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CHANGE versus RELIGIOUS CONSERVATISM in INDIA

India has an educational system derived from Western secular culture, and complaints have arisen among people who identify themselves as Hindu that this system is producing people ignorant of their ancient cultural traditions and Hinduism's spiritual wisdom. Atheism in India appears to be on the rise. In May, 2009, some complained that among the 13 being sworn in as members in Prime Minister Manhohan Sing's new cabinet, six were non-believers taking the religious-based oath of office that "solemnly affirmed" that they would bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution.

Hinduism's once high and mighty Brahmins have fallen in status. They had been most respected and powerful in ancient India. They had kept materialist ideas and skepticism out of the culture's collection of printed matter known as the Upanishads. But after something like 2,500 years, materialism has become prevalent. The Brahmins have lost the power to censor that they had a couple of thousand years ago. The animal sacrifice rituals that they led have vanished. Their recitations of the Vedas and practice of Ayurvedic medicine do not command the respect they did in the distant past. Brahmins no longer have the wealth they once had or the political power they had occasionally stepped into. Brahmin family land holdings have been reduced, making it difficult for most Brahmins to make a living from the land. The average income of Brahmins is described as less than that of the average Indian. The unemployment rate among them in 2009 is said to be as high as 75 per cent. Many Brahmins sense that their poverty and traditional style of dress have made them the butt of ridicule. According to the Andhra Pradesh study, the largest percentage of Brahmins today are employed as domestic servants.

The old religiously based class structure, from Brahmins at the top to Untouchables at the bottom, has largely evaporated. Some of the old prejudices regarding the Untouchables remain, but in 1962 a law was passed making it illegal to discriminate against the Untouchables. All castes are to be treated equally by the law, and education is free and open to all castes. A greater separation has developed between religious tradition and class distinction. Some discrimination continues, but it is more a personal matter rather than a matter of religious identity.

Surveys have 80.5 percent of India's population claiming to be Hindu. And Hindus are still proud of being Hindu. They still revere as sacred scripture the Bhagavad Gita. They still have their sacred story, the Ramayana, and they have the Puranas and other supplementary literature. There are film versions of their religious stories as great as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. On television is a chat show on the Bhagavad Gita. The show's founder, Krishna Bhatta, has a book he has authored, Gita Today, and a website. All of the revered historic personages are depicted as they have been traditionally, in dress befitting royalty, including golden crowns, in keeping with ancient political establishments and ruling class values.

Hindus continue to hold to ideas that give them their religious identity. In some respects their ideas are common with other religions. They believe that people have an innermost soul that has not been created. But in some respects there are the differences that make a separate identity possible. Hindus see soul as eternal and evolving as consciousness evolves, becoming more and more refined until it reaches its true and eternal form united with the perfections of their supreme god. This unity they label as "soul-body." They see the body not as a mere vessel containing the soul but as the soul itself, described by Hindus as the finest of subatomic forms.

Hinduism still includes yogic traditions and a wide spectrum of established norms -- including marriage customs. Unity with god and a cosmic consciousness is still a goal among Hindus. Cosmic consciousness is a blissful state that you grasp when you arrive. It is a liberation and difficult to describe to those who have not yet arrived. It is not something that can be passed on to others through debate. The unconvinced are left to their cold scientific methodology and math-like logic.

Meanwhile other traditions among the Hindus remain -- traditions perhaps older than Hinduism but still resorted to by Hindus. In July, 2009, in rural India in the state of Bihar, farmers wanting rain were reported by Reuters news service to have sent their daughters into their field naked to shame the gods into supplying rain. Witnesses said the naked girls ploughed and chanted ancient hymns to invoke the gods. They said elderly village women helped the girls drag the ploughs. A village council official described this as "the most trusted social custom in the area" and added that "the villagers have vowed to continue this practice until it rains very heavily."

It was an old religious custom that like much of religion had been the product of imagination, diffusions, demographics and other circumstances. It had not endured among people who had moved to an urban setting.

Another religious custom among Hindus developed in southern India and is said to have been inspired by the building of a railway by the British though an area where people did not want it. Exercising the creativity that had often appeared among Hindus, the protests have grown into a festival at a temple in the area where people have coconuts smashed on their heads in a plea to the gods for health and success. The area not only provides the coconuts but also a population dense enough to give the ritual viability in the form of notice locally -- as well as internationally, including on the National Geographic website -- numbers giving to all demonstrations elevated significance. But despite the numbers that the coconut smashing ritual attracts locally, there is no indication yet of it spreading as customs occasionally did in the ancient Near East and the Indian sub-continent.