Of the several identifiers Indians fall back upon to define themselves language, caste and religion are the foremost. While these aspects of the Indian social identity have had some association with political wrestling matches and consequent violence, religion holds the distinction of riling the most number of people in most number of ways in our country.
Religion today is a sharp knife that slices through the country’s educated classes dividing them into to either pro-Hindu or anti-Hindu. The social media version of the debate is often abrasive, offensive, ill-informed or just a bitter verbal boxing match with the parties zealously trying to be the most vengeful, mistaking that to be a moral triumph. Within this context, the concept of secularism has been reduced to Congress’ vote bank politics in India.
Words like ‘sickularists’ recast the unwillingness to subscribe to any religious theology as anti-Hindu, pro-Muslim and hence detrimental to the health of the nation. The same climate vehemently discourages any debate over the nature of Hinduism in practice or how the religion manifests itself in some sections of the society.
With Narendra Modi now bolstering his development claims with loud assertions of his Hindu affiliation, the debate is being framed as secularism vs Hinduism, where each is viewed as antithetical to the other. Secularists are uninterested in debating the merits of Hinduism, while Hindutva supporters view secularism as a spurious ideology.
Ramachandra Guha challenges this dichotomy in an editorial in Hindu, pointing at the fact that the first liberal voices in the country emanated from a group of intellectuals who were as proud of their religious identity as they were of their secular ideals. Guha suggests that instead of valourising destructive incidents like the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Hindus must look to more productive sources of pride:
In a society where so many are without access to adequate education, health care and housing, where malnutrition is rife and where safety and environmental standards are violated every minute, to invest so much political energy and human capital in the demolition of a mosque and its replacement with a brand-new temple seemed wildly foolish, if not downright Machiavellian. As it turned out, the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign led to two decades of strife across northern and western India, with thousands of people losing their lives and hundreds of thousands their homes and livelihoods.
He takes a walk down history bringing up the achievements of great Hindus like Rammohun Roy who abolished sati, Jyotirau Phule who campaigned against ‘untouchability’ or Tarabai Shinde who is considered one of the first feminist voices from India. “The abolition of caste prejudices; the elimination of gender hierarchies; the promotion of religious pluralism — these remain the elusive ideals of those who wish (proudly or otherwise) to call themselves Hindu and Indian,” writes Guha.
The jingoism of the so-called Hindutva followers has vitiated the best aspects of the religion, making it seem like a narrow, divisive philosophy with no place for debate or dialogue. The rampant association of the religion with criticism about the failures of a political party, arguably, has robbed it of its real identity in society. So people who have turned ‘Hinduism’ into a weapon to counter a political narrative have essentially successfully alienated the religion from everyone who don’t intend to get caught up is a raucous politicking.
Gurcharan Das succinctly summarises the dilemma of the Hindu-born liberal who is fairly critical of the religion but not dismissive about it. He says in a blog post:
I grew up in this atmosphere with a liberal attitude – that is a mixture of scepticism and sympathy for my tradition. Why then do I feel uneasy about being a liberal Hindu? I feel besieged from both ends — from the Hindu nationalists and the secularists. Something seems to have gone wrong. Hindu nationalists have appropriated my past and made it into a political statement of Hindutva. Secularists have contempt for all forms of belief and they find it odd that I should cling to my Hindu past. Young, successful Indians, at the helm of our private and public enterprises, have no time or use for the classics of our ancient tradition.
If liberals want to successfully counter the intolerance of right-wingers, they must rescue Hinduism from Hindutva.
