Protect Hinduism from Hindutva

 

 

When Faith Becomes Propaganda and Culture Pays the Price

Hindu customs, traditions and rituals are increasingly being mocked today not because people have suddenly become more rational or more enlightened, but because politics has aggressively entered the space of faith and turned belief into daily spectacle. When religion is repeatedly used for votes, publicity and outrage, its deeper cultural and spiritual meaning begins to fade. What was once lived quietly inside families and communities is now shouted from platforms, studios and social media feeds. In this noisy transformation, sacred practices are reduced to viral clips and debating points, and reverence gives way to ridicule.

For centuries Hindu traditions survived without state patronage or political branding. They evolved through local customs, regional practices, philosophical debates and community participation. A festival in Odisha does not look the same as a festival in Tamil Nadu, and that diversity was never seen as weakness. It was the strength of a civilization that allowed multiple paths, multiple forms of worship and multiple ways of understanding the divine. Faith was not uniform, and it did not need to be.

Today that diversity is increasingly treated as inconvenience. A loud and simplified narrative is promoted as the only acceptable version of being Hindu. Everything else is either ignored or labelled as impure or corrupted. This political narrowing of faith does not protect Hinduism. It weakens it. When traditions are forced into rigid templates, they lose their organic connection with people. What does not feel authentic eventually becomes easy to mock, even for those who once respected it.

Mockery does not arise only from outsiders. It also comes from within society when people see rituals being performed for cameras rather than conscience, when faith is paraded for applause rather than practiced with humility. Once religion becomes performance, it invites judgment like any other performance. People start asking whether a ritual is genuine or staged, whether a belief is sincere or scripted for television. In that atmosphere skepticism grows, not because people hate tradition, but because they no longer trust its public display.

The problem is not that people are questioning practices. Questioning has always existed in Hindu philosophical traditions. Debate is central to the Upanishads and to many schools of thought. The problem is that questioning today is no longer spiritual or intellectual. It is political and sarcastic. It is driven by exhaustion from constant religious messaging mixed with political messaging. When every policy speech, rally and election campaign uses religious language, people become desensitized. Faith then feels like advertising. And advertising always invites satire.

Instead of protecting diversity within Hindu traditions, current politics often seeks to flatten it. A single image of faith is projected across regions, languages and communities. This ignores centuries of localized customs that gave meaning to everyday life. When people see their own traditions sidelined or reshaped to fit a national political script, they feel disconnected. Disconnection soon becomes indifference, and indifference easily turns into casual disrespect.

Real faith grows through lived practice and humility, not through slogans or mass events. It grows in quiet temple visits, in household rituals, in ethical conduct and in compassion toward others. It does not need constant validation from political leaders. In fact, when faith depends on political endorsement, it becomes fragile. The moment political fortunes change, faith is dragged down with it, treated as another failed campaign promise.

Commercialisation has added another layer of damage. Religious symbols are now branding tools. Festivals are marketing opportunities. Spiritual language is used to sell products and personalities. When belief becomes commodity, it loses sacredness. People then consume religion the way they consume entertainment. They like, share, scroll and forget. In such a market driven religious culture, reverence struggles to survive.

Ironically, those who claim to be guardians of tradition often contribute most to its erosion. By turning religion into an instrument of constant mobilization, they strip it of inner depth. By framing faith as identity warfare, they convert spiritual belonging into social hostility. This does not inspire devotion. It generates fatigue and resentment. Over time, even sincere believers begin to feel embarrassed by aggressive religious posturing done in their name.

There is also a generational impact. Younger people growing up in an environment where religion is always political will naturally associate rituals with power games rather than personal meaning. For them, faith does not appear as a source of peace or reflection, but as a tool for shouting matches on television and social media. When that happens, tradition does not attract curiosity. It invites parody.

True respect for Hindu culture requires keeping it away from political compulsions. It requires allowing communities to practice in their own ways without imposing uniform symbols and slogans. It requires understanding that spirituality cannot be legislated or televised into existence. It must be lived, taught and transmitted through example, not through spectacle.

Protecting Hinduism does not mean making it louder. It means making it deeper. It means restoring dignity to rituals by freeing them from constant political usage. It means remembering that the strength of this civilization lay in its ability to absorb, adapt and coexist, not in its urge to dominate narratives.

When faith becomes propaganda, culture becomes collateral damage. And once culture erodes, rebuilding respect is far harder than winning an election. If traditions continue to be weaponized and reduced to identity markers, mockery will only increase, not because people hate religion, but because they are tired of seeing it used as a tool of power rather than a path of wisdom.

Saving Hindu traditions today therefore requires protecting them from political capture. It requires separating devotion from dominance and spirituality from spectacle. Only then can rituals regain their meaning, and only then can faith command respect rather than provoke laughter.

Author Introduction

Siddhartha Shankar Mishra is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India and a commentator on law, politics and society. His writings blend legal insight with social critique and aim to provoke reflection on power, justice and public conscience.