09 October 1998, 973 words
There is nothing in life I pursue more assiduously than truth. No, wait, that's a lie. I pursue attractive women most assiduously in life. But truth comes a close second, which probably explains why I have not had more success in actually catching these women. (Since women always complain bitterly that the men they fall in love with are all congenital liars, it seems that lying works.)
I could be a Hindu, theologically speaking, since satyam - which means truthfulness - is already one of my highest principles. But religions are never defined only - or even mainly - by theology. They are defined by how they are actually practised. And, practically speaking, it seems that <I>satyam<I> itself would prevent me from being an exemplary Trinidadian Hindu. I say this because nearly all the people who represent Hinduism most prominently in this society - people like Anil Mahabir, Rajnie Ramlakhan, Devant Parsuram Maharaj, and Kumar Mahabir- appear to have little or no respect for the truth.
Ramlakhan, for example, who is a Maha Sabha executive, stated in a recent Express column that "not a single member of the 7,000 strong (sic) delegation present at the Maha Sabha" was interviewed for the last SARA poll. It is possible that Ramlakhan is so anxious to discredit SARA that she actually spoke to every one of these 7,000 persons, but I doubt it. I doubt it because Ramlakhan seems to believe only what supports her narrow views. In a column about human evolution, for example, she once asserted that "The Africoids were the last to develop in the evolution chain." Although confronted by other people, including myself, with evidence proving this assertion to be improbable (though not impossible, since science does not deal in absolute certainties), Ramlakhan has never retracted her racist rubbish. After all, if you can blatantly lie about 7,000 delegates, what's a little innuendo about Africans not being as evolved as other racial groups?
Her Maha Sabha colleague D. Parsuram Maharaj, who writes most of the Maha Sabha columns, is little better. Responding to a column I wrote earlier this year titled "Why I am not a Hindu" (today's column is the eagerly-awaited sequel), Maharaj accused me of misquoting the Bhagavadgita, without giving one specific example of where I had done so. He couldn't. I didn't misquote any texts, but Maharaj apparently feels it's okay to break the truth in order to imply that others are bending it.
While Maharaj's innuendoes are usually trivial, his outright lies are completely ridiculous. He once asserted, for example, that "The discoveries of the recent centuries have been discovered by Hindu civilization for over 6,000 years. It is only now that the West is catching up." Exactly why the human race had to wait so long for electricity, lasers and nuclear energy when India apparently had all these six millennia ago is not explained. Of persons like him, the Bhagavadgita states, "Those who are evil do not know what is to be done and what is not to done. Neither cleanliness nor truth nor proper behaviour is found in them." (Chapter16, Text 7.)
Usually, though, these Hindu exemplars are just very selective about their facts, since this is the most effective way of deceiving people. Kumar Mahabir favours this technique, usually quoting spurious authorities and then making huge inferential leaps that, somehow, always end up 'proving' Black people to be racist, immoral and inferior. Yet, according to fellow-Hindu Maharaj, "The human spirit of ancient India has given to the world the values of non-violence, religious tolerance." Meanwhile, Ramlakhan, defending the decision of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to explode five nuclear devices earlier this year, said the world need not worry because Hindus are not aggressive.
Theologically, you won't hear any of these Hindu spokespersons pointing out that the Bhagavadgita says, "There is no better purpose for you than fighting on religious principles...if you do not perform your religious duty of fighting, you will incur sins..." (2: 31, 33). Nor, practically speaking, will you hear any of them mentioning that in July the fundamentalist-based BJP began deporting Bangladeshi Muslims from India, saying they were illegal immigrants. (These immigrants have lived in India for decades and some were, in fact, legal residents.) And you certainly won't hear from them how an official report released last month blamed the Shiv Sena, a Hindu regional party, for organized attacks on Muslims in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in 1992, in which 900 people were killed and thousands of Muslims had to flee the city. Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray has, naturally, dismissed the report as "anti-Hindu."
Which brings me to Anil Mahabir, who sees anti-Indian, anti-Hindu conspiracies in just about every corner, including the very newspaper that allows him to write lies, half-truths and innuendoes every Friday. Some weeks ago, Mahabir actually accused Keith Smith, of all people, of writing a "mischievous and racist" column. Smith challenged Mahabir to produce said column or be sued for everything he was worth (Smith obviously not wanting much), which of course Mahabir has not done because it was he who was being mischievous and racist. Then again, perhaps Mahabir just does not agree with the Bhagavadgita when it says, "Austerity of speech consists in speaking words that are truthful, pleasing, and beneficial." (17:15)
It seems, therefore, that if I wanted to be a prominent Hindu in Trinidad, I'd have to assiduously practise lies, half-truths and innuendoes. This I could do - it would certainly make my life easier. But there's another rule in the practice of Hinduism in Trinidad that prevents me from being a prominent Hindu man: I'd have to stop doing sit-ups so my stomach could become soft and flabby. And that is the real reason why I am still not a Hindu. Truthfully.
Copyright ©1998, Kevin Baldeosingh