The reality is that Hinduism is not a religion but a philosophy. It does not come from any single doctrine; it is nonprescriptive.
It is all about the sole, birth, rebirth, consciousness, human nature, and its relationship with nature, including the entire universe. Here, the God & all creations of God are merged, i.e., are one & the same.
The colonizers failed to comprehend that Hinduism does not have the narrow, singular, steadfast concepts of God, the Holy Place, the Holy Book, the Holy Day, etc., that are the essence of monotheistic religions.
That there is no authority or claimants to methods for salvation among the Hindus and that each is a seeker, based on his or her method or understanding, should have been intriguing to any visitor.
In the conscience of such Hindus, concepts like blasphemy, heresy, apostasy & punishment thereof are alien.
This completely perplexed the British.
In ancient India, there was no conflict between the Hindus & other faiths until other faiths took it upon themselves to "rescue" the Hindus through conversion by inducements or force.
There was no conflict between the State & the Hindu faith, nor had there been any "holy wars" here, all of which have happened in the West.
It should have left the British wonder-struck.
But what the mind cannot distinguish, the eye can't see.
To them, the heathen had to be rescued.
The colonists, instead of appreciating the plurality in the Hindu faith, saw that there was no standardized practice of worship.
That meant an opportunity to exploit, and they did and how!
They deemed that almost everything outside the four walls of the Hindu temples could be considered secular and subject to law and state meddling. So, worship of God inside the temple is in the domain of the faithful but the prasad, loosely translated as God's graceful food offering/blessing, can be forced to be contracted by the state to the non faithful, but to be consumed by the faithful.
Go figure!
Hinduism doesn't begin & end inside the temple; it is a way of life. In fact temples are said to be in existence since only 3,000 years. History of Hindus is much older than that.
Even the temple complex was hardly a place of just worship. It was a central activity place with a large complex for community gatherings. Dwellers, craftsmen, and artists, as well as commercial activities, took place around there.
Beautiful architectural design & engineering marvels were its USP.
For the British, God was separated from his creation, so religious & secular partition was a must.
For the Hindus, God is omnipresent.
The British began to fix what was not broken.
The British ruled for almost 200 long years !
During that period, they not only captured the land but also colonized the minds of the people of Bharat through their education.
They took a few into the Christian fold through active proselytizing & a few more through education, by what is known as "Macaulayism."
In "Baron" Macaulay's own words:
“We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”
It was an education system to unleashed disdain for all things native or indigenous of Bharat, be it their language, knowledge, beliefs, customs, culture, clothes, faith & practices.
They showed that all that was good was theirs, and all that was bad was due to the locals' own doing, including their culture.
Coloniality refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged due to the colonialists but that define culture, intersubjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administration.
Thus, coloniality survives colonial rule, where people believe all things of the West are wonderful & wise.
Much wealth and knowledge was looted from here. To make blatant of what was obvious, they even stole the word 'loot' and appropriated it into the English language!
Having been influenced by that kind of agenda-driven, indoctrinating education, the people of Bharat began to compromise and sacrifice their core values.
That coloniality never left us. Englishness became our ticket to prosperity.
Some of us with little talent or skill are still wealthy simply because we speak good English, the language of the oppressor, that bulk of our countrymen don't understand.
That's a tragedy, isn't it, because language is the vehicle of expression, but in language is entwined the inseparable emotions and imagination and so it tells one where the vehicle leads one to.
Well, much of that gets lost in translation.
As a reference to context, take the word Dharma as an example. Dharma has no translation in English. It can be explained as the innate law or the principled duty, but is translated as religion.
Get the irony, religion is foreign to the Indian.
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