(Frontline
Volume 24 - Issue 05 :: Mar. 10-23, 2007)
BOOKS
Deconstructing Hindutva
RAM PUNIYANI
A well-researched study of the politics of Hindutva.
THIS contribution to the understanding of Hindutva politics examines the communal politics of the Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (RSS) combine, which revolves around the idea of `Lord Ram'. The frenzy whipped up by the combine in the early 1990s led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 and unleashed a wave of anti-Muslim violence. This, in turn, consolidated the RSS combine and catapulted it to the seat of political power at the Centre later in the decade. Ram is central to the deconstruction of this phenomenon for Udaykumar, who was one of the first to start websites distributing daily emails with analytical articles and news items on Hindutva, way back in 1998, before the BJP came to power through the parliamentary elections that year.
The writer's concern for pluralism and democratic norms is evident in this scholarly, well-researched work. The RSS used communal historiography in its drive to communalise society. History has been central to the project. Presentations of a glorious past are followed by laments about the `corruption' brought about by `foreign' intruders, especially Muslims. This version of history is popularised by the RSS through its shakhas (branches) and schoolbooks and through the media. The RSS, founded in 1925, has over the years built up a formidable array of branches and subordinate organisations that carry on the work of popularising the idea of a `Hindu nation'.
With nearly 100,000 shakhas and 2,500 dedicated pracharaks, the organisation has mobilised over three million volunteers. The propaganda is supplanted by street actions of intimidating members of minority communities. The Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, the Bajrang Dal and the Jan Sangh which later metamorphosed into the Bharatiya Janata Party, all belong to the RSS family.
The RSS ideology is characterised by an emphasis on `cultural nationalism'. This book brings out the resemblances between the Hindutva ideology and fascism, between Hindutva's coupling of communalism with nationalism and Hitler's combining of the idea of a `pure Aryan race' with German nationalism. Like Fascists in Italy, Hindutva forces have penetrated the administrative apparatus in India; in the style of Mussolini, they operate through all available social platforms linked to religion, art and politics.
The author examines the way in which the RSS imparts ideological indoctrination to its core cadre, who in turn form organisations in different walks of social and political life. While the RSS stays in control at the top, recruits at the grassroots deal with local situations. The propaganda machinery developed by the RSS shows it has taken its lessons from Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. It uses the fear of the `other' to drive home the message that `we are under threat' and that only the early elimination of the `other' will avert disaster.
The mode of propagation of the Hindutva ideology is word of mouth, which has been operative for the past 80-odd years. This book analyses identity-construction practices in independent India. It shows how the `popular myth', the `nationalist myth', and the `intelligentsia myth' get translated into `social common sense' determining the behaviour of communities towards each other. It shows how the RSS, in creating this `social common sense', keeps Ram at the centre of the whole process. At a conceptual level, Udaykumar would have done well to point out why Ram is at the centre of the RSS project. The centrality of Ram to the Hindutva project is not coincidental.
The Hindutva version of history was constructed through a long process during the period of British rule. It looked at Hindu kings as symbols of integral nationalism, Hindus being a `nation' since times immemorial. Islamic nationalists began their history with the rule of Muslim kings, while Gandhi and other Indian nationalists identified with the ancient past as well as the medieval period when syncretic traditions were formed.
Udaykumar gives a scholarly review of the way the Hindu nationalists constructed history. The roots of communal historiography lie in the rise of communalism during British rule, when the past was projected as a `glorious' one and the threat of the `other' was highlighted. This is where Ram fits in with the `destroyed' temple at his `birth place'. Past injustices must be avenged by demolition of the mosque.
While the construction of a glorious past and the threat of the other is done in an emotionally charged fashion, the agenda of upholding the `virtues' of the caste structure is accomplished in a more subtle way in the writings of M.S. Golwalkar and others who eulogise the Manusmriti. This historiography finds its culmination in the politics of the BJP, which calls on Muslims to `Indianise' themselves through `cultural nationalism', another name for the acceptance of Brahminical values at the political level. Muslim historiography runs a parallel claim - that India belonged to Muslims before the British came.
This adds fuel to the fire of Hindu communal historiography.
In the Hindu communal narrative, Hindus are the descendants of Ram battling Ravan-like forces of the foreign aggressor. Udaykumar does well to highlight Voltaire's description of history as myth rewritten by each generation. Each political stream writes its own history, picking up an incident, real or imaginary, and interpreting it in its own way. The interpretations of the mythology surrounding Ram are diverse, ranging from that of the Savarkar school regarding him as a great hero to that of E.V. Ramasamy Periyar and B.R. Ambedkar who pointed out the retrograde values for which he stood. "Just as much as its ancient historical roles, the recent socio-cultural and political roles of Ramayana have been many and varied. The contemporary Ramayana that has come to be presented in pseudo nationalistic light now has an altogether different emphasis and agenda," Udaykumar says.
The telecast of "Ramayan" on Doordarshan was the first major cultural manipulation of Hindutva, in which the Congress played no mean role. Actors who played the lead roles were even roped in to canvass for the party during elections.
Udaykumar aptly remarks: "For Hindutva forces, Ram is history and Babar is an interruption; for Muslim communalists, Ram is myth and Babar is history; for secular Indians, both Hindus and Muslims, Ram is heritage and Babar is India's history; and for much of India's poor, as a popular adage puts it, things remain the same whether they are ruled by Ram or Ravana"(page 70).
The book explains how history has been abused, citing a book by Har Prasad Shastri that claimed that Tipu wanted to convert 3,000 Brahmins, who in turn preferred to commit suicide. Dr. V.N. Pandey challenged this version and the book was withdrawn, but the story was told in schoolbooks at junior high school level in Uttar Pradesh in the 1970s. The book also shows, quoting relevant correspondence, how the British pursued a policy of `divide and rule'.
Hindutva politics is based on a stream of Hinduism that has kept in subjugation the lower castes and women. In contrast to the divisive concept of Hindutva, Udaykumar posits Gandhi's concept of religion, in which all religions are rivers that meet in the same ocean. For Gandhi, religion stood for truth and non-violence. The idea that Hindus form a homogenous community and have a common set of interests is faulty. There are multiple diversities among Hindus - economic, linguistic and cultural - that the RSS combine seeks to gloss over.
The book is rich in its overall insights but it might have also examined why Hindutva politics, which was dominant from the 1920s to the 1940s, remained on the margins in the 1950, the 1960s and the 1970s. Why was it resurgent in the 1980s?
Even during British rule, there was a section, namely landlords and the clergy, which wanted to stick to old social and economic privileges. These sections, belonging to both communities, held on to communal values to hide their real intent of preserving the status quo in caste and gender relations.
As we see the ascendance of a single global power, which is asserting and imposing its economic and political agenda, there is a proliferation of identity politics across the globe. The rise of the Skinheads and the Christian Right in the United States are manifestations of the process that seeks to block the journey towards liberty, equality and community. It is no coincidence that whenever colonial powers are dominant, they bring in only material changes while changes relating to social transformation are put on the backburner.
Some minor errors in the book are jarring; for instance, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti is called Rashtriya Sevika Samiti. It was not K.B. Hedgewar who was one of the accomplices in Gandhi's murder; it was V.D. Savarkar of the Hindu Mahasabha.
Ram Puniyani was formerly a Professor at IIT Bombay. He is the secretary of the All India Secular Forum.
