“Why can’t my child defend his faith?” an
Indian American father asks.
“Why isn’t my
child able to defend his religion like children of other faiths in his school?”
A father asked me. The anguish in his voice was palpable. The others around nodded
their heads. They were parents with growing up children. The men and women were
all Hindu Americans.
The men and women were
first generation expatriates having settled in USA a decade or more ago. They had
come following the American dream, having migrated from India. Now they had
school or college going children and like all parents were concerned the way
their children faced bullying and harassment in school especially around
religious rituals and customs.
“What do you mean by
that?” I asked him.
He shared an
incident where a Jewish boy in his son’s class had been mocked by a fellow
student for his religious practices. The boy had reacted with anger. He had faced
him in the eye, banged his fist on the table and shouted at him and not stopped
till he gave an apology. He had told him not only why he was wrong but
threatened to drag his family to court. His parents had to come to school to
apologize. “How could a ten year old boy do all that?”
“Why don’t our
children do that?” he had lamented.
“Does your son ever
face it?” I asked.
“Yes, he did,” he
answered. “The other students mock him about Hindu deities. They had shown him
a picture and teased him. Once it was about the shape of ‘Shivling’, the hands of
‘Durga’ and then ‘Kali’. They had asked how he can pray to such horrible things
and about his religious beliefs.”
“What did he do?”
“He said he became
silent and came home and cried. Since then however much we have tried to encourage
him to tell him off, he says he can’t do so. The other day he told me he feels
ashamed to be a Hindu. I have a gut feeling that when he grows up and moves out
he will convert to the dominant religion.”
The other parents
around the table nodded. One of them said, “We all feel that a couple of
generations down the line, we will lose our children to another religion.” They
shared their experiences one by one. Many of them said while their children go through
similar experiences, they ask them to keep quiet, often out of shame, not
wanting to admit to themselves, their friends and family that the American
dream with which they came to America was not so golden after all.
“What have you
done to teach him to face this situation?” I asked the parent who had started
the topic. “To make him like that Jewish boy?”
“I brought all the
books on religion meant for children from India. I got him to read all of them.
My wife and I have decided now we will go to India every year and take him to religious
places. I have brought every book meant to give a religious base to our children.
I got comics to read and for him to understand his religion and feel pride, watch
videos. But nothing seems to have worked,” he said. “That is the time I wish we
were in India. At least in schools there he won’t face this. My wife and I shudder
to think that one day when he is an adult, he will come to us and tell us he
has converted.”
“This is a fear
that many parents have,” one of the others said. “We see our children being
defensive about their religion and associating with it. They feel the word ‘Hindu’
is associated with shame.” One of the parents added, “In my office, when the
talk of religion begins, many Indians move away and begin saying they are
secular or atheists. Some even deride Hinduism and its practices to appear
secular.”
“Why do you think
the Jewish boy could defend his faith but your son couldn’t?” The Jewish boy
was young, doesn’t perhaps understand the meaning of rituals, yet felt he had
to defend himself and his religion. He didn’t enter into an intellectual
discussion with them. He fought back. Where is his anger coming from?”
“I wish I knew,”
the parent answered.
“There are two Hinduisms
today,” I answered. “One that gave the world the scriptures like Bhagwat Geeta,
the Upanishads and the Vedas and the other where the adherents of Hinduism
fought back and didn’t cave in despite attempts to convert them, even through
torture. It is a story of struggle by our priests, unknown Hindus who chose to
be a martyr, die with honor rather than submit to coercion. Have you ever taught
this to your son?” I asked.
“I don’t know it
myself. Did it really happen?” said. “And even if it did, how will that help my
son?” he asked.
“The Jewish boy in
your son’s class you admire so much, draws his inspiration not from his
scriptures but from his Jewish history and the lessons taught to him about it.
Drawing from the stories of struggles of his ancestors, his parents have taught
him how they defended Judaism and his role in defending his religion and
advancing it further. His parents have filled him with emotions that make him
rise up on every occasion to defend himself whenever someone attacks him.”
“From the moment
he became old enough to read and write and understand, his parents like countless
other parents of his generation thought him to be fit enough to listen to those
stories and told him to defend his faith. He has learnt it. It wasn’t inborn.”
“So, is that how
their children grow up different than ours?” he asked and said now he
understands why his children become defensive.
“Remember the other
faiths, often deride, mock and ridicule our rituals and traditions and this is
what their children learn at home. To hear day in and day out our God is the
only God, that our religion is the closest to the creator, many children
develop a ‘holier than thou’ approach and begin doing what their families, their
priests and religious places of worship teach them. Faced with that and the Indian
parents’ obsession to act secular, it puts your child in a defenseless position
where he can only feel ashamed and vulnerable.”
“How do we teach
our child to defend and hit back when attacked about their faith?”
“Is it enough to
believe as many do that going to temples, reading scriptures will make us
effective as Hindus and Hinduism to flourish or even continue?”
Can we defend
ourselves like that? For how long?”
Will we not get
annihilated with the spate of conversions and encroachment on religious
freedom?”
“Do our children
not need to learn to face a world where it is his religion vs others, where others
try to indoctrinate and mock him about this faith?”
When those of
other faiths are creating a Frankenstein in a child’s mind that only his religion
is right, should we continue to teach naive, inane messages that all religions
are the same and it is the same God only called by different names?”
“Will such
knowledge help our children to defend themselves?”
“Several years
ago, while staying with a Jewish family in USA, the talk had ended with
holocaust. Their children were sitting with us and I had wondered if the
children should listen. Sensing my doubt, the father had said, “The children
know everything there is to know about holocaust and our historical persecution.
The other day in his school, a student teased my son that he will burn him alive
in gas chambers. My son shamed him and he had to apologize.”
“How much do you
tell a child about atrocities and genocide? What about a childhood that may be
lost under such coaching? Won’t they distrust the world?” Questions flooded my
mind.
The answer he gave
had me stumped. “The Jewish people learnt long ago if their children do not
become aware of the evil it will annihilate them sooner than they know.”
The Hindu society
for the past one thousand years has lived through slavery, iconoclasm and
annihilation that almost erased it out of existence from many places.
Seeing my face, he
had said, “Our children begin to learn about the evil the same time they learn how
to speak.”
Like the Jewish
parent, the Hindu parent of today is beginning to learn that the most
dangerous enemy to preserve the Hindu faith is
not an assault by other faiths on his religion but indifference
to one's own religion believing somehow it will survive itself.
This myth nurtured through denial
is better relegated to the background and its place be taken over by
fearlessness and courage, qualities Bhagwad Geeta teaches us to
imbibe for the protection of ‘dharma’.
Rajat Mitra
Psychologist,
Speaker and Author of ‘The Infidel Next Door’
www.rajatmitra.co.in
Link for my book ‘The Infidel Next Door’ on
amazon.in
Link for the book on
amazon.com
Link for the Kindle edition of the book on
amazon.in
Link for the Kindle edition of the book on
amazon.com
Link for the book on Garuda Publications
Link on Snapdeal for hard copy of the book
The book is also available at select book stores like Bahrisons.
Link for the book for buying Overseas
Contact Book Club of India via following email bookclubofindia@gmail.com for delivery of overseas orders of the book.
1. We have developed some material for such parents, students and people. It is like Applied Hinduism - Hinduism explained to such parents in a simple, practical way. It helps them to teach their kids about their dharma, traditions and system. Please contact bettervastu@gmail.com. 2.Within 15 hours, become a no-confidence Hindu to a Confident Hindu.
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