Communalism in India

Through SACW, I caught a link to a long Pankaj Mishra piece on the origins of
"Hinduism" in Axess, a Swedish magazine of the "liberal arts and social sciences."
Mishra's piece appeared in an issue a couple of months back called India Unleashed. The
same issue has an essay by Subash Agarwal, who also has a more recent piece written in
the wake of the Indian elections (results that disappointed him).

Mishra has written on the subject of the misuse of "Hinduism" several times
before. You can find a Feb. 2002 article from the New York Times here. And then an
April 2002 a two-part piece on the same topic, this time for the Guardian. He also wrote a
piece for the Boston Globe in December 2002 on the same topic (no longer online). And
then a Feb 2003 piece for the New York Times Magazine (via SACW), on the
anniversary of the assasination of Mohandas K. Gandhi.

These various essays use some of the same material over and over again. Most
have one or two immediate anecdotes and first-hand interviews, while relying heavily on
accounts of the history of the RSS, V.D. Savarkar, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar,
Nathuram Godse, a small host of familiar suspects. Most essays also place the movement
to take down the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya at the center of the current history of the
Hindu right. Ayodhya casts the longest shadow for Mishra: one finds explanations of
Ayodhya even in the pieces written in the wake of the February-March 2002 riots in and
around Ahmedabad, Gujurat.

Don't get me wrong -- this is all good work. Mishra is performing a valuable
function in educating western readers about the history and current status of
communalism. But it gets a little repetitive. I'd been longing to see him approach the
communal question somewhat more deeply, or with a fresh perspective.

The most recent piece (in Axess) partially fills this demand; it has some surprises
in it even as it also rehashes. Most importantly, perhaps, Mishra writes approvingly of
people like the poet Mohammad Iqbal (one of the patron saints of Pakistan), Swami
Vivekananda (one of the sources of inspiration for the Indian nationalist movement), and
Angarika Dharampala (a major figure in the Buddhist-Sinhala nationalist movement in
Sri Lanka). All were roughly contemporaneous -- they were active in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. Both Vivekananda and Dharmapala made a big splash at the World
Parliament of Religions in 1893. Most importantly, however, all were reformers and
modernizers. In Mishra's interpretation of Vivekananda in particular, the emphasis is on
the inspiration taken from the west, not on the personal connection to Hindu spirituality.
Mishra posits a divergence between Vivekananda's approach to worldly sprituality and
his master's (Ramakrishna's) inward-looking mysticism. For Mishra, Vivekananda's
desire to indigenize western civilization was secondary.

This contradicts what some other recent critics have said about Vivekananda
(most notably Meera Nanda, who is directly hostile to both Vivekananda and Gandhi).
 Are religious reformers who develop a modernized theological language to be
placed in the camp with the modernizers and secularizers, or are they in fact mainly
motivated by strong, primoridal religious feeling, which they merely market with modern
trappings? Mishra puts them in the former camp; critics like Nanda place them in the
latter.

But this is a manichean question, which overlooks the possibility of situating

reformers in between the religious and secular viewpoints. People like Vivekananda and
Dharampala are secularizers, but specifically within their respective religious
communities. By ignoring this middle-ground, I think Mishra oversimplifies the history
of religious reform movements in South Asia. He makes this oversimplification for a
good reason -- he wants to show that the stories told by the Hindutva advocates today
about the history of the concept of "Hinduism" are on very thin ice. But the
oversimplification leads to a somewhat patchy history.

The article in Axess is to convince readers that Hinduism is an artificial construct

of the British imperialists along with a few Brahmins. I am surprised you did not
emphasize that, although the heading of the article makes it amply clear. Even though his
Hindu and India bashing is nothing new, this time along with Hindu bashing he comes
with this new Eurocentric theory. Accordingly all progress is linear and it comes from
The West, including Hinduism. However this entire essay is based on half truths,
omissions and plain incorrect statements.“British scholars and their Brahman interpreters
came up with a canon of sorts, mostly Brahmanical literature and ideology, which they
began to identify with a single Hindu religion"

"Brahman interpreters" ? There is no such thing as a Brahman interpreter,

Brahman is Pure Consciousness perhaps he means Brahmin, but rest of the article
contains serveral instances of "Brahman collaborators", "These Brahmans" and so forth.
Author seems completely ignorant, incapable of differentiating between Brahman and
Brahmin. Left unsaid is what Brahmanical literature is and what is not.
"He [Vivekananda] set up a monastic order devoted to social service and to reforming
Hinduism which he saw as a decadent religion. ... he died young, at thirty-nine.Nothing
much could come out of what was mostly well-intentioned rhetoric"

Swami Vivekananda never considered Hinduism as a decadant religion. He had

the highest regard for the Hindu spirituality and philosophy and remained a staunch
Hindu observing Hindu traditions of fasting, worship of Goddess(Mother Kali) and so on,
till he attained Samadhi. In his short life Vivekananda made Hinduism or Sanatana
Dharam which was under vicious assault of the missionaries, intellectually respectable.
He continued his Master Sri Ramakrishna's work of Hindu revival which influenced
luminaries like Subhas Chandra Bose. His own Ramakrishna mission is still doing
impeccable work. It is upto Mr Mishra to explain why nothing came out of Swami
Vivekananda's endeavors.
 Again no examples of what he borrowed from "British-constructed Hinduism and
European realpolitik" which was not part of traditional Hindu philosophy, which
encompasses six major philosophies(Sankhya, Nyaya, Yoga, Vaisheshika, Purva mimsa,
Uttara mimansa). Just because William Jones is hailed as Justian of India by the
colonizers does not make him one. Jones translated a small portion of sanskrit texts. And
Vivekananda was a learned scholar of Sanskrit and Panini. He read the originals and not
the translated versions. He was an original thinker and exhorted his disciples to make
original reflections and commentaries on Shastras.

Instead of super imposing his own jaundiced view Mr Mishra should look at a life
well lived. All through his short life Sri Ramakrishna was tirelessly working, teaching his
disciples inspiring a vast array of people including luminaries of Indian Independence
movement like Eshwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bakim Chandra Chatopadhaya on one end
of the spectrum to members of Brahma Samaj including Keshab Chandra Sen. Among his
own disciples, Gauri Ma opened a women's school , Surendranath opened a college in
Calcutta. Vivekananda started Ramakrishna missions in India, U.S and Europe.
Vivekananda always had the highest regard for his Master and never distanced himself
from his Guru. Vivekananda claimed that he is doing his Guru work and that he is the
instrument of his Guru. There is no reason why one should disregard Vivekananda's own
words regarding his Guru. Judging from the results Ramakrishna engaged the secular
world quite vigorously.

This entire essay starts with unsubstantiated statements and then goes on to make
outrageous conclusions like India is headed "for intellectually and spiritually oppressive
times" as Vivekananda's prominence grows. Vivekananda was for plurality and against
homogenizing of the world, full of compassion for the downtroden. So, If Indian middle
class follows his ideals India would modernize at the same time maintain its spirituality,
not westernize. It is Mr Mishra who is throughly confused and ignorant, Vivekananda
never proposed an alliance between Indian Elite and modern west nor was he enarmored
by the later. His interpretation of Vivekanada is certainly not based on facts.

When Mr Mishra comes up a radical new thesis about Hinduism, onus is on him to atleast
get his facts correct.The Author is incapable of differentiating Brahman and Brahmin
comes up with unsubstantiated facts and with some pretzel logic concorts grandiose
theories about Hinduism. Being annointed columnist of NYT does not absovle him of the
need to get his facts straight. His thesis has no basis nor did he make a case for it.

I recently read Pankaj Mishra's book on his travels and insights "How to be Modern:
Travels in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan".
I found the book very interesting to read. His style of writing remids me an article by
Bernard Henry Levy that appeared
in The Atlsmtic Monthly. Mishra intersperses his observation of everyday life with
deeper insights.
 How the hindu intellectuals pressed for Western education while the muslim elite
did notpush for it, in some cases, even opposed it. The use of communal politics by
"secular" congress politicians kind of laid the foundation for the fundamentilsts to rise.
At times he does come across as a cynic, as he does not spare anyone.
His expose of Indira Gandhi deconstructs the myth of Indira Gandhi as "mother India".
Instead, the picture he paints is of a vain insecure daughter of Nehru, always in his
shadow. How she misused her power and even let her son, Sanjay, misuse it.
Her resortiong to communal politics actually gave a big boost to the the eventual rise of
the sangh parivar.
His cynic's gaze does not fall hard on people he percieves as oppressed.
Lower caste, muslims, and even poor brahmins. In the end he correlates the hopelessness
of educated youth, the lack of opportunity leading to desperate measures.
This leads to them joining radical cuases. He underlines this common thread when he
analyses societies in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal.
According to him, it is the insecurity and anxiety faced by the emerging middle class
that leads them to support draconian measures. Hence their support for militarisation
of kashmir, north east, punjab etc. How the BJP exploits this angst by propagating
the image of muslims as anti national and a threat to peace and security.
In his chapter on Ayodhya, he reveals that the earlier nawabs of awadh, as the area was
known before the British,
had a policy of non interference in religious disputes between hindus and muslims.
That the actual feud had been between followers of Shiva vs those of Ram.

There is a chapter about the massacre of sikhs in Chattisinghpura in kashmir.

He reveals how the security forces, who enjoy almost total impunity, picked up
innocent mulsims and killed them, blaming the massacre on them. No inquiry has been
held on this incident, like many others. All justified under "national security".
Around this incident, he traces the historical roots of the kashmir conflict.
He reveals how the rulers under Ranjit Singh and Hari SIngh had been very
unjust to the muslims in kashmir. It was like a mirror image of Aurangzeb's reign,
something we would not find in history text books in India. And subsequent Indian
regime's interference with kashmiri politics and elections led to disillusionment with
India in general.

His travels take him to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He connects the common thread
about the disillusionment of youth with the system for resorting to radical causes.
Of course there are global forces that are ready to exploit the situation to their advantage.
He does make a distinction between the attitudes of muslim and hindu fundamentalists.
He points out the irony that the muslim fundamentalists had inherited the anti western
attitudes of the indian nationalists, while the hindu fundamentalists were happy to
find a niche in the western scheme of things.
 I remember reading somewhere about the nature of nationalist and pseudo fascist
movements having a pyramidal hierarchy. Meaning a few people aggrandize power and
wealth in the name of some ideology. Mishra observes this in Pakistan and India with
Muslim and hindu fundamentalists respectively. How an ex ISI general, now discredited,
lived in opulent splendour compared to the common person.

In Nepal it is the maoists who are challanging the monarchists. Here again it was
disillusionment with a corrupt democratic system that lead the maoists to take up arms.
Althoug he does not seem to be forgiving to the maoists either.
It is the last chapter on tibet where his ambivalence comes thru about what form should
resistance take. He seems rather impressed by the non violent methods of the tibetans,
lead by the Dalai Lama.This in the face of brutal suppression of the chinese govt. He has
kind words for Dalai Lama's compromising attitude to his chinese oppressors, noting that
it is better than the nihilistic approach adopted in other societies. For, if matters are
resolved eventually, there is a blueprint for a better society.