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The most consistent and best-informed
exception to this rule has been Dr Koenraad Elst. Since 1990 when he published
his first book Ram Janmabhoomi vs Babri Masjid, which staunchly upheld
the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's position, he has been tirelessly championing
Hindutva through 15 books and innumerable articles in English and Dutch
newspapers. Ayodhya and After, Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate, Negationism
in India, The Saffron Swastika: the Notion of Hindu Fascism (2 vols.),
Psychology of Prophetism, Gandhi and Godse - the titles of the books are
self-explanatory. Each one a substantial scholarly work, replete with footnotes
and pages of bibliography. Elst takes on Hindutva's critics with gusto,
pooh-poohing the notion that the saffron brigade could possibly be fascist
and debunking the theory that the Aryans in India are not an indigenous
people.
Elst's latest book, an expanded
version of the thesis which earned him his Ph.D. from the University of
Leuven in Belgium, is Decolonising the Hindu Mind, a study of the ideas
which have propelled the Hindu revivalist movement. These are not just
the ideas of the RSS, but stretch right back to Swami Dayanand Saraswati
and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in the 19th century. On a short visit to
India, the Antwerp-based Elst was keen to emphasise that there was much
more to Hindu revivalism than the RSS. “Compared to the great Hindu thinkers
of the past, I find the RSS intellectually limited,” he said. “The RSS
has limited its world view to a conflict between nationalism and anti-national
forces, disregarding subtler ideological differences between Hinduism and
its challengers.”
Burly, bearded and bespectacled, Elst has traveled a strange ideological road. Born into a Roman Catholic family in Leuven, this son of a civil servant was so intensely religious as a child that he even considered becoming a missionary! By his late teens he had swung to the other end of the spectrum, rebelling against his Catholic background, flirting with extreme left organisations, dropping out of college to engage in menial work for several years. “I was a seeker, or should I say, a hippie,” he said.
Clearly, he did not find what he sought. At 25 he went back to university, acquiring three postgraduate degrees in Indian studies, Chinese studies and philosophy. “Since then I have been an independent scholar and writer, supporting myself by my writing alone,” he said. His first brush with Hindutva came during a year-long stay at the Benares Hindu University researching Indian philosophy. “When I came to India I had no special interest in this country,” he said. “I was only interested in its philosophy.” But the year was 1989, the Ayodhya movement was gathering strength and Elst found himself ineluctably drawn to the controversy. “Everyone is drawn towards the underdog,” he reflected. “Only in this case there were different views as to who constituted the underdog. I felt it was the Hindus. The Hindu nationalist movement was being grossly misrepresented in the western media. Terms like fascist were being used without any historical perspective or sense of proportion.”
Elst admitted he had to plough a lonely furrow. “In the West, a supporter of Hindutva is virtually an outcast,” he said. He recalled writing an article on Ayodhya in a respected Flemish monthly, De Wereld Morgen. “I gave them the facts based on primary sources, but they prefaced my article with an editorial of the same length, based on sources like Frontline, which said all the opposite things,” he said. According to him that perception has changed over the years. “The reality is there for all to see;” he said. “Five years ago people were making terrible predictions about what would happen if the BJP came to power. Gas chambers for Muslims, and all that. None of it has happened.”
Is he satisfied with the performance of the BJP? Has it not practically abandoned its Hindu agenda? “Party politics do not interest me much,” Elst said. “As far as I can see nothing much has changed in India with the BJP coming to power. The BJP is not very different from the Congress, and seems to be following the same pro-market policies initiated by P.V. Narasimha Rao. On the one hand that's a pity, but on the other it is reassuring too. Perhaps it is just as well that this is a humdrum government.”
Then what were the gains of the Hindutva upsurge? Elst listed two things. “First, the great whitewash over the Muslim role in Indian history, carried out by leftist historians, has been exposed,” he said. “The truth matters, and Ayodhya has served the purpose of bringing it to the forefront. Second, Hindus are far less defensive now about their religion than before. Even if the RSS disappears tomorrow, Hindu revivalism will remain.”
Elst has, however, no illusions about the BJP. “Earlier I had thought the BJP was serious about Hindutva,” he admitted. “But now it does seem as if it was only, a means to come to power. It has only exploited the issue.” He is also disturbed by the anti-modernist, anti-democratic strains exhibited by some of the Hindu organisations. He said: “The fuss over the Miss World contest, the agitation against the filming of Deepa Mehta's Water are unhealthy trends, which I deplore.”
Book Extract: The Tolerant Hindu
Hindus are damned if they do, damned
if they don't. Thus, if they demolish the Babri Masjid, it proves they
too are intolerant, and that anything they may say about the Muslims actually
applies to themselves; but if they are tolerant, they are accused of trying
to swallow the minorities by “assimilative communalism” and “repressive
tolerance”. If they were to reject democracy this would obviously be denounced
as 'fascist', but because they abide by democracy, this itself is given
a pejorative twist as majoritarianism'.
Elst is disturbed by the anti-democratic strains of some Hindu organisations of millennia, Hindu India had been the proverbially rich country, and for long, the wily money making Hindu bania had been a favourite enemy image projected by the Indian Muslims and leftists. Yet, when Nehru imposed stagnation on India's economy with his Soviet style five year plans the secularists called the disappointing economic results of this non-Hindu policy “the Hindu rate of growth”.
Some authors even manage to turn the bright record of the BJP state governments in containing communal violence against the BJP. In Uttar Pradesh four chief ministers performed as follows: under VP. Singh, the monthly average of casualties (dead and wounded) in communal violence was 29, the monthly average number of Muslims killed was eight; for N.D. Tiwari the figures were 28 and three, for Mulayam Singh Yadav they were 98 and 17; and for Kalyan Singh they were five and one. If a BJP source cites this fact it is not interpreted as reassuring, but as a threat: “What they say: 'Muslims are safe in BJP ruled states.' What they mean: 'Vote for the BJP or face communal riots'.” Hindus and likewise India make it all the worse for themselves by simply being so tolerant.
When it comes to tolerating difference,
there is hardly a place like India, as a well-known Muslim (Salman Rushdie)
testifies: “I come from an Indian Muslim family, but I experience India
as a very pleasant country, whereas in Pakistan I feel ill at ease. You
would think it should be the reverse. But in spite of its many defects,
India is a rich and open society, while Pakistan is culturally an impoverished
and closed society.” In the end this openness is certainly the right policy,
but in the short run the results of tolerance can be perverse. India is
hospitable even to its critics, and the latter eagerly accept the invitation.
All those NGO activists working in Indian tribal areas can openly support
separatism and still stay in India or return there after vacation. Foreigners
who like to do some 'drain inspection' can do it at leisure in India, focusing
on Hindu society: it is fun to be in India, and there is no need to fear
reprisals. It takes courage, and the willingness to forgo future visas,
to write as negatively about China or Pakistan as is commonly done about
India.
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