National Scripture- Bhagavad Gita?

The Foreign Affairs Minister Smt. Sushama Swaraj became a controversial figure by remarking last day that Bhagavad Gita should be declared as the national symbol of India. We don’t have to expect anything better from a BJP leader as Hindutva is their core ideology, however, as Sushama Swaraj is a minister with a cabinet rank, the words cannot be taken lightly. Considering the fact that India is still a secular country as per the constitution, this remark should have been avoided by the minister. You may say that India is culturally a Hindu land, so there is nothing wrong in respecting our culture. But, this argument doesn’t hold as India cannot be considered as a land with a homogenous cultural space, but a land with many religious and cultural viewpoints. Hinduism is a religion developed in India, so are Buddhism and Jainism. Even if we argue that Hinduism is the soul of the country, we must admit that there are a lot of sacred texts in Hinduism, and among them Bhagavad Gita is just one. Comparing Gita with Vedas, Upanishads, or even with other important texts like Ashtavakra Gita is not possible. The BJP think-tanks maybe thinking that declaring Gita may boost the party workers and believers of Hinduism, but in fact, the very act will be doing damage to the religion as considering one single text as an authority of religion would be limiting the real scope of Hindu philosophy.

I am of the opinion that the state should not interfere with religious life of the people; it should be a secular entity, neither endorsing or critiquing any religion. We don’t want any theocracy in India.


"Krishna's Bhagavadgita has been very influential. The first reason is that Krishna's Gita is a synthesis. He is more concerned with synthesis than with truth. The desire for synthesis is so strong, that if necessary Krishna doesn't mind sacrificing the truth a little.

Krishna's Gita is a hodgepodge containing everything; hence it appeals to everyone, because there is something in it for everyone. It is difficult to find any tradition whose voice is not found in the Gita. It is difficult to find anyone who does not take solace from the Gita. But for such people Ashtavakra's Gita will prove very difficult.
People love Krishna's Gita because it is very easy to extract one's own meaning from it. Krishna's Gita is poetic: in it two plus two can equal five, two plus two can also equal three. No such tricks are possible with Ashtavakra. With him two plus two are exactly four. Ashtavakra's statements are statements of pure mathematics. There isn't the least possibility for poetic license here. He says things as they are, without any sort of compromise.
Reading Krishna's Gita, a devotee extracts something of which he can make a belief, because Krishna spoke on bhakti, devotion. The karma yogi extracts his belief because Krishna has spoken on karma yoga, the yoga of action. The believer in knowledge finds what he wants because Krishna has spoken on knowledge as well. Somewhere Krishna calls devotion the ultimate, somewhere else he calls knowledge the ultimate, again elsewhere he calls karma yoga the ultimate.
Krishna's statements are very political. He was a politician, a perfect politician. Just to say he was a politician is not right; he was a shrewd politician, a real diplomat. In his statements he considered and included many things. This is why the Gita suits everyone, why there are thousands of commentaries on the Gita." Osho