(The Economist, Nov 1st 2007)
RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE
Bridging the divide
The world's most religious country is still battling with its demons
ON THE face of it, Praveen Togadia is just the sort of Indian the modernising Jawaharlal Nehru might have been proud of. Urbane and sophisticated, he is a cancer surgeon, with more than 10,000 operations to his credit. He hails from Gujarat, one of India's more go-ahead states, currently run by his friend, Narendra Modi, perhaps the most free-market-oriented of the state leaders.
Yet Mr Togadia is also the international general secretary of something Nehru would have abhorred—the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), one of the three main bodies of the Hindutva (Hinduness) movement. Mr Togadia drifted away from medicine towards politics because he became convinced that Hinduism, like Judaism, was a persecuted faith, especially by Muslims. He has played a leading role in the campaign to rebuild a temple at Ayodhya, the birthplace of Ram, one of Hinduism's great trinity of gods. In 1992 Hindu activists tore down a mosque built there by a Muslim ruler.
British Library Bridge-building Ram
For Mr Togadia, the crucial difference is that “we [Hindus] believe in peaceful co-existence; Islam does not.” But his definition of peaceful co-existence would be queried by India's 150m Muslims, especially those in Gujarat. The state is still haunted by the riots of 2002, which began after a train carrying Hindu activists on their way back from Ayodhya caught fire in a Muslim neighbourhood, and Muslims were blamed for the dozens of deaths. In the ensuing pogrom, 2,000 people died.
In Gujarat's state capital, Ahmedabad, many Muslims are now stuck in an eastern ghetto known as Little Pakistan. “Ayesha”, a widow housed in a gloomy resettlement complex, recalls how her family ill-advisedly took sanctuary in a local leader's house, only for her Hindu neighbours to force their way in, “stabbing, hacking and burning”. There was so little left of Ayesha's husband and one of her daughters that she had trouble getting death certificates for them. Many of the mob were wearing Hindutva gear—saffron headbands, or the khaki shorts favoured by those who take part in the movement's early-morning physical jerks.
The place is more peaceful now. “Farah”, a middle-class lawyer who was also forced to retreat to Little Pakistan, calls Mr Togadia “a fanatic”, but she thinks most Muslims have given in: “They are too scared and poor to get anything.” Although Mr Modi's reputation has suffered (he was refused a visa to visit America in 2005), he should get re-elected comfortably later this year.
Ayesha and her friends already worry that the election will be a pretext for more violence. But ghettoisation has radicalised the women in the resettlement complex. They go to the mosque more often and talk approvingly of Osama bin Laden. The otherwise mild Ayesha also praises Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader “who died for Islam”, and wishes a horrible death on Mr Modi and his friends.
City of religious dins
Mr Togadia has survived several assassination attempts. He is now concentrating on trying to stop the (mainly secular) Congress party blowing a hole in a holy bridge, supposedly built by Ram, that links India to Sri Lanka. Congress says that the bridge, which is mainly underwater but visible from the air, is really just a ridge blocking shipping. So far, two people have been killed in demonstrations. Sonia Gandhi, Congress's leader, has already ordered a retreat by her party—though not before Mr Modi had weighed in, asking pointedly what Italians knew about Ram (Mrs Gandhi is an Italian Catholic).
Today's India is a test-tube for religious politics. The birthplace of four big religions (Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Hinduism), it has remained religious even as it has modernised. It was founded in the throes of a religious conflict—partition between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. And religion informs three different political conflicts: the external one with Pakistan; an internal one between the Hindu majority and the sizeable Muslim minority; and a rip-roaring debate about religion in the public square.
India has had three big wars with Pakistan (in 1947, 1965 and 1971) and one minor one in 1999. The wars were not explicitly about religion but about the disputed territory of Kashmir and, in 1971, the independence of what was then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. But religion is crucial to Kashmir, because Pakistan claims that the mainly Muslim state was ceded to India unlawfully by its Hindu maharajah. And some in the Hindutva movement think the real territorial crime is the existence of Pakistan itself. Hinduism, they claim, is the religion of “Hindustan”, the whole subcontinent. Maps in Hindutva offices have a habit of missing out the Pakistani border.
At the moment India's relationship with Pakistan is relatively peaceful, partly because Pakistan is not in a state to be unpeaceful with anybody. But both sides now have nuclear weapons. And Hindus persistently worry that Indian Muslims are a fifth column. One Hindu nationalist, Prafull Goradia, suggests that Indian Muslims should be forced to take an oath of loyalty (though he would rather Muslims of all sorts moved to Arabia).
Pluralist, in principle
An uneasy relationship with Pakistan was perhaps inevitable; but what would have distressed Nehru particularly is the prominent role played by religion in domestic politics. India's constitution writers tried to get round this in two ways. The first was to embrace pluralism. The new country would be “a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic...Pluralism is the keystone of Indian culture and religious tolerance is the bedrock of Indian secularism.” The second was to go out of their way to provide protection for the (generally poor) Muslim minority.
Many Hindus would add that India was also born with a third force for tolerance: Hinduism. As a religion with countless gods and many sacred texts, it does not lend itself to extremism: there are no rules for governments to enforce.
How did things go wrong? The short answer is that many Hindus, like Mr Togadia, came to see India's “secularism” as a code for favouritism towards Muslims—especially by Nehru's Congress party (which until recently most Muslims voted for). Muslims are allowed to live by their own family law and enjoy plenty of positive discrimination, including subsidies to fly to Mecca. There was also a change in Hinduism: the more mystical strain, Vedanta, which preaches the unity of all religions, was challenged by the stauncher Hindutva message. Vedanta Hindus stayed with Congress; Hindutva ones moved to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Much of Hindutva is officially dedicated to social welfare—especially the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the world's biggest voluntary movement. Every day several million RSS members meet at some 50,000 shakhas (or meetings) to discuss the meaning of life and go through their stretching exercises. But Hindutva also has a clear political message centred on three issues: a federal ban on the slaughter of cattle; the introduction of a “uniform personal code” (which is itself code for getting rid of a separate family law for Muslims); and rebuilding Hindu temples, especially Ayodhya.
Politics has proved both exhilarating and depressing for the Hindutva movement. The BJP, which swept to power six years after the mosque at Ayodhya was destroyed, has firmly established itself as the party of the aspiring middle classes. The RSS wields enormous power on the right of Indian politics. It has also broadened its arguments, couching them in non-religious terms. Cows, for instance, need to be kept alive for their milk (a “white revolution”, they argue), not just because they are sacred. Ram's bridge to Sri Lanka is essential as a bulwark against tsunamis.
Yet none of Hindutva's main goals has been met. Although most of India's states ban the slaughter of cows, there is no central-government ban; the Ayodhya temple remains unbuilt; the uniform code unpassed. For this many Hindu nationalists blame the BJP; but the truth is that, having never won more than 26% of the vote, it has had to rely on coalition partners, who, like most of the country, are less militant. When they think about it, many Hindus would like a temple built at Ayodhya. But they tend not to think about it, and are appalled at the violence the dispute has spawned.
Especially in its frustrations, Hindutva resembles America's religious right. The sprawling offices of the RSS in Delhi are strangely similar in spirit to the Focus on the Family campus in Colorado Springs. Neither organisation is overtly political: the RSS's motto is “United Hindus, capable India” and most of its energy is plainly taken up with social welfare (just as Focus does indeed focus on families). But just like the Christians in Colorado, the Hindus at the RSS are obsessed by politics—and feel just as let down by the BJP as Focus does by the Republicans.
Meanwhile, the Hindutva movement has set off a counter-reaction. Secular members of the Congress party, who privately admit that they may have indulged Muslims too much, adamantly defend secularism in public. Muslims too are on their guard. One Muslim politician says he would get into trouble if he visited a Hindu temple. The minority, he says, will always be insecure—especially if that minority used to rule India. Asked whether religion will ever leave Indian politics, he shrugs his shoulders. “That was the dream—but it did not work out that way.”
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