The framework for a dysfunctional world

 The revolutionary changes that are impacting humankind with such bewildering ferocity are mind-boggling, to say the least. Surely there must be some larger purpose, a trajectory for the march of civilization towards its collective destiny.

The revolutionary changes that are impacting humankind with such bewildering ferocity are mind-boggling, to say the least. Surely there must be some larger purpose, a trajectory for the march of civilization towards its collective destiny. The current trend of upheavals and chaos are sweeping away barriers and pulling down structures that stymie humanity’s acceptance of its interdependence and oneness as One Planet, One People, and One Future.

According to the teachings of the Bahá’i Faith the process of globalization coupled with spiritual awakening of the masses as a counter to materialism and consumerism would signal the emergence of a new World Order and collective maturity of the entire human race. However, to reach such a lofty state of civilization, there is a need for an evolving frame for collective education in all spheres of human existence. Sadly, due to a distorted perception of human history, nations and peoples have been locked in a struggle for power and domination throughout time.

To this end, the assumption that relations among the three protagonists of society – the individual, the community and the institution – have to conform to the dictates of competition and self-aggrandizement must be replaced by the premise that harmonious interactions can foster a civilization befitting mature humanity. Such a shift in mindset calls for internalising the concept of the dynamic coherence between the practical and spiritual requirements of life.

“Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh. Although, the principle of unity in diversity, an oft-repeated phrase in the development discourse, is now widely accepted as one step in the movement toward society’s collective maturity, there are many obstacles that have to be surmounted. For, the finite resources of the planet are the birthright of all its inhabitants.

The growing disparity between the rich and the poor cannot be permitted to persist; the senseless polarization of sections of populations in the name of race, nation, caste, religion, class and what-have-you is unacceptable. The principles of justice and the rule of law should be the basis for the relationships that sustain society. It is quite evident that materialistic ideals have failed to satisfy the needs of humankind. Therefore, fresh efforts must be made to find solutions to the agonizing crises of the planet. Achieving unity of thought and unity of action for building a peaceful and prosperous civilization requires farreaching changes and greater coherence in the relationships that bind individuals, communities, and the institutions.

Every people and every nation has a part to play in the next stage in the fundamental reconstruction of human society.’ The Bahá’i writings state that while “material civilization is one of the means for the progress of the world of mankind,” until it is “combined with Divine civilization, the desired result, which is the felicity of mankind, will not be attained.” It is further stated: “Material civilization is like a lamp-glass, Divine civilization is the lamp itself and the glass without the light is dark. Material civilization is like the body.

No matter how infinitely graceful, elegant and beautiful it may be, it is dead. Divine civilization is like the spirit, and the body gets its life from the spirit.” The series of summit level conferences in the 1990s convened by the United Nations, the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-2015) and then the Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030) are all highly laudable evidences that governments can work together to address issues that are crucial for the survival of humankind. At the same time many of the dominant currents in societies everywhere are pushing people apart, not drawing them together. Religious fundamentalism is warping the character of communities, even nations, fueling fresh conflicts and wars. Certain shared ethical principles as incorporated in UNESCO’s curriculum framework on education for the 21st century such as “Learning – The Treasure Within” (1996), and “Education futures: conservation and change” (2020) were widely disseminated and accepted by the majority of the member-states of the United Nations.

And yet, there is massive trust deficit, and utter confusion about right and wrong, undermining the credibility of all sources of knowledge. Instead, our world is being assailed by resurgent forces of racism, nationalism, factionalism and in India casteism. The tumult raised by the contending peoples of the world threatens to drown out the voices of those noble-minded souls in every society who call for an end to conflicts and struggle. As long as that call goes unheeded, there is no reason to doubt that the current state of disorder and confusion will worsen resulting in even more catastrophic devastations. The recent global health pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus is but one such challenge, the ultimate severity of whose cost, both to lives and livelihoods, is yet to be fully estimated.

The human race, as a distinct, organic unit, Bahá’is believe, has passed through evolutionary stages analogous to the stages of infancy and childhood in the lives of its individual members, and is now in the culminating period of its turbulent adolescence approaching its long-awaited coming of age. This will not come about simply through the efforts exerted by a select group of nations or even a network of national and international agencies. Rather, the challenge must be faced by all who inhabit the earth.

A global order that unifies the nations with the assent of humanity is the only adequate answer to the destabilizing forces that threaten the world. In their search for a tangible pattern of how an evolving framework for collective education is taking shape, peoples everywhere can benefit from the experiences of the seven-million strong Bahá’i community representing the entire cross-section of humanity, operating in some 235 countries and dependent territories in 6,000 geographic clusters worldwide. The efforts of Bahá’is to build communities, to engage in social action, and to contribute to the prevalent discourses of society in tandem with enhancing the capacities of both the young and the old have cohered into one global enterprise. They are bound together by a common framework for education and action, focused on helping humanity to establish its affairs on a foundation of universal human values. In every cluster where the process of collective education is gaining momentum, whether it be rural or urban neighbourhoods, a visible pattern of a harmonious community life is discernible quite in contrast to the dysfunctional state of present-day society.

To ensure a steady and focused forward movement, Bahá’is remind themselves and their fellow-citizens to draw on the two basic knowledge systems that have propelled humanity’s progress over the centuries: science and religion. The harmony of science and religion teaches that religion without science soon degenerates into superstition and fanaticism, while science without religion becomes merely the instrument of crude materialism and destruction. Viewed positively through these two agencies, the human race’s experience has been organized, its environment interpreted, its latent powers explored, and its moral and intellectual life disciplined.

Together, they have acted as the real progenitors of civilization. At whatever level the Bahá’is operate, the central theme of all their service is systematic learning. As members of a religious community, they hold to a common set of beliefs and fundamental principles. For, the qualities of resilience and rationality; adherence to justice, commitment to compassion, detachment, forbearance and many more inculcate in every man, woman, youth, and child an optimistic and practical vision of the way ahead to a truly sustainable future – the surest way to hasten the fulfilment of the promise of world peace.

A. K. MERCHANT

Source: The statesman, 10/01/24

Science vs religion-I

 In Tao of Physics, Fritzof Capra wrote that science does not need religion and religion does not need science, while a man needs both. I am not so sure. Again, in The DemonHaunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan wrote, “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.” If spirituality implies appreciating our own insignificance in the Universe and the resulting feeling of humbleness, then this has nothing to do with religion.

But leaving aside spirituality, religion and science have never been compatible. While science teaches us a systematic, rational way of exploring this universe to understand the laws of nature that guide life and non-life, religion has brought untold misery and suffering upon humanity throughout the course of history by claiming certainty in “information” and “facts” amenable neither to reason nor to observation.

Like oil and water, science and religion are immiscible and belong to mutually exclusive domains without any interface. Whenever they have been attempted to be brought together, the result invariably has been confusion, conflict, and bloodshed, of which there are too many gory examples in history.

Allow religion to explain the origin of the Universe according to its own ideas, and you end up with corpses of men and women burnt at stakes. Same with politics. Allow religion to rule a nation according to its own theories, and you end up with Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran where the laws of Sharia are more important than human life or human happiness.

Given the chance, religion would turn this world into a demon-haunted place in no time ~ in fact it has attained a remarkable degree of success in doing so. But what exactly is science, and what is religion? According to The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, “One way to distinguish between science and religion is the claim that science concerns the natural world, whereas religion concerns the supernatural world and its relationship to the natural. Scientific explanations do not appeal to supernatural entities such as gods or angels (fallen or not), or to non-natural forces (such as miracles, karma, or qi).

For example, neuroscientists typically explain our thoughts in terms of brain states, not by reference to an immaterial soul or spirit, and legal scholars do not invoke karmic load when discussing why people commit crimes.” Science concerns itself with what is or can be observed and seeks an immediate answer. Religion claims the answer is either unknowable or explained only with the help of faith, that is acceptance of something whose existence is indeterminate.

Science claims to explain phenomena or mysteries only through the tested method of empirical inquiry which is a series of steps involving observation-hypothesis-experiment-inference-theory- prediction-testing. This process is indispensable, even where it may not succeed in explaining all observed phenomena, whereas religion takes recourse to God and finds it absurd that by studying STEM subjects (Science-TechnologyEngineering and Mathematics) alone, the concept of God can be reduced to irrelevance. Given the chance, it will subsume science too.

In fact, a great deal of effort has already been invested towards this end, to start a dialogue between science and religion that is actually an exercise in futility.

In 1998, the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson in his book, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, argued that knowledge is a unified system that embraces science, morality, and ethics as well. The aim was perhaps not to make science spiritual but to make religion scientific.

In the 1990s, with its multi-million-dollar grants, the John Templeton Foundation launched a magazine called Science & Spirit, “to explain what science cannot, and asking science to validate religious teachings”. The magazine died a natural death in 2009.

The Foundation also financed several documentaries like “Faith and Reason”, “Cybergrace: The Search for God in the Digital World” or “God & the Big Bang: Discovering Harmony Between Science & Spirituality”.

Scores of bestselling books written by eminent scientists followed, like Belief in God in an Age of Science (1998) by John Polkinghorne, a Cambridge physicist turned Anglican priest, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (2006) by Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, or Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe (2021) by Stephen Meyer, Director of the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute which is the main organization behind the so-called Intelligent Design Movement, according to which the universe was created by an intelligent designer, the God almighty.

But physics explains the origin of the universe convincingly from quantum electrodynamics as arising from a vacuum fluctuation and biology explains the evolution of all life, starting with a chance molecule that learned to replicate itself. But both intelligent design and evolution cannot be true at the same time, hence the attempt to find a middle path ~ an absurd one at that ~ that God created the universe and left it to the laws of nature, also designed by him, to run it, without any further interference in its future course.

As the New York Times science journalist George Johnson wrote, thus “God becomes a metaphor for the laws that science tries to uncover.” On the question of faith, there are deep divisions among the scientists themselves. While Einstein’s God was one “who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists”, and not one “who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind”, many scientists hold radically different views. Some, like the cosmologist Allan Sandage, wonder: “‘How is it that inanimate matter can organize itself to contemplate itself? That’s outside of any science I know”, while others, like the Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins, believe that pursuing God is a “waste” of time that never has “added anything to the storehouse of human wisdom”.

Believers in God hold that a grand unified theory to explain the universe in terms of a single theory that is the holy grain of science would be incomplete without the integration of faith and ancient wisdom in it, while others, like Christians, were outraged when the radiocarbon dating of the shroud of Turin suggested it as a medieval forgery and not the burial cloth of Jesus, feel that as science develops more sophisticated techniques, their religious beliefs will be vindicated.

Fortunately, the endeavour of all these new-age scientists to blur and finally erase the boundary between science and pseudoscience has not yet succeeded. Similar efforts are on even in our own country. Religion is essentially about worship, and worship means surrender.

Faith is necessarily blind and has to disregard evidence in order to reinforce and validate its belief system. Human life is full of misery and suffering ~ indeed it is a “flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery” from which faith alone can provide a temporary deliverance. “Happiness is but only an occasional episode in the general drama of pain” that surrounds us, as Thomas Hardy said, and if surrender could mitigate even a little of that pain, it should be welcome.

Surrender can also be made more convincing when imbued with love and fear that a God is capable of inspiring in human minds. Finally, if the surrender can hold out the promise of something eternal, like an eternal deliverance from pain or from the endless cycles of birth and death, such an eternal vision becomes too tantalising to resist by most.

All that remains is to remind and reinforce these ideas continually through repetitive rituals, meaningless though they are, and the whole package becomes so overwhelming that few could emerge out of its enchanting aura to be able to see the world and reality with objectivity. After all, we still do not know how the objective reality conveyed to our brain through the senses acquires a subjective meaning in our mind, how the scent of a rose gets transformed into the memory of our first love, or a fading photograph brings back long-forgotten emotions.

Subjectivity rules the roost, everything else, even hard evidence, becomes mere speculation. Blind faith has no rival, and when blind faith masquerades as science, the conquest of the mind by religion becomes total, and all logic has been clinically erased. The evolution of life and that too on a tiny planet called earth that has just about the right conditions with the right values of fundamental constants among billions of such planets is an awesome mystery that the believers cite to establish intelligent design as the only explanation.

They ignore the fact that there are planets with all possibilities and ours happen to be the one with only just one of these permutations that made life ~ and God ~ possible. Logic and faith, like science and religion ~ are incompatible; if bring them together, there will be combustion and conflict.

But bring complexity to replace conflict, and the science-religion debate immediately acquires a political dimension ~ struggle between secular liberalism and traditional conservatism, authority versus individual liberty, herd mentality versus reason, and state versus individual. In each one of these struggles, rationality is the obvious victim that is left bleeding to die.

GOVIND BHATTACHARJEE

Source: The Statesman, 22/11/22

How far can dharmic principles sustain India as a Hindu rashtra?

 If India is to be a ‘Hindu nation’ the only course would arguably be to take advantage of the fact that there is little agreement among Hindus as to what its essential beliefs are

The notion of India as a Hindu nation is gradually gaining ground across the social spectrum. As instances, a judge from the Meghalaya High Court recently declared that India should have been declared a Hindu country. Ex-IPS officer from Gujarat DG Vanzara demanded that “India be declared a Hindu rashtra by establishing dharma satta (reign of religion)”.

British journalist Hasan Suroor has also drawn attention by saying that just as Britain is a Christian country but has government practices that are secular, India could legitimately become a Hindu country but remain secular in practice by treating all citizens as equal and making sure that their religious and civil rights are protected by law.

The act of conflating Hindu-Muslim relations with secularism and suggesting that minorities can be safe only in a constitutionally secular state was a mistake as it led to branding anyone who didn’t buy into the liberals’ definition of secularism as ‘communal’.

Since India has not been wanting for believing Hindus, Nehruvian secularism and especially its opportunistic use in later years — as under Rajiv Gandhi — strengthened Hindutva and made it more aggressive than it might have been. The Congress had accommodated people across the political spectrum – including both leftists and Hindu traditionalists – and it is on record that in 1947-48 there was actually a move through Sardar Vallabhai Patel to merge the Hindu Mahasabha with the Congress since the Hindu right ‘should not imagine that they had a monopoly over Hindu culture and religion.’

But Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and Patel’s death put an end to such a move.

How to define Hindu nation?

With the religious gulf widening in India and a resurgence of Nehruvian values unlikely, Suroor’s viewpoint looks the sanest. But what engages me is a different issue and pertains to the difficulties in defining a ‘Hindu nation’ with Hindu belief as its basis.

There are several theocratic Islamic countries and the Vatican City is also theocratic, with an absolute theocratic elective monarchy guided by the principles of a Christian religious school of thought. All these are theocratic countries and they have laws based on religious belief. The issue is whether Hindu belief can similarly serve as a way of building a nation through appropriate laws. Vanzara’s pronouncements imply that there are Hindus who dream of that eventuality.

The appropriate place to look for ways to constitute a Hindu nation would be through the writings of Hindutva’s political theorists. Of the three principal ones, the earliest, VD Savarkar, was primarily concerned with the Hindu identity and saw Hindus as being “People who live as children of a common motherland” and to whom loyalty towards it was natural; he did not envisage a moment when the constitution of a Hindu nation according to beliefs might be needed.

MS Golwalkar, who tried to propagate dharmic teachings, believed that all the elements required to develop as a great nation were present in Hindu society in their entirety and saw Manu as the lawgiver.

Deendayal’s ‘Integral Humanism’

Deendayal Upadhyaya authored a concept called ‘Integral Humanism’, according to which humankind had four hierarchically organized attributes that corresponded to the four human objectives of dharma (moral duties), artha (wealth), kama (desire) and moksha (salvation). While all of them were pertinent, dharma was the most basic and moksha the ultimate objective.

‘Integral humanism’ uses the word ‘human’ and the natural question here is whether ‘human’ pertains to individual aims or those of society as a whole; and the two are certainly not identical. If one listens to the religious discourses offered by seers and religious leaders, they similarly discuss the way one should lead one’s life but hardly ever do they offer guidance on how humans should deal with each other in social situations. Two ardent followers of the same seer, who understand his/her teaching differently from each other, could come into personal conflict and that might never be resolved.

Religious precepts could lead one to ‘moksha’, but would society as a whole even pursue that? This is where the notion of ‘Paramatma’ in Hinduism is different from the God of the Judaeo-Christian religions. Paramatma is a mystical concept that does not dictate ethics and can therefore not punish in the way that God does. A nation is primarily interested in a just society and free individuals are a corollary to that.

Dharmic principles differ from law in a theocracy

My proposition here is that this ‘inward looking’ tendency of Hinduism, its valorisation of personal salvation as the ultimate goal, makes it difficult for it to become the basis for the constitution of a fair society and a modern nation founded on its precepts. It is the strictness of God and His capability to inflict punishment equally for wrongdoing that is the basis of law in a theocracy, but dharmic principles do not offer us anything like that — since they are relative to one’s station, something that cannot be determined accurately to be acceptable to everyone involved in any conflict.

Swadharma’ (acting according to one’s nature) is hardly reliable and a fair arbiter is evidently needed. The dependency of dharma on station resulted in law like the Manusmriti, which is often grotesque; it can, if followed, break up Hindus into warring caste groups. Here, for instance, is 8: 417: “A Brahmana may confidently seize the goods of (his) Sudra (slave); for, as that (slave) can have no property, his master may take his possessions.”

If India is to be a ‘Hindu nation’ the only course would arguably be to take advantage of the fact that there is little agreement among Hindus as to what its essential beliefs are. This means that the nation would be free to be a modern one that was secular in the actual sense of the term rather than the way it was understood. Its (common) laws could not depend on religious beliefs but on the notions of justice, tolerance and egalitarianism as are understood in the modern world.

MK Raghavendra

Source; The federal, 5/06/22

Faith, belief and worship

 Every religion is a system of faith, belief and worship in a higher power or god who is deemed to be the creator of the universe. Scriptures and commandments illuminate the teachings of the gods.

Rituals are designed by religious leaders, to put “communication systems” in place between god and the believer and to cement their position as the “enablers” between the “power” and the powerless. Religion should have been a haven for all human beings, a private relationship between an individual and the god to whom he prays, for guidance through the turmoil of everyday life.

But religion and rituals have unfortunately become one of the most contentious and divisive issues of modern times.

Yuval Noah Harari sees religion as a source of maintaining the existence of the fragile and imagined structures and ideas created by man himself to enforce organisation and cooperation throughout a society, by providing an explanation that our laws, organisations and ranking are not made by human beings alone but by a supreme authority outside us.

Differences in the precepts and practices of different religions are being exploited by politicians or religious leaders for short-term personal gain. Man turns to god in times of good fortune and misfortune. When knowledgeable persons misguide or misinform the layman on such occasions, religion which is meant to ensure social order causes tension and strife among the believers of different faiths and atheism and scepticism among youngsters. How do we restore the sanctity of any faith? What is the dharma of religion?

Moral law

The Hindu concept of dharma is a moral law governing individual conduct, designed to maintain a stable society. It is the traditional dharma of the parents to sacrifice and provide for their children, the son to look after his ageing parents, of the brother to safeguard his sisters and husband to provide for his family. A change in gender dynamics has altered this concept of dharma, but the essential tenet of “doing what you are supposed to do” continues.

What is the difference between religion and the Hindu concept of dharma? Dharma, which Atharva Veda describes as the oldest customary order, carries with it a comparatively freer, flowing concept which relates to what the individual ought to do in this birth. Dharma does not relate to a divine revelation or faith. Dharma and religion are not the same, though the word dharma is also used to refer to the religious beliefs of a person. Just as an athlete practises his routine religiously, so should any human being do his duty or dharma with religious fervour.

Religious reforms have come about due to the realisation that religious sanctity accorded to any kind of discrimination among believers destroys the very fundamentals of godliness. Vegans or vegetarians follow their preferences like a religion. Atheists are passionate about their faith in the non-existence of a superpower.

Divinity within

Swami Vivekananda believed that though religions are divergent in various aspects, they are not contradictory, and are rather supplementary to each other. He defines religion as the realisation of divinity within us and this realisation is the one universal religion. He said, “To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion.”

Arun Shourie in his book Does He know a Mother’s Heart talks of how organised religion often tends to frighten the believer into submission to a “benevolent” god, through a system of praise and penalties. Religion should, in fact, empower people with a sense of confidence that they are capable of fighting their battles independently.

The obstacles in life cannot be done away with. Religion should help us to develop the capability to counter them.

Himani Datar

Source: The Hindu, 5/12/21

Is religious conversion a criminal issue?

 The Church is against any form of incentivised conversions. Even in the case of inter-religious marriages registered under the Special Marriage Act, the non-Christian partner is counselled to practise his or her own religion. There is no compulsion to convert to Christianity as religious tolerance is a part of Indian ethos. However, if there are cases of incentivised conversion, is criminal law the solution?

In an address to the All Karnataka United Christian Forum for Human Rights (AKUCFHR) on November 19, Peter Machado, the Archbishop of Bangalore, said it was a sin to force anyone to convert. Any conversion had to be from the heart as the Church wanted to increase the quality and not quantity of its faithful.

In a letter to the Karnataka Chief Minister, Dr. Machado says, “Thousands of schools, colleges and hospitals are run and managed by Christian community across the State. When lakhs of students are graduating from these institutions year after year and thousands of patients irrespective of caste, creed or colour receive the best medical attention from our hospitals and care centres, let the government prove that even one of them has ever been influenced, compelled or coerced to change his or her religion.”

It is noteworthy that L.K. Advani, Vasundhara Raje, Pratap Simha, S. Jaishankar, Smriti Irani, J.P. Nadda and Piyush Goyal are senior leaders of the BJP who had obtained their education from Christian institutions.

On religious conversions, the Pew Research Centre (PRC) makes a few observations: “An overall pattern of stability in the share of religious groups is accompanied by little net gain from movement into, or out of, most religious groups. Among Hindus, for instance, any conversion out of the group is matched by conversion into the group. Nationally, the vast majority of former Hindus who are now Christian belong to Scheduled Castes (48%), Scheduled Tribes (14%) or Other Backward Classes (26%). Nearly half of converts to Christianity (47%) say there is a lot of discrimination against Scheduled Castes in India, compared with 20% of the overall population who perceive this level of discrimination against Scheduled Castes. Still, relatively few converts say they, personally, have faced discrimination due to their caste in the last 12 months (12%).”

Root causes

If there are cases of incentivised conversions, the solution lies in addressing the root issues: ending discrimination, providing high quality and free education to the poor and disenfranchised, improving access and quality of free health facilities and medicines, improving nourishment and providing adequate employment opportunities to all. This would automatically address the issue of violent extremism prevalent in some parts of the country. Violence, in thought, word or deed, cannot be solved with more violence. Though the proposed anti-conversion Bill is considered oppressive and Christians are being physically attacked by fringe elements, the Christian community is firmly resolved in its service to society through love and shall continue to pray for the political leadership.

Are there other conditions that we Indians need to reflect upon? The study by the PRC with a sample of 22,975 Hindus, 3,336 Muslims, 1,782 Sikhs, 1,011 Christians, 719 Buddhists and 109 Jains, points out the following: “religious groups generally see themselves as different from each other; stopping inter-religious marriage is a high priority; substantial minorities would not accept followers of other religions as neighbours.” The study also observed that caste is a dividing factor across religions.

The late Justice Leila Seth pointed out in her TEDx talk that the early implementation of the anti-dowry laws only made the public display of dowry disappear but eradicating dowry required a change in attitudes and mindset. Addressing cases of incentivised conversion would require a holistic approach.

In a world that is growing in anger, hate, selfishness, greed, isolation and apathy, Christians do want to convert people to love, compassion, kindness, openness, empathy and selflessness, which are visible through actions. While these are human values, Christians value them as the basis of their lives. The Constitution being the guiding book of all Indians, Dr. Machado expressed complete faith in Constitutional values and the Judiciary.

Writtten by Vikram Vincent

Source: the Hindu, 5/12/21

Celebrating the ‘essence of Hinduism’: How 19th century Brahmo Samaj altered Bengali society

 Amit Das recollects a little anecdote from his grandmother’s life. “If she ever saw any of us praying to an idol before going to school, she would immediately rebuke us,” he says. “Her point was that if one had studied properly then they would do well regardless of whether they pray to God or not.” The 57-year-old is a fourth generation member of the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reformist movement that began in the early 19th century.

His great grandfather, Sundari Mohan Das, a freedom fighter, doctor and social worker of the late 19th century, was the first in his family to have joined the Samaj. “Like many young Bengali men of the time, he too was a follower of Keshub Chandra Sen, who influenced them to dream of a world devoid of superstition; where widows could remarry and women’s education was deemed essential,” says Das.

One of the most influential religious movements of the 19th century that took birth in Bengal and spread far and wide from here, Brahmoism is today reduced to a few thousand members. The community, for the past few years, has been demanding minority status from the government of India. Das, an active member of the religious organisation, is a firm believer in the principles laid down by the Brahmo Samaj: denunciation of idol worship and polytheism, rejection of the caste system, emancipaBack in the 19th century, Brahmoism was established as an effort to reform Hinduism from within, in response to the criticisms being levelled against Hindu society by the West. “It was a movement that struck a fine balance between reform and rejection. These were people willing to change contemporary Hindu society without uprooting themselves from tradition- obviously, this was guided by the emergence of a sense of cultural pride and patriotism to which, paradoxically, modern Western education had greatly contributed,” says historian Amiya Sen over the phone. In other words, the Brahmo Samaj was both an effort to alter Hinduism through western ideologies, and at the same time stay true to its traditional principles.

Although the movement lost momentum by the end of the 19th century, the Brahmo Samaj did have an impact on the psyche of the Bengali middle class. At a time when the political landscape of Bengal is witnessing the possibility of inroads being made by the Bharatiya Janata Party, adherents of Brahmoism say the party will be unable to understand the liberal nature of religion practised by them.

The Brahmo Samaj and its impact on Bengali society

Historian David Kopf, who authored the book ‘The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of modern India’, explains that the establishment of the Brahmo Sabha by the social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, needs to be understood in context of the Unitarian movement that was raging in large parts of the Western world since the 16th century. Unitarianism was a radical approach to religion, society and ethics which looked to substitute popular religious traditions with a rational faith.

“By 1822 he (Roy) had helped form the Calcutta Unitarian Committee and by 1825-26, his scattered writings in their cumulative effect already contained a kind of syllabus for activists dedicated to Hindu reform,” writes Kopf. Roy formed the committee in collaboration with a missionary, Rev. W. Adam. Apart from conducting Unitarian services, the committee also established the Vedanta College meant for churning out Hindu Unitarians. But Roy and Adam fell off soon after and the mission was abandoned.

Consequently, in 1828 Roy along with a group of wealthy upper caste men started a more Indian variant of the Unitarian movement. This was named the ‘Brahmo Sabha’ and its first meeting was held on August 20, 1828 at a house in Chitpore road in Calcutta. Among the most notable supporters of Roy in the Sabha was Dwarkanath Tagore, grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore. Activities carried out by the group included chanting of verses from the Upanishads, and then translating them in Bengali and singing of theistic hymns composed by Roy. “There was no organisation, no membership, no creed. It was a weekly meeting open to any who cared to attend. Ram Mohan believed he was restoring Hindu worship to its pristine purity,” writes John Nicol Farquhar, a Scottish education missionary in Calcutta who authored the book, ‘Modern religious movements in India’.tion of women, respect for all religions, and others.

Throughout this period, the Brahma Sabha played a key role in modernising Indian society. Roy successfully campaigned against Sati or the immolation of Hindu widows, he established a number of educational institutions including the Vedanta College, the English School and the City College of Calcutta popularising English education and promoted a rational and non-authoritarian form of Hinduism. He also played a pioneering role in opening the Hindu School in 1817, which is now the Presidency University.

With Roy’s death in 1833, the still infant Brahmo Sabha lost its wind a bit. It was in 1842 that the Sabha was given a fresh lease of life under the leadership of Debendranath Tagore, son of Dwarkanath Tagore. “Debendra followed Ram Mohan in his belief that original Hinduism was a pure spiritual theism, and in his enthusiasm for the Upanishads, but did not share his deep reverence for Christ,” writes Farquhar. He was also the one to give an organised structure to the Sabha. In 1843, he drew up a Brahmo convent or a list of solemn vows to be taken by every member. Some of these included abstaining from idolatry and to worship God by doing good deeds.

In 1857, Keshub Chandra Sen joined the Sabha, and he would soon turn out to be its third leader. Under his influence, Debendranath decided on giving up the tradition of Durga Puja in the Tagore family, which was a grand annual affair. The Sabha also discussed caste, with its members giving it up altogether. Debendranath too got rid of his sacred thread.

Sen was heavily influenced by Christianity. At his suggestion, the Sabha began to follow the example of Christian philanthropy, gathering money and food for the needy.

In 1860, members of the Sabha realised the need to spread out from Bengal. In 1861, the preacher Pundit Navin Chandra Roy went to Punjab to spread the new faith. He established the Brahmo Samaj in Lahore. Another preacher, Atmuri Lakshminarasimham went to the Madras Presidency to spread the Brahmo teachings in the Telugu speaking areas.

“Brahmo Samaj was not just restricted to Bengal. It was the first pan Indian movement of Hindu reform,” says Sen. “But Bengal was the first province to come under western influence through British colonialism. In cultural terms, Bengal was indeed the province of paradoxes. It was to produce the first crop of western educated intelligentsia, many of whom were anglophiles. On the other hand, this early and excessive enthusiasm for Western ideas or ways of life eventually also produced a wave of anglophobia which took the shape of a reactionary, anti–reformist position,” he adds.

“But the Brahmo Samaj was a very small community and that too an urban and elite community,” explains researcher Snigdhendu Bhattacharya who authored the book, ‘Mission Bengal: the Saffron experiment’. “Although it was a miniscule community, it remained one of the most influential ones since it included some of the finest social reformers and personalities of Bengal. Two of the most influential Bengali families, the Tagores and the Rays, were both Brahmos,” he says.

Speaking about the kind of influence that Brahmo families had on middle class Bengali society, Bhattacharya says, “every child in any urban area grows up reading Sukumar Ray. When they read the Ramayana, it is Upendrakishore Roychowdhury’s interpretation in most cases. Then of course there is Satyajit Ray whose films have influenced every child and adult in all of Bengal.” The influence of the Tagore family not just in Bengal, but all over India, remains unmatched. “The essence of all their work remained humanism and rationalism which emerged from the fountainhead of Brahmo philosophy,” says Bhattacharya.

From the 1860s, a number of schisms and splinter groups emerged within the Samaj. In 1866, the first formal division between liberal younger Brahmos and conservative older Brahmos led to the establishment of the Brahmo Samaj of India under Sen. In 1878, the marriage of Sen’s daughter to the maharaja of Cooch Behar in violation of the Brahmo Marriage Act of 1872 caused yet another major schism in Brahmo history, resulting in the formation of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. “These splits resulted in the dwindling popularity of the Samaj,” says Bhattacharya.

“I would say that the Brahmo movement began to decline from the 1880s. Firstly, there was a distinct Hindu counter discourse, or Hindu revival. Also by this time, the political overtook the social,” says Sen. By 1885 the Indian National Congress was formed. “The Hindus realised that the best way to fight against colonialism is to politically unite, rather than focusing on social reform,” Sen says.

Despite their decline though, the Brahmo Samaj made an enormous impact ideologically and culturally to Bengal and created an enduring value system in the region. “They were the people behind promoting women’s education, introducing widow remarriages, inter caste marriages, questioning the very hierarchy of caste, and democratising education. Unlike traditional Hindus, Brahmos gave as much importance to moral uprightness as to a spiritual life. In traditional Hinduism, moral purity was considered subservient to the spiritual call. Not so for the Brahmos.” says Sen.

The Brahmo Samaj in Bengal today

Given the dwindling popularity of the Samaj since the late 19th century, a majority of Brahmo members today are those by birth. Nonetheless, there are instances of those who have taken formal initiation in the community in the recent past. Ketuki Bagchi (67) took up formal membership of the Samaj in 2004. She says her parents were staunch followers of Roy and thereby she had been associated with the Brahmo ideology since her childhood even though not a member. “The influence of the Samaj was such that there were many Bengali families who believed and practised the principles of Brahmoism, despite the fact that they were not formal members,” she says. She explains that her parents perhaps never formally joined the Samaj because the organisation never went about promoting its beliefs or engaged in proselytising activities.

Prasun Ganguly, 74, a fourth generation Brahmo says the first thing that any new member of the Samaj has to do is give up idol worship and follow the basic principles of egalitarianism and rationalism promulgated by Roy. That apart, the social ceremonies of its members like marriage and funerals are in stark contrast to those in Hindu society. “For instance at a Brahmo wedding, the bride and the groom assemble in front of people and declare their vows to each other. Similarly, at a funeral first the preacher presiding over the ceremony says a few words about the departed soul and then the others join in to sing a few Brahmo sangeet (spiritual songs written by Roy and other influential members of the Samaj),” says Ganguly.

Speaking about what the current political situation in Bengal means to the Brahmo community, Ganguly says, “In most Bengali families even today, there is a reverence for Brahmoism because of the kind of social reforms brought by them. It believes in a kind of religion devoid of the ill practices and superstitions of Hinduism. In that sense, Brahmoism is the essence of Hinduism.”

“Any political party in power must not try to impose its own understanding of Hinduism on anyone.”

Further reading:

The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of modern India’ by David Kopf

Modern religious movements in India by John Nicol Farquhar

Hindu revivalism in Bengal, 1972-1905 by Amiya Sen

Written by Adrija Roychowdhury

Source: Indian Express, 17/04/21

Weaponising faith: The Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute

 There was something incongruous about the moment when I read the news on April 8 that the district court in Varanasi had directed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a study of the Gyanvapi Mosque. This day also happened to be Kumar Gandharva’s birth anniversary. It was hard to resist playing his composition in Raga Shankara Sir Pe Dhari Ganga. There is a moment where he adds an extra “gang” before “Ganga”. The resulting “ganga/gagana”, is one of the most incandescent moments in all of Indian music — that extra Ganga literally drenching you in the full freshness and redemptive flow of the Ganga. It is always tempting to follow this exuberant rendition of Shankara, with another more meditative one — Pandit Jasraj’s Shankara. He sings “Vibhushitanaga Riputammanga”, the penultimate shloka of Panditraja Jagannatha’s Gangalahari. Reading the news of the Gyanvapi order, while these played in the background, almost felt like a defilement, a reminder that the spontaneous and erumpent spirituality of Hinduism was about to be again derailed by sordid politics.

The Gyanvapi order combined with the Supreme Court’s willingness to entertain a plea challenging the Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions), 1991 is going to open another communal front. In the case of the Gyanvapi Mosque, there is no real dispute. It is widely accepted that parts of the Vishwanath temple were destroyed and its walls may have been raised on the plinth of the temple. One also does not have to deny that many Hindus experienced and have a consciousness of Aurungzeb’s reign as being characterised by religious bigotry. Historians can debate the context and the motives of Aurangzeb’s actions, and the complexity of his rule. But minimising the significance of his actions has always been a little historically incredible and politically disingenuous. If we rest the case for secularism in contemporary India on establishing Aurangzeb’s liberal credentials, then secularism will indeed be on rickety foundations. It will also legitimise Hindutva resting its case on Aurangzeb’s credentials. Secularism will be deepened if it lets history be history, not make history the foundations of a secular ethic.

But there is no incongruity between accepting that a temple could have been demolished in the 16th century, and believing that the status quo on the shrines must be maintained. It’s hubris for me to think that Lord Shiva needs my protection. Yes, one can acknowledge a history of conflict, and believe at the same time that a new social contract has been written. In some ways, the Places of Worship Act, 1991 is a good expression of that thought. It freezes the status quo of all disputed religious properties as they were in 1947.

In the past, the destruction of religious shrines may have been the function of state power. But modern India cannot repeat the same logic. We cannot say that because political power has changed hands, so must the power to define the religious landscape. The demand that Kashi or Mathura be returned is exactly that. It is a raw assertion of majoritarian power. Now that power has passed to the majority, it must claim back or avenge wrongs committed five centuries ago. There is also a deeper logic. The purpose of reclaiming these shrines is not religiosity. Bhakti for Kashi Vishwanath has not been impinged or diminished by the existence of the Gyanvapi Mosque. The purpose of claiming it back is to claim that Hindus have power qua Hindus and they can now show Muslims their place. The purpose is not to craft a connection with Shiva or Krishna, the purpose is to permanently indict minorities. It is to use a sacred place of worship as a weaponised tool against another community.

The new spate of lawsuits will stoke communal fires. Most political parties will be caught like deer in headlights, not knowing which way to turn. The fact that they are not defending the Places of Worship Act will further send a signal that the Indian state cannot make a credible promise to minorities. It is also an indication that Hindutva in its present form can never be satiated; it is an escalation of power that constantly demands more. Yesterday was Ayodhya, tomorrow Kashi, the day after Mathura. It has been emboldened by the lack of resistance amongst Hindus and the increasing isolation of minorities. In the guise of settling a score with Aurangzeb, Hindutva wants to commit hara-kiri on the Indian Constitution, individual freedom and minorities. Alas, we will let this pass too, with a judicial seal of approval to boot.

Panditraja Jagannatha, author of Gangalahari, is a fascinating figure. He was from Andhra. He spent time with Dara Shikoh before reaching Benares. He was a phenomenal poet, aesthetician, and polemically engaged with Appaya Dikshita. The details of his biography are obscure. Legend has it that he fell in love with a Muslim princess. P K Gode’s monumental two-volume Studies in Indian Literary History, one of the most meticulous sources on Indian literary figures, argued for the plausibility of the story, based on 18th century sources. This legend was the basis of a Tamil film Lavangi (“His lover’s name”) and a Marathi play by Vidyadhar Gokhale. There are different variations of the legend.

It is said that the Gangalahari is connected to this love story. For marrying a Muslim, Jagannatha was declared an outcaste when he went to Benares. Even the Ganga receded and did not receive him. He composed the Gangalahari to appease Ganga. With each shloka, the water rose one step on the ghat to receive him. I have read dozens of Hindi introductions to the Gangalahari. It is interesting how the story changes. In some versions, Jagannatha wants to be received by the Ganga so that he can be cleansed of his sins of marrying a Muslim. This is the more recent and more communal version. But there is an older version that held sway for a long time.

In this version, the Brahmins have declared him an outcaste. But after he recites the Gangalahari, Ganga rises and receives both him and his lover in its embrace, putting a seal of approval on their union. The sin was not his love, it was making him an outcaste. What speaks to the majesty of “pinaki mahagyani”, as Kumar Gandharva called Lord Shiva, or the purifying power of Ganga more? Moving on to build an inclusive, prosperous India? Or being intoxicated by a majoritarian fantasy of revenge? Looks like we are opting for the latter, and no Ganga will rise to redeem us of this sin.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2021 under the title ‘Ganga and Gyanvapi’. The writer is contributing editor, 

Source: Indian Express, 13/04/21

The land of goddesses: Why Durga is key to understanding Bengal

 With state elections around the corner in West Bengal, a central argument made by the ruling TMC against the BJP is that the latter does not understand Bengal. This debate played out recently when BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, at a media event, commented on the ancestry of Lord Ram and that he was a ‘political icon’ and an ‘ideal man’ as opposed to Durga whose roots are unknown. The TMC picked on this remark to once again push the ‘outsider’ tag against the BJP.

Worship of the feminine form and in particular the celebration of Durga has deep historical roots in the Bengal region. Scholars of religion have pointed out that there existed a tradition of goddess worship in India, which predates the Vedic-Brahmanism tradition. This tradition was particularly long-lived and deeply rooted in some parts of the subcontinent like Bengal and Assam.

Over centuries, Durga takes on a Brahmanical form as the embodiment of Shakti, the ten-armed Devi who destroys the demon Mahishasura. But she is also personal. She is the daughter of every Bengali family, whose visit every autumn is much awaited. She is the endearing, protective mother, ‘Durga Ma’, in the company of her four children. Yet she is also political, be it in Mughal Bengal, in the pre-independence era of nationalist politics, or in Mamata’s Bengal. Durga in that sense, permeates every aspect of Bengali life, and is key to understanding Bengal.

The ancient roots of Durga worship

The evidence of a non-Brahmanical tradition of goddess worship existing in Bengal comes from the large number of local or village goddesses that continue to be worshipped even today. Known by various names, these deities are associated by a range of attributes or functions, the most important among which is the protection of the village or the family that worships them. “In Bankura district, for instance, the village of Chhandor was associated with the goddess known as Jangalasini Devi, Lakhershole village with Kamakhya Devi, Naricha village with the deity Sarvamangal Devi, Ajodhya village with the deity known as Kaluburi and Raipur village with Ambika Devi,” writes historian Kumkum Chatterjee in her exhaustive account of Durga worship in Bengal titled, ‘Goddess encounters: Mughals, Monsters and the Goddess in Bengal’.

Then there are those goddesses, more specifically associated with a fear or disease. Manasa for instance, is the goddess of snakes, worshipped for the prevention and cure of snakebites. Sithala on the other hand, is the goddess of smallpox, and Olai Chandi or Ola Bibi is worshipped to ward off Cholera.
Chatterjee writes that the non-Brahmanical origins of these goddesses is underscored by the fact that the hereditary priest or priestess associated with them are usually drawn from the lower castes like the Bagdis, Bauris, Doms, and Majhis who inhabited these regions.Historian Kunal Chakrabarti, an authority on the history of religion in India, explains that religion in Bengal is almost completely centered around goddess worship because of the late entry of Brahmanism in the region as opposed to that in the Ganga valley. In his book, ‘Religious processes: The Puranas and the making of the regional tradition’, he writes “Bengal remained outside the sphere of Brahmanical influence for a long time, and largescale Brahmana migration to Bengal did not begin before the Gupta period (mid 3rd century to 6th century CE).”

“Therefore the beliefs and practices of the indigenous communities could strike deeper roots than in other parts which were Brahmanised earlier,” says Chakrabarti over the phone. He says the same is also true for religious traditions in southern India, parts of western India like Maharashtra and Rajasthan as well as in Kashmir. Chakrabarti says Brahmanical religion, like almost every institutionalised religion of the world like Christianity, Islam or Judaism, is patriarchal. “It is interesting that in those parts of the world where Christianity went late, like northern Africa, parts of southeast Asia and so on, where there was already an existing goddess worship tradition, the epiphany of Mother Mary is stronger,” he says.

In Bengal, as Chakrabarti explains, goddess worship was so common and prevalent that when the Bramanists came and attempted to impose their socio-religious hegemony, they found that their acceptance would be incomplete unless they came to terms with the existing beliefs and practices or the indigenous communities. They also found that while goddesses were worshipped in many forms across the Bengal region, there was no central focus like we have in Durga today. “What the Brahmanists attempted to do was to adopt goddesses like Manesa, Chandi, Shashti. They are mentioned in the Sanskrit Brahmanical Puranas that began to be composed in Eastern India and particularly Bengal from the eighth or ninth centuries till about the 13th or 14th,” says Chakrabarti.

In these Puranas, there existed a process of adoption, appropriation and even transformation of the local goddesses. There was an attempt to give them Brahmanical appearances through ancestry and false genealogies. Manasa for instance, is the daughter of Shiva. The goddesses were also equated with an abstract energy or Shakti, of which the various local goddesses were mere manifestations. She was seen as the moving force behind all actions, which ensured her inclusion in the Brahmanical pantheon without subverting her indigenous identity. But the process was also selective. Sithala, for instance, never made it to the Brahmanical pantheon.

Durga, in the form in which Bengalis celebrate her today, appears in the ‘Devi Mahatmya’ section of the Markandeya Purana where she is shown as the killer of the demon Mahishasura. “Durga grew to this lofty status over time. She absorbed many traits from the gods and goddesses around her. As the gods all gave her weapons to kill the demon in her puranic origin myth, on a subtler level village deities gave her many qualities that were later incorporated into her stories,” writes scholar of religious studies, June McDaniel in her book, ‘Offering flowers, feeding skulls: Popular goddess worship in West Bengal’.

“Durga literally means ‘goddess of difficult terrain’. This was not really a goddess of the indigenous people. She was assiduously pushed by the Brahmanas, and they were trying to propagate the importance of the annual festival,” says Chakrabarti. “What the annual festival does is to take away the goddess from everyday worship and makes it into a cult event once a year. They attempted to do the same with other goddesses of everyday worship as well like Kali and Lakshmi. By doing this, the Brahmanists believed that they would gradually disassociate the goddesses from the people and make it into their province,” he adds. In the case of Durga though, this process was most successful as is evidenced by the fact that there are hardly any permanent temples dedicated to her in Bengal. She is worshipped once a year, in autumn. The rest of the year she is celebrated in the anticipation of her homecoming.

There is yet another transformation that Durga goes through with the coming in of the Vaishnava tradition in Bengal sometime in the 15th century. “The most important result of the Vaishnavisation of the Goddess was evident in the much greater emphasis on her attributes as wife, but probably even more important as mother and daughter,” writes Chatterjee. She notes that through this transformation of the goddess from a fierce warrior to benign mother and daughter, Durga was ‘softened’. She was also elevated, humanised and popularised.

Seeking the legitimacy of the goddess

In Bengal, there exists a long history of connection between Durga worship and political power. Raja Ganesh of the 15th century, who had usurped power from the Sultan of Bengal, and his son who converted to Islam and ruled as Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah, proclaimed their association with the Goddess and issued coins bearing symbols associated with the deity. Chatterjee notes that in the late Sultanate and the period of the inception of Mughal rule, aspiring and successful rajas and landed magnates, particularly in the forested south-western tracts of Bengal, emphasised on their association with the Goddess. “The origin accounts of very many rajas who founded kingdoms in these areas attribute their political success to the blessings of the Goddess,” she writes.

We find similar employment of Durga in offering legitimacy to Mughal rule in Bengal as well. Chatterjee points to two mid-eighteenth century Bengali texts — Annandamangala written by Bharatchandra Roy, the court poet of the Raja of Nadia, and the Maharashtrapurana written by Gangarama. Both these texts provide sufficient evidence of an evolving strong relationship between the Mughals and Durga, the former seeking the legitimacy of the Goddess in establishing their rule in Bengal.

There is something to be said about the rise in the public performance of Durga worship under the Mughals. The first Durga Puja is known to have been celebrated in Bengal sometime in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. The names of three local Rajas are contended as hosts of this ‘first’ Durga Puja — Raja Kangshanarayan of Tahirpur in northern Bengal (now in Bangladesh), Bhavananda Majumdar, the Raja of Nadia in Western Bengal, and Lakshmikanta Majumdar of the Sabarna Chowdhury family who controlled large tracts of land of what later became Calcutta.

Chatterjee writes that each of these individuals had strong links with the Mughal regime. They offered collaboration and military services to the Mughals and in return were given revenue-collecting rights and titles. “Each of them used their newly-acquired political and material power via the Mughals to establish themselves as leaders and arbiters of Brahmanical samajs in the immediate areas which they controlled,” writes Chatterjee. They established their credentials as adherents of various Brahmanical deities of which the Goddess, in her various forms (Durga, Kali, Jagaddhatri) was certainly the most important.

With the economic decline in the Mughal empire, the zamindars or the Hindu landowners of Bengal became little rajas in their own right, exercising huge control over vast territories of land. The eighteenth century was a time of dynamic social and political changes in Bengal. There were brutal raids carried out by the Marathas, Afghan insurrections within Nawabi ranks, revenue realignments and of course the Battle of Plassey that helped the East India Company seize control over Bengal.

“If the eighteenth century taught any lessons to the Hindu zamindars of Bengal, it was the need to be extremely alert and wary about their political loyalties,” writes historian Tithi Bhattacharya in her research paper, ‘Tracking the goddess: Religion, community and identity in Bengal’. She suggests that at a time like this when political affiliations were constantly shifting, the splendid and ostentatious celebrations of Durga Puja helped the zamindars assert and display political authority, financial stability and administrative control.

With the rise of British power and the emergence of Calcutta as the site of political and economic control, a new mercantile class emerged which worked closely with the Europeans. Durga Puja celebrations became the perfect means through which this class asserted its financial influence, not just over the natives, but also to the British and other Europeans. Bhattacharya describes the stiff competition that existed among the eminent mercantile families over the extent and scope of spending. The Durga idol of the Gandhabanik family of Sibkrishna Da was decorated with gold jewellery engraved with stones imported from Paris. Their principal rivals, the Tagores, immersed their idol along with the enormous amount of gold jewellery on her.

The Durga Puja celebration in the palatial house owned by Nabakrishna Deb in Shobhabazar has been documented in detail and continues to remain an annual event that attracts Kolkata inhabitants and tourists. Deb was the famous ‘bania’ of Robert Clive. “Dancing girls were hired from Murshidabad and even as far as Lucknow. Festivities continued for nearly half a month and made that first puja under the new regime iconic in every way,” writes Bhattacharya.

Tapati Guha-Thakurta, a retired professor of History who has been researching on the contemporary cultural politics of the Durga Puja, traces the non-religious aspect of the festival today to the celebration of it by the mercantile class of 19th and 20th century Bengal. “This hedonistic side to pujo, or what we like to call the ‘secular’ side, where its a time for entertainment, consumption, advertisement, touring, or the fact that its religiosity is eroding, is not a new thing. It can be traced back to the big ‘babuder pujo’ or the ‘bonedi barir pujo’ (puja celebrations of the traditional zamindar families) and their excesses and extravaganza,” she says.

By the turn of the 20th century, Durga was once again invested politically. This time it was with the spirit of nationalism. The Bengali press was loaded with patriotic songs that played upon the image of Durga in association with the nation. Durga Puja became the perfect platform for the swadeshi campaign, with advertisements encouraging people to engage in Puja shopping of only those products made in India. Faced with Gandhi’s call to abolish untouchability, the ‘sarbajanin’ (universal) puja was born in 1926 which was open to all regardless of birth or residence. The first such Puja was called the “Congress Puja” and organised at Maniktala in north Calcutta. The sarbajanin pujas became a platform for swadeshi fairs.

Durga in Mamata’s Bengal

Since 2011 when the TMC came to power in Bengal, the party has been deeply invested in Durga Pujas, far more than what its predecessor the CPI(M) was. However, as Guha-Thakurta points out, TMC’s politicisation of the Durga Puja was not in the name of a Hindu religious festival. “There is a political ideology of religious inclusivity that the TMC has been pushing. The TMC has been pushing the idea that Durga puja is ‘secular’ and so we can have a Muslim mayor sponsoring one of the biggest pujas and that the act of painting the eye of the goddess can be turned into a secular political act,” says Guha-Thakurta.

Ever since 2011 when Banerjee became chief minister, hundreds of puja pandals are either inaugurated by her or by other TMC leaders, a role which was previously the domain of celebrities. She composes lyrics and gets reputed singers to record them as part of puja special albums. She began to give direct party donations to the clubs. She started her own state award for the Durga Pujas. In 2015, she announced an immersion day procession, on the same lines as the Republic Day parade. The last salute of the parade is given to the chief minister.The BJP too has been trying to make inroads into this complex politicisation of the Durga Puja. From 2015 to 2017, as Muharram, a Shia Muslim festival collided with the immersion, the TMC government restricted all activities around the Durga immersion, on the ground that it wanted to avoid communal clashes. The BJP picked up on the issue to accuse the TMC of Muslim appeasment. Last year, the BJP’s women’s wing organised a Puja at the International Centre for Cultural Relations in Kolkata. It was inaugurated virtually by PM Modi.

In the past few years, the Puja pandals have increasingly become a platform to play out major socio-poltiical events as well.In 2019, for instance, the Young Boys Club Sarbojanin Durga Puja Committee based in central Kolkata, played out the Balakot air strike in its Puja pandal. The Puja of Rajdanga Naba Uday Sangha on the other hand, took up the issue of the NRC. Who can forget the image of the migrant worker with her children as the theme of the Barisha Club Puja in Behala that went viral in 2020? Guha-Thakurta agrees that such themes are a way for the opposition to hit back at the ruling party. “But the Puja has opened up this space. One cannot think of Durga Puja as pure worship and leave all that out. It has happened over a long history,” she says.

Further reading:

‘Goddess encounters: Mughals, Monsters and the Goddess in Bengal’ by Kumkum Chatterjee

Religious processes: The Puranas and the making of the regional tradition by Kunal Chakrabarti

Offering flowers, feeding skulls: Popular goddess worship in West Bengal by June McDaniel

Tracking the goddess: Religion, community and identity in Bengal by Tithi Bhattacharya

In the name of the Goddess: The Durga Pujas of contemporary Kolkata by Tapati Guha-Thakurta

Adrija Roychowdhury

Source: Indian Express, 1/03/21