Radha Rajan’s latest book, The Shrinking Hindu Nation, is a grim reminder of the multiple existential threats facing the Hindu civilization, both internally and externally. It is a wake-up call for Hindu leaders, especially the avowedly Hindu Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to do more for the beleaguered Hindu samaj. 

The author calls for critical self-evaluation of past mistakes by Hindu leaders by drawing comparison with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s critique of post-Stalin Russia. She convincingly highlights the similarities between the dismal state of the Hindu nation and low productivity quotient of its thinkers and intellectuals, with the miseries of the Russian nation as discussed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in, As Breathing and Consciousness Return. Solzhenitsyn’s analysis was a scathing critique of nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov’s 1968 treatise, Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom. The said critique heralded the beginnings of intellectual resistance and cerebral counter-revolution in Russia.

Both Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn criticized the silence enforced in the Stalinist era, including the widespread censorship of Soviet thinkers and intellectuals - artists, writers, teachers, journalists and scientists. While Solzhenitsyn extolled Sakharov’s courage in exposing the intellectual void in the country lasting 50 years since the Bolshevik Revolution, he also faulted Sakharov for not speaking the whole truth and for sidestepping the path of truth.  

The narrative of Hindu suppression by invaders and colonisers is worse than that of Stalinist Russia. Even 71 years after independence, the Hindu nation continues to be in a moribund state. The author has brilliantly laid bare the machinations of Gandhi and his associates and acolytes to ignore Hindu concerns about the intentions of Muslim leaders to re-impose Islamic supremacy in India. Gandhi invariably favoured Muslims and ignored the Hindus. He did not do anything for cow protection in order to appease the Muslim League. Nor did he stand up for singing Bande Mataram by all Indians, including Muslims. 

He vociferously supported the cause of ‘Khilafat’ not realizing that the ultimate goal of Islam was to re-enslave the somnolent Hindus of India. Gandhi had no futuristic vision. His dictatorial dispensation was exposed many times, including his non-acceptance of the election of Subhas Bose as president of the Indian National Congress.

The horrifying vivisection of Hindu India in 1947 could have been averted if Hindu leaders like Sardar Patel and Gokhale had mustered the courage to oppose the suicidal policies of Gandhi. Unfortunately, in post-independence India, no Hindu leader showed the courage to oppose the imposition of Nehruvian ideology; they remain trapped in what the author calls the Solzhenitsyn Syndrome.  

The author highlights the Islamic threat to India by analyzing the strategy of bleeding India for a repeat re-conquest by exposing the Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik’s book, The Quranic Concept of War, which openly advocates  the use ‘terror’ for defeating the enemy (read kaffir Hindus). She draws pointed attention to the machinations of evangelists to convert and enslave the Hindu nation.  

Radha Rajan has been unsparing in her criticism of the Narendra Modi-led BJP regime. She lists seven failures of the present government, including failure to build the Ram temple, ban cow slaughter and not doing enough to ensure the return of Kashmiri Hindus to the valley. She suggests four important measures to reverse the ongoing and fast-paced shrinkage of the Hindu nation: construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya; enactment and rigorous enforcement of an anti-conversion law; enforce an anti-cow slaughter law; and reclaim Pak-occupied Kashmir.

An important measure she has missed is the need to delete the words “secular” and “socialist” from the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. These two words were never part of the original Constitution and were interpolated by Indira Gandhi vide the 42nd amendment in 1976, during the Emergency. In fact, during the debate in the Constituent Assembly, Prof. K.T. Shah, a left-oriented Congressman, tried to get the word ‘secular’ inserted in the Preamble. This was opposed by Dr. Ambedkar who argued that nothing should be done to bind future generations because the need for the form of government in future will depend on the circumstances prevailing at that time and the matter should be left to be decided by the will of the people. Shah’s amendment was thus rejected. But Indira Gandhi added the words “secular” and “socialist” in 1976.

Radha Rajan makes a case for declaring India as a Hindu Rashtra for saving Hindu civilization from extinction. I would compare this with Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat (1896), calling for the creation of a Jewish homeland. The Shrinking Hindu Nation is a must read for every Hindu whose heart beats for restoration of Bharat’s ancient glory.

The author draws attention to the avowed goal of jihadi warriors to destroy the faith of the Hindu masses by destroying their resolve to fight tyrants - a dharmic duty enjoined in Hindu scriptures. Unfortunately, the fact that a regular jihad is being waged to decimate the Hindus of India has been kept under wraps by the mainstream political leadership and English language media. Jihadis have established a strong forward outpost in Kashmir and have created storm centres in West Bengal and Kerala, even in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The book further highlights the threat posed to the Hindu nation by Christian missionaries who have stepped up their activities from Punjab in the north to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in south India.

A peculiar threat to the Hindu nation comes from a motley crowd of leftist Hindus wearing communal hats and masquerading as secularists. Their penchant for heaping scorn on the Hindu masses and hurling bucolic epithets on the faith of their own forefathers has multiplied in the post-independence period. Many film-makers and leading lights of Bollywood delight in making fun of the beliefs of Hindus because they feel Hindus are used to tolerating such insults because of thousand years of slavery. At the other end stand dazed Hindu intellectuals marginalized for decades by the left-oriented supremacists who craftily captured the political heights after 1947, courtesy Nehruvian politics. 

In today’s decadent culture of political correctness, no Hindu leader has the courage to speak the truth. Radha Rajan boldly states that Islamic jihadis and Christian evangelists are hell bent on destroying Hindu civilization. Her treatise is a clarion call for declaring India as a Hindu Rashtra to save future generations of Hindus from annihilation.