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Prologue continues...
It is yet another paradox that the Hindu society, which has inherited the legacy
of the philosophy of advaita (non-dualism) proclaiming that only brahman
is the ultimate truth and man is a part of this ultimate truth, has perpetuated the most inegalitarian social structure. A society whose conduct and interactions were governed and conditioned by the Dharmasastra was, indeed, a formidable challenge for those who were involved in nation building.
It was the vision of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru which wasresponsible for the passage of epoch-making laws like the Hindu Marriage Act and the Hindu Succession Act. Of course, he faced a lot of resistance from his conservative colleagues in his own party. These laws were the
response of a modern mind to the medieval thinking on the rights of a
wife and a daughter in a Hindu family. For the first time in the history of Hindu society, a woman got the right to divorce; a woman got the right to the self-acquired property of the father who died intestate. As a matter of fact, these two Acts of Parliament ushered Hindu society into the
modern age.
The immediate aftermath of freedom brought untold miseries to the
people of the subcontinent. Millions died in the appalling communal
violence that broke out in the wake of the creation of an Islamic country,
Pakistan. The whole subcontinent was paying a terrible price for the intense
hatred nurtured assiduously among the Indian people on religious grounds
by myopic leaders who conspired with the colonial rulers to create a
theocratic state.
Though the Hindus and Muslims had lived in amity through centuries, an imaginary fear of Hindu domination was injected
into the minds of the ordinary Muslims by these leaders. This fear of Hindu
domination in a free India was exacerbated by politicians who worked in
collusion with the British rulers. The result was partition of the country
and the explosion of hatred, resulting in the mass killing of people on
both sides. This was the cruellest example of savagery where history stood frozen. The subcontinent was virtually drowning in blood.
To be continued...