The infamous ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ conference is yet another instance of the perception and ongoing discourse among Western academics on Hindutva and Hindu traditions.
Scheduled to take place from 10-12 September, the three-day conference is “cosponsored” by more than 60 departments or centres from more than 45 universities. That is some firepower, not only in the academic sense but also in terms of the finances that these universities bring to the table. After all, they are well-funded, elite institutions which receive millions of dollars worth of grants and endowments from wealthy patrons.
Obviously, the conference – and the imagery in the conference’s poster, which shows a saffron-coloured swayamsevak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), possibly seen by the conference’s organisers as representative of Hindutva, being ‘dismantled’ or taken apart by the claw-end of a hammer supposedly representing academia – has angered Hindus and their well-wishers around the world.
Why is assertion of one’s culture so bad?
This anger and outrage against the academic discourse has also much to do with the fact that these scholars who seek to ‘dismantle’ Hindutva claim the ideology to be ‘militant’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘nationalist’, ‘ultra-nationalist’, ‘right-wing’, ‘alt-right’, ‘authoritarian’, ‘fascist’, etc. On the other hand, Hindutva is typically viewed by Hindus themselves as a natural expression of their political aspirations and an assertion of the Hindu cultures and associated traditions.
Hence this attempt at ‘dismantling’ is:
– firstly, a denial and negation of the Hindus’ political aspirations. In other words, this sort of scholarly discourse centered around Hindutva is telling Hindus that their fears of being at the mercies of a tyrannical and intolerant minority in India are unjustified despite historical and contemporary evidence. In addition, it is also telling them that the various obstacles that they face while simply practicing their age-old traditions are grossly exaggerated and are simply non-issues. (Especially the obstacles placed in front of them by the secular state; for example, consider the state enforcing women’s entry in Shani Shingnapur and Sabarimala against ancient traditions, the ban on pashubali in Tripureshwari temple, the ban on firecrackers during the festival of Deepavali, and the state managing and administering Hindu temples)
– secondly, a denigration of their cultures and traditions. Indeed, that is how Hindus view it: that certain Western scholars find some aspects of Hindu cultures and traditions to be problematic and thus are trying to ‘dismantle’ those aspects so that the Hindu traditions can fit in better with academe’s progressive and liberal view of religion and society.
The scholars of course would be quick to retort that they don’t find “Hinduism” to be objectionable, but that their objections are solely directed at Hindutva. “Hinduism” is a beautiful, tolerant and “syncretic” religion, they assure us, and tell us that Hindutva is in fact destroying the religion’s beauty, tolerance and “syncreticism” as Hindutva is an ideology that is ‘militant’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘nationalist’, ‘ultra-nationalist’, ‘right-wing’, ‘alt-right’, ‘authoritarian’, ‘fascist’, etc. (One often finds terms like ‘brahminical’, ‘brahminism’, ‘casteist’ or ‘casteism’ used in association with not only Hindutva but also Hinduism, but let us leave those aside for now.)
The rhetoric says that Hindutva has changed “Hinduism” and India for the worse. It tells us that Hindutva has altered Hindus, their lives and the society they live in, for the worse.
Thus, those seeking to ‘dismantle’ Hindutva not only seek to uproot it from Indian or global politics (one has to assume that the ‘dismantlers’ believe that Hindutva has a global presence because they wish to ‘dismantle global Hindutva’), but also from “Hinduism” itself. They do this, they tell us, because they want to restore “Hinduism” to its more beautiful, more tolerant, and more “syncretic” nature.
One could very well call their attempts to do all this the “de-Hindutvafication” of India and Hindu traditions.
All this would lead one to believe that according to those academics, there is a clear distinction between Hindutva and “Hinduism”. Because how would you know how to ‘dismantle’ Hindutva, and not “Hinduism”, if you don’t really know what does and does not constitute these two categories?
However, any cursory reading of the peer-reviewed literature put out by most current professors and scholars of “Hinduism” would tell us that “Hinduism” is often conflated with “casteism” or “caste system”, that “Hinduism” is often “contradictory”, the definition of “Hinduism” is constantly “under contestation”.
In fact, the aforementioned event’s organisers do tell us the same thing.
So, the same scholars who wish to de-Hindutvafy “Hinduism” maintain that there are no clear boundaries or definitions of Hinduism! “Hinduism” now becomes something very arbitrary. The study of “Hinduism” then becomes arbitrary as well, given that the student doesn’t know what exactly he/she is studying. It is then left to the students and professors of “Hinduism” to find their own way (according to their subjective views or biases of course, as there is no objective scholarly consensus on what exactly “Hinduism” is) to study what is to them an arbitrary concept.
Subsequently, any action or thought of a Hindu potentially becomes Hindutva, because there is no clear clarity on the nature or content of “Hinduism”. Sporting a tilak or a bindi, or wearing a saffron shawl, going to the temple and having darshan, adhering to a strict diet, donating money to a gaushala, recitation of a Hindu text at a public function, following a certain practice, doing a ritual – anything and everything which is (rightly or wrongly) seen as a political action can be deemed objectionable and can be termed Hindutva.
The logical extension of this line of thinking would mean that there is something inherent in the Hindu mind that makes it more susceptible to thinking objectionable thoughts and performing objectionable deeds, i.e. Hindutva. Therefore, it becomes necessary to de-Hindutvafy not only “Hinduism”, but also the Hindus themselves. And that is what these self-righteous scholars are up to.
The Why And How of ‘Dismantling’
Let us take a closer look at what may be the motives of the scholars who seek to ‘dismantle’ Hindutva. As mentioned earlier, they tell us that they are doing this because they are worried about the Hindu society and want to help in preserving its tolerant and “syncretic” nature.
While events or initiatives like ‘Dismantling Global Hindutva’ are organic or emergent phenomena, there is little pre-planned coordination between different groups or individuals involved. They work together because they are part of the same organised system.
To be clear, there is no planned conspiracy involved. There is no blueprint or checklist. To put it simply, this is how cultures interact with one another and grapple with understanding one another.
The individuals involved often claim that they feel the need to ‘dismantle’ Hindutva because through their studies, they have come to realise that there is an inherent value in Hindu society and its traditions, and that value needs to be preserved. They are ‘the good guys fighting the (Hindu) Nazis’.
Despite claiming that their study of “Hinduism” has told them that “Hinduism” itself is a very vague descriptor, the experts strangely claim that their vague knowledge of that vague subject gives them special insights. Despite vaguely hinting at their flawed understanding (or non-understanding) of Hindu traditions, they claim superiority over millions of Hindus who practice the traditions in their home and in their communities. And that must surely seem strange, no?
The same experts also identify certain historical or contemporary problems in Hindu society, like ‘Hindu fundamentalism’ or ‘caste discrimination’, and typically trace them to a hypothetical origin-point in history and use their interpretations of Hindu texts to bolster their claims. For instance, the American Indologist Sheldon Pollock theorised that the Ramayana was at the root of ‘Hindu fundamentalism’. One also comes across the oft-repeated claim that the smrti and dharmashastra texts are the root-cause of ‘casteism’.
At the same time, they also assign blame and guilt on all Hindus for problems which – they claim – have origins in Hindu texts and in how Hindus practice “Hinduism”. All Hindus are thus collectively responsible for these problems. As there is no single living individual Hindu that can be blamed for these wrongs because of the academicians’ claim that these problems originated in history and are associated with certain texts or interpretations of those texts, what is assigned is ‘collective blame’.
With that comes the ‘collective guilt’ that is to be borne by all Hindus, because by being Hindus they are all to blame for the problems created by “Hinduism”. Shaken and humiliated, Hindus come to believe – without mounting any possible challenge – that they bear guilt and responsibility.
The amelioration of guilt is through punishment. And if there is ‘collective guilt’, what could be more natural than ‘collective punishment’? Guilt-ridden Hindus would then compete with one another in feats of self-flagellation, all to show that they are not to blame. They would themselves take up the mantle of ‘dismantler’ and proceed forth to decry everything in “Hinduism” as backward, regressive or oppressive.
And that is precisely what is happening.
Readers are encouraged to read the three-part essay Is Hinduism a House Without Walls?. Here is part 1.
All views expressed in this article are strictly personal.
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