The controversy sparked by the wonderful Kannaḍa movie ‘Kantara’ & its depiction of daivārādhane, or the worship of protector spirits in the Tul̥u-speaking regions of Karnataka, calls for a thread on how our culture has been, & is being attacked by enemy factions.
The miscreants are now attempting to drive a wedge between vanavāsīs (tribal) Hindus & the rest of the Hindus by suggesting that the Bhutā kola is an avaidika practice & that the ritual has been culturally appropriated by ‘vile Brahmins’. This isn’t a new tactic.
The Christian Missionaries & their stooges (read: Indologists, Leftists etc) use a 2-pronged strategy. First is what I call Triple-A, & Second of spreading disinformation to create rifts between socially vulnerable groups & the mainstream to ease conversion or manipulation.
I shall speak on Triple-A later. Let me first elaborate on the disinformation stratagem which is being used with Kantara. It starts from the simple Āryan-drāviḍa narrative and branches off into as many anti-dharma, anti-national ideologies as needed. Many tools are used.
First & foremost tool of disinformation is naming & branding. So vaidika dharma becomes Brahminism, vanavāsīs (tribals) become ādivāsīs (aboriginals), history becomes mythology. If we want to break the loop, we must first identify such words and cast them out at once.
Another tool of disinformation is deliberate misinterpretation of śāstras & context-deprived cherry-picking; used either to showcase Hindus & our devatās in bad light or to cast a shadow of doubt in our minds about the veracity of our history now branded ‘mythology’.
As an example, Prabhu Rāma is often slandered in numerous blasphemous ways, one of which is to call him a ‘casteist’ for killing Śambūka as stated in the Uttara Rāmāyaṇa. Sadly, many misguided Hindus use this to disregard the Uttarakāṇḍa. Neither is good.
Uttarakāṇḍa is indeed true & Śambūka was slayed not due to his caste but due to his intentions. Śambūka was a demon named Jaṅgha who had been born as a long-lived Śūdra by Pārvatī’s boon & was now doing tapas to replace Rudra as Pārvatī’s own husband! Thankless audacity!
That he wanted to replace Rudra is indicated in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa by Śambūka’s words— ‘देवत्वं प्रार्थये राम’. His killing was not an act of casteism but of punishing the wicked. See how branding & misinterpretation works? They make you doubt & reject your own history!
If you could reject an entire portion of Prabhu Rāma’s life under the influence of narratives such as these, imagine what else they can take away from you. Worse, what if you succumb to one of their misinterpretations & accept it as true? Learn to identify such actions.
The tool of disinformation is what’s being used in case of the movie Kantara. Without going into detail, I will state here clearly & for all to see— daivārādhane is very much an intergral part of vaidika dharma & not at all a case of cultural appropriation.
Now let’s address the ‘Triple-A’ stratagem I mentioned earlier. The 3 As are— Assimilate, Appropriate, & Annihilate. Wherever possible, the enemy factions skip straight to the third step, viz., annihilation. Let’s understand each in some illustrated detail.
Assimilate: the tool of cultural assimilation. Cultural assimilation is when a minority group adopts behaviours & values from a majority group. This ranges from celebrating Hindu festivals in the name of ‘bhāīcārā’ & goes as far as composing a laughable ‘Yeśu-sahasranāma’!
Appropriate: the tool of cultural appropriation. This is opposite of assimilation in that the majority appropriates the minority. This is often coupled with disinformation, e.g., the Hindu festival of Onam is now being branded as non-Hindu. There’s much more.
The Portuguese missionaries in Goa notoriously & mercilessly carried out brutal torture & slaughter of Hindus through the inquistion & ransacked all our temples, burnt our manuscripts & what not. But little do we know of cultural their appropriation! Read on.
The Our Lady of Milagres Church in the Mapusa city of Goa was originally a Hindu temple to a devī named Mirābāī who was one of 7 sisters. As the shrines to these deities were managed by certain families, the Portuguese tactically converted those families through deceit.
On conversion of the family of worshippers, the deity too was declared to have been converted to Christianity (!) and a church was erected for the Lady of Milagres (Miracles)! Another sister of this Hindu devī was also ‘converted’ similarly and renamed Lady of ‘Remedios’.
Till date the 2 are said to have miraculous powers such as curing ailments & the missionaries profit off of both Hindus & Christians using this as a marketing tool. Not only do they convert you, but also your deities! Beware of these wolves in sheepskin.
And the threat hasn’t subsided, mind you. Even today, many Portuguese-bootlickers roam free in Goa. One such Portuguese-apologist seems to have been Late Prof. Olivinho Gomes whose ‘Concise History of Goa’ published in 2009-10 ought to be called ‘Corrupted History of Goa’.
He starts by making an attempt to brand Koṅkaṇī as a non-Aryan language. Sound familiar? It should cause that’s how Tamil separatism started. But I pity his intellect since Koṅkaṇī is so clearly Prākṛta-based that even Western indologists had to call it Indo-Āryan!
He then attempts to brand even barbaric Portuguese such as Albuquerque as benevolent rulers, skips excesses of the Inquisition, & attributes conversion to ‘peaceful methods’ among other things. Oh, and name-calls Chh. Sambhājī Mahārāja as ungrateful & perfidious! Beware.
With 2 As done, let’s go to the last— Annihilate: the tool of total annihilation.
It includes using strength of arms to kill, loot, & plunder. Restriction or total prohibition of religious practices also fall under this tool. This tool is sparingly, but decisively, used.
The festival of Christmas is possibly a case of all 3 As at once. It’s famously known that its present form is nothing more than a mixed concoction of several Pagan festive customs. It probably started with assimilation, & rapid annihilation allowed appropriation later.
The largely forgotten brutal massacre of Svāmī Lakṣmaṇānanda Sarasvatī & his disciples in broad-day light on the day of Janmāṣṭamī in Odisha in 2008 was a joint operation of Christian missionaries & Maoists; recent case of third A: Annihilate. Don’t forget that, ever.
3As of Assimilate, Appropriate, Annihilate, accompanied by 4 Cs of Contrive, Confuse, Corrupt, & Conquer is how our enemies try to destroy us. I beg you to not let them succeed.
[P. S. It’s sad that I thought of the 4 Cs for the disinformation stratagem only at the end.]
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread originally tweeted by @Acharyachakit on Oct 24, 2022 with minor modifications to improve readability)
