Article7

When Truth Is Weaponized

Revelation as politics, conquest, and the erasure of enquiry.Truth is not revelation.
It is not exclusive, nor irrational, nor the monopoly of any prophet or priest.
Truth is discovered through ceaseless inquiry, tested in the fire of reason, and lived through compassion and non-violence. The moment it is organized into dogma, it ceases to be truth and becomes ideology.

Yet for centuries, much of the world has been governed by a different premise. Christianity insists that Jesus is the only savior. Islam proclaims that Muhammad is the last of the prophets. These are not metaphysical discoveries; they are political declarations. They function less as insights into eternity than as instruments of authority and conquest.

Two Civilizational Paths

Consider the contrast. The Indic civilization produced generations of yogis and rishis who devoted themselves to mapping consciousness and exploring the mysteries of existence. The Greek philosophers did likewise, arguing in public squares about justice, reason, and the good life. Both traditions accepted that truth must be sought through debate, doubt, and relentless inquiry.

The Semitic religions took another path. They insisted that truth had already been revealed, final and unquestionable. Their central claim was not “let us seek” but “you must submit.” The consequences were profound: one tradition encouraged liberation through enquiry; the other demanded obedience through faith.

This is why Christianity and Islam should be understood not primarily as metaphysical systems but as political ideologies. Their doctrines of exclusivity — one God, one Book, one Prophet — were instruments for building empires. They offered not universal compassion but a universal command: believe, conform, obey. What they proclaimed as salvation often operated as a program of cultural and territorial supremacy.

The Record of Conquest

The historical record is stark. Fourteen centuries of Christian and Islamic expansion reshaped continents. In South Asia, Buddhist monasteries like Nalanda and Vikramashila — among the greatest universities of the ancient world — were reduced to ashes. Hindu temples were demolished in waves across North India. Sikh saints were martyred in grotesque spectacles: Guru Gobind Singh’s young sons were bricked alive, Bhai Mati Das was sawn in half for refusing conversion.

Across the oceans, Aztec and Inca civilizations were crushed, their libraries burned, their gods denounced. In the Americas, Native peoples were enslaved or exterminated under the sign of the cross. In Australia and New Zealand, entire ways of life were dismantled in the name of Christian civilization.

And yet the world is asked to believe that Jesus’s crucifixion is the singular emblem of suffering, his agony uniquely redemptive. But why should the pain of one man eclipse the martyrdom of millions? Why should Muhammad’s life alone be hailed as the final revelation, while the blood of countless Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh saints is forgotten? To speak only of Christ’s cross or Muhammad’s revelation, while erasing the long record of violence committed in their names, is to practice selective memory as moral truth.

Erased Suffering, Manufactured Exclusivity

It is important to ask: why do we elevate one crucifixion over the obliteration of Nalanda’s monks? Why do we sanctify the suffering of Jesus but not the martyrdom of Sikh saints or the extermination of Native Americans? The answer is as uncomfortable as it is undeniable: Christianity and Islam did not simply narrate suffering; they organized it into political capital.

The doctrine of exclusivity — “Jesus is the only savior,” “Muhammad is the final prophet” — was never a neutral metaphysical claim. It was a rallying cry. A justification for expansion. A demand for obedience. It was, and remains, the language of conquest.

By contrast, traditions of enquiry — whether in the Upanishads or in Socratic dialogues — taught that truth is never final, never owned, never enforced. A truth that demands obedience becomes tyranny. A truth discovered through reason becomes wisdom.

The Civilizational Choice

The choice before us is not merely historical. It is civilizational. Do we accept truth as a political weapon, closed and exclusive, designed to command? Or do we reclaim truth as an open pursuit — a journey walked together, a discipline of reason, compassion, and dialogue?

The task ahead is urgent. Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and all peoples whose traditions of enquiry have been marginalized must reclaim their intellectual inheritance. They must resist the colonization of memory that elevates one cross, one prophet, above the infinite chorus of human seekers. For the future of humanity cannot rest on obedience to dogma. It must rest on the rediscovery of truth as inquiry, truth as compassion, truth as freedom.

If we fail, politics will continue to masquerade as salvation. But if we succeed, truth may once again become what it was always meant to be — a path toward liberation, walked by all, owned by none.