Understanding the Godmen syndrome

It is true that Hinduism has survived centuries of invasions to throw enough evidence of its strength however, PK has indeed highlighted one of the rare weaknesses of Hinduism for which Hindus very easily fall for Godmen. While in other religions, the final word is awaited only from their well identified and organized places of worships, Hindus are quite unorganized in this regard. In all other religions only the pre-identified religious heads are in a position to use or misuse their status, but in Hinduism anyone can occupy the place of religious authority. This unorganized character of Hinduism allows its followers to look, on their own, for the one who can directly address to their problems/doubts. Godmen look to fill up this void existing in this peculiar religious set up of Hinduism. As a natural consequence to this, many genuine thinkers and several ace social reformists of Hinduism have often been historically pushed to the place of Godmen/God while on the other hand some cunningly exploit this weakness of the Hinduism to fool their gullible followers. The scope of having acceptability of a Godman has helped Hinduism to carry out several great reforms successfully. Therefore while asking the followers to test the genuineness of their respective Godmen must be encouraged but forcing them against having Godmen altogether will make this great Hinduism also as narrow and as rigid as other monolithic beliefs like Islam, Christian and Communism.

In addition to above, it seems to me that this 'weakness' of Hinduism is directly linked with a typical Hindu outlook wherein they can see God literally in everything – sun, moon, earth, mountain, animals, trees, stones and idols. Hindus can worship anything and therefore anyone who is able to win their heart easily become yet another object of their faith and worship. It is exactly this attitude of Hindus that make them bow even before the tokens and emblems of other faiths and religions - with highest respect and that too as almost in a reflexive manner. Developing respect for other religions comes almost natural to Hindus. It is no nonsense that while even neighbouring countries with identical background as ours chose to become non-secular state in their complete senses, Hindustan preferred 'secularism' by heart. This idol-worshipping attitude that makes Hindus prone to falling prey to even those Godmen who try to take undue advantage of their honest beliefs – also help them in becoming 'true seculars'. While there is indeed a need to caution gullible Hindus to test a person completely before accepting him/her as a Godman, it is even more important to ensure that idol-worshipping is neither underestimated and nor ridiculed ever as it helps in producing truly 'secular' persons in abundance to keep the secular character intact of this country.