What Guruji objected to was the abuse of religion as a separatist ideology by vested political interests. Shri Guruji firmly asserted "politicians are playing their own game by dividing the people more and more. In all such communal matters, the villain of the peace is the politician. Persons of great merit, character and devotion to God, who should have been the real leaders of the people, are nowhere." The same attitude could be extended to Christians and Christianity also.
Shri Guruji's approach was not one of expediency but one based on principles of Hindu culture and philosophy. Wherever he has criticized or condemned Muslims or Christians, it would be seen that the target of criticism was not religion as such but the abuse of religion by politicians who promoted separatism and even anti-nationalism.
When the heated question about the controversial issue of a common civil code arose, Shri Guruji did not lend his support to that idea. Guruji said that while a humanitarian and reformist attitude in these matters is all right, a mechanical levelers-attitude would not be correct. Guruji said that he will be happy if the Muslims arrived at the conclusion that polygamy is not good for them. He would not like compulsion. His view (or conviction) was that India always had infinite variety and still for long stretches of time India was one strong nation. What were needed were Unity and Harmony and not Uniformity.
True to the spirit of Sanatana Dharma, Shri Guruji stated, "We must respect, not merely tolerate all other faiths. Ours is not Sahishnutavad but Sammanavad" (not tolerance but respect). Shri Guruji firmly believed that when religion is used for political purposes or religion looks for political support for its existence or expression, it is bound to lose its purity and capacity to as sure the goal which the founders had set before them; it becomes a handmaid of power, degenerates and causes ruin all around. "Even after understanding all this, there are some who feel that political power is essential even to spread our dharmic ideology. In the past, Christianity and Islam, they say, spread far and wide because of the political power they wielded. But on a closer study, we will find that ultimately political power will never solve the problem. For instance, the Government and most of the people were ranged against that single individual, Jesus Christ. After he was crucified on the cross, his disciples had no one to guide them. But their hearts were charged with idealism. Fired with the spirit of Christ, with the faith and zeal of their new realization, they spread far and wide in the world. And the world bowed at their feet.
Then they had no political power. But when, in course of time, their successors fell a prey to the lure of political power, corruption and degradation entered their ranks. The present plight of Christianity rendered powerless to mould the life of its own Christian countries and even made a tool in the hands of imperialistic political powers is the direct outcome of the pollution of their ranks with political ambition. The perversion of Islam at the hands of its power-drunk followers-miscalled the spread if Islam-is too well known. It had nothing to do with the awakening of the spiritual values of life".
...Sri P Parameswaran ji....contd
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