Hindus in Hindu Rashtra: Anand Ranganathan presents a grim reality check for Hindus

What do you do when truth and justice are themselves one-sided and biased? Do you still speak the truth and seek justice or do you rather appropriate them for the sake of “balance”, “critique”, and “inclusivity”? These questions stared at me as I began to gather my thoughts to review Anand Ranganathan’s recently-released book titled “Hindus in Hindu Rashtra”.

My answer, to begin with, is that this book review is neither an unbiased take on nor a critique of the book. It is a simple review talking about how and why “Hindus in Hindu Rashtra” is a Magnum Opus and why it must be read by all Hindus.

One of the favourite placard quotes of the Left-Liberal ecosystem in India is “murder of democracy”. This Hindu-hating ecosystem has made much hue and cry over their want of dissent as if they have even a minuscule shred of democratic values in them. The ecosystem is so high on the Opium of Hindu hate that their character does not even remotely qualify as democratic for them to even know what dissent means.

In the times of a so-called pro-Hindu political dispensation, Anand Ranganathan, who identifies with his Hindu roots, shows through his impeccable writing what dissent truly means. Divided into eight chapters are the eight ailments that the author has diagnosed the Hindu society with. These eight ailments, he argues, have made Hindus eighth-class citizens in their own country and victims of state-sanctioned apartheid.

In an excerpt from Chapter 4, The RTE ACT, the author boldly writes, “If there is only one thing more cruel than not allowing Hindu temples to run their own educational institutions without fear of State intervention and control, it is not allowing Hindus to run their own educational institutions without fear of State intervention and control. And if there is only one thing more cruel than the fact that both these cruelties are being subjected on the Hindus, it is that they are being subjected by the Hindus. Belonging to a Hindu government. In a Hindu Rashtra.”

Notably, the author himself is a “Darwinian atheist” but clearly displays that difference in beliefs is no ground to deter the fight for justice, truth, and what is right. Right from underlining the laws that are explicitly against Hindus to highlighting the bruises borne by the community owing to anti-Hindu judgments, the book with its no-holds-barred argument implores Hindus to introspect. And then the book speaks what is almost never spoken to and for the Hindus; words of acknowledgment of our sacrifices, words of recognition.

“That’s why I say, in the matter of Ayodhya or Kashi or Mathura, the Hindus must be thanked for pleading before the court to seek justice. If the holiest shrine of some other religion was demolished and people of other faiths washed their dirty feet all around the sacred relic, this country would have witnessed a civil war. This atheist owes a debt of gratitude to a billion Hindus who are writing their history with the grammar of justice, not anarchy,” the author writes.

The book maintains a flawless momentum and there is an evident manifestation of dedicated passion right from the first page to the last. With a foreword by Supreme Court Advocate J Sai Deepak, and an afterword by Historian Dr Vikram Sampath, the roughly 135-page Hindus in Hindu Rashtra is the case in point as to how Hindus have been made victims in their native land all the while being painted as “fascists” and “bigots” by the ecosystem for turning India into what the propagandists now deem “Hindu Rashtra”. The state of Hindus described in the book compels the reader to ask, “Is this what I get in my Hindu Rashtra?”

Moreover, the author gets right to the point thereby making the book a short read. On that note, those who consume content largely through videos or those who are looking to return to reading will most definitely find refuge in the book. At a time when information is the only potent weapon for Hindus, and concerns the generations to come, accessibility of such information is just as much important as the information itself. Hindus in Hindu Rashtra definitely check out this one too.

Personally, I do not think it is easy to pen down the bitter truth knowing that that truth will unsettle, for their own good, the very people one is writing for. It is even more challenging to speak the bitter truth when it calls into question the insufficient action of the dispensation that is popularly known to be pro-Hindu but has practised restraint in protecting its own, for example, Nupur Sharma’s case and the handling of anti-Hindu violence in Nuh to name a few.

In such turbulent times, it has become all the more important to read and comprehend what Anand wants to convey in his latest book, and what Hindus should do to combat the Left’s McCarthyism and salvage the only country in the world which they can call their home.