12-05-2006, 10:40 PM
Looking for a Hindu Identity
Dwijendra Narayan Jha
I
am deeply beholden to the Executive Committee of the Indian
History Congress for electing me its General President for its 66
th
session. In all humility I accept the honour conferred on me, but,
conscious as I am of my limitations, I treat it as encouragement to
one who has been involved in the ongoing battle against jingoist,
communal and obscurantist perceptions of India's past. I therefore
propose to draw your attention, first, to the distorted notion that
Indian national identity can be traced to hoary antiquity, and then
to the false stereotypes about Hinduism which have no basis in
history and yet feed Hindu cultural nationalism.
I
The quest for India's national identity through the route of Hindu
religious nationalism began in the nineteenth century and has
continued ever since. In recent years, however, it has received an
unprecedented boost from those communal forces which brought a
virulent version of Hindu cultural chauvinism to the centre stage of
contemporary politics and produced a warped perception of India's
past. This is evident from the indigenist propaganda writings which
support the myth of Aryan autochthony, demonise Muslims and
Christians, and propagate the idea that India and Hinduism are
eternal. In an effort to prove the indigenous origin of Indian culture
and civilisation it has been argued, though vacuously, that the
people who composed the Vedas called themselves Aryans and were
I am thankful to K.M. Shrimali for his considered comments on my original
text, to Mukul Dube for editorial help, and to Malavika, Sabita, Manisha,
Narottam, Mihir and Shankar for bibliographical assistance. _____+
3
the communal lexicon!) civilisation is older than all others and was
therefore free from any possible contamination in its early formative
phase.
In this historiographical format India, i.e., Bhrata, is timeless.
The first man was born here. Its people were the authors of the first
human civilisation, the Vedic, which is the same as the Indus-
Saraswat. The authors of this civilisation had reached the highest
peak of achievement in both the arts and the sciences, and they
were conscious of belonging to the Indian nation, which has existed
eternally. This obsession with the antiquity of the Indian identity,
civilisation and nationalism has justifiably prompted several scho-
lars, in recent years, to study and analyse the development of the
idea of India.
5
Most of them have rightly argued that India as a
country evolved over a long period, that the formation of its identity
had much to do with the perceptions of the people who migrated
into the subcontinent at different times, and that Indian nationalism
developed mostly as a response to Western imperialism. But not all
of them have succeeded in rising above the tendency to trace Indian
national identity back to ancient times. For instance, a respected
historian of ancient India tells us that "the inhabitants of the
subcontinent were considered by the Purnic authors as forming a
nation" and "could be called by a common name--Bhrat".
6
Asser-
tions like this are very close to the Hindu jingoism which attributes
all major modern cultural, scientific and political developments,
including the idea of nationalism, to the ancient Indians. Although
their detailed refutation may amount to a rechauffe of what has
already been written on the historical development of the idea of
India, I propose to argue against the fantastic antiquity assigned to
Bhrata and Hinduism, as well as against the historically invalid
stereotypes about the latter, and thus to show the hollowness of the
ideas which have been the staple diet of the monster of Hindu
cultural nationalism in recent years.
5
http://www.sacw.net/India_History/dnj_Jan06.pdf
Dwijendra Narayan Jha
I
am deeply beholden to the Executive Committee of the Indian
History Congress for electing me its General President for its 66
th
session. In all humility I accept the honour conferred on me, but,
conscious as I am of my limitations, I treat it as encouragement to
one who has been involved in the ongoing battle against jingoist,
communal and obscurantist perceptions of India's past. I therefore
propose to draw your attention, first, to the distorted notion that
Indian national identity can be traced to hoary antiquity, and then
to the false stereotypes about Hinduism which have no basis in
history and yet feed Hindu cultural nationalism.
I
The quest for India's national identity through the route of Hindu
religious nationalism began in the nineteenth century and has
continued ever since. In recent years, however, it has received an
unprecedented boost from those communal forces which brought a
virulent version of Hindu cultural chauvinism to the centre stage of
contemporary politics and produced a warped perception of India's
past. This is evident from the indigenist propaganda writings which
support the myth of Aryan autochthony, demonise Muslims and
Christians, and propagate the idea that India and Hinduism are
eternal. In an effort to prove the indigenous origin of Indian culture
and civilisation it has been argued, though vacuously, that the
people who composed the Vedas called themselves Aryans and were
I am thankful to K.M. Shrimali for his considered comments on my original
text, to Mukul Dube for editorial help, and to Malavika, Sabita, Manisha,
Narottam, Mihir and Shankar for bibliographical assistance. _____+
3
the communal lexicon!) civilisation is older than all others and was
therefore free from any possible contamination in its early formative
phase.
In this historiographical format India, i.e., Bhrata, is timeless.
The first man was born here. Its people were the authors of the first
human civilisation, the Vedic, which is the same as the Indus-
Saraswat. The authors of this civilisation had reached the highest
peak of achievement in both the arts and the sciences, and they
were conscious of belonging to the Indian nation, which has existed
eternally. This obsession with the antiquity of the Indian identity,
civilisation and nationalism has justifiably prompted several scho-
lars, in recent years, to study and analyse the development of the
idea of India.
5
Most of them have rightly argued that India as a
country evolved over a long period, that the formation of its identity
had much to do with the perceptions of the people who migrated
into the subcontinent at different times, and that Indian nationalism
developed mostly as a response to Western imperialism. But not all
of them have succeeded in rising above the tendency to trace Indian
national identity back to ancient times. For instance, a respected
historian of ancient India tells us that "the inhabitants of the
subcontinent were considered by the Purnic authors as forming a
nation" and "could be called by a common name--Bhrat".
6
Asser-
tions like this are very close to the Hindu jingoism which attributes
all major modern cultural, scientific and political developments,
including the idea of nationalism, to the ancient Indians. Although
their detailed refutation may amount to a rechauffe of what has
already been written on the historical development of the idea of
India, I propose to argue against the fantastic antiquity assigned to
Bhrata and Hinduism, as well as against the historically invalid
stereotypes about the latter, and thus to show the hollowness of the
ideas which have been the staple diet of the monster of Hindu
cultural nationalism in recent years.
5
http://www.sacw.net/India_History/dnj_Jan06.pdf