hindu category.
When the Ramakrishna Mission went to court to have itself declared a non-Hindu minority (in order to escape the legal anti-Hindu discriminations esp. in education), it claimed that its members could legally still be treated as Hindus in matters of marriage and inheritance, even while being recognized as non-Hindus in the religious sense.4 in effect, the Ramakrishnaites wanted to have the same status as Sikhs and Buddhists: legal recognition as legal Hindus and religious non-Hindus. They rightly understood that the law has created a category of semi-Hindus who have no separate traditions of personal law but have nevertheless a separate religious identity entitling them to the privileges accorded to the minorities.
http://voiceofdharma.in/who-is-a-hindu/3-legal-definition-of-qhinduq
The Indian laws make a distinction between what we may call the Hindu in the broad sense, to whom Hindu Law applies, and who is coterminous with the Hindu of Persian-Islamic usage, viz. every Indian Pagan; and the Hindu in the narrow sense, a category which may not include Buddhism and Sikhism. Though the law does not mention them, the tribal traditions are also taken to fall partly (except for a measure of accomplished sanskritization) outside this narrow category.
Converts not be given reservation benefits:
The Government of India Act (1935), enacted by the British who had other concerns, already excluded Christian converts from the Scheduled Castes category. This was done after consultation with the missionaries, who were honest enough to acknowledge this as the obvious implication of their own boast that conversion brought freedom from caste disabilities. As long as Christians and Muslims propagate the notion that their own religion is egalitarian and caste-free, it is only logical that converts have to give up their Scheduled Caste status.
The Supreme Court has held that a Scheduled Caste Hindu on ceasing to be a Hindu also ceases to be a Scheduled Caste and, should he ever reconvert to Hinduism, he will also regain forthwith the Scheduled Caste status. (3)
Today, all while propagating the necessary connection between Hinduism and caste disabilities, the Churches are clamouring for the recognition of their SC converts as Dalit Christians. If they haven’t had their way so far, it is mainly due to the opposition not from the Hindutva forces but from the neo-Buddhists and the legitimate Scheduled Castes themselves. At the time of writing, the legal position remains that only followers of Indic religions are classified by caste, with the concomitant legal benefits in case of low castes. http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/wiah/ch3.htm
Hindu – Religion, Culture or Way of Life?
If you look through the apologetic arguments presented by the scholars of multiple religions, you’ll see that much of the same arguments are used by each one of these religions to claim superiority. The most common among these arguments are the “Way-of-Life” arguments. The claim made is that the particular religion being defended is in reality a great civilization, a culture that surpasses every other that has ever existed… a WAY OF LIFE!
At the time of writing this article, Googling Islam “way of life” gets me 9,80,00,000 results. “Christianity way of life” gets me 56,60,00,000 search results. “Hinduism way of life” retrieves 3,72,00,000 hits. The internet is filled with people belonging to particular religious groups claiming theirs to be not just a religion, but a way of life. The truth is that every religion is a way of life. Every religion is a culture. Islam, Christianity and Hinduism all have left their mark on civilization. They have all stolen from civilization. As a side note, Science “way of life” retrieves 2,15,00,00,000 search results.
In trying to understand what makes a Hindu a Hindu, we can come across various explanations of the defining characteristics of Hindus and Hinduism. Unlike Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or any of the “modern” religions, there is no one list of commandments, or basic tenets, or “pillars”, or even “rules of living” that one has to follow, that defines what makes a Hindu a Hindu. In this respect, Hinduism is not an “organized” religion – speaking very literally! (4)
The Supreme Court of India defines the qualities of a Hindu in the ruling of the case, “Bramchari Sidheswar Shai and others Versus State of West Bengal“. The full text of the ruling is available here. The case was regarding declaring Ramakrishna Mission as a non-Hindu, minority religion, under the Indian constitution. So without further ado, here is the relevant portion of the proceedings, which defines the characteristics of a “Hindu”. The Court Identifies Seven Defining Characteristics of Hinduism and by extension Hindus:
1. Acceptance of the Vedas with reverence as the highest authority in religious and philosophic matters and acceptance with reverence of Vedas by Hindu thinkers and philosophers as the sole foundation of Hindu philosophy.
2. Spirit of tolerance and willingness to understand and appreciate the opponent’s point of view based on the realization that truth was many-sided.
3. Acceptance of great world rhythm, vast period of creation, maintenance and dissolution follow each other in endless succession, by all six systems of Hindu philosophy.
4. Acceptance by all systems of Hindu philosophy the belief in rebirth and pre-existence.
5. Recognition of the fact that the means or ways to salvation are many.
6. Realization of the truth that Gods to be worshipped may be large, yet there being Hindus who do not believe in the worshipping of idols.
7. Unlike other religions or religious creeds Hindu religion not being tied-down to any definite set of philosophic concepts, as such.
‘Hindu’ or ‘Hinduism’ do not represent a religion and represents culture or civilization of India. The combination of such religious groups including Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Sufis, each and every tribal having separate God and Goddess and Hindu Society divided on caste, creed and other religions mentioned in the preceding paragraphs of the judgment (supra) which cannot be considered one religious group according to the definition of the religion decided by the Apex Court. (5)
1. Discussed in detail in Paras Diwan: Modern Hindu Law, Ch.1. The Prarthana Samaj was a 19th-century reform movement, the Maharashtrian counterpart of the Brahmo Samaj.
2. D. Keer: Ambedkar, p.427, with reference to Times of India, 7-2-1951.
3. Tahir Mahmood: Are all Trials Hindus? Hindustan Times, 28-1-1999.
4. Define “Hindu”: A Judicial Definition – http://hindusutra.com/archive/2007/02/27/define-hindu-a-judicial-definition/
5. Bench: Justice S Srivastava, Allahabad High Court – Committee of Management, Anjuman Madarsa Noorul Islam Dehra Kalan, Ghazipur v/s State Of U.P. Through Secretary on 5 April, 2007) http://indiankanoon.org/doc/9615/
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