Does Hinduism sanction killing in its name? Do the shruti and the smriti — the heard texts and the remembered texts — anywhere speak of Holy war? Has Hinduism in its long evolution ever spawned violent cults like the Islamic State? Instead, the Bhagavad Gita, hailed by ministers of this government as the soul of India, is an intensely argued contest between two intellectual positions on the need for killing. Arjuna went into battle but remained agonized about bringing death.

Yet those apparently Hindu organisations accused of killing in the name of “injury to Hindu sentiments” seem deeply enamoured of the violent strains of Islamist extremism. So enamoured are they that they are desperately trying to become wannabe Islamists, deriving perhaps an ersatz inspiration of machismo from the bloodthirsty cults that insult the progressive ideals of Islam. It is maddeningly and paradoxically ironic that those seeking to supposedly defend Hinduism against Islam and Christianity are adopting exactly the same tactics as the violent cults of those two noble Semitic faiths. India must become another Lebanon, they seem to proudly proclaim.

Ekam Sat Vipraha Bahuda Vadanti: Truth is one, the wise call it by many names is the magnanimous Vedic ideal which can be read as a modern interpretation of secularism which accepts multiple routes to the divine. Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma likes to call himself modern but not westernised; if so why has he failed to imbibe the modern progressive message of the Rig Veda? Those acting in the name of Hinduism, the so-called defenders of “the faith” are mirror images of the monotheistic supremacist versions of Islam and Christianity that they apparently oppose. Wannabe Taliban and wannabe crusaders are in fact destroying the respect for multiple truths that has always characterised sanatan dharma.

The brutal Dadri lynching, the unspeakably tragic, numbing, and horrifying death of the innocent Akhlaq and the grievous injury to his 22-year-old son Danish should make every Hindu bow his head in shame, to cry out loud, to scream in anguish and demand to know, what is happening to Hinduism? Where is the philosophy of Bhartrihari, of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, of Meera, of Krishna Chaitanya and of Gandhi? Where is the glorious tradition of vaad, vivaad and samvaad? Where is the tradition, that if there are differences, the impulse to dialogue and argument enshrined in every Hindu text?

Does the heart of every Hindu not break when we hear the soft spoken Sartaj, IAF engineer, elder son of Akhlaq, solemn and dignified, asking only for justice for his father, a father killed because he had apparently organised a feast on his holy day? Does collective guilt and remorse not wrench our insides when we see young Danish lying unconscious after two brain surgeries simply because he happened to celebrate his festival? Who are these mobs who are acting in the name of Hinduism? Why are they killing in the name of Hinduism? Why are they seeking to monopolise the majestic philosophies of Hinduism?

Every liberal Hindu, every legatee of Vivekananda and Tagore, of Ram Mohan Roy and Sri Aurobindo, must stand up and seek an answer, must shout out loud: why are you killing in our name? As the late veteran journalist Prabhash Joshi cried out after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, “Yeh to Raghu-kul nahin.” As my devout Hindu grandmother fearfully whispered after the demolition, “How could they destroy a house of god?”

Author Makarand Paranjape in his insightful book ‘The Death and After Life of Mahatma Gandhi’ argues that Nathuram Godse who assassinated the Mahatma to defend an apparently Hindu cause was in fact flying in the face of Hindu tenets. Does Hinduism sanction parricide or the killing of a father figure? The only father figures killed in the epics are the evil Kansa by Krishna and to an extent the killing of Bheeshma by Arjuna but not without agonising soul search. Had Godse been a true Hindu, he would not have killed Gandhi, but he did so only because he was ideologically distant from Hinduism, and instead believed in a disconnected and enraged individuality that permitted the killing of a father. Patricide, Paranjape points out, is not true Hinduism.

An ersatz machismo about religion is fashionable. Mostly male communal bigots exult about 56 inch chests on social media and threaten women and minorities with a range of vicious abuse as if such abuse confers a certain virtual virility. Kanwariyas block traffic and swarm around the streets, prancing and hollering at anyone who dares to come in their way. At temples swarms of young men swagger around threateningly as if they are a self- appointed army of the deity. Godmen collect frenzied supporters armed to the teeth, ready to rush into violent confrontation at any criticism. The dastardly killing of rationalists is met by muscle flexing war cries about the need for “sickularists” to “respect sentiments”.

Where is this warlike mirror image of Islamist extremism or supremacist Christianity coming from? Young men are in the vanguard of this macho Hinduism, they are armies fighting a political war with the word `Hindu’ reduced to only a heuristic device of power politics. Their swagger is a riposte to Mahmud Of Ghazni, their imaginary war against Babur is clouding their notions of their own religion. By making Hinduism a declaration of war, they are chipping away at the very soul of India’s civilisation.

The strength of this civilization has always been that God resides in the home and not in an established organised church. Mahmud may have sacked Somnath but no conqueror could destroy Hinduism precisely because of its un-organised diffused strength. Hinduism was and is, the soft lamp that glowed in individual homes and hearts, not the large flashing beacon that drew the faithful into uniformity and collectivism. Hinduism was never unified around a single god; instead a myriad gods and cults flourished, each evolving and adopting strategies and philosophies that competed for intellectual and philosophical space.

In Hindu traditions sati co-existed, along with a radical figure like Kunti, with five sons born of five different gods. If Mahesh Sharma is seeking modern feminists from the epics, he need look no further than Kunti and Draupadi, trail-blazer embodiments of feminine freedom and egalitarianism.

Today’s culture warriors like to quote Vivekananda and Tagore, yet both these thinkers vehemently opposed ritualism, superstition and superstitious practices and the practice of purity and pollution that so called Hindutva defenders today swear by. Hinduism has never had a church, never had an organised clergy, never had armies that fought in its name, and it is precisely these characteristics that have given it its immense power and ability to endure.

Directive principles ban cow slaughter, but those are guidelines of society, those are not justifiable rights, but respect for cultural norms. Where does the Constitution give anyone the right to kill in the name of Directive Principles? When Arjuna’s agony about battle is the leitmotif of Hindu thought, who are these apparent “Hindus” who kill without impunity, without fear of the law?

Just as liberal Muslims and liberal Christians are waging a relentless struggle against militant orthodoxy and death cults, the liberal Hindu needs to wage a similar war, not only for the sake of modern democracy, but also for the sake of the centuries-old faith which has never sanctioned violence, killing or even blind faith to an unquestionable or vengeful deity.