https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/stop-the-dismantling-of-environmental-rules/article32339131.ece
This article, originally written and published by K Subrahmanyan immediately after the Gujarat riots of 2002 when Narendra Modi was chief minister, is being republished in the aftermath of Modi, as prime minister, laying the foundation stone for a Ram temple in Ayodhya on August 5, 2020...
Hindu tradition is based not on acceptance of particular gods, dogmas, revelations and religious structures but on reverence for Dharma which is the rule of law and the ethics of the age. In the Hindu way of life there are no God- or Prophet-given laws. Dharma is not immutable but is liable to change to be in consonance with changing times – hence, the concept of yuga dharma. Today’s ethics, formulated by the constitution, is secularism – that is the yuga dharma...
Hindu tradition is based not on acceptance of particular gods, dogmas, revelations and religious structures but on reverence for Dharma which is the rule of law and the ethics of the age. In the Hindu way of life there are no God- or Prophet-given laws. Dharma is not immutable but is liable to change to be in consonance with changing times – hence, the concept of yuga dharma. Today’s ethics, formulated by the constitution, is secularism – that is the yuga dharma. Violators of it cannot be considered Hindus; they can only be looked upon as enemies of the Hindu way of life.
The true Hindu way of life is in danger today but not from those who follow other religions. It is threatened by those who want to imitate others and abandon its essence, because they have misinterpreted it through the prism of dogmatic faiths. For those who assert ‘Brahmasmi” and ‘Tattvamasi”, it does not matter if the temple at the birthplace of Rama comes up a few years or a few decades later, if it comes up at all.
Why is Rama the most popular of all the nine avatars? Because he was a maryada purusha, who gave Ram rajya (good governance) and defended Dharma (rule of law). Rama cannot be venerated by those who transgress Dharma by killing innocents. A way of life which highlights the birth and death cycle, allows one the freedom to worship God in any form or not to worship at all, proclaims the cosmic universality with its Advaita cannot be reconciled with the killing of innocents.