Non Negotiable Ideology Hindutva Zionist Fascist

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 373

Palash Biswas

Sangh offers BJP Hindutva legroom
RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Mathura on Wednesday. (PTI)
New Delhi, Sept. 16: The RSS has told the BJP that while its “core ideology” was “non-negotiable” and had to be “preached and practised” by all its affiliates, the party was free to adapt and articulate it as it wanted.

But under no circumstances could it think of expunging the ‘H’ (Hindutva) word from its dictionary.

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, not a Sangh admirer, was picked as a leader who straddled the space between “ideology and governance” without confrontation as were the other BJP chief ministers.

It is learnt that this message underlined the Sangh’s preference for a regional leader to head the BJP when it was time for the present president, Rajnath Singh, to bow out rather than anoint one of the familiar names in Delhi.

The RSS recognises the difference between the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The Sangh feels that while the VHP has the space to take “positions that seemed extreme”, the BJP was free to redefine, broadbase and repackage “Hindutva” to suit existing political circumstances.

Such a policy will help the BJP distance itself from the “hawkish” meaning usually read into the party’s propagation of Ayodhya, a common civil code and the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir as its central issues.

At the two-day thinkers’ meeting of the Sangh parivar last week in Mumbai, the RSS brass, playing on the global concern over climate change, picked environment as an example to “tell the world” to look “seriously” at Hinduism and Jainism for answers instead of being tied down to the Judeo-Christian concept of a “world created solely for man’s benefit and rule”.

“Hinduism and Jainism, on the other hand, contain concepts that can lead to the enhancement of core human-earth relations because they suggest that the earth can be seen as a manifestation of the goddess who must be treated with respect,” a source who attended the meeting said.

It is understood that some of the BJP’s representatives at this “exclusive” meeting of 30 said environment would not fetch the party votes as a reaffirmation of its stand on “pure nationalism”.

The deliberations did not discuss the problems that have beset the BJP in Delhi. But it is believed that the talks on the sidelines over tea-breaks and meals confirmed that:

The RSS was unlikely to brook another debate on ideology versus governance, not as long as the BJP remained in the Opposition. It felt that the first priority was to regroup and re-motivate cadres. Ideology was the “only cement”.

The Sangh wondered if the polemics at the top in Delhi on the “merits” of Jinnah versus the “de-merits” of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jinnah’s “secular” garb were “really substantive” or meant for certain individuals to grandstand before a “liberal” audience and show up the Sangh as “archaic”.

The next party president and the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha — assuming L.K. Advani gave up the post — would not necessarily be the putative PM candidate in 2014.

The thinking was that question could be settled in 2012 when Gujarat goes to polls. If Modi delivered a third victory, it might not throw him off the RSS’s radar as it was assumed after his unspectacular showing in the Lok Sabha polls.

The Maharashtra elections would be a test for the BJP. Unlike in the last elections, when the Sangh didn’t exert itself, this time around it is likely to canvass support for the BJP-Shiv Sena in its own way.

While it wished to ensure a “graceful” departure for Advani and even a post-retirement mentoring role, the RSS is apparently not going to be fazed by a bitter parting shot of the kind the leader gave when he stepped down as the BJP president in September 2005.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090917/jsp/nation/story_11506584.jsp



FDI will steadily increase in the quarters ahead

Even without a radical change in the policy matrix, foreign direct investment flows into India would have galloped to $40 billion a year if the

Dr Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI
global meltdown had not happened. The best evidence for this optimistic view lies in the data on inflows between April and July 2009.

In the midst of a fledgling global economic recovery , FDI inflows into India between April and July 2009 were to the tune of $10.53 billion. With both the global economy and the Indian economy on a recovery mode, FDI inflows into India will steadily increase in the quarters ahead.

So what makes India so attractive a destination for investors? To my mind, there are three broad reasons.

One, a large domestic market with low market penetration levels across industry segments. While the use and sale of items ranging from consumer durables and FMCG products to automobiles is on the rise, there is a sufficiently large space, particularly in the rural and semi-urban markets, that is still vacant and is waiting to be tapped. It is a race against time when it comes to the Indian market for many multinationals as they go about launching new products tailored to suit the specific requirements of the Indian consumer. Take the auto industry as an example. Developing a compact car specifically for the Indian market is a project that has engaged some of the largest global auto players. Such investments in ‘Made for India’ products will rise in the future.

Two, a sizable pool of technically qualified manpower. With a massive expansion drive in the higher education domain under way, these numbers would only go up further. Availability of such manpower contributes to quality improvement and these are not costly either. This explains why many of the Fortune 500 companies have set up their captive R&D centres in India. With the next wave of FDI expected to leverage on R&D capabilities across the globe, investment flows to India are only going to increase.

Three, a fairly stable policy framework. India’s legal framework for example is predictable. It allows for equal treatment of foreign companies at par with Indian companies. There is no discrimination against foreign companies once they register in India. India also has fairly standard accounting procedures that are in line with the internationally accepted norms. Above all India’s democratic polity ensures protection of investors’ rights including protection of any form of intellectual property. Also, it is not as if one is unsure of the political dispensation in the immediate future.

These are the positives for India and these will help us draw more FDI and sustain these flows in the future. Of course there are some challenges and these relate to ground level problems of implementation.

However, these are being increasingly addressed because of the active competition amongst states to attract investments. As states put their act together and improve functioning of their various departments, we will see a qualitative change in investments flowing into the country.

On the whole, India is an attractive investment destination based on hard economic factors and these should help us in getting larger inflows in the future.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/ET-Debate/FDI-will-steadily-increase-in-the-quarters-ahead/articleshow/5012100.cms

We need to act quickly on several fronts
While transnational capital flows have declined as expected during the current crisis , a recovery should be on the horizon in the near future. For

Ajay Dua, Former Secy, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion
India to attract more FDI — as it began to do between 2004 and 2007 when foreign equity investment almost doubled every year, and annual inflows went up from $4 billion to over $30 billion — it is no longer enough to merely dangle the carrot of a big market or a low-cost manufacturing hub.

Simultaneous action on several fronts is needed to divert investment, which hitherto had been moving largely within the industrialised world, or going into China. For long, we have claimed that we give equal treatment to foreign and domestic capital. While this may be true for legal and administrative matters, there remains a clear distinction in the level of corporate tax imposed on foreign companies who pay a higher tax than their domestic counterparts.

Apart from tilting the balance against foreign entities, such a policy fails to signal to the world that India wants more foreign capital.

The framework for attracting foreign investment must provide assurances of predictable treatment of capital. The uncertainty being witnessed regarding the pricing and selling of gas does not augur well for further foreign investments. Similarly, the ambiguity arising out of Press Notes 2, 3, and 4 issued by the union ministry of industry and commerce earlier this year must be removed through a clear enunciation of the guidelines. Till then, uncertainty regarding the handling of indirect foreign equity will remain.

The process of letting foreign capital into the country also needs simplification. While FDI in manufacturing and other sectors may have been put on the ‘automatic route,’ in areas where prior approval is still required, there remains no definitiveness of time. FIPB, which deals with ‘approval cases,’ should be prescribed a time-limit within which to act. As it stands today, the FIPB is a highlevel body but not a highly empowered one.

Even its minute’s need the authorisation of the finance minister, and many of its cases still require approvals of the CCEA. If the clearance powers rest with the ministers, why doesn’t the FIPB consist of them? While the Centre and its agencies may exhibit a degree of eagerness to attract foreign capital, similar enthusiasm is not shared across the board with state governments not being proactive enough.

The cutting edge in India is at the state and district level, and unless the authorities streamline the process, simplifying procedures in New Delhi can be fairly futile. There is a pressing need for an empowered body in the state governments to grant all requisite approvals including environment clearances, sanctioning land, fiscal incentives and electricity-loads.

Given that most provincial governments centre their powers on the CM’s office, having the chief minister head the body would make sense. Besides improving governance, there is a need to cut down transaction costs and delays. As has once again been reiterated by the Doing Business Report published by the World Bank and IMF, India needs drastic improvements in physical infrastructure — particularly of ports, highways, and electricity — to get anywhere close to what competing nations like Brazil, China, and even Vietnam have to offer.

Only then the efficiency of capital being deployed can improve.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/ET-Debate/We-need-to-act-quickly-on-several-fronts/articleshow/5012106.cms
The GDP fetishism


17 Sep 2009, 0101 hrs IST, Joseph E Stiglitz, ET Bureau


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Striving to revive the world economy while simultaneously responding to the global climate crisis has raised a knotty question: are statistics
giving us the right “signals” about what to do? In our performance-oriented world, measurement issues have taken on increased importance: what we measure affects what we do.

If we have poor measures, what we strive to do (say, increase GDP) may actually contribute to a worsening of living standards. We may also be confronted with false choices, seeing trade-offs between output and environmental protection that don’t exist. By contrast, a better measure of economic performance might show that steps taken to improve the environment are good for the economy.

Eighteen months ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy established an international Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, owing to his dissatisfaction — and that of many others — with the current state of statistical information about the economy and society.

The big question concerns whether GDP provides a good measure of living standards. In many cases, GDP statistics seem to suggest that the economy is doing far better than most citizens’ own perceptions. Moreover, the focus on GDP creates conflicts: political leaders are told to maximise it, but citizens also demand that attention be paid to enhancing security, reducing air, water, and noise pollution, and so forth — all of which might lower GDP growth.

The fact that GDP may be a poor measure of well-being, or even of market activity, has, of course, long been recognised. But changes in society and the economy may have heightened the problems, at the same time that advances in economics and statistical techniques may have provided opportunities to improve our metrics.

For example, while GDP is supposed to measure the value of output of goods and services, in one key sector — government — we typically have no way of doing it, so we often measure the output simply by the inputs. If government spends more — even if inefficiently — output goes up.

In the last 60 y ears, the share of government output in GDP has increased from 21.4% to 38.6% in the United States, from 27.6% to 52.7% in France, from 34.2% to 47.6% in the United Kingdom, and from 30.4% to 44.0% in Germany. So what was a relatively minor problem has now become a major one.

Likewise, quality improvements — say, better cars rather than just more cars — account for much of the increase in GDP nowadays. But assessing quality improvements is difficult. Health care exemplifies this problem: much of medicine is publicly provided, and much of the advances are in quality.

The same problems in making comparisons over time apply to comparisons across countries. The United States spends more on health care than any other country (both per capita and as a percentage of income), but gets poorer outcomes. Part of the difference between GDP per capita in the US and some European countries may thus be a result of the way we measure things.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/comments-analysis/The-GDP-fetishism/articleshow/5020397.cms





15 Sep 2009, 0530 hrs IST,
Despite Varun Gandhi’s hate speech, which raised questions on the need for the party to rethink its core ideology soon after the second successive electoral debacle, BJP president Rajnath Singh asserted that Hindutva was non-negotiable; the BJP was committed to the core ideology that nurtured the party and there would be no compromise on it.

Here you are!

Hindutva Forces try their best to achieve the GOAL of Nuclear Hindu Rashtra banking on Mass annihilation of Indigenous aboriginal black Untouchable Masses in alliance with Corporate US Zionist Imperialism and Israel. Marxist Brahmins as well as India Incs follow suit. Constitution and democratic set UP is manapulated bypassing Parliament with Excellent Floor adjustment and Complete media Mind Control! Economic Reforms to acomplish the Mass Destruction Agenda must CONTINUE, so MANDATE in the last Elections had been Manufactured in the Hindutva factory of Media, Intelligentsia and India Incs and Religion! Baba ramdeb led from the front. Even the Environment Activist Sunder Lal bahuguna joined Baba ramdev and Shankaracharya as the Bengali Brahaminical hegemony opted for CHANGE in the desguise of Resistance! Mamata Banerjee has been PROJECTED the HUMANITARIAN face of Economic reforms thanks to BRAHMIN Intelligentsia led by no one else but Mahashweta debi and Bengali Icons! Amartya sen and the Bastardised gang of Economists laud all the Fascist and Imperialist CORPORATE ploys of LPG Mafia ruling the Divided geopolitics Bleeding to SUSTAIN Manusmriti Apartheid Rule Intact!

What the HOLY Cows and Holy Scripts mean for the Ruling Hegemony and how they maintain COMPLETE Control on Indian Society with colorful Ideologies , has been well EXPOSED in an INTERVIEW by PRABHASH JOSHI, the Media Brahmin Mafia!

At the conclusion of the Chintan Baithak, Rajnath Singh declared that the philosophy of cultural nationalism and integral humanism propounded by party ideologue Deendayal Upadhyay was inclusive and there was no scope for discrimination.

This assumes significance in the wake of demands by sections of the party to steer clear of Hindutva, as it only led to polarisation of the minorities and helped their consolidation behind the Congress.

Rejecting the thesis, Rajnath Singh underscored the need to showcase and articulate it in terms that would make it easily understood by all and to woo wider sections of the people towards the party. The BJP president also declared that Leader of the Opposition L K Advani would continue to lead the party.

Rajnath underlined the need for building up a new line of leadership from the mandal level upwards. The youth, he insisted, remained by and large with the BJP. The party also felt there was a need to strengthen the NDA as a coalition was necessary to take on the Congress.

Rajnath said that the BJP general secretaries would meet in the capital to discuss the elaborate suggestions received from various quarters and chalk out an action plan to be put up for the approval of the next BJP national executive. The party leadership failed to fix accountability for the electoral debacle at the Chintan Baithak.

BJP on Wednesday opted to remain silent on the latest round of attack by former Union minister Arun Shourie on Opposition leader L K
Advani.

Mr Shourie, who’s turned into a bitter critic of BJP’s central leadership, including Mr Advani, questioned the nature of political discourse in a newspaper article.

In the article published in a national daily, the Rajya Sabha member was critical about finding motives behind his utterances rather than addressing the issues raised by him.

The article questioned those in the party who had dismissed as `politically motivated’ versions of Mr Jaswant Singh, Mr Yashwant Sinha and Mr Brajesh Mishra on the Kandahar episode.

Mr Shourie backed Mr Jaswant Singh, Mr Sinha and Mr Mishra in their attempts to corner Mr Advani on his claims on the Kandahar hostages-for-terrorists swap deal. ``Mr Advani had been maintaining that he had not known about various aspects of the Kandahar exchange of terrorists for hostages. Mr Jaswant Singh disclosed facts that put Mr Advani’s account in question. Mr Mishra sent out further facts.

Mr Sinha endorsed what Mr Mishra had stated. With these statements, four members of the cabinet committee on security, excluding Mr Vajpayee, all four other than Mr Advani, had called Mr Advani’s version in question — for George Fernandes had already said that Mr Advani had perhaps forgotten that he had been in the meetings at which each of the decisions had been taken,’’ Mr Shourie wrote.

He proceeded to attack the party spokesman for his response that Mr Mishra had ceased to be a member of BJP and, hence, had no locus-standi on the matter.

``What had the veracity or otherwise of Mr Mishra’s statements to do with his being or not being a member of BJP? He was the National Security Advisor at the time as well as the principal secretary to the prime minister.

He had participated in every single meeting and decision relating to Kandahar. Neither the spokesman-of-the-moment nor others holding party offices at the time could claim to have known first hand anything at all about what had transpired then. Nor were they producing or even pointing towards any documentary record to show that Mr Mishra was wrong,’’ Mr Shourie asserted.

This is not the first time the former Mr Shourie has attacked the BJP brass. In his interaction with newspersons last month, he came close to describing party president Rajnath Singh as clueless wonder — ‘Alice in Blunderland’ — and was unsparing of Mr Singh’s colleagues in the central leadership . “They behave like Humpty-Dumpty. The BJP, under their charge, has become a kati patang,” he said and called for handing over reins to regional satraps.

The party’s central leadership, however, continues to deal with his tirade cautiously. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat described Mr Shourie as “a leading journalist and intellectual,” while sections of BJP felt that the former Union minister had not deviated from the party’s core ideology and, hence, should not be penalised.

Hindutva , “Hinduness”, a word coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism.Supreme Court of India ruled that “no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms ‘Hindu’, ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage.” The Court also ruled that “Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism.
Former Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee,on 11 Feb 2003 said on the BJP ideology, saying “Hindutva has been redefined to mean Bharatiyata”,
“Hindutva is not linked to any religion, it is a `virat darshan.”
Mr. Vajpayee thus spoke at length on the virtues of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s political fore-runner.
“Hindutva encompasses all sections of society irrespective of caste or creed, it is timeless.” It was about all of humanity, and no section of society in the country was to be ignored.

In same lines RSS chief Mohan Rao Bhagwat said roadmap for the Sangh’s agenda for the future, RSS would strive to unite Hindu society and “Hindutva means humanity and Bharatiyata.”

“The BJP has to decide what steps it must take (to set things right). The RSS has nothing to say,” Bhagwat said.RSS was, however, available for giving advice. “If sought, we willdefinitely give our advice. We have regular talks with BJP leaders,” he said.
“We are not worried for the BJP. Their problems will get resolved,” he said, refusing to comment on Arun Shourie’s call that the RSS must take control of the BJP.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat said on Friday approved his predecessor K.S. Sudarshan had said couple of days ago about Pakistan Founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah is right.

“What Sudarshanji said is right, RSS holds all in high esteem,” said Bhagwat.Furthermore said that the perception of the Muslim community about RSS is changing.





RSS in charge

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/view-from-the-left/517626/



The lead editorial in the latest issue of CPI(M) mouthpiece People’s Democracy claims that the RSS appears to have assumed the “reins of direct control” of the BJP, which was plagued with internal dissensions and organisational problems after the Lok Sabha elections. The article says it feared that RSS control over the BJP would bring the aggressive hardcore Hindutva agenda to the fore, which cannot but sharpen communal passions. “This is because the RSS/BJP appear to have come to the conclusion that it is only through an aggressive display of hardcore communalism can it succeed in polarising the society in its effort to mobilise the ‘Hindu vote bank’.”



“Unfortunately, these apprehensions are turning out to be true. For a week now, communal tensions continue to simmer, threatening to burst into flames in the districts of Sangli and Kolhapur in western Maharashtra. Violence broke out on the last day of the Ganesh festival in the Miraj town of Sangli district. It soon spread to adjoining districts in the country’s sugar bowl...As always, there is a deliberate design stoking such violence. The trouble started in the district after the police seized a decorative poster in one of the Ganesh mandals which depicted Shivaji Maharaja’s killing of Afzal Khan. Such a depiction was designed to provoke a confrontation...”








Gas feud



An article by Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) leader Dipankar Mukherjee criticises the prime minister for appealing to the warring Ambani brothers to settle the KG basin natural gas price dispute in the national interest. Since when has national interest become synonymous with corporate interest? he seeks to know. “On one hand the government — though belatedly but rightly — asserted a couple of months back that natural gas is a national resource and an asset which is owned by the people of the country, and on the other hand the corporate siblings are being cajoled openly by ministers to amicably settle the issue between themselves...”



... contd.

Can we predict next world crisis?


17 Sep 2009, 1818 hrs IST, REUTERS


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SINGAPORE: A year after the implosion of Lehman Brothers sent world markets into turmoil, the question of where the next global shock will come from

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-- and whether it can be predicted and prepared for -- has never been so urgent. What makes the issue particularly difficult is that many of the events catastrophic enough to cause a major crisis -- known as "fat tail risks" or as "Black Swans" by trader and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb -- come from outside the realm of finance.

To be able to forecast what the next global shock will be, we need to be able to make predictions about geopolitics, war, terrorism, extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics. In their book this year on fat tail risks, Ian Bremmer and Preston Keat of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group noted that they pose fundamental problems for accurate prediction.

Fat tails, they wrote, "represent the risk that a particular event will occur that appears so catastrophically damaging, unlikely to happen, and difficult to predict, that many of us choose simply to ignore it. Until it happens." A growing body of theory and evidence suggests that making accurate forecasts about rare catastrophic events is inherently impossible.

But it also suggests a practical solution to mitigate the dangers -- detailed scenario-planning by imaginative analysts who do not cling too tightly to mathematical models of reality.

DART-THROWING CHIMPANZEES

Whatever analysts attempt to forecast -- the economy, the weather, the progress of epidemics, geopolitical change -- the key problems are the same. Systematic forecasting requires a model that approximates reality. But is this feasible?

Many models assume simple linear relationships between variables, but there are plenty of reasons to believe that in the real world, variables often react in a complex, volatile and non-linear way, particularly where extreme events are concerned. Models also rely on the future resembling the past. But Taleb argues that by their very nature, "Black swan" events lie outside of normal experience and up-end traditional assumptions.

An even more fundamental spanner in the machinery of many models is that they need to find a way to capture the behaviour of a particularly volatile and unpredictable element -- us. Economists and political scientists have long worked on the assumption that people largely behave in a rational way that can be modelled and predicted. That assumption has been left in tatters by the global meltdown of the last couple of years.


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Globalisation has meant forecasts now need to take into account hugely complex human interactions among millions or billions of people. And forecasting everything from war to weather has been further complicated by the fact that humans increasingly affect the environment around us in profound ways. Empirical evidence on the accuracy of political forecasting is -- to say the least -- not very encouraging.
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Brahmins demand Advani head : Caste war within BJP
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: Brahmins in the Brahmana Jati Party (BJP) finally had to appeal to their highest god, RSS, to secure the head of the formidable non-Brahmin leader, the Sindhi Khatri, L.K. Advani, who has been leading a mighty anti-Brahmin war within the party. As this is written it is not known if the caste war within the BJP has defeated the No-Brains (NBs).

The Sindhi Khatri is so much hated by the Brahmins for driving out all Brahmin leaders and grooming only NBs to key posts. The two useless Brahmin leaders with no following —Arun Jetley and Sushma Swaraj, both Punjabi Brahmins— were leading the war for all outward show. But the anti-Advani hate campaign had the weight of the Bhoodevatas behind it.

Babri Masjid & Gujarat Genocide: They wanted him to do all their dirty work. Bowing to their order, he led the Hindu war to demolish the Babri Masjid, installed his blue-eyed boy, Modi as Gujarat CM who slaughtered thousands of Muslims. And many more such crimes. Advani did commit to all the crimes to please the Brahminic god.

All the Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states — Gujarat, MP and Karnataka — are headed by non-Brahmin CMs. Even the BJP MPs in Lok Sabha are behind him. That means if you touch Advani, there will be chaos.

The Brahmins want the NBs to fetch the fruits but when they start eating it, they are kicked. Advani has shown this won’t work.

Man of character: But the common people of the country — made thoroughly unthinking morons — go on enjoying what is happening, having kept their brains in the Brahminical fridge. So the country goes on limping as the slaves go on enjoying their slavery.

One of the most serious complaints against Advani is he is too old. But the Brahminical heart throb, Vaidik Vajpayee, is much older. No such complaint was there against him.

Not even a corruption charge against Advani, a man of character, unlike the boss he served as Home Minister.

The biggest problem of India is the total Brahminical monopoly of the entire media. The result is Truth is suppressed.

The people get the media they deserve.

Sick people. Sick country.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hindu India finds “merit” only in one caste
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: Aravind Adiga is a Brahmin from South Kanara dt. in coastal Karnataka, from where Editor V.T. Rajshekar also comes. Adiga is the author of two novels but the Editor of about 100 books.

Ever since Adiga wrote his first novel, The White Tiger, he is being praised and paraded all over India and the West. Because his jatwala media people found something great in his “discovery” that “India cannot be changed because of its poverty and corruption.”

His second book, Between the Assassinations (2009) found a review even in the famous Financial Times of London.

MERIT MY FOOT
The Editor has written many more books and said the same thing much better and giving more sound reasons. But who bothers about us? The Bhoodevatas discover “merit” only in their jati (Merit, My Foot, V.T. Rajshekar, DSA-2006).

Why then our Editor is blacked out but Adiga is praised and paraded in and out of India? The only reason is his caste.

Brahminical people shout down anybody talking of caste. They say India has only rich and poor. Jati is dead. But quietly they promote only their jati because they have the media to trumpet. But we have no media.

What the Brahmin says is veda vakya: sacred sentence. He only speaks the truth. He alone is entitled to speak the truth.

INTELLECTUAL DESERT
This is the Brahminical logic that pushed India to the bottom of the pit and converted India into an intellectual desert. If anybody other than the Bhoodevatas speak Truth, it shall not be admitted as Truth.

RED LABEL WHISKY
Adiga in his second book says India does not believe the country can change.DV has said it hundreds of times.

Elsewhere he says:

“... there is more (Johnnie Walker) Red Label consumed in the average small Indian town than is produced in all of Scotland. When it comes to three things... black market, counterfeiting and corruption we are the world champions. If they were included in the Olympic Games, India would always win gold, silver and bronze in those three.”

He also talks of India’s extreme poverty and rampant corruption. All these our Editor has said many times in his books and Dalit Voice and much more convincingly. But who cares?

When we said India is a failed state (India as Failed State, DSA-2002), the Bhoodevatas were furious. Many threatening letters and emails came. Even warning of death.

INDIA AS ORIGINAL HOME OF RACISM
But when Adiga said the same thing he was praised to the sky. You will soon see Adiga being showered with awards, rewards and all sorts of prizes.

That is how we said India is the founding father of racism. Apartheid died long back in S. Africa but in Hindu India it is growing stronger.

In Hindu India, only the Bhoodevatas get all the awards. And we get only brickbats.

CASTE BOOK BLACKED OUT
When the Editor received the prestigious LISA book award for Caste — A Nation Within the Nation (Books for Change, 2002) in London (2005) not a single Indian correspondent in London attended despite invitations. Even when a pressnote was issued, they simply ignored it. Only the PTI correspondent, a former colleague of the Editor, issued a 2-para report but not a single daily published it in India.

And these very Bhoodevatas talk of justice, fairplay, sama bhava, compassion for the downtrodden. Humbugs.

DR. AMBEDKAR BLACKED OUT
Dr. Ambedkar, the greatest Indian of the “independent India”, called the “Father of India” was simply blacked out by the Brahminical media. He was a victim of this very manuwadi media monster.

How can the Hindu India practising such a blatant discrimination against anybody other than the twice-born bhoodevata ever come up? That is why it is sinking as years pass because here “merit and efficiency” are found only in one caste.


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Who conspired to divide India?
OUR CORRESPONDENT

Bangalore: We like the “Sacred Brahmins” because they speak out the Truth but “Socialist Brahmins” like Nehru, Gandhi etc. are sheer humbugs.

RSS leaders Sudarshan and H.V. Seshadri told the absolute truth about Jinnah. We must believe them. Gandhi, Rajaji, Nehru and Patel were those who actually conspired to partition India. These crooks perpetrated this crime with British help so as to reduce the number and influence of Muslims in India.

If today’s combined Muslim population of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan were to be taken into account, it would become crystal clear that Hindus would simply be not in a “majority” at all. Partition was carried out to prevent exactly this and Jinnah was deliberately provoked into it by the Congress leaders. This was the real hidden agenda and motive of the Congress behind partition. The entire truth is yet to be told. Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal has also proved all these with the help of documents.

DV was the first in India to reveal this top secret Brahminical conspiracy.


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THUS SPAKE PERIYAR

God Shiva’s one lakh years-long intercourse
They have divided the people into various states lest the people should rise up against the government at one time or another unitedly. States are separated. People are divided. Intimate relationship between the people of the various states is crucial. We don’t have any connection with the people of other states. People speaking Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali etc. areas made into separate linguistic states.

The population of Tamilnadu is four and a half crores. Excluding Muslims and Christians, three crores of people in Tamilnadu are shudras. The work is a laudable one to bring them all together. But it is a very difficult task. It requires tremendous efforts.

For the government to function, there must be a Constitution. I don’t deny it. But I do not understand why a Brahmin-shudra status is needed for running the government. Is it necessary to have some citizens as Brahmins and the rest of the vast multitude of citizens as shudras for the purpose of running the government? It is men that we need, neither Brahmins nor shudras. You see many governments in the world. But you don’t find any division made amongst the people as Brahmins and shudras in foreign countries.

Our government is a party to the Brahmins to stand in the way of the unity of the people.

They want all others to be slaves to the Brahmins. It is their arrangement. It must be fought tooth and nail. Brahminism must be put to an end. We conducted the conference with this noble objective. No political party came forward to participate in the deliberations of the conference. No one extended a helping hand to us. The CID men were keenly watching to find out whether any other political party attended in our conference. The political parties trembled in their shoes to come out boldly. What for did we hold the conference? Is it not a conference for all these disgraced shudras , degraded and dishonoured in the society? Those who are victims of this worst social evil ought to have attended the conference. Every one ought have willingly cooperated with us. Even our ministers are shudras. That is their status in the society. So even the ministers ought to have participated in the conference. The issue is of vital importance touching the entire shudra community. We must take risk to eradicate the evil. Otherwise we must face an is noble death. A moment splendid life is more valuable than leading a long life without a name or frame.

People want to eke out living by hook or crook. They are contented if their bellies are filled to the brim. They are not worried about other things. They lead an ignominous life.

Think for a while whether we are able to know what is meant by god, religion or shastra. You ask the layman what he knows about Manudharma. He knows not the head or tail of it. He would simply ask you where it is sold and how many measures are given for a rupee. That is why our people are in slavery.

Similarly you ask even a religious minded orthodox man to explain the meaning of the term, “Hindu”. You ask him whether he knows when Hinduism was born? You ask him who is the spearhead of the Hindu religion. You ask him to explain the ideology of Hinduism. You inquire if he knows the shastras.

That is why we say that one who believes in god is a fool.

The Hindus do not know who created their gods. No god is found to be the embodiment of so many attributes. They say that god cannot be seen. They say that he has no shape. Yet they have created different gods with different shapes. They say god is not in need of anything. They say that he is the giver of all things. Yet they offer cooked food. Gods have wives, concubines, marriage and other ceremonies.

What is the difference between man and god?

Do we have one single god that exists free from moral depravity. Your gods are born to elephants, horses and donkeys. There is not a god that has a decent parentage. God Siva is said to have had intercourse for a lakh of years with his consort. (To be continued).

[Periyar’s Declaration of War on Brahminism, (pp.8 to 9) revised (1st edn. 1993), Dravidar Kazhagam Publication, 50 - EVK Sampath Road, Madras - 600 007.]


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World Prout Assembly meet
at Hyderabad
(Feb.10-14, 2010)
The five-day session will have Dalit oppression as the dominant theme. To be inaugurated by a noted Black philosopher from USA. Dr. Garda Ghista, the American-based president of the WPA, a revolutionary organisation founded by a Bengali philosopher, told the Editor that India’s Dalit oppression — being the world’s single largest and the most ancient — would dominate the session.

Dr. Ghista came all the way from Hyderabad to meet the Editor to seek the cooperation and support of the DV family all over India.

She said the Editor of DV and Dr. Kancha Ilaiah, the Hyderabad-based emerging Dalit philosopher, would play a dominant role. Gaddar, the revolutionary Dalit poet, singer and dancer, will be the star attraction at the inaugural session.

Dalit women who are the most oppressed within the Dalits will have a big say at the conference.

Muslim persecution: As India has the world’s largest Muslim population facing serious Hindu persecution, they will have several speakers at the conference.

As Hyderabad and AP in general have good circulation of DV, we call upon our Dalit and Muslim brothers and sisters to contact the WPA president for details.

DV family members from all over the country are also requested to attend the conference.

Dr. Garda Ghista
President, World Prout Assembly
Camp Hyderabad

Ph: 9989-753-822, email: wpaeditor@gmail.com


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Jews & Jews of India aRE cousins
Here is the proof to defend DV theory
Some family members of DV have complained about our reports and articles on the Jews saying they were not relevant to India. We said it was a necessary tool to study our deadly enemy indepth. Our enemies as a whole have been furious with us for exposing this top secret that the two are cousins. The pamphlets below are published by a famous White Christian American religious organisation, Christian Defense League, PO Box 9166, Mandeville, LA-70470, USA. The Editor was the first in the world to discover that the two are cousins — though the Jews have produced any number of good and great people. But none among India’s Bhoodevatas (gods on earth).


....................Title.............................. Author................................................................ Year........... No. pages

1. Aryans & Jews (A Study in Racial Differences)......... James K. Warner........... 1997 ................ 66

2. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE JEWS............... Alexander Ratcliffe............................... 1943................. 20

3. THE JEWISH ASSAULT ON CHRISTIANITY.... Gerald B. Winrod.................................................... 50

4. ANT-SEMITISM – WHAT CASE? WHAT ARE ITS ROOTS?
HOW TO CURE IT? (Ukrainian-Jewish relations — An attempt at a
political analysis)................................................................ Julian Movchan............................................. 3

5. LEARNED ELDERS AND THE B.B.C................. A.K. Chesterton........................... 1961................. .24

6. ZIONISM RULES THE WORLD.................... Henry H. Klein.................................... 1955 ............... 12

7. WHO CONTROLS THE WHISKEY TRUST?
(Here are the facts. Let the reader decide)......................... John Benedict........................................ 14

8. LIBRARY OF POLITICAL SECRETS —5
(The Jewish Fifth Column in Islam)........................... Itsvan Bakony................................................... 50

9. NEW LIGHT ON THE PROTOCOLS........................ W. Creutz........................... 1976 ..................... 16

10. THE JEWS & COMMUNISM........................ Gerald L.K. Smith..................................................... 10

11. DOOMSDAY SEED VAULT IN THE ARCTIC............... F. William Engdahl........ 2007................ 13

12. THE ZIONIST CONTROL OF AMERICA.................. Benjamin Freedman.................................. .12

13. ZIONISM: THE HIDDEN TYRANNY........... Ben Freedman............................................................. 20

14. GEORGIA: ISRAEL’S HOME SWEET HOME........ Dr. Hisham Tillawi........ 2008..................... .10

15. COMMUNISM IS A PRODUCT OF THE JEWISH MIND ...... Pastor Eli James...... 1967 .......... 8

16. BLOWBACK ON SUBCONTINENT WORLDWIDE
INTEL WAR DESCENDS INTO ANARCHY..................................................... Tom Heneghan........... 10

17. GOODBYE ISRAELI LOBBY...................... J.M. Damon.................................................................... 5

18. UNCOVERED: CHURCHILL’S WARNINGS ABOUT THE
HEBREW BLOODSUCKER........... Paul Begnell..................................................... 2007 ................... 2

Only photocopy available. Send Rs. 350 for all the 18 titles. Write to DV office.

http://www.dalitvoice.org/Templates/sep_a2009/reports.htm

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The Media and Hinduism
by: Dr. Rajnikant Lahri

Thomas Babington Maculae, in Feb. 1855, had said that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India. He wished that the Hindus forget their past and get familiar with the English by means of literature and as a result cease to regard them as foreigners, speak of their great men with the same enthusiasm as the English do. In due course they are sure to become more English than Hindu. We cherished the idea that in independent India, we will be free to cultivate ancient values and tradition suited to modern times. The freedom dawned on August 15, 1947. Since then we have been witnessing that though the English are gone, English prevails and English traditions still rule. It got a strange fellow, the Marxists, as the aim of both was the same, to keep the country off its ancient values. We had even before seen on record such a friendship in the form of a pact between the opposing sides of a German Max Mueller and The English Maculae for the agreed cause of uprooting ancient Vedic values.
Today we have an English media impressed and influenced by the west. Then there is the Marxist media of foreign origin totally cut off from Indian values and roots. Unfortunately our independent India has not developed any such media in English that has roots in the soil and among the people. The English press has become notorious for its neglect of Indian traditions and cultural heritage.

I have the following points to raise in this connection in good spirit.


The English media invents its own phrases to suit their requirements and one such prase is Hindu Nationalist Party. Do you know what image does it produce in the mind of a reader who is not well versed with Indian culture and tradition? This phrase is used to attack BJP, a national party ruling today. It has secular credentials and stands for a secular India. Never ever it has even hinted at the idea of a Hindu nation. The media is “pleased”to put a prefix Hindu National before it. It means that the party stands for a nation of Hindus, an absurd idea of infant fancy. In foreign eyes, it is meant to equate the party with the Islamic fundamentalists. They are liable to think that BJP stands for a Hindu nation, which is like Muslim nations where other religions are not tolerated. BJP is never so but the attempt to project it in this light is damaging. Will the media like to stop it or find an excuse to continue with the design? The label is mischievous and distorts the picture of a true Indian democracy. Is not the Hindu nation theory product of media image and its vested interest? Does it not distort the values of Hinduism, which is founded on the firm conviction of unity in diversity?

Vajpaiyees BJP - This is another product of English media imagination. Every one knows that BJP is an all India party with a constitution and regular elections of its Presidents and others. It has never been a one-man show. The very English media once published that Vajpaiyee has been cornered in BJP. It now says that it is Vajpaiyees BJP Is it not hurling insult to a democratic setup of a party, which has an all India base? However there are parties with a one man show like Mulayam Singh yadava’ SP; Mayavati and Kashiram’ BSP; Ajit Singh’ RLD; Lallu Yadava’ RJD, Ram Bilas Pasvans , Lok Jana Shakti, and many more to address in that way but the media presents them in a very honorable way and never as one man party. The media has also spared Congress. It was never Narsingha Rao’ Congress though he ruled unchallenged for five full years. It has chosen only the BJP and that too in a very baseless and unrealistic way. Why so?

Hindu fundamentalist party- the media prefers to use it for RSS and VHP. I am sure the media knows what being fundamental is. It has been accepted as extreme and is unwelcome. The experience justifies it. We have witnessed it in case of Islam fundamentalism and their description of Jihad. How many of them really believe that Jihad is inner struggle and journey rather than a bloody expansionist combat? They take it to be a holy war against infidels and justify killing of innocent children, women and unarmed civilians. The ‘ Jihad’ phrase has substantially contributed to tension and the press has to inspire the muslim-leadership to come out openly for its right definition and denounce those who use it in their vested interest in favor of terror. Is RSS so? Media forgets the difference between a nationalist and a bigot. RSS activities time and again have been useful to the nation and there was a time when even the communists worked with RSS in defense of democracy and civil rights. The RSS does not impart military training as the other fundamentalists do, nor the RSS indulges in unlawful acts as they do. The fundamentalism of Hinduism lies in the belief that man is essentially divine and there exist freedom of ways to follow in the life of live and let live. This is what a Hindu believes in. Does any other religion believe in this norm? The media calling the Hindu majority party as fundamentalist in the spirit of equating it with other fundamentalist religious parties is ill- founded and a deliberate misrepresentation of reality

The misuse of the word secular—I think most of us do not know that the word secularism has never been defined and is being used by the media in its own way to serve its purpose. It is productive of more mischief than good and the English media finds it useful to engage it in its design. The word secular does not appear in the Preamble of the constitution it finds only a single casual mention as ‘ Economic, financial, political and otherwise secular activity’ in article 25(2c). 25 years later in 1975 ,during emergency, the lameduck Lok Sabha through 42nd.amendment, got the word secular prefixed to the description of India as a ‘sovereign Republic.’No definition was ever given to the word. It was in 1978, during Janata rule that secular was defined as ‘ equal respect for all religions’. The Congress was out not to accept any definition. It got the amendment rejected by the Raj Sabha. The word secular remains in the preamble as a political slogan, meaning nebulous and negotiable. When India was partitioned, it was divided on the basis of two-nation theory. The fight was between Nationalism and Communalism. Hindu majority India chose Nationalism and its nationalism was based on pluralism and belief in unity in diversity. Indira Gandhi in the interest of her political survival gave it a new turn with the connivance of communists. She turned Nationalism versus Communalism into Secularism versus Communalism. Now there is no idea of nationalism. Every one is for the party and govt. Vote bank idea is important. Society can be divided into castes and subcastes, caste groups can be formed and high posts can be filled by caste and vote considerations. They are called secular. Slogans and half-truths and incitements with a view to garnering votes can be done in garb of secularism. The media highlights these as secularists and patriots. They would rather see the country burn to ashes than see any problem settled in favor of Hindus as it loses their votes. Hindu baiting is a game that does not matter as they gain by it. The English media fails to highlight the exploitation of religious sentiments of the minorities by some sectarian majority Hindu parties who have in it rank communal minded elements. The media fails to distinguish between parties purely based on caste appeals and exploitation of minorities by creating fear complex in them. It rather willingly labels these parties as secular and patriotic. What a game?

The latest example of bias is the editorial of India Post dated March 29,02. The heading is,’ Ban Groups Preaching Religious Intoleration’. I read it several times to figure out which groups the editor means. To my great dismay there was only the VHP as if no other group in the eyes of the editor existed in India to be banned. It seems that he deliberately intended to pick up the VHP for attack. The reasons forwarded were baseless and presumptive. He charged that the VHP intends to take out Ashti Yatra of Godhara carnage victims. The said yatra was neither proposed nor ever carried out. The second point raised was the attack on Orissa Assembly by the Parishad’ activists. For this the VHP had already expressed regrets and no action against it was ever taken. The third was in form of a likely personal attack on the International VHP President Sri Ashoka Singhal. It charged that he flouted the law and challenged the authorities on Oct. 17,01 in Ayodhya. The editor has to know that no action was taken against him on the said charge by the govt. as it was considered within rules of conduct. The whole exercise of the editorial shows the spirit of bias. It forgets that Singhal at age 75, is a life long bachelor engineer devoted to the Hindu cause and has contributed immensely towards Hindu unity and self-assertion. I am told that the editorial is imported from India for consumption in USA where VHP of USA has done a great commendable job in the sphere of Hindu awareness and assertion. The English media is known for its attack on VHP in connection with the attack on Christian missionaries. The VHP is opposed to any forceful conversion, which the missionaries deny. The media fails to see that as an effect of proselytisation, the converted tribal are forgetting their original culture, belief and tradition. Inspired and tutored by the evangelists, they are even trying to influence the non- convert brothers. Media has always preferred to quote Gandhi on important issues but forgets to quote him on conversion as he was vehemently opposed to proselytisation in India by Christians. . As a consequence ,the clashes based on misunderstanding and distrust.
Some other facts that should be noted:

There was a killing of a Christian girl and a boy in Mandasur village in tribal area Kandhamal.dist. The situation would have worsened but the police nabbed the culprits quickly. In the meantime the Hindu parties were being blamed but ultimately it was revealed that the killer belonged to Christian community and to the same village.

Phoolvati was murdered in Feb. 1999 in Orissa. As usual the bishop blamed the RSS and the VHP. The chief minister Patnaik had to be replaced by a Christian CM Girdhar Gomongo of the Congress. Later on May 15, a Christian youth Ranjan Pradhan was sentenced to death for the murder. In the meantime the English media had sufficiently damaged the reputation of India in the world by accusing RSS and VHP for the same.

The much known Jhabua Kandof Dec 1998. Four nuns were raped and looted. As a regular exercise RSS and Bajrang dal was blamed and targeted. The news shook the Christian world. And the judgment? On April 2000, 10 people were awarded life –imprisonment, 6 for 2 year jail and one for one year prison Out of these 17, PL note, 15 were Christians. But the English media had done what it intended an incalculable damage to Hindu cause.
Now about the Media -indifference to Hindu cause. Shyamal K Gupta, General Sec. of NE, Sudhakar Dutta Div. Organizer or Agartala , Dhirendra Natharhe, organizer of Assam and Subhankar Chakravarti Dist. Organizer Dharmanagar--- all these four social workers were proceeding to Banavasi Kalyan Ashram in Agartala on Aug. 6, 1999 when they were kidnapped by Christians of NE and later killed. There was no report in papers or any editoralin the English media, which remains ever alert to publish such incidents about minorities. Why so? In a different context, J. Jailalita, the CM of Tamilnadu says,’ It is very strange and saddening to see that when such acts are perpetuated against the minorities, all political leaders rush to issue statements of condemnation, but when persons belonging to majority are subjected to similar perpetuation of heinous crime, not a single political leader so far has issued statement condemning this barbaric crime’ The psedo- secular leaders and the English media are birds of the same feather
The English media has failed to present the positive side of the Hindutva wave and its related contributions. It has overlooked the RSS and VHP effort for a dialogue with bishops on different issues facing them. It has also failed to discuss how and why in JK, the only Muslim majority state in India, the Hindu minority of Kashmir pundits was totally thrown out as refugees in their own land? Does it not lead us to conclude that when and where Muslims are in majority, they pay no regard for democratic norms or secularism? Why were no representative voices of Muslims heard against the atrocities in JK? About 10,000 Kashmiri pundits have been shot dead over the years, and 3.5 lakhs rendered homeless and uprooted. The English press publicity remained poor, indifferent and insensitive . Even in their reportings , they described it in a routine way. No one used words like genocide, ethnic cleansing, Talibanization , violation of human rights or holocaust , as they are in usual habit of using it against any Hindu reaction. Even when Mumbai was blasted with Pak support , the English press did not use the words slaughter, fundamentalists, fascism and anti-secular, human right violation , which could have been used legitimately, but it uses it to defame Hindu rising in self-assertion. This results in giving false information and keeping people in dark.

The English media does not care to find out why is there no leadership for a mutual dialogue on contentious issues like Ayodhya? The English media has failed to let us know the causes why the Hindu population in Pak declined from 14% in 1947 to 2% today, where as the Muslims in India, despite the media presentation of their insecurity, rose from 10% to 14% during the same period? The media has an obligation to detail the nation about the condition of Hindus in Muslim countries and especially in Bangla Desh where they are raped and tortured regularly. The print and the television have failed to picture the rape scenes and burning of the innocent people which it shows time and again in case of minorities in India. The media has a responsibility to let us know why the Muslims and the clergy distance itself from immoral acts of its fellowmen but never condemn or publicly denounce these barbarous acts. The Hindu Shankaracarya and Hon’ble Ravi Shankar have offered themselves for mutual talks and settlements of issues facing them but why is there no such offer from the Muslim side? Is not this the result of Hindu baiting and political appeasement of the minorities to the detriment of national interest? The media intensifies the sense of minoritism and there by keeps them at a distance from the main stream majority The English media has failed to criticize the growing trend of international interference in our internal affairs by countries which have a record of human right violations. The people have a right to know about the frequent foreign trips of these media men and admissions and fellowships to their wards and job for progeny.

The media is expected to adhere to proper norms and standards of reporting. It should not indulge in distorting, exaggerating or employing intemperate, inciting and unrestrained language or phrase deliberately meant to give wrong impressions. The media is a peacemaker.and not at all a political backer, a disease the English media badly suffers from. The media is expected to promote peace and harmony and not to present a picture of incitement or create such a trend, which disrupts peace directly or indirectly. If it indulges in this design, will it not be an anti- national act? It is said as you sow so shall you reap. A Hindu does not say that every action has a opposite and equal reaction, a phrase put into the mouth of Modi, the CM Gujarat, by the press, which he vehemently denies having uttered. The Hindu faith lies in the belief that every one has to reap the consequences of his action in this or in consecutive lives and the press is no exception. Let God kindle our path from darkness unto light. AUM

http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=022305045250



BJP to stick to Hind

utva ideology
June 23rd, 2009 - 10:19 pm ICT by IANS

Jammu, June 23 (IANS) Reaffirming his party’s commitment to Hindutva, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh Tuesday said the electoral “victory or defeat is not a referendum on the ideologies and commitment of the party”.
Sharing the dais with Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohanrao Bhagwat at a function in the Jammu and Kashmir winter capital, the BJP leader said his party was committed to Hindutva and “would not give up that ideology simply because it lost elections”.

The two leaders were here to observe the death anniversary of the founder of the Jana Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, who died in a state prison June 23, 1953.

Mukherjee was imprisoned for entering the state without a proper permit in violation of Article 370. His entry was in protest against the separate constitution, head of the state and flag of Jammu and Kashmir. Mukherjee wanted that the state be declared as an integral part of India and governed like any other state of the country.

Those days a special permit was needed to visit the state, which had its prime minister (wazeer-e-azam) and president (sadr-e-riyasat). The nomenclatures were later changed to chief minister and governor respectively and the special permit too was abrogated. But the state continues to enjoy special status under Article 370 with its own flag and constitution.

Without referring to Article 370, the RSS and BJP chiefs said they would continue to be inspired by the “martyrdom” of Mukherjee for opposing the two flags, two constitutions in the same country.

Bhagwat said those looking for options other than “Bharat aur Bhartiyata” (India and Indianism) should look at what is happening in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Tibet - the parts of India that got separated. “What is happening in Pakistan should be an eye opener,” he said.

“When we say we are Hindus, we are not referring to a particular religion, we are referring to loyalty to a nation, which embraces one and all irrespective of the fact what language they speak or which mode of worship they practice.”

The two leaders, at the function in the Jammu University’s auditorium, said they would continue fighting against the divisive forces in India.

The university authorities had Monday refused permission to the BJP-RSS convention in its auditorium but allowed the function on Shyama Prasad Mukherjee’s death anniversary.

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BJP decides not to relinquish Hindutva but will reach out to minorities
June 21st, 2009 - 10:27 pm ICT by ANI
New Delhi, June 21 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday announced that the party will not give up its Hindu ideology but will try to reach out to minorities and it believes that there should not be any place for fundamentalism towards any religion.
“There is no question of going back on our ideology. Hindutva is a way of life. He (Lal Krishna Advani) has quoted a lot of people in this (message). We will try to reach out to minorities but there is no question of going back on our main ideology,” said Venkaiah Naidu, former President of Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday after the two-day national executive meet.

Naidu added that party needed to articulate its ideology in a better way.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday adopted a political resolution owning collective responsibility for its defeat in the recently-concluded parliamentary elections and insisted that its Hindutva ideology was inclusive.

“Hinduism or Hindutva is not to be understood or construed narrowly confined only to religious practices or expressed in extreme forms,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told media here on the second day of the party’s conclave.

Earlier in the day, Lal Krishna Advani during his speech during the meet highlighted issues which should be of concern to the BJP at present and in near future.

“It is a matter of concern that our Party seems to be plateauing in some states, which are our strongholds, and have actually suffered big reversals in some others. The State of the party organization at all levels, including at the Centre, needs to be improved. We have to strengthen unity in thought, unity in planning and unity in execution in leadership tiers at the Centre and in states. We must identify, train, groom and empower third, fourth and fifth generation of leaders in the BJP. Our leadership planning should take into account the Party’s needs for the next twenty years,” said Advani, while mentioning about the corrective actions, during his speech at the meet.

“True, Elections 2009 did not produce results that we expected. We should not be found wanting in honest introspection. But introspection is different from finger-pointing. It is not only we who are disappointed, our legion of supporters are equally disappointed that we could not defeat the Congress. The people have high hopes and heightened expectations from the BJP. Let us strive to rise to their expectations,” Advani said in his concluding remarks. (ANI)


September 13, 2009




Page: 34/37

Home > 2009 Issues > September 13 2009


Agenda

New Hindutva platform
Ideology should be the basis of politics
By Ramesh Patange

Those who don’t want to play politics, don’t want to win power, can very well say that reservations should not be caste-based. Hindu society should not be further compartmentalised.

The basic issue is not the word Hindutva. Not a blade of grass will move simply by uttering the word. The crux of the problem is how Hindutva is expressed in politics.

Terrorism is organically related to Pakistan. Common Indians sincerely desire that Pakistan should be liquidated. This is impossible in the context of current international situation. No body can do this. Then, what can be done?

Of late, BJP president, Rajnath Singh’s speeches are widely and perhaps properly covered. Delivering the concluding speech at the BJP National Executive meeting held at New Delhi, he dwelt at length on such diverse subjects such as political situation in Uttar Pradesh, BSP’s state government, BJP’s defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the responsibility of the leaders for such a debacle and the morale of the cadre. It is not planned to discuss all these topics here.

Rajnath Singh observed, "There was a hue and cry after the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections that the party should reconsider its ideology. Why should we indulge in such reconsideration? Was Hindutva an election issue? Those parties who totally renounce their basic ideology are bound to doom. There are many who object to the very word Hindu. All those who are bent on dividing the society on the basis of caste and cult are creating confusion and quarantine the words Hindu and Hindutva."

Rajnath Singh has time and again assured, "We will not renounce the ideology of Hindutva." The very fact that he had to do so clearly means that BJP stands cornered on Hindutva. Those who are in the mainstream of Hindutva for generations express serious doubts about "BJP’s" Hindutva. And those who are basically opposed to Hindutva are busy deliberately trying to create ideological confusion about Hindutva. Rajnath Singh was addressing both these sections.

The basic issue is not the word Hindutva. Not a blade of grass will move simply by uttering the word. The crux of the problem is how Hindutva is expressed in politics. Ideology should be the basis of party politics. Rajnath Singh totally agrees with this position. And so says he, "Those parties who bid a farewell to their distinct ideology are doomed." So doomed are several parties in India. They sprang around some contemporary issue. And vanish over night when the issue dies. The Janata Party doomed the same way and so did the Janata Dal. All this underlines the singular importance of ideology

Writing a thesis or publishing books do not help a common man to understand party ideology. To help him understand it, the ideology has to be presented in the form of a concrete party programme. The party has to solve some concrete issues by way of agitations. When Jana Sangh was founded Article 370, formation of Pakistan, total ban on cow-slaughter, Common Civil Code were the issues at the centerstage of party platform. In political discourse it was commonly understood that a party agitating on these issues is a Hindutvawadi party. Jana Sangh then made these issues its basic programme.

For the abrogation of Art 370, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee had to lay down his life. Jana Sangh organised a demonstration in opposition to the Kutch Pact. The Party led the agitation demanding a total ban on cow slanghter. During those days no party leader thought it necessary to announce that we will give up Hidutva, it was not at all necessary to say so.

Why of late such a need has arisen? Is it because the party critics so demand? Were they not demanding it earlier? Such discussion was in the air for quite some time. Such demands have nothing to do with the defect of the party but it was very closely related with the BJP’s electoral success. Unless we seriously discuss the context in which such demands are raised and find the ways and means to address them, the off repeated statement that we will not give up Hidutva sounds meaningless. Political situation always changes and the fifty-year old issues become comparatively insignificant in today’s context. Such a long period is separated by at least two generations. The past can not rule the present and the future. How can the issues appealing the past two-three generations similarly appeal the present one? An astute politician with foresight always swims with times. He strives to understand the current problems and address them in the context of his party ideology.

What are the burning problems of the present generation? Half a century before reservation was not the problem of the political main stream? Today different castes are clamoring for their inclusion in the reservations category in Rajasthan and Gurjars are at the forefront demanding reservations. In Maharashtra members of Maratha caste want reservations. Different castes have joined such a rat race the issue of reservations have liberally decimated the society caste wise. The shocking fact is that there are cast wise groups as many groups as many castes. Every social problem has been politicised.

How to deal with this issue in the present context of Hindutva is a million dollar question. Those who don’t want to play politics don’t want to win power can very well say that reservations should not be caste-based. Hindu society should not be further compartmentalised. Can the BJP take such a position? Can the party oppose reservations? And if it so does will it exist? The BJP should explain how the party will reconcile the Hindu unity with the ever growing aspiration of different competing castes.

There are innumerable castes in Hindu Society. Some were untouchables. Others backward-very backward. The word Reservation does not confine to jobs only. All these castes aspire for there progress on their own strength. They are desirous of joining the national mainstream to respond positively to their aspirations is of national interest. The political power in India should all the time remain in the hands of Hindus. Indian Constitution does not say so. However, the struggle for reservation upholds this in a different manner. In view of this, the BJP should organise mass movements to oppose the demand for reservation by the non-Hindus. Such struggle should be the principal programme of the politics of Hindutva. The Dalits and the OBCS Should be clearly explained that the reservation meant exclusively for them is snatched by the non-Indian religious groups. Resist this. Save your reservation. Make sure that the political power in this country should never go in the hands of non-Indian religious. Make it a life mission. Can BJP do this?

Half a century ago terrorism was not the subject of political discourse even casually. To day it has become a burning problem. Terrorism has gulped Kashmir and spread allover north India. Pakistani agents are attacking any place anytime at their will. It is unnecessary to give details. We know all about it. Who are these terrorists? They are all Muslims believing jehad as their religion and life mission. That not all Muslims are terrorist is true but equally true is the fact that all those who are arrested as terrorists are Muslims. And all of them are nurtured by Pakistan. Who are the targets of these terrorists? Speaking politically, it is against Hindus. The terrorist do not at all differentiate between Brahmins, kshatriyas. Dalits and OBCS. For them all are Hindus. This clearly means that the jehad is against Hindus. This is the most important subject on the political agenda. Not a subject of a casual protest but of mass struggle and of countrywide political awakening. Can BJP do so?

Terrorism is organically related to Pakistan. Common Indians sincerely desire that Pakistan should be liquidated. This is impossible in the context of current international situation. No body can do this. Then, what can be done? Can Pakistan be partitioned? Can Pakistan be addressed in the language it understands? Can the terrorists hiding in Pakistan be eliminated? Or can they be brought to India? Saying often that we have not surrendered Hindutva is alright. But what about our image that we are cosy with Pakistan as the Congress? When none else but the leaders of BJP say that Jinah was rashtrapurush then is it not the fact that we have been conducting all anti-Indian activities carried out from Pakistan? To clear such an image the ideology of Hindutva vis-a-Pakistan should be forcefully presented before the People. Suring Rajasthan last assembly election a TV Channel telecasted Vasundara Raje’s advertisement asking people. "Are they going to vote those people who support pakistan’s terrorism.’’ She was clearly hinting at 26/11 attack on Mumbai and also against not hanging Afzal Guru. The voters refused to consider this appeal and defeated the BJP government considering the Congress to be a better choice. This explains how the voter thinks.

Since half-a-century, the problem of pollution was not a menacing problem. Today it has become so. There is the issue of global warming. The cycle of season is changing. The level of sea-water is rising. The very existence of human life is threatened. In the Hindu way of life there are effective solutions to pollution. So senior BJP leaders follow this way of life. First we have to live according to that way of life. Then people will follow. The Congressmen tell the stories of Mahatma Gandhi’s simple life. People are entertained. Because they see how the Congressmen live. BJP leaders also narrates the stories of Pt. Deendayal’s simple life. We listen but do not laugh. Mind becomes numb. It is better not to write more about this. It is no pleasure exposing our leaders.

Today India is searching for live examples of those who practice Indian values, life in the fields of agriculture, industry, commerce, education, fine arts etc. It will not be enough to recite shlokas from Geeta, Vedas and Upanishads. Fortunately such islands spread all over the country. We have to connect such islands practicing Indian values of and form a wider circle. The Politics of Hindutva means the politics of eternal Hindu values. Those leading such a life should be given a place of honor on the party platform. The states ruled by the BJP should find out such distinguished people and present them as idols before the society.

The Problem of educational was not as acute as it is today. Today education system has been commercialised. In case if a daughter or son secures more than 90 per cent marks the parents are worried rather than satisfied. The first question where she or he will get admission and how many thousands or lakhs of rupees will have to be given. Without donation no admission can be secured. For education one needs a fortune. As it is not available by fair means, one has to resort to different means. Instead of education becoming free from corruption, it has become a fountain head of corruption.

Education can become the subject matter of Hidutva. Everybody should get education of their choice free and without any hastle. The cost of education should be need based. A policy should be evolved so that nobody can involve trade in education. Such a policy should be popularised and confidence can be created so that we can implement it. Education has become the hunger of people like food. Instead of indulging in politics pulling each other’s legs, we should concentrate our attention on all these subjects so that, the need will not arise to say other that, "We are Hindutvawadis, we have not given up Hindutva, we will not give up Hindutva."

(The writer is editor of Vivek weekly)




http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=308&page=34

POLITICS

Converting Hindus to Hindutva


AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA



Interview with D.R. Goyal, writer and historian.






SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY

D.R. Goyal joined the RSS as a schoolboy but realised within a few years that its professions were not all true.

D.R. GOYAL is known to have written the most authentic account of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in 1978. He was an RSS member from 1942 to 1947. His analysis of the hate-mongering culture of the RSS since Independence has earned him great respect in academic circles. As a school student, he joined the RSS, which projected itself as one of the organisations fighting for India’s independence, but it did not take him long to realise that the organisation’s professions were not necessarily true. Since then, he has been a chronicler of various developments in this “cultural” organisation. In 1962, when he was a Delhi University lecturer, he set up a unit of the Communist Party of India at the university. He later joined Subhadra Joshi (then Member of Parliament from Jabalpur, who also holds the distinction of having defeated Atal Bihari Vajpayee) to form the Sampradayikta Virodhi Manch. The organisation is at present named the Qaumi Ekta Trust. He has also written a biography of Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani of Dar-ul-Uloom and is now working on a book on Indian madrassas. In an interview to Frontline, the author of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh elaborates on how the present crisis within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is historically linked to the RSS.


How do you understand the present crisis in the BJP? What is the role of the RSS in influencing the BJP’s recent decisions such as the expulsion of Jaswant Singh, the sidelining of Yashwant Sinha, or the issuing of a show-cause notice to Arun Shourie?


First of all, I would say that the present situation in the BJP is like the Mahabharat. Kauravas and Pandavas fighting each other. Instead of Krishna coming and trying to solve [the conflict], the RSS jumps in. Though it has always been influencing it, for the first time the RSS chief has come and issued a public statement before the Chintan Baithak of the BJP. He made a statement on TV that older people should retire and the leadership should be given over to people in their 50s and 60s. This kind of thing has never happened earlier.

Another feature of Mohan Bhagwat’s visit to Delhi was that he did not even show the courtesy of visiting the ailing Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was a major leader of the political formation founded by the RSS in 1951. Vajpayee was at that time attached to Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and until the other day he led the party and the BJP government for six years. So, an ordinary human courtesy required that the head of an institution that founded the BJP should visit him. Not necessarily for any consultation, but even Vajpayee’s advice, if he could speak, would have been useful because he knew people more. Advani, in fact, came into the political scene much later, only in the 1960s. Before that he was only an RSS pracharak. Now it seems that Mohan Bhagwat has displayed a preference for Advani over Vajpayee, which means that he has rejected all those people who were with Vajpayee.

In other words, for Bhagwat, Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and all these people are personae non gratae. He didn’t talk to any of them whereas he talked to everyone who was either with Rajnath Singh or with Advani. For him, the BJP means only those who are with Rajnath or Advani. The result of this was that in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP, no one could discuss the reasons for its defeat, which was the purpose of the meeting. If it had happened, discussions on ideology would have come in. The RSS did not want that. All these days, there have been discussions only about the real role of Hindutva. Although Advani tried to undermine it, he is known to be a person who is attached to Hindutva.

In 2002, Vajpayee was in favour of dismissing [Narendra] Modi, but Advani defended him. So in the RSS’ view, Advani is the real RSS man, a defender of the RSS’ ideology, not Vajpayee. Therefore anybody who is attached to Vajpayee has to be discarded.

Now what is the way ahead? Bhagwat says that he can only advise them [BJP leaders] but cannot suggest. In other words, he doesn’t want to take names although he has talked to all these people collectively as well as separately. Talking to [Arun] Jaitley, [Sushma] Swaraj, [Venkaiah] Naidu, Ananth Kumar means he was talking to people who were against Rajnath. Therefore, he talked separately to Rajnath.

Another thing to be noticed is that Bhagwat went to Murli Manohar Joshi’s house for lunch and didn’t go to anybody’s house until then. Murli Manohar Joshi had not come to meet him. He, therefore, went to his house. In other words, the RSS has a soft corner for Joshi also. That is why there is talk that there might be a place for Joshi either as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha or as president of the BJP. What happened at the meeting, one doesn’t know; because the RSS makes statements that are partial. It has never abdicated its role as the real mentor of the BJP, or even the Jana Sangh. When the Jana Sangh was founded, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was told by [M.S.] Golwalkar to set up an organisation and the RSS would give it its cadre but only on condition that its ideology would be promoted. So this was a political party of the RSS meant to promote Hindutva, which also means Hindu nationalism. Therefore, if the BJP does anything against the minorities, the RSS has no objection to it – be it the 2002 Gujarat carnage or Kandhamal and Karnataka in 2008. The RSS speaks only when there is a crisis inside the BJP’s organisation.

Why do you think not talking about ideology in the Chintan Baithak of the BJP would be beneficial for the RSS?


If they didn’t come out with any kind of discussions in the Chintan Baithak, it is because they didn’t want to disclose that there were people who were reporting to the RSS. What does Bal Apte’s report mean? That ideology was one of the reasons for the defeat. The RSS was never bothered about the future or fate of the political party. Ideology is prime. Therefore, Rajnath in his own defence repeatedly says that there can be no dilution of the ideology.

In other words, whatever Golwalkar has said about nationalism, whether it was his book We, Our Nationhood Defined or later on in Bunch of Thoughts, still holds. In We, Our Nationhood Defined he said that the minorities would have no rights except as second-class citizens unless they accepted the culture of the Hindus. In other words, unless they converted, they had no rights as citizens. And in the other book, Bunch of Thoughts, he says that there are three enemies of nationalism: Muslims, Christians and communists. If they have to adhere to that ideology, they can’t have any alliance with any of these three. The sin of Vajpayee was that when confronted with a question on the dilution of Hindutva in the U.S., he said that unless the party had two-thirds majority, ideology couldn’t be implemented. So he becomes an unwanted person. Advani will never say that. Atal Bihari also defends the Gujarat carnage, Karnataka and Kandhamal implicitly because he doesn’t speak a word against these incidents.

Do you suggest that the present crisis is a fight between the Advani and Vajpayee camps and is doctored by the RSS?


You see, the RSS doesn’t need Vajpayee. He was tolerated, not accepted.

The RSS wants a young leadership in the BJP. In a way, all the present outcastes such as Jaswant Singh, Shourie and Yashwant Sinha are more than 70 years old. Young leaders like Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj are close to the RSS and also fall in the age bracket that Bhagwat suggested. Does it suggest some kind of remote controlling of the BJP by the RSS through a superficial talk of young leadership in order to sideline the people who were not close to it?


The idea of the youngsters is intended to promote the people who are from the RSS stream. The present crop of older leaders like Jaswant have not been trained in the RSS. The RSS knows that these people will not work for ideology. They will work for power. Until the BJP came to power, there was no problem between the RSS and the BJP. It was only in the 1990s, when there was a possibility of the BJP coming to power. At that time, there was a BJP conference in Bombay [now Mumbai]. There was also a parallel conference of the BJP that was addressed by the then RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan. He said that the BJP needed to be careful about the “corruption” that had entered in its ranks. A biography of Advani called Advent of Advani was issued. Even in this biography, it was suggested by the RSS that the BJP had got addicted to five-star cultures, which showed in the places where they conducted their meetings. Even the Shimla meeting was conducted in a luxurious hotel rather than a place suggested by the State government.

What has been the role of the RSS after Independence in determining the organisational decisions of the BJP and the Jana Sangh?


The RSS doesn’t only influence their decisions. The relationship between these political formations and the RSS ensures that the parties do not function independently. Political formations are meant to advance the ideology. In fact, earlier the RSS was not in favour of entering politics by itself. It thought unless it created an atmosphere in which its ideology was acceptable, it would not enter politics. “Our culture will be our politics,” it said. Therefore, it is very difficult for the RSS to enter politics directly or give up the influence it exerts in these political formations that it has created. That is the dilemma for the RSS.

Jaswant Singh was expelled on the grounds of writing something that violated the ideology of the RSS and the BJP. Even Arun Shourie came forward to confront the leadership of the party, but he was not expelled, perhaps because he is seen as a staunch Hindutva ideologue. Does this mean the RSS needs more people like Shourie who could engage intellectually with the civil society in favour of its ideology despite certain criticisms against it?


Once Arun Shourie was invited to preside over the Vijayadashami function, their annual function, in the Nagpur headquarters of the RSS. A person who has been invited to such a function is normally considered a promoter of the ideology, though he may not be close to the Sangh. Moreover, his objection to the functioning of the BJP is that the ideology has not been promoted in the way it should have been. Therefore, the RSS should take over, he means, but the RSS cannot do that. At the same time, Mohan Bhagwat had to say that he is a respected journalist and an intellectual.

So you think this is the reason the RSS has not been criticising Narendra Modi despite his efforts to distance himself from the RSS over the last few years?


Modi is doing what the RSS wants. The only problem between Modi and the RSS in Gujarat is that Modi has not been able to win over the castes that are against him.

Do you mean to say that the RSS is a very strong organisation? The only thing that matters to it is its ideology. Is it itself free from power politics?


The RSS is not free from power politics. Sometimes problems do arise, but it solves those by dissolving them. There has been a lot of discussion on whether pracharaks should marry or not and on matters such as these. But there has been no difference on ideology. For instance, the difference between Mohan Bhagwat and K.S. Sudarshan was on whether the organisation should tolerate a person like Advani or not. When Bhagwat left Delhi, Sudarshan met him in order to explain that he was not against him. In other words, the difference between the chief and ex-chief was about the treatment that should be given to Advani because there were complaints of “ideological corruption” against Advani also.

How different is Mohan Bhagwat from his predecessor Sudarshan? What difference does it make to the BJP? Since the influence of the RSS is so strong and Bhagwat for the first time came out speaking before the Chintan Baithak, could a step such as the expulsion of the president over any indiscipline be repeated in future? Jana Sangh presidents Mauli Charan Sharma and Balraj Madhok were expelled from the party on the RSS’ order. Advani was just asked to resign from the presidentship, though.


It doesn’t make any difference to the BJP. Bhagwat’s only problem is that he wants a younger generation to come up in the BJP. Sudarshan had also wanted this. He had said this to both Advani and Vajpayee. But Bhagwat went a step ahead to prescribe the age limit of the leadership (between 50 and 60). So Murli Manohar Joshi is also out in that way. He has not named any of them. But apart from the prominent four or five, it could also be Bal Apte and Ram Lal. These are people who are delegated in the BJP by the RSS to look after its political formation.

Jana Sangh president Balraj Madhok was expelled because he had written a letter that the organising committee should not be chosen by the RSS but be elected by the respective units of the Jana Sangh. They would be paid by the Jana Sangh, not the RSS. What Madhok meant was that the Jana Sangh should be detached from the RSS. Advani is not able to project such an approach though he says that the RSS should not interfere in the BJP’s day-to-day decisions. What does it mean? Does it mean the RSS should not appoint the organising secretary? His only objection is that the RSS should not speak up when the BJP makes a statement that the RSS is critical of. After the Jinnah controversy, Advani was just asked to resign and was not expelled because unlike Madhok he was ready to accept the terms and conditions of the RSS. Madhok was not prepared to accept the RSS’ diktat. Madhok made a very strong statement against the RSS after his expulsion in Ahmedabad.


THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

M.S. Golwalkar, who believed that the minorities should have no rights except as second-class citizens.
In 1985, when the BJP took stock of the reasons for its abject defeat and Vajpayee was asked whether it marked a return to the Jana Sangh type of politics, he countered, “When did we get away from the Jana Sangh?” The Jana Sangh was openly a political unit of the RSS, which the BJP claims it is not. Even the RSS claims that. On November 6, 1977, however, he said exactly the opposite. “When we joined the Janata Party we had given up our old beliefs and faiths and there was no question of going back.” It was almost the same case with Advani regarding the question of Hindutva before the election. Is this some sort of ideological confusion or temporary dishonesty for political gains? What is that which prevents the BJP from charting its own path and emerge as a right-wing organisation with its own brand of Hindutva for political gains?


Neither of the two parties, the BJP or the Jana Sangh, has grown in politics. They have grown in the RSS. The RSS has put them in politics. Therefore, they have to surrender. There was a journalist who brought out a magazine called Mother India from Bombay. It was about the film industry, but there were editorials, which talked about politics. He once made a comment that Vajpayee says something but when it comes to the crunch, he goes and kneels before the RSS chief. There is no difference between the BJP and the RSS. I always say that the BJP grew by accident. The BJP grew because of the ideological mistakes committed by the Congress. First, Indira Gandhi destroyed all the second-rung leaders.

When Rajiv Gandhi came, he was an inexperienced politician. He took decisions that were not in conformity with his party. For example, he permitted the foundation stone of Ram Mandir to be laid in Ayodhya. He also changed the law in the Shah Bano case. He was almost doing what the BJP wanted to do. Before that in 1983, Mrs. Gandhi made speeches in Jammu and later in Delhi, which, according to [K.R.] Malkani, were in accordance with the ideology of the RSS. When you begin to walk in those lines, then naturally the other party becomes acceptable. So the Muslims, Dalits, OBCs [Other Backward Classes], all of them got alienated from the Congress. It was these mistakes of the Congress which led to the rise of Jana Sangh and then the BJP. If there was no Emergency, in 1977 how could a conglomerate of various parties come to power?

When the BJP makes statements accepting different cultures in India, they have never defined culture. In fact they have never differed from Golwalkar who said that religion is the basis of culture, in his book We, Our Nationhood Defined. If religion is the basis of culture, then those who do not believe in the Hindu religion are not a part of this culture. It is not even temporary dishonesty. It is just meant for public consumption, not for practice. People went gaga over Vajpayee’s tolerance, but was he able to dismiss Modi? Did he differ from Modi when Advani approved the killing of Graham Staines? The RSS was happy with a leader who tolerated the ideology.

You have shown in your book how the RSS believes in lie-mongering and has a convenient memory. Despite their claims of being the most nationalist force, Savarkar appealed for clemency from the British. In your book, you reproduced the apologetic letter by Balasaheb Deoras to Indira Gandhi during the time of Emergency so that they were not arrested. Almost in the same vein, Advani lied when he claimed ignorance about Jaswant Singh accompanying terrorists in the Kandahar hijack episode. Jaswant Singh called his bluff. What does this history suggest?


You see, they had basically no objection to the Emergency. In fact, Balasaheb Deoras, the RSS chief, told Indira Gandhi that if she was prepared to join them, they would help her to fight the communists. They were prepared to support the Congress. Even now, if the BJP adopts all the economic and foreign policies of the Congress, the RSS will have no objections. If one enemy can be fought with the help of the Congress, the RSS doesn’t mind it. Why do they go to Jinnah again and again? Now Jaswant Singh has gone overboard and therefore got expelled. Advani said Jinnah is a great man. One should understand that if you are a follower of Savarkar, you are bound to be a follower of Jinnah too. Savarkar in 1937, before the Pakistan resolution in 1940, had made a statement that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and cannot live together. The hue and cry is just because Jaswant Singh is not acceptable to the RSS and not about Jinnah.

Some in the RSS are repackaging ‘Hindutva’. Something like “anyone who is born in India is a Hindu”. Bhagwat even said that they are open to all. This goes against the Golwalkar (in his book Bunch of Thoughts, Chapter 10) and Savarkar. Both of them denounced territorial nationalism and strictly defined who is a Hindu. Only a person who embraces Hindu culture could be a Hindu. So do you see a shift in the ideology of the RSS or does that amount to the same thing? They have been using religiosity and nationality almost in the same vein, in terms of an all-encompassing Hindu nation.



S. SUBRAMANIUM

L.K. ADVANI at an RSS convention in Agra in May 2002.

No, this is a hypocritical deceit. The RSS does not come out in the open with anything. For example, the RSS would not support what Varun Gandhi said, but they would have no objection if you, like Modi, create a situation in which the minorities are killed. That is the difference. They realise that Hindus at large would not accept their original ideology. Therefore, they want to mould Hindus into their ideology. In fact, the idea is not to convert Muslims or Christians. The idea is to convert Hindus to Hindutva ideology. For them, the weakness lies with the Hindus.

Since you have spoken so much about Vajpayee, do you mean to say that Vajpayee was not a strong Hindutva ideologue himself?


For this, you have to go back to the genesis of the political formation. When, after 1948, the RSS was banned, there was a lot of discussion. In the old files of the Organiser between 1946 and 47, there are a whole lot of letters where people say that unless you advance into politics, you will not be able to defend yourself. Because when there was a ban on the RSS, there was nobody to defend it. If you want some defence, you have to take the plunge into politics. I remember one of those letters, which read, “Whatever cuts in politics, cuts in life.” This means whoever is effective in politics, he is also able to defend its ideological practice in life. Therefore, a political formation was created to defend what the RSS does, in its own name or in any other name. Whatever the Bajrang Dal or the ABVP [Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad] does, it is defended by the BJP.

You have always been an acute observer of the RSS both from inside and outside. Over all these years, what change have you seen in the working of the RSS?



M. KARUNAKARAN

AN RSS DRILL in progress at Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai on August 16. Goyal says the RSS no longer draws as many young boys as it used to.

One big change that I see is that the RSS now does not attract school students or even young college students. Youngsters in shakhas are slowly becoming invisible. Life has changed. A child would watch TV in the evening rather than go to a shakha. In the morning, they go to school. Therefore the ABVP is the recruiting ground for political work and violence. After all, where has Arun Jaitley come from?

Finally, where do you see the BJP going from here?


It is very difficult to find a suitable person to preside over the party. I don’t see any future for the party for the next 10 years, at least until 2014. In fact, I am sorry to say that the communists have blundered badly, otherwise, here was a chance [for them] to become the main opposition party.

Politics today is more fluid than it ever was. After Independence, the freedom fighters were dictating terms as long as they were alive. But today, ideology is there but idealism is no more there.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/stories/20090925261912000.htm

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 Saffron brotherhood in disarray
Z.A. Khan
THE saffron's road to the top was mapped mainly by those who believe in Hindu revivalism as they apprehended that Hinduism was endangered. This conclusion has been drawn basing on the perception that "the political assertiveness of minority groups like the Sikhs and Muslims, efforts to convert the Hindus to other faith, suspicion that the political authorities are 'pandering' to minority groups and the belief that foreign political and religious ideologies undermine Hindu community bonds."

Rashtriya Swayamsebak Sangh (RSS), which is considered as the steel frame behind the recent fillip that Hindutva got in India, is feeling restive at the sight of the insularity that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- an amalgam of the pro Hindutva political forces -- has plunged itself into. The current murky situation, which stems from the severe blow that it received in the last national election, has shattered the confidence of the leadership, and a feeling of being rudderless is prevailing among the rank and file of the party.

We have observed in India a spate in the growth of religious revivalism in the last few decades, which is also noticeable in the other countries of the South Asian subcontinent. This religious revivalism is not only spreading its wings in the political domain, the countdown of the spread of its influence began in other sectors of national life as well since the '80s of the last century -- reflections of which can also be felt in the social and cultural fields. Religion is being used as a bargaining chip to make political gains.

Some of the revivalist groups speak of defending the traditional religious orthodoxy while some others are favouring an integration of fundamental religious tenets with more adoptable and time and space friendly revisions. Thankfully, so far, no report of discord between the revivalists traditional orthodoxy and the revisionists' passionate liberalism has come about to cause major concern. To many, both the groups have much more to do to gain political mileage.

The recent national election in India gave the verdict against the BJP-RSS nexus. One might be inclined to blame the BJP's hyped emphasis on promoting Hindutva for this appalling performance in the election. The massive mandate in favour of the Congress stemmed from BJP's clinging to traditionalist politicians, who refused to budge from playing Hindutva card, which they played deftly in 1999, by whipping up religious feeling of the majority Hindus through RathYarta from Shomnath Temple to Ayodha. This culminated in the demolition of the Babri Mosque, which they think was built on a site where there was a Ram Temple.

Although the RathYarta gave them the dividend of ruling the largest democratic country in the world, it alienated the second largest religious community who felt unsafe at the government's patronisation of Hindutva. Muslims were constrained to face a massacre in Gujrat -- the home of a few stalwarts of BJP including L.K. Advani -- during BJP rule. Religious intolerance in Mahatma Gandhi's -- the prophet of non-violence -- country of took heavy toll and tore apart the fabric of communal harmony, which was not much savoured by many across the communities.

This made the opposition Congress draw up the strategy of territorial nationalism as a compromise, and it was able to woo the regions that did not have a predominance of Hindus, or places where minorities lived hand-in-glove with the majority community that believe in liberal religious bias. Insofar as political outlook is concerned, the non-BJP parties, unitedly or singly, ruled the roost despite intense efforts of BJP to win the majority community faction of the region.

The other reason for the failure attributed to the BJP is the upsurge of militancy among the Hindu following the much-publicised conversion of low caste Hindus to Islam or Christianity in the poorer regions of India. Deep regional, linguistic and social division among Hindus, as well as inability to enliven their religious institutions because of local opposition, has acted as an impediment in catching up with majority voters. The regions largely populated by the low caste Hindu found the BJP-RSS combine intensely "aggressive and tended to reflect Kshatriya (warrior) world view."

The Congress, which had carefully crafted its political agenda, made sure that it did not hurt the renegades of Tilak (regarded as BJP's spearhead) who thought that Gandhi's ahimsa (non-violence) "nearly uprooted the very principal of Hinduism and Aryan philosophy, which is against the Hindu ethics, and proposed that the sacred canon made self-protection (probably of religious faith) a higher duty than ahimsa.

BJP's past guru Kurtkoti Shankaracharya was of the view that ahimsa, as employed by Gandhi, undermined Hindu self-respect and encouraged the Muslims to dominate the Hindus. The national election of 2009 has revealed to BJP how serious is its lack of understanding of modern India, which is a partner in the globalisation program that gives primacy to economic development and partnership among the global family -- where faith alone should not be the guiding agenda for political culture.

The recent infighting within the BJP leadership exposes its weakness in handling the views that contradict its traditional orthodox outlook. "The Hindu Mahashava, formed as a forum for protecting the variety of Hindu interests (e.g. cow protection, Hindi, Devangri script, caste reforms etc), which renamed itself as BJP and amalgamated itself with Bishwa Hindu Parishad and its youth outfit RSS could not divorce itself from the orthodox tradition.

Although it rose like a rocket in the late '80s and in the early '90s, it fell like a hot brick in recent years. As a consequence of the remarks of India's former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh about Mr. M.A. Jinnah of Pakistan, BJP got embroiled in a bitter debate, which led to the expulsion of one of the prominent members of the BJP hierarchy. It has created shock waves in both the hierarchy and the lower echelon, and brought to fore its embedded weakness.

Mr. Rajnath, Mr. Advani, Mr. Naidu, Mr. Narendra Modi and the likes of them are known to be hardliners who favour pursuance of Hindutva despite the negative verdict that it received in the last election, but are on the wane at the national level. Volleys of flak from all round have targeted them, and it is just a matter of time before they are dispatched to oblivion.

The upcoming leadership of BJP does not promise much to lead the party to its past glory. The sliding BJP is now sniffing to find new leadership to match its arch-rival, the Congress. The disarrayed BJP hopes that further shocks may not come to crumble its Hindutva edifice built over the years, much to the dislike of secular segments of India. If leaders like Varun Gandhi are entrusted to lead the party, it may peg the last nail on its coffin before long.

Only now have people realised that BJP's image as the party of "holier than thou" people is a facade and a mere build up. The expulsion of Singh and banning of his book in Narendra Modi's Gujrat state are but indicators of BJP's scepticism about its future. Its outlook about the freedom of expression proved negative because of the expulsion, which is destined to be despised in fiercely democratic India.



Z.A. Khan is a former Director General of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies.

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Mainstream, Vol XLVII, No 39, September 12, 2009

Hindutva Undermines the Pristine Values of Hinduism
Saturday 12 September 2009, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

The RSS is deeply in love with the word “Hindu”, shorn of Hinduism’s values. It owes an obligation to the Indian public to clarify if there is any brand of spirituality that is called Hindutva.

It has recently reiterated that Hindutva is the core of its ideology and rooted in Indian culture and civilisation’s heritage. What exactly are the attributes of this culture as perceived by the RSS? Why are its desired values never spelt out in detail for public edification? If Hindutva is an inalienable ideology, why are its sets of beliefs/ principles not spelt out to sustain the claim? Why are words like “Hindustaniyat” or “Bharatiyata”, which are acceptable to the wider public, not acceptable to the RSS? In ancient times, all people residing in territories to the east of the river “Sindhu” used to be called Hindus. In the mediaeval ages, the Muslim conquerors used to call all non-Muslim Indians “Hindus”. Today when the Jains, the Buddhists, and the Sikhs (who were once in the vanguard for protecting the Hindus from forced conversion to Islam), and even Dalits are refusing to be called Hindus, is it not sheer cussedness to cling to a slogan which is not only losing in appeal but also raising fears and suspicions in a large part of the populace?

Hinduism, as a philosophy, embodied the principle of evolving ever higher syntheses to meet the needs of emerging situations. Does Hindutva lay claim to the same principle? If so, how, in today’s situation of increasing communal discords, can Hindutva serve to reconcile the various conflicting concepts/ viewpoints? If its purpose is different, what exactly is the purpose?

Indian civilisation’s unique feature has been that, for more than a millennium-and-a-half, it has kept recognising the fundamental unity of all religions in their uncorrupted forms. This has given it toleration, a catholicism overriding sectarian views, and scope for reciprocal influences—that is, retaining one’s wholesome aspects and assimilating the better aspects of others. Hinduism—which, as pointed out earlier, meant in ancient times the way of life of all Indians, irrespective of caste or creed —had been comprehensive and syncretic, always seeking unity not in common creed but in a common quest for truth. This quest needed a constant uplifting of spiritual and ethical outlook of life, far from any inkling of divisiveness.

Because of these unique features of Indian culture—which, in today’s language, would be called “fervent polyculturalism” or “mingling of cultures” and wholehearted acceptance of the right of co-existence of all faiths—Indian civilisation reaped several benefits which no other civilisation could aspire to. These were as follows.

(a) Unbroken peace for about 500 years in the post-Gupta age (beginning from the 6th century), after the assimilation of the Huns, which led to a peak of prosperity and upsurge of knowledge creation, extending beyond its borders—to Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, Malay and Indonesia.

(b) Concurrently, the process of fusion of the concepts of Buddhism with the ideas in Hindu philosophy and (China’s) Taoism, and later, the convergence of popular Buddhism with Saivism (and also with Saktism and Vaishnavism) led to a series of reform movements, extending over centuries, culminating in the emergence of great saints from the ranks of the so-called lower castes such as cobblers and sweepers. This process (of fusion of ideas) found its climax in saint Gorakhnath in North India in the 14th century.

(c) Sufism in India, beginning in the 8th century, originating from the mystic thoughts in Islam, and imbibing thoughts from Buddhism, Christianity, Bhagavatism and Vedanta, became the most influential protest movement in the Islamic world against the institutionalisation of religion and its accent on externals.

(d) Partly the challenge of social equality and egalitarianism of the original Islam and partly the endogenic urge to break the barriers of caste and religion, led to a second series of religious reform movements, called the people’s bhakti movement headed by a galaxy of saints such as Ramanand, Kabir, Namdev, Tukaram, Guru Nanak and Sri Chaitanya. This series of reform movements swept North India from the 14th to the 16th century.

(The Bhakti movement in South India had been initiated much earlier by the great Alwars around the second century. From the 7th to the 9th century, it swept the region but later the mystic thoughts yielded place to philosophical and spiritual thoughts which found their climax in the Vishistadwaita (qualified monism) of Ramanujam (1037-1137 AD). With this, the differences between Saivism and Vaishnavism lost their sharp edges and the protests against ceremonials gained strength. These also harmonised reason and intuition, immanence and transcendence.)

(e) In the 16th century, Emperor Akbar, (i) imbibing the mystics of Islam and the spirit of the Upanishads, the Mahabharat and the Geeta, (ii) internalising the teachings of Kabir, Dadu and Nanak, and feeling enraptured by the mystical poetry of Kabir, Mirabai, Surdas and Tulsidas, sought religious synthesis in din-i-ilahi. (universal religion) with the motto of sulh-i-kul (peace with all). Eclectic piecing together of the essentials of all religions, then known in India, died after his death. But the striving for synthesis of religions by an emperor was possibly unique in the world.

(f) In the 17th century, Prince Dara Shikoh went wholeheartedly into the spiritual movements in India, studied in translation Hebrew, Christian and Brahmanical scriptures, learnt the yogic practices and Sufi methods of meditation, the doctrine of bhakti and the mystical philosophy of Islam, and produced the immortal work “Majmua-ul-Bahrain” (mingling of two oceans) and several other books. If the conspiracies of the fanatical mullahs had not succeeded in defeating and murdering him, Indian history would have taken a different turn..

If India, thanks to her principle of co-existence of all faiths, achieved such wonderful results in the fields of religio-spiritualism and culture, her harvests in literary and sciences-and-arts exchange fields were no less spectacular. For brevity’s sake, only the contributions of Muslims, the so-called religious minorities, will be mentioned below. It is the ambience of freedom and one-ness that made these contributions possible.

(a) In the 12th century, four Muslims—Masud, Kutubali, Akram and Faiz—won celebrity as Hindi poets.

(b) In the 14th century, Amir Khusrau composed such exquisite verses from the dialects of Hindi such as brajabhasa, avadhi and khari boli as are still sung in the villages of North India. Even Sanskrit words came into his verses. He is also regarded as the originator of Urdu, a camp language, combining Hindi and Persian. He wrote about Indian legends with such passion that he came to be called “the parrot of India”.

(c) Hindi romantic poetry owed its beginning to Mulla Daud (Amir Khusrau’s contemporary), Kutban, Manjhan, Jaisi and Usman. In the words of Radhakamal Mukherijee, the doyen of Indian sociology,

the dominating features of this romantic movement in Hindi literature, in which Muslim writers took such a leading part, were the treatment of human love in the pattern of divine love and the merging of the sensuous and the spiritual in the ceaseless adventure of the love-intoxicated soul that defies social conventions. This literary movement later merged in the mystical-philosophical movement of Sufism under the influence of Hindu philosophy of life.

(d) “Jaisi was the harbinger at once of Hindi literature and Hindu-Muslim cultural unity.”

(e) Many Muslim rulers gave impetus to the growth of provincial literatures.

By cultivation and fostering care of the vernaculars, they brought themselves in intimate contact with the social and spiritual life and aspirations of the people.

(f) Many Hindu (read ancient Indian) treatises on philosophy, medicine, mathematics and astrology were translated into Arabic and Persian; and it is through Arabia that these literatures were transmitted to Europe. Hindu astronomy and medicine, too, borrowed several new notions and terms from Arabia. It is the Arabs who broadcast to the world that the “Hindus excel in these sciences” and that “they have developed to perfection arts like sculpture, painting and architecture” and that “the Hindus are superior to all other nations in intelligence and thoughtfulness”.

Part II

The word “Hindu” lost its earlier connotation long back. For nearly a thousand years, it has been used in a restrictive sense. Hindutva—or even Hinduism —does not now inspire the sense of catholiticism which it used to do earlier. Insistence on the word Hindutva raises fears in—and alienates—many religious communities. Hence the springs of creativity which Hinduism’s (ancient Indians’) confederal principle (of co-existence of all faiths) used to evoke, are drying up now, with the RSS’ unthinking insistence on Hindutva. This is abandonment of India’s synthesising culture. The RSS should, therefore, agree to adopt Hindustaniyat. The banner of Bharatiyata or sarva-dharma-sama-bhava will be still better.

Arguably, the RSS may say that since a segment of Muslim population harbours separatist sentiments, Hindutva should be used as a counter- pull so that a balance could eventually be struck. This would be a false logic. Negativism can never be a cure for another negativism.

True, Muslimist militancy and separatism are virulent today. These have raised their ugly head not only in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, but also in Russia, China, the Philippines and even in France, Germany and the UK, where Muslims cohabit with people of other faiths. But separatism has its own logic and propulsion. It gets internalised and the separatist camp keeps splitting continually and ends in internal strife. In separatism’s growth phase, it unites other forces against itself. At present, most countries of Europe and America have developed Islamophobia of one or the other kind. This will keep creating pressures on the Muslimist separatists who will find it difficult to live in exclusion. Hindutva, in this situation, will be counterproductive. It will rather give a semblance of justification for separatism and weaken the worldwide revulsion against Muslimist separatism.

No doubt, the Islamic clerics have been blind to the fact that Hazrat Muhammad had, in Medina and other places, at first tried to build a unified society and did not wage battles until the lives of Muslims, the new converts to Islam, were imperilled. Their separatism can now be debunked and beaten back by showing that these clerics never bother about the Muslim masses’ secular education and livelihood problems or women’s dignity and seek advantages only for themselves. Notably, today’s non-Muslims, too, fail to drive the nail in the coffin of “Islamic” separatism by waging a battle by flaunting some facts of life. The plain fact is that a Bengali Muslim has closer genetic affinity with a Bengali Hindu than with a Saudi Arabian Muslim. So does a Gujarati Muslim with a Gujarati Hindu. Climate and natural resources—soil, water, rainfall characteristics, air, temperature, extent of humidity or dryness, local biodiversity exert influence on the genetic make-up of a population. The manner of worship does not. Should we not deplore our failure to wage battle by citing such facts and dispelling ignorance?

The followers of separatist leaders can also be alerted to the perils of cutting up an organic entity. The portion that gets carved out or the polity that forcibly gets separated, comes to be gripped more tightly by vested interests (as the people of Pakistan have been, by nawabs, feudal lords, and Generals of armed forces).

Universal love, if practised unreservedly, is a force before which every human being will have to bow. Blind zealots may take a little more time to yield. But yield they must. By rising to a higher level of humaneness and by using superior logic, separatism can be made to melt away. If before this country’s partition in 1947 we failed to counter separatism, it is because we got unnerved by the separatists’ belligerence, failed to evolve a statesman-like strategy to foil it, and surrendered to the separatist demand in despair. That is no reason for clinging to the ideology of Hindutva, which itself epitomises divisiveness and feeds its opposite brand of separatism.

Now, let us come to the RSS’ call for “youth in leadership”. This, by itself, is not very potential when the basic ideology is flawed. We see many persons, who are young in age but fossils in thinking. Varun Gandhi, the son of a superbly knowledgeable mother, is an example. Even Rahul Gandhi, who has learnt the mannerisms that attract, has yet to do manas yatra (voyage of the mind) which needs deep and holistic thinking on the country’s and humanity’s fundamental problems.

Epilogue

After this article was scripted, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has said in a press conference that (i) the word Hindutva should now be understood in a new light, and (ii) it is equivalent to Bharatiyata since the RSS regards all Indians as Hindus. This is a clever way of clinging to the charmed word ‘Hindutva’. The word ‘Hindutva’ was coined by Savarkar with an underlying premise that the conglomerate of religious communities which, over the last one thousand years, has been known as Hindus is a separate nation within the Indian nation and Hindutva is its ideology. This concept was in some measure parallel to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s concept of Muslims as a separate nation. Hindutva was very different from Sri Aurobindo’s inclusive concept of Hindu nationalism which was not at all divisive. The RSS must admit that Hindutva’s basic premise was wrong and divisive, and that it must now bat for Bharatiyata so as not to have any scope for confusion.

At this moment, a heart-warming event is taking place in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. The Hindu inmates are observing Roza (that is, fasting in the daytime) along with their Muslim fellow-prisoners and sharing the food brought by their kins in the evenings, in this month of Ramzan. This is quintessentially Indian civilisation. Bonhomie between religious and racial communities is its credo. Sectarian ideologies savouring sectarianism are incongruous with it.

[While the arguments adduced above are the author’s own, the historical facts have been taken from Radhakamal Mukherjee’s book, A History of Indian Civilisation

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1624.html


It would only push the party further right


28 Aug 2009, 0233 hrs IST, Since its emergence, the BJP has had a close but uneasy relationship with its parent organisation the RSS, largely over two unsettled issues:

Sudha Pai, Professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU
ideology and organisational linkage. While the BJP’s ideology of Hindu nationalism is based on the writings of leaders from the Hindu right such as Savarkar and Golwalkar; its aim since the 1980s has been to construct a distinctively political conception of Hindu nationalism to capture power.

Hence, it has constantly shifted between being a right-wing conservative party and a Hindu nationalist party affecting its relationship with the RSS: the party moving closer during periods when it has actively mobilised using the ideology of Hindutva.

The Ram Mandir movement under the leadership of L K Advani with support from the RSS created deep communal divides. But following the formation of the NDA under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the party moderated its ideology creating a “new, softer BJP”. During its period in power following the 1998 and 1999 national elections, although the party did not abandon Hindutva or the key issue of Ram Temple, it concentrated on issues of economic reform/ development which gained it considerable public support. The party was able to distance itself from the RSS and follow a relatively autonomous path in party and governmental policy-making.

However, the reappearance of Hindutva-based mobilisation in the 2000s — despite decline of identity-based politics — witnessed in the Gujarat riots, the Hubli and Amarnath land controversies, contributed to the defeat of the party in the 2004 and 2009 national elections.

These consecutive defeats, which have coincided with gradual eclipsing of the moderate leadership of Vajpayee, have created deep divisions on whether the use of Hindutva was responsible and on fixing accountability for the electoral defeats; it also reopened the acrid debate on secularism fanned by Jaswant Singh’s book on Jinnah and the need for generational change. In this situation when the party seems to be imploding, a take-over by the RSS could push it towards an extreme rightwing position leading to its break-up. Rather, the BJP, at a crossroad today, needs space to introspect about its future direction.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ET-Debate/It-would-only-push-the-party-further-right/articleshow/4943108.cms






Cover Story
Endorsing Hindutva
The Supreme Court verdict in the Manohar Joshi case raises fears that the next poll campaigns will witness more communal virtriol then ever before
Lekha Rattanani , Padmanand Jha
IT was one of the most awaited judgements in recent times. And there was palpable tension in Maharashtra the day before it was to be delivered. On Monday, December 11, the Supreme Court was to decide not only the fate of Maharashtra ChiefMinister Manohar Joshi, but also define by implication whether or not appeal for votes based on Hindutva was permissible in election campaigns. The latter, of course, was the more important aspect of the case, for it was to come virtually on the eve of the general elections.
The verdict specifically arms the Hindutva forces with a nuclear device."
Rajeev Dhavan, Supreme Court lawyer



When the verdict was finally delivered by a bench comprising Justices J.S. Verma, N.P. Singh and K. Venkataswami in the packed courtroom number three, its echoes were heard in every section of the nation's polity. The Hindutva brigade of the BJP and the Shiv Sena burst into applause—Bal Thackeray's indictment was only a small price to pay for a larger cause. The National Front-Left Front combine spluttered in stunned disbelief. The Sena-BJP alliance's primary source of worry had been the possible fallout if the apex court had confirmed the Bombay High Court verdict disqualifying Joshi.

With the Sena-BJP rejoicing over the verdict, the secular front's worries had multiplied, not only on account of the benefits that would accrue to the Hindutva brigade, but also because of the possibility of the upcoming campaign becoming virulently communal in the context of the judgement. As for the Congress, it was too busy trying to handle the telecom controversy in Parliament, and all its spokesman V.N. Gadgil could mumble was, "we respect the verdict of the highest court".

The BJP did not hide its delight. "The judgement is a seal of judicial imprimatur to the BJP's ideology of Hindutva," said party chief L.K. Advani. "The BJP believes India is one country and that Indians are one people. We hold that the basis of this unity is our ancient culture. For us this nationalism is not just a geographical or political concept.


"The BJP and the Janata Dal have both misread the judgement."
Shanti Bhushan, Supreme Court lawyer


It is essentially a cultural concept. Whether you call it Hindutva or Bharatiyata or Indianness, the nomenclature does not matter. It is all the same."

The jubilation was understandable. For, the court—through citations from as varied sources as the Webster's Dictionary, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and earlier judgements—had held that "Hindutva or Hinduism per se" cannot be "assumed to mean and be equated with narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry," or be construed to fall within the ambit of the sections of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) under which Joshi's election had sought to be set aside. The court had broadened the word "Hindutva" to be "used and understood as a synonym for Indianisation, i.e., development of a uniform culture by obliterating the differences between all the cultures co-existing in the country."

The forces of the emerging secular third front were not amused. They felt the Supreme Court's observation of the term Hindutva, based on broad philosophical terms and on legalese, had not quite taken into account the political context of the term, which had been virtually appropriated by the Sangh parivar and its allies, and that it had over the last few years evolved a distinct anti-minorities connotation.

"The judgement is ambiguous on the question of the use of religion for electoral purposes even though the bench has decried the use of religion during elections. It will encourage the use of religion for political ends. It, therefore, becomes necessary to review the provisions of the RPA and take steps to ensure that no legal ambiguity remains. Only this will make it impossible for fundamentalist parties to use religion for poll campaigns," said the Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo.

But the need to amend the law to prevent the misuse of religion for political purposes is easier expressed than implemented. The Narasimha Rao Government learnt that lesson in 1993 when it rather unsuccessfully tried to push through the Constitution (80th Amendment) Billand the Representation of the People Amendment Bill seeking to delink religion from politics. The bills, as they were drafted, failed to secure the support of the National Front and Left parties even before they could be introduced in Parliament and had to be abandoned. Since then the Government has been too busy with its fire-fighting operations on various fronts to revive the move. And now, with the tenure of the Lok Sabha all but over, it is certain that the Sangh parivar would use the Hindutva appeal to try and storm to power at the Centre.

Not all the critics of the judgement were as subdued though. The DMK in Tamil Nadu was scathing in its broadside. Its official mouthpiece Murasoli said in an editorial: "...the apex court's interpretation of Hindutva and Hinduism has given new impetus to communalforces who are dancing like inebriated monkeys following this verdict. The BJP has declared Hindutva as its ideology. The Shiv Sena's aim is to establish Hindu rajya. (Their) vicious propaganda against people belonging to other faiths, the naked violent aggression directed towards minorities, gives only a communal colour to terms like Hinduism and Hindutva. No Indian has forgotten their role in the atrocities perpetrated against the Muslims. None has forgotten their despicable role in the diabolical act of destroying the Babri Masjid....The present judgement, based on finer nuances of semantics, will only strengthen the hands of the bigots."

It wasn’t as if the politicians alone were split in their opinion. Eminent Supreme Court lawyer Rajeev Dhavan too noted the context and the timing. "This judgement comes before the most difficult election that India will be going through. It comes after the nation has been polarised by the word Hindutva and intimidated by ugly versions of Hinduism," he said. On the equation of Hindutva with Indianisation, he castigated the court for wanting "to create an artificial construct of Hinduism which nobody has ever believed in except a handful of Indologists and no less a handful of judges".

Dhavan was also critical of the court's invention of the "narrow consent-nexus test," which he said was almost impossible to prove and felt the judgement could have ominous portends for future election campaigns. "It (the judgement) categorically blesses an interpretation of the word Hindutva and its electoral implications. There is no such specific interpretation for Islam or Christianity....It is true that it will also protect other appeals to religion but that will only make the election worse in terms of its fundamentalist flavour. A flex-ible law on religion arms all fundamentalists with mischievous conventional arms to muddy the 1996 election. But the spe-cific blessing on Hindutva arms the particular group with a nuclear device."

Dhavan’s colleague in the apex court, Shanti Bhushan, disagrees. Describing the verdict as "statesman-like", Bhushan felt both the BJP and the Janata Dal had misun-derstood its import. "The BJP is gloating over it. The Dal is sulking. Both perspectives are incorrect. The orders, read as a whole, prevent the BJP from communal propaganda. Without condemning Hindutva, the court has condemned the misuse of Hindutva."

Bhushan, obviously, saw a sense of balance between the severe strictures against Sena supremo Thackeray for his vitriol against the Muslims in the course of the campaign and the benefit of doubt given toJoshi. And there is reason to believe that the BJP, even while seeking to project the judgement as a strong endorsement of its policy, would exercise some caution in its poll campaign. The strategy, party sources said, would be to try and avoid the vitriol of the likes of Sadhvi Rithambhara from the platforms of party candidates and allow them a free run on their own. By doing that, they would be able to take advantage of the doubt as to whether the vitriolic campaign of the VHP and allied organisa-tions has "the consent" of the candidate concerned. After all, it is this doubt which formed the basis for the court letting Joshi off the hook. In any case, the threat of the law still looms over the BJP with the court finding prima facie evidence of a similar charge against Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the relativelymoderate face of the party, and asking the state high court to try him.

The question that remains is whether the verdict would encourage the Sangh parivar and its allies to revert to the virulence of the 1990 campaign in which the BJP-Sena combine had few qualms about denigrating the " landes " (a derogatory term for the Muslims because of their circumcision)? Vithal Sawant, the election agent of the late Bhaurao Patil who had filed the original petition against Joshi, was certain it would. "Now that the court has given them an NOC, I am sure they will go back to what they did," he said. BJP General SecretaryPramod Mahajan hinted at such a shape of things to come. "Hindutva is our basic catchment area. I have to appeal to my constituency. I can't be looking at the 10 per cent Muslim vote in Maharashtra, and forget my constituency, can I?"

Even as the politicos absorbed the judge-ment and busied themselves with their poll strategy, there was one person for whom the fight was far from over. Bhaurao Patil's son Nitin, who had carried the case through after his father's death, refused to take the judgement as final. "I will file a review petition. I will appeal to the Chief Justice of India to have this case brought before a full constitutional bench," he said. His stand is that the judgement had "shown the way to militant parties".

For Nitin Patil, the whole affair has become much more than "daddy's case". "They are supporting the RSS way of life. They are challenging the Constitution which clearly says this is a secular country. In a mixed religious country, are we to learnthat Hinduism is nationalism? And does a Parsi now have to say that he is a Hindu first?" asked the man, who claimed that he pursued the case despite personal threats from gangsters like Amar Naik in Bombay. But most people, including Joshi's lawyer J.B. Chinai (who obviously was effusive inhis praise of the judgement) and Dhavan, feel there is little likelihood of the review petition being admitted.

But even if the review petition were to be admitted, by the time the judgement is delivered the elections would be over. And that remains the primary concern. What impact will the verdict have on the campaign styles of political parties like the BJP and the Shiv Sena on the one hand, and the Muslim League and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen on the other? The fear is that the Joshi case could well be cited as a precedent by fundamentalist parties to vitiate the atmosphere, and gain a legitimacy for their efforts to mix religion and politics. Judging by what has happened to the country's secular fabric in the last few years—the Ayodhya demolition, the subsequent riots, and the Bombay blasts—the mix could be an explosive one.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With Yubaraj Ghimire and Bhavdeep Kang in New Delhi and A.S Panneerselvan in Madras

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Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?


India sticks with Iran, for now
By Sultan Shahin

NEW DELHI - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent visit to India and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's present trip to Turkey have brought to light the complicated balancing act India is forced to play in its foreign policy. Israel, Turkey and, more important, the United States are all unhappy with India's close strategic ties with the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran. But if India has to continue to pursue its policy of encirclement of Pakistan, it needs to maintain close ties with Iran, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries bordering Pakistan.

New Delhi has, therefore, made it clear to the Israeli leader, who raised the issue of Iran, that its ties with Tehran are non-negotiable. India could accommodate Israeli concerns on some issues, but not on its ties with Iran. India has not initiated anti-Israeli resolutions in the United Nations on the question of Palestine for several years, as it used to do during the Cold War era; Israeli leaders have noted this fact with satisfaction. But India could not completely abandon Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or support Israel's stated desire to eliminate him, even by killing him.

Similarly, India agreed not to pass Israeli defense technology on to Iran. Sharon was assured of this at the highest level. But India could not give up its strategic ties with that country, he was also told. This was in response to Sharon demanding from India what he called "reciprocity". He insisted that this must constitute the basis of Indo-Israeli ties. In return for the Phalcon radar system and sensitive intelligence reports on terrorism, for instance, Israel asked India to disavow anti-Israel resolutions in the UN and other multilateral bodies. More significant, it also asked India to be mindful of Israel's security concerns before developing even closer ties to Iran.

If Israel, with its superior military prowess, known nuclear capability and unquestioning support of the sole superpower is so wary of growing India-Iran ties, then the latter has even more reason to be wary of growing India-Israel ties. Since 1981, when Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, Iran, possibly with its own nuclear-weapon ambitions in mind, has been particularly fearful of a similar Israeli attack on its reactors. Israel has signed a treaty with Turkey that allows it to take advantage of its air bases. It has also developed relations with Azerbaijan. This has given Israel the possibility of coming closer to the Iranian borders, heightening security concerns in Tehran with regard to its northern and northwestern borders.

No wonder Iran is making all-out efforts to improve its air-defense capability against air raids by the Israeli air force. But after it had started breathing somewhat easily after testing its Shahab-3 missiles in July 2000, as these missiles can threaten Israel directly, it now finds itself surrounded by the chief Israeli patron, the United States, on both sides. In its perception, the predatory US imperialism on the rampage in the region represents an even greater danger than the Israeli presence.

Iran is thus bound to feel more concerned than ever. The difference in US attitude and behavior toward North Korea, suspected to have already developed a few nuclear weapons, and Iraq, which was known to have no nuclear capability, and perhaps also known to US and British intelligence to have no other weapons of mass destruction, could not have escaped the notice of the ruling clerics in Tehran. In this situation the development of an India-Israeli-US nexus cannot but heighten their worries. But apparently India has told them that its relationship with Israel and the United States, too, is equally non-negotiable.

India's close strategic ties with Iran worry other friends of India as well, as does its developing relationship with Israel. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is a Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalist country that spawned al-Qaeda. Though a US ally, it is no friend of Israel. It could not possibly be pleased with India coming closer to a Shi'ite fundamentalist country like Iran, which considers the Sunni Wahhabi Taliban to be Islamic deviants. During the Vajpayee visit to Iran a couple of years ago, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, in fact, made an entirely unsolicited reference to growing "terrorism, violence, rebellion and narcotics trafficking" in the then Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, and added that he was "deeply regretful that such crimes are committed in the name of Islam".

He also condemned the destruction of the Buddha statues at Bamiyan in Afghanistan and regretted the misuse of Islam by the Taliban forces. This could not have been music to Saudi ears, but India managed to maintain its close relations with both countries.

Similarly, despite its closeness with Iran, forged first by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi with the Shah of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, in the 1970s, and renewed with the fundamentalist regime by then prime minister Narasimha Rao in early 1990s, India continued to maintain close ties with Iraq under Saddam Hussein. A secular dictatorship, Iraq was the only Muslim country to support India unhesitatingly on the question of Kashmir or in its war against Pakistan in 1971 for the struggle that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.

India is, of course, not the only country that has to walk a tightrope in maintaining friends with widely divergent and sometimes entirely contradictory or even hostile perspectives. Many countries, or perhaps all countries, do so at one time or other, in one case or another. This has particularly been the case since the end of Cold War. But India is faced with unique problems in maintaining its relations with Iran because this relationship does not only expose inconsistencies in its foreign policy, but also contradictions in its domestic political dynamics.

India's coalition government is led by the Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP's mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), and sister organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Forum) and Shiv Sena (Shivaji's Army) etc that constitute the extended family of Hindu fundamentalists called the Sangh Parivar abide by the Hindutva philosophy of "cultural nationalism", which looks at the world Muslim community as one nation.

Hindutva's cultural nationalism predates Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory by almost a century. The idea of a Muslim monolith is so deeply ingrained that even if they try to do so, Hindutva ideologues confess that they are unable to distinguish an Indian Muslim from a Pakistani or that of any other nationality. Then the term used for Muslims by top Hindutva politicians is invariably jihadi or terrorist. This is essential if an irrational fear of Muslims has to be instilled in the largely secular Hindu majority nurtured for millennia on the eclectic and large-hearted Hindu philosophy that never closed its doors on new ideas or religions.

Secularism is the foundation of the Indian constitution and its democratic system, but one can almost daily watch on television Hindutva leaders railing against the so-called secularists and reiterating their vow to root out secularism from the country. But this Hindutva vision of a terrorist Muslim monolith oppressing the world, including India, runs into a direct clash with India's mature conduct of its foreign policy aims based on its perception of its national interest and requirements of realpolitik. The BJP's Hindutva ideology, for instance, would demand that it go the whole hog with Israel and the United States in destroying Iran, the second destination, after Iraq, in President George W Bush's war against his "axis of evil".

A nuclear-powered Islamic fundamentalist country that supports terrorist organizations in Lebanon, Palestine and Pakistan would be a greater danger to the world and should obviously be stopped before it acquires nuclear weapons. A Muslim Turkey run by an Islamic party - in all but name - might help Israel and the US encircle and destroy Iran, or at least its nuclear reactors when the time comes, which may be sooner rather than later. Yet an India run by Hindutva ideologues is maintaining ever-growing close strategic ties with that country and considers its relations non-negotiable. And this at a time when even the majority of Iranian people want to get rid of Islamic fundamentalists and go back to secular democratic governance denied to them by the greatest proponent of democracy in the world, the United States, which overthrew the democratically elected Mossadeq government in 1953 and installed a king.

A Hindutva-run India has also no problem in maintaining close relations with Saudi Arabia, another fountain of Islamic fundamentalism. This, of course, is demanded by India's national interests, as perceived by nearly all political parties. India's Iran policy, too, has bipartisan support. In fact most of the initiatives of Indian foreign policy as it exists today were embarked on by the secular Congress party now in opposition and by and large followed by socialist and communist parties that had influence in the central government before the BJP came to power.

This is deeply embarrassing for the Hindutva politicians. But they cannot run a foreign policy as dictated by the situation India finds itself in today if they treat the Muslim ummah (world Muslim community) as one terrorist monolith. They were pleasantly surprised last year when, after the large-scale massacres of Muslims in Gujarat, in which the BJP state government was directly implicated, the only countries that did not criticize India were Muslim. While the Christian West spoke up and denounced the government in no uncertain terms, asking it to provide justice to the thousands of victims and rehabilitate the millions of uprooted, the world Muslim community remained silent.

As pre-election communal cleansing of minorities constitutes an essential part of election strategies of ruling parties - the main opposition Congress party, too, thought so while it ruled, but seems to disagree now - and as the BJP moves inexorably in this direction in the election year ahead, it can only count on the support of Muslim countries and Israel: the rest of the world will denounce another communal conflagration in equally severe terms if the number of killed again starts going beyond a thousand, the benchmark the West seems to follow in such situations.

The BJP still recalls with gratitude the response of the Muslim world, particularly Iran, to the demolition of the 16th-century Babri mosque in December 1992, a joint Congress-BJP operation conducted by a Congress-run central government and a BJP-controlled Uttar Pradesh (UP) state government. While the country was still nursing the wounds inflicted by the demolition and the widespread massacres that had followed, the then Iranian president Rafsanjani visited UP's capital city Lucknow and declared that he had full faith in India's secularism and the ability of its constitutional system to safeguard its Muslims.

It goes to the credit of Hindutva leaders that they did not allow their ideological proclivities to cloud their vision and have pursued a foreign policy that by and large has near-unanimous support from the entire political spectrum. Despite Pakistani pretensions of leading the Muslim world, India has maintained and further developed close ties with almost all Muslim countries, while remaining firm on its stance on Kashmir and Pakistan. This is no mean achievement and the credit should go to Vajpayee, who succeeded in doing this in a very difficult situation. He obviously learned well the lessons of his first stint as minister in 1977-79 when he handled the external affairs portfolio with great aplomb.

But this complicated and fascinating balancing act that is the conduct of Indian foreign policy is soon going to get even more complex. That Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons is not proved yet, but apparently UN inspectors suspect it. They have found hidden reserves of enriched uranium at Iran's gas-centrifuge project at Natanz, being ostensibly developed as a civilian nuclear power plant. Since the declared intent for Natanz' single-centrifuge "test stands" was to optimize centrifuge designs, which normally involves the enrichment of trace amounts of uranium, the question is naturally being asked: where did the extra radioactive material come from? The Iranian explanation that the damning uranium probably found its way to the site "inadvertently" from an overseas supplier has only swung the needle of suspicion still more its way.

Iran knows, as does the world, that its survival as an independent country depends on how fast it develops nuclear weapons. Right now may be the best time. The United States is stuck in quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, on both sides of its borders, unable to move to invade and occupy, as Iran justly fears. Even if Iran agrees to all of the nuclear watchdogs' conditions - by October 31 - it would still not stop the country from trashing the Non-Proliferation Treaty at some point and going ahead with its weapon-building project, if it indeed has one. So, to take the worst-case scenario, or the best case, depending on which side of the fence you are, Iran could have a nuclear weapon or two ready within a year.

It is inconceivable that Israel would allow this to happen. It may not have much time left to engage in an Osirak-like attack against Iranian nuclear reactors. But will Iran use its Shahab-3 missiles then to rain mayhem and destruction on Israel? And will the United States then wait for further proof of Iranian "evil" to march next door from its sanctuaries in Iraq and Afghanistan? India must be ready with its response to such not very unlikely scenarios.


Sunday, 12 February 2006 16:55
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate
Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate.


Vijay Prashad’s note [Fundamental Issues] hereinafter "VPN", simply fails to address the bulk of the issues I had raised in my first piece [A Dialogue With The Indian Left]. It diverts from the issues using a combination of three methods:

(A) VPN is filled with name-dropping of works by third parties (over 25 names). It’s okay to give specific quotes and thereby let an author’s words speak directly. But sending each other our respective bibliographies does not address an issue, and would only be suitable for some "Name That Quote" type of game.

(B) Vijay slips into the common weakness of defending the citadel , through irrelevant praise for peers and for the system that sustains them. Here, I raise the issue of the role of power in institutionalized South Asian Studies. Especially since VPN criticizes "the American Empire" as the world’s top culprit today, I wish to ask Vijay how US institutional funding of South Asian Studies compares to the East India Company’s control over Indology and the way the colonial/imperial masters used power (combining funding, symbolic credibility, and positional authority) to produce Orientalism.

If Vijay disagrees with this comparison, on what basis does he claim that American imperialism (to use his own expression) is less prejudiced than British imperialism was? In other words, he should shoulder the burden to prove that American power is not mixed up in the intellectual discourse about others. This will pose tricky choices for Vijay, between

(i) freedom of critical inquiry claimed by the academician-activist on the one hand (important for his credibility), and

(ii) the academician-activist’s career considerations (which are enmeshed in what VPN alleges to be "American imperialism") on the other.

How do many of today’s desi South Asianists really differ from what became known as the Brown Sahibs in 19th century Bengal? The role of power in discourse simply cannot be ignored. One has to track the funding flows beginning in the Cold War era to the present from western governments, churches, corporate foundations into the construction of South Asianism today.

(C) VPN brings in standard third party "culprits" as diversions, even though the given conceptual issues are independent of any individuals. There seems to be an initiation ceremony required these days, a sort of agni pariksha to prove oneself free of "fascism", "Nazism", "chauvinism", "fundamentalism", and a whole litany of branded terms. Leftist discourse these days has become too often reduced to bumper-stickers attacking some standard list of Hindutva – Arun Shourie, Elst, Savarkar, Frawley, BJP, etc. – with the Hindutva fans pouncing back to counter-attack in equally naïve ways, and, meanwhile, the real issues get side-tracked.

But since I have no reason to defend Hindutva leaders or ideology, we cannot get diverted in this manner. The question this raises, especially in light of item B above is: Is Hindutva the Indian Left’s "other"? Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva other for its own self-definition?

I agree with VPN that: "This is a good opportunity to fight over our first principles and our methods of analysis" (emphasis supplied). However, "first principles" and "methods of analysis" are not being dealt with in most of VPN. Using prestigious writers’ names as proxies makes his positions second principles, not first. Defending the citadel (of "American imperialism’s" study of others) to fortify his positions makes them third principles. Finally, using the Hindutva other to define/defend his positions makes them fourth principles. To be first principles, he must get rid of the three intellectual crutches mentioned here.

A. The Left And Right As Categories

VPN rightly rejects the idea of the left as a universal. But then he goes on to use "Left" (with a capital "L") many times to represent himself. Frankly, I have no problem either way, as I am more interested in issues and where someone stands.

But VPN simply ignores my interrogation of whether the left/right are appropriate categories for the understanding of India. I mentioned Liberation Theology and Gandhi as examples that do not fit this schema. By simply saying that there are many lefts, VPN does not remove this fundamental question about categories from the discussion table. Yes, there are many lefts, so Vijay should clearly articulate and differentiate the one he subscribes to and deal with the issue: why is left/right the best lens to interpret India?

B. History-Centrism

VPN simply ignores my very specific thesis about History-Centrism

A religion based primarily on a unique Historical Event (typically involving a unique Prophet) is History-Centric, because History turns into a form of social capital controlled by the institution. Abrahamic religions tend to have a core of literalist dogma that is their proprietary and non-negotiable History of God’s interventions. This form of social capital is extremely powerful in sustaining the authority and credibility of certain institutions and groups. Absolute History becomes the main property of the institution, which derives its power by interpreting it, and by having the exclusive franchise to preach/distribute it, and it does this in the name of protecting and propagating God’s Truth. Any challenge to the official account of History is seen a threat that would dilute or undermine the institutional authority. Hence, History fuels fundamentalism and conflicts.

I thought this insight from me would be a great opening for the Left, especially since I take the position in my aforementioned essay that Hindutva is attempting to turn Hinduism into a History-Centric religion: with Ram akin to Jesus and Ayodhya akin to Jerusalem, etc. Hinduism has not in the past been History-Centric for its most part, and hence has remained pliable and accommodative, easily "negotiable." My History-Centrism based critique of Hindutva is an internal critique from a solid Hindu perspective. It is one of my main reasons for not being a supporter of Hindutva.

Furthermore, when seen as non History-Centric, the legitimacy of Hinduism is not contingent upon "revising" or "correcting" any account of history. History, therefore, assumes a different significance, and God is either left out of it, or else is omnipresent so that no event is a unique intervention. The study of history becomes mainly for general interest and for deeper insights. But it ceases to be a necessary condition for the legitimacy of Hindu epistemological claims. This alone could de-intensify much of the Left vs. Hindutva tension today, which in my opinion does not deal with core issues.

History-Centrism needs to be included in the taxonomy for studying religions. It is an important factor in making religion normative and rigid. All the problems with Grand Narratives that are found in postmodern critiques get amplified one hundred-fold when God is the GN’s central protagonist, and especially when this is to be God’s only appearance, or the most authentic appearance recorded, or the final one.

So, frankly, I was disappointed that VPN failed to take note of my thesis. I consider this to be a solid plank for Liberation Hinduism along the lines of Liberation Theology from the Catholics – an approach that the Indian Left ought to embrace.

VPN states: "We always maintain a clear distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva." Vijay might want to become clearer on what his philosophical distinctions between these two are, so we may compare our thoughts. I would suggest that he would find the issue of History-Centrism to be very useful in this. On the other hand, the rhetoric about "pogroms," etc. is political, worn out, challenged by counter-claims, and ignores the underlying epistemological ideas concerning the very nature of Hinduism.

C. Teleology And 'Progress'

VPN states: "There is neither a singular "Left" nor is there one ‘Marxist Grand Narrative.’" While there may be multiple Marxist GNs, my point still holds: Each Marxist GN has some teleological trajectories that every society is supposed to follow. These tend to be linear theories of History, very much like in the Abrahamic religions. From-Evil-to-Good gets replaced with secular "progress" as the linear trajectory that must apply to all societies. VPN’s statement that there are several versions of the Marxist GN merely makes the issue more complex.

In particular, I had raised the issue of whether "progress" must be discontinuous, as "revolutions" imply, or whether it can be adaptive, as was usually the case in India’s past. This is important. "Progressives" (a self-description by the Indian Left) often assume that moving forward requires denigrating the past. This is why anyone suspected of re-visiting India’s past with appreciation (especially if it is about the pre-Islamic period) is instantly branded a "chauvinist," presumably for fear that the case for continuous progress would undermine the revolution for discontinuous progress. Because only one kind of possible progress is allowed by the Left, those who oppose their revolution must, by inference, be accused of going back in time to some idealized past. I submit that the multiplicity of Indic models of progress must be examined critically. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has done this. There is no monopoly on the meaning of progress.

Furthermore, I suggest that this notion of discontinuity is borrowed from the Abrahamic religions. Being History-Centric, Abrahamic religions relied on a new Revelation to replace the previous Truth. This had to be discontinuous and abrupt. The old view had to be rejected, books burnt, the old practitioners demonized as witches, pagans, kafirs, whatever. There was no way to simply let them remain and live alongside with respect into the new system of belief. This, I claim, is the result of absolutist Religious Grand Narratives of History.

Marxism, as a non-theistic form of Abrahamism, generated Grand Narratives - whether Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism or Maoism varieties – energized by a call for an Apocalypse to bring about an idealized city with an ideal human citizen. To implement these Grand Narratives, Stalinist, Maoist and Pol Potist pogroms by the Communist state murdered millions in the name of cleansing society of its past traditions and culture. The need for such destruction is repeatedly articulated in terms of the need for struggle and fight, and this feeds the Left’s frenzy to identify conflicts and target the evil others.

As a less troubling way of understanding the impact of history-centrism, let’s think of software for an analogy: A new release comes out, but many consumers continue using prior releases. In fact, the new release might explicitly allow for old releases to function alongside. This is the Indic way of change. Old and new co-exist without discontinuity, because there is no "One True Canon From God" with fresh covenants ordering the replacement (destruction) of the software and old user manuals.

Now consider an entirely different kind of policy from God (as owner of the rules/software): Each new release mandates that everyone must convert to it, that old releases must get destroyed, and that whatever useful stuff there might have been in the old releases is understood to have already been incorporated into the new release by the developers (who control the intellectual property).

This latter way is how the Abrahamic changes have been: (i) Release 1 said there was Adam/Eve’s Original Sin that caused Eternal Damnation upon all humans thereafter. (ii) Release 2 gave the Jews a special escape clause for Salvation, because they were "chosen" by God. Note that Release 1’s narrative got subsumed in Release 2 and ceased to have its stand-alone legitimacy. (iii) Release 3 came when God wanted to extend his offer to "save" everyone (from Eternal Damnation) and sent his only son (hence it cannot happen ever again) – i.e. Christianity was installed. (iv) Release 4 came when God realized that humans messed up the old releases (i.e. too many viruses got in), so he sent Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to install the latest and final release. Being final makes it impossible to change without calling God incompetent, and that would be blasphemy. Hence, Islam has remained stuck in a literalist interpretation of Koran (God’s latest and final release).

The Ahmeddiyas (an Islamic sect) claim that their 19th century leader was a new prophet of Islam, who brought a new release of God’s software to operate human society. In this new release’s interpretation of History, Hindu texts such as Vedas are considered as valid old releases that must be respected even though they are not the latest, and he also specifically stated that Ram was a genuine prophet of God. The Ahmeddiya sect is illegal in Pakistan, and every Ahmeddiya must have a stamp on his/her Pakistani passport saying that "this person is not a Muslim." For an Ahmeddiya to call himself/herself a Muslim is a criminal offense in Pakistan. Such is the power of History-Centrism. Every Islamic State in the world has its own official History-Centrism that becomes the basis for State Law.

Hinduism does not work this way. Vedas were followed by Upanishads, later by many darshanas of various worldviews (debated over many centuries by thousands of persons), then later by Puranas, and then came Bhakti saints, etc. There were plenty of successful challenges from lower echelons, women, etc. – so activists please do not ignore this periodic internal reformation capability. That all these old releases from Hinduism’s past still survive and thrive today demonstrates continuity of change and the voluntary nature of upgrading to any new release. There has never been any central authority to mandate all Hindus to upgrade to the latest release. Hence, you find Hindus practicing all vintages of releases. Unfortunately, this has often been denigrated as the mark of primitiveness, when it deserves to be seen as the epitome of tolerance, religious freedom, and as the world’s pre-eminent on-going laboratory for creative new releases to emerge.

Recently, we saw Sri Aurobindo’s own very original theories, and there is a long list of entirely new 20th century exemplars who are not from within any institution. So it’s like a free-market of ideas. As in Silicon Valley, you can set up shop and the market will accept or reject. (BTW, this is why the Deepak Chopra phenomenon is better than the canonized fossilized "finality" approach of Abrahamism. This tradition of every generation having its own Deepak Chopras to choose from has its advantages over History-Centrism in terms of the flexibility it has provided the Hindus. The system does not allow any one-and-only or final Deepak Chopra.)

None of these changes replaced the prior releases, but simply added to the mix of ideas, symbols, practices, narratives - like downloadable shareware. So a given user may select whatever combination or custom configuration works for him/her, change it during his/her life without having to get approved by anyone, and leave others alone to do their individual thing. I claim that this flexibility would be impossible if Hinduism were History-Centric because there could be only one true account of History (especially involving God) and all others would have to be falsified.

Once you approach comparative religion in terms of History-Centrism or lack of it (which no teacher to the best of my knowledge does), it also becomes clear why Sufis and certain Hindu sects got along perfectly: these were non history-Centric individuals on both sides and their boundaries were blurred because History took the back-seat. My essay explains how the mystics of Abrahamic religions remained on the margins, while History-Centric institutions seized power.

This gives a new approach to interpreting religious conflict based on historical events, historical claims and historical holy sites – from the Middle East to India to various other places.

The entire Islamic conflict with the Ahmeddiyas is because the latter’s foundation rests on a Historical event that refutes the History-Centrism of mainstream Islam. Its one History-Centrism over another, as both could never be right.

But for a Shaivite to hold her faith, it makes no difference if someone else is a non-theistic practitioner of chakra meditation. Furthermore, neither of these faiths is devalued if yet others believe in some literal Grand Narrative of how God sent his daughter to a nearby village. Hindu Grand Narratives are too many to cause any one to try to erase all others, and they got intertwined over time to syncretise into fused narratives. The non-literal interpretation of narratives has always been available to Hindus (for instance, the adhyatmika Ramayana) and is often considered a "higher" level of understanding. All this makes Hinduism non History-Centric.

D. Multinational Religions And Grant-Making Foundations

My issue (avoided in VPN) was that Religious Multinationals (Vatican, Mormon Church, Presbyterian Church, various Pentacostals, etc.) deserve the same kinds of critiques which the Left has made for commercial MNCs. I asked for Vijay’s position, and his response in VPN was the following:

(1) VPN appreciates that I distinguish between religious individuals and religious institutions.

(2) But then, instead of tackling the issue of institutions that are globalized religious enterprises, VPN goes on to condemn Arun Shourie and other Hindutva people. That’s fine with me – Shourie and his group are of no relevance to me. But in this way, the topic got changed and the issue was ignored by VPN.

(3) VPN confuses the issue in the remark: "The Left that I live within is not opposed to religion, but we tend to believe that religion must remain outside politics, that religion must not enter the matters of the state." But this was not the point. The issue has to do with the foreign religion nexus as in the case of the "imperialistic" MNCs.

(4) The closest VPN comes to dealing with the issue at hand is when it states: "The Vatican and the Evangelicals ruse of conversion is to be condemned, but their role in India is not as significant to me as their role in the US, for instance." But even here, VPN diverts from India to their "role in the US." My concern is two-fold: (i) I fail to understand why Evangelism’s impact is worse in the US where there is little native religion left (having succeeded in obliterating it through genocide) that they could still be destroying. (ii) In any case, this VPN claim hardly relates to the issue on India.

The issue of globalized religious MNCs is still on the table. The role of History-Centrism in institutionalizing religions into MNCs is central to this.

VPN also ignores my concerns about Ford Foundation type of MNCs on which this scholar-activist is today dependent for survival.

E. Academic/Activist Elitism

VPN also completely ignores my suggestion that the scholar-activist profession must be examined for its intellectual elitism.

For good reason, the elitist Brahmins’ control over Sanskrit (and hence over discourse and culture) has been criticized. But can Vijay show equivalent levels of criticism (especially from the Left) about the following kinds of elitism:

(i) the equivalent role of the elites who were well versed in Persian language during the Mughal period;

(ii) the dependence of today’s Indian Muslims on what the elite Arabic-knowing ulema say about both sacred and mundane matters, with little local freedom or autonomy in matters of interpretation;

(iii) the elitism in the Christian Churches in matters of interpretation;

(iv) the hegemony of the Russian language in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Russians were a minority in most states in the federation;

(v) the dominance of Mandarin in China, that is systematically erasing the ethnicity of Tibetans and Muslims in Xingjian province;

(vi) the way Ivy League Literary Theory has today become the yard-stick to determine who gets certified and licensed to speak with adhikara (authority) in prestigious secular circles ; and

(vii) the role of English language in general, including the way Call Centers are breeding a new kind of elitism in India?

I stated in my note #1 that I would like to meet Indian leftists who are seriously working against elitism that runs across the board. Why are the seven issues in the above para being simply ignored? Let me now suggest a reason why.

Is it that selective moral indignation at native structures is an unconscious method by which desi elitists become more acceptable to the western academy , and therefore legitimizes (and, in fact, is a required behavior to prove their loyalty to the western establishment) their sneering at the natives down below? Therefore, when the very foundation on which this sneering gaze rests is called into question (as being elitist and collaborative with the establishment in the first place), it exposes the pretext of human rights activism. The contradiction inherent in the moral indignation becomes a blind spot, which is continually glossed over. Therefore, is this moral indignation a way for desi to become white?

F. Indian Classics/Traditions Positioning In The Academy

My interest is not in "cheerleading about the Indian past," as VPN puts it. I would like to see Indian Classics at par with Greek Classics in the academy, no more and no less – which knowledgeable scholars agree would be good for students, based strictly on the relative merits of Indian and Western Classics. This can be achieved only by introducing it into the Classics Department, and not leaving it in some Religion or South Asian Studies department.

This concern is the same as with locating Indian music as "ethnomusicology." Why is Mozart not classified as ethnomusicology? Reason: because European ethnicity is not called ethnicity. Ethnicity is the variance from Europeanism, and Europeanism is the universal relative to which others are ethnicized. This is blatant racism, but has not brought protest by the desi "progressive" scholars because they know which side their career bread is buttered.

Another example: Indian Philosophy is taught under Religion and not in mainstream Philosophy Departments, except in rare instances. (Arindam C at U of Hawaii, and Steve P at UT-Austin are the only ones I know of who regularly produce PhDs in Indian Philosophy from a major Philosophy Department. There might be a few other rare examples.) The significance is this: Philosophy in the core curriculum is meant to teach every American student how to think. It’s about universals that are not geography specific or ethnicity specific. That is "truth," and its originators and custodians are to be seen as western civilization exclusively. Hence, universals are depicted as almost exclusively Western thought based. So Indian philosophy is being taught in the context of trying to understand how "those people at the far end of the world" behave in peculiar ways. IP is not critiqued for its claims of universality at par with Greek thought, for instance, and is only of exotic or geopolitical relevance to study. This is why I consider South Asian Studies to suffer from a ghetto mentality in service of the establishment.

Furthermore, I claim that "religion" itself is a problematic category to understand dharmas of India. This difference between religion and dharma as categories is a critical subject we can get into some day later. But suffice it to say that the Marxist critique of religion is only about History-Centric Christianity, as that was all Marx knew. Indian Marxists have superimposed sociological "data" about India, but continue to be imprisoned by Eurocentric categories.

In particular, today’s common views of varna and jati are very narrow, and do not adequately describe Indian society. Jati is not caste, but became so under colonial rule (Dirks did a lot of good research on this). But more problematic is the distortion of varna, which has become the basis for the whole Dalit conflict. I read far too many works that seem to insist on frozen jati-varna (wherein a whole jati has the same varna, and, furthermore, this varna is said to be unchangeable). But this is an inaccurate picture. I hope Vijay’s students are given a more nuanced treatment than most South Asianized desis that I have come across on these matters.

I do not agree with VPN that Dipesh Chakrabarty’s "Provincializing Europe" is free from European lenses. The same also applies to Habib, Thapar, etc. They usually have sound data but they resort to their western-learned "theories" (see Guha’s statement quoted below) even while criticizing Europe. So it’s largely the west’s supervised self-criticism, in the same manner as Ronald Reagan used to get "roasted" on television, i.e. his friends and chamchas poking fun at him and even looking like they were criticizing him, but it was all a game and tried to show how open minded he was towards criticism.

Regarding the history of Indian science, none of the scholars named in VPN is in the same league as Joseph Needham – this one may please ask Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, who is from the old Indian left and has been the editor of the massive project on the History of Indian Science. Even his project, widely regarded as the most ambitious, falls short as it has wandered into philosophy more than science. As Guha remarks, we have too many scholars who claim to be experts but in fact are "writing essays based on books ordered from the library."

G. Contemporary Historiography

I am glad we both agree on the principle that revisions to history are important, in light of new research, but are to be avoided for political purposes or if they are based on sloppy work. This raises two issues.

If the American Empire (VPN’s term) has replaced the British Empire, on what basis is Vijay confident that the same imperialistic biases are not present today? This must be taken in context of the projection of power upon South Asian Studies. Who controls the leading journals, the funding, the chairs, the powerful think tanks, the conferences about South Asian Studies – its all western institutions, indeed. How sure is Vijay that he and other desi scholars have managed to avoid the conflicts-of-interest inherent in this mechanism?

H. Hinduism Studies

VPN states: "South Asian Studies is no longer the adjunct of colonialism, or of the newly aggressive US Empire. It is also no longer staffed with former missionaries..."

Regarding the absence of colonialism, Vijay must rethink in light of his "American Empire" thesis and the points I already made. The second statement, that former missionaries are gone, is also false. Hinduism Studies is filled with not only former missionaries but actively practicing missionaries. Go to RISA (Religion In South Asia) events and you will find out.

A prominent example is John Carman, who recently retired from Harvard where he headed Hinduism Studies, and who is regarded amongst the most important authorities in academic Hinduism Studies. After retirement, he has returned to his family’s mission – his family is third-generation Christian missionaries in India.

Furthermore, the vast majority of candidates entering the secular institutions for PhDs got their BA or MA from Christian seminaries, so this indicates the mindset flowing into the pipeline of secular religious studies. Less than 20% of RISA members have a public Hindu identity, although this does not at all imply that non-Hindus are bad scholars. It merely hints at the gaze built into their subconscious minds, unknown to them. The Princeton Theological Seminary has a massive Hinduism library, and its budget for its missionaries-in-training is larger than any Indian university I know of.

There is nothing wrong with others studying our traditions. The problem lies with our refusal to study our own traditions objectively, and, furthermore, with our unwillingness to study the other through our lens with the same rigor as they study us with theirs. India’s (failed) experiment with the Left has much to do with this intellectual state of affairs.

Tragically, most India-trained scholars in the English language academy know very little about Hinduism because they threw out the study of Sanskrit from the top Indian liberal arts colleges, on the grounds of it being primitive or even abusive – a misunderstanding about secularism. (Look at the politics over Sanskrit at JNU, as one example.) So the talent pool in this field is largely western-trained. When Indian academicians want an authority on Hinduism, they usually have to go to a western scholar. (Arindam C, once narrated at a meeting how he was sitting in some discussion on Hinduism in India. To resolve a deadlock on definitions of Indic categories, it was suggested that they should call Chicago to get the answer! Outlook magazine reported a Supreme Court decision in which the Court quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica to get its definition of Hinduism. This should not surprise us, given that in Indian courts, until recently, judges wore British wigs even in hot humid weather just to look as English as possible!)

Ironically, post-colonialists can do a sound criticism of Eurocentrism only in terms of Eurocentric categories, as they rarely if ever know Indic categories first hand. What desi postcolonialists know of Hinduism is indirectly via foreign eyes, except for its empirical sociological problems.

To redress this problem of academic Religious Studies being banished from India, Ashis Nandy and various other eminent Indian scholars have supported a recent initiative and jumped into the fray. Infinity Foundation funded a major world conference on religious studies last month at India International Center, Delhi, conducted by CSDS, with over 400 attendees. Since I am already involved in many public debates on Religious Studies, I will not say more on this here, except that many revisions to the methods and theories have already taken place as a result of this engagement, and that the visible changes so far are merely the tip of the iceberg.

VPN is incorrect in describing Yvette Rosser’s article posted at the Mandala site as a "paper for the Infinity Foundation." It was a re-posting of a chapter that she did as part of her PhD dissertation (which deals with South Asian education) completed last year. But on the bigger issue of whether there is false stereotyping, VPN’s denial is the common first reaction when this matter is first brought to most desis’ attention. This is why systematic studies of curricula and textbooks are required, which we have started.

D. Patriotism

I am glad to read that: "Sovereign nation-states are a potential bulwark against the depredations of trans-national corporations. These nation-states are also theoretically accountable to the people, and are therefore the horizon of our democratic aspirations, namely our rights. So there is no presumption toward Balkhanization among all tendencies of the Left."

However, while this patriotism may be the case with Vijay, my next column in the pipeline (exact date of posting not yet known) gives a strong criticism of scholar-activists who potentially undermine India’s integrity.

My own patriotism is of a defensive kind to protect oneself and not at all of an offensive or expansionist kind. India has never had expansionist worldviews. (It’s a dual patriotism, as I am also a patriotic American citizen and believe in the future positive role of USA globally, especially as its demographics and culture become more global.)

Regarding India’s internal social structure, I want to revisit the jati structure, seen as a network of cultures that were in constant renegotiation with one another. This is a very sophisticated structure, with no central authority, no court that enforced Manusmriti (for instance), and yet it managed to evolve and survive for millennia. Unfortunately, and the Left deserves some of the blame for this, the political rhetoric of "caste abuse" has overshadowed any genuine inquiry into this aspect of history. There has been a backward projection of today’s problems as a lens to see the past. But India’s past society cannot be compared with the modern west, and must be compared with its contemporaneous western equivalents – which included genocides, witch-hunts, slavery, feudalism, etc. I have not yet undertaken this investigation to the extent required, and, in the meantime, I am unwilling to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The Indian Left has constantly focused on India’s negatives and downplayed that despite being left pauperized by two kinds of imperialisms over a millennia, India has managed to feed its people - even granting that many are still hungry on a given day - and peaceful. It achieved all this without the massive purges or bloodshed like in China or Russia, or even the brutalities of Pakistan or Bangladesh. The Indian Left also ignores that its freedom to criticize is a birthright not available to most other third world countries, despite the struggles of the poor and marginalized in those places. Even in China, what rights do the workers have relative to the Indian workers?

Regarding VPN’s position on the selling off of India’s public sector, most informed observers know how poorly they were run, and how poorly the workers in them worked. They were a drain on the people's money. A small group of middle-class and some working-class elite were living off these unproductive ventures. At the same time, the methods of disinvestment could have been better for the masses. I lived in Eastern Europe during the transition from Communism to free-markets, and have first-hand details of how the states divested in ways that were much better than in India from the common citizen’s perspective.

Regarding VPN’s warning of water belonging to the masses being sold to a corporation in Chattisgarh, I agree with VPN, and I have an essay in draft on "water versus cars," in which I argue that a water system is far more critical to India than the car culture, given its density of population, non-availability of energy, etc.

Agreeing with VPN, I don’t like the India shines or the India stinks essentializing. But my model goes further and also rejects left/right as categories.

K. State of South Asian Studies

I have planned several essays and columns to analyze the field of South Asian Studies. But for now, I shall merely quote extensively on this matter from Ramachandra Guha’s excellent article, The Ones Who Stayed Behind

"Since the 1980s, however, there has arisen a parallel discourse on South Asia. This is conducted in North American journals. The actors may be mostly of South Asian origin, and the subjects may nominally be South Asian. But the place of publication and, more importantly, the style of analysis and presentation are driven by the preoccupations of the American academy . Thus, in 2003, one can speak meaningfully of two quite distinct discourses: one conducted within India, one conducted outside but apparently on India. These discourses have different inflections, different theoretical orientations, different purposes. Also, for the most part, different and largely overlapping casts of characters...The separation of the two discourses comes home most powerfully when one reads dissertations produced in America, which often tend to be ignorant of relevant Indian literature in the field, while quoting to excess works of social theory which seem to have little bearing on the dissertation’s themes ."

Guha writes that for scholars based in America, "India is merely a resource on the road to scholarly advancement," and complains that they are quite likely to be driven by intellectual fashion.

He illustrates:

"At least two Indian historians of my acquaintance have abandoned empirical research after moving to permanent jobs in US universities. They each wrote a fine work of social history, based on research in a dozen different archives. They have now taken to writing essays based on books ordered from the library. These essays are supposed to be exercises in ‘theory’. For the most part, however, they are merely extended literature reviews, parasitic assessments of other people’s works according to the winds of theoretical fashion and the canons of political correctness ."

Guha explains the significance of this divide:

"As for the aspiring scholar, he or she has to very quickly decide where his or her primary audience must lie. For the two discourses are driven by very different agendas. One is responding to the history and social debates of the sub-continent, the other to debates current in the American academy...The point cannot be over-stressed: that one discourse is located firmly in the cultural and political milieu of the sub-continent, whereas the other discourse is deliberately distancing itself from that milieu ."

But Guha’s biggest complaint seems to be that Indian-American scholars are falsely being seen as authentic Indian voices:

"In the eyes of their American colleagues, the diasporic scholar has come to ‘represent’ India much as the Vietnamese or Ukrainian émigré represents Vietnam or the Ukraine. Some crucial distinctions are thereby overlooked: namely, that unlike Vietnam and Ukraine and many other countries whose former nationals now work in the American academy, India is (for the most part) an open society with a functioning democracy, and that unlike those other countries India has an old and still active tradition of intellectual enquiry ."

Unfortunately, as Guha claims, the two competing discourses about India are unequal in resources:

"The Indian journals can be read by those in the west who are interested. However, the prohibitive cost of foreign journals means that, at least outside Delhi, no Indian student can get to read them."

Conclusions

I now request Vijay to specifically provide his reasoned persuasive arguments to the issues I have raised, and not simply give referential and reverential bibliographies. I hope we are here to discuss conceptual issues that have caused a deadlock in the discourse about India, and not the latest sensational news about episodes or bad guys.



Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?


Sunday, 12 February 2006 16:55
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate
Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate.


Vijay Prashad’s note [Fundamental Issues] hereinafter "VPN", simply fails to address the bulk of the issues I had raised in my first piece [A Dialogue With The Indian Left]. It diverts from the issues using a combination of three methods:

(A) VPN is filled with name-dropping of works by third parties (over 25 names). It’s okay to give specific quotes and thereby let an author’s words speak directly. But sending each other our respective bibliographies does not address an issue, and would only be suitable for some "Name That Quote" type of game.

(B) Vijay slips into the common weakness of defending the citadel , through irrelevant praise for peers and for the system that sustains them. Here, I raise the issue of the role of power in institutionalized South Asian Studies. Especially since VPN criticizes "the American Empire" as the world’s top culprit today, I wish to ask Vijay how US institutional funding of South Asian Studies compares to the East India Company’s control over Indology and the way the colonial/imperial masters used power (combining funding, symbolic credibility, and positional authority) to produce Orientalism.



Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?


Sunday, 12 February 2006 16:55
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate
Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate.


Vijay Prashad’s note [Fundamental Issues] hereinafter "VPN", simply fails to address the bulk of the issues I had raised in my first piece [A Dialogue With The Indian Left]. It diverts from the issues using a combination of three methods:

(A) VPN is filled with name-dropping of works by third parties (over 25 names). It’s okay to give specific quotes and thereby let an author’s words speak directly. But sending each other our respective bibliographies does not address an issue, and would only be suitable for some "Name That Quote" type of game.

(B) Vijay slips into the common weakness of defending the citadel , through irrelevant praise for peers and for the system that sustains them. Here, I raise the issue of the role of power in institutionalized South Asian Studies. Especially since VPN criticizes "the American Empire" as the world’s top culprit today, I wish to ask Vijay how US institutional funding of South Asian Studies compares to the East India Company’s control over Indology and the way the colonial/imperial masters used power (combining funding, symbolic credibility, and positional authority) to produce Orientalism.

If Vijay disagrees with this comparison, on what basis does he claim that American imperialism (to use his own expression) is less prejudiced than British imperialism was? In other words, he should shoulder the burden to prove that American power is not mixed up in the intellectual discourse about others. This will pose tricky choices for Vijay, between

(i) freedom of critical inquiry claimed by the academician-activist on the one hand (important for his credibility), and

(ii) the academician-activist’s career considerations (which are enmeshed in what VPN alleges to be "American imperialism") on the other.

How do many of today’s desi South Asianists really differ from what became known as the Brown Sahibs in 19th century Bengal? The role of power in discourse simply cannot be ignored. One has to track the funding flows beginning in the Cold War era to the present from western governments, churches, corporate foundations into the construction of South Asianism today.

(C) VPN brings in standard third party "culprits" as diversions, even though the given conceptual issues are independent of any individuals. There seems to be an initiation ceremony required these days, a sort of agni pariksha to prove oneself free of "fascism", "Nazism", "chauvinism", "fundamentalism", and a whole litany of branded terms. Leftist discourse these days has become too often reduced to bumper-stickers attacking some standard list of Hindutva – Arun Shourie, Elst, Savarkar, Frawley, BJP, etc. – with the Hindutva fans pouncing back to counter-attack in equally naïve ways, and, meanwhile, the real issues get side-tracked.

But since I have no reason to defend Hindutva leaders or ideology, we cannot get diverted in this manner. The question this raises, especially in light of item B above is: Is Hindutva the Indian Left’s "other"? Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva other for its own self-definition?

I agree with VPN that: "This is a good opportunity to fight over our first principles and our methods of analysis" (emphasis supplied). However, "first principles" and "methods of analysis" are not being dealt with in most of VPN. Using prestigious writers’ names as proxies makes his positions second principles, not first. Defending the citadel (of "American imperialism’s" study of others) to fortify his positions makes them third principles. Finally, using the Hindutva other to define/defend his positions makes them fourth principles. To be first principles, he must get rid of the three intellectual crutches mentioned here.

A. The Left And Right As Categories

VPN rightly rejects the idea of the left as a universal. But then he goes on to use "Left" (with a capital "L") many times to represent himself. Frankly, I have no problem either way, as I am more interested in issues and where someone stands.

But VPN simply ignores my interrogation of whether the left/right are appropriate categories for the understanding of India. I mentioned Liberation Theology and Gandhi as examples that do not fit this schema. By simply saying that there are many lefts, VPN does not remove this fundamental question about categories from the discussion table. Yes, there are many lefts, so Vijay should clearly articulate and differentiate the one he subscribes to and deal with the issue: why is left/right the best lens to interpret India?

B. History-Centrism

VPN simply ignores my very specific thesis about History-Centrism

A religion based primarily on a unique Historical Event (typically involving a unique Prophet) is History-Centric, because History turns into a form of social capital controlled by the institution. Abrahamic religions tend to have a core of literalist dogma that is their proprietary and non-negotiable History of God’s interventions. This form of social capital is extremely powerful in sustaining the authority and credibility of certain institutions and groups. Absolute History becomes the main property of the institution, which derives its power by interpreting it, and by having the exclusive franchise to preach/distribute it, and it does this in the name of protecting and propagating God’s Truth. Any challenge to the official account of History is seen a threat that would dilute or undermine the institutional authority. Hence, History fuels fundamentalism and conflicts.

I thought this insight from me would be a great opening for the Left, especially since I take the position in my aforementioned essay that Hindutva is attempting to turn Hinduism into a History-Centric religion: with Ram akin to Jesus and Ayodhya akin to Jerusalem, etc. Hinduism has not in the past been History-Centric for its most part, and hence has remained pliable and accommodative, easily "negotiable." My History-Centrism based critique of Hindutva is an internal critique from a solid Hindu perspective. It is one of my main reasons for not being a supporter of Hindutva.

Furthermore, when seen as non History-Centric, the legitimacy of Hinduism is not contingent upon "revising" or "correcting" any account of history. History, therefore, assumes a different significance, and God is either left out of it, or else is omnipresent so that no event is a unique intervention. The study of history becomes mainly for general interest and for deeper insights. But it ceases to be a necessary condition for the legitimacy of Hindu epistemological claims. This alone could de-intensify much of the Left vs. Hindutva tension today, which in my opinion does not deal with core issues.

History-Centrism needs to be included in the taxonomy for studying religions. It is an important factor in making religion normative and rigid. All the problems with Grand Narratives that are found in postmodern critiques get amplified one hundred-fold when God is the GN’s central protagonist, and especially when this is to be God’s only appearance, or the most authentic appearance recorded, or the final one.

So, frankly, I was disappointed that VPN failed to take note of my thesis. I consider this to be a solid plank for Liberation Hinduism along the lines of Liberation Theology from the Catholics – an approach that the Indian Left ought to embrace.

VPN states: "We always maintain a clear distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva." Vijay might want to become clearer on what his philosophical distinctions between these two are, so we may compare our thoughts. I would suggest that he would find the issue of History-Centrism to be very useful in this. On the other hand, the rhetoric about "pogroms," etc. is political, worn out, challenged by counter-claims, and ignores the underlying epistemological ideas concerning the very nature of Hinduism.

C. Teleology And 'Progress'

VPN states: "There is neither a singular "Left" nor is there one ‘Marxist Grand Narrative.’" While there may be multiple Marxist GNs, my point still holds: Each Marxist GN has some teleological trajectories that every society is supposed to follow. These tend to be linear theories of History, very much like in the Abrahamic religions. From-Evil-to-Good gets replaced with secular "progress" as the linear trajectory that must apply to all societies. VPN’s statement that there are several versions of the Marxist GN merely makes the issue more complex.

In particular, I had raised the issue of whether "progress" must be discontinuous, as "revolutions" imply, or whether it can be adaptive, as was usually the case in India’s past. This is important. "Progressives" (a self-description by the Indian Left) often assume that moving forward requires denigrating the past. This is why anyone suspected of re-visiting India’s past with appreciation (especially if it is about the pre-Islamic period) is instantly branded a "chauvinist," presumably for fear that the case for continuous progress would undermine the revolution for discontinuous progress. Because only one kind of possible progress is allowed by the Left, those who oppose their revolution must, by inference, be accused of going back in time to some idealized past. I submit that the multiplicity of Indic models of progress must be examined critically. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has done this. There is no monopoly on the meaning of progress.

Furthermore, I suggest that this notion of discontinuity is borrowed from the Abrahamic religions. Being History-Centric, Abrahamic religions relied on a new Revelation to replace the previous Truth. This had to be discontinuous and abrupt. The old view had to be rejected, books burnt, the old practitioners demonized as witches, pagans, kafirs, whatever. There was no way to simply let them remain and live alongside with respect into the new system of belief. This, I claim, is the result of absolutist Religious Grand Narratives of History.

Marxism, as a non-theistic form of Abrahamism, generated Grand Narratives - whether Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism or Maoism varieties – energized by a call for an Apocalypse to bring about an idealized city with an ideal human citizen. To implement these Grand Narratives, Stalinist, Maoist and Pol Potist pogroms by the Communist state murdered millions in the name of cleansing society of its past traditions and culture. The need for such destruction is repeatedly articulated in terms of the need for struggle and fight, and this feeds the Left’s frenzy to identify conflicts and target the evil others.

As a less troubling way of understanding the impact of history-centrism, let’s think of software for an analogy: A new release comes out, but many consumers continue using prior releases. In fact, the new release might explicitly allow for old releases to function alongside. This is the Indic way of change. Old and new co-exist without discontinuity, because there is no "One True Canon From God" with fresh covenants ordering the replacement (destruction) of the software and old user manuals.

Now consider an entirely different kind of policy from God (as owner of the rules/software): Each new release mandates that everyone must convert to it, that old releases must get destroyed, and that whatever useful stuff there might have been in the old releases is understood to have already been incorporated into the new release by the developers (who control the intellectual property).

This latter way is how the Abrahamic changes have been: (i) Release 1 said there was Adam/Eve’s Original Sin that caused Eternal Damnation upon all humans thereafter. (ii) Release 2 gave the Jews a special escape clause for Salvation, because they were "chosen" by God. Note that Release 1’s narrative got subsumed in Release 2 and ceased to have its stand-alone legitimacy. (iii) Release 3 came when God wanted to extend his offer to "save" everyone (from Eternal Damnation) and sent his only son (hence it cannot happen ever again) – i.e. Christianity was installed. (iv) Release 4 came when God realized that humans messed up the old releases (i.e. too many viruses got in), so he sent Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to install the latest and final release. Being final makes it impossible to change without calling God incompetent, and that would be blasphemy. Hence, Islam has remained stuck in a literalist interpretation of Koran (God’s latest and final release).

The Ahmeddiyas (an Islamic sect) claim that their 19th century leader was a new prophet of Islam, who brought a new release of God’s software to operate human society. In this new release’s interpretation of History, Hindu texts such as Vedas are considered as valid old releases that must be respected even though they are not the latest, and he also specifically stated that Ram was a genuine prophet of God. The Ahmeddiya sect is illegal in Pakistan, and every Ahmeddiya must have a stamp on his/her Pakistani passport saying that "this person is not a Muslim." For an Ahmeddiya to call himself/herself a Muslim is a criminal offense in Pakistan. Such is the power of History-Centrism. Every Islamic State in the world has its own official History-Centrism that becomes the basis for State Law.

Hinduism does not work this way. Vedas were followed by Upanishads, later by many darshanas of various worldviews (debated over many centuries by thousands of persons), then later by Puranas, and then came Bhakti saints, etc. There were plenty of successful challenges from lower echelons, women, etc. – so activists please do not ignore this periodic internal reformation capability. That all these old releases from Hinduism’s past still survive and thrive today demonstrates continuity of change and the voluntary nature of upgrading to any new release. There has never been any central authority to mandate all Hindus to upgrade to the latest release. Hence, you find Hindus practicing all vintages of releases. Unfortunately, this has often been denigrated as the mark of primitiveness, when it deserves to be seen as the epitome of tolerance, religious freedom, and as the world’s pre-eminent on-going laboratory for creative new releases to emerge.

Recently, we saw Sri Aurobindo’s own very original theories, and there is a long list of entirely new 20th century exemplars who are not from within any institution. So it’s like a free-market of ideas. As in Silicon Valley, you can set up shop and the market will accept or reject. (BTW, this is why the Deepak Chopra phenomenon is better than the canonized fossilized "finality" approach of Abrahamism. This tradition of every generation having its own Deepak Chopras to choose from has its advantages over History-Centrism in terms of the flexibility it has provided the Hindus. The system does not allow any one-and-only or final Deepak Chopra.)

None of these changes replaced the prior releases, but simply added to the mix of ideas, symbols, practices, narratives - like downloadable shareware. So a given user may select whatever combination or custom configuration works for him/her, change it during his/her life without having to get approved by anyone, and leave others alone to do their individual thing. I claim that this flexibility would be impossible if Hinduism were History-Centric because there could be only one true account of History (especially involving God) and all others would have to be falsified.

Once you approach comparative religion in terms of History-Centrism or lack of it (which no teacher to the best of my knowledge does), it also becomes clear why Sufis and certain Hindu sects got along perfectly: these were non history-Centric individuals on both sides and their boundaries were blurred because History took the back-seat. My essay explains how the mystics of Abrahamic religions remained on the margins, while History-Centric institutions seized power.

This gives a new approach to interpreting religious conflict based on historical events, historical claims and historical holy sites – from the Middle East to India to various other places.

The entire Islamic conflict with the Ahmeddiyas is because the latter’s foundation rests on a Historical event that refutes the History-Centrism of mainstream Islam. Its one History-Centrism over another, as both could never be right.

But for a Shaivite to hold her faith, it makes no difference if someone else is a non-theistic practitioner of chakra meditation. Furthermore, neither of these faiths is devalued if yet others believe in some literal Grand Narrative of how God sent his daughter to a nearby village. Hindu Grand Narratives are too many to cause any one to try to erase all others, and they got intertwined over time to syncretise into fused narratives. The non-literal interpretation of narratives has always been available to Hindus (for instance, the adhyatmika Ramayana) and is often considered a "higher" level of understanding. All this makes Hinduism non History-Centric.

D. Multinational Religions And Grant-Making Foundations

My issue (avoided in VPN) was that Religious Multinationals (Vatican, Mormon Church, Presbyterian Church, various Pentacostals, etc.) deserve the same kinds of critiques which the Left has made for commercial MNCs. I asked for Vijay’s position, and his response in VPN was the following:

(1) VPN appreciates that I distinguish between religious individuals and religious institutions.

(2) But then, instead of tackling the issue of institutions that are globalized religious enterprises, VPN goes on to condemn Arun Shourie and other Hindutva people. That’s fine with me – Shourie and his group are of no relevance to me. But in this way, the topic got changed and the issue was ignored by VPN.

(3) VPN confuses the issue in the remark: "The Left that I live within is not opposed to religion, but we tend to believe that religion must remain outside politics, that religion must not enter the matters of the state." But this was not the point. The issue has to do with the foreign religion nexus as in the case of the "imperialistic" MNCs.

(4) The closest VPN comes to dealing with the issue at hand is when it states: "The Vatican and the Evangelicals ruse of conversion is to be condemned, but their role in India is not as significant to me as their role in the US, for instance." But even here, VPN diverts from India to their "role in the US." My concern is two-fold: (i) I fail to understand why Evangelism’s impact is worse in the US where there is little native religion left (having succeeded in obliterating it through genocide) that they could still be destroying. (ii) In any case, this VPN claim hardly relates to the issue on India.

The issue of globalized religious MNCs is still on the table. The role of History-Centrism in institutionalizing religions into MNCs is central to this.

VPN also ignores my concerns about Ford Foundation type of MNCs on which this scholar-activist is today dependent for survival.

E. Academic/Activist Elitism

VPN also completely ignores my suggestion that the scholar-activist profession must be examined for its intellectual elitism.

For good reason, the elitist Brahmins’ control over Sanskrit (and hence over discourse and culture) has been criticized. But can Vijay show equivalent levels of criticism (especially from the Left) about the following kinds of elitism:

(i) the equivalent role of the elites who were well versed in Persian language during the Mughal period;

(ii) the dependence of today’s Indian Muslims on what the elite Arabic-knowing ulema say about both sacred and mundane matters, with little local freedom or autonomy in matters of interpretation;

(iii) the elitism in the Christian Churches in matters of interpretation;

(iv) the hegemony of the Russian language in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Russians were a minority in most states in the federation;

(v) the dominance of Mandarin in China, that is systematically erasing the ethnicity of Tibetans and Muslims in Xingjian province;

(vi) the way Ivy League Literary Theory has today become the yard-stick to determine who gets certified and licensed to speak with adhikara (authority) in prestigious secular circles ; and

(vii) the role of English language in general, including the way Call Centers are breeding a new kind of elitism in India?

I stated in my note #1 that I would like to meet Indian leftists who are seriously working against elitism that runs across the board. Why are the seven issues in the above para being simply ignored? Let me now suggest a reason why.

Is it that selective moral indignation at native structures is an unconscious method by which desi elitists become more acceptable to the western academy , and therefore legitimizes (and, in fact, is a required behavior to prove their loyalty to the western establishment) their sneering at the natives down below? Therefore, when the very foundation on which this sneering gaze rests is called into question (as being elitist and collaborative with the establishment in the first place), it exposes the pretext of human rights activism. The contradiction inherent in the moral indignation becomes a blind spot, which is continually glossed over. Therefore, is this moral indignation a way for desi to become white?

F. Indian Classics/Traditions Positioning In The Academy

My interest is not in "cheerleading about the Indian past," as VPN puts it. I would like to see Indian Classics at par with Greek Classics in the academy, no more and no less – which knowledgeable scholars agree would be good for students, based strictly on the relative merits of Indian and Western Classics. This can be achieved only by introducing it into the Classics Department, and not leaving it in some Religion or South Asian Studies department.

This concern is the same as with locating Indian music as "ethnomusicology." Why is Mozart not classified as ethnomusicology? Reason: because European ethnicity is not called ethnicity. Ethnicity is the variance from Europeanism, and Europeanism is the universal relative to which others are ethnicized. This is blatant racism, but has not brought protest by the desi "progressive" scholars because they know which side their career bread is buttered.

Another example: Indian Philosophy is taught under Religion and not in mainstream Philosophy Departments, except in rare instances. (Arindam C at U of Hawaii, and Steve P at UT-Austin are the only ones I know of who regularly produce PhDs in Indian Philosophy from a major Philosophy Department. There might be a few other rare examples.) The significance is this: Philosophy in the core curriculum is meant to teach every American student how to think. It’s about universals that are not geography specific or ethnicity specific. That is "truth," and its originators and custodians are to be seen as western civilization exclusively. Hence, universals are depicted as almost exclusively Western thought based. So Indian philosophy is being taught in the context of trying to understand how "those people at the far end of the world" behave in peculiar ways. IP is not critiqued for its claims of universality at par with Greek thought, for instance, and is only of exotic or geopolitical relevance to study. This is why I consider South Asian Studies to suffer from a ghetto mentality in service of the establishment.

Furthermore, I claim that "religion" itself is a problematic category to understand dharmas of India. This difference between religion and dharma as categories is a critical subject we can get into some day later. But suffice it to say that the Marxist critique of religion is only about History-Centric Christianity, as that was all Marx knew. Indian Marxists have superimposed sociological "data" about India, but continue to be imprisoned by Eurocentric categories.

In particular, today’s common views of varna and jati are very narrow, and do not adequately describe Indian society. Jati is not caste, but became so under colonial rule (Dirks did a lot of good research on this). But more problematic is the distortion of varna, which has become the basis for the whole Dalit conflict. I read far too many works that seem to insist on frozen jati-varna (wherein a whole jati has the same varna, and, furthermore, this varna is said to be unchangeable). But this is an inaccurate picture. I hope Vijay’s students are given a more nuanced treatment than most South Asianized desis that I have come across on these matters.

I do not agree with VPN that Dipesh Chakrabarty’s "Provincializing Europe" is free from European lenses. The same also applies to Habib, Thapar, etc. They usually have sound data but they resort to their western-learned "theories" (see Guha’s statement quoted below) even while criticizing Europe. So it’s largely the west’s supervised self-criticism, in the same manner as Ronald Reagan used to get "roasted" on television, i.e. his friends and chamchas poking fun at him and even looking like they were criticizing him, but it was all a game and tried to show how open minded he was towards criticism.

Regarding the history of Indian science, none of the scholars named in VPN is in the same league as Joseph Needham – this one may please ask Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, who is from the old Indian left and has been the editor of the massive project on the History of Indian Science. Even his project, widely regarded as the most ambitious, falls short as it has wandered into philosophy more than science. As Guha remarks, we have too many scholars who claim to be experts but in fact are "writing essays based on books ordered from the library."

G. Contemporary Historiography

I am glad we both agree on the principle that revisions to history are important, in light of new research, but are to be avoided for political purposes or if they are based on sloppy work. This raises two issues.

If the American Empire (VPN’s term) has replaced the British Empire, on what basis is Vijay confident that the same imperialistic biases are not present today? This must be taken in context of the projection of power upon South Asian Studies. Who controls the leading journals, the funding, the chairs, the powerful think tanks, the conferences about South Asian Studies – its all western institutions, indeed. How sure is Vijay that he and other desi scholars have managed to avoid the conflicts-of-interest inherent in this mechanism?

H. Hinduism Studies

VPN states: "South Asian Studies is no longer the adjunct of colonialism, or of the newly aggressive US Empire. It is also no longer staffed with former missionaries..."

Regarding the absence of colonialism, Vijay must rethink in light of his "American Empire" thesis and the points I already made. The second statement, that former missionaries are gone, is also false. Hinduism Studies is filled with not only former missionaries but actively practicing missionaries. Go to RISA (Religion In South Asia) events and you will find out.

A prominent example is John Carman, who recently retired from Harvard where he headed Hinduism Studies, and who is regarded amongst the most important authorities in academic Hinduism Studies. After retirement, he has returned to his family’s mission – his family is third-generation Christian missionaries in India.

Furthermore, the vast majority of candidates entering the secular institutions for PhDs got their BA or MA from Christian seminaries, so this indicates the mindset flowing into the pipeline of secular religious studies. Less than 20% of RISA members have a public Hindu identity, although this does not at all imply that non-Hindus are bad scholars. It merely hints at the gaze built into their subconscious minds, unknown to them. The Princeton Theological Seminary has a massive Hinduism library, and its budget for its missionaries-in-training is larger than any Indian university I know of.

There is nothing wrong with others studying our traditions. The problem lies with our refusal to study our own traditions objectively, and, furthermore, with our unwillingness to study the other through our lens with the same rigor as they study us with theirs. India’s (failed) experiment with the Left has much to do with this intellectual state of affairs.

Tragically, most India-trained scholars in the English language academy know very little about Hinduism because they threw out the study of Sanskrit from the top Indian liberal arts colleges, on the grounds of it being primitive or even abusive – a misunderstanding about secularism. (Look at the politics over Sanskrit at JNU, as one example.) So the talent pool in this field is largely western-trained. When Indian academicians want an authority on Hinduism, they usually have to go to a western scholar. (Arindam C, once narrated at a meeting how he was sitting in some discussion on Hinduism in India. To resolve a deadlock on definitions of Indic categories, it was suggested that they should call Chicago to get the answer! Outlook magazine reported a Supreme Court decision in which the Court quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica to get its definition of Hinduism. This should not surprise us, given that in Indian courts, until recently, judges wore British wigs even in hot humid weather just to look as English as possible!)

Ironically, post-colonialists can do a sound criticism of Eurocentrism only in terms of Eurocentric categories, as they rarely if ever know Indic categories first hand. What desi postcolonialists know of Hinduism is indirectly via foreign eyes, except for its empirical sociological problems.

To redress this problem of academic Religious Studies being banished from India, Ashis Nandy and various other eminent Indian scholars have supported a recent initiative and jumped into the fray. Infinity Foundation funded a major world conference on religious studies last month at India International Center, Delhi, conducted by CSDS, with over 400 attendees. Since I am already involved in many public debates on Religious Studies, I will not say more on this here, except that many revisions to the methods and theories have already taken place as a result of this engagement, and that the visible changes so far are merely the tip of the iceberg.

VPN is incorrect in describing Yvette Rosser’s article posted at the Mandala site as a "paper for the Infinity Foundation." It was a re-posting of a chapter that she did as part of her PhD dissertation (which deals with South Asian education) completed last year. But on the bigger issue of whether there is false stereotyping, VPN’s denial is the common first reaction when this matter is first brought to most desis’ attention. This is why systematic studies of curricula and textbooks are required, which we have started.

D. Patriotism

I am glad to read that: "Sovereign nation-states are a potential bulwark against the depredations of trans-national corporations. These nation-states are also theoretically accountable to the people, and are therefore the horizon of our democratic aspirations, namely our rights. So there is no presumption toward Balkhanization among all tendencies of the Left."

However, while this patriotism may be the case with Vijay, my next column in the pipeline (exact date of posting not yet known) gives a strong criticism of scholar-activists who potentially undermine India’s integrity.

My own patriotism is of a defensive kind to protect oneself and not at all of an offensive or expansionist kind. India has never had expansionist worldviews. (It’s a dual patriotism, as I am also a patriotic American citizen and believe in the future positive role of USA globally, especially as its demographics and culture become more global.)

Regarding India’s internal social structure, I want to revisit the jati structure, seen as a network of cultures that were in constant renegotiation with one another. This is a very sophisticated structure, with no central authority, no court that enforced Manusmriti (for instance), and yet it managed to evolve and survive for millennia. Unfortunately, and the Left deserves some of the blame for this, the political rhetoric of "caste abuse" has overshadowed any genuine inquiry into this aspect of history. There has been a backward projection of today’s problems as a lens to see the past. But India’s past society cannot be compared with the modern west, and must be compared with its contemporaneous western equivalents – which included genocides, witch-hunts, slavery, feudalism, etc. I have not yet undertaken this investigation to the extent required, and, in the meantime, I am unwilling to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The Indian Left has constantly focused on India’s negatives and downplayed that despite being left pauperized by two kinds of imperialisms over a millennia, India has managed to feed its people - even granting that many are still hungry on a given day - and peaceful. It achieved all this without the massive purges or bloodshed like in China or Russia, or even the brutalities of Pakistan or Bangladesh. The Indian Left also ignores that its freedom to criticize is a birthright not available to most other third world countries, despite the struggles of the poor and marginalized in those places. Even in China, what rights do the workers have relative to the Indian workers?

Regarding VPN’s position on the selling off of India’s public sector, most informed observers know how poorly they were run, and how poorly the workers in them worked. They were a drain on the people's money. A small group of middle-class and some working-class elite were living off these unproductive ventures. At the same time, the methods of disinvestment could have been better for the masses. I lived in Eastern Europe during the transition from Communism to free-markets, and have first-hand details of how the states divested in ways that were much better than in India from the common citizen’s perspective.

Regarding VPN’s warning of water belonging to the masses being sold to a corporation in Chattisgarh, I agree with VPN, and I have an essay in draft on "water versus cars," in which I argue that a water system is far more critical to India than the car culture, given its density of population, non-availability of energy, etc.

Agreeing with VPN, I don’t like the India shines or the India stinks essentializing. But my model goes further and also rejects left/right as categories.

K. State of South Asian Studies

I have planned several essays and columns to analyze the field of South Asian Studies. But for now, I shall merely quote extensively on this matter from Ramachandra Guha’s excellent article, The Ones Who Stayed Behind

"Since the 1980s, however, there has arisen a parallel discourse on South Asia. This is conducted in North American journals. The actors may be mostly of South Asian origin, and the subjects may nominally be South Asian. But the place of publication and, more importantly, the style of analysis and presentation are driven by the preoccupations of the American academy . Thus, in 2003, one can speak meaningfully of two quite distinct discourses: one conducted within India, one conducted outside but apparently on India. These discourses have different inflections, different theoretical orientations, different purposes. Also, for the most part, different and largely overlapping casts of characters...The separation of the two discourses comes home most powerfully when one reads dissertations produced in America, which often tend to be ignorant of relevant Indian literature in the field, while quoting to excess works of social theory which seem to have little bearing on the dissertation’s themes ."

Guha writes that for scholars based in America, "India is merely a resource on the road to scholarly advancement," and complains that they are quite likely to be driven by intellectual fashion.

He illustrates:

"At least two Indian historians of my acquaintance have abandoned empirical research after moving to permanent jobs in US universities. They each wrote a fine work of social history, based on research in a dozen different archives. They have now taken to writing essays based on books ordered from the library. These essays are supposed to be exercises in ‘theory’. For the most part, however, they are merely extended literature reviews, parasitic assessments of other people’s works according to the winds of theoretical fashion and the canons of political correctness ."

Guha explains the significance of this divide:

"As for the aspiring scholar, he or she has to very quickly decide where his or her primary audience must lie. For the two discourses are driven by very different agendas. One is responding to the history and social debates of the sub-continent, the other to debates current in the American academy...The point cannot be over-stressed: that one discourse is located firmly in the cultural and political milieu of the sub-continent, whereas the other discourse is deliberately distancing itself from that milieu ."

But Guha’s biggest complaint seems to be that Indian-American scholars are falsely being seen as authentic Indian voices:

"In the eyes of their American colleagues, the diasporic scholar has come to ‘represent’ India much as the Vietnamese or Ukrainian émigré represents Vietnam or the Ukraine. Some crucial distinctions are thereby overlooked: namely, that unlike Vietnam and Ukraine and many other countries whose former nationals now work in the American academy, India is (for the most part) an open society with a functioning democracy, and that unlike those other countries India has an old and still active tradition of intellectual enquiry ."

Unfortunately, as Guha claims, the two competing discourses about India are unequal in resources:

"The Indian journals can be read by those in the west who are interested. However, the prohibitive cost of foreign journals means that, at least outside Delhi, no Indian student can get to read them."

Conclusions

I now request Vijay to specifically provide his reasoned persuasive arguments to the issues I have raised, and not simply give referential and reverential bibliographies. I hope we are here to discuss conceptual issues that have caused a deadlock in the discourse about India, and not the latest sensational news about episodes or bad guys.



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EI20Df04.html



Debating South Asia
Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate.
Rajiv Malhotra
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For the on-going debate, please see the RHS bar under Also See
Vijay Prashad’s note [Fundamental Issues] hereinafter "VPN", simply fails to address the bulk of the issues I had raised in my first piece [A Dialogue With The Indian Left]. It diverts from the issues using a combination of three methods:

(A) VPN is filled with name-dropping of works by third parties (over 25 names). It’s okay to give specific quotes and thereby let an author’s words speak directly. But sending each other our respective bibliographies does not address an issue, and would only be suitable for some "Name That Quote" type of game.

(B) Vijay slips into the common weakness of defending the citadel , through irrelevant praise for peers and for the system that sustains them. Here, I raise the issue of the role of power in institutionalized South Asian Studies. Especially since VPN criticizes "the American Empire" as the world’s top culprit today, I wish to ask Vijay how US institutional funding of South Asian Studies compares to the East India Company’s control over Indology and the way the colonial/imperial masters used power (combining funding, symbolic credibility, and positional authority) to produce Orientalism.

If Vijay disagrees with this comparison, on what basis does he claim that American imperialism (to use his own expression) is less prejudiced than British imperialism was? In other words, he should shoulder the burden to prove that American power is not mixed up in the intellectual discourse about others. This will pose tricky choices for Vijay, between

(i) freedom of critical inquiry claimed by the academician-activist on the one hand (important for his credibility), and

(ii) the academician-activist’s career considerations (which are enmeshed in what VPN alleges to be "American imperialism") on the other.

How do many of today’s desi South Asianists really differ from what became known as the Brown Sahibs in 19th century Bengal? The role of power in discourse simply cannot be ignored. One has to track the funding flows beginning in the Cold War era to the present from western governments, churches, corporate foundations into the construction of South Asianism today.

(C) VPN brings in standard third party "culprits" as diversions, even though the given conceptual issues are independent of any individuals. There seems to be an initiation ceremony required these days, a sort of agni pariksha to prove oneself free of "fascism", "Nazism", "chauvinism", "fundamentalism", and a whole litany of branded terms. Leftist discourse these days has become too often reduced to bumper-stickers attacking some standard list of Hindutva – Arun Shourie, Elst, Savarkar, Frawley, BJP, etc. – with the Hindutva fans pouncing back to counter-attack in equally naïve ways, and, meanwhile, the real issues get side-tracked.

But since I have no reason to defend Hindutva leaders or ideology, we cannot get diverted in this manner. The question this raises, especially in light of item B above is: Is Hindutva the Indian Left’s "other"? Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva other for its own self-definition?

I agree with VPN that: "This is a good opportunity to fight over our first principles and our methods of analysis" (emphasis supplied). However, "first principles" and "methods of analysis" are not being dealt with in most of VPN. Using prestigious writers’ names as proxies makes his positions second principles, not first. Defending the citadel (of "American imperialism’s" study of others) to fortify his positions makes them third principles. Finally, using the Hindutva other to define/defend his positions makes them fourth principles. To be first principles, he must get rid of the three intellectual crutches mentioned here.

A. The Left And Right As Categories

VPN rightly rejects the idea of the left as a universal. But then he goes on to use "Left" (with a capital "L") many times to represent himself. Frankly, I have no problem either way, as I am more interested in issues and where someone stands.

But VPN simply ignores my interrogation of whether the left/right are appropriate categories for the understanding of India. I mentioned Liberation Theology and Gandhi as examples that do not fit this schema. By simply saying that there are many lefts, VPN does not remove this fundamental question about categories from the discussion table. Yes, there are many lefts, so Vijay should clearly articulate and differentiate the one he subscribes to and deal with the issue: why is left/right the best lens to interpret India?

B. History-Centrism

VPN simply ignores my very specific thesis about History-Centrism

A religion based primarily on a unique Historical Event (typically involving a unique Prophet) is History-Centric, because History turns into a form of social capital controlled by the institution. Abrahamic religions tend to have a core of literalist dogma that is their proprietary and non-negotiable History of God’s interventions. This form of social capital is extremely powerful in sustaining the authority and credibility of certain institutions and groups. Absolute History becomes the main property of the institution, which derives its power by interpreting it, and by having the exclusive franchise to preach/distribute it, and it does this in the name of protecting and propagating God’s Truth. Any challenge to the official account of History is seen a threat that would dilute or undermine the institutional authority. Hence, History fuels fundamentalism and conflicts.

I thought this insight from me would be a great opening for the Left, especially since I take the position in my aforementioned essay that Hindutva is attempting to turn Hinduism into a History-Centric religion: with Ram akin to Jesus and Ayodhya akin to Jerusalem, etc. Hinduism has not in the past been History-Centric for its most part, and hence has remained pliable and accommodative, easily "negotiable." My History-Centrism based critique of Hindutva is an internal critique from a solid Hindu perspective. It is one of my main reasons for not being a supporter of Hindutva.

Furthermore, when seen as non History-Centric, the legitimacy of Hinduism is not contingent upon "revising" or "correcting" any account of history. History, therefore, assumes a different significance, and God is either left out of it, or else is omnipresent so that no event is a unique intervention. The study of history becomes mainly for general interest and for deeper insights. But it ceases to be a necessary condition for the legitimacy of Hindu epistemological claims. This alone could de-intensify much of the Left vs. Hindutva tension today, which in my opinion does not deal with core issues.

History-Centrism needs to be included in the taxonomy for studying religions. It is an important factor in making religion normative and rigid. All the problems with Grand Narratives that are found in postmodern critiques get amplified one hundred-fold when God is the GN’s central protagonist, and especially when this is to be God’s only appearance, or the most authentic appearance recorded, or the final one.

So, frankly, I was disappointed that VPN failed to take note of my thesis. I consider this to be a solid plank for Liberation Hinduism along the lines of Liberation Theology from the Catholics – an approach that the Indian Left ought to embrace.

VPN states: "We always maintain a clear distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva." Vijay might want to become clearer on what his philosophical distinctions between these two are, so we may compare our thoughts. I would suggest that he would find the issue of History-Centrism to be very useful in this. On the other hand, the rhetoric about "pogroms," etc. is political, worn out, challenged by counter-claims, and ignores the underlying epistemological ideas concerning the very nature of Hinduism.

C. Teleology And 'Progress'

VPN states: "There is neither a singular "Left" nor is there one ‘Marxist Grand Narrative.’" While there may be multiple Marxist GNs, my point still holds: Each Marxist GN has some teleological trajectories that every society is supposed to follow. These tend to be linear theories of History, very much like in the Abrahamic religions. From-Evil-to-Good gets replaced with secular "progress" as the linear trajectory that must apply to all societies. VPN’s statement that there are several versions of the Marxist GN merely makes the issue more complex.

In particular, I had raised the issue of whether "progress" must be discontinuous, as "revolutions" imply, or whether it can be adaptive, as was usually the case in India’s past. This is important. "Progressives" (a self-description by the Indian Left) often assume that moving forward requires denigrating the past. This is why anyone suspected of re-visiting India’s past with appreciation (especially if it is about the pre-Islamic period) is instantly branded a "chauvinist," presumably for fear that the case for continuous progress would undermine the revolution for discontinuous progress. Because only one kind of possible progress is allowed by the Left, those who oppose their revolution must, by inference, be accused of going back in time to some idealized past. I submit that the multiplicity of Indic models of progress must be examined critically. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has done this. There is no monopoly on the meaning of progress.

Furthermore, I suggest that this notion of discontinuity is borrowed from the Abrahamic religions. Being History-Centric, Abrahamic religions relied on a new Revelation to replace the previous Truth. This had to be discontinuous and abrupt. The old view had to be rejected, books burnt, the old practitioners demonized as witches, pagans, kafirs, whatever. There was no way to simply let them remain and live alongside with respect into the new system of belief. This, I claim, is the result of absolutist Religious Grand Narratives of History.

Marxism, as a non-theistic form of Abrahamism, generated Grand Narratives - whether Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism or Maoism varieties – energized by a call for an Apocalypse to bring about an idealized city with an ideal human citizen. To implement these Grand Narratives, Stalinist, Maoist and Pol Potist pogroms by the Communist state murdered millions in the name of cleansing society of its past traditions and culture. The need for such destruction is repeatedly articulated in terms of the need for struggle and fight, and this feeds the Left’s frenzy to identify conflicts and target the evil others.

As a less troubling way of understanding the impact of history-centrism, let’s think of software for an analogy: A new release comes out, but many consumers continue using prior releases. In fact, the new release might explicitly allow for old releases to function alongside. This is the Indic way of change. Old and new co-exist without discontinuity, because there is no "One True Canon From God" with fresh covenants ordering the replacement (destruction) of the software and old user manuals.

Now consider an entirely different kind of policy from God (as owner of the rules/software): Each new release mandates that everyone must convert to it, that old releases must get destroyed, and that whatever useful stuff there might have been in the old releases is understood to have already been incorporated into the new release by the developers (who control the intellectual property).

This latter way is how the Abrahamic changes have been: (i) Release 1 said there was Adam/Eve’s Original Sin that caused Eternal Damnation upon all humans thereafter. (ii) Release 2 gave the Jews a special escape clause for Salvation, because they were "chosen" by God. Note that Release 1’s narrative got subsumed in Release 2 and ceased to have its stand-alone legitimacy. (iii) Release 3 came when God wanted to extend his offer to "save" everyone (from Eternal Damnation) and sent his only son (hence it cannot happen ever again) – i.e. Christianity was installed. (iv) Release 4 came when God realized that humans messed up the old releases (i.e. too many viruses got in), so he sent Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to install the latest and final release. Being final makes it impossible to change without calling God incompetent, and that would be blasphemy. Hence, Islam has remained stuck in a literalist interpretation of Koran (God’s latest and final release).

The Ahmeddiyas (an Islamic sect) claim that their 19th century leader was a new prophet of Islam, who brought a new release of God’s software to operate human society. In this new release’s interpretation of History, Hindu texts such as Vedas are considered as valid old releases that must be respected even though they are not the latest, and he also specifically stated that Ram was a genuine prophet of God. The Ahmeddiya sect is illegal in Pakistan, and every Ahmeddiya must have a stamp on his/her Pakistani passport saying that "this person is not a Muslim." For an Ahmeddiya to call himself/herself a Muslim is a criminal offense in Pakistan. Such is the power of History-Centrism. Every Islamic State in the world has its own official History-Centrism that becomes the basis for State Law.

Hinduism does not work this way. Vedas were followed by Upanishads, later by many darshanas of various worldviews (debated over many centuries by thousands of persons), then later by Puranas, and then came Bhakti saints, etc. There were plenty of successful challenges from lower echelons, women, etc. – so activists please do not ignore this periodic internal reformation capability. That all these old releases from Hinduism’s past still survive and thrive today demonstrates continuity of change and the voluntary nature of upgrading to any new release. There has never been any central authority to mandate all Hindus to upgrade to the latest release. Hence, you find Hindus practicing all vintages of releases. Unfortunately, this has often been denigrated as the mark of primitiveness, when it deserves to be seen as the epitome of tolerance, religious freedom, and as the world’s pre-eminent on-going laboratory for creative new releases to emerge.

Recently, we saw Sri Aurobindo’s own very original theories, and there is a long list of entirely new 20th century exemplars who are not from within any institution. So it’s like a free-market of ideas. As in Silicon Valley, you can set up shop and the market will accept or reject. (BTW, this is why the Deepak Chopra phenomenon is better than the canonized fossilized "finality" approach of Abrahamism. This tradition of every generation having its own Deepak Chopras to choose from has its advantages over History-Centrism in terms of the flexibility it has provided the Hindus. The system does not allow any one-and-only or final Deepak Chopra.)

None of these changes replaced the prior releases, but simply added to the mix of ideas, symbols, practices, narratives - like downloadable shareware. So a given user may select whatever combination or custom configuration works for him/her, change it during his/her life without having to get approved by anyone, and leave others alone to do their individual thing. I claim that this flexibility would be impossible if Hinduism were History-Centric because there could be only one true account of History (especially involving God) and all others would have to be falsified.

Once you approach comparative religion in terms of History-Centrism or lack of it (which no teacher to the best of my knowledge does), it also becomes clear why Sufis and certain Hindu sects got along perfectly: these were non history-Centric individuals on both sides and their boundaries were blurred because History took the back-seat. My essay explains how the mystics of Abrahamic religions remained on the margins, while History-Centric institutions seized power.

This gives a new approach to interpreting religious conflict based on historical events, historical claims and historical holy sites – from the Middle East to India to various other places.

The entire Islamic conflict with the Ahmeddiyas is because the latter’s foundation rests on a Historical event that refutes the History-Centrism of mainstream Islam. Its one History-Centrism over another, as both could never be right.

But for a Shaivite to hold her faith, it makes no difference if someone else is a non-theistic practitioner of chakra meditation. Furthermore, neither of these faiths is devalued if yet others believe in some literal Grand Narrative of how God sent his daughter to a nearby village. Hindu Grand Narratives are too many to cause any one to try to erase all others, and they got intertwined over time to syncretise into fused narratives. The non-literal interpretation of narratives has always been available to Hindus (for instance, the adhyatmika Ramayana) and is often considered a "higher" level of understanding. All this makes Hinduism non History-Centric.

D. Multinational Religions And Grant-Making Foundations

My issue (avoided in VPN) was that Religious Multinationals (Vatican, Mormon Church, Presbyterian Church, various Pentacostals, etc.) deserve the same kinds of critiques which the Left has made for commercial MNCs. I asked for Vijay’s position, and his response in VPN was the following:

(1) VPN appreciates that I distinguish between religious individuals and religious institutions.

(2) But then, instead of tackling the issue of institutions that are globalized religious enterprises, VPN goes on to condemn Arun Shourie and other Hindutva people. That’s fine with me – Shourie and his group are of no relevance to me. But in this way, the topic got changed and the issue was ignored by VPN.

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Hindutva
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v • d • e
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Hindu nationalism. (Discuss)

For Veer Savarkar's book, see Hindutva (book).
Hindutva (Devanagari: हिन्दुत्व, "Hinduness", a word coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet entitled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? ) is the term used to describe movements advocating Hindu nationalism.

In India, an umbrella organization called the Sangh Parivar champions the concept of Hindutva. The sangh comprises organizations such as the RSS, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bajrang Dal, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

This ideology has existed since the early 20th century, forged by Veer Savarkar, but came to prominence in Indian politics in the late 1980s, when two events attracted a large number of mainstream Hindus to the movement. The first of these events was the Rajiv Gandhi government's use of its large Parliamentary Majority to overturn a Supreme Court verdict granting alimony to an old woman that had angered many Muslims (see the Shah Bano case). The second was the dispute over the 16th century Mughal Babri Mosque in Ayodhya — built by Babur after his first major victory in India. The Supreme Court of India refused to take up the case in the early 1990s, leading to a huge outcry. Tempers soon flared, and a huge number of nationalist Hindus from all parts of India razed the mosque in late 1992, causing nationwide communal riots. The razing of the mosque and subsequent conflict arguably lifted the BJP and Hindutva to international prominence.

Contents
[hide]
1 Definition
2 Central concepts
2.1 Integral Humanism
2.2 Cultural Nationalism
2.3 Decolonization
2.4 Social Justice
2.5 Uniform Civil Code
2.6 Protection of Hindu interests
3 Views on other faiths
4 Views on Indian history
5 Organizations
6 Criticism and support
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
10.1 Videos


Definition


Ancient Hindu flag with two pennants.
According to Savarkar, Hindutva is meant to denote the Hindu characteristic, or Hinduness. [1]

In a judgment the Supreme Court of India ruled that "no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms 'Hindu', 'Hindutva' and 'Hinduism'; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage." The Court also ruled that "Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind."[2]

Central concepts
Integral Humanism
Main article: Integral Humanism
It believes in an "integral" and "holistic" approach to create a harmonious society. It does not accept the Western political philosophies as a blueprint for the Indian society, because of their "preoccupation" with materialism[citation needed], and their overall over-looking of the social well-being of the individual. Both capitalism and socialism are seen as inadequate – stimulating as they do from greed, class antagonisms, exploitation and social anarchy.[3]

Cultural Nationalism
According to this, the natives of India share a common culture, history and ancestry.

M S Golwalkar, one of the main proponents of Hindutva believed that India's diversity in terms of customs, traditions and ways of worship was its uniqueness and that this diversity was not without the strong underlying cultural basis which was essentially native. He believed that the Hindu natives with all their diversity, shared among other things "the same philosophy of life", "the same values" and "the same aspirations" which formed a strong cultural and a civilizational basis for a nation.[4]

Savarkar similarly believed that the Indian subcontinent (which includes the area south of the Himalaya and the Hindu Kush or Akhand Bharat (undivided India, अखण्ड भारत) is the homeland of the Hindus. He considered "Hindus" as those who consider India (Bharat, भारत) to be their motherland (matrubhumi), fatherland (pitrubhumi, पितृभूमि) as well as their holy land (punyabhumi, पुण्यभूमि), hence describing it purely in cultural terms.[1].

RSS, one of the main votaries of Hindutva has stated that it believes in a cultural connotation of the term Hindu. "The term Hindu in the conviction as well as in the constitution of the RSS is a cultural and civilizational concept and not a political or religious dogma. The term as a cultural concept will include and did always include all including Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Christians and Parsis. The cultural nationality of India, in the conviction of the RSS, is Hindu and it was inclusive of all who are born and who have adopted Bharat as their Motherland, including Muslims, Christians and Parsis. The answering association submit that it is not just a matter of RSS conviction, but a fact borne out by history that the Muslims, Christians and Parsis too are Hindus by culture although as religions they are not so."[5]

Decolonization
Emphasizing historical oppression of Hindus by Colonial invaders like the Muslims (see Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent) and the Christians (see Goa Inquisition) and the call to "reverse" the cultural influence resulting from these intrusions [4].

Social Justice
The acceptance that Hindu social structure "is ridden with castes and communities", and that this has led to "barriers and segregation" and condemnation of "obnoxious vice of social inequality" and "untouchability".[6].The supporters of Hindutva have a positive outlook towards the Dalit community, which they aim to bring to leadership positions in their organizations.[7]

Uniform Civil Code
Leaders subscribing to Hindutva have been known for their demands for a Uniform Civil Code for all the citizens of India. They believe that differential laws based on religion are violative of Article 44 of Indian Constitution and have sowed the seeds of divisiveness between different religious communities[8].

The advocates of Hindutva often use the term pseudo-secularism to refer to policies which they believe are unduly favorable towards the Muslims and Christians. They oppose what they see as a 'separate-but-equal' system; some supporters of Hindutva see it as the Indian National Congress party's effort to woo the sizable minority vote bank at the expense of true equality[9]. The subject of a Uniform Civil Code, which would remove special religion-based provisions for different religions (Hindus, Muslims, Christians, etc) from the Indian Constitution, is thus one of the main agendas of Hindutva organizations[10]. The Uniform Civil Code is opposed by Muslims[11] and political parties like the Indian National Congress and The Communist Party of India (Marxist)[12]

Followers of Hindutva have questioned differential religious laws in India which allows polygamy and triple talaq among Muslims and thereby compromises on the status of Muslim women and "marginalizes" them[13].

The passing of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 by Rajiv Gandhi government to dilute the secular judgment of Supreme Court under pressure from the conservative Muslims was opposed by Hindutva organisations. The new act, in tune with the Shariat, denied even utterly destitute Muslim divorcees the right to alimony from their former husbands.[14]

Protection of Hindu interests
The followers of Hindutva are known for their criticism of the Indian government as too passive with regard to the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus[15][16] by Kashmiri Muslim separatists and advocates of Hindutva wish a harder stance in Jammu and Kashmir.[17]

They have called for the protection of native Hindu traditions[18] holy structures, rivers[19] and the cow (which is considered holy by Hindus)

Hindu nationalists have the stated aim of uniting the Hindu society which is plagued by casteism, regionalism, and passive religion.

Views on other faiths
The votaries of Hindutva believe that the way Muslims and Hindus have treated each other in the past is a one-way compromise and they intend on making society more balanced and fair towards the majority Hindu population.[20] The BJP has also invited Muslims to be a part of this new society and work with the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs for a better India.[21] Even more militant parties such as the Shiv Sena have invited Muslims to join and the party leader declared after the Babri Mosque incident,

"We must look after the Muslims and treat them as part of us.[22]"

Hindutva groups are supportive of the Jewish State of Israel, including Savarkar himself, who supported Israel during its formation.[23]. The RSS is politically pro-Israel and actively praised the efforts of Ariel Sharon when he visited India.[24][25] R.S.S spokesperson Ram Madhav recently expressed support for Israel.[26]

Views on Indian history
The Hindu organisations like the RSS believe that the history of India was written by the the British with a condescending attitude towards the native people and their culture. M S Golwalkar writes that the history of ancient India was summed up as "Tanglewood Tales". Similar concerns were raised by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in his essay, "The History of Bharatvarsha", in 1903. He calls the history books "nightmarish account of India". He writes "while the lands of the aliens existed, there also existed the indigenous country" meaning the latter was grossly being neglected. He adds that the British accounts of Indian history "throw a beam of artificial light on such a spot that in our own eyes the very profile of our country is made dark". [27]

M S Golwalkar argues that it was a delibrate Imperialist strategy to teach Indians a wrong version of history.[4] In this context, writings of Lord Macaulay,"the brain behind the system of English education", are referred to as an indication of this.[4]

Lord Macaulay had stated "We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and millions whom we govern-a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect." [28]

He had also written "No Hindu who has received an English education ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. It is my firm belief that if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respected classes 30 years hence.” [29]

Senior RSS leader H V Sheshadri refers to this attitude of "White man's burden" which he believes shaped the English education system in India and British version of Indian history. [30]

The RSS is opposed to the theory of Indo-Aryan migration to India, a number believing in the alternative Out of India theory. While largely uncontroversial in academia, the "Aryan Invasion theory" debate in India, involving e.g. Sita Ram Goel, Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib and Arun Shourie, is also a matter of politics.[citation needed]

Further information: Indigenous Aryans and Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies)
Organizations
Main article: Sangh Parivar
Hindutva is commonly identified as the guiding ideology of the Sangh Parivar, a family of Hindu Nationalist organizations, and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in particular. In general, Hindutvavaadis (followers of Hindutva) believe that they represent the well-being of Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Ayyavazhi, Jainism and all other religions prominent in India.

Most nationalists are organized into political, cultural and social organizations. The first Hindutva organisation formed was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, founded in 1925. A prominent Indian political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is closely associated with a group of organisations that advocate Hindutva. They collectively refer to themselves as the "Sangh Parivar" or family of associations, and include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad. Other organisations include:

Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh - Overseas branch of the RSS
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh - Worker's Union
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad - A Student's Union
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh - A Farmers' organisation
The major political wing is the BJP which was in power in India's Central Government for six years from 1998 to 2004 and is now the main opposition party. It is also in power in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and Uttaranchal. It is an alliance partner in the states of Orissa, Punjab, and Bihar.

Political parties pertaining to the Hindutva ideology are not limited to the Sangh Parivar. Examples of political parties independent from the Sangh's influence include Praful Goradia's Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh[31] and Uma Bharti's Bharatiya Janshakti Party.[32] The influence of these groups is relatively limited.

The controversial Maharashtrian political party, the Shiv Sena, converted its ideology to the Hindutva one in recent times. It has been very influential in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The party is not part of the Sangh Parivar but is associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Similar is the Shiromani Akali Dal, which is a Sikh religious party but maintains ties with Hindutva organizations, as they also represent Sikhism.[33]

Criticism and support
The opponents of Hindutva philosophy consider Hindutva ideology as a euphemistic effort to conceal communal beliefs and practices.[citation needed]

Many Indian Marxist sociologues have described the Hindutva movement as fascist in classical sense, in its ideology and class support specially targeting the concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony.[34] The Hindutva movement on the other hand terms such description as coming from the far left.[35][36] More moderate critics of Hindutva do not base their criticism on allegations of "fascism", but raise issues with regards to their sometimes-vacillating attitudes towards non-Hindus and secularism. The epithet of "fascism" is also used to evoke double standards against Hindus in political and academic discourse. The academia and polity have been accused of engaging in a form of anti-Hindu McCarthyism against Hindu political expression by leveling the accusation of "fascism" against anyone who expresses sympathy for Hindus.[37]

Marxist critics,[38] have used the political epithets of "Indian fascism" and "Hindu fascism" to describe the ideology of the Sangh Parivar. For example, Marxist social scientist Prabhat Patnaik has written that the Hindutva movement as it has emerged is "classically fascist in class support, methods and programme"[39]

Patniak bases this argument on the following "ingredients" of classical fascism present in Hindutva: the attempt to create a unified homogenous majority under the concept of 'the Hindus'; a sense of grievance against past injustice; a sense of cultural superiority; an interpretation of history according to this grievance and superiority; a rejection of rational arguments against this interpretation; and an appeal to the majority based on race and masculinity.[citation needed]

Views on Hindutva and fascism include those of the Christian convert to the RSS viewpoint, Anthony Elenjimittan, who based his views on RSS's symbolism of the Bhagva (the banner of lord Shiva), Dharma Chakra [the Wheel of Faith] and Satyameva Jayate [Truth alone triumphs] (one must note that these symbols are normative in Hinduism and bear no relation to Hindutva and the latter is the national motto of a secular democratic India).[citation needed]

The description of Hindutva as fascist has been condemned by pro-Hindutva authors such as Koenraad Elst who claim that the ideology of Hindutva meets none of the characteristics of fascist ideologies. Claims that Hindutva social service organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are "fascist" have been disputed by academics such as Vincent Kundukulam.[40]

Academics Chetan Bhatt and Parita Mukta reject the identification of Hindutva with fascism, because of Hindutva's embrace of cultural rather than racial nationalism, because of its "distinctively Indian" character, and because of "the RSS’s disavowal of the seizure of state power in preference for long-term cultural labour in civil society". They instead describe Hindutva as a form of "revolutionary conservatism" or "ethnic absolutism".[41].

Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul also rejects these allegations and views the rise of Hindutva as a welcome, broader civilizational resurgence of India.[42]

See also
Veer Savarkar
Indian nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalist parties
Uniform civil code
References
^ a b Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar: Hindutva, Bharati Sahitya Sadan, Delhi 1989 (1923)
^ Supreme Court on Hindu Hindutva and Hinduism
^ Upadhaya Deendayal, Integral Humanism
^ a b c d M S Golwalkar (1966), Bunch of thoughts, Publishers: Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana
^ Quoting RSS General Secretary's reply to the Tribunal constituted under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 to hear the case on the RSS, Organiser, June 6, 1993
^ M. G. Chitkara 2004, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Published by APH Publishing, ISBN 8176484652, 9788176484657 (Quoting Late RSS leader Balasaheb Deoras "If untouchability is not a sin, nothing is a sin").
^ Organize under Dalit leadership: RSS
^ BJP leader, Rajnath Singh demanding Uniform Civil Code
^ [1]
^ Uniform Civil Code, Article 370 back on BJP Agenda http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Uniform-civil-code-Article-370-back-on-BJP-agenda/317218/
^ http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=23591
^ Uniform civil code will divide the country on communal lines: Congress
^ http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=239&page=36
^ Shah Bano Case
^ See refs in Kashmiri Pandit
^ see refs in Wandhama massacre
^ Indian Summer looks set to become a long autumn by Robert Jenkins
^ Speech by RSS leader K S Sudarshan,Oct 18 2008
^ 'Save Ganga' Campaign by RSS, BJP
^ BJP Official Website See philosophy
^ Bharatiya Janata Party Official Website Hindutva: The Great Nationalistic Ideology
^ The Rediff Election Interview/Bal Thackeray,Rediff.com
^ Hindu-Zion
^ The Hindu
^ Rediff
^ Press spotlight on Sharon's India visit,BBC
^ Rabindranath Tagore, The History of Bharatavarsha, Bhadra 1309 Bengal Era (August 1903)
^ George Anderson, Manilal Bhagwandes Sudebar, The Last Days of the Company: A Source Book of Indian History, 1818-1858, Published by G. Bell, 1921
^ Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson, Imagined Communities:Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Edition: 2, revised Published by Verso, 1991, ISBN 0860915468, 9780860915461
^ Sheshadri H V, Tragic story of Partition, Publisher: Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana
^ Jana Sangh promises to make India Hindu nation
^ Uma launches new party
^ SAD-BJP Alliance helped bridge Hindu Sikh gap Indian Express
^ Fascism of our times Prabhat Patnaik
^ eg. Partha Banergee
^ - Rajesh Tembarai Krishnamachari, South Asia Analysis Group
^ Puzzling Dimensions and Theoretical Knots in my Graduate School Research, Yvette Rosser
^ eg. Partha Banergee, Romila Thapar, Himani Bannerji, Prabhat Patnaik
^ "The Fascism of Our Times" Social Scientist VOl 21 No.3-4, 1993, p.69[2]
^ Christian Post,archive link
^ Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 23 Number 3 May 2000 pp. 407–441 ISSN 0141–9870 print/ISSN 1466–4356 online
^ Naipaul V.S. India, a million Mutinies now, Penguin 1992
Further reading
Andersen, Walter K., ‘Bharatiya Janata Party: Searching for the Hindu Nationalist Face’, In The New Politics of the Right: Neo–Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies, ed. Hans–Georg Betz and Stefan Immerfall (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), pp. 219–232. (ISBN 0-312-21134-1 or ISBN 0-312-21338-7)
Banerjee, Partha, In the Belly of the Beast: The Hindu Supremacist RSS and BJP of India (Delhi: Ajanta, 1998). (ISBN 81-202-0504-2) (ISBN not available)
Bhatt Chetan, Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths, Berg Publishers (2001), ISBN 1859733484.
Elst, Koenraad: The Saffron Swastika. The Notion of "Hindu Fascism". New Delhi: Voice of India, 2001, 2 Vols., ISBN 81-85990-69-7 [3], [4]
Elst, Koenraad: Decolonizing the Hindu Mind. Ideological Development of Hindu Revivalism. Rupa, Delhi 2001.
Embree, Ainslie T. , ‘The Function of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: To Define the Hindu Nation’, in Accounting for Fundamentalisms, The Fundamentalism Project 4, ed. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 617–652. (ISBN 0-226-50885-4)
Goel, Sita Ram: Perversion of India's Political Parlance. Voice of India, Delhi 1984. [5]
Goel, Sita Ram (editor): Time for Stock Taking. Whither Sangh Parivar? 1996.
Gold, Daniel, 'Organized Hinduisms: From Vedic Truths to Hindu Nation' in: Fundamentalisms Observed The Fundamentalism Project vol. 4, eds. M. E. Marty, R. S. Appleby, University Of Chicago Press (1994), ISBN 978-0226508788, pp. 531-593.
Ruthven, Malise, Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA (2007), ISBN 978-0199212705.
Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar: Hindutva Bharati Sahitya Sadan, Delhi 1989 (1923).
Sharma, Jyotirmaya, Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism, Penguin Global (2004), ISBN 0670049905.
Shourie, Arun: A Secular Agenda. HarperCollins ISBN 81-7223-258-6
Smith, David James, Hinduism and Modernity, Blackwell Publishing ISBN 0-631-20862-3
External links
Veer Savarkar Website
Article by Koenraad Elst on allegations of "Hindu fascism", More articles on "Hindu fascism"
Hindu Holocaust Museum
Article on Hindutva by Ashok Chowgule
"Hindutva" by VD Savarkar at Hindus Arise.com
Report of Human Rights Watch, referring to the role of Hindutva organisations in the Gujarat Riots 2002
The Myth of the Hindu Right
Videos
Film on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits.
[show] v • d • eHindu reform movements

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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva"
Categories: Hindutva | Political ideologies

BJP'S DESPERATE SEARCH FOR A NEW IMAGE

M K DHAR

Ever since the electorate turned its back on the Bharatiya Janata Party, it is desperately trying to coin a new slogan to help it catapult to power again. The odds presently being against it and factional fights having come to surface as never before, demoralization has set in among its leadership, as well as, the ranks. President L K Advani's desperate attempt to hijack the party and its core ideology to suit his political ambitions has led to open clash between the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh and its affiliates and the Advani minority faction of the BJP. Despite his shrewdness and manipulative capabilities, Advani stands isolated, though he does not admit it. He has made peace in order to continue in office. Advani's praise for Mohammad Ali Jinnah has offended not only each and every individual in the Sangh Parivar, but has also left a bad taste in the mouth of the secular formations in the country. Being stubborn, he refuses to admit his guilt before the Parivar, which nurtured him and made it possible for him to become deputy Prime Minister and new leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. Every dyed-in-the wool parivar member knows he or she has ascended to leadership via the RSS route and it is not possible for the BJP leaders to survive in politics after snapping the umbilical cord with the RSS. This does not apply to opportunists and influence peddlers who may have joined the BJP to advance their personal or business interests. Without the RSS foot soldiers and muscle power, not a single BJP leader, Advani and Vajpayee included, can ever win a parliamentary or assembly seat.

Several reasons have been advanced to explain the sudden U-turn in Advani's stand on partition of the sub-continent, but all hint at his personal ambition to project himself as a moderate and secular leader and to jettison his image of a Hindutva jehadi. But, all this talk of his trying to make the RSS jettison its core Hindutva, nationalist and Akhand Bharat ideology in order to "modernize" the BJP and its associates is hogwash. It was the emotional frenzy built over the issue of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya which catapulted the BJP to power in 1999 in alliance with a few other anti-Congress parties. Now that the temple slogan has lost its appeal, Advani is desperately looking for another issue to galvanise the Hindu right vote for his
party. Voters who were swayed off their feet by the emotion-charged religious appeal felt cheated and expressed their anger by voting the BJP out of power last year.

Therefore, the terrorist attack on the disputed site at Ayodhya will not enable Advani to revive the issue. The manner in which the BJP conducted itself in government for five years has caused dismay among the rank and file and resentment in the RSS, whose leader K S Sudarshan openly asked Advani and Vajpayee both to retire gracefully and not play and further with the party's fortunes. But, at the same time, one should not under-estimate the resilience and staying power of the BJP leaders. Making sure that Vajpayee was in retirement and would not be fit to lead the party again four years hence. Advani is trying to wear the former Prime Minister's "mukhota" (mask) in order to project himself as a moderate leader who should be acceptable to
his coalition partners, as also other countries. While Vajpayee was a little refined in this approach, Advani is not able to hide his impatience and his methods lack refinement. This was revealed during his recent Pakistan tour, where he tried to imitate Vajpayee who went to Lahore in a bus to embrace a wily Nawaz Sharif, who held a dagger in one hand pointed at the then Indian Prime Minister's back. Vajpayee also sanctified the two-nation theory and debunked secularism when he visited Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, a place where the Indian Muslim League under Jinnah had passed the historical resolution demanding partition of India along communal lines. The Hindutva leader heaped praise upon the creator of Pakistan, an Islamic republic. The RSS leadership was somewhat annoyed, but kept its cool fearing that any open rebuke of Vajpayee might destabilise the NDA government and ruin BJP's opportunity to exercise power at the Centre. But, from time to time the RSS leaders conveyed their displeasure but were mollified by Vajpayee, who regularly attended their public rallies.

But the RSS is working under no such constraint, now that the BJP is out of power and drifting, not only in terms of ideology as the RSS sees it, but also its programme and hold on the people. Though Sudarshan's call to both Vajpayee and Advani to retire from politics went unheeded, the RSS did not hesitate to severely reprimand Advani for his Jinnah-related blunders. He was reprimanded for ideological erosion, behavioural misdemeanour and violation of organisational discipline with impunity. Pravin Togadia was reprimanded for calling Advani a "traitor" in public. This is as strong a chargesheet against Advani as could be and conveys the RSS leadership's total disapproval of his utterances and his subsequent conduct, including his reference to the Gita to liken himself to Arjun, who was motivated to defend his right and fight for the right cause. Such self-adulation by Advani sounded somewhat amusing to the RSS hierarchy. Advani, an uncompromising ideologue, himself was a "pracharak" before graduating into politics. Though Vajpayee gave the impression of being his own man, he owes deep loyalty to the RSS. During the last Lok Sabha session, when the RSS was under attack, Vajpayee stood up to defend the role of the organisation and announced that he belonged to the RSS and was proud of it. It is unthinkable, therefore, that Advani would have openly repudiated the RSS's ideology and its assessment of Jinnah's divisive role in Indian politics without deep thought and calculation. He has asked his secretary Sureendra Kulkarni to write the speech he delivered and seen it in advance and, having delivered it, defended every word he had said, though he tried to shift ground by referring to Jinnah's Constituent Assembly speech. For writing a note asking the BJP leadership to shed its communal image and woo the Muslim voter, Kulkarni has been sacked. But that did not deflect criticism from Advani who, despite his seniority and services to extremist politics and narrow Hindutva ideology has been severely reprimanded.

The military dictatorship controlling the religious state of Pakistan felt at ease with the BJP in power in India in the belief that business was possible between two religious states, particularly when it comes to resolve the Kashmir issue. The Pakistani leadership was shell-shocked at BJP's defeat because an understanding between two distinct religious formations was possible. That would not be so with a secular leadership in India which considers Kashmir as the symbol of Indian secularism and hence non-negotiable. The other motive behind Advani's electoral thesis is, of course, is
wooing of the Muslims, who never supported the BJP, despite Vajpayee's sweet talk and Pakistan peace mission in any parliamentary election. In the last election they carefully voted for candidates who had the best chance of defeating the BJP candidates and ensured the party's dismal performance in UP and Bihar. The Muslim voters have thus demonstrated repeatedly that they are neither impressed by foreign policy issues, nor guided in their decisions by the state of Indo-Pakistan relations. On the whole, they have cast their vote in favour of secular parties notwithstanding what some show-piece and rootless Muslims invited the BJP to occupy some posts for the purpose of image correction might say. Ever since the Rath Yatras, Advani has relied on a majoritarian framework as the basis of political moblisation and communalised the political terrain. He and his ilk believe that while the state can be "secular", yet the texture of politics can be communal. Those who do not agree with this thesis are branded "pseudo–secularists" who include all except the Sangh parivar. It is to Advani's regret that while Jinnah realised his goal of a state based on a single race, ethnicity and cultural unity, the Hindu communalists could not realise their dream of a Hindu Rashtra. With the RSS having asserted itself, any deviation from policy by the BJP leadership is now ruled out. Therefore, which alternative course can the party adopt to refurbish its image, which has rusted even so far as hardcore Hindus are concerned, and coin a new slogan to mobilise the masses? Temple agitation has lost steam and another emotive issue is not yet at hand. Raising emotions on the basis of terrorist attacks on places of worship will be futile, because there were more such attacks during the BJP regime under Vajpayee – Advani. In the economic sphere, there is not much to oppose the government, which is committed to liberalisation and reform, except, of course, TV-focused demonstrations against petrol price hike and the like. Even George Fernandes, who is ideologically at ease with any party except the Congress, failed to broker peace and is now worried about the
future of the NDA, or what is still left of it. Advani may be thinking that the BJP needs a radical change and image in order to woo Muslims. To survive, it must radically reorient its thinking and programme, give up communal politics, stop operating the masses on the temple issue, adopt genuinely secular and forward looking economic policies, which are growth oriented and develop the social sector. It should not invoke Jinnah to justify its existence as a communal party and hope to survive and move forward.

http://www.dayafterindia.com/june205/politics1.html



BJP’s Wait for Stimulus Kit
Written by NT Network
Friday, 07 August 2009 02:07
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P RAMAN
THE friends of BJP are looking up with great hopes to a three-day ‘chintan baithak’ beginning from August 17 to chart out a revival plan for the ailing party. Detailed agenda is not yet ready. Normally, such ‘baithaks’ are confined to a compact 30 to 40 top leaders, mostly from the BJP and some from the greater RSS parivar. However, intense lobbying for the invites for the conclave has already begun – symptomatic of the ongoing acute ego war within the main opposition party.


Entry into the ‘G40’ is important because those outside of it stand little chance of wresting crucial positions in the revamped set-up. For the wrangling GenNext, the only significance of the Mumbai baithak is that it will indicate who will become what in BJP. Other issues like dealing with the Hindutva baggage, micro-management by the RSS and Swadeshi versus reform fundamentalism are all marginal matters for them. It is too early to say whether the parivar leaders will be inclined to look into a host of other knotty issues that have been plaguing the organisation for years.
Hindutva: A Non-Negotiable Issue
Ever since the BJP lost power in the 2004 elections, influential sections with huge resources have been forcing its leaders to go in for a total image makeover. This included a tactical de-linking from the Hindutva and dumping of the micro-management by the RSS. Once this is achieved, the BJP could quickly metamorphose itself into the country’s main right-of-centre party. The idea got a fillip when the party began losing state elections after the 2004 rout. Among its advocates are domestic corporate honchos who have been treating the BJP in the matter of donations almost of par with the Congress.
Foreign powers, who have been uncomfortable with the myriad regional parties, always worked for a ‘stable’ two-party system. Reordering of the BJP has been part of the overall objective of strategic partnership. This is the only way to remove the uncertainties of coalitions. Over the period, Mr Advani has been handed so many studies to prove the advantages of turning the BJP into a stable right-of-centre party for which there existed larger political space in India. After the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the domestic media picked up the theme with greater ferocity. This was reinforced by stories about Mr Advani’s ‘bold’ initiatives.
For the BJP, the whole idea is rubbish. Even before the scheduled ‘chintan baithak’, both the BJP and parivar bosses make it clear that Hindutva is a settled issue, and is totally non-negotiable. The RSS has unequivocally told the BJP’s ‘pseudo secularists’ that those who feel shy of Hindutva, should also be prepared to fight elections without the parivar’s cadre support. Hence the only question remaining is how best the BJP could balance Hindutva ideology with the requirements of wider electoral support.
Dearth of Good Leadership
The other immediate questions: Who will lead the BJP? Will the present arrangement continue with Mr Rajnath Singh and Mr Advani at respective positions? What about inducting the much talked about GenNext? Possibly, none these crucial issues will be settled at the baithak if the previous experience is any indication. The Sariska baithak of 90s alone was an exception. There ideological issues like economic liberalisation and globalisation and details of organisational norms were discussed threadbare. Since then baithaks became routine and stale.
Dearth of right leadership is a problem with both BJP and RSS. Absence of political operators like Mr Pramod Mahajan makes meaningful interaction difficult. Personalisation of ideological and policy matters, and suspicion and mutual mistrust is having its toll on a frank and fair debates within the parivar. Here is a party which has not been able to analyse its election failures even after two months and half. Now a secret study is being made admittedly to avoid ego clashes. Why ‘secret’? To avoid bitterness. Mutual mudslinging, sabotage and rebel activities have become the order of the day. Responsible leaders of the party have charged the BJP leadership with factionalism and favouritism. Mr Arun Shourie has had long pieces on the patron-client culture under the present BJP dispensation.
Considerable erosion of RSS’ on moral authority makes any real breakthrough at the conclave difficult. As against fishing expeditions, what the BJP needs is a serious heart search into its present plight where its party structure, once a pride, remain in shambles. This was the price it had to pay for the mindless Congressisation. Mr Advani’s long stewardship of the party had lifted it from a two-MP outfit to ruling party. But in the process, he has destroyed a sound collective leadership system under equals and turned it into a durbar rule. Old veterans either become inactive or shunted out, some as governors.
During Mr Advani’s days, powers of crucial decision-making were passed on to the GenNext he himself picked up. His backroom boys were drawn mostly from among the failed scribes. They came up with bright ideas some of which were against the ethos of the parivar. The dual formula of using the parivar cadre and business resources with massive media support, did work well until the sharp contradictions showed from the VHP-Bajrang ranks. Repeated election failures and Jinah remarks finally led the experiment to its logical fate. The collapse of the Advani project has been the finale. The tragedy is that the BJP now has to begin from scratch. The highly personalised Advani structure has disintegrated. Three years under, Mr Rajnath Singh has proved this dilemma. The Advani system can work only under Mr Advani. Trained to be second rank, the new set is not in a position either to command a party like the BJP or work as a cohesive group. Each of them pulls things in different directions. Look at the chaotic election management. And now the BJP’s MP chief minister curtly rejects Mr Advani’s request to nominate Mr Chandan Mitra as Rajya Sabha candidate. Such defiance might have been unthinkable five years back.
Mr Advani had amended the party constitution to facilitate personalised party management. In the absence of a powerful presiding deity, a return to collective functioning and dialogue by the equals will become inevitable. Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, the only surviving old guard, can still do the course correction. But the Advani camp will never allow this to happen. Under the circumstances, the chintan baithak can yield any positive results only if the RSS resorts to some positive arm-twisting. Otherwise it will turn out to be another futile exercise with each power group trying to avoid basic changes. And, so far there is no sign of sweeping initiatives from the RSS side.


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P RAMAN

BJP’s Wait for Stimulus Kit
THE friends of BJP are looking up with great hopes to a three-day ‘chintan baithak’ beginning from August 17 to chart out a revival plan for the ailing party. Detailed agenda is not yet ready. Normally, such ‘baithaks’ are confined to a compact 30 to 40 top leaders, mostly from the BJP and some from the greater RSS parivar. However, intense lobbying for the invites for the conclave has already begun – symptomatic of the ongoing acute ego war within the main opposition party.


Entry into the ‘G40’ is important because those outside of it stand little chance of wresting crucial positions in the revamped set-up. For the wrangling GenNext, the only significance of the Mumbai baithak is that it will indicate who will become what in BJP. Other issues like dealing with the Hindutva baggage, micro-management by the RSS and Swadeshi versus reform fundamentalism are all marginal matters for them. It is too early to say whether the parivar leaders will be inclined to look into a host of other knotty issues that have been plaguing the organisation for years.
Hindutva: A Non-Negotiable Issue
Ever since the BJP lost power in the 2004 elections, influential sections with huge resources have been forcing its leaders to go in for a total image makeover. This included a tactical de-linking from the Hindutva and dumping of the micro-management by the RSS. Once this is achieved, the BJP could quickly metamorphose itself into the country’s main right-of-centre party. The idea got a fillip when the party began losing state elections after the 2004 rout. Among its advocates are domestic corporate honchos who have been treating the BJP in the matter of donations almost of par with the Congress.
Foreign powers, who have been uncomfortable with the myriad regional parties, always worked for a ‘stable’ two-party system. Reordering of the BJP has been part of the overall objective of strategic partnership. This is the only way to remove the uncertainties of coalitions. Over the period, Mr Advani has been handed so many studies to prove the advantages of turning the BJP into a stable right-of-centre party for which there existed larger political space in India. After the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the domestic media picked up the theme with greater ferocity. This was reinforced by stories about Mr Advani’s ‘bold’ initiatives.
For the BJP, the whole idea is rubbish. Even before the scheduled ‘chintan baithak’, both the BJP and parivar bosses make it clear that Hindutva is a settled issue, and is totally non-negotiable. The RSS has unequivocally told the BJP’s ‘pseudo secularists’ that those who feel shy of Hindutva, should also be prepared to fight elections without the parivar’s cadre support. Hence the only question remaining is how best the BJP could balance Hindutva ideology with the requirements of wider electoral support.
Dearth of Good Leadership
The other immediate questions: Who will lead the BJP? Will the present arrangement continue with Mr Rajnath Singh and Mr Advani at respective positions? What about inducting the much talked about GenNext? Possibly, none these crucial issues will be settled at the baithak if the previous experience is any indication. The Sariska baithak of 90s alone was an exception. There ideological issues like economic liberalisation and globalisation and details of organisational norms were discussed threadbare. Since then baithaks became routine and stale.
Dearth of right leadership is a problem with both BJP and RSS. Absence of political operators like Mr Pramod Mahajan makes meaningful interaction difficult. Personalisation of ideological and policy matters, and suspicion and mutual mistrust is having its toll on a frank and fair debates within the parivar. Here is a party which has not been able to analyse its election failures even after two months and half. Now a secret study is being made admittedly to avoid ego clashes. Why ‘secret’? To avoid bitterness. Mutual mudslinging, sabotage and rebel activities have become the order of the day. Responsible leaders of the party have charged the BJP leadership with factionalism and favouritism. Mr Arun Shourie has had long pieces on the patron-client culture under the present BJP dispensation.
Considerable erosion of RSS’ on moral authority makes any real breakthrough at the conclave difficult. As against fishing expeditions, what the BJP needs is a serious heart search into its present plight where its party structure, once a pride, remain in shambles. This was the price it had to pay for the mindless Congressisation. Mr Advani’s long stewardship of the party had lifted it from a two-MP outfit to ruling party. But in the process, he has destroyed a sound collective leadership system under equals and turned it into a durbar rule. Old veterans either become inactive or shunted out, some as governors.
During Mr Advani’s days, powers of crucial decision-making were passed on to the GenNext he himself picked up. His backroom boys were drawn mostly from among the failed scribes. They came up with bright ideas some of which were against the ethos of the parivar. The dual formula of using the parivar cadre and business resources with massive media support, did work well until the sharp contradictions showed from the VHP-Bajrang ranks. Repeated election failures and Jinah remarks finally led the experiment to its logical fate. The collapse of the Advani project has been the finale. The tragedy is that the BJP now has to begin from scratch. The highly personalised Advani structure has disintegrated. Three years under, Mr Rajnath Singh has proved this dilemma. The Advani system can work only under Mr Advani. Trained to be second rank, the new set is not in a position either to command a party like the BJP or work as a cohesive group. Each of them pulls things in different directions. Look at the chaotic election management. And now the BJP’s MP chief minister curtly rejects Mr Advani’s request to nominate Mr Chandan Mitra as Rajya Sabha candidate. Such defiance might have been unthinkable five years back.
Mr Advani had amended the party constitution to facilitate personalised party management. In the absence of a powerful presiding deity, a return to collective functioning and dialogue by the equals will become inevitable. Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, the only surviving old guard, can still do the course correction. But the Advani camp will never allow this to happen. Under the circumstances, the chintan baithak can yield any positive results only if the RSS resorts to some positive arm-twisting. Otherwise it will turn out to be another futile exercise with each power group trying to avoid basic changes. And, so far there is no sign of sweeping initiatives from the RSS side.

http://www.navhindtimes.in/opinions/1753-bjps-wait-for-stimulus-kit



Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?


Sunday, 12 February 2006 16:55
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate
Is Hindutva The Indian Left's 'Other'?
Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva 'Other' for its own self-definition? Third piece in the on-going debate.


Vijay Prashad’s note [Fundamental Issues] hereinafter "VPN", simply fails to address the bulk of the issues I had raised in my first piece [A Dialogue With The Indian Left]. It diverts from the issues using a combination of three methods:

(A) VPN is filled with name-dropping of works by third parties (over 25 names). It’s okay to give specific quotes and thereby let an author’s words speak directly. But sending each other our respective bibliographies does not address an issue, and would only be suitable for some "Name That Quote" type of game.

(B) Vijay slips into the common weakness of defending the citadel , through irrelevant praise for peers and for the system that sustains them. Here, I raise the issue of the role of power in institutionalized South Asian Studies. Especially since VPN criticizes "the American Empire" as the world’s top culprit today, I wish to ask Vijay how US institutional funding of South Asian Studies compares to the East India Company’s control over Indology and the way the colonial/imperial masters used power (combining funding, symbolic credibility, and positional authority) to produce Orientalism.

If Vijay disagrees with this comparison, on what basis does he claim that American imperialism (to use his own expression) is less prejudiced than British imperialism was? In other words, he should shoulder the burden to prove that American power is not mixed up in the intellectual discourse about others. This will pose tricky choices for Vijay, between

(i) freedom of critical inquiry claimed by the academician-activist on the one hand (important for his credibility), and

(ii) the academician-activist’s career considerations (which are enmeshed in what VPN alleges to be "American imperialism") on the other.

How do many of today’s desi South Asianists really differ from what became known as the Brown Sahibs in 19th century Bengal? The role of power in discourse simply cannot be ignored. One has to track the funding flows beginning in the Cold War era to the present from western governments, churches, corporate foundations into the construction of South Asianism today.

(C) VPN brings in standard third party "culprits" as diversions, even though the given conceptual issues are independent of any individuals. There seems to be an initiation ceremony required these days, a sort of agni pariksha to prove oneself free of "fascism", "Nazism", "chauvinism", "fundamentalism", and a whole litany of branded terms. Leftist discourse these days has become too often reduced to bumper-stickers attacking some standard list of Hindutva – Arun Shourie, Elst, Savarkar, Frawley, BJP, etc. – with the Hindutva fans pouncing back to counter-attack in equally naïve ways, and, meanwhile, the real issues get side-tracked.

But since I have no reason to defend Hindutva leaders or ideology, we cannot get diverted in this manner. The question this raises, especially in light of item B above is: Is Hindutva the Indian Left’s "other"? Why does the Left fail to answer questions about its first principles without resorting to the Hindutva other for its own self-definition?

I agree with VPN that: "This is a good opportunity to fight over our first principles and our methods of analysis" (emphasis supplied). However, "first principles" and "methods of analysis" are not being dealt with in most of VPN. Using prestigious writers’ names as proxies makes his positions second principles, not first. Defending the citadel (of "American imperialism’s" study of others) to fortify his positions makes them third principles. Finally, using the Hindutva other to define/defend his positions makes them fourth principles. To be first principles, he must get rid of the three intellectual crutches mentioned here.

A. The Left And Right As Categories

VPN rightly rejects the idea of the left as a universal. But then he goes on to use "Left" (with a capital "L") many times to represent himself. Frankly, I have no problem either way, as I am more interested in issues and where someone stands.

But VPN simply ignores my interrogation of whether the left/right are appropriate categories for the understanding of India. I mentioned Liberation Theology and Gandhi as examples that do not fit this schema. By simply saying that there are many lefts, VPN does not remove this fundamental question about categories from the discussion table. Yes, there are many lefts, so Vijay should clearly articulate and differentiate the one he subscribes to and deal with the issue: why is left/right the best lens to interpret India?

B. History-Centrism

VPN simply ignores my very specific thesis about History-Centrism

A religion based primarily on a unique Historical Event (typically involving a unique Prophet) is History-Centric, because History turns into a form of social capital controlled by the institution. Abrahamic religions tend to have a core of literalist dogma that is their proprietary and non-negotiable History of God’s interventions. This form of social capital is extremely powerful in sustaining the authority and credibility of certain institutions and groups. Absolute History becomes the main property of the institution, which derives its power by interpreting it, and by having the exclusive franchise to preach/distribute it, and it does this in the name of protecting and propagating God’s Truth. Any challenge to the official account of History is seen a threat that would dilute or undermine the institutional authority. Hence, History fuels fundamentalism and conflicts.

I thought this insight from me would be a great opening for the Left, especially since I take the position in my aforementioned essay that Hindutva is attempting to turn Hinduism into a History-Centric religion: with Ram akin to Jesus and Ayodhya akin to Jerusalem, etc. Hinduism has not in the past been History-Centric for its most part, and hence has remained pliable and accommodative, easily "negotiable." My History-Centrism based critique of Hindutva is an internal critique from a solid Hindu perspective. It is one of my main reasons for not being a supporter of Hindutva.

Furthermore, when seen as non History-Centric, the legitimacy of Hinduism is not contingent upon "revising" or "correcting" any account of history. History, therefore, assumes a different significance, and God is either left out of it, or else is omnipresent so that no event is a unique intervention. The study of history becomes mainly for general interest and for deeper insights. But it ceases to be a necessary condition for the legitimacy of Hindu epistemological claims. This alone could de-intensify much of the Left vs. Hindutva tension today, which in my opinion does not deal with core issues.

History-Centrism needs to be included in the taxonomy for studying religions. It is an important factor in making religion normative and rigid. All the problems with Grand Narratives that are found in postmodern critiques get amplified one hundred-fold when God is the GN’s central protagonist, and especially when this is to be God’s only appearance, or the most authentic appearance recorded, or the final one.

So, frankly, I was disappointed that VPN failed to take note of my thesis. I consider this to be a solid plank for Liberation Hinduism along the lines of Liberation Theology from the Catholics – an approach that the Indian Left ought to embrace.

VPN states: "We always maintain a clear distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva." Vijay might want to become clearer on what his philosophical distinctions between these two are, so we may compare our thoughts. I would suggest that he would find the issue of History-Centrism to be very useful in this. On the other hand, the rhetoric about "pogroms," etc. is political, worn out, challenged by counter-claims, and ignores the underlying epistemological ideas concerning the very nature of Hinduism.

C. Teleology And 'Progress'

VPN states: "There is neither a singular "Left" nor is there one ‘Marxist Grand Narrative.’" While there may be multiple Marxist GNs, my point still holds: Each Marxist GN has some teleological trajectories that every society is supposed to follow. These tend to be linear theories of History, very much like in the Abrahamic religions. From-Evil-to-Good gets replaced with secular "progress" as the linear trajectory that must apply to all societies. VPN’s statement that there are several versions of the Marxist GN merely makes the issue more complex.

In particular, I had raised the issue of whether "progress" must be discontinuous, as "revolutions" imply, or whether it can be adaptive, as was usually the case in India’s past. This is important. "Progressives" (a self-description by the Indian Left) often assume that moving forward requires denigrating the past. This is why anyone suspected of re-visiting India’s past with appreciation (especially if it is about the pre-Islamic period) is instantly branded a "chauvinist," presumably for fear that the case for continuous progress would undermine the revolution for discontinuous progress. Because only one kind of possible progress is allowed by the Left, those who oppose their revolution must, by inference, be accused of going back in time to some idealized past. I submit that the multiplicity of Indic models of progress must be examined critically. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has done this. There is no monopoly on the meaning of progress.

Furthermore, I suggest that this notion of discontinuity is borrowed from the Abrahamic religions. Being History-Centric, Abrahamic religions relied on a new Revelation to replace the previous Truth. This had to be discontinuous and abrupt. The old view had to be rejected, books burnt, the old practitioners demonized as witches, pagans, kafirs, whatever. There was no way to simply let them remain and live alongside with respect into the new system of belief. This, I claim, is the result of absolutist Religious Grand Narratives of History.

Marxism, as a non-theistic form of Abrahamism, generated Grand Narratives - whether Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism or Maoism varieties – energized by a call for an Apocalypse to bring about an idealized city with an ideal human citizen. To implement these Grand Narratives, Stalinist, Maoist and Pol Potist pogroms by the Communist state murdered millions in the name of cleansing society of its past traditions and culture. The need for such destruction is repeatedly articulated in terms of the need for struggle and fight, and this feeds the Left’s frenzy to identify conflicts and target the evil others.

As a less troubling way of understanding the impact of history-centrism, let’s think of software for an analogy: A new release comes out, but many consumers continue using prior releases. In fact, the new release might explicitly allow for old releases to function alongside. This is the Indic way of change. Old and new co-exist without discontinuity, because there is no "One True Canon From God" with fresh covenants ordering the replacement (destruction) of the software and old user manuals.

Now consider an entirely different kind of policy from God (as owner of the rules/software): Each new release mandates that everyone must convert to it, that old releases must get destroyed, and that whatever useful stuff there might have been in the old releases is understood to have already been incorporated into the new release by the developers (who control the intellectual property).

This latter way is how the Abrahamic changes have been: (i) Release 1 said there was Adam/Eve’s Original Sin that caused Eternal Damnation upon all humans thereafter. (ii) Release 2 gave the Jews a special escape clause for Salvation, because they were "chosen" by God. Note that Release 1’s narrative got subsumed in Release 2 and ceased to have its stand-alone legitimacy. (iii) Release 3 came when God wanted to extend his offer to "save" everyone (from Eternal Damnation) and sent his only son (hence it cannot happen ever again) – i.e. Christianity was installed. (iv) Release 4 came when God realized that humans messed up the old releases (i.e. too many viruses got in), so he sent Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to install the latest and final release. Being final makes it impossible to change without calling God incompetent, and that would be blasphemy. Hence, Islam has remained stuck in a literalist interpretation of Koran (God’s latest and final release).

The Ahmeddiyas (an Islamic sect) claim that their 19th century leader was a new prophet of Islam, who brought a new release of God’s software to operate human society. In this new release’s interpretation of History, Hindu texts such as Vedas are considered as valid old releases that must be respected even though they are not the latest, and he also specifically stated that Ram was a genuine prophet of God. The Ahmeddiya sect is illegal in Pakistan, and every Ahmeddiya must have a stamp on his/her Pakistani passport saying that "this person is not a Muslim." For an Ahmeddiya to call himself/herself a Muslim is a criminal offense in Pakistan. Such is the power of History-Centrism. Every Islamic State in the world has its own official History-Centrism that becomes the basis for State Law.

Hinduism does not work this way. Vedas were followed by Upanishads, later by many darshanas of various worldviews (debated over many centuries by thousands of persons), then later by Puranas, and then came Bhakti saints, etc. There were plenty of successful challenges from lower echelons, women, etc. – so activists please do not ignore this periodic internal reformation capability. That all these old releases from Hinduism’s past still survive and thrive today demonstrates continuity of change and the voluntary nature of upgrading to any new release. There has never been any central authority to mandate all Hindus to upgrade to the latest release. Hence, you find Hindus practicing all vintages of releases. Unfortunately, this has often been denigrated as the mark of primitiveness, when it deserves to be seen as the epitome of tolerance, religious freedom, and as the world’s pre-eminent on-going laboratory for creative new releases to emerge.

Recently, we saw Sri Aurobindo’s own very original theories, and there is a long list of entirely new 20th century exemplars who are not from within any institution. So it’s like a free-market of ideas. As in Silicon Valley, you can set up shop and the market will accept or reject. (BTW, this is why the Deepak Chopra phenomenon is better than the canonized fossilized "finality" approach of Abrahamism. This tradition of every generation having its own Deepak Chopras to choose from has its advantages over History-Centrism in terms of the flexibility it has provided the Hindus. The system does not allow any one-and-only or final Deepak Chopra.)

None of these changes replaced the prior releases, but simply added to the mix of ideas, symbols, practices, narratives - like downloadable shareware. So a given user may select whatever combination or custom configuration works for him/her, change it during his/her life without having to get approved by anyone, and leave others alone to do their individual thing. I claim that this flexibility would be impossible if Hinduism were History-Centric because there could be only one true account of History (especially involving God) and all others would have to be falsified.

Once you approach comparative religion in terms of History-Centrism or lack of it (which no teacher to the best of my knowledge does), it also becomes clear why Sufis and certain Hindu sects got along perfectly: these were non history-Centric individuals on both sides and their boundaries were blurred because History took the back-seat. My essay explains how the mystics of Abrahamic religions remained on the margins, while History-Centric institutions seized power.

This gives a new approach to interpreting religious conflict based on historical events, historical claims and historical holy sites – from the Middle East to India to various other places.

The entire Islamic conflict with the Ahmeddiyas is because the latter’s foundation rests on a Historical event that refutes the History-Centrism of mainstream Islam. Its one History-Centrism over another, as both could never be right.

But for a Shaivite to hold her faith, it makes no difference if someone else is a non-theistic practitioner of chakra meditation. Furthermore, neither of these faiths is devalued if yet others believe in some literal Grand Narrative of how God sent his daughter to a nearby village. Hindu Grand Narratives are too many to cause any one to try to erase all others, and they got intertwined over time to syncretise into fused narratives. The non-literal interpretation of narratives has always been available to Hindus (for instance, the adhyatmika Ramayana) and is often considered a "higher" level of understanding. All this makes Hinduism non History-Centric.

D. Multinational Religions And Grant-Making Foundations

My issue (avoided in VPN) was that Religious Multinationals (Vatican, Mormon Church, Presbyterian Church, various Pentacostals, etc.) deserve the same kinds of critiques which the Left has made for commercial MNCs. I asked for Vijay’s position, and his response in VPN was the following:

(1) VPN appreciates that I distinguish between religious individuals and religious institutions.

(2) But then, instead of tackling the issue of institutions that are globalized religious enterprises, VPN goes on to condemn Arun Shourie and other Hindutva people. That’s fine with me – Shourie and his group are of no relevance to me. But in this way, the topic got changed and the issue was ignored by VPN.

(3) VPN confuses the issue in the remark: "The Left that I live within is not opposed to religion, but we tend to believe that religion must remain outside politics, that religion must not enter the matters of the state." But this was not the point. The issue has to do with the foreign religion nexus as in the case of the "imperialistic" MNCs.

(4) The closest VPN comes to dealing with the issue at hand is when it states: "The Vatican and the Evangelicals ruse of conversion is to be condemned, but their role in India is not as significant to me as their role in the US, for instance." But even here, VPN diverts from India to their "role in the US." My concern is two-fold: (i) I fail to understand why Evangelism’s impact is worse in the US where there is little native religion left (having succeeded in obliterating it through genocide) that they could still be destroying. (ii) In any case, this VPN claim hardly relates to the issue on India.

The issue of globalized religious MNCs is still on the table. The role of History-Centrism in institutionalizing religions into MNCs is central to this.

VPN also ignores my concerns about Ford Foundation type of MNCs on which this scholar-activist is today dependent for survival.

E. Academic/Activist Elitism

VPN also completely ignores my suggestion that the scholar-activist profession must be examined for its intellectual elitism.

For good reason, the elitist Brahmins’ control over Sanskrit (and hence over discourse and culture) has been criticized. But can Vijay show equivalent levels of criticism (especially from the Left) about the following kinds of elitism:

(i) the equivalent role of the elites who were well versed in Persian language during the Mughal period;

(ii) the dependence of today’s Indian Muslims on what the elite Arabic-knowing ulema say about both sacred and mundane matters, with little local freedom or autonomy in matters of interpretation;

(iii) the elitism in the Christian Churches in matters of interpretation;

(iv) the hegemony of the Russian language in the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Russians were a minority in most states in the federation;

(v) the dominance of Mandarin in China, that is systematically erasing the ethnicity of Tibetans and Muslims in Xingjian province;

(vi) the way Ivy League Literary Theory has today become the yard-stick to determine who gets certified and licensed to speak with adhikara (authority) in prestigious secular circles ; and

(vii) the role of English language in general, including the way Call Centers are breeding a new kind of elitism in India?

I stated in my note #1 that I would like to meet Indian leftists who are seriously working against elitism that runs across the board. Why are the seven issues in the above para being simply ignored? Let me now suggest a reason why.

Is it that selective moral indignation at native structures is an unconscious method by which desi elitists become more acceptable to the western academy , and therefore legitimizes (and, in fact, is a required behavior to prove their loyalty to the western establishment) their sneering at the natives down below? Therefore, when the very foundation on which this sneering gaze rests is called into question (as being elitist and collaborative with the establishment in the first place), it exposes the pretext of human rights activism. The contradiction inherent in the moral indignation becomes a blind spot, which is continually glossed over. Therefore, is this moral indignation a way for desi to become white?

F. Indian Classics/Traditions Positioning In The Academy

My interest is not in "cheerleading about the Indian past," as VPN puts it. I would like to see Indian Classics at par with Greek Classics in the academy, no more and no less – which knowledgeable scholars agree would be good for students, based strictly on the relative merits of Indian and Western Classics. This can be achieved only by introducing it into the Classics Department, and not leaving it in some Religion or South Asian Studies department.

This concern is the same as with locating Indian music as "ethnomusicology." Why is Mozart not classified as ethnomusicology? Reason: because European ethnicity is not called ethnicity. Ethnicity is the variance from Europeanism, and Europeanism is the universal relative to which others are ethnicized. This is blatant racism, but has not brought protest by the desi "progressive" scholars because they know which side their career bread is buttered.

Another example: Indian Philosophy is taught under Religion and not in mainstream Philosophy Departments, except in rare instances. (Arindam C at U of Hawaii, and Steve P at UT-Austin are the only ones I know of who regularly produce PhDs in Indian Philosophy from a major Philosophy Department. There might be a few other rare examples.) The significance is this: Philosophy in the core curriculum is meant to teach every American student how to think. It’s about universals that are not geography specific or ethnicity specific. That is "truth," and its originators and custodians are to be seen as western civilization exclusively. Hence, universals are depicted as almost exclusively Western thought based. So Indian philosophy is being taught in the context of trying to understand how "those people at the far end of the world" behave in peculiar ways. IP is not critiqued for its claims of universality at par with Greek thought, for instance, and is only of exotic or geopolitical relevance to study. This is why I consider South Asian Studies to suffer from a ghetto mentality in service of the establishment.

Furthermore, I claim that "religion" itself is a problematic category to understand dharmas of India. This difference between religion and dharma as categories is a critical subject we can get into some day later. But suffice it to say that the Marxist critique of religion is only about History-Centric Christianity, as that was all Marx knew. Indian Marxists have superimposed sociological "data" about India, but continue to be imprisoned by Eurocentric categories.

In particular, today’s common views of varna and jati are very narrow, and do not adequately describe Indian society. Jati is not caste, but became so under colonial rule (Dirks did a lot of good research on this). But more problematic is the distortion of varna, which has become the basis for the whole Dalit conflict. I read far too many works that seem to insist on frozen jati-varna (wherein a whole jati has the same varna, and, furthermore, this varna is said to be unchangeable). But this is an inaccurate picture. I hope Vijay’s students are given a more nuanced treatment than most South Asianized desis that I have come across on these matters.

I do not agree with VPN that Dipesh Chakrabarty’s "Provincializing Europe" is free from European lenses. The same also applies to Habib, Thapar, etc. They usually have sound data but they resort to their western-learned "theories" (see Guha’s statement quoted below) even while criticizing Europe. So it’s largely the west’s supervised self-criticism, in the same manner as Ronald Reagan used to get "roasted" on television, i.e. his friends and chamchas poking fun at him and even looking like they were criticizing him, but it was all a game and tried to show how open minded he was towards criticism.

Regarding the history of Indian science, none of the scholars named in VPN is in the same league as Joseph Needham – this one may please ask Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, who is from the old Indian left and has been the editor of the massive project on the History of Indian Science. Even his project, widely regarded as the most ambitious, falls short as it has wandered into philosophy more than science. As Guha remarks, we have too many scholars who claim to be experts but in fact are "writing essays based on books ordered from the library."

G. Contemporary Historiography

I am glad we both agree on the principle that revisions to history are important, in light of new research, but are to be avoided for political purposes or if they are based on sloppy work. This raises two issues.

If the American Empire (VPN’s term) has replaced the British Empire, on what basis is Vijay confident that the same imperialistic biases are not present today? This must be taken in context of the projection of power upon South Asian Studies. Who controls the leading journals, the funding, the chairs, the powerful think tanks, the conferences about South Asian Studies – its all western institutions, indeed. How sure is Vijay that he and other desi scholars have managed to avoid the conflicts-of-interest inherent in this mechanism?

H. Hinduism Studies

VPN states: "South Asian Studies is no longer the adjunct of colonialism, or of the newly aggressive US Empire. It is also no longer staffed with former missionaries..."

Regarding the absence of colonialism, Vijay must rethink in light of his "American Empire" thesis and the points I already made. The second statement, that former missionaries are gone, is also false. Hinduism Studies is filled with not only former missionaries but actively practicing missionaries. Go to RISA (Religion In South Asia) events and you will find out.

A prominent example is John Carman, who recently retired from Harvard where he headed Hinduism Studies, and who is regarded amongst the most important authorities in academic Hinduism Studies. After retirement, he has returned to his family’s mission – his family is third-generation Christian missionaries in India.

Furthermore, the vast majority of candidates entering the secular institutions for PhDs got their BA or MA from Christian seminaries, so this indicates the mindset flowing into the pipeline of secular religious studies. Less than 20% of RISA members have a public Hindu identity, although this does not at all imply that non-Hindus are bad scholars. It merely hints at the gaze built into their subconscious minds, unknown to them. The Princeton Theological Seminary has a massive Hinduism library, and its budget for its missionaries-in-training is larger than any Indian university I know of.

There is nothing wrong with others studying our traditions. The problem lies with our refusal to study our own traditions objectively, and, furthermore, with our unwillingness to study the other through our lens with the same rigor as they study us with theirs. India’s (failed) experiment with the Left has much to do with this intellectual state of affairs.

Tragically, most India-trained scholars in the English language academy know very little about Hinduism because they threw out the study of Sanskrit from the top Indian liberal arts colleges, on the grounds of it being primitive or even abusive – a misunderstanding about secularism. (Look at the politics over Sanskrit at JNU, as one example.) So the talent pool in this field is largely western-trained. When Indian academicians want an authority on Hinduism, they usually have to go to a western scholar. (Arindam C, once narrated at a meeting how he was sitting in some discussion on Hinduism in India. To resolve a deadlock on definitions of Indic categories, it was suggested that they should call Chicago to get the answer! Outlook magazine reported a Supreme Court decision in which the Court quoted from Encyclopedia Britannica to get its definition of Hinduism. This should not surprise us, given that in Indian courts, until recently, judges wore British wigs even in hot humid weather just to look as English as possible!)

Ironically, post-colonialists can do a sound criticism of Eurocentrism only in terms of Eurocentric categories, as they rarely if ever know Indic categories first hand. What desi postcolonialists know of Hinduism is indirectly via foreign eyes, except for its empirical sociological problems.

To redress this problem of academic Religious Studies being banished from India, Ashis Nandy and various other eminent Indian scholars have supported a recent initiative and jumped into the fray. Infinity Foundation funded a major world conference on religious studies last month at India International Center, Delhi, conducted by CSDS, with over 400 attendees. Since I am already involved in many public debates on Religious Studies, I will not say more on this here, except that many revisions to the methods and theories have already taken place as a result of this engagement, and that the visible changes so far are merely the tip of the iceberg.

VPN is incorrect in describing Yvette Rosser’s article posted at the Mandala site as a "paper for the Infinity Foundation." It was a re-posting of a chapter that she did as part of her PhD dissertation (which deals with South Asian education) completed last year. But on the bigger issue of whether there is false stereotyping, VPN’s denial is the common first reaction when this matter is first brought to most desis’ attention. This is why systematic studies of curricula and textbooks are required, which we have started.

D. Patriotism

I am glad to read that: "Sovereign nation-states are a potential bulwark against the depredations of trans-national corporations. These nation-states are also theoretically accountable to the people, and are therefore the horizon of our democratic aspirations, namely our rights. So there is no presumption toward Balkhanization among all tendencies of the Left."

However, while this patriotism may be the case with Vijay, my next column in the pipeline (exact date of posting not yet known) gives a strong criticism of scholar-activists who potentially undermine India’s integrity.

My own patriotism is of a defensive kind to protect oneself and not at all of an offensive or expansionist kind. India has never had expansionist worldviews. (It’s a dual patriotism, as I am also a patriotic American citizen and believe in the future positive role of USA globally, especially as its demographics and culture become more global.)

Regarding India’s internal social structure, I want to revisit the jati structure, seen as a network of cultures that were in constant renegotiation with one another. This is a very sophisticated structure, with no central authority, no court that enforced Manusmriti (for instance), and yet it managed to evolve and survive for millennia. Unfortunately, and the Left deserves some of the blame for this, the political rhetoric of "caste abuse" has overshadowed any genuine inquiry into this aspect of history. There has been a backward projection of today’s problems as a lens to see the past. But India’s past society cannot be compared with the modern west, and must be compared with its contemporaneous western equivalents – which included genocides, witch-hunts, slavery, feudalism, etc. I have not yet undertaken this investigation to the extent required, and, in the meantime, I am unwilling to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The Indian Left has constantly focused on India’s negatives and downplayed that despite being left pauperized by two kinds of imperialisms over a millennia, India has managed to feed its people - even granting that many are still hungry on a given day - and peaceful. It achieved all this without the massive purges or bloodshed like in China or Russia, or even the brutalities of Pakistan or Bangladesh. The Indian Left also ignores that its freedom to criticize is a birthright not available to most other third world countries, despite the struggles of the poor and marginalized in those places. Even in China, what rights do the workers have relative to the Indian workers?

Regarding VPN’s position on the selling off of India’s public sector, most informed observers know how poorly they were run, and how poorly the workers in them worked. They were a drain on the people's money. A small group of middle-class and some working-class elite were living off these unproductive ventures. At the same time, the methods of disinvestment could have been better for the masses. I lived in Eastern Europe during the transition from Communism to free-markets, and have first-hand details of how the states divested in ways that were much better than in India from the common citizen’s perspective.

Regarding VPN’s warning of water belonging to the masses being sold to a corporation in Chattisgarh, I agree with VPN, and I have an essay in draft on "water versus cars," in which I argue that a water system is far more critical to India than the car culture, given its density of population, non-availability of energy, etc.

Agreeing with VPN, I don’t like the India shines or the India stinks essentializing. But my model goes further and also rejects left/right as categories.

K. State of South Asian Studies

I have planned several essays and columns to analyze the field of South Asian Studies. But for now, I shall merely quote extensively on this matter from Ramachandra Guha’s excellent article, The Ones Who Stayed Behind

"Since the 1980s, however, there has arisen a parallel discourse on South Asia. This is conducted in North American journals. The actors may be mostly of South Asian origin, and the subjects may nominally be South Asian. But the place of publication and, more importantly, the style of analysis and presentation are driven by the preoccupations of the American academy . Thus, in 2003, one can speak meaningfully of two quite distinct discourses: one conducted within India, one conducted outside but apparently on India. These discourses have different inflections, different theoretical orientations, different purposes. Also, for the most part, different and largely overlapping casts of characters...The separation of the two discourses comes home most powerfully when one reads dissertations produced in America, which often tend to be ignorant of relevant Indian literature in the field, while quoting to excess works of social theory which seem to have little bearing on the dissertation’s themes ."

Guha writes that for scholars based in America, "India is merely a resource on the road to scholarly advancement," and complains that they are quite likely to be driven by intellectual fashion.

He illustrates:

"At least two Indian historians of my acquaintance have abandoned empirical research after moving to permanent jobs in US universities. They each wrote a fine work of social history, based on research in a dozen different archives. They have now taken to writing essays based on books ordered from the library. These essays are supposed to be exercises in ‘theory’. For the most part, however, they are merely extended literature reviews, parasitic assessments of other people’s works according to the winds of theoretical fashion and the canons of political correctness ."

Guha explains the significance of this divide:

"As for the aspiring scholar, he or she has to very quickly decide where his or her primary audience must lie. For the two discourses are driven by very different agendas. One is responding to the history and social debates of the sub-continent, the other to debates current in the American academy...The point cannot be over-stressed: that one discourse is located firmly in the cultural and political milieu of the sub-continent, whereas the other discourse is deliberately distancing itself from that milieu ."

But Guha’s biggest complaint seems to be that Indian-American scholars are falsely being seen as authentic Indian voices:

"In the eyes of their American colleagues, the diasporic scholar has come to ‘represent’ India much as the Vietnamese or Ukrainian émigré represents Vietnam or the Ukraine. Some crucial distinctions are thereby overlooked: namely, that unlike Vietnam and Ukraine and many other countries whose former nationals now work in the American academy, India is (for the most part) an open society with a functioning democracy, and that unlike those other countries India has an old and still active tradition of intellectual enquiry ."

Unfortunately, as Guha claims, the two competing discourses about India are unequal in resources:

"The Indian journals can be read by those in the west who are interested. However, the prohibitive cost of foreign journals means that, at least outside Delhi, no Indian student can get to read them."

Conclusions

I now request Vijay to specifically provide his reasoned persuasive arguments to the issues I have raised, and not simply give referential and reverential bibliographies. I hope we are here to discuss conceptual issues that have caused a deadlock in the discourse about India, and not the latest sensational news about episodes or bad guys.