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| Baba Saheb Ambedkar pained by the ignominies |
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| Batla House Protesters |
Religious identity has come to the bigger prominence in the
social-political space during last few decades. The rise of communal and
fundamentalist politics has vitiated the popular perceptions about ‘who are we’
and this in turn has deepened the divides in the society. Recently RSS supremo,
Sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat stated (September 2012) that, “When we use the
word ‘Hindu’, we refer to everyone in the Indian society—be it Hindus, Muslims
or Christians—since it is a word that gives us our identity and nationalism.”
Will it be acceptable to all Indians? The statement operates at two levels, one
religious and two political-national.
 |
| Ram Puniyani |
Are we all Indians, Hindus, as being stated by Bhagwat? It is true that
the word Hindu itself came into use since around 8th century,
when those coming from the West, Iraq, Iran to this side of the continent coined
the word Hindu for those living on East of Sindhu. In their language word H is
used more often for S, so Sindhu becomes Hindu. This word initially begins as a
geographical category. Later various religious traditions, Brahmanism, Nath,
Tantra, Siddh, and Bhakti, prevalent in this part of the continent started
being called Hindu, and Hinduism became the broad umbrella for these different
religious traditions. Today while in some parts of the World word Hindu still
has geographical meaning, here in India and broadly at most of the places this
word is primarily used as a religious category.
 |
| Varun Gandhi:Starred Speech. |
Ambedkar, pained by the ignominies hurled on untouchables by Hindu caste
system, expressed his sorrow by stating that, I was born a Hindu; that was not
in my hands but I will not die a Hindu. He embraced Buddhism and left the Hindu
religion. As communal politics started coming up to oppose the emerging Indian
Nationalism, the feudal sections and Kings came together to give a religious
colour to their opposition to emerging nationalism. In contrast to Indian
national movement, they, feudal-lords-kings, posited Muslim Nationalism or
Hindu nationalism. The parent organization which in due course gave rise to
religious nationalist organizations, was United India Patriotic Association
(UIPA) formed in 1888. In the formation of this organization Nawab of Dhaka and
Raja of Kashi were the main people. Later some other middle class educated
elements also joined in. This UIPA was the parent organization from which Muslim
League and Hindu Mahasabha emerged.
While Islam, being a Prophet based religion, did not require any
redefinition, Hinduism being an umbrella of various religious tendencies
required to be defined for providing a base to Hindu religious nationalism.
That’s how Savarkar came up with the definition that all those whose Punyabhu
(Holy Land) and Pitrabhu (father land) is in this part of the World are
Hindus. This was a political definition of Hinduism, as Savarkar was
championing Hindu nationalism and wanted to exclude Muslims and Christians from
being a part of nationalism envisaged by him. This definition of Savarkar also
included Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs into Hindu fold, calling them as mere sects
of Hinduism, which is not unacceptable to the followers of those religions. As
these religions are also full-fledged religions.
 |
| Buddhists, Jains, Indian Muslims and Indian Christians have a Hindu identity is far from true. |
Now to say, as Bhagwat is doing, that all Buddhists, Jains, Indian
Muslims and Indian Christians have a Hindu identity is far from true. It is in
a way a political imposition of Hindu identity and thereby Hindu rituals etc. on
religious minorities. In the similar vein, nearly two decades ago Murli Manohar
Joshi, another RSS Pracharak, then BJP President, stated that we are all
Hindus, Muslims are Ahmadiya Hindus, and Christians are Christi
Hindus and so on and so forth.
During freedom movement, two concepts of nationalism developed. One was the
Indian nationalism, which was the hallmark of the founders of Indian National
Congress. This was the defining principle of World’s largest ever mass
movement, India’s freedom movement. Here nationalism is geographical and
religion is personal. Majority of Indians supported this concept and joined the
movement, which not only aimed to throw away the yoke of British colonialism
but also laid the foundations of caste and gender transformation, and gave the
defining principles of Liberty Equality and Fraternity, which came to be
enshrined in our Constitution. The other Nationalism was religious nationalism,
which began from the landed élites primarily and was later to divide in two
parallel nationalisms, which had similar principles. These were Muslim
Nationalism (Muslim League) and Hindu Nationalism (Hindu Mahasabha and RSS). These
nationalisms not only kept aloof from the freedom movement, were opposed to the
mass movement for freedom struggle but they also subtly protected the caste and
gender hierarchy of feudal times in the name of ‘our glorious traditions’ or
‘our religion’ and so on. These religious national streams took back their
nationalisms to ancient times. Muslim League claimed that ‘We Muslims are a
Muslim Nation since the time Mohammad bin Kasim, established his kingdom in
Sindh’. While Hindu nationalists claimed that we are a ‘Hindu nation since
times immemorial’.
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| Hindu Terrorists at Malegaon |
In this understanding; projection of Nationalism to the earlier times is
totally flawed. The very concept of Nationalism begins from last three
centuries or so, while putting an end to Kingdoms due to changes in industries
and education. Even before kingdoms, there were other patterns of society,
which can by no stretch of imagination be called as Nations. These concepts of
nations glorify the kings belonging to their religions, while they also demonize
or look down upon kings of ‘other’ religions, forgetting that the very system
of kingdoms is highly exploitative and hierarchical.
At the same time during freedom movement, the ‘religious nation’
concepts gave a status to other religious minorities as the status of second class
citizens. This has what has happened in Pakistan with the logic of Muslim
nationalism unfolding there and this is what is happening to Indian minorities
with the ascendance of Hindutva nationalism. Hindutva word is again not
synonymous with Hindu religion, it is parallel to ‘political Islam’, Hindutva
is ‘political Hinduism’ so to say. Golwalkar the major ideologue of
RSS-Hindutva had formulated in his book ‘We or Our Nationhood defined’ that the
Muslims and Christians must subordinate themselves to Hindus, else they will
not deserve any citizenship rights. In India unfortunately his prophesy is
getting actualized by and by, with the rise of communal violence and its
aftermath.
To say that we are all Hindus is a political assertion to subjugate
religious minorities on one hand and to uphold caste and gender hierarchy on
the other. The later part related to hierarchical inequalities is the unspoken
part of religious nationalism, political ideologies based on religion. To
identify Hindu with our nationalism-identity is to oppose the very concept of
Indian Nationalism, values of freedom movement and values of Indian
Constitution. Such political agenda of RSS as articulated by Bhagwat is to
stifle the democratic space offered to us by our Constitution to all of us,
including religious minorities, and is an attempt to bring back the Golwalkar’s
articulation in a more shrewd way. It will also be the beginning of telling the
minorities that they will have to follow Hindu rituals, and Hindu holy books,
Hindu deities amongst others. So, saying that we regard all as Hindus, is not
an expression of magnanimity but is a way to impose Hindu identity on religious
minorities. In sum a substance, Hindu is not the identity of all Indians, its
religious identity only of Hindus. And of course ‘Hindu’ is not nationalism in
any sense of the word as our nationalism is Indian.
--
Issues in Secular Politics
I October 2012
Response only to
ram.puniyani@gmail.com
| The contents of the article rest on the author. |
