HVK Archives: Hindutva and dialectics
Hindutva and dialectics - Organiser
P Parameshwaran
()
22 September 1996
Title : Hindutva and Dialectics (Agenda)
Author : P Parameshwaran
Publication : Organiser
Date : September 22, 1996
Shri O.V. Vijayan's entry into the Hindutva debate (see
"Dialectics of Hindutva" The Indian Express, June 17,
1996) has not come a day too soon. Though he labels the
debate phoney, the fact that a distinguished and creative
intellectual like him could not resist the temptation to
intervene in it, shows that it is not after all so
phoney. The central point around which the debate re-
volves is profound and genuine. Vijayan has taunted the
proponents as well as the opponents of Hindutva on vital
aspects-a sufficient impetus for the debate to snow-ball.
Vijayan has been, over decades, travelling from Marxian
dialectics to the dialectics of Hindutva. Those who have
been regularly following his writings know very well how
arduous and painstaking the journey had been. But it is
richly rewarded by its productive outcome. The sincere
quest of a fearless seeker for truth is a continuing and
never ending process. In that process, the idiom of
expression undergoes continuous, and sometimes, marvel-
lous changes, because each new experience in the inner
realm demands its own suitable vehicle of expression. It
is truly so in Vijayan's case.
Hindu dialectics
The title "Dialectics of Hindutva" is highly suggestive
and significant. I may he excused for suggesting that
the term dialectics is slightly misplaced and hence
inappropriate vis-a-vis Hindutva. Dialectics is a Hege-
lian concept borrowed, and made to stand on its head, by
Marx.
Conflict of opposites is its verb essence. In the I-
lindu world view, there are pairs of opposites like pain
and pleasure, good and bad, success and failure, life and
death; but these opposites do not conflict and lead to a
new category. These are different layers and levels of
consciousness, but they are not, contradictory and exclu-
sive, but, complementary and inclusive. They are ascend-
ing aspects of one integral truth. You only transcend
them and arrive at a higher stage of consciousness where
these opposites do not affect you. Therefore Swami Vive-
kananda once said:
"One idea may be better than another, but mind you, not
one of them is bad. One is good, another is better and
again another may be the best, but the word bad does not
enter the category of the Hindu religion" (Complete Works
of Swami Vivekananda p 373,Vol. III). It is in this
sense, Vijayan beautifully sums up, "Hindutva is almost
like Marxism, without doctrinal rigidity, an ideology of
unlimited questioning" and also of endless achieving.
Origin of Hindu
The present Indian scholarship finds it safe to assume
that the term "Hindu" was given to us by foreigners.
But, I have my reservation as to whether it was a name
invented by "various hordes of invaders who had little
time for theological discrimination", and that "the
nomenclature itself is retrospective"
Swami Ranganathananda, the erudite scholar and Vice-
President of Sri Ramakrishna Mission, is of the view that
the terms 'Hindu' and 'Hinduism' were coined by nations
outside India, especially the ancient Iranians, to desig-
nate the people and religion of the counts, (India) to
the East of the river Sindhu or the Indus". The tern
India itself is a Greek and modem Western deviation from
the older Iranian term "Hind".
Ancient Iranians were no barbarians or invading hordes.
They knew India and the Indian religion quite well. If
Iranians gifted the name Hindu to us, as it is ideally
accepted, it must be at least three thousand years ago.
So the use of the words Hinduism and Hindutva is not
retrospective. Moreover V.D. Savarkar conclusively
proved that the word Hindu had been in currency sence the
15th century A. D. Whatever be the origin, the word Hindu
has acquired a well-defined meaning signifying a vast
community of people with unmistakable common characteris-
tics, sublimating certain diversities among different
segments in it.
In fact Dr S. Radhakrishnan said that originally the word
"Hindu" had geographical, and not cradle, significance.
it acquired an exclusive cradle character in practice,
thanks to the Western scholarship which used it solely to
distinguish the native faith from others. All native
faiths were cumulatively regarded Hindu till the British
began to categorise the Buddhist first, then the Sikh,
the Jain and so on, as distinct from the Hindu. But, in
truth, Hindu base was common to every section and sect
that originated in India. It is on account of this unity
that our Constitution makers have adopted the term Hindu
as a legally valid and practically useful term to refer
to all Indian-born collectivities in our Constitution.
Later, the Hindu Law too inclusively referred to Sikhs,
Buddhists, Jains, etc, as Hindus. In fact, the commonali-
ty was so comprehensive and evident that large sections
of Muslims were also found to be covered by the tradi-
tional Hindu law in all civil matters other than marriage
till Jinnah persuaded the British to pass the Shariat law
to separate the Muslims from the rest.
It is obvious that any other term than Hindu could not
actually fill the bill to describe the ancient Indian-
ness. Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati commanded the term
"Arya". But, later it gave rise to explosive issues like
the Aryan-Dravidian racial divide, fraught with grave
consequences that have not yet fully subsided despite
increasing evidence that clearly belies any racial di-
vide. Consequently, the word Hindu is any day, and
definitely now, less offensive and more acceptable.
But let me caution that the foreign origin theory of
Hindu has its equally forceful reputation also. For
example, Bhagwan S. Gidwani, the famous author of the
epoch making historical novel The Return of the Aryans,
states in his introduction: "My novel explains how the
people of Sanatana Dharma chose to call themselves
`Hindu'. It was a name they adopted for themselves of
their own accord, and not because some foreigners, some-
where, were unable to pronounce their names correctly."
As do the Hindutva detract with whom Vijayan has very
little in common he also draws a distinction between
"genuine Hindutva" and "the saffron of conflict and petty
political, power". Having done so, Vijayan's imagination
takes wings and squares high Into ethereal regions, where
he comes face to face with the magic spectacle of a
people in contemplation, where every tree is a canopy of
enlightenment, where every person sitting cross legged
beneath it is on his way to renunciation, on his way to a
splendours and joyful failure. Vijayan sees in "the
confluence of meditating India and the labouring India a
great accommodation of the material into the spiritual",
"sannyasa at work".
Vijayan is deeply fascinated by the "Pranava" and the
"Brahmin" and makes a fervent plea to discover Bharat's
great quest and experience "Pranava" and relate it to the
Brahmin of perennial contemplation. In these days it
requires great courage of conviction bordering on dare
deviltry for a writer to say "the postulation of the
brahmin is yet another great leap for the Indo-Gangetic
Mystic".
Vijayan is also totally opposed to the slippery model of
secularism imported from the West. He is too well aware
that Semitic religions are exclusive while Hindu view is
not. He also knows that it is because of this inclusive
approach that the Hindu welcomed all faiths and people
whether they came here for refuge or to challenge; when
there were no secular constitution or leaders to protect
the minorities, the Hindu gave lands for synagogues, fire
temples, mosques and churches, and even built them. The
Semitic faiths powered by hate and intolerance within and
towards 'infidels', needed to effect a compromise through
secularism between the conflicting spiritual and the
temporal views. In the Hindu view there is no need for a
truce between the spiritual and the temporal as, in
Hindutva, there is no conflict between the sacred and the
secular.
Vishnu and Rudra
Where probably Vijayan goes wrong is in assuming that a
life style based on such a lofty concept can exist on
this earth as it is constituted today without the help of
a more solid and mundane support system. The complementa-
ry Kshatriya in Hindutva made it possible for the Brahmin
to sit absorbed and get lost in contemplation of the
supreme blissful reality.
Mahayogi Aurobindo said: "The virtue of the Brahmin is a
great virtue. You shall not kill. This is what ahimsa
means. If the virtue of ahimsa comes to the Kshatriya, if
you say, I will not kill, there is no one to protect the
country. Injustice and lawlessness will prevail. The
virtue becomes a source of misery." Mahayogi was firm
that "the law of Vishnu cannot prevail, unless debt to
Rudra is paid".
Great truths were discovered by "the contemplative mys-
tics of the Indo-Gangetic plain" or in the misty Hima-
layan forests, because the armed Kshatriya warriors were
around to mere them safety and security from outside
barbarians. The hushed veneration with which the kings
used to enter the hermitage of a rishi is portrayed by
Kalidasa in his Shakuntala. The mighty Dushyanta quietly
climbs down from the royal chariot and walks with humble
steps as he approaches Kanwa's ashram.
Guaranteed peace produced the mighty Vedas and other
sacred texts. No Upanishad was produced during the
troubled days of foreign invasion or domination, with the
singular exception of a synthetic product of dubious
quality called Allopanishad. All the great Upanishads are
the product of a much earlier period when Kshatriyas were
duty bound and powerful enough to protect the ashrams and
their inmates who could carry on their spiritual practic-
es unhindered.
So, the contemplative Brahmin or the far-seeing rishi in
Hindutva is only one side of the picture. The other side
is the protective Kshatriya with all his weapons.
The insistence on internalising strength or the Kshatriya
quality in Hindutva as a prerequisite to protect its
contemplative genius is at the heart of the current Hindu
resurgence. The instance on strength in Hindutva is
dirided is "saffron" and "conflict". Without such inter-
nalised strength, Hindutva will be an archival virtue in
today's world of might v. right, and not a living reali-
ty. This inevitable mundane strength approximating to
the Kshatriya of ancient times is missing in Vijayan's
view of Hindutva.
Counter-attack
If, as alleged by some secularists, the exponents of
Hindutva have become more shrill in recent years, there
is a solid justification for that. It is in fact the
counter-attack of a besieged majority whose legitimate
claims were rejected without a hearing and on whom in-
sults were heaped for their only fault of being proud of
the Hindu tradition. The counter-attack, undeterred by
ridicule and dishonest criticism by the so-call secular-
ists, finally began to yield results in the form of
massive popular backing. Unable to deny the Hindu asser-
tion, or defy it, the secularist intellectuals have
changed their strategy and started propagating that there
are two models of Hindutva, one fundamentalist and retro-
grade and the other progressive and universal. Vijayan
seems to have fallen into their trap, unwittingly or for
reasons of his own. As far as I can see, there is only
one Hindutva and not two. The attempt is to invent an
elite Hindutva that does not exist to malign the popular
and real one.
A simple instance illustrates the havoc wrought by the
"progressive, secularist" policy makers to the cause of
national unity and integrity. I quote from June 1996
issue of Seminar. Writes Ramesh Chandra of the Universi-
ty of Bhopal:
"We never heard anyone call it Baburi Masjid and a friend
of mine once told me, recalling his childhood and boyhood
spent in his native town of Ayodhya-it was enviously
referred to as Masjid Janmasthan. But now, thanks to the
widely-publicised controversy around the issue and the
painstaking research that accompanied it, everybody has
come to know that even the Muslim records often refer to
it as Masjid-e-Janmasthan."
Viewed thus the overnight induction of idols in the
mosque in 1948 appear to make some sense. The situation
certainly called for more hindsight and foresight, deli-
cacy and depth than the authorities could bring to it.
Locking up the deity seemed to be the best solution to
them. It is said that the Collector of Ayodhya at that
time had submitted a proposal that he could easily col-
lect signatures of all the Muslims in Ayodhya in favour
of handing over the disputed site to their Hindu broth-
ers. It is also reported that Pandit Nehru turned down
the proposal, saying that this would be improper. The
question that naturally arises is: Why was it improper?
Considering the sensitivity of the issue, would it not
have been proper for the most undisputed, most respected
and most beloved leader of the Indian people at that
time, to take the initiative himself and to issue an
appeal to Muslims to make such a gesture of goodwill
towards their fellow countrymen? Contrast it with the way
the Somnath reconstruction was accomplished by Sardar
Vallabhabhai Patel, blessed by Mahatma Gandhi, and see in
what dire plight the nation is on the Ayodhya issue. If
the " 'Id Hindu" gravitates towards alleged "Semiticisa-
tion of Hinduism" is he alone to blame for it?
Honourable company
The transit of Hindutva from a geo-nationalistic concept
to a cradle view was the contribution of the Western
historians. And the projection of the larger and nobler
Hindu identity into a narrower and more communal identity
was the handiwork of post-Independence pseudo-secular-
ists. The Hindu identity has a positive and honourable
meaning which has great assimilative and harmonious
potential if properly tapped. Appeasement of the minority
is not the best way of harmonising. There is a recorded
conversation between Kapil Sastry, a very great Vedic
scholar, and Mahayogi Aurobindo in 1917, immediately
after the Lucknow Pact between the Congress led by Lok-
manya Tilak and the Muslim League. Sri Aurobindo re-
marked that this was nothing but trying to purchase
patriotism by bargaining. He suggested that larger
Hinduism alone could be the solution for the Hindu-Muslim
problem. Larger Hinduism is only another name for Hin-
dutva. I hope the following quotation from Swami Viveka-
nanda could be a befitting answer to the dissenters
against Hindutva:
"We are Hindus. I do not use the word in any bad sense at
all. Nor do I agree with those that think there is any
bad meaning to it. In old times, it simply meant people
who lived on the other side of the Indus. Today a good
many among those who hate us may have put a bad interpre-
tation upon it, but names are nothing. Upon us depends
whether the name Hindu will stand for everything that is
glorious, everything that is spiritual or whether it will
remain a name of approbium, one designating the down-
trodden, the worthless heathen. If at present the word
Hindu means anything bad, never mind, by our action let
us be ready to show that tins is the highest word that
any language can invent."
Swamiji has proved right. As compared to a hundred years
ago when Swami Vivekananda lived, the word Hindu has now
gained greater acceptance and respect that was steadfast-
ly denied to it by the establishment thinkers. While
quoting great men like Swami Vivekananda or Sri Aurobin-
do, I am not under any illusion that their words would be
accepted as final authority by all the critics of Hindut-
va. But I have a fond hope that at least the present
advocates of Hindutva will be judge by the company they
keep.
ÿ
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