Hindus are to walk hand in hand, not against each others
In 1950, Indians were classified as Indo Mauritians. Before and after independence, the Island had known numerous Clubs and Associations under the banner of Indo Mauritians.
As time goes by Hindus and Muslims were separated. An invisible division in the Hindu community was slowly being nurtured. And today we lament on the way the Hindu Community has become divided and segregated. Most of the Hindus are under the big misconception that the Hindu ethnic group is reserved for Hindus speaking Hindi. However the truth is that Tamil people, Marathi people, Telugu people are all Hindus (Indo Mauritians) and they are simply ethno linguistic group under one umbrella of ethnic group.
Still during the post-independence era, our constitution perverted and enforced the division of the communities through its provision of reserved seats on the basis of the race and religion. Hindus were divided on the caste basis to satisfy the appetite of political leaders who claimed to represent a particular caste.
In the mean time many Hindus have been lured to change their religion with funds coming from abroad. But now, in the local context we were confronted with a much bigger problem.
In the past when a person underwent religious conversion, their name would change and would appear in the Government Gazette as well as in the press to notify the public. But today, even after their conversion, these people did not change their name and furthermore received a certificate from the religious authority of their adopted religion. Such events are common in Mauritius; we have many Non Hindus who have still retained Hindu surnames. Did any leader bother why this is happening under the carpet?
A group of Hindu think tank analyzed the reasons for this trend. Their conclusions are:
We are divided.
We do not support our brothers when in distress.
We do not teach the essentials of our oldest religion to our young generation.
As a matter of fact our religion DHARMA is indeed a Way of life which appeals more to Westerners. The history of the world is a solid proof to show that Hinduism had spread from India to all Eastern countries up to Japan and even to Greece. Sanskrit language is the mother of most of the modern languages.
We are gradually forgetting our Dharma. We are not even aware of what it is to be a HINDU.
Therefore, we have set it as our duty (Dharma) to update our readers regularly on news and latest activities from our cultural and religious societies and to revive Hinduism in Mauritius.
We look forward towards cooperation of all Hindus.
We request each organization to submit its weekly programme to us at latest by Thursday of each week.
We hope you will enjoy our first edition.