03-31-2009, 07:54 PM
From another forum
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There are many kinds of defence.
There is the defence of ideas, and the defence of traditions or practices. There is the defence of communities or families or individuals.
Defending one's right to be a Hindu and follow a particular set of practices, or defend a a particular intellectual framework is not necessarily the same thing as organised political and physical defence of an Indian nation-state.
Unlike China or the West, or the Islamic world, there just wasnt the same civilisational urge to build a civilisation-state, because civilisational commonality wasnt seen as the same thing as mutual political obligation and unity.
Modernity provided the ideological, organisational and technological tools to mobilise the vast majority of the subcontinent and its people, and built a working state spanning that has succesfully defended itself against all external assaults. However although it amounted to a civilisation-state, it did not define itself after MK Gandhi's death (pehaps the biggest difference between Nehru and Gandhi).
But how is that state to be defined? Is its purpose to guarantee the material well being and political freedom of its citizens (ie political and physical defence), or is it meant to promote and defend intellectual frameworks and practices of Indian civilisation?
Gandhi, Godse, and Nehru all represented different but overlapping ideas of how nation, religion and civilisation should intersect in India. Gandhi and Godse both believed in Indian civilisation, Godse and Nehru both believed in the nation-state; Nehru and Gandhi both believed majoritarianism was the main source of violent civilisational conflict.
I quite intensely admire the work of Dr. Balagangadhara and those around him for examining the civilisational underpinnings of modernity (although like many he gives Christianity too much credit, and pre-Christian European cultures too little), which form the basis of the organisation of nationalism and the nation state.
As he perceptively notes, both secularism *and* much of Hindutva (eg demand for a uniform civil code) are the product of competing strands of modernity.
Although Ashis Nandy as a neo-Gandhian may not be much liked here, like Balagangadhara they have pointed out a fundamental issue; there is a tension between a modern political movement that seeks to advance the interests and rights of Hindus, and actually intellectualising and preserving pre-disruption Hindu civilisation. A pan-Hindu political movement seeking a civilisation-state is itself a break from tradition, and while it may preserve particular parts of tradition, its ultimate outcome will be transformation, not preservation, which is why they seem to argue that saving or preserving the intellectual continuity of Hindu/Indian civilisation is a cultural and academic, rather than political task.
In fact I'd say that is the fundamental reason India-Forum had to spin off BRF, more than any underlying *political* (left-right) or cultural (Proud Hindu vs. Macaulyite) differences.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->There are many kinds of defence.
There is the defence of ideas, and the defence of traditions or practices. There is the defence of communities or families or individuals.
Defending one's right to be a Hindu and follow a particular set of practices, or defend a a particular intellectual framework is not necessarily the same thing as organised political and physical defence of an Indian nation-state.
Unlike China or the West, or the Islamic world, there just wasnt the same civilisational urge to build a civilisation-state, because civilisational commonality wasnt seen as the same thing as mutual political obligation and unity.
Modernity provided the ideological, organisational and technological tools to mobilise the vast majority of the subcontinent and its people, and built a working state spanning that has succesfully defended itself against all external assaults. However although it amounted to a civilisation-state, it did not define itself after MK Gandhi's death (pehaps the biggest difference between Nehru and Gandhi).
But how is that state to be defined? Is its purpose to guarantee the material well being and political freedom of its citizens (ie political and physical defence), or is it meant to promote and defend intellectual frameworks and practices of Indian civilisation?
Gandhi, Godse, and Nehru all represented different but overlapping ideas of how nation, religion and civilisation should intersect in India. Gandhi and Godse both believed in Indian civilisation, Godse and Nehru both believed in the nation-state; Nehru and Gandhi both believed majoritarianism was the main source of violent civilisational conflict.
I quite intensely admire the work of Dr. Balagangadhara and those around him for examining the civilisational underpinnings of modernity (although like many he gives Christianity too much credit, and pre-Christian European cultures too little), which form the basis of the organisation of nationalism and the nation state.
As he perceptively notes, both secularism *and* much of Hindutva (eg demand for a uniform civil code) are the product of competing strands of modernity.
Although Ashis Nandy as a neo-Gandhian may not be much liked here, like Balagangadhara they have pointed out a fundamental issue; there is a tension between a modern political movement that seeks to advance the interests and rights of Hindus, and actually intellectualising and preserving pre-disruption Hindu civilisation. A pan-Hindu political movement seeking a civilisation-state is itself a break from tradition, and while it may preserve particular parts of tradition, its ultimate outcome will be transformation, not preservation, which is why they seem to argue that saving or preserving the intellectual continuity of Hindu/Indian civilisation is a cultural and academic, rather than political task.
In fact I'd say that is the fundamental reason India-Forum had to spin off BRF, more than any underlying *political* (left-right) or cultural (Proud Hindu vs. Macaulyite) differences.
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