Towards a hindu nation - a communist's point of view

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Title: Towards a Hindu nation

Source:

http://www.the-hindu.com/fline/fl1603/16030190.htm

By: K.N. Panicker

 

As the fascist agenda of the Parivar unfolds, it is

clear that what is at stake is not religion, but

political power.

 

K.N. PANIKKAR

 

THE Sangh Parivar has taken another step towards

demarcating the nation as Hindu. So far the attempt has

been to stigmatise Muslims as alien and anti-national

and thus to exclude them from the nation. Now the net

has been extended to include Christians also. Many

people are surprised by the sudden attack on this

peaceful, small community, with a low profile in

politics and hence of no threat to the Parivar. What is

really surprising, however, is that it has taken so long

in coming. For Guru Golwalkar himself had bracketed

Christians with Muslims and Communists as anti-national.

His disciples are now implementing his teachings through

violent means.

The last one year has witnessed well over a hundred

incidents of attack on the person and property of

Christians. The attacks are not incidental to communal

conflicts to which Christians are a party, but are

unprovoked physical attacks and arson and intimidation

by the stormtroopers of the Sangh Parivar. They are all

criminal acts perpetrated under the political patronage

of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Missionaries have been

stripped naked and paraded through the streets, even

burnt alive, nuns have been gang-raped, churches have

been razed to the ground and the Bible and other

religious literature have been burnt.

 

The heightened animosity and violence against Christians

coincides with the rule of the BJP at the Centre. Prior

to that the incidence of violence

against Christians was relatively low. It is estimated

that over a period of 32 years, from 1964 to 1996, there

were only 38 instances of violence

against Christians. Even in 1997, not more than 15

instances were reported. Apart from the increase in

their numbers, the area of incidence of such attacks is

also suggestive: most of the attacks have occurred in

States ruled by either the BJP or its allies - Gujarat,

Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. That in none of

these States governments gave adequate protection to the

victims perhaps accounts for the increase in their

incidence.

Instead of taking stern action, BJP leaders have either

rationalised or justified what the cadres of the Parivar

did. In Gujarat, where the attacks

against Christians have been intense and continuous,

conversions have been invoked as a reason by none other

than the Chief Minister himself,

suggesting thereby that Christians themselves are to be

blamed for inviting the wrath of Hindus. A senior

functionary of the BJP justified even rape as a reaction

to conversions. The response of Prime Minister A.B.

Vajpayee, who is considered a good man and a liberal by

many, was the most devious. By calling for a public

debate on conversions, he suggests that the blame, in

fact, rests with the victims. His move is a veiled

threat to individual freedom, guaranteed in the

Constitution after extended discussion in the

Constituent Assembly. The freedom of conscience and the

right to propagate it, be it of religious faith or of

atheism, cannot be dissociated from the rights of the

citizen in a democracy. The freedom, it is said, is

indivisible.

UDAY ADHVARYU

With implements from their armoury, VHP volunteers

strike a menacing pose at Ahmedabad last fortnight. The

recent attacks on Christians are another example of the

unfolding of the fascist agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

IS conversions the real issue? Or is it only a surrogate

for advancing the Hindutva agenda?

Christianity in India has a history of about 2,000

years. Beginning almost at the time of its inception,

Christian missionaries

have spared no effort to "save the souls of the

idolatrous, superstitious Hindus". They set up their

missions, churches,

seminaries and schools whenever and wherever they could

gain a foothold. The missionaries learnt Indian

languages, set

up printing presses and published literature - both

secular and religious - to propagate their faith. That

in the process they

contributed to the enrichment of Indian languages - in

several Indian languages, the first codes of grammar

were

composed by missionaries - is a different matter. The

missionaries used the public space to communicate the

principles of

their "superior" religion and at the same time to

"expose the faults and foibles of Hinduism."

Yet there were no Crusades in India - not even what

happened in China in the 19th century when missionaries

were attacked and driven out from

the interior. Hinduism responded in an entirely

different manner. Instead of violence and coercion, the

claims of the missionaries about their religion and

their denigration of Hinduism were challenged through

public debates. Theological disputations were integral

to the intellectual life of India from very early times.

It greatly contributed to the enrichment of its

epistemological tradition. Such dialogues took place

between members of all denominations - Buddhists, Jains,

Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Quite often the rulers

provided the platform for such debates. The

Hindu-Christian debates have been theologically quite

productive. In the 16th century, continuous disputations

took place between Hindu pundits

and Portuguese friars. When John Wilson, a missionary of

great erudition and scholarship, was pursuing his

evangelical work in western India, a

Hindu intellectual, Vishnu Bawa Brahmachari, refuted his

arguments against Hinduism at weekly public meetings at

Chowpathy in Mumbai,

following which a public debate was organised between

him and some missionaries. If the pamphleteering of the

19th century is any indication,

such exchanges took place between members of other

communities also. For instance, in Malabar, Makti Tangal

countered the arguments of the

missionaries in several of his writings.

Indian rulers have generally adopted an impartial

attitude in inter-religious relations. Not that they

have not patronised their co-religionists or

constructed shrines of their faith: the examples of such

pursuits are aplenty from the times of Asoka to the 19th

century. But lending support to

the persecution of followers of other religions has been

rather rare. There are exceptions though, as in the case

of the Cholas, the Huns and the

Sungas in early history, some Muslim rulers during the

medieval period and the Portuguese in more recent times.

But the general attitude is

exemplified by what Maharaja Ranjit Singh said to one of

his Ministers who happened to be a Muslim. A fakir

brought to his court a copy of the

Koran, which the Maharaja acquired by offering a large

sum. When asked by his Minister as to why he, a Sikh,

had done so, the Maharaja, known

for his wit and wisdom, reasoned that God had given him

only one eye so that he could look upon all religions

without discrimination.

The colonial rulers, influenced more by expediency than

by principles, chose to desist from interfering in

religious matters. Until 1813, the East

India Company kept Christian missionaries away from its

territories. Several British officials, however,

believed that Christianisation was both a

religious and a political solution, as it was likely to

ensure the permanence of the Empire. As a result,

whether to Christianise or not was a widely

debated issue. In the aftermath of the Revolt of 1857 -

seen by many as a response to British interference in

social and religious matters - the

colonial rulers reaffirmed the policy of

non-interference. The colonial state was not a major

player in evangelisation, although a nexus between

officials and missionaries did exist in certain areas

without receiving official approbation. No mass

conversions to Christianity took place under the

aegis of the colonial rulers. State patronage was not a

decisive factor in conversions.

At any rate, conversion is a complex matter. Richard M.

Eaton, in an excellent study, The Rise of Islam and the

Bengal Frontier, pointed out the

inadequacies of the existing theories of Islamisation,

including those of patronage and social liberation. His

contention that the spread of Islam in

Bengal was as a religion of the plough is fascinating.

Yet it is true that conversions to both Islam and

Christianity have been from the lower caste

orders. The increase in the population of the Mappilas

(in Malabar) in the 19th century is a telling example.

The increase took place from the

middle of the century after the abolition of slavery in

Malabar, which is now part of northern Kerala. Many of

the agrestic slaves freed from their

bondage opted for Islam. Mass conversions have often

been of a caste as a whole for which the internally

oppressive system of Hinduism has

been responsible, rather than any external agency.

Rather than looking for scapegoats from other

communities, Hindu leaders should learn to look

inward.

BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

A Christian place of worship at Karadiamba village in

Dangs district of Gujarat, which was destroyed

by activists of the Hindu Dharma Jagran Manch on

December 26.

After 2,000 years of Christian presence and almost 200

years of Christian rule, the progress of Christianity in

India has not been very substantial. The community is

still tiny. The Census of 1991 records the number of its

followers at 2.4 per cent of the total population. Nor

have they increased in number during the last decade; in

fact, their strength has relatively declined from 2.6

per cent in 1981. The missionary efforts at

evangelisation

obviously have not met with great success. If so, there

is hardly any substance in the present hue and cry

about conversions being a great threat to Hindus. What

is at stake is not religion, but political power.

DEMARCATING Hindus politically and culturally from other

denominations is central to the politics of the Parivar.

That is the essence of cultural

nationalism which provides the ideological basis of

Hindu communalism. So far this demarcation was pursued

through a hate campaign as well as

violence against Muslims. A stage has come when it has

become necessary to expand the scope of the enemy, for

two reasons. First, the possible

political advantage from representing Muslims as alien

and anti-national has run out of steam. Secondly, since

1992, Muslims in different parts of

the country have shown that they are capable of

retaliation. The lessons of the bomb blasts in Mumbai,

Chennai, Coimbatore and Kerala are not

lost on the Parivar: violence and aggression are

nobody's monopoly. Home Minister L.K. Advani, who exudes

communal hatred, on the one hand

and distributes awards for communal harmony on the

other, narrowly escaped being hurt in Coimbatore.

Muslim-bashing is not easy any longer.

Yet it is necessary to privilege the Hindu, in contrast

to the alien other. Hence the focus on Christians.

The aggression against Christians is incidental also to

the need to expand the electoral base of the BJP. Middle

class-upper-caste support is

inadequate to gain a majority in Parliament, as was

evident from the elections of 1996 and 1998. In the

quest to expand its electoral support base,

the minorities and, to some extent, the lower castes are

out of the reckoning. A group that can be possibly

considered is tribal communities,

among whom the Parivar has already initiated some work.

After the BJP came to power, tribal communities are

being wooed with promises of

statehood to some areas where they are predominant. But

the Parivar has to contend with the influence of

Christians in the tribal areas where the

missionaries and charity organisations have been active

in educational and developmental work. The tribal

communities can be brought to the

Parivar's fold only by undermining the Christian

influence. The outcry against conversions, as is

happening in Dangs, is a result of this. Invoking

Christian conversion as an issue is amusing since most

of those who belong to tribal communities are not Hindus

and their religious practices are

not even remotely connected with any form of Hinduism.

If Christians are accused of conversions, the Vishwa

Hindu Parishad can also be

accused of doing exactly the same thing. The latter is

no less reprehensible than the former. In fact, in the

19th century, several tribal revolts were

reactions to Hindu intrusion into their way of life.

Both the missionaries and the VHP are in effect

endangering the traditional religious practices of

tribal people.

Another field in which Christians constitute a hurdle to

the Parivar's march is education. The Parivar, conscious

of the ideological importance of

education, has set up about 20,000 schools under

different denominations and is poised to form a parallel

system. The Ministry of Human

Resource Development, under the control of two Rashtriya

Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) stalwarts, is queering the pitch

for it. In a bid to facilitate

the expansion of the Parivar school network, Human

Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi

recently proposed an amendment to the

Constitution so as to extend to all other the privileges

so far enjoyed by the minorities. He also tried to give

some legitimacy to the parallel system

by inviting the manager of one of the RSS organisations

to present a scheme of education, at a meeting of State

Education Ministers (Frontline,

November 20, 1998). Unless Christian educational

institutions, which generally enjoy a very good

reputation for maintaining teaching standards,

are discredited and displaced, the Parivar will find it

difficult to advance its network. Hence the attack on

these institutions in the name of abetting

conversions.

Apart from all these, since the demolition of the Babri

Masjid, Christian organisations and institutions have

taken some initiatives to promote

secularism and to oppose communalism. They have held

workshops, conducted studies and generally promoted

activities aimed to sensitise people

about secular values. This has understandably enraged

the Parivar, particularly the lumpen sections within it,

both political and intellectual, which

are out to teach Christians a lesson. While the BJP

ideologue and eminent journalist Arun Shourie "unmasks"

missionaries in his articles and books,

the Bajrang Dal strips them naked in the streets and

burns them alive.

The anti-Christian tirade is, therefore, not accidental.

It is another example of the unfolding of the fascist

agenda of the Parivar. That the BJP

leadership, including the Prime Minister, has not

unequivocally condemned it is reflective of its tacit

acquiescence. Christians have been identified

as another enemy, a new symbol, to demarcate the nation

further as Hindu. The attack on Christians is therefore

not a simple law and order issue

as some allies of the BJP seem to believe. It is a

profoundly political question which can be overlooked

only at great peril to the Indian Republic.

 

K.N. Panikkar is Professor of

Modern History at the Centre for Historical Studies,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.