Voice of India School of Śatrubodha
The school that insists on Śatrubodha - knowing your adversary clearly - as the precondition for Hindu survival; its critique of prophetic monotheism as structurally incompatible with a pluralist civilization remains the most rigorous analysis in this space.
Swami Dayananda tried to once again invoke the Shatrubodha by telling us who we are not. He showed us why Prophetic Monotheistic ideologies are opposite to the spirit of Sanatana Dharma. He gave us categories of thought and also a plan of action to reclaim our culture from the colonial impositions. But the run up to the independence blurred this initiative for almost a century.
It was only in the 1980s and 90s, during the run up to the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement, that a group of saints and scholars came together in a publication house called ‘Voice of India’ that this Shatrubodha was once again re-established in the chiti of Bharatvarsha.
Shri Ram Swarup and Shri Sita Ram Goel gathered together some of the greatest scholars, thinkers and historians of those times. Their purpose was to reawaken the ancient cultural identity of Bharatvarsha by telling us who we are but focusing upon who we are not in order to differentiate us from the monotheistic theologies. A group of scholars like Arun Shourie, Koenraad Elst, David Frawley, Shrikant Talageri and N S Rajaram along with Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel cogitated upon the basic identity of Bharatvarsha. They told us how Abrahamic or Prophetic Monotheistic ideologies were a threat to our culture and society. They gave us a complete and actionable Shatrubodha.
The Voice of India thinkers were truly pioneers. Before them the criticism of monotheistic theologies was scattered and incomplete. They brought it all together at one place and at great personal risk. They carried forward the Renaissance that Swami Vivekananda and Shri Aurobindo started. They created a movement which made it possible for lasting change in the intellectual climate of India. We started discussing taboo subjects and difficult questions.
A lot of problems that India is facing today are because its policy is based on ideas which do not take reality about the monotheistic theologies into account and how they pose a threat to the unique cultural fabric of India. Bodha, taking inspiration from Voice of India school of thought, aims to inform India’s policy with realistic ideas derived from a deep Purva Paksha of monotheistic theologies. It seeks thus to protect our culture and society from destructive elements and also seeks to create a template for the rest of the world to take inspiration from.
