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FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE - Books Essay

Divine inspiration The most potent fundamentalism is brewing not in
terrorist networks or autocratic Islamic states but in two of the
world's
largest democracies.

By EDWARD LUCE
1,943 words
24 April 2004
Financial Times
Surveys MAG
Page 26
English
© 2004 The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved

Mention "religious fundamentalism" and most people would probably
think
first of Islam. There is nothing surprising in that. The aircraft
attacks of
September 11 and numerous other prominent acts of terrorism have been
carried out by Islamic fundamentalists. Some people might also think
of
Christian and Judaic fundamentalism and possibly even its Hindu or
Buddhist
varieties, but these would be faint echoes in comparison.

And yet, if you were to pinpoint two important societies that were
increasingly influenced by strong fundamentalist movements, you could
quite
reasonably single out the US and India.

In ordinary comparisons, India and the US have little in common. But
they
share some salient characteristics. Both are democracies, the US
being the
world's richest and India by far the largest (its 670m voters went to
the
polls this month). Both are vibrantly diverse societies with deep-
rooted
traditions of pluralism. Both boast proudly secular constitutions,
and in
both countries one religion - Christianity in the US, Hinduism in
India -
accounts for roughly 85 per cent of the population. Both have also
experienced a sharp growth in fundamentalism in the past two or three
decades.

Twenty years ago, most political scientists and sociologists would
have held
fast to the idea that modernisation went hand in hand with
secularisation.
Whether it was the decline of church attendance in western Europe or
the
apparent triumph of nationalism in the Arab world, modernity was
taken as a
byword for "post- religious". Such certainties are no longer widely
held.

The failure of economic reform in much of the Muslim world makes it
easier
to explain away Islamic fundamentalism as a particular and temporary
reaction to the shortcomings of secular government in the Middle East
and
beyond. Even then, prominent scholars of Islam, such as Gilles
Keppel, argue
that the rise of Islamist terrorism is a reaction to the failure of
Islamism
as a political movement.

But how to explain India, where per capita income has almost tripled
since
1980, and yet Hindu fundamentalism has come from almost nowhere to
dominate
the country's coalition government? (India's ruling Hindu nationalist
BJP
had two seats in 1985; now it has 182 out of 545.) Or the US, where
resurgent and politically organised Christian congregations have
helped
overturn hard-won milestones of progress, such as the abolition of
capital
punishment (which was repealed in 1976), or the legalisation of
abortion, a
right that is constantly being eroded?

There also seems to be a mini-renaissance of Catholic and Orthodox
churches
in central and eastern Europe, and a growth in Protestant evangelism
in
South Korea, Latin America, the Philippines and elsewhere. Indeed,
far from
being a model of the future, secular western Europe could prove to be
an
increasingly eccentric exception to the rule.

But there are few societies where political fundamentalism is as
advanced or
successful as in India or the US (by comparison, Islamism in its
political
form is a relative failure). In his latest book, Fundamentalism: The
Search
for Meaning, Malise Ruthven dangles an intriguing theory as to why.

Religious fundamentalism crops up here and there in almost every
society
that is confronted by rapid social change and urbanisation. But most
variants fail. What marks out its Hindu and Christian (American)
versions is
that they have hitched their wagons to nationalism. And nationalism -
again,
in spite of the European project - is a very successful and durable
phenomenon.

Hindu nationalism stretches back at least to 1925, when the Rashtriya
Sway-amsevak Sangh (Organisation of National Volunteers) was founded.
The
RSS, with 2m members, is the parent body to India's ruling BJP. Its
founding
philosophy was and is simple: you are Indian if you view India as
both your
fatherland and your holy land. At a stroke this disqualifies those
who look
to Rome or Mecca for spiritual sustenance.

Of course, in its political avatar - under the prime ministership of
Atal
Behari Vajpayee, who leads a coalition of 23 parties, some of which
are
secular - it is far more circumspect and sophisticated than in the
hard-boiled rhetoric of the RSS. But few BJP politicians would
dissociate
themselves from this simple test of patriotism: India is Hindu and
Hindu is
India.

Christian, or - more accurately - Protestant nationalism in the US
can be
traced as far back as the Mayflower, which delivered the dissenting
English
Pilgrim Fathers to the shores of Massachusetts in 1620. Unlike Hindu
fundamentalists - who, were they to govern alone, would drastically
alter
India's constitution - the US's fundamentalists are mostly content
with
their constitution because it guarantees freedom from state-imposed
religion
(something the pilgrims were fleeing).

But the consensus by which different factions agreed to the US
constitution
in the 1780s was one that evolved between competing Protestant
denominations. The exercise preceded by a generation or two the
emergence of
mass Jewish and Catholic immigration to the US. In becoming
Americans, other
faiths absorbed a very Protestant strain of nationalism. How is one,
for
example, to characterise Thanksgiving, the US's most popular national
holiday? One could describe it as a purely secular national day
celebrated
by all Americans, regardless of faith. But it could equally be
described as
a Calvinist parable in which the righteous were fed (with turkey) by
divine
providence after having reached their "City on the Hill".

Has Thanksgiving been de-Calvinised? Or is America simply Calvinist by
subtler means? Whichever the answer, it is clear that the lexicon and
symbolism of American nationalism is more fertile ground for
Protestant
revivalists than, say, for their sometime allies in the Judaic and
Catholic
communities.

Thus, from a fundamentalist perspective, mainstream nationalism in
both
India and the US is low-hanging fruit ripe for the plucking. And they
are
plucking it quite frequently nowadays. The speeches of George W. Bush,
himself a born-again Christian, are littered with allusions to the New
Testament, particularly the Book of Revelations.

This is how Bush began his 2003 State of the Union speech: "In all
these
days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident. In a
whirlwind
of change and hope and peril, our faith is sure, our resolve is firm,
and
our union is strong." This is how he concluded: "We Americans have
faith in
ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know - we do not
claim to
know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our
confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.
May He
guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of
America."
(The capital letters are from the White House draft.) The
qualifier, "but
not in ourselves alone", clearly means God, not other countries.
Bush's
world is brimming with "evil" and "evil-doers". Those who listen
carefully
are rarely in much doubt that the US has been chosen by a higher
power to
defeat the forces of darkness.

Even Bush's stance on the environment, which critics see as a
consequence of
the administration's close links to the energy industry, carries the
fingerprints of Protestant millenarianism - the belief in the
imminence of
Christ's second coming, a view to which Mr Bush may or may not
subscribe.
"What is the point of saving the planet, they argue, if Jesus is
arriving
tomorrow?" asks Ruthven. "American fundamentalists are a headache, a
thorn
in the flesh of the bien-pensant liberals, the subject of bemused
concern to
'Old Europeans' who have experienced too many real catastrophes to
yearn for
Armageddon."

India's leaders are also steeped in the symbolism of religious
nationalism.
Prime Minister Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, his hardline deputy,
frequently
conjure up holy images of India that could have resonance only with
Indian
Hindus.

In his recent book Hindutva ("Hindu-ness"), Jyotirmaya Sharma, an
Indian
journalist, argues that India's BJP-led government has profoundly
altered
the political vocabulary and imagery of Indian nationalism since 1998.
Originally forged by the secular freedom struggle against the British
Raj,
Indian nationalism is increasingly tinged with saffron - the holy
colour of
Hinduism. India's nuclear-capable missiles are named after Hindu
gods. Its
universities offer courses in astrology and "Vedic mathematics" (in
an echo
of some corners of the US, where evangelicals have succeeded in
winning
equal teaching time between the "creationist" and "evolutionary"
account of
human origins). And, much like televangelism in the US, Hindu
programming
dominates increasing chunks of India's booming cable television
network.

Many scholars argue that Hindu radicalism cannot be described as
fundament-
alist, since there is no single holy text that is read by all Hindus
or on
which all Hindus agree. In contrast, the Koran, Bible and Torah
provide
undisputed texts that can be read literally - the basic criterion to
qualify
as fundamentalist. But this is to miss the wood for the trees. Hindu
nationalism is driven by a yearning to return to a classical golden
age that
preceded the baffling rootlessness of modern life - an impulse that
drives
all fundamentalisms.

On this more informative reading, fundamentalism should not be
described as
revivalist, but as a specifically modern response to the confusions of
living in a ceaselessly changing world. Traditional societies are not
aware
that they are traditional. In Ruthven's words, fundamentalism
is "tradition
made self-aware and defensive". On this count, Hindu radicalism is
clearly
fundamentalist.

And this brings us to a provocative conclusion. Hindu and Christian
fundamentalism are more likely to succeed and endure precisely
because they
are nurtured by and can conflate their world views with two powerful
nation
states. As a result, neither have much needed to resort to terrorism
(although attacks on abortion clinics in the US could be described as
terrorist).

In contrast, Islamists are mostly on their own. Islamism cannot
easily nail
its colours to nationalism. Most Islamic fundamentalists disdain the
nation
state because it artificially divides the Ummah, or international
community
of believers, into separate groups. Even where Islam-ists capture
state
power, as in Iran in 1979, it is hard to sustain both nationalism and
Islamism. Every time Shi'ite Iran acts in its national interest - for
example, by allying with Christian Armenia against mostly Shi'ite
Azerbaijan - it undermines its Islamist credentials.

By contrast, India and the US can align with any state for any reason
without much risk of haemorrhaging self-belief in the national
project. No
Hindu nationalist questions India's close relations with Iran, since
Iran,
like India, is also a rival of Pakistan. But Iranian clerics agonise
about
Tehran's close ties to Hindu nationalist New Delhi.

The same could be said of Washington's enduring ties to Saudi Arabia's
puritanical ruling dynasty - though many on the US's secular left do
complain. Or Washington's connivance with hardline govern- ments in
Israel,
which can hardly be described as strict adherents to the US's model of
multi-faith democracy.

Like its enemy, liberalism, fundamentalism is adaptable and dynamic.
So it
would be rash to make clear predictions about the future of such
movements.
But here, for the hell of it, is one: fundamentalism will probably
continue
to prosper (and adapt) in India and the US. Whereas in the Muslim
world,
Islamism - in its political, rather than its terroristic, form -
might well
be past its peak.

Edward Luce is the FT's South Asia bureau chief.

Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning

by Malise Ruthven