Hinduism : A Fabrication for Unity

The issue of nationalism in India is, unfortunately but indisputably, linked with the idea of Hinduism. The two notions are, in fact, often thought of as synonymous. Yet, the question of what is understood by the terms ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hinduism’ is being probed by many historians and sociologists. Accompanying debates on whether a Hindu state should be ruled by an explicitly ‘Hindu’ party to protect the interest of the majority against the clever and selfish ‘minorities’ are investigations into whether Hinduism has any religious identity at all. Hinduism, thought by many to be nothing but an amalgamation of varied beliefs that was simply the ‘other’ of Islam, has been used as a tool to invoke nationalism. In multicultural India, the issues of identity are inextricably woven into a complex tissue of history and fiction. There are political and economic interests at play, as well as deep-rooted group frustrations, fears and ambitions. The modern mass media, the press, films and television provide a national forum for them to be voiced and heard all over the country. Nationwide ‘communal’ solidarities are being forged for self-defence or self-assertion and their legitimization is backed by selective perceptions of history. Each of the contesting groups is engaged in constructing fresh images of the self, in deliberately reformulating the past according to present requirements, and in projecting images of the ‘other’ as different, dangerous and wholly disreputable. If we attempt to trace back communalism to the nineteenth century, we find a slightly different picture. The concept of religious identity was then linked to the emergence of the concept of the nation-state, as wrested from the British. In Europe, this notion was, at this juncture, intimately linked with language and territory, as seen in the formation of countries like Italy and Germany. The translation of this ideal of ‘one language one nation’ by Indian intellectuals to the Indian context was problematic because it would lead to the formation of many little nations in the subcontinent, none of which would have been strong enough to shake off the colonial yoke. A cultural unity and self-assertion was, understandably, the need of the hour. The multiplicity of religious traditions in the subcontinent was gradually made to merge into mainly two monolithic blocks: Hinduism and Islam – a process that is still under way and has involved much manipulation by the political elite. There were several factors contributing to these notions of Indian Great Traditions. One of these was the Christian critique of Hindu idolatry and social ethics, followed by the general reform movements of those supposedly unified set of practices. The Orientalist perception of India’s glorious past that saw the Vedas and the Upanishads as the purest vestiges of ancient Indo-European culture was another factor. A third cause was the Christian idea of the four religious groups of the world: the Christians, Jews, Muslims and the heathens. The heathen were divided into sects according to the country they inhabited. Thus, it was essential for the Indian heathen to belong to one such sect. Of course, centuries before the arrival of missionaries, a certain set of beliefs had already been highlighted as distinct from those of the Muslims, the ostensible ‘other’ of Islam. The abstract idea of a common religion spanning the entire country was not difficult to come by and was seized upon as the perfect expedient for the construction of a nationalist identity. After independence, the centralistic nation that emerged made homogenization an essential part of its programme. The question of a national language provoked endless tensions and some nationalist leaders again emphasized the importance of religion as a marker of social and national identity. However, this fabrication had a tragic fallout. If Hinduism was to be this unifying religion in India, then the Muslims, Parsees, Christians and Jews were to be made into aliens. The Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs were offered inclusion into the Hindu fold. If, however, they chose to insist on a separate religious identity, they had no alternative but to either accept being considered aliens in India or to demand a separate nation. Unfortunately, there was no space for overlapping identities that had once been possible when the concept of a monolithic ‘Hinduism’ had not yet come into existence. This idea conflicted with the fact that Hinduism itself contained very little unity. In fact, if any uniformity existed in the prenationalist period, it was within the various denominations of the Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Shaktas, etc. The major post-Vedic Hindu religious movements, such as Vaishnavism and Shaivism, were actually independent, distinct religions, with sharp theological demarcations. The lumping together of all these smaller religious communities is a relatively modern phenomenon. It does not yield a basis for common self-perception. Who, indeed, is a Hindu? The Indian Constitution subsumes under this term the followers of all religions that originated on Indian soil. Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, all those who adhere to any one of the Vedic and post-Vedic brahmanical religions, as well as all practitioners of folk religion and tribal religions are assembled under one comprehensive term: ‘Hindu’. Criteria for belonging to the Hindu fold are neither in terms of ethnicity nor religious doctrine. What counts is solely the territory of origin – not of the people who are believers but of the religion. More than 1,000 years have passed since Zoroastrianism has taken root in Indian soil, more than 1,200 years in the case of Islam and 2,000 years in the case of Judaism and Christianity, yet these religions remain ‘foreign’ and their adherents will remain excluded from the Hindu identity unless there is a radical change of perception and the Constitution is revised. The Hindu religion is the only indigenous, Indian and ‘national’ one though its identity is largely fictitious. It is agreed almost universally that a nation-state needs a unifying factor but the Indian political elite tend to fall back on Hinduism for lack of a better one. Beliefs from all over the country were first clubbed together, creating this new religion to stand in opposition to the existing ones and to facilitate the nationalist spirit that was required to topple the Raj. It is continuing to be used as a ruse to stimulate a nationalist spirit that serves no purpose other than political expediency. Of course, this construct is here to stay and Hinduism is now a potent reality. Yet, it is necessary for urban Hindus to understand that Hinduism has no unchanging essence, going back in a mono-linear process to the coming of the Aryans and to the Word of the Vedas. It is important to probe the construction of modern Hinduism, its many roots in the past and its reformulations in the present.

Himani Dalmia
II English