Deccan Herald, November 26, 2008
The new discourse:Shades of terrorism
by Kancha Ilaiah
If the usage of Islamic terrorism is politically correct, the usage of Hindu terrorism is also politically correct.
We are all familiar with religious tags along with cultures. For example the usage of Hindu culture, Buddhist culture, Christian culture and Islamic culture is very common. We also have the social science practice of saying Hindu history, Buddhist history, Christian history, Islamic history and so on. In the recent past a new usage of concepts like Islamic terrorism and Hindu terrorism have raked up a controversy in the mass media. Of course we know for sure that in the modern world media has constructed many concepts and phrases and they subsequently came into academic discourse.
The Indian media for quite some time was using the phrase, Islamic terrorism quite extensively. A few Muslim voices that protested against such a usage were never cared for. I used such a concept in my newspaper articles and some Muslims objected for such a usage. However, when such objections were raised by Muslim individuals and organisations, the pro-Hindutva intellectuals defended such a usage as an essential expression of terrorist acts that were born and grown in Islamic religious thought and ideology hence such usage cannot be considered to be abominable.
Even the Muslims were pointing out that such a usage would construe the entire religion as terrorist and it does not merely show the individual acts belonging to that religion but shows as an act of the whole religion itself. For such an objection the Hindutva reply was on known lines.
Islam as a religion has the tendency to be terroristic and intolerant, therefore, that usage though does not point to all the people of that religion, it would point to the violent nature of the religion and also to the groups that were using that philosophy in a particular context. The inference drawn there is that Hinduism is not a violent religion like Islam and the usage of Islamic terrorism though points to Islam as a religion itself that usage points to the fact of its philosophy and hence there is nothing wrong in that usage.
We know very well the commonly known arguments of many Hindu scholars even of so called secular Hindu scholars that Hinduism is a tolerant religion. Now they found themselves in a mess. The Hindutva forces are found to be terrorists and a sadhvi and an army man, of all the people, are among the accused. Some RSS men died of bomb explosions in their own dens or homes while making them or testing them.
Too much evidence is forthcoming to show that the terrorism of the same type that some Muslim fundamentalist organisations are using, is also being used by the Hindutva forces for several years but they are beginning to get caught now. But what is more important is several Hindutva pundits are opposing the usage of the phrase Hindu terrorism on the same lines of the usage of Muslim terrorism. Why? Hinduism, according to them, by definition, is tolerant, therefore, the concept that has been used to denigrate Islam cannot be used to denigrate Hinduism.
Who should certify that Hinduism is a non-violent, tolerant religion? Not the Brahminic upper caste pundits. If the Dalit, OBC intellectuals certify it as non-violent one must give some credibility to that argument. But if we look at what the lower caste writers and thinkers said about Hinduism and its tolerant or violent bahaviuor, we simply get shocked. The first modern shudra thinker Mahatma Jyotiba Phule had said that Hinduism maintained caste and untouchability practices through a process of brutal violence.
Later Ambedkar and Periyar spoke and wrote extensively about the inbuilt violent processes involved in Hindu religious philosophy and institutions. The historical experience of Dalit-Bahujan mass is an indication that danda is its central anchor. Using violence to checkmate caste equality and to stop the annihilation of caste was its historical habit. It never faced a stiff resistance from within till Islam came as an external force to counteract.
When some Islamic organisations started using bombs to weaken Hinduism some Hindu organisations started using bombs to drive out Islam. Now it is a battle of bombs. If the usage of Islamic terrorism is politically correct, the usage of Hindu terrorism is also politically correct. We cannot use that phrase for Christianity and Buddhism now. If tomorrow some Christian organisations and Buddhist organisations use bombs they too will be characterised as Christian terrorists and Buddhist terrorists.
But because of the existence of caste and untouchability, more people from within Hinduism would say: yes Hinduism is terrorist, whereas in other religions there is none to accept that characterisation from within. That is the main weakness of Hinduism.
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