Hindutva

[G.Subramaniam]

EPW

God Delusion at Work:
My Indian Travel Diary
Meera Nanda
One cannot fight the faith-based
politics of Hindu nationalists and
the similarly inspired initiatives
of the Indian state unless one
questions the very foundations of
the beliefs and rituals of popular
Hinduism itself. One cannot go
on “respecting” people’s faith,
but then turn around and start
questioning them when they
actually act upon that faith under
the banner of Hindutva.

Faith as Ideology
“There you go again!”, an old friend
remarked when I shared this bit about free
vahan pujas with him when we met in one
of the many canteens that dot the Punjab
University campus in Chandigarh. He is
quite godless himself, but thinks that
intellectuals must respect people’s religiosity
and not presume to be more “enlightened”
than them. That way, he fears, lies
avant-gardism of the Bolshevik kind.
He went on: “Don’t you, and people like
you in America – all claiming to be so modern
and secular – have your own superstitions?
Tell me honestly: have you never
worn your ‘lucky’ dress for a job interview

Faith as Ideology
“There you go again!”, an old friend
remarked when I shared this bit about free
vahan pujas with him when we met in one
of the many canteens that dot the Punjab
University campus in Chandigarh. He is
quite godless himself, but thinks that
intellectuals must respect people’s religiosity
and not presume to be more “enlightened”
than them. That way, he fears, lies
avant-gardism of the Bolshevik kind.
He went on: “Don’t you, and people like
you in America – all claiming to be so modern
and secular – have your own superstitions?
Tell me honestly: have you never
worn your ‘lucky’ dress for a job interview

I have heard them proclaim with all seriousness
that “Hinduism has nothing to do
with Hindu nationalism.” Why is that,
pray? Hinduism, they say, is a matter of
“faith” (and therefore good) while Hindu
nationalism is a “political ideology” (and
therefore bad).
But I am afraid this raises more questions
than it answers. Is it really the case that religious
faith and ideology have nothing to do
with each other? When has faith not served
as ideology? Isn’t the story of Ramayana
simultaneously faith and an ideology of a
patriarchal and a caste society? Do my good
secularist friends really believe that faith is
like a pair of chappals that people leave
outside the door marked “politics”?
Religious
beliefs, or faith, have always supplied
the common sense understanding of
the world which ideologies mobilise. A consistent
secularist has no choice but to challenge
both the common sense world view
derived from faith, and the political ideologies
that resonate with this common sense
and harness it for their own ends.
I have yet another bone to pick with those
who insist that we must “respect” people’s
religious beliefs. Why should we respect
beliefs that defy all possible evidence, which
thumb their nose at all the accumulated
knowledge about how nature works and
which have played such a reactionary role
throughout India’s history? Just because
some beliefs come wrapped up in piety does
not make them worthy of respect.

This fresh round of political unrest in
Kashmir was sparked by religious enthusiasm
for an ice stalagmite resembling
Shiva’s
lingam in the famed Amarnath
shrine. Incredibly daft though it may
appear considering Kashmir’s status as the
“world’s most dangerous place”, Hindu
pilgrimage
to Amarnath temple has been
actively promoted by a bunch of state functionaries
committed to advancing Hindu
interests in this Muslim majority state

Hinduism and Hindutva
These twin tragedies in the hills got
me musing.
I began to see the connections between
the relatively harmless (not counting the
harm it does to the faculty of critical
thought) middle class rite of vahan puja,
the tragic fate of pilgrims to Naina Devi and
Chamunda Mata temples, and the politically
disastrous outcome of governmentencouraged
Hindu pilgrimage in the state
of Jammu and Kashmir. I began to see,
more clearly than ever before, how the
same world view and beliefs of ordinary
Hindus that makes them have pujas for
their cars and undertake arduous and
often life-threatening pilgrimages, also
makes them sympathise with – and indeed
actively demand – the open, state-sponsored
Hinduisation of India that has
been going on in recent years.
This led me to see the folly of the secularist
argument that popular Hinduism has
“nothing” to do with Hindu nationalism.
When my secularist friends make such statements,
what they mean is that Hinduism
has no organic – that is, cognitive, aesthetic
and moral – connections with Hindu nationalism,
and that “bad” Hindu nationalism
has “hijacked,” “distorted” or “Semitised”
the “good”, “tolerant” and “harmless”
Hinduism
of the masses. I have never found
this argument persuasive at all, because I
believe that the Hinduism that the Hindu
nationalists invoke actually is the Hinduism
that the majority of Hindus love, cherish
and practise. Even this whole business of
making Rama the symbol of India does not
really amount to a “hijacking”: the god-king
Rama and Ramayana have been central to
the political imagination of Hindus for at
least a millennium, if not longer.
So, I have always been a sceptic when it
comes to “good Hinduism, bad Hindutva

kind of arguments. But after my travels in
India this summer, I began to see more
clearly than ever before that we cannot
fight the faith-based politics of Hindu
nationalists and the similarly inspired initiatives
of the Indian state, unless we question
the very foundations of the beliefs
and rituals of popular Hinduism itself. We
cannot go on “respecting” people’s faith,
but then turn around and start questioning
them when they actually act upon that
faith under the banner of Hindutva.
What is happening in Kashmir over the
land-transfer issue is a perfect illustration
of what I mean when I say that secularists
cannot continue to “respect” faith while, at
the same time, fight against faith-based
politics. Let us suppose that out of “respect”
we do not question the popular Hindu myth
– which is endlessly repeated not just by
priests but by the tourist and information
departments of the supposedly “secular”
state as well – that the naturally formed ice
stalagmite in the Amarnath cave is “really”
Shiva’s phallic symbol (lingam), and that
god Shiva actually revealed the secrets of
the universe at this spot to his wife, goddess
Parvati. If we grant all that, then on
what grounds do we turn around and start
criticising the mass mobilisations of Hindus
that are taking place not just in Jammu but
all over the country demanding that more
land be given to Amarnath temple so that
more and more Hindu pilgrims can witness
the “miracle” of the ice-lingam? Sure, we
can criticise political parties and the temple
management for their attempted land-grab
for a temple in such an ecologically and
politically sensitive area. But if we grant
that people’s faith – even it if confuses a
natural phenomenon with a divine phallus
– is to be “respected”, then why should we
not respect their right to demand more land
to build better facilities
so that they can
freely practise their religion?
I have always believed that as long as we
do not challenge the world view, the background
assumptions, the explicit and tacit
beliefs that animate popular Hindu rituals
and practices, we will be fighting against
the menace of Hindutva with one hand tied
behind our backs. For then, we will only
allow ourselves to challenge the material
and political interests of Hindu nationalist
parties. But we will be in no position to
challenge and change the mentalities, or

the habits-of-the-heart, of the millions of
ordinary people that incline them to support
Hindutva politics, enthusiastically (by
joining the many rath-yatras,
pujas, yaganas,
yoga-camps and other religious-political
spectacles organised by the Hindu
Right), or passively (through the ballot box
only). Unless we question the basis of faith
critically, rationally and scientifically, we
will not succeed in stemming the popular
support for faith-based politics. There can
be no viable secular politics in India without
a secularisation of consciousness and
conscience of the Indian people.
Globalisation and the Gods
In the middle of all this rather dismal
news, I found the time to take care of the
main purpose that had brought me to
India: I handed over the completed manuscript
of one of my forthcoming books,
God and Globalisation in India to my
publisher
(Navayana).
It gives me no pleasure to report that
what I saw in India this summer fully confirmed
the thesis of the book I had just completed.
My nephew’s freshly prayed-over
car confirmed one part of my thesis which
states that the new middle classes are turning
out to be more religious than the middle
classes of the previous (aka “the Nehruvian”)
generation. I argue in this book that
contrary to the expectations of the classical
secularisation theory, economic and political
modernisation is leading not to greater
secularisation, but to greater religionisation.
This heightened religiosity is evident
in the invention of new rituals, gentrification
of gods/goddesses,
and to a perverse
kind of scientism
in which Hindu metaphysics
which teaches pan-psychism (i e,
consciousness is a fundamental
quality of
even the smallest unit of matter) and
vitalism
(i e, there is a special “life-force”,
or “prana” that accounts of life) is being
sold as if it is supported by modern science.
The emerging middle classes, I argue, are
“modern” only insofar as they have become
more or less savvy consumers
of global
brand-names. These material accoutrements
exist amidst the mental
furniture
which harkens back to a world full of disembodied
atman or shakti, which either
roams free, or gets “embodied” in idols.

Tax-payers’
money was used not just to provide
facilities for the pilgrims but to actively
promote pilgrimage by organising cultural
festivals including dance, drama, food
and handicrafts. Why are we so surprised
at the communal rift that has opened up
afresh in such a geopolitically sensitive
state as Jammu and Kashmir?
God-Deluded Countries
Well, after about a month in India, I came
back to the United States.
I happened to attend a music concert in
the Hindu Temple in Middletown, Connecticut
recently. There, among other
notices, the list of “religious services”
caught my attention. Among priestly
services
for wedding and funerals, I found
the following:
“Vahan Pooja: $ 31”.
Well, why not? When Indians move
from one god-deluded country to another,
that is what they do.
So it goes