Jihadi Hindutva

(Published in: Mail Today, July 1, 2008)

Hindu Jihadis are a threat to the Hindus themselves

by Jyotirmaya Sharma

AS if the verbal and actual assaults of his estranged nephew on north Indians was not enough, Bal Thackeray’s recent advocacy for building Hindu jihadi squads is not surprising, coming from someone who has advocated militant Hindu nationalistic responses to every real and perceived threat to what he understands Hinduism to be. The problem with the idea, however, is that it is hardly new or innovative, except perhaps in the way he has chosen to brand it. L. K. Advani’s Rath Yatra culminating in the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Narendra Modi’s complicity in the riots in Gujarat in 2002, Raj Thackeray’s spewing venom on north Indians living in Maharashtra, regular assaults by a medley of Hindu nationalist organisations on artists, writers, events and observances are very much the face of a malignant jihadi Hindutva that has been on the rise in the last two decades. The jihadi Hindutva votaries are no longer satisfied with spewing sanctimonious and self- righteous rhetoric. Their electoral successes since the 1980s have impelled them to use the state machinery in carrying out acts of violence against groups they consider their natural foes. At the same time, they also recognise the fragility of India’s legal and constitutional processes and have carried out violent acts with impunity and without fear of punishment. While their rhetoric invariably points towards unity and oneness, more than any historical figure or force, the Hindu nationalists have worked overtime in order to divide, and win elections. Savarkar The single most significant point about jihadi Hindutva is that it is based entirely on creating a caricatured version of the enemy. Every single instance of articulating Hindu nationalism has led to a severe distortion of Islam, Christianity, the West and scientific modernity. What is even more crucial is that the Hindu nationalists believe in these caricatures and these constitute for them the basis of reality. In doing so, they also tend to reduce, limit and shrink what they understand of the entity they seem committed to protecting. This leads to a disneyfied version of Hinduism as well, aversion in which the Advanis, Modis and Sudarshans of the world participate and revel in its fragile mockery. Everything becomes arbitrary and selective: history, memory and identity. The criminals of the Sambhaji Brigade, an outfit owing allegiance to the NCP, who attacked the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune in 2004 in the name of protecting Hindu culture and in the name of defending Chatrapati Shivaji’s reputation ended up breaking a statue of Goddess Saraswati, burning rare Sanskrit manuscripts and destroying aprecious copy of the Rig Veda .One is safe to assume that members of the mob that attacked the Bhandarkar Institute had little access to James Laine’s book on Shivaji, the ostensible reason for their protest. Laine had used the Institute’s library fifteen years prior to the publication of the book. Lending this service to Laine was the only “crime” that the Institute was “guilty” of and the reason for the vandalism. But equally so, the illiterate mob that attacked the Bhandarkar Institute knew even less of the worth of the literature they were destroying in the name of protecting an abstraction called Hinduism. Savarkar articulated this process of caricaturing, and, in turn, became the caricature itself better than any Hindu nationalist. The Thackerays of this world are merely footnotes to the diabolical and limited vision that Savarkar put forth in his works. In his book, Hindu- Pad- Padshahi , Savarkar speaks of the qualities that made the Muslims unassailable. These qualities included the art of building a commonly shared national life and consolidating the place of faith in their lives. The Muslims had a unified church, which made them better equipped to take on their opponents. They acted directly under the command of God, had a notion of theocracy and a sense of community, all of which helped their militant campaign against the kafirs . These virtues of the Muslims made them “irresistible”, says Savarkar. He concludes by saying that historically the Hindus had much to learn from the Muslims, and “slowly they [the Hindus] absorbed much that contributed to the success of the Muhammadans.” Jihadi Hindutva, therefore, is a continued process of absorption of the virtues of the caricature. What is significant is that in creating the caricature and believing in it, Hindu nationalist have surpassed the grossness of the caricature itself. Intolerance Jihadi Hindutva, and its counterparts in Islam, Christianity, Communism and other faiths, has little to do with real issues of faith, doctrine and ideology, but more to do with introduction of such ideas as modern nationalism, self- determination, representation and democracy in a society that is full of paradoxes and complexities. Jihadi Hindutva and its cognates in other faiths have a great deal in common with modern nationalism and ideas of self- determination and representation, since all of them are ways of contending with diversity and the tensions arising out of its constant play in the real world. The classical way to deal with this problem was to build liberal institutions that would deal with threats to identity and variety. This latter process has not taken strong roots in India, as it has failed to provide adequate answers in Europe, the land of its birth and initial flourishing. Therefore, it is a mistake to assume that intolerance and bigotry are limited in India to parties owing allegiance to a sectoral identity. Congress governments in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh banned the Da Vinci Code with alacrity, while MLAs belonging to a Muslim party in Hyderabad were able to attack Taslima Nasrin and escape any punitive repercussion by virtue of their alliance with the ruling Congress party in the state. All this is admirably supported by the rise of a middle class in India that is largely amoral and indifferent to everything but instant gratification, which also includes ready access to instant, pre- cooked and easy to digest information. This group’s impatience with democracy and politics is complimented by their fondness for technocratic- managerial solutions to all problems in the world. It also accounts for the popularity of 24- hour news channels, those graveyards of unfinished sentences and breathless inanities. But more so, it manifests in the mushrooming of new age sects and gurus, shrill and hysterical preoccupation with issues such as national security and quixotic vision statements of India as a superpower. Thackeray While all this happens, the ability of ordinary Indians to deal with one of the most difficult of things diminishes by the hour —the ability to deal with the complexity of life, thought and feeling. But at a more practical level, a time will come when the very idea of “belonging” within the country will be questioned by limited men like Raj Thackeray. The likes of Raj have unleashed a process where different parts and fragments within the country would create their own version of the mlecchas (foreigner or barbarian or outsider) and prevent people from moving freely within the country. There is a misperception that Hindu nationalism and its jihadi versions are primarily a threat to Muslims and Christians. Rather, the greatest threat Hindutva poses is to Hindus themselves who do not subscribe to the narrowness of their vision and the mindlessness of their interpretative machinery. The moment ordinary Hindus understand this, the Shiv Sena, RSS and BJP will have to declare their clearance sale. The writer teaches at the University of Hyderabad and is author of Hindutva :Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism