Hinduism: What Really Happenned in India (PDF) - Oration

Hinduism: What Really Happened in India – M. M. Ninan
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The Theosophical Society was founded in 1875 by Madame H.P.
Blavatsky. They shifted the universal religious center from ancient
Egypt to India and shifted the headquarters of their society to Adyar,
near Madras in 1882. It was the Theosophical Society that synthesized
the spiritual core of all faiths.
There are very few families in India – whether Christian or Hindu who
were not influenced at least temporarily by its impact in the context of
Indian Independence Movement. “One God, One Religion and One
Nation” was the theme. “Moral Rearmament” and “Under Heaven – One
Family” were even the motto of many Christian Movements of the time
in Kerala. As a boy, I have heard it vehemently presented on our dinner
table by my father (who was a publisher and a staunch Christian and a
Gandhian), my older brothers and sisters in their varying overtones. It
played an extremely important role in the Indian awakening. Dr. Annie
Bezant the atheist turned theosophist came to India. She led the Hindu
Nationalist Movement, founded Central Hindu College at Banares, and
organized the Indian Home Rule League, and become its president in
1916. She was elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1917
and the General Secretary of the National Convention of India in 1923.
She published over a hundred books presenting Hinduism as Sanadhana
Dharma – the universal religion. (http://www.questbooks.net/
author.cfm? authornum=21) Alan Octavian Hume, an early Theosophist,
first mooted the idea of the National Congress. Annie Besant and others
first discussed Home Rule, leading to the call that led to the founding of
the Indian National Congress and the birth of the Freedom Movement.
So we can see how this concept of “Hinduism” was very central to the
awakening of Indian consciousness.
As a result, the Gnostic elements in the Indian Religions became
amplified and were given firm doctrinal statements. Hinduism has
become a religion. Through "manipulative reinterpretation of cultural
material" and "invention of tradition" Hindutava now tries to create a
monolithic universal religion called Hinduism or Sanadhana Dharma.
"The new Hinduism which is being currently propagated by the Sanghs,
Parishads and Samajs is an attempt to restructure the indigenous