Representative image / Canva

Reading the news about the terrorist, an illegal immigrant from Egypt, in Boulder, CO, who shouted pro-Palestine and anti-Semitic slogans as he lit 6-7 elderly Jews on fire by throwing Molotov cocktail on them while they were peacefully protesting the hostage crisis in Gaza, I was overcome by sorrow, outrage, and shame.

It is a shame that we as Americans, who have been blessed for so long to be immune from the kind of invasions and attacks that occur more easily, say, in Europe, due in part to our geographic location, are now inviting these attacks upon ourselves through the propaganda being disseminated through our most elite universities and schools, through lax and foolhardy immigration policies, and through a failure in news media and popular media to counter false narratives.

Along with that, I also have been feeling a renewed wave of disgust and revulsion at the likes of Megha Vemuri, the MIT graduate, who have abused and wasted immeasurable privilege gained through generations of sacrifice on a narcissistic exercise of virtue-signaling that was unjust, insensitive, and ridiculously immature. And I have been wondering, where are we going wrong?

Some say it is a parental failure, while others attribute it to the toxic environment of universities. Both elements may well be there, but I think the root cause of this phenomenon that we are witnessing is the failure of the community, writ at large, to inculcate and shape a Hindu identity, whether in the diaspora or the motherland of Bharat.

When I was a child and first learning about the world, I asked my mother whether we were Indians, as in Native Americans or Indians from India, and soon thereafter, whether we were Hindus or Muslims -- in each case, terms I had picked up in school without context. Those terms did not mean anything to me at that young age, but I did have a sense of, 'Okay, this is who I am.' I am from India, ethnically speaking and via heritage, and I am a Hindu. Everything else in terms of the content of those identities and how they shaped me and how I shaped them came later.

It is at the primal, formative, visceral level that we need to instill our identity as Hindus, not in contradiction to or in suppression of any other identity we may bear; it should be the overriding one because to be Hindu is to be Dharmic, and Dharma is the first of the Purushartha.

We tend to overcomplicate and over-intellectualize, making things into logical twists of narrative and counterpoints in debate, trying to 'win' an argument. And this is often how we treat Hindu identity. However, it is much simpler than that. Other practitioners of other faiths do not need to arm themselves with textbooks full of arguments on why they observe kosher or halal dietary laws or why the Sabbath is to be observed. They do what they do because it is their way. And for us, Santana Dharma is The Way.

We eat a certain way because we are Hindu. We go to the mandir because we are Hindu. We observe our daily sadhana because we are Hindu. We maintain our Sanskrit names because we are Hindu. We practice yoga because we are Hindu. We go on tirtha yatra because we are Hindu. We perform seva because we are Hindu.

We honor the traditions of our ancestors through our customs, ceremonial dress, cuisine, and home practices, as we are Hindu. We learn to honor and share our history because it is the story of who we are and where we have come from. Hinduism is not something to be explained; it is something that is practiced, which becomes a habit, and then becomes second nature, becoming us.

If being Hindu does not come up or is the tenth thing that we are after SAT practice and college prep and aspiring for this career or that credential and some ethnic/Jati/varna classification and wanting to pass for X, Y, Z, whatever may be the trend of the day, then the game is already lost. This is where we are losing today.

That we are losing does not mean that we have lost. There is no cause to be defeatist or despairing. So many great Hindus have started as nonbelievers and Naxals and then rediscovered Dharma. Once the light is seen, the darkness of ignorance and falseness disappears automatically. If people are lost today, that does not mean they cannot find their way back home tomorrow. If some people are lost, then others still may find their way to Dharma -- Dharma speaks to all.

We should not be exclusivist in only thinking of Hindus by birth or Hindus in name only as being our tribe. We must be inclusive and welcoming to all. My faith is not in our community, our people, or future generations; my faith is ever and only in Sanatana Dharma, which is the timeless truth and the universal way, allowing others the freedom to pursue their path while prodding us to follow ours.

So, let this moment be a warning for us and also a call to action, a reminder that it is our duty to pursue Dharma for the sustainable wellbeing of all, that the way to eradicate terror is through truth, that truth always prevails, Dharma always prevails, and the more we insist upon Truth and Dharma, the more we embrace those ideals within our identity as Hindus, the greater and brighter the future will be for us all.

Let us more consciously and proactively articulate and instill the Hindu identity within ourselves and across our community.

(Published with permission from author's Facebook wall. Edited by Avatans Kumar.)

The author is a practicing attorney. She is also an accomplished author, most recently of Adrsya Hidden Marvels of the Mahabharata.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)