HINDU CHAUVINISM

Making India Hindu by David Ludden

Review by Kuldeep Kumar

The demolition of Ayodhya's disputed Babari Mosque on December 6, 1992 by a determined mob of karsevaks owing allegiance to the RSS clan and Shiv Sena made many an observer of the South Asian scene sit up and gape in horror. The premeditated destruction of the historic monument on the specious plea that it was a symbol of the insult heaped on the Hindu community by Muslim invaders gave a tremendous jolt to those who had entertained stereotyped notions of Hindu tolerance. This excellent collection of essays is an outcome of the realization, explained by Editor David Ludden in his prefatory remarks that "In December 1992, it became obvious that college teachers do not have good enough books at hand for teaching about the recent history of politics and communal conflict in India"

Taking the Babari Masjid demolition as its starting point, the University of Pennsylvania's South Asia Regional Studies programme organised a series seminars during the academic year 1993-94 and some of the papers presented and discussed at these seminars have been included in this volume.

Ludden's scintillating Introduction offers a most absorbing reading and, even though he admits that "many ideas from seminar papers and discussions have been included", his understanding of the Hindutva project "to make India Hindu" is truly remarkable. He questions the conventional intellectual identification of "India" with the terms "Hindu" and "Hinduism" and reminds the reader that "Islam is as old in India as in Turkey. Indian Islam is older than American Christianity and European Protestantism. Indian Islam is no more derivative than Chinese, Tibetan, Thai or Japanese Buddhism". He draws attention to the fact that for Hindu nationalists (Ludden fights shy of calling them communalists), the idea that Islam appear foreign to India is axiomatic. The logical corollary of making Islam appear foreign to India is the Hindutva project to make India Hindu.

Ludden provides an illuminating discussion of the attitudes displayed by the foreign. media which unconsciously takes frequent recourse to phrases like "predominantly Hindu India" The role of the European imperialism in fashioning an image of India consistent with its Orientalist notions has also been discussed, underlining the tendency of the colonial master to term any kind of social or interpersonal conflict as "communal" Ludden also draws attention to the fact that majoritarian Hindu nationalism's. assumption acquiring a common sense quality and "increasing the power and authority of these ideas and drowning out their intellectual competition are critical in the project of making India Hindu" One has to only recall the campaign launched against the NCERT's history text books during 1977-78 by those owing allegiance to the Jan Sangh constituent of the ruling Janata Party at the Centre. In the recent past, BJP governments in UP and MP introduced many changes in text books of various disciplines to suit the RSS view of history. The sophistication and success with which the BJP and its other allies have used images, symbols and calendar art to create an atmosphere of pseudo-religiosity is amply brought out in Richard H. Davis's essay on "The Iconography of Rama's Chariot", focusing primarily on L.K. Advani's controversial Rath Yatra. It is another matter, as Sumit Sarkat in his article "Indian Nationalism and the Politics of Hindutva" so ably analyses and as current shenanigans in the BJP so amply demonstrate, the Hindutva party itself has fallen prey to the reality and power of caste as an identity-determining factor in Hindu society. Sarkar also argues that in the mainstream historiography of Indian nationalism, caste, especially lower-caste aspirations, have been either inadequately dealt with or completely glossed over.

In her paper entitled "Mass Media: Images, Mobilization and Communalism" Victoria L. Farmer too takes up the question of how the Hindutva brigade made the most comprehensive use of latest media technologies and how the familiar images of Ram in the hugely popular television serial Ramayana were cleverly exploited by Advani in the course of his Rath Yatra. However, it is a little difficult to agree with her when she approvingly informs that "many scholars have come to the conclusion that the serialisation of the Ramayana on Doordarshan was fundamental to the project of fundamentalism, creating a shared symbolic lexicon around which political forces could mobilize communal praxis. The serialisation of Ramayana was certainly not central to its project. The Hindutva forces ingenuity lies in taking full advantage of the atmosphere created by the telecast of such serials. Similarly, it is difficult to see the link between Sanskritization of Hindi on All India Radio and the rise of Hindu nationalism ... because as Farmer herself records, the change in the government-controlled electronic media's language took place as early as the first years of Indian independence. Farmer's assertion that the AIR devalued the contribution of Muslim musicians is palpably untrue. In the section of the role print media in promoting the Hindutva project, most of what she says is familiar stuff.

Amrita Basu offers valuable insights into the dynamics of the expansion and consolidation achieved by the Hindutva forces by affirming that the. Ram temple movement was both a mass movement as well as an elite conspiracy. However, her article ... paints a picture as if the RSS, VHP and BJP were functioning in a political vacuum without paying any attention to the gradual but continuous decline of the Congress as the foremost spokesman of a pan-Indian, secular nationalism and the organisational paralysis that afflicted it during the years of the BJP's ascendancy.

In a brilliant essay, Mushirul Hasan has analysed the colonial and national narratives and explores as well as explodes the myth of pan-Islamic unity. He comes to the conclusion that Muslims have been the "logical victims of their own myth-making, claiming for themselves an alien culture, if not origin, and being so regarded by others". Orientalise assumptions also helped in portraying Muslims as an aggressive and hostile community, thus indirectly making common cause with the Hindutva project. A short review can hardly do justice to this volume. It is an essential reading for all those who are interested in understanding the Hindutva project.