- How Hindutva evolved as Hinduism’s response to modernity
By: Dr Rajinder Kumar
Hinduism is a tolerant, accommodative, eclectic and inclusive way of life. Hindutva is an intolerant and chauvinistic caricature of the great tradition it seeks to upsurge. Originally portrayed by Vir Savarkar, the old Hindutva project of creating a ‘Hindu Sangathan’ took recent shape in seeking to create a hot-house unity around a single book and church. It provides further impetus to ‘Hindu consolidation’ on the one hand and defines the Muslim once more not just as another Indian but as ‘the other’. It appeals directly to one’s emotions. Its ideology is full of fire and brimstone. Its slogans hit us in the solar plexus. It dredges tribal memories and clothes them in the garb of patriotism. While all the time railing against jehadis, it wages a ceaseless jehad of its own. It has created a heady cocktail of history, myth and religion, and flaunts it as ‘cultural nationalism’. The notion has emerged from the dilemmas of the interpretation of India’s civilization as a multinational ‘nation’ or perhaps a multinational ‘country’. When analysed further the notion of ‘country’ is distinct from ‘nation’. Practically in political terms, ‘country’ turns out to be no different from ‘nation’.
Dimensions of Hinduism: To equate Hindutva with Bharatiyata is to create an avoidable semantic and conceptual confusion. Hinduism is one of the great religions of the world, and to seek to confine it to India or to give it an exclusivist and majoritarian interpretation is to do it a disservice. It is certainly true that Hinduism has provided the broad cultural and religious framework that has held India together despite its astonishing linguistic, ethnic and political diversity and divisions. Hinduism is as essential for an understanding of Indian culture and civilization as Islam is for the Arab World and Roman Catholicism for Latin America. Hence, all Indians are not Hindus and all Hindus are not Indians. There are millions of Hindus living around the world who, while certainly having special regard for India as their spiritual motherland, are yet loyal and patriotic citizens of their respective countries. Three other world religions– Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism– were born here, while four religions– Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam– came to us from West Asia and also flourished here. Along with the Baha’i faith as well as some new Buddhist sects, they represent a rich, pluralistic religious mosaic that needs to be carefully nurtured.
A possible solution to this dilemma on the part of Hindu majority in India is to follow the theocratic lead, which need to restore inner spiritual integrity, not only among the middle class, but also for the urban poor. This appeal was noted prominently in Farhang’s analysis of Khomeini’s victory in the Iranian revolution. The power of such fundamentalism, which aims to restore or revive inner spiritual integrity, would result in political balkanisation and the dreams of both Nehru and Gandhi would have died. In Nehru’s fine phrase, India will no longer be India
In terms of India, Nehru defines ‘unity in diversity’, the essence of Indian history, is the ideological basis of this position. This ‘unity of diversity’ is not the same as the Hindutva (Hinduness) as a Hindu state, but is only a liberal assimilationist view of the same Indian nation as the product of an Indian culture that was identified as Hindu culture. This liberal interpretation of Nehru extends to ‘secular’ and can identify Shivaji as the symbol of ‘a resurgent Hindu nationalism’. Nationalism as pointed by Benedict Anderson, has to be related to ‘the large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which– as well as against which – it came into being’. Out of fragmentation of the old sacred community arose the nations of Europe. But in India’s case the unity of India or unity in diversity is a civilizational unity as Rabinder Kumar puts it, ‘the political identity of the Republic of India should be in terms of a ‘civilization-state’ rather than a nation state’. To quote one analyst ‘We need to remember that the essential identity of India is cultural, not political or economic. It is one civilization that has withstood various vicissitudes and still endured, largely because of its basic identity being cultural. It never had a political centre except very recently. The basis of this Indian culture has been defined as the upper caste Hindu culture of the Hindi belt. Although it may be called Ram Rajya, but it is not a revivalism that seeks to bring back some values of the past. Rather, this is a use of the past to define something new–a uniform, homogeneous national culture centered on the cultural tradition of Bharatvarsha and Aryavarta.’
Nehru’s explanation of new India: The base of Indian culture, and cultural continuity, as noted by Nehru, had been rooted in three major social forces. Caste, the autonomous village and the joint family. But in new India, urbanisation, modernisation and democratisation gradually erode them all. Here lies Nehru’s dilemma, and in an effort to find the ‘binding ingredient’ of the India he spoke of India as a ‘sentiment’ which went far back into the remote periods of Indian history. He also spoke of it as a conflict between two approaches to the problem of social organisation, which are diametrically opposed to each other; the old Hindu conception of the group being the basic unit of organisation and the excessive individualism of the West, emphasising the individual above the group. As a possible solution, Nehru suggested, must be a melding of these two with religion, philosophy and science interrelated. ‘We can never forget the ideals that have moved our race, the dreams of the Indian people through the ages, the wisdom of the ancient, the buoyant energy and love of life and nature of our forefathers… We will never forget them or cease to take pride in that noble heritage of ours. However, this melding of ideas was partly success because all-India institutions– the Government of India, the army, the universities, large corporations and the like over time engender an accommodation of values which help to shape a new national consciousness.’ In the early years of independence this experience of national consciousness was limited to the leadership class. The public life of this new middle class tends towards modern values of individualism and scientific thought because these pan-Indian institutions are modern. In their private lines and familial relations, these same people tend to maintain many of their old religious and philosophical instincts, values and persuasions.
Still confusion continues: The prevalent dualism continued in the new middle class and as its urban section became more modern, it was further removed from the rural life of the masses of Indian villagers. At the same time arose their personal and spiritual problems which left them alienated from themselves. They are not at home. Having two sets of values and living in two different worlds is at best discomfiting. Granted, life under the British Raj made many a middle class Indian adept at living in two worlds. As Nirad Chaudhuri put it, “one cannot be at home in the new India without finally being at home with oneself.” One possible solution to this dilemma on the part of Hindu majority in India is to follow the theocratic lead, which need to restore inner spiritual integrity, not only among the middle class, but also for the urban poor. This appeal was noted prominently in Farhang’s analysis of Khomeini’s victory in the Iranian revolution. The power of such fundamentalism, which aims to restore or revive inner spiritual integrity, would result in political balkanisation and the dreams of both Nehru and Gandhi would have died. In Nehru’s fine phrase, India will no longer be India.
The author is head of the Political Science at BNMU, Saharsa, Bihar, India. He can be reached at [email protected]
