Islam is an institutional religion with a straight path. Prophet Muhammad's life and his narration-Quran are core guiding principles of Islam. Islam is a unified religion as it exceeds the limitation of ethnicity, nationality and culture. When it invades native culture, it remains the dominant one by shadowing the original culture. There is no scope of change in existing teaching of Islam. I would argue that Islam was progressive for the time being but as time passes, societies changes, human behavior molds as per the new morality. Because of inherit nature of Islam, it resisted the changes. It is achievement of Islam that it could sustain for this long without varying much. I fully understand that many religions are far older than Islam but all these religions have significantly altered their belief system in response to the contemporary morality.
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On the other hand, Hinduism is not single belief that can be defined by a preacher or an authoritative book. It is beyond doubt that Hinduism is a religion. but sometime it can go beyond. Just as you can't compare apples and oranges, comparing Hinduism to Islam is equally futile. Primary reason being, for small minorities of Hindus, Vedas are central dharmic texts. A Hindu must live their life as per the divine texts. but those same people will agree that Vedas are not words of god (Quran is still more important book for Muslims). But a large number of Hindus don't read Vedas. Hinduism propagates through Guru-Disciple system. And majority of time, it is part of mass communication where single Guru provides shiksha to multiple disciples. When Guru retires then some of the disciples fight for his chair and start their own sect. To differ from each other, they preach differently. This causes constant shift in paradigm. When time passes, you find large number of sects with varying set of beliefs. Some of them become cults too. This Baba culture originates from a scholar who studies religious texts and also contributes some. When he retreats, the vacuum is claimed by multiple followers who travel long distances where they preach as per their constructivist understanding. Because of lack of central binding belief, their ideologies are scattered all over the globe. Because of lack of unifying factor, identity of many gradually faded during the era when other religions were more dominant. Historically many political movements tried to overcome this challenge of unifying sanatan masses but failed miserably as putting people with entirely different customs and tradition under same umbrella was not a feasible task. Recently Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi emerged as a central figure in pre-independent India. He mobilized the masses for independence struggle and is still considered the most influential Hindu of all time. His popularity has significantly contributed for India's freedom.
Why did Gandhi fail to be Messiah for Hindus?
He was assassinated shortly after India got independence. His assassin was not not an English man but was from his own community. The reason M.K. Gandhi failed to be the face of Hinduism
- He was sailing on two boats. If he just focused on spreading dharma then considering his popularity at that time, He might be able to unify all Hindus. In modern India he had potential to exceed the reach of any Baba and become living Ramachandra. But he chose to deeply involve in freedom struggle. On top of that, He included non-Hindus too to strengthen his Satyagraha against British Raj. His inclusiveness and his political affiliations stripped away his chances of being a saint.
- M.K. Gandhi failed to address problems of lower caste people (harijan - his euphemism). He was adamant of involving Muslims in his adventures yet he ignored his own people.
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