Hindutva

[acharya]

inserted by Kaushal
What is Hindutva? -one definition-- close to that of Savarkar


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The term "Hindutva" is derived from the two terms 'Hindu Tattva", which literally mean "Hindu Principles". Now the question is, what are Hindu Principles and what comprises the "Hindutva" Outlook?
To answer this question we would have to begin with the history of the Hindus. The history of the Hindus is the history of a civilization which has developed in its natural state, without interruption, since antiquity. Its age is dated to be between five and nine thousand years. Hence Hindu History is a prototype of how human civilization would have looked, if civilization all across the globe had been allowed to develop in its natural state. This is the relevance for us to study Hindu Civilization, Hindu History and Hindu Culture.

The evolution of Hindu Civilization can be considered to be natural and continuing as there is no last messiah in the Hindu world view. In fact this is what distinguishes Hindu Civilization from the rest. And this is why Hinduism is called a Living Idea, guided by the sum total of human wisdom that is not considered to be embodied in one person, or one book, or one period of human history. Hence the term "Living". Hindutva is the articulation of this idea of continuity of freedom of thought from which emerge the multifarious Hindu Principles.

Two instances of Hindu Principles that symbolize the outcome of freedom of thought are the pronouncements made not today, but four thousand years back by unnamed rishis (Hindu ascetics) that, "This world is one family" (Vasudaiva Kutumbakam) and that "The Universal Reality is the same, but different people can call it by different names" (Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti). In these two proclamations made in ancient Hindu India, we see the seeds of globalism and freedom of thought, four thousand years before the world was to become the global village of today.


Thus in its true essence, Hindutva is a stridently assertive rational-humanist line of reasoning. And it is this essence of Hindutva that we have kept in mind, while developing this website. At the level of practice, the Hindutva outlook boils down to upholding righteousness (Sat-guna) and fighting ignoble attitudes (Dur-guna). Taking poetic license, we can describe the practitioners of this outlook as "Heenam Naashaayati iti Hinduhu" (Those who uphold righteousness and fight ignobleness are Hindus).


Thus, far from being a narrow nationalistic doctrine, Hindutva is in its true essence, 'a timeless and universal compilation of human wisdom'. Hence it is also called "Sanatana" which means, something that is "forever continuing."


At this site, you will read about different aspects of the history and culture of the Hindus in that part of our globe which is the birthplace of Hindutva. This land is known variously as Bharatvarsha, Hindustan or India. Our approach of looking at history is that of a rationalist and humanist. In the context of India, these two values are a result of the freedom of thought which forms the core of the tradition of Hindutva.
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<b>Hindutva and the Dalit-Bahujans: Dangerous Portents</b>
Yoginder Sikand

Hindutva, the unique Indian form of Indian fascism, is the modern incarnation of Brahminism. Although it projects itself as the defender of the ‘Hindu’ community against imagined ‘enemies’, such as Muslims and Christians, it is actually premised on an unrelenting hostility towards the vast majority of the so-called ‘Hindus’ themselves—Dalits, Shudras and tribals. The very basis of what is today called Hinduism is the caste system, which is specifically geared to preserving and promoting ‘upper’ caste hegemony that is based on the systematic exploitation and oppression of the so-called ‘lower’ castes. Hindutva, therefore, is not to be characterized as ‘Hindu communalism’ as such, as it does not represent the interests of all so-called ‘Hindus’ as such. As numerous writers have pointed out, a more apt description of Hindutva is that it is the contemporary form of Brahminism. In other words, Hindutva may be defined as Brahminical fascism.

This being the case, Hindutva cannot be countered simply through pious appeals to ‘Hindu-Muslim unity’. The fatal mistake that secularists have consistently been making is to see Hindutva as simply ‘Hindu communalism’. Consequently, they have been trying, ineffectively, to combat it simply by invoking a common ethical impulse that they argue underlies the different religions. Since Hindutva represents the contemporary agenda of Brahminism, it poses an immense threat not just to the Muslims of the country, but equally, or perhaps even more so, to the vast majority of the so-called ‘Hindus’ themselves—the Dalits,Shudras and tribals, who, taken together, form more than 70 per cent of the country’s population as a hole—the Bahujan Samaj. Clearly, Hindutva aims at preserving and promoting ‘upper’ caste rule and ‘lower’ caste slavery, inspired by a vision that draws on the cruel laws that the Brahminical scriptures prescribe for the ‘lower’ castes. As Shamsul Islam rightly notes, the Hindu Right aims at ‘denying […] Dalits of all human rights’[1], and the same applies for its implications for other members of the Bahujan Samaj. The most effective way of countering Hindutva is, therefore, to mobilize these marginalized groups against the Hindutva forces by exposing the grave threats that the Hindutva agenda poses for them. In other words, highlighting the menacing implications of Hindutva for the Dalit-Bahujans is the surest way to combat Hindutva, for it is they who are today being so assiduously used by ‘upper’ caste forces as foot-soldiers in their pogroms against Muslims and Christians, thus threatening to drive the country to the brink of civil war. The Dalit-Bahujans account for the vast majority of the Indian population, and if they are able to see through the Brahminical designs behind the Hindutva project, Hindutva would die a natural death.

This booklet is a critique of Hindutva from a Dalit-Bahujan perspective. It focuses on what Hindutva means for the Dalit-Bahujans, showing how it is essentially geared to preserving and promoting ‘upper’ caste Hindu rule and suppressing the stirrings of revolt that are now becoming increasingly visible among the ‘low’ caste majority.

Yoginder Sikand
February, 2004
<b>The Historical Roots of Hindutva</b>
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was established in 1925 by K.B.Hedgewar, a Maharashtrian Brahmin. Initially, almost all its members were Brahmins, and even today, its top level leaders are almost entirely from the ‘upper’ castes, particularly Brahmins. The RSS was founded at a time when Maharashtra was witnessing a powerful movement of revolt among the ‘lower’ castes against ‘upper’ caste tyranny led by such stalwarts as Mahatma Jotiba Phule and Dr. Ambedkar. The establishment of the RSS at this time was hardly coincidental. Rather, it is apparent that the rise of ‘lower’ caste consciousness and protest against ‘upper’ caste hegemony was a key factor in the setting up of the RSS. The spread of the RSS in other parts of the country can also be explained on similar lines. Feeling increasingly threatened by the growing awareness and militancy among the ‘lower’ castes, ‘upper’ caste leaders found in the ideology of Hindutva a convenient way to co-opt the ‘lower’ castes and to divert their wrath from their real oppressors (the ‘upper’ castes/classes) onto imagined enemies in the form of Muslims, Christians and communists. By appealing to the notion of an imagined ‘Hindu nation’ and ‘Hindu community’, Hindutva ideologues (almost all Brahmins) sought to deny the existence of internal caste and class contradictions among the so-called ‘Hindus’. This denial aimed at drawing the ‘lower’ castes behind the ‘upper’ castes, and to destroy ‘lower’ caste movements of protest against ‘upper’ caste hegemony. Accordingly, the plight of the ‘lower’ castes was sought to be explained away as a result of alleged Muslim or Christian ‘persecution’, while the ‘Hindu’ period of history was glorified as a ‘golden age’. In this rewriting of history, the oppression of the ‘lower’ castes that saw its genesis in the so-called ‘golden age’ was completely ignored. So, too, was the inconvenient fact that the oppression of the ‘lower’ castes is specifically mentioned and prescribed in all the Brahminical scriptures.

Yet, the projection of the notion of a united ‘Hindu nation’ was only at the level of rhetoric. In actual fact, the proponents of Hindutva sought to carefully preserve the exploitative caste-class system by conveniently remaining silent on it. And this continues to be the case till today. Not surprisingly, the Hindutvawadais have never taken up any militant struggles for the rights of the Dalits, for distribution of land to the poor, for the rights of workers and tribals and so on. Instead, they have consistently supported the interests of the capitalist-feudal-Brahminical elites. Not surprisingly, the core support-base of the Hindutva movement since its inception onwards has consisted of landlords, former rulers of princely states, industrialists, merchants, priests—‘upper’ castes in general, all of whose interests are diametrically opposed to the Dalit-Bahujans’, and whose hegemony is based on their systematic subjugation.

That Hindutva fundamentally aims at the preservation of the Brahminical system, based as it is on the exploitation of the ‘lower’ caste majority, has been pointed out by numerous scholars. In his incisive study of the Hindutva phenomenon, titled Saffron Fascism, Shyam Chand, a Dalit scholar and activist who served for many years as member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly, quotes from a secret circular sent out by the RSS to its preachers. It clearly indicates the sinister Brahminical strategy of using the Dalit-Bahujans to attack the Muslims and Christians, while at the same time aiming to keep the Dalit-Bahujans under the permanent slavery of the ‘upper’ castes.

Excerpts from Secret Circular No.411 issued by the RSS:

[…] Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes are to be recruited to the party so as to increase the volunteers to fight against the Ambedkarites and Mussalmans.

Hindutva should be preached with a vengeance among physicians and pharmacists so that, with their help, time expired [sic.] and spurious medicines might be distributed amongst the Scheduled Castes, Mussalmans and Scheduled Tribes. The newborn infants of Shudras, Ati-Shudras, Mussalmans, Christians and the like should be crippled by administering injections to them. To this end, there should be a show of blood-donation camps.

Encouragement and instigation should be carried on [sic.] more vigorously so that the womenfolk of Scheduled Castes, Mussalmans and Christians live by prostitution.

Plans should be made more foolproof so that the people of the Scheduled Castes, Backward Classes, Musslamans and Christians, especially the Ambedkarites, become crippled by taking in [sic.] harmful eatables.

Special attention should be given to the students of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes so as to make them read the history written according to our dictates.

During riots the women of Mussalmans and Scheduled Castes should be gang raped. Friends and acquaintances cannot be spared. The work should proceed on the Surat model.

Publication of writings against Mussalmans, Christians, Buddhists and Ambedkarites should be accelerated. Essays and writings should be published in
such a way as to prove that Ashoka was opposed to the Aryans.

All literature opposed to Hindus and Brahmins are [sic.] to be destroyed. Dalits, Mussalmans, Christians and Ambedkarites should be searched out. Care should be taken to see that this literature do [sic.] not reach public places. Hindu literature is to apply [sic.] to the Backward Classes and Ambedkarites.

The demand by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for filling in the backlog vacancies in services shall by no means be met. Watch should be kept to see that their demands for entry and promotion in government, non-government or semi-government institutions are to be rejected and their service records are destroyed with damaging reports.

Measures should be taken to make the prejudices amongst Scheduled Castes and Backward people more deep-rooted. To this end, help must be taken from saints and ascetics.

Attacks should be started with vigour against equality, preaching communists [sic.], Ambedkarites, Islamic teachers, Christian missionaries and neighbours [?].

Assaults should be made on Ambedkar’s statues with greater efforts.

Dalit and Muslim writers are to be recruited to the party and by them essays and literature opposed to the Dalits, Ambedkarites and Mussalmans written and preached [sic.]. Attention is to be paid to see that these writings are properly edited and preached [sic.].

Those opposed to Hindutva are to be murdered through false encounters. For this work the help of the police and semi-military [sic.] forces should always be taken.”[2]
*
In the face of this circular, no more evidence is needed to show what Hindutva actually bodes for the Dalit-Bahujans. It circular very clearly indicates that Hindutva aims essentially at preserving the oppression of the Dalit-Bahujans, in addition to the Muslims and Christians, on which the entire edifice of Brahminism stands.

The Dalit-Bahujans and Contemporary Hindutva
Today, the Hindutva movement is actively engaged in wooing the Dalit-Bahujans, threatened as the ‘upper caste/class elites are by the growing assertiveness of the ‘lower’ caste masses against ‘upper’ caste hegemony. In areas where the Dalit-Bahujan movement has not taken strong root Hindutva groups have been successful in bringing large numbers of Dalit-Bahujans into their fold. Copying the Christian missionaries, the RSS has set up a large number of schools in Dalit localities and tribal areas. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) regularly sends out so-called sadhus and priests to preach among the Dalits and tribals in order to incorporate them into the ‘Hindu’ fold and prevent their conversion to other religions. Fed on Hindutva propaganda, the Dalit-Bahujans are instigated to attack, rape and loot Muslims, and now Christians, in the name of defending ‘Hinduism’. This strategy was well exemplified in the case of the Babri Masjid affair, when, faced with the announcement of reservations in government services for the Backward Castes, the Hindutvawadis launched a murderous anti-Muslim campaign all over the country to scuttle the Mandal report by instigating Dalit-Bahujans to attack the Muslims, thus cleverly diverting their attention from the burning question of caste oppression and ‘upper’ caste hegemony. For the Hindutvawadis, the Dalit-Bahujans serve their classical role as servants of the ‘upper’ castes and foot soldiers to unleash murderous pogroms against Muslims. The most recent case is that of Gujarat, where Dalits and tribals were instigated by Hindutva forces to embark on a virtual genocide of Muslims in the state.

Through the process of Hinduisation that the Hindutvawadis are so carefully promoting among the Dalit-Bahujans, the Dalits and tribals achieve an illusory sense of upward social mobility (as ‘valiant’ Hindus), while the caste-class structure of oppression remains firmly intact. In fact, that is precisely the purpose behind the entire Hindutva project—to co-opt the Dalit-Bahujans, to destroy the movements for the assertion of their rights, and to quash their protest against the system of caste-class exploitation, by diverting their wrath from their actual oppressors (the ‘upper’ caste-class exploiters) onto carefully constructed ‘enemies’ in the form of Muslims, Christians, Naxalites, Communists and so on. At the same time as the Dalit-Bahujans are being actively recruited into the Hindutva movement, killings of Dalits and tribals by ‘upper’ castes continue to escalate, particularly in states where Hindutvawadis have acquired a strong hold. Many of those behind these killings are known to be active Hindutvawadis themselves. This is no mere coincidence. Rather, it is a direct and logical outcome of the Hindutvawadi agenda itself. As Shamsul Islam perceptively notes, ‘The Hindu Right which is ruling India presently is totally unconcerned about these mounting atrocities against the ‘Untouchables’ […] It should surprise nobody that the states where the maximum cases of caste atrocities are taking place are states where either the RSS/BJP have a substantial social base or are being ruled by them’.[3]

In order to win the Dalit-Bahujans to their fold, the Hindutvawadis, who fiercely opposed Dr. Ambedkar during his own lifetime, are now seeking to turn him into a harmless icon, projecting him as a great servant of Hinduism and an enemy of Islam. In the Hindutva appropriation of Ambedkar, Ambedkar’s radical critique of Hinduism is totally ignored. This sudden expression of love for Ambedkar is completely hypocritical and has, of course, nothing at all to do with any appreciation of Ambedkar’s own sharp denunciation of Hinduism. It owes entirely to the awareness of the growing importance of Ambedkar and his message among the Dalit-Bahujan masses. Hindutva doublespeak on Ambedkar comes out sharp and clear in a leaflet said to have been issued by the VHP’s Gujarat unit shortly after having used the Dalits to launch on a virtual genocide of Muslims in the state.

‘THE SECOND OPEN LETTER OF TRUE RAM SEVAKS’
“Let the Ambedkarite Harijans who oppose the Hindutva ideology understand. We will not allow them [to] mix with even the soil of Hindustan. Today, time is in our hands. Hindutva is the ideology of true Hindus [and] it never accepts the Harijans who are the offspring of the untouchable Ambedkar. The Ambedkarite Harijans, Bhangis, Tribals and the untouchable Shudra castes who believe in Ambedkar do not have any right to give speeches or criticize the Hindutva ideology in Hindustan, because as a dog raises its leg and urinates whenever there is a question or discussion related to the Hindutva ideology these Ambedkarites, Harijans, Bhangis, Adivasis and other untouchable low castes sling their dirt on the Hindutva ideology or show their caste [their low birth] by speaking abusively about it.

Now Hindutva has become aware [sic.] and it is time to teach these Ambedkarite untouchable Harijans a lesson. Not even the Miyans [Muslims] can come to their aid now. Understanding the Hindutva ideology requires a large heart. What will these untouchable Ambedkarites, who raise their leg and urinate, understand of the Hindutva ideology?

The fact that the Honorable Narendra Modi has gained a large victory in Gujarat has been because of the Hindutva ideology, not because of the untouchable Harijans [or because of] the Ambedkarite ideology. Narendrabhai has gained victory single-handedly in Gujarat because he explained the true ideology of Hindutva [….]

Vishwa Hindu Parishad, 11 Mahalaxmi Society, Paldi, Karnavati-380007.[4]

Hindutva, the Manusmriti and the Constitution of India

Although this is rarely spoken about explicitly, from time to time Hindutva leaders issue statements that clearly indicate that their entire project is geared essentially to the preservation of ‘upper’ caste rule, and that the Dalit-Bahujans must be shown ‘their place’. Top Hindutva leaders are on record as arguing that the Hindu Rashtra of their dreams would, in emulation of the classical Hindu state that they so ardently espouse, be ruled according to the draconian Bible of Brahminism, the Manusmriti, that consigned the ‘lower’ castes and even ‘upper’ caste women to the most cruel form of slavery that humankind has ever devised. The Manusmriti is the principle code of law of Hinduism, laying down the rules for the different castes and sanctifying the system of caste-based exploitation. As V. Raghavan, a noted Brahmin authority on Manu writes, ‘Manu has determined Hindu conduct for all time’.[5]

The founding fathers of Hindutva, almost all of them Brahmins, regarded the Manusmriti as a sacred scripture that needed to be revived and imposed in the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ that they so tirelessly advocated. V.D.Savarkar, founder of the
Hindu Mahasabha and inventor of the term ‘Hindutva’, argued that, ‘Manusmiriti
is that scripture which is most worship-able after the Vedas and which from ancient times has become the basis of our culture, customs, thought and practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in their lives and practice are based on the Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law’.[6] Similarly, in his The RSS Story, K.R.Malkani, a top RSS ideologue, was honest enough to confess that Golwalkar, the second supreme of the RSS, ‘saw no reason why Hindu law should break its ancient links with the Manusmriti’.[7] In his Bunch of Thoughts, Golwalkar, quoting from the Rig Veda and echoing Manu, had in fact gone so far as to empathically declare, ‘Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands, Vaisya the thighs, and Shudras the feet. This means that the people who have this four-fold arrangement, the Hindu people, is (sic) our God’.[8]

Reflecting this dogged devotion to Manu, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser carried an editorial criticizing the Indian Constitution shortly after it was promulgated, complaining, ‘In our Constitution there is no mention of the unique constitutional development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To day his laws as enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous obedience and authority. But to our constitutional pundits that means nothing’ (Organiser, 30 November, 1949). Shortly after this, the Organiser carried a piece revealingly titled ‘Manu Rules Our Hearts’, written by a certain Sankar Subba Aiyar, a retired Brahmin high court judge. Aiyar frankly confessed that, ‘Even though Dr. Ambedkar is reported to have recently stated in Bombay that the days of Manu are ended it is nevertheless a fact that the daily lives of Hindus are even at the present day affected by principles and injunctions contained in the Manusmriti and other Smritis. Even an unorthodox Hindu feels himself bound at least in some matters by the rules contained in the Smritis […]’.[9]

In recent years, Hindutva leaders have issued shrill statements denouncing the present Constitution of India as ‘anti-Hindu’, and have called for a ‘Hindu Constitution’ to replace it. For them, it is the Mansumriti that should form the basis of the Indian Constitution. This is hardly surprising, given that the Manusmriti has traditionally been regarded as the normative Brahminical legal code. Golwalkar’s and Savarkar’s advocacy of the Manusmriti was by no means an exception or aberration. Recently, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser (10 May, 1992) carried an article titled ‘Hindu Advocates Demand Rewriting of the Constitution to Remove Discrimination Against Hindus and Preserve Bharat as the Hindu Homeland’. Reporting the proceedings of this event organized by the VHP at Madurai it quoted a certain V.K.S Chandri, advocate-general of Uttar Pradesh, as declaring in his keynote address that ‘the Manusmriti rendered justice for all’. ‘Manu’, he claimed, ‘took the entire mankind and its needs for ages and evolved his Code. Manusmriti was for all times and ages, and for all mankind’.

Likewise, Chandra Shekarendra Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, one of the pontiffs of Brahminism and known for his ardent support of sundry ‘Hindu’ causes, passionately appeals for the Manusmriti as the legal code, which he rightly sees as integral to the classical ‘Hindu’ (read Brahminical) polity. Nostalgically recalling the days of unadulterated Brahminical rule, he writes:

What in this respect was unique in the olden days was that basic to all our administration there was the dharmashastra functioning, as it were, as the Constitution for the whole country. Of all the Dharmashastras, the Manu Dharmashastra is said to have provided clear, specific guidance to the kings of
yore […] None of the kings attempted to change the rules laid down in the Manu
Dharmashastra—rules presenting the essence of Dharmashastras propounded by
selfless rishis. There was no question of any amendment to such rules’.[10]

After glorifying the Manusmriti, he goes on to suggest that it still has continuing relevance today, and stridently opposes those who ‘believe that our way of life according to the Shastra requires to be reformed to suit the times’.[11] Accordingly, he attacks the present system of universal adult franchise and democracy and indirectly advocates reviving the spirit of Manu by arguing:

It is better to have these [parliamentary] representatives elected by those who have had some education, some property and some sense of responsibility to understand the political currents and cross-currents and thus acquire a qualification to exercise their votes. The qualification for voting must not be confined to particular caste, religion and economic status, but must combine all these aspects.[12]

The last sentence probably suggests that only well-off, propertied and ‘educated’ ‘upper’ caste Hindus should possess the right to vote.

Likewise, in the Shankaracharya’s proposed dharmic set-up not everybody would have the right to stand for election. He writes that candidates should have four qualifications—they should be revenue-paying owners of land, should own a house, should be between 30 and 60 years of age, and, most importantly, should be well-versed in the Dharmashastras. While the first two conditions effectively debar the poor (the vast majority of the Dalits, Tribals, Backward Castes, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists) to stand for election, the last qualification restricts that right solely to the Brahmins, who alone, according to the Dharmashastras, have the right to study them.[13]

When confronted with such irrefutable evidence that Hindutva essentially aims at revival of Manu’s Code, Hindutva spokesmen usually vehemently deny any such intentions, arguing, instead, that these are the views of only certain individuals and that they cannot be said to represent the Hindutva movement as a whole. This clever face-saving device is simply a means to mislead the increasingly assertive Dalit-Bahujan masses. Actions speak louder than words, and although from time to time some Hindutva ideologues may issue statements decrying any intention to revive Manu’s Code [while at the same time some of their colleagues insist that the Code be revived], the entire Hindutva project as such is geared to the preservation of the system of caste exploitation which is provided religious sanction by the Manusmriti and the Brahminical tradition as a whole. In response to Dalit opposition to Hindutva, some Hindutva leaders go so far as to dismiss the charge of reviving Manu Raj as completely fanciful, but this is done only to confuse their critics and to stamp out any opposition to their agenda. Some Hindutvawadis might even go so far as to verbally criticize or disown Manu, although this is entirely hypocritical and is actually intended to preserve the spirit of Manu’s Code while appearing to oppose it. Although in this age of democracy it may not be possible for the Brahminical elites to revive every aspect of Manu’s Code because the Dalit-Bahujans would stiffly resist such an attempt, it is clear that the Hindutva project is aims essentially at preserving and promoting the spirit of the Manusmriti, if not the letter of the law itself.

Manu’s Code: What Does it Mean for the Dalit-Bahujans?


The Manusmriti forms the basis of Brahminical law, and lays down elaborate rules
for the cruel subjugation, humiliation and oppression of the Dalit-Bahujans.

Extracts from the Manusmriti

The great sages approached Manu, who was seated with a collected mind, and, having duly worshipped him, spoke as follows:

Deign, divine one, to declare to us precisely and in due order the sacred laws
of each of the [four] castes [varnas] and of the intermediate ones.

But for the sake of the prosperity of the worlds he caused the Brahmin, the
Kshatriya, the Vaisya and the Shudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his
thighs and his feet. But in order to protect this universe, He, the most
resplendent one, assigned separate [duties and] occupations to those who sprang
from his mouth, arms, thighs and feet.

To Brahmins he assigned teaching and studying [the Veda], sacrificing for their
own benefit and for others, giving and accepting [of alms].

The Kshatriya he commanded to protect the people, to bestow gifts, to offer
sacrifices, to study [the Veda], and to abstain from attaching himself to
sensual pleasures.

The Vaisya to tend cattle, to bestow gifts, to offer sacrifices, to study [the Veda], to trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land.

One occupation only the lord prescribed to the Shudra, to serve meekly even
these [other] three castes.

The Brahmin, Kshatriya and the Vaishya castes are the twice-born ones, but the
fourth, the Shudra, has one birth only.

On account of his preeminence, on account of the superiority of his origin, on account of his observance of restrictive rules and on account of his particular sanctification, the Brahmin is the lord of [all] castes.

Let the three twice-born castes, discharging their [prescribed] duties, study [the Veda], but among them the Brahmin [alone] shall teach it, not the other two; that is an established rule.

As the Brahmin sprang from [Brahman’s] mouth, as he was the first-born, and as
he possesses the Veda, he is by right the lord of this whole creation […] A
Brahmin, coming into existence, is born the highest on earth, the lord of all
created beings, for the protection of the treasury of the law. Whatever exists
in the world is the property of the Brahmin. On account of the excellence of his
origin the Brahmin is, indeed, entitled to all.

Whatever law has been ordained for any [person] by Manu, that has been fully
declared in the Veda, for that [sage was] omniscient.

Knowledge is the austerity of the Brahmin, protecting is the austerity of the Kshatriya, his daily business is the austerity of the Vaisya, and service [of the ‘upper’ castes] the austerity of a Shudra.

Let [the first part of] a Brahmin’s name [denote something] auspicious, a
Kshatriya’s be connected with power, and a Vaisya’s with wealth, but a Shudra’s
[express something] contemptible. [The second part of] a Brahmin’s [name] shall
be [a word] implying happiness, of a Kshatriya’s [a word] implying protection,
of a Vaisya’s [a term] expressive of thriving, and of a Shudra’s [an expression]
denoting service.

Kshatriyas prosper not without Brahmins [and] Brahmins prosper not without
Kshatriyas. Brahmins and Kshatriyas, being closely united, prosper in this
[world] and in the next. But to serve Brahmins [who are] learned in the Vedas,
householders and famous [for virtue] is the highest duty of a Shudra, which
leads to beatitude. [A Shudra who is] pure, the servant of his betters, gentle
in speech and free from pride and always seeks refuge with Brahmins, attains [in
his next life] a higher caste.

The whole world is kept in order by punishment […] [So] let him [the king] act
with justice in his own domains, chastise his enemies, behave without duplicity
towards his friends, and be lenient towards the Brahmins. The king has been
created [to be] the protector of the castes and orders, who, all according to
their rank, discharge their several duties. Let the king, after rising early in
the morning, worship the Brahmins who are well-versed in the three-fold sacred
science and learned and follow their advice […] Though dying [with want] a king
must not levy a tax on Srotriyas (priests) and no Srotriya residing in his
kingdom must perish from hunger.

A king, desirous of investigating law cases, must enter his court of justice,
preserving a dignified demeanour, together with Brahmins and with experienced
councilors […] A Brahmin who subsists only by the name of his caste or one who
merely calls himself a Brahmin may, at the king’s pleasure, interpret the law to
him, but never a Shudra. The kingdom of that monarch who looks on while a Shudra
settles the law will sink [low] like a cow in a morass. That kingdom where
Shudras are very numerous, which is infested by atheists and destitute of
twice-born (‘upper’ caste) [inhabitants], soon entirely perishes, afflicted by
famine and disease.

[The king] should carefully compel Vaisyas and Shudras to perform the work
[prescribed] for them; for if these two [castes] swerved from their duties, they
would throw this [whole] world into confusion.

A Kshatriya, having defamed a Brahmin, shall be fined one hundred [panas]; a
Vaisya one hundred and fifty or two hundred; a Shudra shall suffer corporal
punishment.

A once-born man (Shudra) who insults a twice-born (‘upper’ caste) man with gross
invective, shall have his tongue cut out, for he is of low origin. If he
mentions the names and castes of the [‘twice-born’] with contumely, an iron
nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red-hot into his mouth. If he [a Shudra]
arrogantly teaches Brahmins their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be
poured into his mouth and into his ears.

A low-caste man who tries to place himself on the same seat with a man of high
caste shall be branded on his hip and be banished, or [the king] shall cause his
buttock to be gashed.

If out of arrogance he [a Shudra] spits [on a superior] the king shall cause
both his lips to be cut off.

If he [a Shudra] lays hold of the hair [of a superior] let the [king]
unhesitatingly cut off his hands.

He who strikes [a Brahmin] even with a blade of grass […] shall appease him by a
prostration. But he who, intending to hurt a Brahmin, threatens [him with a
stick and the like] shall remain in hell for a hundred years; he who [actually]
strikes him [shall remain in hell] for a thousand years.

A Chandala (the ‘lowest’ caste), a village pig, a cock, a dog, a menstruating women and a eunuch must not look at the Brahmins when they eat.

Let him [a Brahmin] not dwell in a country where the rulers are Shudras […] nor in one swarming with men of the lowest caste […] Let him not give advice to a Shudra […] for he who explains the sacred law [to a Shudra] or dictates him to a penance will sink together with that [man] into the hell [called] Asamvrita. Let him not recite [the Vedas] indistinctly, nor in the presence of Shudras […]

When he [a Brahmin] has touched a Chandala, a menstruating woman, an outcast, a woman in childbed, a corpse or one who has touched [a corpse], he becomes pure by bathing […] Let him not allow a dead Brahmin to be carried out by a Shudra while men of the same caste are at hand, for that burnt offering which is defiled by a Shudra’s touch is detrimental to [the deceased’s passage to] heaven.

A Brahmin who unintentionally approaches a woman of the Chandala or of [any other] very low caste, who eats [the food of such persons] and accepts [gifts from them] becomes an outcast, but [if he does it] intentionally he becomes their equal.

The dwellings of Chandalas and Svapakas [people of very ‘low’ caste] shall be outside the village […] and their wealth [shall be] dogs and donkeys. Their dress [shall be] the garments of the dead, [they shall eat] their food from broken dishes, black iron [shall be] their ornaments, and they must always wander from place to place […] At night they shall not walk about in villages and in towns. By day they may go about for the purpose of their work, distinguished by marks at the king’s command, and they shall carry out the corpses [of persons] who have no relatives—that is a settled rule.

A man of low caste, who, through covetousness, lives by the occupations of a higher one, the king shall deprive of his property and banish. It is better to [discharge] one’s own [appointed caste] duty incompletely than to perform completely that of another; for he who lives according to the law of another [caste] is instantly excluded from his own […] Let a [Shudra] serve Brahmins, either for the sake of heaven or with a view to both [this life and the next], for he who is called the servant of a Brahmin thereby gains all his ends. The service of Brahmins alone is declared [to be] an excellent occupation for a Shudra, for whatever else besides this he may perform will bear him no fruit.

No collection of wealth must be made a Shudra, even though he be able [to do it], for a Shudra who has acquired wealth gives pain to Brahmins.

He who has associated with outcasts, he who has approached the wives of other
men and he who has stolen the property of a Brahmin becomes [after death] a
brahmarakshas [fierce devil].

It is declared that a Shudra woman alone [can be] the wife of a Shudra, she and one of his own caste [the wives] of a Vaishya, those two and one of his own caste [the wives] of a Kshatriya, those three and one of his own caste [the wives] of a Brahmin […] Twice-born (‘upper’ caste) men, who, in their folly, wed wives of the low [Shudra] caste soon degrade their families and their children to the state of Shudras. According to Atri and to [Gautama] the son of Uthaya, he who weds a Shudra woman becomes an outcast […] A Brahmin who takes a Shudra wife to his bed will [after death] sink into hell; if he begets a child by her he will lose the rank of a Brahmin.

A [man of ] low [caste] who makes love to a maiden [of] the highest [caste] shall suffer corporal punishment.

The property of a Brahmin must never be taken by the king, that is a settled rule; but [the property of men] of other castes the king may take on failure of all [heirs].

Let the king corporally punish all those [persons] who either gamble and bet or afford [an opportunity for it], likewise Shudras who assume the distinctive marks of twice-born [men].

Never slay a Brahmin, though he [may] have committed all [possible] crimes […]
No greater crime is known on earth than slaying a Brahmin. A king, therefore,
must not even conceive in his mind the thought of killing a Brahmin.

A Brahmin, be he ignorant or learned, is a great divinity, just as the fire, whether carried forth [for the performance of a sacrifice] or not carried forth, is a great divinity. Thus, though Brahmins employ themselves in all [sorts of] mean occupations they must be honoured in every way, for [each of] them is a very great deity.

[The king] should order a Vaisya to trade, to lend money, to cultivate the land
or to tend cattle, and a Shudra to serve the twice-born castes […] A Brahmin
who, because he is powerful, out of greed makes initiated [men of the]
twice-born [castes] against their will to do the work of slaves, shall be fined
by the king six hundred [panas]. But a Shudra, whether bought or not bought, he
may compel to do servile work, for he was created by the Self-Existent
(swayambhu) to be the slave of a Brahmin. A Shudra, though emancipated by his
master, is not released from servitude; since that is innate in him, who can set
him free?

A Brahmin may confidently seize the goods of [his] Shudra [slave], for, as that
[slave] can have no property, his master may take his possessions […] That
sinful man, who, through covetousness, seizes the property of the gods or the
property of Brahmins feeds in another world on the leavings of vultures.

The Brahmin is declared [to be] the creator [of the world], the punisher, the
teacher [and hence] a benefactor [of all created beings], to him let no man say
anything unpropitious nor use any harsh worlds.[14]
*
This is the ‘glorious’ Manusmriti that Hindutvawadis so passionately praise and
advocate as the basis of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ of their dreams.

Constitution Review and the ‘Hindu Constitution’: A Dalit-Bahujan Perspective

The present Constitution of India, framed by Dr. Ambedkar, himself a Dalit, clearly has its own limitations. It is, in essence, a liberal bourgeois document. Yet it also affords the Dalit-Bahujans vital spaces and opportunities closed to them by Brahminical law, including, particularly, the Manusmriti. The notions of equality, freedom, democracy and secularism contained in the present Indian Constitution, all of which are integral to the project of Dalit-Bahujan emancipation, are vehemently denied in Brahminical law. This explains why Dr. Ambedkar publicly burnt the Manusmriti in 1928 in a symbolic protest against the entire Brahminical tradition.

Dalit-Bahujan intellectuals have argued, and rightly so, that the long-standing Hindutva demand for scrapping the present Constitution and replacing it with a ‘Hindu’ Constitution, is aimed essentially at doing away with even the limited opportunities and spaces that the Indian Constitution provides the oppressed castes, and to re-impose the varnashrama dharma or the rule of caste.[15] For, as Sangeetha Rao, a leading Dalit ideologue, argues, Ambedkar’s Constitution is, in spirit, vehemently opposed to the law of Manu, and that is the main reason why Hindutvawadis wish to scrap it. The ‘Hindu Constitution’ that they wish to replace the present Constitution, would, in Rao’s words, provide legal sanction to ‘Hindu fascism’, ‘Brahminical dictatorship’ and the ‘Manuvadi Vyavastha’ (the Manu-ite social system)’. Rao writes that behind the Hindutva demand for a Presidential system of governance and for a ‘Hindu Constitution’ is the actual goal of establishing the ‘Brahminvadi or Manuvadi system’, for the ‘social, political and economic democracy’ that Dr. Ambedkar championed is completely opposed to the ‘system based on ‘Manu-ism’. As Rao sees it, the ‘Hindu’ system of government that the Hindutvawadis are crusading for is nothing but the ‘caste system’, the rule of the ‘upper’ castes and the permanent slavery of the Bahujan Samaj. He writes that the ‘Hindu Constitution’ that the Hindutvawadis advocate aims at clamping down on democracy and further suppressing the Dalit-Bahujans, because, as he argues,

The Hindu social order does not recognize the necessity of representative government composed of the representatives chosen by the people […] It is nothing short of Hindu fascism. It is reflected in the statement of Sangh Parivar mafia leader Ashok Singhal, ‘A lasting government will be a Hindu government. If the people do not like it they can go to the country of their choice. Otherwise, they will be at the mercy of Hindus’.[16]

Rao sees the close collaboration between the ‘upper’ caste elites and western imperialists, the sharp curtailment of social welfare programmes, the Hinduisation of the education system, the non-implementation of anti-untouchability laws and the sharp increase in atrocities on Dalits in India under BJP rule as all part of the wider Hindutva agenda that aims at the firm suppression of the Dalit-Bahujans and the reinforcement of ‘upper’ caste hegemony, faithfully following the commandments and underlying spirit of the Manusmriti.[17]

Another leading Dalit spokesman who has subjected the Hindutva project to incisive critique is Ram Khobragade. In his Indian Constitution Under Communal Attack, Khobragade links the destruction of the Babri Masjid with the Brahminical Hindu and anti-Ambedkar agenda of Hindutva, and argues that the Hindutvawadis:

[In] the heart of their hearts bitterly hate Dr. Ambedkar, who made their religion thoroughly naked […] Dr. Ambedkar was the architect of the modern social order of this country, and this very thing these Manuvadis, the protagonists of the Manuvadi social system could not digest. Consequently, on his 37th Mahaparivaran Day [6 December, 1992, when they destroyed the Babri Masjid and unleashed a wave of bloody attacks on Muslims all over the country] they showed to the entire world that henceforth India would be governed not by the Constitution of Dr. Ambedkar but by the social order created by Manu, and by other religious scriptures created by various rishis—the supporters of the varnashram caste system.[18]

Likewise, another Dalit spokesperson, R.D.Nimesh, argues, the Hindutvawadis’ opposition to the Constitution stems from the fact that the Constitution allows some limited possibilities for Dalits to take to education and better employment, which in itself is a direct contradiction of the varnashrama dharma that the Hindutvawadis seek to revive.3 ‘In the name of establishing Hindu rule’, he argues, the Hindutvawadis actually seek to impose the ‘Brahminical law of caste exploitation’.[19] This view is echoed by Lalloo Prasad Yadav, former chief minister of Bihar, who argues that, ‘There is the hand of Manuvadi, fascist and casteist forces behind the move to change the Indian Constitution’.[20]

Of course, this actual intention is not stated openly, for in the present political system, which the Hindutvawadis so despise, the Dalit-Bahujans, well over 80 per cent of the population, constitute such a vital force that cannot be ignored. Hence, the Hindutva opposition to the Constitution is camouflaged in different terms—as an effort to promote ‘Hindu’ ‘cultural authenticity’ or to do away with legal guarantees for religious minorities, such as their right to administer their own educational institutions, regulate their personal affairs in accordance with their own personal laws and so on.

While critiquing the present Constitution as ‘anti-Hindu’, the Hindutvawadis seek to replace it with an authoritarian set-up that would more effectively serve the interests of the ‘upper’ castes and western imperialist forces. Thus, the communist leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet argues that in calling for a review of the Constitution and suggesting a presidential system of government in place of the present parliamentary system, the Hindutvawadis seek ‘the perpetuation of bourgeois-landlord rule’. Surjeet adds that, ‘The RSS has always been in favour of a unitary authoritarian state structure in the image of its own organisational structure, based on the principle of one leader, all the rest working as followers’. The Hindutvawadi demand for a presidential system is a major step in this direction.[21] Similarly, Prabhat Patnaik, a noted Indian economist, writes that behind the Hindutva demand for the rewriting of the Constitution is the aim of ‘abridg[ing] democracy in order to consolidate the collaborationist bourgeois state. It is no accident that the need to amend the Constitution is being felt by the very government [the present BJP-led regime] whose pursuit of pro-imperialist policies is marked by unprecedented vigour’. Patnaik sees the Hindutva efforts to do away with parliamentary democracy and replace it with American-style presidential rule as a response to the growing participation of the lower caste/class masses in elections as a means for the assertion of their rights, which is now threatening the rule of the ‘upper’ caste/class minority who now find parliamentary democracy a major challenge to their entrenched hegemony. At the same time, Patnaik argues, the western imperialist-imposed ‘globalisation’ that the Indian ruling classes have so willingly embraced also demands the ‘rolling back’ of democracy to smoothen the way for multinational corporations to loot the country.[22]

Behind the Hindutva critique of the Constitution in the name of doing away with its allegedly ‘anti-Hindu’ elements one can discern a cleverly thought out Brahminical strategy of attacking the very spirit of the Constitution that lays down the principles of equality, democracy and social justice that are so stridently opposed to the Brahminical tradition. This explains how and why the entire Constitution, including its fundamental values of equality, democracy, social justice and freedom that are specifically mentioned in its preamble and later elaborated upon in the document, is branded as ‘un-Hindu’ by many Hindutva writers. One of these is a certain Bengali Brahmin, Abhas Chatterjee. In a booklet titled The Concept of Hindu Nation, published by a hardcore Hindutva publishing house Voice of India, Chatterjee goes so far as to claim that, ‘Leave other things alone, even the preamble of the Indian Constitution does not contain any Hindu idea. It enumerates no principles based on Hindu ethos and ideals’.[23] Likewise, another Brahmin scholar, P.N. Joshi, president of the Rashtriya Hindu Manch, writes in a book tellingly titled Constitution: A Curse to the Hindus, that ‘Pakistan is an Islamic country. It is governed according to Islamic law. India is a Hindu Rashtra. Here it ought to be Hindu law’.[24] Naturally, he does not elaborate on what misery Hindu law would bring to the vast majority of the Indians themselves—the ‘lower’ castes, whose cruel oppression was given religious sanction precisely by the Hindu law that he so passionately advocates.

Since the entire edifice of Brahminism and Brahminical law rests on the permanent subjugation of the Dalit-Bahujans as servants of the ‘upper’ castes, it is hardly surprising that Hindutva ideologues are vehemently opposed to reservations in jobs and in the state and national legislatures for the ‘lower’ castes that are provided for in the present Constitution. This is one of the major reasons for their demand that the present Constitution be scarpped or ‘reviewed’. For electoral purposes the Hindutva brigade may not openly oppose reservations, but leading Hindutva spokesmen have repeatedly spoken out against them as allegedly ‘dividing’ the Hindus and promoting ‘casteism’, as if reservations were responsible in any way for creating the caste system in the first place.

According to the Brahminical scriptures the duty (dharma) of the ‘lower’ castes is simply to slave for the ‘upper ‘ castes without any hope for recompense. For ‘lower’ castes to take to any other profession would be a violation of the iron law of dharma and would be a grave challenge to the Brahminical religion. That is why in the Ramayana Rama is said to have struck off the head of the Shudra Shambukh for having so much as dared to engage in tapasya and thereby threaten to ascend to heaven in his physical body. As an ‘ideal’ Hindu king, Ram, as Dr. Ambedkar notes, was an ‘upholder of the varna vyavastha’, or the caste system that spells out permanent servitude for the Shudras as their dharma.[25] Hence, for the ‘upper’ caste devotees of Rama today the ‘lower’ castes must not deviate from their jati dharma or caste duty of slaving for the ‘upper’ castes. The reservations in government jobs for the Dalit-Bahujans that the present Constitution provides is a flagrant violation of this principle, and this explains, partly, the vehement demand of Hindutva forces to replace it with what they call a ‘Hindu’ Constitution, which would guarantee permanent ‘upper’ caste privilege and ‘lower’ caste slavery.

Reservations are only one aspect of the present Constitution that Hindutvawadis are vociferously opposed to and for which they label it as ‘anti-Hindu’. In fact, the entire gamut of laws that flow out of the basic premises of the present Constitution that can be used in favour of the Dalit-Bahujans in their struggle against ‘upper’ caste/class hegemony is seen by Hindutva forces as ‘un-Hindu’, thus explaining their opposition to the Constitution itself. As Hindutva ideologues view it, the law is not what the Constitution says it is but, rather, what the pontiffs of Brahminical Hinduism, arch-defenders of the caste system and Brahminical privilege, say it should be. As Ashok Singhal, general-secretary of the VHP, declares in no uncertain terms, ‘What the dharmacharyas pronounce as dharma, we will also accept as law’ (The Pioneer, 4 December, 1992). Lest anyone labour under any doubt as far as what this would mean for the Dalit-Bahujans, we have it from authority of all the classical and defining texts of Brahminism that the caste system and the subjugation of the Dalit-Bahujans are an integral and inseparable component of dharma. As scholars of ‘Hinduism’ have pointed out, in the Brahminical texts, the sanatana dharma or eternal religion’ is not defined as a single, universally applicable concept. Dharma, as reflected in the notion of varnashrama dharma, is caste and context specific, and depends on one’s caste (varna) and stage of life (ashram). The dharma of the Brahmin is to study, teach the ‘upper’ castes and to receive donations. The dharma of the Shudra is simply to serve the ‘upper’ castes. It is this dharma that contemporary Hindutva aims to revive, despite its denials to the contrary. As Abhas Chatterjee writes, the state that the Hindutvawadis seek to construct would ‘not only accord the highest place to sanatana dharma but [would] also protect its values, project its glory in the world, and make it its source of inspiration’. At the same time, Chatterjee calls for the scrapping of the present Constitution, arguing that, ‘[W]e have to change almost all laws and policies’ and replace them by those rooted in the sanatana dharma.[26] Dalit-Bahujans must shudder at this menacing prospect.

The RSS-VHP’s ‘Hindu Constitution’: What it Means for the Dalit-Bahujans

Shortly before the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 and the ensuing massacre of Muslims all over the country engineered by the Hindutvawadi
forces, the VHP issued a declaration calling for a so-called ‘Hindu’ Constitution for India. At a meeting in October 1992, the VHP’s so-called Sant Samiti (‘Committee of Saints’) set up a four-member commission, headed by a certain ‘Swami’ Muktanand Saraswati, to rework the ‘anti- Hindu’ Constitution. Subsequently, Muktanand issued a detailed critique of the present Constitution, with the long, yet revealing, title of Bharat Ki Ekta Akhandata Bhaichare Evam Sampradayak Saddhbhav Ko Mitane Vala Tatha Bharat Mai Bhukhmari, Berozgari, Bhrashtachar Aur Adharm Ko Badhaney Vala Kaun? Vartaman Indian Samvidhan (‘Who is Responsible for Destroying India’s Unity and Integrity, Brotherhood and Communal Harmony and for Spreading Hunger, Unemployment, Corruption and
Irreligiousness ? The present Indian Constitution’).[27]

As the title of the book itself so clearly suggests, Muktanand sees all the ills of India as a product of the very Constitution of the country itself. Accordingly, he argues, ‘the entire Constitution itself is anti-people (lok drohi)’.[28] He equates the Constitution with a pile of garbage (‘yeh samvidhan kudey kachrey ka dher matra hai’, he writes).[29] Presumably, this ‘garbage’ also includes the outlawing of untouchability and caste discrimination and the various, albeit limited, democratic provisions that the Constitution makes for women, backward castes and the poor o make amends for the centuries of oppression that they have had to suffer under Brahminical rule. This is clearly hinted at when Muktananda declares that the Dalits, Tribals and Backward Castes should not be granted any reservations in government services nor any other from of special treatment, on the flimsy ground that, ‘this would breed the feeling of separatism’.[30] He also claims that it violates the principle of secularism or what he calls in Hindutva jargon as panth nirpekshita.[31] Referring to the tribals, he asserts: ‘Only those rights of the tribals should be protected which nature has granted them’. Apparently, he wishes to see the tribals lost forever in the dense, wild jungles, never to be allowed to participate in the governance of the country.

A true Hindutvawadi, Muktanand sees democracy as dangerous and vehemently opposes it. Thus, he writes, ‘Rule by representatives is a very expensive and backbreaking system for a poor country like India’.[32] He argues that, ‘The chapters on the legislature, parliament, the president’s powers, the union judiciary, and comptroller and auditor general of India in section 5 of the Constitution Articles 52-151) have absolutely no relationship whatsoever with the Indian context’.[33] He does not, however, explain why this is so and nor does he offer any alternative. Echoing a pet theme in Hindutva discourse, Muktanand castigates the Constitution for not having made a Uniform Civil Code mandatory.[34] Thus, in an interview to the fortnightly Frontline (January 29, 1993), he asserts: ‘There hould be uniform laws for everybody’. Yet, in the same breath, he contradicts himself by declaring: ‘The state should not interfere in religious and personal matters. There should be no laws regarding marriage’.[35] If the state should not lay down laws regarding marriage and other personal matters, promulgating a uniform Civil Code is inconceivable since civil codes deal essentially with personal, family matters, but the contradiction escapes Muktanand. If the state were to be ruled by the likes of Muktanand and were, therefore, not to interfere in religious and personal matters, obnoxious practices like untouchability, sati and child marriage would not be outlawed. The present Constitution has banned these customs, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why Muktanand has branded it as adharmik (irreligious).

In late 1993, the Delhi-based weekly Mainstream carried a lengthy three-part interview with Muktanand Saraswati (16 October, 23 October, and 30 October, 1993). The interview covered a range of issues, focusing particularly on Muktanand’s views on Dalits, Shudras, Tribals, Muslims and women. It clearly reveals Muktanad (and the Hindutvawadis more generally) to be a fierce defender of the caste system, Brahminical privilege and the oppression of the Dalit Bahujans and women. The interview provides a chilling view of the Brahminical fascist order that the Hindutva camp seeks to impose on the country in the name of ‘Hindu’ unity. It very clearly indicates that in the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ of Hindutva dreams, not just Muslims and Christians, but the vast majority of the so called ‘Hindu’ population, too, would be subjected to horrendous oppression.
*
Excerpts from the Interview with Muktanand Saraswati
On Dalits
Q: Do you think the caste system is scientific?
A: The caste system is scientific if it is based on an ‘occupational society’. It is scientific because of specialization and the division of labour. If a person is a teli (oil-presser) by caste (birth) but he does not follow his caste occupation, then the caste system will break.

Q: So, would that be adharmik (irreligious)?
A: If the caste system breaks that would certainly be adharmik (emphatically). Take the case of this fool (kambakht) Jagjivan Ram. Despite having been a Minister he called himself a Harijan. This is bad. You were the Deputy Prime Minister and still saale [a term of abuse] you are a Harijan! Still you want to benefit from reservations for Harijans! Those who want reservations say ‘Let us remain Chamars’. So, if you are a Chamar, how can you get the facilities of a Brahmin? You will get the facilities of a Chamar. You want facilities in the name of Chamars, but you want to become a Shankaracharya. How is this possible? […] Saale, you want facilities in the name of Chamars, but want to sit besides a Brahmin. We won't let you sit (emphatically).

Q: Is it possible to revive the caste system today?
A: By the caste system I mean that the individual should be the centre of the mode of production. For instance, a carpenter is an expert at this work, and his son receives training in this craft from childhood itself and also becomes an expert. So this occupational division of labour is what we desire. Some people ask if it is possible to revive the caste system in this age of industrialization and we say yes, it is possible.

Q: You say you are opposed to consumerism and to wealth as the criterion for measuring one’s status. If we take the criterion as dharma, what should the social structure be in a dharmic state.
A: In a dharmic state, everyone should know his duties. Each should follow his
own dharma.

Q: What is the dharma of a Chamar?
A: His dharma is to make shoes.

Q: The Manusmriti certainly does not give equal status to Shudras. It advocates
pouring molten lead in their ears.
A: Have you read the Manusmriti? There is no such thing written in the Manusmriti. If somebody advocates this today won’t you say it is wrong? Today, in some Delhi schools children of parents who do not know English are not allowed admission. Is this better than Manu’s law? You are not bothered about the law that is existing today but without any reason you are concerned about the law that was there in the past. If something happened in the past, it may have happened.

Q: The Sant Samaj wants to establish a dharmik society…
A: According to the place (desh), time (kal) and person (patr) we shall decide what should be done.

Q: Will you impose the Manusmriti?
A: We can implement many provisions of the Manusmriti, and we can leave out many other provisions.

Q: Will you impose Manu’s laws regarding the Shudras?
A: There are no such laws. You are wrongly informed.

Q: What do you feel about untouchability?
A: The Muslim and Christian invaders killed our intellectuals, burnt our literature and libraries. Thereafter, these customs came into being and the illiterate people started following them. Then the intellectuals came to the fore once again and began interpreting the traditions in a different way so as to project their real essence.

Q: Can caste Hindus take food from ‘untouchables’?
A: There is nothing which stops sadhus and Sikhs from taking food even from Bhangis (sweepers).

Q: But can Sanatani Hindus who are not sadhus do the same?
A: Those Sanatanis who lead a family-life (grihasta), they are not allowed to do so. On the other hand, the sadhus are allowed because they are alone and their actions do not affect others. But a person who lives with his family, he lives with 25 people, he cannot force them to do what he thinks is right. Similarly, if 24 of them think that eating with Bhangis is fine, they cannot force the person who does not share their views to do the same. If they want [to eat with Bhangis] they can go and live elsewhere. There is no law on sati, child marriage and untouchability in Hindu society. It is a question of personal choice, and we have given them a loophole, a safety valve—if you want [to practice these customs], you can. There’s no harm.

Q: You mean to say that those who want to practice untouchability should be allowed to do so?
A: Yes, they should be allowed.

Q: And those who don’t want to?
A: They should not be forced to practice untouchability.

Q: If a Brahmin priest says he doesn’t want ‘Untouchables’ to enter his temple,
should they be allowed to go in?
A: They should not. It is his temple so why do you want to enter it?

Q: Is this rule valid for all temples?
A: Temple is something which is private and not a social-affair in Hindu society, unlike tirtha and melas. In the operation theatre of the hospital not everybody is allowed because it has to remain pure. Similarly, our temples are places of meditation for which you require the same sort of vibrations within a limit. I

[Guest]

rhytha,
It was Great political debate secularism v Hindutva.

[Guest]

kahin se jalne ki boo aa rahee hai.. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna...y+%28F%29&sid=3

http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=328145

Quiet Flows The Bile
The RSS too is focusing on development—taking over NGOs

OUTLOOK BUREAU

Praveen Togadia and Ashok Singhal will be disappointed at the way this election is turning out. There is no opportunity for them to exercise their lungs and scream about mandir, Muslims and pseudo-secularists. They have been told to lie low and behave like good boys till the elections are over.
The RSS, which really calls the shots, appears determined to lend a helping hand to Vajpayee and the BJP. The VHP, sore that the NDA government has not been able to deliver a Ram temple even after five years in power, could have been an embarrassment. But the Sangh appears to have been successful in reining in the enfants terribles of the parivar. Sources say that between now and polling day, the VHP can be expected to make a few noises in Uttar Pradesh about the unfinished temple agenda. They will also engage themselves with village-level mobilisation. But nothing high-profile or dramatic.

The RSS too appears to be focusing on the new BJP mantra—development. It has gradually begun spreading its tentacles to take over existing NGOs. Take the example of the nodal agency CAPART (Council for People's Action and Rural Technology). Gradually, it has been packed with people with RSS leanings. Influence in this body is crucial as CAPART controls the funding to other NGOs.

Meanwhile, the Gram Bharti, an RSS organisation that had been in cold storage for two decades, has suddenly sprung to life. Its main purpose is to take up development projects in rural India. RSS spokesman Ram Madhav admits that the presence of several BJP state governments has facilitated the funding to RSS outfits or RSS-backed NGOs.

There is nothing dramatic or new about the RSS entering the development sector. It runs several NGOs in the Hindi belt while its cadres act as volunteers at other "independent" NGOs. The motivation is not different from what drives Christian missionaries—spread the good word through good work. That there is a particular design to this "good work" becomes clear with a scrutiny of the syllabus at RSS schools. Their version of history remains controversial to say the least while there are subjects like character-building and moral science.

Yet the RSS-controlled NGOs cannot be ignored. In states with a BJP government, traditional NGOs now claim to be getting pushed out by Sangh outfits.

State patronage remains vital to the growth of the Sangh. That is why it is doing everything possible to lend the BJP a helping hand. Even if it involves curtailing the activities of the VHP.

[acharya]

Quote from somebody
---------
i agree with naipaul's analysis of the dangers of islamic fundamentalism. ultimately, however, this is a baseless analysis, because as haroon says above, naipaul is a fanatic. he hates islamic fundamentalism because it's just like his own. islamic fundamentalism is obsessed with perceived and actual muslim weaknesses, especially compared to the past, and how islamic momentum has been "stolen" by an ascendant western world.

many hindus blame islam for keeping india down, though of course this doesn't analyze the simple fact that: if india was indeed "kept down" -- and that is very, very debatable, as who would consider the taj mahal a sign of being kept down? (naipaul in fact does: he hates the taj mahal) -- then something kept it down. that you do not mention this explains clearly what muslims have been so irked about all along. only their fundamentalism is paid attention to. the united statess' sanctions on iraq have killed more people than islamic terrorism has in the last 30 years together, yet who claims the US is a great danger to the world (other than so many muslims, peaceful or not).

here are some quotes re: naipaul, from the article Naipual's Middle Passage to India, Sagarika Ghose:

1. "On the one hand, he states that the BJP movement is a ‘movement from the earth’, that the destruction of the Babri masjid was a manifestation of ‘Hindu awakening’."

2. "Sir Vidia believes there can be no ‘return to the past’. Yet he also celebrates India’s return to the past. He believes firmly in the BJP, but he doesn’t tell us how he is going to safeguard his views from becoming an apologia for the VHP mob. At the recent Bharatiya Pravasi Divas celebrations he thundered that Indians must shed their sense of victimhood. But in A Wounded Civilisation, he had written that unless Indians wake up to a racial sense, of a sense of being a single race against other races, it will be calamitous for India.

3. "He believes ‘inherently fanatical’ Islam was the greatest calamity to befall India yet says nothing on contemporary Hindu fanaticism. He urges the intelligentsia to reclaim Hindutva from the mob, but has no ideas on how this can be done."

He is a great writer, do not get me wrong. But he is also an apologist for terrorist thought-processes, his hatred for the islamic variety no different than a member of Gush Emumim's views would be towards, say, Palestinian Islamic movements in their totality.

If you can read Naipaul's analysis of Islam in this light, you have a better perspective. Even then, he overwhelmingly contradicts himself in his books...

[acharya]

Trapped in the ruins

VS Naipaul caused controversy in Delhi recently when he apparently endorsed the ruling Hindu nationalist party. While his credentials as a writer are unchallenged, argues William Dalrymple, his historical grasp is less sure, marred by a grave failure to recognise Islam's contribution to India

Saturday March 20, 2004
The Guardian

There was some surprise last month when Sir Vidia and Lady Naipaul turned up at the office of India's ruling Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and gave what many in the Indian press took to be a pre-election endorsement not just of the party but of the entire far right-wing Hindu revivalist programme. India was indeed surging forward under the BJP, the Nobel Laureate was quoted as saying, and, yes, he was quite happy being "appropriated" by the party.
More striking still was the quote attributed to Naipaul about the destruction of the Babri Masjid, Babur's mosque, in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, a decade ago: "Ayodhya is a sort of passion," he said. "Any passion is to be encouraged. Passion leads to creativity." For a man whose work contains many eloquent warnings of the dangers of misplaced political passions - the Islamic Revolution in Iran to take just one example - this might appear to be a surprising volte face, especially when one considers the horrific anti-Muslim pogroms that followed Ayodhya, when BJP mobs went on the rampage across India and Muslims were hunted down by armed thugs, burned alive in their homes, scalded by acid bombs or knifed in the streets. By the time the army was brought in, at least 1,400 people had been slaughtered in Bombay alone.

It might seem unlikely that a Nobel Laureate would put himself in a position of apparently endorsing an act that spawned mass murder - or commend a party that has often been seen as virulently anti-intellectual. Indeed, one commentator in the Times of India wondered if Naipaul had not been misunderstood. The paper pointed out that Naipaul told his hosts at the BJP in Delhi: "You cannot carry the past with you or you will not progress. Leave this behind in history books and move on."

Yet Naipaul's earlier statements, especially his remarks that the first Mughal emperor Babur's invasion of India "left a deep wound", are consistent with ideas Naipaul has been airing for many years now. In 1998, for example, he told the Hindu newspaper: "I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel that the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions ... The Old World is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed." Such attitudes form a consistent line of thought in Naipaul's writing from An Area of Darkness in 1964 through to the present.

Few would dispute Naipaul's status as probably the greatest living writer of Indian origin; indeed some would go further and argue that he is the greatest living writer of English prose. For good reason his views are taken very seriously. He is a writer whose fiction and non-fiction written over half a century forms a body of work of great brilliance, something the Nobel committee recognised in 2001 when it awarded him literature's highest honour, and singled out his analysis of the Islamic world in his prize citation .


Naipaul's credentials as a historian are, however, less secure.

There is a celebrated opening sequence to Naipaul's masterpiece, India: A Wounded Civilization. It is 1975 - a full quarter century before he won the Nobel - and Naipaul is surveying the shattered ruins of the great medieval Hindu capital of Vijayanagar, the City of Victory.

Naipaul leads the reader through the remains of the once mighty city, its 24 miles of walls winding through the "brown plateau of rock and gigantic boulders". These days, he explains, this part of south India is just "a peasant wilderness", but look carefully and you can see scattered everywhere the crumbling wreck age of former greatness: "Palaces and stables, a royal bath ... the leaning granite pillars of what must have been a bridge across the river." Over the bridge, there is more: "A long and very wide avenue, with a great statue of the bull of Shiva at one end, and at the other end a miracle: a temple that for some reason was spared destruction, and is still used for worship."

Naipaul goes on to lament the fall of this "great centre of Hindu civilisation", "then one of the greatest [cities] in the world". It was pillaged in 1565 "by an alliance of Muslim principalities - and the work of destruction took five months; some people say a year." It fell, according to Naipaul, because already the Hindu world it embodied had become backward looking and stagnant: it had failed to develop, and in particular had failed to develop the military means to challenge the aggressive Muslim sultanates that surrounded it. Instead, Vijayanagar was "committed from the start to the preservation of a Hinduism that had already been violated, and culturally and artistically it [only] preserved and repeated; it hardly innovated ... The Hinduism Vijayanagar proclaimed had already reached a dead end."
For Naipaul, the fall of Vijayanagar is a paradigmatic wound on the psyche of India, part of a long series of failures that he believes still bruises the country's self-confidence. The wound was created by a fatal combination of Islamic aggression and Hindu weakness - the tendency to "retreat", to withdraw in the face of defeat.

Naipaul first developed the theme in An Area of Darkness. The great Hindu ruins of the south, he writes there, represent "the continuity and flow of Hindu India, ever shrinking". But the ruins of the north - the monuments of the Great Mughals - only "speak of waste and failure". Even the Taj and the magnificent garden tombs of the Mughal emperors are to Naipaul symbols of oppression: "Europe has its monuments of sun kings, its Louvres and Versailles.

But they are part of the development of the country's spirit; they express the refining of a nation's sensibility." In contrast, the monuments of the Mughals speak only of "personal plunder, and a country with an infinite capacity for being plundered". In a recent interview, Naipaul maintained that "the Taj is so wasteful, so decadent and in the end so cruel that it is painful to be there for very long. This is an extravagance that speaks of the blood of the people."

Not many other observers have seen the Taj Mahal - built by the emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife, and usually perceived as the world's greatest monument to love ("a tear on the face of eternity", according to Tagore, an earlier Indian Nobel Laureate) - in quite such jaundiced terms. Nevertheless, Naipaul's entirely negative understanding of India's Islamic history has its roots firmly in the mainstream imperial historiography of Victorian Britain.

The Muslim invasions of India tended to be seen by historians of the Raj as a long, brutal sequence of pillage, in stark contrast - so 19th-century British historians liked to believe - to the law and order selflessly brought by their own "civilising mission". In this context, the fall of Vijayanagar was written up in elegiac terms by Robert Sewell, whose 1900 book Vijayanagar: A Forgotten Empire , first characterised the kingdom as "a Hindu bulwark against Muhammadan conquests", a single brave but doomed attempt at resistance to Islamic aggression. This idea was eagerly elaborated by Hindu nationalists, who wrote of Vijayanagar as a Hindu state dedicated to the preservation of the traditional, peaceful and "pure" Hindu culture of southern India.

It is a simple and seductive vision, and one that at first sight looks plausible. The problem is that such ideas rest on a set of mistaken and Islamophobic assumptions that recent scholarship has done much to undermine.

A brilliant essay published in 1996 by the respected American Sanskrit scholar, Philip B Wagoner, was an important landmark in this process. Entitled "A Sultan Among Hindu Kings" - a reference to the title by which the kings of Vijayanagar referred to themselves - pointed out the degree to which the elite culture of Vijayanagar was heavily Islamicised by the 16th century, its civilisation "deeply transformed through nearly two centuries of intense and creative interaction with the Islamic world".
By this period, for example, the Hindu kings of Vijayanagar appeared in public audience, not bare-chested, as had been the tradition in Hindu India, but dressed in quasi-Islamic court costume - the Islamic inspired kabayi, a long-sleeved tunic derived from the Arabic qaba, symbolic, according to Wagoner, of "their participation in the more universal culture of Islam".

Far from being the stagnant, backward-looking bastion of Hindu resistance imagined by Naipaul, Vijayanagar had in fact developed in all sorts of unexpected ways, adapting many of the administrative, tax collecting and military methods of the Muslim sultanates that surrounded it - notably stirrups, horse-shoes, horse armour and a new type of saddle, all of which allowed Vijayanagar to put into the field an army of horse archers who could hold at bay the Delhi Sultanate, then the most powerful force in India.

A comprehensive survey of Vijayanagar's monuments and archaeology by George Michell over the past 20 years has come to the same conclusion as Wagoner. The survey has emphasised the degree to which the buildings of 16th-century Vijayanagar were inspired by the architecture of the nearby Muslim sultanates, mixing the traditional trabeate architecture of the Hindu south with the arch and dome of the Islamicate north. Indeed some of the most famous buildings at Vijayanagar, such as the gorgeous 15th-century Lotus Mahal, are almost entirely Islamic in style.

Moreover, this fruitful interaction between Hindu - and Muslim-ruled states was very much a two-way process. Just as Hindu Vijayanagar was absorbing Islamic influences, so a similar process of hybridity was transforming the nominally Islamic Sultanate of Bijapur. This was a city dominated by an atmosphere of heterodox inquiry, whose libraries swelled with esoteric texts produced on the philosophical frontier between Islam and Hinduism. One Bijapuri production of the period, for example, was the Bangab Nama , or the Book of the Pot Smoker: written by Mahmud Bahri - a sort of medieval Indian Allen Ginsberg - it is a long panegyric to the joys of cannabis:

"Smoke your pot and be happy -
Be a dervish and put your heart at peace.
Lose your life imbibing this exhilaration."

In the course of this book, Bahri writes: "God's knowledge has no limit ... and there is not just one path to him. Anyone from any community can find him." This certainly seems to have been the view of Bijapur's ruler, Ibrahim Adil Shahi II. Early in his reign Ibrahim gave up wearing jewels and adopted instead the rudraksha rosary of the sadhu. In his songs he used highly Sanskritised language to shower equal praise upon Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of learning, the Prophet Muhammed, and the Sufi saint Gesudaraz.

Perhaps the most surprising passage occurs in the 56th song where the Sultan more or less describes himself as a Hindu god: "He is robed in saffron dress, his teeth are black, the nails are red ... and he loves all. Ibrahim, whose father is Ganesh, whose mother is Sarasvati, has a rosary of crystal round his neck ... and an elephant as his vehicle." According to the art historian Mark Zebrowski: "It is hard to label Ibrahim either a Muslim or a Hindu; rather he had an aesthete's admiration for the beauty of both cultures." The same spirit also animates Bijapuri art, whose nominally Islamic miniature portraits show "girls as voluptuous as the nudes of south Indian sculpture".

This creative coexistence finally fell victim, not to a concerted communal campaign by Muslim states intent on eradicating Hinduism, but to the shifting alliances of Deccani diplomacy. In 1558, only seven years before the Deccani sultanates turned on Vijayanagar, the empire had been a prominent part of an alliance of mainly Muslim armies that had sacked the Sultanate of Ahmadnagar. That year, Vijayanagar's armies stabled their horses in the mosques of the plundered city. It was only in 1562, when Rama Raya plundered and seized not just districts belonging to Ahmadnagar and its ally Golconda, but also those belonging to his own ally Bijapur, that the different sultanates finally united against their unruly neighbour.

The fall of Vijayanagar is a subject Naipaul keeps returning to: in an interview shortly after being awarded the Nobel Prize in 2001, he talked about how the destruction of the city meant an end to its traditions: "When Vijayanagar was laid low, all the creative talent would also have been destroyed. The current has been broken."
Yet there is considerable documentary and artistic evidence that the very opposite was true, and that while some of the city's craftsmen went on to to work at the Meenakshi temple of Madurai, others transferred to the patronage of the sultans of Bijapur where the result was a significant artistic renaissance.

The remarkable fusion of styles that resulted from this rebirth can still be seen in the tomb of Ibrahim II, completed in 1626. From afar it looks uncompromisingly Islamic; yet for all its domes and arches, the closer you draw the more you realise that few Muslim buildings are so Hindu in spirit. The usually austere walls of Islamic architecture in the Deccan here give way to a petrified scrollwork indistinguishable from Vijayanagaran decoration, the bleak black volcanic granite of Bijapur manipulated as if it were as soft as plaster, as delicate as a lace ruff. All around minars suddenly bud into bloom, walls dissolve into bundles of pillars; fantastically sculptural lotus-bud domes and cupola drums are almost suffocated by great starbursts of Indic deco ration which curl down from the pendetives like pepper vines.

This picture of Hindu-Muslim hybridity, of Indo-Islamic intellectual and artistic fecundity, is important, for it comes in such stark contrast to the Naipaulian or BJP view of Indian medieval history as one long tale of defeat and destruction. Today most serious historians tend instead to emphasise the perhaps surprising degree to which Hinduism and Islam creatively intermingled and "chutnified" (to use Salman Rushdie's nice term); and an important book has been published that goes a long way to develop these ideas.
Anyone wishing to understand the complexities and fusions of medieval India would be well advised to look at Beyond Turk and Hindu, edited by David Gilmartin and Bruce Lawrence, (University Press of Florida, 2000). A collection of articles by all the leading international scholars of the period, it shows the degree to which the extraordinary richness of medieval Indian civilisation was the direct result of its multi-ethnic, multi-religious character, and the inspired interplay and cross-fertilisation of Hindu and Islamic civilisations that thereby took place.

The historians do not see the two religions as in any way irreconcilable; instead they tend to take the view that "the actual history of religious exchange suggests that there have never been clearly fixed groups, one labelled 'Hindu' and the other - both its opposite and rival - labelled 'Muslim'." Indeed, as one author points out, there is not a single medieval Sanskrit inscription that identifies "Indo-Muslim invaders in terms of their religion, as Muslims", but instead they refer more generally in terms of "linguistic affiliation, most typically as Turk, 'Turushka'". The import of this is clear: the political groupings we today identify as "Muslim" were then "construed as but one ethnic community in India amidst many others".

Of course this approach is not entirely new. From the early 1960s until only a few years ago, Indian history textbooks emphasised the creation in medieval India of what was referred to as the "composite culture".

This cultural synthesis took many forms. In Urdu and Hindi were born languages of great beauty that to different extents mixed Persian and Arabic words with the Sanskrit-derived vernaculars of north India. Similarly, just as the cuisine of north India combined the vegetarian dal and rice of India with the kebab and roti of central Asia, so in music the long-necked Persian lute was combined with the Indian vina to form the sitar, now the Indian instrument most widely known in the west. In architecture there was a similar process of hybridity as the great monuments of the Mughals reconciled the styles of the Hin dus with those of Islam, to produce a fusion more beautiful than either.

These Nehruvian-era textbooks were the work of left-leaning but nonetheless internationally regarded scholars such as professors Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra and Nurul Hasan - of whom Naipaul does not appear to think much. In the same 1993 Times of India interview in which he defended the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque, he remarked that "Romila Thapar's book on Indian history is a Marxist attitude to history, which in substance says: there is a higher truth behind the invasions, feudalism and all that. The correct truth is the way the invaders looked at their actions. They were conquering, they were subjugating." The new set of far right-wing history textbooks recently commissioned by India's National Council of Educational Research and Training at the behest of the BJP government - such as that on medieval India with its picture of the period as one long Muslim-led orgy of mass-murder and temple destruction - are no doubt more to Naipaul's taste.
Thanks partly to the influence of the earlier textbooks on generations of students, there is still a widespread awareness in India of the positive aspects of medieval Islam - aspects noticeable by their absence in Naipaul's oeuvre. It is widely known, for example, that Islam in India was spread much less by the sword than by the Sufis. After all, Sufism, with its holy men, visions and miracles, and its emphasis on the individual's search for union with God, has always borne remarkable similarities to the mystical side of Hinduism. Under Sufi influence it was particularly at the level of village folk worship that the two religions fused into one, with many ordinary Hindus visiting the graves of Sufi pirs - some of whom are still considered to be incarnations of Hindu deities - while Muslim villagers would leave offerings at temples to ensure the birth of children and good harvests. To this day, Sufi dargahs still attract as many Hindu, Sikh and Christian pilgrims as they do Muslims.

Yet Sufism, clearly central to any discussion of medieval India, barely makes an appearance in Naipaul's work. "Islam is a religion of fixed laws," he told Outlook magazine. "There can be no reconciliation [with other religions]". In this one sentence he dismissed Indian Islam's rich 800-year history of syncretism, intellectual heterodoxy and pluralism. The history of Indian Sufism in particular abounds with attempts by mystics to overcome the gap between the two great religions and to seek God not through sectarian rituals but through the wider gateway of the human heart. These attempts were championed by some of south Asia's most popular mystics, such as Bulleh Shah of Lahore:

Neither Hindu nor Muslim
I sit with all on a whim
Having no caste, sect or creed,
I am different indeed.
I am not a sinner or saint,
Knowing no sin nor restraint.
Bulleh tries hard to shirk
The exclusive embrace
of either Hindu or Turk.

In Beyond Belief (1998) Naipaul writes of Indian Muslims as slaves to an imported religion, looking abroad to Arabia for the focus of their devotions, which they are forced to practise in a foreign language - Arabic - they rarely understand. He seems to be unaware of the existence of such hugely popular Indian pilgrimage shrines such as Nizamuddin or Ajmer Sharif, the centrality of such shrines to the faith of Indian Muslims or the vast body of vernacular devotional literature in Indian Islam, much of it dedicated to the mystical cults of indigenous saints.

Also notably absent in Naipaul's work is any mention of the remarkable religious tolerance of the Mughals: neither Akbar nor Dara Shukoh makes any sort of appearance in Naipaul's writing, and his readers will learn nothing of the former's enthusiastic patronage of Hindu temples or the latter's work translating the Gita into Persian, or writing The Mingling of Two Oceans, a study of Hinduism and Islam which emphasises the compatibility of the two faiths and speculates that the Upanishads were the source of monotheism. Such views were far from exceptional and most Mughal writers show similar syncretic tendencies: the greatest of Urdu poets, Ghalib, for example, wrote praising Benares as the Mecca of India, saying that he sometimes wished he could "renounce the faith, take the Hindu rosary in hand, and tie a sacred thread round my waist".

Yet Naipaul continues to envisage medieval India solely in terms of Islamic vandalism. Likewise, he continues to talk of Mughal architecture as entirely "foreign ... a carry-over from the architecture of Isfahan", ignoring all the fused Hindu elements that do so much to define its profound Indianness: the jalis, chajjas and chattris, quite apart from the fabulous Gujerati-Hindu decorative sculpture that is most spectacularly seen at Akbar's capital, Fatehpur Sikri. Yet while architectural historians see a remarkable fusing of civilisations in Mughal buildings, Naipaul thinks "only of everything that was flattened to enable them to come up".

That destruction of Hindu monuments did take place is undeniable; but in what circumstances, and on what scale, is a matter of intense scholarly debate. Perhaps the single most important essay in Beyond Turk and Hindu is Richard Eaton's fascinating account of temple destruction. It is of course a central nostrum of the Hindu far right that between the 13th and 18th centuries, Indo-Muslim states, driven by a combination of greed, intolerance and a fanatical iconoclasm, desecrated as many as 60,000 Hindu temples. This claim is examined in detail by Eaton, who concludes that "such a picture [simply] cannot be sustained by evidence from original sources".

Eaton writes that he can find evidence for around only 80 desecrations "whose historicity appears reasonably certain", and that these demolitions tended to take place in very particular circumstances: that is, in the context of outright military defeats of Hindu rulers by one of the Indian sultanates, or when "Hindu patrons of prominent temples committed acts of disloyalty to the Indo-Muslim states they served. Otherwise, temples lying within Indo-Muslim sovereign domains, viewed as protected state property, were left unmolested."

Indeed Indo-Islamic states involved themselves directly in the running of their Hindu temples, so that, for example, "between 1590 and 1735, Mughal officials oversaw the renewal of Orissa's state cult, that of Jagannath in Puri. By sitting on a canopied chariot while accompanying the cult's annual festival, Shah Jehan's officials ritually demonstrated that it was the Mughal emperor who was the temple's - and hence the god's - ultimate protector."

None of this should be read in any way as challenging Naipaul's importance as a writer: his non-fiction about India is arguably the most brilliant body of writing about the region in modern times, and it is precisely because of this that it is important to challenge his errors.

In the current climate, after the pogroms of Gujerat and the inaccurate rewriting of textbooks, Naipaul's misleading take on medieval Indian history must not go uncorrected. To quote Professor Neeladri Bhattacharya of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, writing recently about the new BJP history textbooks: "When history is mobilised for specific political projects and sectarian conflicts; when political and community sentiments of the present begin to define how the past has to be represented; when history is fabricated to constitute a communal sensibility, and a politics of hatred and violence, then we [historians] need to sit up and protest. If we do not then the long night of Gujerat will never end. Its history will reappear again and again, not just as nightmare but as relived experience, re-enacted in endless cycles of retribution and revenge, in gory spectacles of blood and death."

· William Dalrymple's White Mughals (Harper Perennial) recently won the Wolfson Prize for History

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0...1172782,00.html

[acharya]

V.S. Naipaul, Anwar Shaikh and Rafiq Zakaria
by V.P. Bhatia

The triumphal march of Savarkar's Hindutva as the sure antidote to poet Iqbal's Islamic anti-nationalism.

"DO INDIAN Muslims fit into the concept of Hindutva? According to its author V.D. Savarkar they don't because he considered them a separate nation much before Jinnah did," says the rather over-rated Islamic spin-doctor Rafiq Zakaria who is churning out article after article in a futile bid to remove the widespread impression that it is not a terrorist religion and that the post 9/11 campaign against it is all motivated. In particular, he seems heartened by collaborators like Khushwant Singh who is expert in Hindutva bashing, and would recommend any trash that is published to run down Hindutva. For, it is such people who have the free run of the now our totally discredited English daily press and have the licence to indulging in any sort of abusive propaganda even though it is no longer helping them to refurbish the ugly face of Indian or global Islam. Because the Indian people, especially the Hindus and Sikhs, have known for centuries what Islam really stands for-unprovoked sadistic invasions and mandatory massacres of Kafirs, mass conversions at point of sword and demolition of their most holy places to humiliate them deliberately as a godly mission.
No wonder, the Hindu psyche is deeply coloured by the Chengez-like Islamic atrocities and they still feel it in the bones. Islamic terror is not a recent but a centuries old phenomenon for them. It is indeed a miracle of miracles how the Hindu civilisation has survived from the never-ending chain of looting and burning since Mohd. bin Qasim and Mahmud Ghaznavi whose descendants are still as poor as ever despite their historic depredations.

Therefore, no amount of motivated whitewashing of the Islamic crimes and sanitising of its sins is going to make their victims believe the cock and bull Islamic-propaganda even though such revisionism has gone on since the Nehruvian era. For instance, would Khushwant Singh believe the stories about Guru Tegh Bahadur's martyrdom put in pre-Joshi NCERT books. No wonder, secularism has become a dirty word, and as a commentator in the Pioneer put it recently, Hindus even in secular Congress party are moving away from it "because of its pseudo-secular posturing and pandering to Muslim and Christian communalism," and that "what even Congress leaders say about minorities would put Mr Praveen Togadia to shame". In any case what they say about obnoxious Muslim behaviour in truncated India is "unprintable". And this runs deep down. Members of the CWC would, says the writer further, "do well to undertake an informed exercise to gauge the feelings of partymen at various levels on this sensitive issues before adopting resolutions that neither bring in votes nor strengthen the secular ideals. (Article by A. Surya Prakash-"Congress and the Hindu psyche", January 23, 2003) Zakaria would do well to ponder over this anti-Muslim epidemic.

Now coming to the canard that Savarkar was the original author of the two nation theory, spread mainly by crypto communalist Khushwant Singh and his ilk. One wonders why such mischievous hacks are afraid of naming Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who according to any number of standard historians was the original author of the theory and Savarkar started working on his thesis only after the horrendous Mopila atrocities of August 1921. To quote author Ram Gopal in his standard work Indian Muslims to put the record straight, Savarkar expounded his Hindutva theory emphatically as an anti-dote to Islamic barbarism. Thus at the Calcutta session of the Mahasabha in 1939, he said, "We Hindus, in spite of thousand and one differences within our fold, are bound by such religious, cultural historical, racial, linguistic and other affinities in common as to stand out as difinitely homogeneous people as soon as we are placed in contrast with any non-Hindu people-say the English or Japanese or even the Indian Muslims. That is the reason why today we, the Hindus from Kashmir to Madras and Sind to Assam will have to be a nation ourselves."
* * *

Further, "Savarkar's solution was not the division of the country into a Hindu India and a Muslim India, he would have a dominant position for the Hindus who constituted the majority, as every country has a basic core majority having major stake in its survival. Still, he proposed to secure the (minority) rights thus: When once Hindu Mahasabha accepts but maintains the principle of "one man and one vote" (political equality of all citizens) and the public services go by merit alone added to the fundamental rights and obligations to be shared by all citizens alike irrespective of any distinction of race or religion, any further mention of minority rights is on the principle not only unnecessary but self-contradictory. Because it again introduced a consciousness of majority and minority on communal basis." (Vide Ram Gopal in Indian Muslims, (Asia Publishing House, 1959)

Savarkar's was not a two-nation theory. He considered Hindus a nation and Muslims a community enjoying equal rights as citizens.Thus, according to Savarkar, while the Hindus were the Nation, the Muslims were a community. But all were citizens, enjoying equal citizenship rights. He was particularly against over representation for Muslims who were going on lengthening their charter of demands, ultimately demanding two votes for one man in the form of Parity with 70 per cent Hindus at the Centre even when their percentage was 24. Even in the Delhi proposals of 1927 or 14-points of Jinnah, they were demanding one-third representation at the Centre. This according to Savarkar was no democracy but minority blackmail for hegemony, with the intention of reviving the Muslim Raj over the whole of India. But he was strictly for equal treatment which was the most just solution of communal problem at the time.

However, the motivated Islamic-secular axis go on misrepresenting Hindutva, which according to Savarkar was a higher concept than Hinduism, defining the principles of Hindu nationalism as distinct from Hindu religious and social practices and beliefs to save India from the Gandhian abyss of abject surrender to aggressive Islam.

From that point of view, the present Indian constitution is discriminatory against Hindus as it gives more rights to minorities especially in the matter of having their exclusive religious institutions or madrassas. This is a thin end of the wedge which has introduced the same type of divisiveness in the Indian polity as the Minto-Morlay which ordained separate electorates.

Thus Article 30 is the most dangerous in this respect, as it opens the door to the Quranic madrasa education even at Government expense in the name of modernisation which can be used for brain-washing the Muslim children in Kafir-Momin concept and vitiate the very basis of the child education. In fact, modernisation goes Muslims the best of both the worlds. The West Bengal Government is spending Rs 115 crore per year on the madrassas. According to a Muslim commentator, every Muslim child is supposed to be well-versed in Quran by the age of seven and that is the root cause of communal mischief and even future catastrophe as it is by all accounts the most incendiary book in the world especially its 25 anti-Kafir ayats which even eminent Muslim leaders of some countries have wanted to be expunged from the Quran. It prepares every Muslim as an ever-ready soldier of Islam. That is why they send their children to modern schools late if at all, and thus lag behind and then blame their backwardness on the Hindus, while themselves following in education a sure blueprint for producing future Osama bin Ladens. If Rs 115 crore is spent on teaching the Quran in West Bengal then why not another Rs 115 on Vedic education? asks a writer in the Statesman. So, Kashmir-like situation is being readied all over India, thanks to the individious Article 30 which makes our Constitution blatantly communal. And yet shameless creatures like Rafiq Zakaria, A.A. Engineer wail endlessly against Hindutva and writers like V.S. Naipaul who have not mortgaged their wits to the motivated Islamic-secular axis which merrily tolerates the missionary forays of Jamaat Islami, Jamiat-ul-Ulema and Tablighi outfits to wipe out all traces of native Hindu culture from the Muslim converts and turn them into inveterate enemies of everything Hindu and even Indian and go about as rootless intruders in their own country.

One of this favourite trump cards of our secular Muslim writers from Rafiq Zakaria to Mushirul Hasan who lords over the Indian Express editorial page is to flaunt Sir Muhammad Iqbal's poems like The Nai Shivala and Saare Jahan Se Achha as irrefutable argument of his super-patriotism although even Mahatma Gandhi had said about Iqbal that he had "given up the path of nationalism". In the first natural gush of his undoubtedly great poetic genius, he had written melodious poems like Sare Jahan Se achcha, Himalaya, Hindustani Bachchon Ka Geet etc, but that was before 1905 when he went to Europe and came back almost totally transformed as an Islamic fundamentalist under the influence of British professors and Iranian poetry.

No wonder, the UK-based Pakistani genius Anwar Shaikh has analysed his total metamorphosis from patriotism to treachery in his recent Urdu book Fikr-e-Iqbal par, Ek Tanqidi Nazar (A critical view of Iqbal's thoughts) published in India by Nirali Dunya Publications 358-A, Bazar Delhi Gate, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110 002) in which he completely vindicates the views of Sir Vidia Naipaul that <span style='color:red'>Muslims converts have been compelled to disown their natural ancestry and blood relationship with India to become completely aliens in their own land and roundly blames the poet for leading the Indian Muslims astray by his prostituting his poetic talent to propound deceptive thoughts. Iqbal's influence was great but he misled the Indian Muslims into wrong direction by striking at the very root of Indian unity and Indian nationalism. He taught hatred of Hindus and of India after his first flush of spontaneous poetry so that whereas earlier he had said that every particle of his motherland was no less than a venerable deity for him, now he declared patriotism and nationalism to be the very anti-thesis, rather the coffin of Islam.</span> There can be no greater falsehood coined by any traitor than this, says Anwar Shaikh. This Iqbal did by projecting the fallacy of religion to be the basis of nationhood. So his earlier worshipful attitude for the country changed into a bid to split it into pieces.

Iqbal even undertook to Arabise Indian Islam to purify it of all ajmi (non-Arab) influences, through his poetry. To cap it all, his presidential address at the Allahabad session of the Muslim League was a recepi for disintegration of India which he sugar coated with his melodious poetry under the guise of Pan-Islamism "I am sure without Iqbal's poetic mesmerism and jugglery of words, the Muslim would never have launched a struggle for division of India," says Anwar Shaikh "He infused the Muslim mind with a type of madness with his magical poetry, leading them to their ruin", says Shaikh.

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>He diverted Muslim mind from love of India to love of all Muslim countries or toward Pan-Islamism. He asked them to forget the welfare and unity of the country of their birth and get immersed in the zest for Arabic Islam.</span> He wanted the Muslims to forget their local affiliations and get dyed in the Pan-Islamic pride. This had a regressive effect on the Indian Muslim mind. It made them more backward looking. They lost all sense of national pride.
Courtesy: Organiser, Cabbages & Kings, March 09, 2003
http://www.indiafirstfoundation.org/archiv...3/march0903.htm

[acharya]

The Hindutva Resurgence
by V.P. Bhatia

With the collapse of Nehruvian secularism more and more Hindus are identifying themselves with the BJP-led Indian state.

EVEN when the lamp of life burns very low due to a month long bout of asthmatic attacks, one must ply one's missionary trade. For, as Tagore says in Gitanjali: Thy Lord is ever wakeful and working even with the toiler in the fields. Even he has bound himself to work. In any case, one has miles to go before one sleeps-yeh preet karm ki reet nahin, Rab jaagat hai tu sowat hai.

The recent elections have proved, above all, one thing. Even without any overt talk of Hindutva, more and more Hindus are identifying with the BJP-led state. Even under the veneer of endless talk of development, more and more Hindus are saying good-bye to Nehruvian secularism. The secularists are worried that the Hindutva card has not really gone into oblivion or hibernation as the main headline in the Statesman of November 8 declares. They would very much like to snatch this all-important issue from the BJP. Just now they are satisfied that they have been able to drive it underground, as the sheet anchor of all that BJP stands for-A resurgent India based on genuine secularism is in the making.

Patel-Nehru Clash Over Hyderabad

This reminds me of an eminent commentator who says that most of the Hindus never identified themselves with the Indian state after Partition-cum-Independence. The reason was the anti-Hindu Nehruvian secularism, a telling example of which may be taken from Sardar Patel's lesser known biography by Chandra Shekhar Shastri as follows:

"The Hyderabad issue was becoming hotter and hotter even after the Standstill Agreements in November 1947. The Nizam wanted to extract more and more concessions from the Government of India. He wanted an arrangement in which he should get maximum autonomy and give more than 50 per cent representation to Muslims who formed only 15 per cent population of the state. To pressurise the GoI, he had actively encouraged and armed a private Muslim force of mullas of Razakars under a fanatical character named Qasim Rizvi. Rizvi was openly threatening the decimation of all Hindu population if the Indian military entered Hyderabad state. Atrocities on Hindus became common. Not only that. Raids on trains and territory of neighbouring states of Bombay, C.P. and Madras were organised which really alarmed those States and the GOI was vehemently criticised for its weak policy.

"At such a time, a meeting of the Indian Cabinet's Defence Committee was held to sanction immediate action. But Pt. Nehru wanted the problem to be solved peacefully. He believed the Nizam's version more than that of his own agencies that the reports of atrocities on Hindus of the state were exaggerated. This led to a verbal clash between Patel and Nehru.

"Nehru even smelt communalism in Patel's stand. At this Patel wrote out his resignation from the Cabinet and left the meeting. Next day, Rajagopalachari, who had taken over as Governor-General after Mountbatten, went to Patel's house and brought him back to the Cabinet.

"However, another incident occurred the next day which forced Nehru to change his stand. Now the Canadian High Commissioner complained to Nehru that Christian women were being attacked in Hyderabad state. As a result, the same Nehru who had not cared for attacks on Hindu women at once ordered military action for which September 13, 1948 was fixed by Patel. However, now the Army Chief Gen. Roy Bucher raised an objection that 13th was unlucky day, so it should be on September 14. At this Patel said, make it September 12 on which date the Indian Army entered Hyderabad from two sides. 800 Razakars were killed in the first two days. Nizam's 50,000 soldiers surrendered on the 5th day.

"This was just one example of Nehru's anti-Hindu secularism which stands totally discredited today, providing ballast for the Hindutva forces.

* * *

A few weeks ago, I referred in this column to a bizarre view of most Islamists and some secularists that India's communal problem lingers on because the Moghuls did not do enough to convert all Hindus to Islam which they were in a position to do because for all intents and purposes theirs was a military state. The result of their lapse was that while in the North-Western India, Muslims were in heavy majority, in the Gangetic plane, the Muslims were no more than 15 to 20 per cent, which speaks of their liberal treatment of Hindus.
However, an eminent historian, Prof B.R. Nanda, a former Director of Nehru Museum and Library, has exploded this myth of liberal Mughal rule, including that of Akbar in his book Gandhi-Islamism, Imperialism and Nationalism in the following way:

"Muslim rulers may not have been paragons of religious balance and political wisdom. However, they could not but recognise the political realities in a country where the majority of the people were non-Muslim and even the small but growing Muslim population consisted mostly of converts. The ruling elites in medieval India. (mostly foreigners from Iran, Central Asia, etc., were small in number, and not infrequently were riddled with tribal and factional dissensions. In theory the Muslim state in India, as elsewhere was subject to the Sharia, the sacred law... But no Muslim ruler in India could afford to set up theocracy. The state was Islamic in the sense that the ruler was a Muslim and the ruling elite was composed of Muslims. It was impossible to exclude non-Muslims from the administration. There just were not enough Muslims to run the machinery of the state or to man the army. This may explain the curious phenomenon of the presence of Hindu soldiers and even a Hindu general in the army of Mahmud Ghazni. Thus, there was in Indian condition an unresolvable contradiction between militant piety and exercise of state power by Muslims. Well might the orthodox Ulema proclaim the doctrines among the faithful and jihad against unbelievers but it has no a practical policy for a ruler anxious for stability.

"The state in India was not religious. Nor was it secular. It was controlled by an elite of foreign origin, commanding secular military power. The elite was usually riven by class and social conflicts. Its attitude towards non-Muslims varied. Very few of its members thought of religious tolerance as a value of state policy, but the contact of the state with the people was peripheral. Sometimes religion was a mere cloak to cover vested interests of the king or his clan. They usually so interpreted Islamic doctrines as to give wide latitude to the sultans, whose subjects had in any case little say in the affairs of the state. The highest appointments naturally went to relatives of the king but he had often to go out of his clan to find the manpower to collect the revenue and to man the army. The revenue and finance departments under the Mughals were almost wholly run by the two enterprising Hindu castes, the Kayasthas and the Khatris. The Hindus, not totally excluded from the service of the state were however largely confined to the lower ranks, the higher echelons being the virtual monopoly of Muslims, especially those who could prove themselves or their foreign origin. Under the Mughals the ranks in the mansabdari system were a fair index of the status and emoluments of those in the imperial service; the mansabdars were not only public servants but also the richest class in their empire and a closed aristocracy. The Mughal ruling class, particularly its highest members, the amora (nobility), about 500 individuals, disposed of well over half of the revenue of the empire and at least a quarter of its output."

Akbar's Islamic Limitations

[According to an Indian economist the late Prof Dharma Kumar, the Mughal loot of India was greater than that of the British.]

"It is significant that even then there were not more than 8 Hindus among 34 mansabdars enjoying the rank of 100 and above and that almost all the Hindu mansabdars were Rajputs. The proportion of mansabdars rose slightly in the reigns of Jahangir and Shahjahan. An account of the leading Mughal nobles in the Masirul mmra, an 18th century work estimates that of the 735 eminent nobles, 159 were Hindus. Aurangzeb would not have liked his dependence on Rajput mansabdars, but he could not dispense with them. His attitude to them in the award of ranks and promotions was, however, less liberal than that of Akbar. But even under Akbar the Rajputs had formed a small privileged group and could secure by and large only the lower grades of the Imperial Service."

"Meanwhile the structure of the administration and politics was changing in response to the realities of the situation. The central fact was that a small minority, whose ancestors had come to India, ruled a population most of which was alien to it in race and religion. It was neither prudent nor practicable to ignore the sentiments of the vast mass of the Hindu population and especially of its martial clans, such as the Rajputs. Akbar made a conscious effort to redress the balance between the privileged Muslim minority and the teeming Hindu population. We must not however overrate either Akbar's aims or his achievements. He did not establish a secular state. He could hardly have done so in the 11th century; the identification between Muslim orthodoxy and Muslim power was such that they were likely to stand and fall together.

"It would therefore be unfair to lay all the blame at Aurangzeb's door. The maladroit fact remains that even in the radiant days of Akbar, long before Aurangzeb set the clock back, Hinduism and Islam, as religious and social systems they engendered, failed to develop links of intimate interaction; at last they reached a state of tolerance and co-existence.

"More than a hundred years ago W.W. Hunter admitted that Mussalmans monopolised all the offices of the state. The Hindus accepted with thanks such crumbs as the former conquerors dropped from their table."

No wonder, as Nirad Chaudhuri says, the moment the fear of Muslim military power was lifted, the Hindu society broke completely with the Muslim society.
Courtesy: Organiser, Cabbages & Kings, December 21, 2003

[acharya]

A Plea for New Politics
http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar/article.p...gory=8&issue=19
Aijaz Ahmad argues that Hindutva in India today cannot be seen apart from the growing crisis of capitalism and global imperialism

By Yoginder Sikand

The rise of fascism in contemporary India in the garb of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism has been extensively written about and hotly debated. It has brought in its wake increasing strife and violence, leaving thousands dead even as the country rapidly moves towards a situation approaching civil war, as the macabre events in Gujarat so tragically illustrate. Despite its shrill rhetoric of 'national unity' there can be no doubt that the votaries of Hindutva are determined to divide the country against itself, leaving in its wake widespread death and destruction.

This slim volume by a noted Indian left theoretician and commentator places the phenomenon of Hindutva terror in a broader theoretical framework, seeking to explore its complex economic, social and cultural roots. Ahmad sees the rise of Hindutva as part of a larger phenomenon of the growth of right-wing ethnic and religious movements in many parts of the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It thus shares much in common with similar movements elsewhere, such as white supremacist and fundamentalist Christian groups in the West and Islamist extremists in much of the Arab world. These movements, he suggests, are all impelled by a fierce hostility towards progressive, emancipatory politics.

The underlying assumptions of all forms of communalism, the author suggests, are based on a completely distorted understanding of what makes a community. Contrary to all historical and empirical evidence, ideologues of communal groups see the communities they claim to represent as monolithic wholes, devoid of caste, class, regional, linguistic, sectarian and other divisions. These reified communities are also seen as having no significant overlaps and shared features with other communities, who are presented as distinctly different and alien. Then, the relations between the different communities are depicted as having been based on a long historical record of undying hatred and conflict. This understanding of the history of inter-communal relations is deliberately promoted in order to serve very contemporary political purposes.

In the Indian context, Ahmad writes, Hindutva communalist propaganda is shaped in order to suit the political agenda of a particular constellation of caste and class groups. Ahmad sees Hindutva as representing the interests of a small 'upper' caste, principally Brahminic, elite, and as geared to preserving and promoting their entrenched hegemony. The myth of a monolith 'Hindu' community and of a well-defined 'Hindu' tradition is employed to construct an image of the Muslim, the Christian and the Communist as the menacing 'other'. In this way, the 'lower' castes/classes are sought to be incorporated into the 'Hindu' fold and, to put in simply, their wrath diverted from their actual 'upper' caste/class oppressors on to imagined enemies. As the events of Gujarat show, Dalits and tribals are routinely employed as foot-soldiers by the Hindutva brigade to wipe out Muslims, while any attempt by the 'low' castes to defy Brahminical hegemony is firmly crushed, for in the classical Hindu scheme of things the Dalits are seen as having been born simply to serve the 'higher' castes. The link between ultra-right wing communalism and violence, the author says, is not incidental. The violence promoted by the advocates of Hindutva against Muslims and Christians has a direct bearing on the rapid spread of other forms of violence in the country against other marginalized groups, such as Dalits, tribals and women.

Ahmad reflects on the complex web of economic factors that underlie the rapid rise of Hindutva in India today, arguing that the phenomenon cannot be seen apart from the growing crisis of capitalism and global imperialism. Globalization, the latest stage of capitalism and imperialism, seeks to impose a new consumerist culture over the rest of the world. Despite its rhetoric of 'swadeshi', Hindutva, Ahmad writes, is firmly in league with the ruling classes in the West, opening up the Indian economy to the depredations of western multi-national corporations. The neo-liberalist economic agenda that is promoted by agents of globalization spells doom for millions of marginalized people in India and other 'Third World' countries, but is being actively welcomed by the advocates of Hindutva, since it serves the interests of the Indian ruling classes.

Ahmad concludes the book with a plea for a new emancipatory politics that can challenge the tyranny of communalism and Western imperialism disguised as globalization at the same time. He recognizes the need to recover and re-articulate visions of the just society that are latent in the traditions of the 'low' castes and peasants of India, who represent the vast majority of the Indian population. He argues that the challenge of Hindutva must be combated not only at the political plane, but also at the level of popular culture, for it is at the level that the battle for the hearts and minds of the Indian people must first be fought.



Book: On Communalism and Globalization-Offensives of the Far Right
Author: Aijaz Ahmad
Publisher: Three Essays Press, New Delhi
[www.threeessays.com]
Year: 2002
Pages: 120
ISBN: 81-88394-04-1

[acharya]

Analyse this

http://www.foil.org/politics/hindutva/hindutva.html

[acharya]

Formation of Hinduism as a Religion

Today's social common sense believes Hinduism to be the religion of all the people in India except those who are specifically Muslims, Christians or Buddhists. It will be interesting to note that contrary to the popular belief the truth is that "Hindus" and "Hinduism" are orientalist constructions originating with late eighteenth century British administrators who believed "the essence of India existed in a number of key Hindu classical scriptures such as Vedas, the codes of Manu and the shastras that often prescribe hierarchical ideas" -- a conclusion eagerly "supported and elaborated by Brahmins". (2) Britishers not only absorbed this understanding, they put an official seal on it "by applying a legal system based on Brahminic norms to all non-Muslim castes and outcastes, the British created an entirely new Brahmin legitimacy. They further validated Brahmin authority by employing, almost exclusively, Brahmins as their clerks and assistants. "(3) " -- this fabrication through repetition of India as unitary Hindu society has -- obscured the reality of a segmented society, with Brahmins and other upper castes exercising a monopoly of power, fabricated Hinduism is found everywhere." (4)

The historical process whereby Brahminism gained ascendancy has variously been formulated by different sociologists. To give one example, Arun Bose (5) paraphrases Mill's beliefs, "The ideological and a fortiori social, political and economic development of Indian society was arrested at a primitive nomadic stage by the sterilizing despotic power of ruthless caste of Brahmin priests who fabricated more successfully than any other priestly caste ever known, myths and legends to deceive, oppress and exploit the remaining castes, particularly the Sudra caste. By draconian punishments, reinforced by legends about creation and the cycle of rebirths through which strict conformity with caste taboos was rewarded and infringements penalized, they were able to enforce total and resigned submission to their omnipotent power."

Initially the term Hindu began with regional tones. The term was coined by Arabs and others, who pronounced `S' as `H', and to denote the people living on this side of Sindhu (Indus) they called them Hindu. Its only much later that this term was bestowed with a religious meaning. Nehru (6) pointed out that "Hinduism as a faith is vague, amorphous, many sided, all things to all men. It is hardly possible to define it, or indeed to say definitely whether it is a religion or not, in the usual sense of the word, in its present form, and even in the past, it embraces many beliefs and practices, from the highest to the lowest, often opposed to or contradicting each other."

Formulating it more sharply to bring to focus the caste factor, Hinnells and Sharp (7) concede that "A Hindu is a Hindu not because he accepts doctrines and philosophies, but because he is a member of caste', thus implying that Hinduism is a social order and not a religion.

Romila Thapar (8) in her analysis posits that "The new Hinduism which is being currently propogated by the Sanghs, Parishads and Samajs is an attempt to restructure the indigenous religions as a monolithic uniform religion, rather paralleling some of the features of semitic religions. This seems to be a fundamental departure from the essentials of what may be called the indigenous `Hindu' religions. Its form is not only in many ways alien to the earlier culture of India but equally disturbing is the uniformity which it seeks to impose on the variety of `Hindu' religions."

Hindu sects are multiple and diverse with many founders, and these sects have survived over a period of centuries. At times scholars used the word for a group of different indigenous religions which could vary in their belief system from animism to atheism, which are looked at with suspicion by todays votaries of Hinduism. Thapar goes on to say (8) "Hinduism as defined in contemporary parlance is a collation of beliefs, rites and practices consciously selected from those of the past, interpreted in contemporary idiom in last couple of centuries and the selection conditioned by historical circumstances." -- in a strict sense, a reference to `Hinduism' would require a more precise definition of the particular variety referred to Brahminism, Brahmo-Samaj, Arya Samaj, Shaiva Siddhanta, Bhakti, Tantricism or whatever."

The two major religious categories which existed were Brahminism and Shramanism. Shramans were those who were often in opposition to Brahminism, these are the groups which had belief structures away from Vedas and Dharmashastras. Their teachings transcended castes and communities, and in contrast to Brahminism which categorised religious practice by caste, shramanic religions opposed this in order to universalise their religious teachings. Bhakti tradition emphasised selfless action projected as the need to act in accordance with ones' moral duties. This shift of emphasis, away from Brahminical rites and sacrificial rituals provided the root, in later time, for a number of cults like, Shaiva, Vaishnava and many others, it also provided the rough outline to much that is viewed as traditional `Hinduism'. Lot of variationsoccurred in this tradition. Much later Kabir and Nanak brought in sufi ideas in their teachings. Shakta sect and Tantric rituals also gained wide popularity. These are now played down as being anathema to the current version of Hinduism, i.e. Brahmical Hinduism.

The religious practices of untouchables and tribals have a lot of rituals which involve offerings and libations of meat and alcohol. Also these groups could not afford the costly donations required for Brahmical yagnas. Gradually dharma (religious duty) became central to religion, regarded as sacred and which had to be performed in accordance with one's varna, jati and sect and which differed according to each of these. Thapar (8) goes on to add "`Hindu' missionary organisations, taking their cue from Christian missionaries are active among the adivasis, untouchables and economically backward communities, converting them to `Hinduism' as defined by upper caste movements of the last two centuries. That this `conversion' does little or nothing to change their status as adivasis, untouchables and so on and that they continue to be looked down upon by upper caste `Hindus' is of course of little consequence."

Jainism and Buddhism were the major amongst Shramanic tradition. These religions were persecuted in many parts of the country. The premodern Hinduism was not a monolithic religion, as being projected by the SP, but was a juxtaposition of multiple religious sects.

Thapar calls the Hinduism, currently being propogatead as `Syndicated Hinduism'. This projection is made by the social base of the SP, a powerful urban middle class with a reach to rural rich who find it useful to bring into politics, a uniform, monolithic, Hinduism created to serve its new requirement. The Hinduism which more or less has won the social space and draws mainly from Brahminical texts, and also draws from Dharmashastras. The attempt of this exercise is to present a modern reformed religion. The net result is a repackaged Brahminism. The Hindu communities settled abroad, look for a parallel to Christianity, as their religion. This is to overcome the sense of inferiority and cultural insecurity which they experience in their life. Thapar goes on to say " Syndicated Hinduism claims to be re-establishing the Hinduism of pre-modern times; in fact it is only establishing itself and in the process distorting the historical and cultural dimensions of indigenous religions and divesting them of the nuances and variety which was a major source of their enrichment." To put the understanding in a linear way: "The Hindu religion as it is described today is said to have its roots in the Vedas, -- In any case, whatever we call the religion of these nomadic clans, it was not the religion that is today known as Hinduism. This (Hinduism in its current version) began to be formulated only in the period of Maghadha-Mauryan state, in the period ranging from Upanishads and the formation of Vedantic thought to the consolidation of the social order represented by Manusmriti. Buddhism and Jainism (as well as the materialist Carvak tradition) were equally old - Hinduism as we know it, was in other words, only one of the many consolidations within a diverse sub-continental cultural tradition, and attained social and political hegemony only during the sixth to tenth century A.D., often after violent confrontations with Buddhism and Jainism (9).

As per Gail Omvedt (9) this Brahmanic Hinduism adopted and identified with the authority of the Vedas and Brahmans. Material base of this system was the caste structure of the society. Its cooptive power was qualified to the extent that dissidents had to accept their place in the caste herarchy. The masses of people did not have the identity of `Hindu'. Multiple local gods and traditions existed side by side forming the base of popular culture. Later only during colonial period this identity of Hindu was constructed for all the inhabitants of this land except those who were followers of Islam or Christianity.

This construction was thrown up by English scholarship and by Indian elites. Gail posits that "In the nineteenth century, people like Lokmanya Tilak adopted the "Aryan theory of Race", claimed a white racial stock for upper caste Indians and accepted Vedas as their core literature. Tilak was also the first to try and unite a large section of the masses around brahmanical leadership with celebration of Ganesh festival - also by the end of 19th century, Hindu conservatives were mounting a full scale attack on their upper caste reformist rivals with the charges that latter were "anti-national." One gets a clear idea that SP has succeeded in perpetuating a perception amongst Hindus to forge a communalsolidarity through elective projections of the past, and this does involve a deliberate reformulation of history. Emergence of nation state does bring in its wake and imposes a homogenisation. In case of India this evolution of "national religion and Hinduism has mainly been defined in opposition to the Muslim "other".

http://www.foil.org/politics/hindutva/rampun1.html

[acharya]

Construction of Hindutva

The construction of Hindutva is to be seen in the backdrop of emergence of Hinduism as a homogenous religion. The concept of Brahminical Hinduism, projected as Hinduism was at the root of multiple religious revivalist movements. Its political translation began mainly with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who initiated the Ganapati Festival to wean away the popular participation of lower castes people in Muharram festival. Some sociologists (10) have called such ideological maneouvers as "manipulative reinterpretation of cultural material" and "invention of tradition." Later Tilak went on to organize a festival in honor of Shivaji, who broke the Moghul hold on western India and opened the way for rampage of Maratha armies through much of India. A strong anti-muslim slant was brought into the function.This nationalism was based on hate of Muslims. At the same time Ram, was popularised as a symbol of moral power, along with Hanuman symbolising the masculine strength. Shivaji's guru Ramdas had the image of anti-Muslim crusader and this was highlighted by Tilakites. Guru Ramdas's vision was limited to ending the Moghul rule and establishing Brahminical hegemony. Guru Ramdas was also given prominence in the initial phases of RSS activities. Shivaji tradition was and is an important means for Brahminism to assure themselves of the essential similarities of their interests and those of current society.

Anti-Muslim sentiments were consistently used by Tilak to project a political methodology of consolidating the Hindus. Starting from Bankimchandra Chatterji, various other Hindu national ideologoues had whipped the fear psychosis with Muslims as the ones' threatening the survival of Hindus. All these fabrications were manufactured and propogated by the ascendant, nascent, amorphorphous Hindu nationalist forces. The combination of `syndicated Hinduism' with nationalism was brewed by Vinayak Savarkar who can be called the first exponent of the doctrine of Hindutva. The mix of Brahminical Hinduism with nationalism reflecting the interests of upper castes and part of upper class was defined and later refined on the exclusionist principles, which are so basic to the Brahminism. Savarkars initial anti British struggles were very impressive. After his assuming the role of the proponent of Hindutva his major energies were channelised in strengthening the politics of hate, the formation of communal Hindu Mahasabha and helping RSS from distance.

Savarkars politics was a rival to Gandhian politics. Gandhi the representative of Indian Nationalism was branded as conciliator and appeaser of Muslims. Savarkar propounded that struggle for supremacy would begin after British left and that the Christians and Muslims were the real enemies who could be defeated only by "Hindutva". His key sentence was "Hinduize all politics and militarize Hindudom". His definition of a Hindu was the one who regarded this land from Indus to the Seas as Pitrabhumi (Father land) and Punyabhumi (Holy land). This land belonged to Hindus and so by implications Muslims with Holy land in Mecca and Christians with Holy land in Jerusalem, can not have equal status to `Hindus'. This was later to be made more explicit by Guru Golwalkar, who despite adoring Hitler, was 'generous' and 'kind' enough to these 'aliens' by granting them the status of second class citizens. Also began the concept of "Hindu Raj" the precurser of present SP goal the `Hindu Rashtra'.

The final crystallisation occurred with foundation of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which became the `Father' organization for plethora of organisations which were to take birth after a period of consolidation of the core swayamsevaks (volunteers).

[acharya]

Social Base of Hindutva Movement

One will like to add a comment about the relations of Hindutva with Congress and Shiv Sena. Congress came up mainly as a 'national', anticolonial movement but Hindutva was constantly associated with it, at times dominant, at times hidden and at times a marginal accompaniment. Under the leadership of Tilak Congress was the vehicle of Hindutva in a major way. With Gandhi assuming the leadership of Congress, Hindutva was subjugated to the main 'anti-British' project and was side tracked. But it existed within Congress all the came. Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Sardar Patel and later Purshottamdas Tandon were the main 'Hindutva' votaries. Also there was a uniform scatter of these 'strong saffron' to mild saffron leaders at all the rungs of leadership. With Nehru assuming strong 'socialist, secular' principles as the state policy, the Hindutva elements kept themselves maintaining their roots. After Nehru's demise and with change in social dynamics, Indira Gandhi veered to upper castes as the main support base, the upper caste vote bank, in 84 electrions.

Rajiv's Congress lost out the battle for the 'upper caste' vote bank, to the blatant puritan and unadulterated upper caste agenda of BJP, which since then has not looked back and has by now become 'The' vehicle of Hindutva politics, marginalising the Congress from the upper caste arena. All in all though Hindutva has played a 'hide and seek' expression in some periods, through Congress. But it is the BJP which has been the major and preferred vehicle for Hindutva agenda. Shiv Sena, which thrived on the 'sons of the soil' garbage, watered from the backyard by some elements of Congress, came up strongly in Bombay. Supported by the big capital, it unleashed a'physical annhilation' of communist labor leaders in Bombay.

After exhausting this agenda, it temporarily campaigned against the 'lungiwallahs' (South Indians), and Gujarathis before latching on to the upswinging Hindutva movement. In the process it boosted and supplemented the SP, playing the combine role of a mini Maharashtraian BJP and the storm tropper Bajrang Dal (the lumpen 'son' of R.S.S., specialising in anti-muslim onslaught/pogroms). In early simmerings of its emergence this movement to begin with was spearheaded mostly by Brahmins. Its support came from the landed aristocracy and some layers of middle classes. Most amorphous sections identified with the Gandhian Nationalism, while the subulterns identified more with the movement of Ambedkar or the communist parties.

Despite the training of cadres, dedicated, committed, ascetic on so on, the reach of religious nationalism was confined to Brahmin/Bania/Rich peasant and petty bourgeoisie in the Hindi belt in Northern India. And the failure of its campaigns on cow slaughter ban, Indianise the Muslims, was well indicative of that. Even the communal riots which began from 60s began with a slow pace and picked up more and more dangerous proportions with passage of time. The ideological propagation of Hindutva and the rise of its support base went hand in hand, and by late seventies and early eighties the anti-Muslim riots began to assume horrendous proportions.

Though BJP and its predecessor the Jan Sangh began with small electoral support, this support was well designed. It was the urban middle classes, sections of twice-born castes, and the Banias. Let us have a brief look at the changes in social composition which have occurred during last 50 years of the republic. The proportion of urban population has gone up by 20-25 per cent. They also constitute the ones' having derived maximum benefit of modern education and the facilities thrown up by the industrialization process. They do have a sort of dominant presence in the society. The cultural, social and political aspirations of this sector is the ground on which has risen the edifice of SP.

To understand the social base of the SP we will like to go into the regrouping of social groups in Gujarat. Nandy et al (11) have described this process in detail. Along with urbanisation there has been a parallel process in which the rich peasants of Gujarat have achieved an enhanced social status. These Patidars', (cash crop farmers) caste has been upgraded by a process of religious manoeuvering. The polarisation of middle class (Brahmin, Bania) and Patidar occurred around 1980, around the issue of reservations for the lower castes. In 1981, Gujarat witnessed an extreme form of caste violence directed against the lower castes. These antireservation agitations played a key role in consolidating the base of upper castes and upwardly mobile middle classes. SP directly or indirectly stood by to support this upper caste onslaught.

By using clever strategies SP was also able to give an upwardly mobile channel to a section of Dalits, aspiring a better place within Hindu society. In Gujarat, one can clearly see the social functionality of creating the `other'. Here earlier the ultimate object of hate was the dalit, by a clever manoeuver, the Muslim is substituted for that, the dalit is unleashed upon the "other", a atmosphere of terror is created, which helps to maintain a `status quo' of social hierarchy. The core of this social base was given a cohesion by various Yatras and campaigns by VHP.

Basu, Datta, Sarkar, Sarkar and Sen in their enlightening work `Khakhi Shorts Saffron Flags' (1), have tried to trace the roots of SP movement. They correlate it with the rise of new religiosity around worship `Jai Mata Di', `Jai Santoshi Ma', around functions like `Jagrata' and pilgrimages like `Vaishno Devi'. All these which emerged in northern states in late 60's and early 70 got co-opted and colored by the VHP campaigns. Basu et.al. identify a significant social base of SP in new urban middle class, spreading in small towns as well, which has come up due to the rapid growth of relatively small enterprises and the accompanying trade boom. "These small scale units flourish without the concomitant growth of organized working class, since individual work-places are far too small to consolidate the labor force and enable effective unionization." This type of industrial development, based on screw driver technology has mushroomed all through in 70's and 80's. This newer middle class tends to be fragmented into smaller more individual units. "They are marked by intense internal competition and steady pressure of new opportunity structures, ever expanding horizons for upward mobility and a compulsive consumerism that keeps transcending its own limits. The very pressure of growth is disturbingly destabilizing; the brave new world of global opportunities creates anomie and existential uncertainties." (1) The Green Revolution in parts of UP has increased rural purchasing power feeding into the boom in urban enterprises, consumerism and trade.

Characterisation of the Movement

Most of the social scientist have characterised this movement as a communal one. The broad perception amongst the segment of liberal, progressive intellectuals is that this is a communal movement, spearheaded by the SP, to strengthen the social and political power of Hindu elites. It's most commonly perceived activity is to train the cadres in its core doctrine to float the different organisations (BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, etc.) which overtly spread the communal venom against minorities in general and Muslims in particular. By now the success of SP (Sangh Parivar) in communalising the social space, infiltrating police, army and bureaucracy is well recognised. And it is, and is broadly perceived as a communal movement.

`Religious nationalism' is a characterisation by many a sociologists who pick up the assertions of these movements and give them a decent looking veneer (13). In Juergansmeyers' understanding the religious nationalists see the failure of democracy and socialism, both western models, leading them to conclude that secular nationalism has failed. And so they view religion as a hopeful alternative, which can provide a basis for criticism and change. As per him the differences amongst various religious leaders are immense, but they all share one thing in common - seeing Western secular nationalism as their enemy and their hope to revive religion in public sphere. Juergansmeyer hesitates to call these movements fundamentalist as this word tends to suggest "an intolerant, self-righteous, and narrowly dogmatic religious literalism." The term is less descriptive and more accusatory. Also it is an imprecise term for makingcomparisons across cultures. The better term for this phenomenon is offered by Bruce Lawrence (14) which suggests a global revoltagainst secular ideology that often accompanies modern society.

The 'modern' according to this are those who are `modern' while opposing the values of modernism. Also fundamentalism does not carry any political meaning and conveys the idea of solely being motivated by religious beliefs rather than broad concerns about the nature of society and the world. The term religious nationalist conveys the main meaning of religious and political interests and also holds that there is no clear distinction between religion and politics, as this distinction is a mask of western thinking.

But this characterisation is not able to totally understand different broad and deepfacets of its offensives. Also it isnot able to explain the intensity and sustained nature of this movement. To fill this gap some social scientists and activists like Ram Bapat, characterise this as being a fundamentalist movement, akin to the one in countries like Iran (12). As per this formulation Indian fundamentalism, like the global one which exists everywhere in post industrial societies, has been generated by the system of advanced capitalism or late capitalism.

In third world countries it is in a manifest form in contrast to the latent form in advanced countries. Bapat feels that due to lack of power of public opinion of the progressive world at the turn of century, the first world is making every attempt to put fundamentalism on top of the agenda for the world politics and even for military purposes. After the decades of 60s and 70s, which constituted the years of triumph of socialism and also of emancipatory nationalism, the next two decades marked the beginning of revivalism and fundamentalism. Originally fundamentalism developed in America where capitalism faced a lot of turmoil from 1870 to 1930. Similarly other countries when faced with severe economic crisis, came up with the fundamentalist response from some sectors of society. In America this fundamentalist response came in the form of a movement which asserted the revivalist trend to identify essential absolute to enable American citizens to take on the force of darkness. Bapat makes a pertinent point that since 1818, Maharashtra, amongst all Indian states has served as a kind of hot house plant for sustaining all kinds of orthodoxy, revivalism, fundamentalism and communalism, particularly of Hindutva variety. To begin with Fundamentalist Hindutva is not the Hinduism practised by millions of people. It (the Hindutva) is an imaginary Hinduism which is essentially extra-historical, extra-religious and is a political credo for those who want to make much of the ideology for their political ends. The fundamentalism is neither based on traditional modes of thought nor traditions as they existed. They win over people by propogating of `manufactured traditions.'

They adopt the gains of modernity, science, technology, weaponary and industrial production. It wants a modern apparatus of life without the necessary relations between human beings which would give them space to struggle for their rights. In nutshell, it wants to achieve a certain modern culture i.e. the modern production process sans the accompanying space for improvement of human relationships. It is a post feudal phenomenon aimed at inventing a new identity for the ruling classes.

It uses the language of religious discourse. Fundamentalism is possible only in semitic religions. The semitisation process of Hinduism is going on from last many decades. This semitic Hinduism which in fact is the Brahminical Hinduism has discovered the Book in `Gita', the holy deity in `Ram' from amongst hundreds of contenders for this status. The attempt of this fundamentalist movement is to read their interests and programmes of the present into the past. Bapat feels that Sangh Parivar is not fascist as, fascism does not lean upon religion to give it the cohesive aggressive slant. In contrast Aijaz Ahmed, K.N. Panikar, Sumeet Sarkar and many other sociologist characterise the SP as being Fascist. As per Sarkar (15) the SP movement may not look exactly parallel to the German Fascism, but a closer look at the pattern of affinities and differences helps to highlight the crucial features, notably as the implications of the offensive of SP go far beyond the events of 92-93. The drive for Hindu Rashtra has put into jeopardy the entire secular and democratic foundations of our republic. It is onlyHindu communalism, and not the Muslim communalism which has the potential of imposing fascism in India. Sarkar points out that Fascism was introduced in Italy and Germany through a combination of carefully orchestrated street violence (with a mass support) and deep infiltration into the police bureaucracy and the army, with the connivance of 'centrist' political leaders. Hitler, for example, had repeatedly asserted his party's respect for legality even after coming to power, but meanwhile his colleague Goering, Nazified the German police, organised street encounters in which more than 50 anti-Nazis were murdered and set the scence for Reichstag fire; after which first the communists and then all opposition political parties and trade unions were quickly destroyed. The methodology adopted in destruction of mosque is so much reminiscent of the same method. The mosque is demolished in 51/2 hours in total violation of supreme court order and repeated assurances given by leading opposition party, and the central government does not even lift a finger till the mosque is totally razed to the ground. Countrywide riots follow, police partiality is painfully obvious, the land grabbing vandals build a temporary 'temple', illegally, and this structure is protected, while the political force behind this, the BJP alternates between occasional apology and more frequent aggressive justification, while their brother organisation, the VHP adds Delhi's Jumma Masjid in the list of Hindu monuments and denounces the Indian constitution as being anti Hindu. The beating up of journalists on Dec. 6, is no surprise as the fascists forces, who carefully cultivate the press usually, like to combine persuasion with an occasional big stick.

Unlike the Fascism in Italy and Germany which came into power within a decade or less of its emergence as a political movement, Hindutva had a long gestation period, which has given added strength and stability to the movement and it has been a long enough time for their ideas to become part of the social common sense. Sarkar correctly points out that the real base of Sangh Parivar remains the predominantly upper caste trader professional petit bourgeoisie of cities and small town mainly in Hindi heartland; with developing connections perhaps with upwardly mobile landholding groups in countryside. He quotes Daniel Gurien's definition of fascism as "not only an instrument at the service of big buisness, but at the same time a mystical upheaval of the petite bourgeoisie. Specific linkages of big business with fascism remain controversial. By a sustained propaganda work SP has succeeded in creating a communalised common sense in which Muslim has become a near equivalent of the Jew - or the Black in contemporary white racism. As per SP the Muslim in India is unduly privileged a charge much more absurd than it was in Germany where Jews had been fairly prominent and well to do. In India Muslims are grossly underrepresented in business, bureaucracy, army, police, private enterprise etc. Here the alleged privileges are the appeasement of Muslims by pseudosecularists.

Like Hitler in Germany, the SP arrogates to itself to be representative of Hindus, who are in majority, and thereby its democratic credentials are above board. Similarly since SP is 'The' representative of Hindus, any body deviating from its line is anti Hindu at worst and pseudosecular at best. Unlike Jews who had to face the gas chambers, Hindutva line is 'kind and generous' and offers a second class citizenship to the Muslims.

The constant anti Muslim violence, euphemistically called 'communal' riots has succeeded in ghettoising large chunks of the Muslim population. Also unlike Nazis, SP grounds the identity on religion.

Aijaz Ahmed (16) calls it Hindutva Fascism and points out that it differs from the Italian and German ones' on the ground that it speaks relatively rarely of economic instance and fashions its ideological discourse along categories of 'nation' and community seeking to obtain the identity between these two categories nation and community - through methodical use of violence as a political instrumentality. Hindutva has nationalised the violence as a means for capturing state power. As per Ahmed the whole series of mass spectacles, mobilizationsand blood baths that began with rath yatra and culminated in the demolition of masjid on one hand, and terrorization of Bombay on the other has introduced into Indian politics a qualitatively different dynamics, pushing the urban culture of diverse regions across the country in a distinctly fascist direction,and giving to the new phase of Indian communalism a form at once hysterical and methodical which is similar to that of European anti-semitism.

The true object of SP's desire is not submission of the muslims alone but of state power as a whole, and remaking of India in its own image. This, it is achieving by imposing a homogenisation on the lines of Brahminical ethos on the society. Concieved and executed as at present, the SP fascist project has some limitation since it does not 'pose' to be radical enough to win over the masses and India is too diverse a country to buy SP's homogenisation at a quick pace.

The Hindu Right (SP) has been equated with Nazi Germany by Jan Breman (17), who points out that popular support for Hindutva primarily stems from social sections which enjoy better life than earlier generations were used to. " - both (German Fascism and Hindutva) originate within and also appeal to the petty bourgeoisie, a composite class which is growing in size and political weight". Despite minor differences Breman posits that there are deeper similarities. Nazi ideology worked into a pseudo religious dogma, while Hindutva has packed its gospel in purely religious terms. This religiosity of Hindutva is a mere facade for a more comprehensive societal reconstruction which is very materialistic in nature. Breman, who was born and bred during Hitlers reign and has also seen the Hindutva onslaught from close quarters, gets a distinct feeling of de ja vu. This is partly because of the fact that similar to the Hitler regime here also one community is singled out as arch enemy of the people (the nation), the Hindu majority. The persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany was planned and controlled by the party machinary. Though in the maze of propaganda which gives advanced legitimization to the pogroms which are to follow, the Hindutva offensive tries to cleverly masquerade its role in the pogroms on Muslims. This is possible because of a clever division of labor between 'father' (RSS) and different 'sons' and 'daughter' of this 'parivar'. RSS trains the cadre in ideology, BJP plays this game on political chessboard, VHP gives an emotive touch to the communal project by roping in the Sants, Mahants and the NRI's, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti backs up the RSS ideology by taking it in the sphere of home, and the Bajrang Dal translates it in to the street violence, which can take off only because of the ground work done by other members of the 'parivar'. This was painfully obvious on Bombay and Surat in 1993. In addition the Hindutva forces encouraged hunt against the deviant forces, with those upholding the secular ethos, being next on the firing line.

But unlike the Jews in Germany, Muslims are no capitalist sharks, so their 'privileged' 'appeasement' is projected and they are shown to be a pampered lot. Also part of this aggression is justified by their political domination and harassment of Hindus in the medieval times. Bremen sharply perceives the project of Hindu right-"marginalised as Mohammadi Hindus they may be allowed to hide in their own ghettos, cordoned off like the judenvierter"were in the Nazified Europe. In their defiled habitat they will live beyond the pale, as new untouchables in a modern India which is thoroughly Hinduised".

Trying to take a broad and critical look at the Fascist analogy of Sangh Parivar Achin Vanaik (8) theorises the phenomenon of fascism and uses it for analysing Hindu Nationalism. Vanaik feels that fascist paradigm is inappropriate and of very limited value for situating not just Hindu nationalism but a whole host of political phenomena, particularly in the third world. There are important similarities and dissimilarities between Hindutva and Fascism. To take up dissimilarities first: lack of charismatic leader in SP, absence of an explicitly anti-liberal/anti-democratic and anti working class themes, absence of any verbal anticapitalist demagogy, absence of any orientation to the theme of a 'generalisational revolt' etc. Vanaik states that though Fascist formations can draw their support from all classes, they are not multiclass political formations or movements. They are not a form of authoritarian populism. "Fascist formations win ideological and political hegemony because their decisive victories are achieved on non-ideological terrain. Their momentum is convulsive. They grow rapidly but they also fade out fast if they do not achieve power. In postcolonial societies the political vehicles of religious fundamentalism or religion based nationalism are not so much the fascist formations as, at most, potential fascist formations, where that potential may or may not be realised. While fascist state in India would necessarily be Hindu nationalist, the Hindu nationalist state would not ecessarily be fascist."

Vanaik in his presentation is totally silent on the class base of fascism. This forces him to turn to ideological realms to characterise the nature of Hindu nationalism. In a subtle shift from class analysis, to analysing 'nation' Vanaik dumps the materialist understanding in the bin and walks on the crutches of idealism "In last 15 years ..... there has been the dramatic rise of politics of cultural exclusivisms and xenophobia.... we are witness to four forms of which the politics of exclusivity have taken .... rise of religious fundamentalism.... HIndu nationalism .... spreading and swelling of carbuncles of racist and anti immigrant xenophobia in the first world. Vanaik does relate all these phenomenon to global changes in correlation and feels that politics of identity has by and large overshadowed the politics of class. He sees this movement, the political vehicle of religious fundamentalism not as fascist but only potentially so, it is an Indian variant of a generic phenomenon but does not belong to the genus of fascism.

[Guest]

If RSS is fascist, how are these things happening?

1) Muslims becoming majority in few states and rapidly becoming one in other states
2) Mass conversions in every state
3) Lack of retaliation from Hindus all over the country for the Godhra killings?
4) Why Kashmiri pandits left J&K
5) Why cow slaughter is still legal?
6) Why is there so much struggle to even build Lord Ram temple in Ayodhaya, not to mention temples at other places.
7) Why is there no major protest for a proposal to build temple for Sonia?
8) Why India did not declare war on Pakistan despite the accorded legal right under UN charter to defend itself.
9) Why the illegal immigration from Bangladesh continues?
10) Why uniform civil code hasn't been implemented despite SC judgement?
11) Why muslims are allowed to build mosques anywhere they want and shout Allah on loud speakers as many times as they want? Even USA is resisting to grant such privileges to muslims.
12) Why POK was not snatched back from Pakistan?
13) Why funds are flowing from western countries to missionaries to do conversions?
14) Why the entire media establishment (IE, TOI, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph, Outlook, Frontline, Star TV, Zee TV, NDTV, Sify, Rediff) is against Hindus?

All those p-sec Hindu idiots who constantly criticize RSS/VHP have no idea that whatever rights they are enjoying in India is because of the presence and warnings of RSS/VHP. Otherwise, India would have been Islamized by now, with Hindus forced to preach Islam and live under a Taliban style regime. These p-sec Hindus have no idea what mullahs are capable of, if they become majority. Learn from the middle east and any country on this planet where they are in a majority. Look at their constitutional system, their practices, the terrorism and violence they propogate. They seem to support Sonia as PM here in India whole heartedly. Can anyone imagine Sonia Gandhi becoming even a low party official in these middle eastern countries?

[Guest]

----------------
Little India
June 3, 2004

SONIA GANDHI AND THE HYPOCRISY OF THE SAFFRON NRIS
By Vijay Prashad

It is a disgrace on the BJP that its leaders revile the Constitution openly and use every racist and cruelly cultural nationalist argument against Sonia Gandhi.

I must admit I have never had anything but contempt for the post-1967 Congress Party. It had begun to betray the Freedom Movement before then. But in the 1970s, the Congress had jettisoned all the values of the anti-colonial struggle and
become the party of the establishment. All the "Garibi Hataos" (Remove Poverty) slogans could not conceal the fact that Indira Gandhi's party had become enveloped in corruption and nepotism. It shifted polices only for power and profit, rather than the public interest.

When Mrs. Gandhi was killed in 1984, I did not feel any happiness. Such assassinations do not solve the broader social problems within the institutions of India and within the Congress Party. Indeed, the Congress then unleashed its cadre to kill three thousand Sikhs in the matter of three days. The 20th anniversary of this carnage is this November.

Two of the leaders who have been publicly accused of having a hand in this pogrom are back as members of the Lok Sabha. The son of another thug is also going to take a seat on the treasury benches. It is fitting that we shall have a Sikh
Prime Minister; India remembers the Sikhs killed by his own party two decades ago.

I heard the news of the Tamil Tigers' assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in Chicago
bookstore. The news made me ill, and it was hard to explain to my friends why I had to rush home and call friends in India.

They knew that I had nothing but contempt for Rajiv. He had been a disaster for India, heading the words of his advisors Buta Singh and Arun Nehru to reopen the wounds of Ayodhya, and bankrupting the exchequer with his Bofors adventure and his infatuation with NRI Sam Pitroda. Rajiv Gandhi's legacy to India was the rise of the BJP (who had hijacked his Ayodhya antics, and almost took away Buta Singh and Arun Nehru from him as well), and the entry of the Indian government into a relationship with the IMF.

Remember that in July 1991,the Indian government had to air-lift 47 tons of gold to the Bank of London as security against a short-term hard currency loan of $400 million. Manmohan Singh then said, "Negotiations with the IMF were difficult because the world has changed. India is not immune. India has to survive and flourish in a world we cannot change in our own image. Economic relations are power relations. We are not living in a morality play." Actually, all this was nonsense, because India had to survive not a changed world, but it had to survive the hefty import bill left behind after Rajiv Gandhi had left us for his next life.

Yet, there was sorrow at the death of a man who had, whatever his own motives, given himself to a profession that he detested. He had seen the turmoil of office with his grandfather, mother and brother, and he quite openly spoke out against his own involvement. Circumstances and a false sense of family destiny, as well as the Congress' pathological inability to cultivate national leaders contributed to his entry. He should have been voted out of office and he should have moved to a quiet place to raise his family. The suicide bomber did not let this happen. She took him with her.

Rajiv and Sonia's daughter Priyanka Vadra is the smartest of the lot. She has young children and has an intimate knowledge of what "leadership" means to family life. She campaigned for the party and will advise it, but she will not, in the present, be an active parliamentarian or anything further. Her brother, Rahul, is a
novice, perhaps more so than Rajiv who had begun to assist his mother and work for the Congress long before he entered parliament to claim what has become the birthright of the Gandhi family. Sonia Gandhi's own refusal to become the PM has
to be seen in this lineage. Why would she want to put herself in the line of fire when the opposition to the Congress seems prone to want to kill its leaders rather than tackle the party at the hustings?

It is a disgrace on the BJP that its leaders revile the Constitution openly and use every racist and cruelly cultural nationalist argument against Sonia Gandhi's right as an Indian citizen, member of parliament and leader of the Congress Parliamentary Committee to hold the highest elected office in the land.

Having lost the election fair and square, Sushma Swaraj threatened to shave her hair and Narendra Modi once again began his nonsense about "Italy ki beti." The Constitution says that anyone who is a citizen can be prime minister, and it makes no distinction in the manner of the US government between a naturalized citizen and a citizen by birth. There is no such distinction in India, where there is only one kind of citizen.

Meanwhile, in the land of Indian America, the response from the supporters of the BJP has been as atrocious, but more hypocritical. Here we champion pluralism and demand the rights of Hindus to worship as they must and fight to get Indian (sorry, Hindu) Americans elected to political office. We want our rights here as human beings, and indeed are incensed when we are discriminated against. All this is as it should be. Why should we not demand pluralism, tolerance, rationality and dialogue?

But these same people look back to India with a perverted kind of nostalgia, tempered by guilt for having left in the first place, and want to see Bharatmata given over only to Hindus and to have only Hindus in power.

Govindacharaya is their hero because he went to see the president and demanded that a woman born in Italy not be allowed (he is charitable, for he says that for now he will not raise the issue about the foreignness of the children).

These same Yankee Hindutvawadis want to see India as a theocracy and a racially defined state, one that says Hindus first, Hindus second, Hindus forever. Others are not welcome, or if they are, they must live under the sufferance of the Hindus. When Sonia Gandhi almost became prime minister, the web bristled with the vitriol of our Yankee Hindutva writers, many of whom piled on abuses that are not fit to be printed in this magazine. They wrote malevolently and violently with no sense of the Hindu tolerance that they often mouth. The anti-Christian tendency was so strong that I was reminded of the anger at Bobby Jindal's conversion to Christianity. Actually, by the logic of these Yankee Hindutva writers, Bobby did the right thing: when in America, become Christian, because why should Hindus be allowed to attain office here when they can do so in Mother India?

The Congress is in power. The saffron NRIs cannot bear it. Their emergence in the US had coincided with the rise of the BJP in India. They got B.K. Agnihotri as ambassador at large, they got the relationship between India and Israel going, to
open doors for their relationship with the Israeli lobby in Washington, D.C., they got some India newspapers to open their columns to their intellectuals.

Suddenly Hindutva had become the in-thing, whose fashion might fade with the election results. The anger on the Internet, and elsewhere, against Sonia Gandhi is as much a result of their frustration at being turned away by the people. They had no economic agenda to deal with IMFundamentalism, and nothing to offer the unemployed and hungry. All they wanted to feed the people for votes is the gloss of "India Shining" and the sheen of Hindutva. The Indian electorate spurned them.

Good for them. Good for Sonia Gandhi for listening to her "inner voice." Some of these fascists are crazy and one of them might well have assassinated her. That was a provocation of little worth. Her family has shed enough blood for its own dynastic delusions. We don't need more Gandhian martyrs.

In the darkest of nights, the stars are seen clearest. The rule of Hindutva was a dark night, and the struggles of India's people had the luster of stars. Let us hope that these stars will rule their leaders, egg them to justice and refuse to entertain intolerance and cruelty again.

[Guest]

Vijay Prashad supports naxalities/PWG and now they are declared as International terrorist. Why he is still writing?

[acharya]

SInce he is special one who starts with blaming hindus

[Bhootnath]

> Yoginder Sikand

Now his friend "Barun De" history expert is in the circle YS is happy, there is an article by YS in IE.

[Guest]

Title: Hindutva - about keeping up a faith
Author: M.V.Kamath
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: June 17, 2004
http://www.samachar.com/features/170604-features.html

In his first public utterance after the fall of the NDA government, L. K. Advani made an interesting remarks. He said that Hindutva remained the guiding force of the BJP and there was no need to be apologetic about it. If he has been correctly reported, if not in words at least in spirit, the time has come to engage in a public discussion of the subject. So much has been said and written about Hindutva and no two persons seem agreed on an acceptable definition. Decades old writings and sayings of Veer Savarkar and Guru Golwalkar are often cited by secularists not so much to elucidate the phrase as much as to damn both and add to the hate propaganda.

In the `secular' mind Hindutva is associated with jingoism, communalism, anti-minoritism, fascism and everything negative. Debate becomes impossible. It is also associated with Hindu separatism, it a divisive factor in Indian society. The very word `Hindu' has become anathema to many `intellectual' Hindus.

To the Communists,especially in West Bengal, Hinduism stinks. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the CPM Chief Minister of West Bengal could even say, with a smirk on his face, that his party would support the Congress if only to keep the BJP out. The CPM government had gone to the extent of making the activities ofthe non-political Sri Ramakrishna Mission in the field of education so hard to pursue that the Mission, set up by no less than Swami Vivekananda felt forced to approach the Calcutta High Court to seek for itself a separate non-Hindu minority status.

The Mission's affidavit in the High Court and,later, its written arguments in July 1983 contended that "Ramakrishnaism is definitely no part of Hinduism" but is" a religion separate and different from the religion of the Hindus" and that" it has its own separate god, separate name, separate Church, separate worship, separate community, separate organization and, above all, separate philosophy".

What Swami Vivekanand, would have to say about this religious turn-coatism is another matter. What is it that is turning otherwise decent and religious Hindus against themselves? One has to read Pawan Varma's nauseating book `Being Indian'to appreciate the depth to which hatred of Hinduism has gotten inside the Hindu mind.

It is self-flagellation at its worst. One can understand the anger of the reformer who has set out to change Hindu society. India down the centuries had several of them. One of the last, Sri Aurobindo could say: "These hollow worm-eaten outsides of Hinduism crumbling so sluggishly, so fatally to some sudden and astonishing dissolution, do not frighten me. Within them I find the soul of a civilization alive, though sleeping".

Sri Aurobindo was no ordinary critic of what was crumbling about Hinduism, but even when he was being critical he could see through the devastating influence of westernisation that was affecting Hindu society at the beginning of
the twentieth century. He was one of the original pleaders for Hindutva.

As Jyotirmaya Sharma, a sociologist says in his work Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism: "If Savarkar's exposition of Hindutva is the most radical, the most extreme and, certainly the most militant, it is only because his universe of ideas and its milieu was nourished by predecessors like Dayananda (Saraswati), Vivekananda and Aurobindo." Each of them was a product of his times.

Each had seen the damage wrought to Hinduism by alien religions. Writes H. N. Bali in his book `Hinduism at the Crossroads':"In their zeal both Islam and Christianity did everything possible to distort the essence of the Hindu faith and paint it in the darkest hues to make Hindus self-conscious of the inadequacies of their religion... For centuries our tradition of tolerance and catholicity has been grossly abused..." It was out of this that Dayananda Saraswati, Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda were born. Decades have passed. The anger of the Hindu, it seems, still remains. Not among the westernised Hindu `liberals'but among the masses. But what is the answer? How should one reinvigorate Hindus and Hinduism?

Bali, in his book India's Wounded Polity notes "how a fatal flaw Hindu civilization has been its inability to stand up to defend itself, militarily, against the onslaught of foreign aggressions" and concludes by saying that "this has almost entirely been because of the unpardonable incompetence of a self-complacent leadership and had nothing to do with the religious faith that the Hindus professed". But how is this to be reversed? Can so-called secularism do the trick? Can secularism as propounded by our Congress and Leftist leaders give back to the Hindus the greatness of the civilization to which they are the natural heirs? In a way the secularists have no clear concept of Hindutva.

As Dr Makarand Paranjape, Professor of English at the Jawaharlal Nehru University says in Dialogue Quarterly (Jan. March 2004) "we need a much greater
degree of introspection and self-examination before we can occupy the higher moral and intellectual ground from which to mount an attack on Hindutva. But
instead we find ourselves incapacitated and blinded by the deceptions and distortions of the very secularism which we claim to espouse..." As Prof. Paranjape sees it, secularism is really "inverse communalism", and corruption.

Hyper-secularism actually took Hindu away from themselves, in effect "de-Indianised" them. And that is the special tragedy. But should the assertion of Hindutva become a political weapon? Can't the concept of Hindutva be effectively separated from politics? An activist, Ram Gopal has sought to define Hindutva in his own way. He writes:
* Briefly speaking Hindutva is a clarion call for Hindu revival. It is geo-cultural concept which, in the present circumstances, has acquired a political bias.

* Hindutva is rooted in Hindu culture, distinct from Hindu religion and is poised gainst the present hybrid of Marxism or Socialism and the capitalist philophy of the West.

* The word `Hindutva' should not and need not raise an alarm in any quarters as falsely made in the English media and reflected in the Vernacular Press.

* Hindutva based on Hindu culture must be catholic and must aim at peaceful co-existence with all sections of mankind and with Nature, too. It has to be eco-friendly respectful to all great souls, irrespective of their religion or religious faith who devoted their lives for the upliftment of man.

* Hindutva bereft of Hindu culture is dangerous and even suicidal. Viewed in this light, Hindutva becomes a liberating force and a uniting force that could bring Hindus, Muslims, Christians together instead of dividing them. When, in Indonesia, the second largest Islamic country in the world, population- wise, the government consciously puts the figure of Lord Ganesh on its currency notes and names its national airline after Garuda, it is going back culturally to its Hindu cultural roots.

When Indonesians consciously name their children as Sukarno, Suharto, Meghavati and so on they are going back again to their cultural roots. When Christians in India demand that Mass be said in their local mother tongue(Konkani, Kannada, Telugu or Gujarati) instead of in Latin, they are going back to their cultural roots. When Christian women after marriage, wear mangal- sutra and a `tilak' they are again going back to their cultural roots without forsaking their religion.

Christians these days are increasingly giving their children Sanskritnames. Here it must be emphasised as strongly as possible that there are no Hindu, Christian or Muslim names. What we have are Sanskrit, Hebraic, Latin or Arab names. It does not make a Christian less Christian if he or she is given a Sanskrit name. Sanskrit is the heritage of every Indian whether born in a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jain family.

Sanskrit has nothing to do with Sanatana Bharma. It was to Sanskrit that
Mahatma Gandhi took recourse to whenhe spoke about satyagrah, swaraj, sarvodaya and ahimsa, though this was viciously exploited by the Muslim League
during its campaign for Pakistan to estrange Muslims from the nationalist struggle. Gandhi could have translated these words into English but then the Anglicised words would have had no impact on the populace at all. That is why he spoke about Rama Rajya which every Indian would instantly understand. If he had used
the word `Utopia' he would have become the laughing stock of the country.

Who knows what utopia is when the meanest and most illiterate of Indians would have no difficulty in understanding the meaning of Rama Rajya? Gandhi was
no `communalist' but had he lived now he would most certainly have been dubbed
as one.

The minorities in India have nothing to fear about Hindutva, but it has to be explained in all its catholicity, to the minorities who see in Hindutva an aggressiveness that frightens them. Much of the blame for this state of affairs
should be laid on secularists whose mindless hatred has brought about damaging
rifts in Indian society. As Prof. Paranjape puts it "Hinduism must not go in the
defensive, apologeticaly seeking refuge in secularism.... Hindutva can be defeated not by substituting Hinduism with secularism, but by replacing a corrupt and rotten secularism with a genuinely pluralistic and satisfying Hinduism...."

As matters stand the propagation of Hindutva needs to be accompanied by
largescale social reform, a task that calls first for introspection and understanding of the issues involved among Hindus themselves. A renewed and re-invigorated Hinduism, freed from its many defects and sure of itself can serve as a model, to all communities. But Hindutva must be separated from politics, if it has to gather wide acceptance, a point that Advani could well take note of. Politicising Hindutva robs it of its essence which is revolutionising Hinduism as Sankara in his time did or as Dayananda, Vivekanand and Aurobindo had done in their times.

[acharya]

Hyper-secularism actually took Hindu away from themselves, in effect "de-Indianised" them. And that is the special tragedy.

[Bhootnath]

> Hyper-secularism actually took Hindu away from themselves, in effect "de-Indianised" them. And that is the special tragedy.

More than that , actually they are responsible in cushioning Jehadis & Church planters, thereby provoking Hindus and their version of Hindutva.

They pour scorn when hindu in some area walk over coal , shout & shreak when Nepal King wants to do that animal offering stuff, but keep quite when lakh of goats are cut and abhoring practice of Mataam where they cut themselves and bleed themselves in islam ..umm thats culture for them.