For Hindus Only

The other day, while I was at one of the marvelous temples that stand around the Valley the most eye-opening thing happened. At this relatively slow temple I was accompanied by four of my friends, a foreign tourist and her guide. As we climbed the small flight of steps to get a closer look at the idol of the temple, the foreign tourist (she accent suggested German) was abruptly stopped by the grumpy old priest and her attention was directed to a board that read “Entrance for Hindus only”. The flabbergasted tourist looked at the equally dumbfounded guide for an explanation. And while the guide was blabbering something incomprehensible we departed with our usual “that sucks” and “it’s not fair”. But this episode started debate in me, the eternal debate between progress and maintaining the status quo, the debate between doing what is morally right and maintaining the culture.

The rule to allow only Hindus into the temple stems from the present, non-Vedic, ignorant, concept of caste in the Hindu social system. Non-Hindus are considered casteless people, and therefore there admittance into the temple is unacceptable to the old guards. But there are some loopholes in restricting people on bases of religion in such a manner.

The problem with this criterion for differentiation is that there is no one way to become a Hindu. Hindu is not something you can become. You cannot be baptized into being a Hindu, Hindu is more a way of life than a religion. Because of the vastness as to how a person expresses his faith under the general umbrella of Hinduism there is no one distinctive characteristics of a Hindu. Because of these complexities in defining a Hindu, the only way to differentiate between a Hindu and a non-Hindu is on bases of race. A white person can be a more devote follower of Shiva while a person born in a “Hindu” family can be a atheist, and the only reason the atheist, or for that matter any brown skinned person, gets to go into the temple is because of the color of his skin or because he happened to be born in a particular family. That, regardless of how you sugar coat it this is clearly discrimination. The distinction of a Hindu from a non Hindu is clearly based on the age old notion of race and caste.
Further, the temples are not only the symbols of our religion but also a relic. A reminder of our glorious past. This past is a heritage of not only the Hindus that reside in this nation but also of the Sikh, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the non-believer, and all the other people who are its citizens. Discriminating a section of the society from gaining access to our past on bases of religion is not only unjust, but also sickening.

Also this rule does nothing to preserve our culture. I am not willing to accept such a perverse definition of what my culture is. And even if some argue that the rule to allow only Hindus into the temple is a part of our culture; it still does not prove that the rule is right. Just because it has been a part of our culture does not automatically justify it. Slavery, bonded-labor, the perverse caste system, and Sati -were all part of our culture but most of us agree that they are wrong and we have moved on from it. Preserving the culture is no license to continue with the senselessness of age old tradition. In fact the rule runs contrarily to our culture. The sanctity of our temples should not be measured by who is allowed in but through how we treat the poor children begging right next to it. The hallow symbols of our faith will forever remain hollow if we do not change the imposed bigotry of few men a century or two ago.
Some people also argue that it is okay to not allow non-Hindus into the temple because other religions institutions too do the same. To them the reply is simple- they are wrong too. What is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular. Discrimination is discrimination whether one person is doing it or everyone in the world is doing it.

As far as I am concerned Hinduism has always been an inculcating religion. A religion flexible to time and place. And if we continue to follow senseless rules like this one the charm and essence of the Satanan Dharma will be lost forever. We cannot let rules like these be the tools we use to preserve our culture. And preserve our culture we must, but not by methods that run contrary to the very thing we need to preserve. Let us not be a party to this nonsensical system of discrimination; an unjust system that our forefathers fought against, and we are the first ones to point out when we go abroad.