Monotheism

A wise man foretells:

Therefore, more and more Hindus are concluding that we too should acquire the same reputation, we too should acquire the same capacity. In a word, three things are teaching the Hindus to become Islamic: the double-standards of the secularists and the State, the demonstrated success of the Muslims in bending both the State and the secularists by intimidation, and the fact that both the State and the secularists pay attention to the sentiments of Hindus only when the Hindus become a little Islamic.....Finally, a forecast : the more the secularists insist on double-standards, the more Islamic will the Hindus become

An observer comments:

Militant Hindutva is on the same monotheistic power trip. It is seeking to replace pluralist Hinduism with something that is more useful to attain power. If enough Hindus feel threatened by the power of rival monotheisms, Hindutva will take us in that direction. We may even end up replacing the narrow intolerance of caste with a broader intolerance of monotheism.

Although I agree with the broader direction of his thesis that Hindutva practised by RSS/VHP is growing monotheistic and intolerant, to club Swami Vivekananda and the entire monotheistic school of thought in Hinduism to the same branch is preposterous and ignorant to the core. One need not look any further than the Vedānta tradition of the yore to know the seeds of this particular school of thought were sown long ago. However, It didn't matter if there were monotheistic schools of thought in traditional Hinduism, because by definition, Hinduism was pluralist, "Ekam Sat bahuda viprah vadanti" . It is unfortunate that he looks at the monotheistic strains only through the prism of Abrahamic religions(Judaism, Christianity, Islam) which are by definition exclusive.

When it comes to god and worship, one religion isn't that better than the other as they are mostly related to a supernatural being and relegated to one's private space. The only contributions worth studying are those in the field of philosophy. Religion tried to answer the philosophical questions like "What is life?" "How does one go about living his life?" etc, and unfortunately the answers to these questions affect not just the individual practising the religion, but the entire society.