The disruptive social effects of Hindutva 2.0

 It is the electoral hegemony of the BJP which can deepen the sense of betrayal among those who feel short-changed by the side effects of Hindutva 2.0. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was a result of the transformation of three crucial Ms in Indian politics: Mandal, Mandir and Markets.

Almost two years later, the BJP seems to be sticking to the script, but its tactical manoeuvres, even though they have delivered in elections, are beginning to show their disruptive side effects, with the possibility of unrest. Three seemingly disparate events over the past week highlight this trend.

First, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, while campaigning in Assam, said that a Congress government, if elected, would not let the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) be implemented in Assam. Gandhi was silent on the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Politically, this makes sense. Assam has had a long and bloody ethnic conflict, which was rooted in Ahoms — the indigenous landed elite — protesting against the large-scale influx of Bengalis in the state. Decades of negotiations and judicial processes ultimately culminated in the decision to update NRC, which was aimed at detecting illegal migrants in the state. Because a large number of Bengalis in Assam — migrants or not — happen to be Muslims, it suited the BJP to appropriate the demand for NRC.

However, the outcome of the NRC process, which is reported to have excluded a large number of Hindu Bengalis, who are current and potential supporters of the BJP, created a challenge. This forced the BJP into rolling out CAA, a law which provides for granting of retrospective citizenship rights to non-Muslims from India’s neighbouring countries. If a large number of Bengali Hindus were to gain from the CAA route, it would leave the Ahoms with a feeling of betrayal, for they oppose immigrants, irrespective of religion. This is the constituency the Congress is seeking to tap, and the BJP is now seeking to reassure by putting CAA on hold.

Second, an Economic Times report said that the Justice Rohini Commission, examining the reorganisation of reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), is likely to propose a segregation of the existing 27% reservations into four bands of two, six, nine and 10%. Immediately after that, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar demanded that a caste census be conducted in the country.

The BJP’s success in the Hindi belt, especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, can be attributed to building a rainbow Hindu collation of upper castes and non-dominant OBCs. By championing a narrative that the politically dominant OBCs had usurped most of the benefits of reservation and that the Narendra Modi government will correct this historic injustice by creating sub-categories within OBC quota, the BJP aims to consolidate its base and marginalise traditional Mandal parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

But this approach has the potential to trigger an adverse side-effect. India does not have sub-caste wise population data. This means that whether or not the new categories of OBC reservation do justice to demographic weights of sub-castes will remain in the realm of speculation. This will create a fertile ground for disputes among various sub-castes who could perceive the new formula as an effective reduction in reservations. There is another possibility, linked to the demand of conducting a caste census, which can create an even bigger challenge. If a caste census shows that the actual population share of communities which are eligible for reservations exceeds 49.5%, there may well be demands to do away with the 50% cap on reservations — which has, in any case, been breached in recent times. Both of these have the potential to create large-scale social unrest.

And finally, facing a backlash in the traditional green revolution belt of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh (UP), and after having performed badly in the local body polls in Punjab, the BJP has begun an outreach programme among Jats. The community supported the BJP in the 2014 and 2017 elections in UP.

In one such outreach event at Soram village of Muzaffarnagar, violence erupted between the supporters of Cabinet minister and the BJP’s important Jat leader, Sanjeev Balyan, and local residents. Earlier, farm protest leaders have issued calls for social boycott of BJP leaders and collective punishment for those who fail to comply with these diktats. Given the maximalist positions which the protesting farmers have taken, such altercations are likely to increase. And since the BJP enjoys power in Haryana and UP, the possibility of the landed elite in these regions seeing the State as an agent of persecution cannot be ruled out.

None of these implies that the BJP will suffer electorally. It has a solid social coalition and is pitted against an emaciated opposition. However, it is exactly this electoral hegemony of the BJP which can deepen the sense of persecution/betrayal among those who feel short-changed by the side effects of Hindutva 2.0 strategy the BJP has unleashed. India’s history tells us that failure to seek grievance redressal through elections can push social groups into pursuing other methods, not all of which have subscribed to laws of the land. The BJP’s political dominance may, paradoxically in some ways, deepen social divisions.

By Roshan Kishore

Source: Hindustan Times, 24/02/21

Rise of Hindutva has enabled a counter-revolution against Mandal’s gains

 Hindu nationalism is generally defined as an ethno-religious movement. But it may have as much to do with social factors as with identity markers, as its last phase of expansion has been primarily a reaction to Mandal. Soon after the then prime minister, V P Singh, announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, Organiser wrote of “an urgent need to build up moral and spiritual forces to counter any fallout from an expected Shudra revolution”. And when Mandal II happened, the same newspaper argued that the “Congress-led-UPA government at the Centre is bent upon destroying the last bastion of merit…”. After the BJP was defeated in 2004, and again in 2009, it became urgent to hone a strategy that would enable it to come to power and prevent the deepening of policies that went against its Hindu nationalist ideology and the interests of its base.

The brand of national-populism that Narendra Modi had initiated in Gujarat was the perfect alternative. It could transcend caste barriers in the name of an existential defence of Hindus against threatening Others (by resorting to polarisation techniques) and attract OBCs and even Dalits, not only because of the polarisation but also because of the plebeianisation of the BJP, which used to be identified with the upper castes until then. Modi himself came from a backward caste, had developed the chaiwala narrative and pretended that he had been victimised by the English-speaking establishment of Delhi — a feeling many OBCs shared. After all, many of them had started to emancipate themselves after Mandal, but they had not succeeded in joining the middle class. Modi could exploit their frustration — all the more so as he promised to apply the “Gujarat model” for creating jobs.

While the BJP already had the support of the urban, upper-caste middle class, Modi brought to the party the OBC plus vote. The percentage of OBCs who supported the party jumped from 22 per cent in 2009 to 34 per cent in 2014 and 44 per cent in 2019. These figures explain the rise to power of Modi’s BJP, and, correlatively — but paradoxically — the comeback of upper-caste politicians. In the Hindi belt, 45 per cent of the BJP MPs were upper caste in 2014 and 2019. This over-representation of the upper castes was reflected in the BJP’s ticket distribution. If one removes SC and ST candidates from the picture, 62 per cent of all general category MP candidates of the BJP in the Hindi belt were upper castes as against 37 per cent for all other parties’ combined. In the government that Modi formed in 2019, 47 per cent of the 55 ministers were from the upper castes, 13 per cent from the dominant castes (including Jats, Patels and Reddys), 20 per cent were OBCs, 11 per cent were SCs and 7 per cent from the STs (plus one Muslim and one Sikh).

Parallelly, the Modi government has transformed the reservation system. First, the erosion of the public sector has resulted in a steady decrease in the number of jobs reserved for SCs. At the same time, the number of civil service candidates shortlisted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) dropped by almost 40 per cent between 2014 and 2018, from 1,236 to 759. Second, the creation of a lateral entry in the Indian administration has diluted the quota system. Third, the introduction of a 10 per cent quota in 2019 for the economically weaker sections (EWS) has altered the standard definition of backwardness and de facto reserved such a quota to upper castes who were not that weak. (By setting an income limit of Rs 8,00,000 per annum to qualify under EWS, the government has made over 95 per cent of the upper castes eligible for this quota).

Besides, BJP leaders have started to eulogise the moral superiority of the upper caste in public. For instance, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, BJP leader from Rajasthan Om Birla, declared: “Brahmin community always works towards guiding all other communities… hence, Brahmins are held in high regard in society by the virtue of their birth.” BJP leaders have also displayed caste-based observances that reflected their belief in the notion of impurity. After Yogi Adityanath was elected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Hindu priests made elaborate arrangements for purifying rituals at the sprawling chief minister’s bungalow that had been previously occupied by Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Sangh Parivar attempted also to enforce the value system of the Hindu upper castes. While vigilante campaigns launched against “love jihad” targeted Muslims, lower castes have been collateral casualties. This is not new. Twenty years ago, when Babu Bajrangi, the Ahmedabad-based Bajrang Dal leader, “rescued” Patel girls who had eloped with Muslim or Dalit men, he made sure they would marry within their caste. Incidentally, Adityanath declared in 2014: “Muslims who want to become Hindus will be purified and we will form a new caste for them” — a clear illustration of the role of caste as a building block of society.

Similarly, “gau rakshaks” also attacked Dalits who did leather work. In 2016, in Una (Gujarat again), Dalit leather workers were accused of cow slaughter and beaten up by Hindu vigilantes while they were skinning a carcass. Vigilante groups played a similar role vis-à-vis the conversion of Hindu Dalits to another religion. The ghar wapasi movement also affected them. In 2018, for instance, Bajrang Dal activists in UP reportedly reconverted a young Dalit who had become a Muslim.

If vigilantes were doing it before, what is new is the passing of laws against conversion or the regulation of slaughterhouses. Once again, Dalits are at the receiving end. In Gujarat, those who want to convert to Buddhism need to get permission from the District Magistrate since 2003. Whether the same problem will result from the anti “love-jihad” ordinance in UP remains to be seen. But the inclinations of the state find expression not only in laws and ordinances but even in the conduct of the police. This evolution is well illustrated by the way Dalits have been singled out in the state’s action against so-called “urban Naxals”. While searching the houses of one of the accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, the police reportedly asked, “Why are there photos of Phule and Ambedkar in your house, but no photos of gods?’’ And to the accused’s daughter, they said: “Your husband is a Dalit, so he does not follow any tradition. But you are a Brahmin, so why are you not wearing any jewellery or sindoor? Why are you not dressed like a traditional wife?”.

The BJP’s rise to power may, therefore, result, not only in a post-Mandal counter-revolution that has enabled upper-caste politics and policies to stage a comeback but also in the promotion of some upper-caste orthopraxy and ethos via state vigilantism. The new dispensation exemplifies a style of control that is as much based on political power as on the enforcement of social order, something very much in tune with the RSS’s tradition.

This article first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2021, under the title “The return of upper-caste politics”. Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute, London

Source: Indian Express, 10/02/21

When fear leads to faith: The disease Gods of India

Resorting to faith in times of distress has been an inherent human reaction since the beginning of civilisation. In India worship of Goddess Hariti, Sitala, Ola Bibi has been prevalent to ward off diseases.

“I am worshipping the coronavirus as a goddess and doing daily pujas for the safety and well being of healthcare professionals, police personnel and scientists, who are toiling to discover a vaccine.” Anilan, a temple priest at Kadakkal in Kollam district of Kerala, gives the reason behind the ‘Corona devi’ idol he’s now offering daily prayers to. Faraway, in Biswanath district of northern Assam, a group of women recently assembled on the banks of a river to perform a puja to ‘Corona ma’, who they believe will destroy the virus that has killed thousands across the globe. Similar images of women offering prayers to Goddess ‘Corona mai’ have also emerged from Sindri and Bokaro in Jharkhand as well.

While these images from Kerala, Assam and Jharkhand have resulted in angry social media responses, resorting to faith in times of distress has been an inherent human reaction since the beginning of civilisation. The British polymath Bertrand Russell had in his famous lecture titled ‘Why I am not a Christian’ delivered in 1927 at London, expressed that “fear is the foundation of religion’.

“Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing—fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.”

One of the most common religious manifestations of fear is that of the snake God. “Throughout history, humans have had an uneasy relationship with serpents. Snakes are important in many religions including the Judeo-Christian tradition, Hinduism, Egyptian and Greek mythology, and Native American religions, among others. This prominence in so many religions may be the result of humans’ fear of snakes,” writes Jonathan W. Stanley in his research paper, ‘Snakes: Objects of Religion, Fear, and Myth’. In Indian religious tradition too, snakes are worshipped in different parts of the country in different ways.

Yet another example of fear giving rise to religion is that of the multitude of war deities. While Indra and Kartikeya have been associated with war in Hinduism, Mars was the God of War in ancient Roman religion, Ogun is the God of war in several African religions.

The fear of diseases and the resultant suffering, have also given rise to several religious manifestations. The first plague in human history, also known as the Justinian Plague in the sixth century CE, was seen as an act of angry Gods. “There is no single or predictable response to epidemic disease. Nor is it correct to assume that religious responses are always apocalyptic,” writes historian Duane J. Osheim in his research paper, ‘Religion and epidemic disease’. “It might be better to recognise that religion, like gender, class, or race, is a category of analysis. The religious response to epidemic disease may best be seen as a frame, a constantly shifting frame, subtly influencing illness and human responses to it,” he adds.

One of the earliest iconographic traditions we have of a Goddess being worshipped to ward off a disease is that of Hariti. Several statues of Hariti with her brood of children have been excavated from territories ruled by the Kushana dynasty in the early centuries in the Christian era. The Kushanas had inherited the Graeco-Buddhist religion from the Indo-Greek kingdom they replaced, which explains the popularity of Hariti in Buddhist tradition.

The first smallpox outbreak in the world is known to have been in the fifth century BCE in Europe. When it first occurred in India is hard to tell, but records of Chinese visitors to India I-Tsing and Xuanzang in the sixth and seventh century CE, shows the popularity of Hariti statues across every Buddhist monastery in the subcontinent. Given that smallpox was often considered to be a disease that primarily affected children, Hariti was worshipped for the overall wellbeing of children, childbirth, fertility, as well as for warding away diseases afflicting children.

However, scholars have remarked upon the fact that Hariti was introduced into Buddhist tradition from rural and tribal folklore wherein smallpox Goddesses were worshipped from much before. Historian Sree Padma, in her work, ‘Hariti: Village origins, Buddhist elaborations, and Saivite accommodations’, notes that Goddess Hariti had folk origins in Andhra Pradesh where she was known as Goddess Erukamma. “The Goddess of smallpox and other contagious diseases who are also regarded as guardian deities are ubiquitous in Andhra. The names of these smallpox Goddesses might vary from region to region. Some of these are called Mutyalamma, Pochamma, Peddamma, Nukalamma, Ankalamma etc.,” she writes. Padma goes on to explain that “some smallpox Goddesses are deified human women who died during their pregnancies or when delivering children. Devotees believed that the spirits of these women would bring destruction and death to their children unless they are approached with proper offerings and prayers.”

The folk Goddess was later incorporated into Buddhist tradition where she was revered for protection of children and fertility. Archaeological evidence shows that images of Hariti appeared during the period of Mahayana Buddhism between 150 BCE and 100 CE, and spread beyond the Indian subcontinent to be part of the Buddhist cultural world in central, east and south-east Asia.

Belgian priest and scholar of Buddhism Entienne Lamotte, in his 1988 book ‘History of Indian Buddhism’, notes that “she is still invoked in Nepal as the Goddess curing smallpox, and the monks are expected to ensure her daily nourishment”. He goes on to elaborate that images of Hariti are widespread, the most famous one being at a site in Peshawar. “She carries a standing child in her hand and two others on her shoulders; the plinth is engraved with an inscription, from the year 179 (or 139) of an unknown era, begging the Goddess to take smallpox away into the sky,” he notes.

Sitala: The cooling Goddess of Smallpox

By the 19th century, British physicians in India ranked smallpox among the most prevalent and destructive of all epidemic diseases. Historian David Arnold in his book, ‘Colonising the body: State medicine and epidemic diseases in nineteenth century India’ notes that “Smallpox accounted for several million deaths in the late nineteenth century alone, amounting on average to more than one hundred thousand fatal cases a year.”

Believed to be an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Durga, Sitala, or simply ‘mata’ (mother), was widely worshipped in the 19th century in Bengal and North India, as one who can cure smallpox. Anthropologist, Ralph W. Nicholas in his research paper, ‘The Goddess Śītalā and Epidemic Smallpox in Bengal’ observes that “there is no evidence of the Goddess of Smallpox before the tenth to twelfth centuries, and she appears to have attained her present special significance as goddess of the village in southwestern Bengal abruptly in the eighteenth century”.

Despite the fact that there were several other Goddesses of smallpox in 18th-19th century Indian folklore, Sitala seems to have enjoyed a special position. What is interesting is that while she was revered as a Goddess, Smallpox was believed to be a manifestation of her personality. “The burning fever and pustules that marked her entry into the body demanded ritual rather than therapeutic responses. To some Hindus, recourse to any form of prophylaxis or treatment was impious, likely to provoke the Goddess and further imperil the child in whose body she currently resided,” writes Arnold.

Sitala, meaning the ‘cool one’, was to be pacified with cooling substances such as curd, plantains, cold rice, and sweets. “Similarly, when an attack of smallpox occurred, cooling drinks were offered to the patients as the abode of the Goddess, and his or her feverish body was washed with cold water or soothed with the wetted leaves of the neem (or margosa), Shitala’s favourite tree,” explains Arnold.

It is fascinating to note that despite smallpox being eradicated from India in the 1970s, Sitala continues to hold a place of reverence in large parts of the country.

Ola chandi/bibi: The Cholera Goddess

Yet another deadly epidemic of 19th century India was Cholera. Even though references to Cholera occurs in ancient medical works of Hindus, Arabs, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans from the fourth century BCE, the disease acquired a whole new status in the nineteenth century, when a total of five Cholera pandemics claimed the lives of millions across the world.

Consequently, the ritualisation of Cholera is believed to have started after the pandemic of 1817. “Only in deltaic Bengal, is there known to have been worship of a specific Cholera deity, called Ola Bibi by Muslims, and Olai-Chandi by Hindus,” writes Arnod. He adds that “before 1817 the Goddess enjoyed far less popular devotion than Sitala, but she was thereafter extensively propitiated during the season when cholera was most prevalent.”

Reports by European missionaries mentioned in Arnold’s book suggests that reverence for the Goddess often manifested itself in young girls dressing up as Ola Bibi/ Chandi to receive her worship. Apart from Bengal, she is also worshipped in Rajasthan as the deity who saves her devotees from cholera, Few other deities invoked by the fear of diseases include Ghentu-debata, the God of skin diseases, and Raktabati, the Goddess of blood infections.

While resorting to religion has been a natural human response to fear, scientific intervention has started obliterating the same. As Russell noted in his lecture: “Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look round for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in.”

Further reading: 

Religion and epidemic disease by Duane J. Osheim

Hariti: Village Origins, Buddhist Elaborations and Saivite Accommodations by Sree Padma

History of Indian Buddhism by Etienne Lamotte

Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India by David Arnold

The Goddess Śītalā and Epidemic Smallpox in Bengal by Ralph W. Nicholasjaundice, diarrhea, and other stomach related diseases.

Source: Indian Express, 22/06/2020

In Good Faith: Hinduisms of India

The harsh religion of today is based on illiteracy of texts, is divisive.

During the Rajasthan assembly elections, a Congress candidate, C P Joshi, was singled out for a casteist public speech. Brahmin by birth, Joshi declared that the likes of Narendra Modi, Uma Bharati and Sadhvi Ritambhara, who came from castes traditionally considered “low”, had no right to speak about Hinduism. That prerogative, he suggested, squarely rested on the Brahmins who had the requisite knowledge. Had Joshi been aware of his community’s historical role before and during the British period, and expressed himself in a more nuanced manner, he could have avoided embarrassment to himself and his party.

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Brahmins formed an alliance with the British and derived great benefits, which continued into the decades immediately following Independence. But the numbers game, inescapable in a democracy, has increasingly pushed them to the margins.

Traditionally Brahmins, except in rare cases where the learned ones received land grants, depended on alms and honorariums for performing domestic rituals and occasional gifts from rich patrons. With the coming of the Europeans, Brahminical learning and their old manuscript pothis became internationally marketable commodities. Even before the British became a territorial power, Pandits agreed to go to the residence of Europeans to teach them Sanskrit for monetary considerations. Eventually, the very definition of mlechchha was changed to suit the times. Instead of being a despised barbarian, a mlechchha was now one who could not pronounce Sanskrit correctly. Post the Battle of Plassey, the new rulers hired Brahmins at high salaries, treated them with due respect, and patronised their institutions. Sanskrit was taken out of the preserve of the Brahmins, and Hindu sacred texts made their way to public libraries.

If the Brahmins opened the doors of Sanskrit learning to mlechchhas, they could not possibly have kept the erstwhile shudras out. In colonial Bengal, the old aristocracy was destroyed and its place taken by people from whom, traditionally, Brahmins would not even accept drinking water. They were selectively given a ritual upgrade so that Brahmins could accept gold from them. The biggest zamindar of colonial Bengal, Maharaja Nubkissen, was born a sonar-bania but successfully passed off as a kayastha. His adoptive grandson, Raja Radhakant Deb, emerged as the biggest Sanskrit scholar of the 19th century and a leading conservative leader of his time.

With a view to blunting the attack on Hinduism by the missionaries, Ram Mohan Roy (caste surname Bannerjee) met them more than half-way by arguing that the superstitious practices which deform the Hindu religion have nothing to do with the “spirit of its dictates”; and that the real or pure Hinduism was the one based on the Upanishads. In the late 1810s, while building the case for banning widow burning, he selectively enlisted the support of ancient rishis like Manu and Yajnavalkya, while condemning authorities such as Gotama. Similarly, a generation later, when Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (Bannerjee) campaigned for widow remarriage, his opponents far outnumbered supporters. The government did not go by head-count, but by Vidyasagar’s assertion that, “this custom is not in accordance with the Shastras, or with true Hindu law”. The roots of Hinduism were pushed further back to the Vedas themselves by Gujarat-born Swami Dayanand Saraswati, who gave them the status of revealed texts.

British patronage made Brahmins less rigid. In 1832, the appointment of Premchand Tarkabagish as a professor in Sanskrit College Calcutta was opposed by the highfalutin Brahmin professors and students on the ground that he was a Sudrayaji Brahmin (one who administered ritual to the low castes). Horace Hayman Wilson who oversaw the College imperiously told the objectors to leave if they so wished. Of course, nobody left.

In matters of social reform, most Brahmins were conservative, the Benares ones the more so than those from Bengal. The reform movements, however, were invariably led by Brahmins. The explanation may simply lie in the caste psychology. The Brahmins considered themselves the living repositories of tradition which they had a right to preserve, interpret and modify if need be. For the non-Brahmins (such as Radhakant Deb), tradition was a fossil that had come their way and which needed to be preserved as it was.

The 19th century, solutions to contemporary problems had to be justified by selectively quoting ancient scriptures. Hinduism in actual practice was brought to the centrestage by Mahatma Gandhi when he set out to make the nationalist movement mass-based.

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Gandhi first spoke of Ram Rajya on May 8, 1915, in the context of the Ramayana. In 1920, he contrasts the British Rakshas Raj with Ram Rajya, describes himself as a Sanatani and a Vaishnav, and quotes Tulsidas and the Gita. However, by 1929, he is ready to make his Ram Rajya secular: “By Ramarajya I do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramarajya Divine Raj, the Kingdom of God. For me Rama and Rahim are one and the same deity.” It is remarkable that Gandhi takes a term from a popular Hindu epic and tries to develop it to serve a secular purpose.

Jawaharlal Nehru was rather fond of being addressed as Pandit. And yet, he formulated and propagated irreligious secularism. This was laid to rest by Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s soft Hinduism. Concerted moves are now afoot to bring in its place a harsh Hinduism. This new formulation does not distinguish between sense and nonsense and does not know how to reconcile Puranic and archival Hinduisms.

From Rammohun and Radhakant Deb to Gita Press, the activists at least read the texts and sought to employ them to serve their purpose. The harsh Hinduism of today is based on illiteracy, and is unhistorical, divisive and hateful.

Source: Indian Express, 11/02/2019

Religion vs religious nationalism

The starting point for anti-Hindutva politics must be the distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva. Else, it’s doomed

Any rigid secular approach, unrestrained by considerations of electoral politics, could only lead to disapproval of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s demonstration of his religious faith and his characterisation of the Congress as a “party of Hinduism”. His approach has been widely termed “soft Hindutva”, and as an attempt to compete with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its game. Those who deride Hindutva and those who swear by it both consider Mr. Gandhi a poor imitator of it. Centrist politics by definition is vulnerable to criticism from radical perspectives of different hues — for instance, Marxist M.N. Roy, Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar and Hindutva proponent, and later his assassin, Nathuram Godse, were all critical of Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of Hinduism. What is worth a closer analysis in the current context is the suggestion that the invocation of Hindu symbols for electoral gains is Hindutva, albeit a softer version.

A clear trajectory

Mainstream Indian nationalism and Hindu nationalism shared a range of symbols and personalities during their formative decades, and distinguishing one from the other can appear a challenging task often. Consolidation of the Hindu society was a preoccupation of several reformists and leaders of the struggle for independence, who were not linked to Hindutva. In a classic essay written in the 1990s, at the peak of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, historian Sumit Sarkar marked the stages of the evolution of Hindu nationalism in two distinct phases: first from the use of the word Hindu as a geographical marker to ‘Hinduism’, an attempt to codify the cultural and religious practices, and then to Hindutva. Swami Vivekananda was the seer of the first shift. “Of the Swami’s address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when he began to speak it was of the religious ideas of the Hindus but when he ended, Hinduism had been created,” wrote Sister Nivedita, the Swami’s closest disciple. Three decades later Veer Savarkar, who invented Hindutva, did not merely seek to unify Hindus, but tried to achieve it by imagining the other as those who do not consider India their sacred land. While secular nationalism’s adversarial image was imperialism, the edge in Savarkar’s Hindutva was against Muslims and Christians. Vivekananda’s Hinduism had no enemy figure.

The political rise of Hindutva has been directly proportionate to the success of its proponents’ attempts to equate itself with Hinduism.

The Gandhi-Nehru way

For Gandhi, Hinduism was the essence of his existence, but even the avowedly secular Jawaharlal Nehru was not dismissive of faith and tradition. The Discovery of India draws from sacred texts and beliefs; “though I have discarded much of past tradition and custom… yet I do not wish to cut myself off from that past completely,” he wrote in his will, asking for some of his ashes to be immersed in the Ganga.

The vertical rise and the horizontal spread of Hindutva challenge its opponents to devise new political idioms. A puritan view is that Hindutva can be challenged only with an unyielding secular paradigm, devoid of Hindu symbols. Those leaders and parties that are directly involved in electoral politics are more conflicted on these questions than those who have the convenience of a quarantined approach. In the early 2000s, when critics began to use the neologism saffronisation to describe the A.B. Vajpayee government’s policies that advanced Hindutva, within the Congress there was a debate on the wisdom of it. A.K. Antony and Digvijay Singh vehemently opposed the expression, arguing that it amounted to legitimising the Hindutva agenda given the cultural association of the colour saffron with sacrifice and renunciation. The Congress discontinued use of the word.

Other parties too have used Hindu symbolism and terminology. Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad, whose mastery of electoral politics broke the Hindutva momentum in Bihar, connects his community to Lord Krishna. “Haathi nahin Ganesh hai, Brahma Vishnu Mahesh hai (this is not merely an elephant, but is Lord Ganesh; and Brahma Vishnu Mahesh)” was the Bahujan Samaj Party’s 2005 slogan referencing its election symbol, the elephant. Groups associated with the Communists Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala recently organised events around Ramayana month. “The Sangh has created a particulate image of Ram, that a majority of the faithful do not relate to,” said V. Sivadasan, CPI(M) State committee member, who was closely associated with the programme. “Given this context, it is the duty of the secularists to come in support of the believers who understand Ram different from the way the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) tries to make him. All secular people have this responsibility to help protect the plurality of faith that exists among religious people.”

Whether or not these attempts add up to a robust and credible challenge to Hindutva is an open question. However, the notion of ‘soft Hindutva’ is detrimental to anti-Hindutva polemics and mobilisation.

For one, it ignores the tactical components of electoral politics, which the moralist might dismiss as opportunism, for good reasons. What is more critical is that the notion of expressive faith as ‘soft Hindutva’ is an inadvertent endorsement of the Hindutva claim that it is equivalent to Hinduism. The proponents of Hindutva also acknowledge the existence of ‘hard’ and ‘fringe’ elements within its fold. Categories of soft and hard, being relative terms, trick moderates and offer an alibi to opportunists to side with the softer versions — Vajpayee against L.K. Advani, Mr. Advani against Narendra Modi, and who knows, perhaps Mr. Modi against Yogi Adityanath in the future?

Any equivalence between Hinduism and Hindutva, conversely, is taken to mean that any criticism of Hindutva is an attack on Hinduism. That one could be accused of being anti-Hinduism for questioning the logic of building a temple on the site of a destroyed mosque at Ayodhya draws from the logical premise of likening Hinduism to Hindutva. To take another example, the Hindu American Foundation claimed recently that even the questioning of ‘Brahminical patriarchy’ is a an act of Hindu-phobia.

To Hindutva’s advantage?

And most consequentially, any polemical negation of the wall between Hinduism and Hindutva makes the transition from the first to the second easier. It could even encourage believers to consider Hindutva their natural political abode, if they sense hostility in the anti-Hindutva camp. If non-Hindutva platforms expect temple-goers to explain their conduct, that is not an enticing recruitment pitch. The fact is that there are numerous people who visit temples and even believe in vastu, astrology, tantra, etc. while still being secular in a political and public context.

The only politics that benefits from associating Hinduism to Hindutva is Hindutva. The practice of Hinduism, even when it is exhibitionist and for political ends, is not Hindutva — soft or hard. Hindutva stands out for its conceptual clarity, leaving little scope for a spectrum within it. A manifesto for any durable anti-Hindutva politics is still a long way away, but its singular starting point is an assertion of the distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva. Anything else is doomed.

varghese.g@thehindu.co.in

Source: The Hindu, 3/01/2019

Belief without truth

Religion and superstition are mirror images. Superstition can, therefore, pass for religion, especially when the people know only rituals and practices — all priestly inventions — and are ignorant of the ethical and philosophical principles embedded in scriptures.

In an age of religious decadence, when godliness departs from popular outlook, there will be innumerable discussions about religious issues. In such exercises, considerable time and effort is wasted in disputing minute physical details of issues: Spiritual principles and norms will find no mention. So much has been said about Sabarimala. But the question remains: How and why has a temple become a spot of social turmoil? Why is it that people fail to reckon even obvious and familiar truths?

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The purpose of religion is to ennoble human beings so that they transcend selfishness and pettiness and live together in harmony and kinship. True religion, or spirituality, is the foremost resource we have for liberating individuals from their narrow-mindedness and aggressive pursuit of self-interest at the cost of social harmony and individual integrity. Yet, popular religiosity of all kinds lends itself increasingly to the very opposite. Why?

It is customary to damn religion per se. This is simplistic, and illogical. If religion or what is assumed to be belief is making human beings behave worse than beasts, it only means that what they practice is not religion, but something else. The danger is that this “something else” resembles religion and, to that extent, disarms discernment at the popular level.

Religion and superstition are mirror images. Superstition can, therefore, pass for religion, especially when the people know only rituals and practices — all priestly inventions — and are ignorant of the ethical and philosophical principles embedded in scriptures. Superstition is to religion what carbon monoxide is to oxygen. Both resemble each other insofar as they are colourless and odourless. But one sustains life, while the other destroys it.

The mayhem unleashed by vested interests in Sabarimala is being legitimised as solidarity with “believers”. To believe, per se, is nothing. I may believe ardently in a set of superstitions. That wouldn’t make me a believer. It would make me only an obscurantist. I may believe passionately that those who practice a religion different to mine are infidels. But that would only make me a bigot. This is because what I believe has no bearing on truth. Belief without truth is not only useless, it is positively dangerous. It is this sort of belief that is being politically promoted today.

While Christianity identifies God with love and Buddhism with compassion, the Vedic faith identifies God with truth. Gandhiji went a step further. He said: “Truth is God.” To compromise truth ever so little in respect of God is to be atheistic. Maintaining the appearance of being a believer doesn’t help.

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Superstition is the most dangerous manifestation of untruth in religion. Superstitions are dangerous because they resemble articles of belief. Superstition is, in other words, deceptively religious. It passes for religion, but corrupts the very soul of religion. It stands to reason, therefore, that wherever superstition sways popular religiosity, the “believers” remain woefully vulnerable to manipulation by unscrupulous elements out to exploit people’s religiosity for ulterior motives.

Sabarimala has, over the years, succumbed to an avalanche of superstitions. For illustrative purposes, consider the following. It is ridiculously irrational and superstitious to assume that God, who is omnipresent, is confined to a particular spot. God cannot be partial to Sabarimala or to any mountain. Partiality is a human weakness, and it is scandalous to taint God with it. Secondly, it is a puerile superstition that God’s celibacy — if there is such a thing at all — can be threatened by women’s biological conditions, when it is God himself who ordained these conditions. Third, it is stupid to think that a tantri, or any priest or pope, has any special equation with God. Most priests, including tantris, are spiritually inferior to ordinary people. If they pretend to be otherwise, they are hypocrites and there is no truth in them. Fourth, it is shameful to spread and sustain the canard that by visiting this temple or that human beings can snatch special favours from God! It is even more superstitious to deceive people into believing that one temple is more potent for this purpose than another.

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There is nothing in the literature pertaining to Lord Ayyappa that supports the superstitions surrounding Sabarimala. Yet, they flourish, and more and more people are seduced by it. This superstition-driven swelling of misguided masses awakens the covetousness of opportunistic politicians. If the annual attendance at Sabarimala were less than a thousand, no political party would have shown any interest and there would have been peace in the shrine.

The pattern at work here needs to be grasped. Superstition fuels popular fervour. This swells the crowds. Crowds attract politicians like vultures to corpses. Politicians reach these sites because irrational religiosity robs individuals of the capacity to think. These “believers” can, hence, be led by the nose. God is sidelined. Naked commercial and mercenary interests install themselves in the vacuum. Being an unnatural state, this breeds conflicts and upheavals. True believers suffer. They, unlike those blinded by superstition, are spiritually sensitive. They discern the abomination shrouding the sanctuary of the sacred. They are anguished, whereas the slaves of superstition get possessed by the hysteria of the political drama.

The message emanating from Sabarimala is the need for the society to wake up to the danger of superstition corrupting religion and religion, as a result, becoming a sanctuary of the unscrupulous.

The writer is a Vedic scholar and social activist

Source: Indian Express, 20/12/2018