The India I knew and The India I am living in
Born and brought up in a typical Hindu home, where never was heard a word of hatred against other faiths; I am not able to relate to the present-day philosophy and practice of Hindutva
I was recently watching Kapil Sibal interviewing Yashwant Sinha - former Minister in the BJP government who held portfolios for Finance and Foreign Affairs before resigning long ago, asking him about the recent political situation. Sinha spoke very sincerely about the "good old days," comparing them with today’s mahaul (atmosphere) inside and outside the Parliament. Perhaps it is the tendency of people getting old to feel nostalgic about "their time" and feel ill at ease with the present day.
Perhaps this is what has happened to me. I remember my experiences of my younger days fondly. I would like to mention my home because it almost perfectly expresses the socio-religious culture of that time. Our family consisted of three persons, excluding us two children. Each one of the three followed the faith of their choice. My mother was a strong Krishna bhakt (devotee); my Baba (grandfather) was an equally strong devotee of Devi, who also believed in and practised many rituals. My father was a non-believer. Yet, we all stood by when Baba called for Puja. No one ever criticized the other's faith.
I may be rebuffed here - telling me that my example of one family’s mutual harmony can not be compared to the complexities and needs of a multi-religious society like India’s. But my early experience still belies what I find around me now. The idea of "hatred of the other"— specifically followers of other religions, was simply never heard of in my young age.
Religious identity was not frequently referred to. Later in life, my husband had two Muslim colleagues. There was such a strong harmony between all of us. These friends were an integral part of our Holi celebrations. We used to regularly visit their homes on both Eids. Both have since passed away, but we maintain the same relations with their families. In fact, the children of one of them have closer contact with us than the families of most of our other friends.
In my young days, I was a voracious reader. I read a lot of Mahatma Gandhi. As early as 1909, the Mahatma wrote in his path-breaking work, Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule):
‘India cannot cease to be one nation because people belonging to different religions live in it... That country must have the power of assimilation. India has ever been such a country... The Hindus, the Mohammedans, the Parsis, the Christians who have made India their country are fellow countrymen. In no part of the world are one nationality and one religion synonymous terms...
‘Should we not remember that many Hindus and Mohammedans own the same ancestors, and the same blood runs through their veins? Do people become enemies simply because they change their religion? Is the God of the Mohammedans different than the God of Hindus? Religions are different roads converging in the same point." (Hind Swaraj)’
However, later I found Gandhi talking about Hindus and Muslims as bhai-bhai (brothers). At that time, I did not like this. I was already convinced that there is no basic difference between them, and to call them "brothers" implied they had separate identities to begin with. Perhaps, I was wrong then. But Mahatma’s declaration regarding the God of all humans being the same—which seems to be ignored by most religionists today—remains the greatest declaration, leaving no scope for mutual conflict in the name of God.
I read Jawaharlal Nehru during the same period and felt an affinity with him, as he spoke the language my heart felt to be true. Jawaharlal Nehru’s approach was unconditionally secular and humanitarian. He believed:
‘Minorities in India, it must be remembered, are not racial or national minorities, as in Europe, they are religious minorities... Latterly, religion in the real sense of the word has played little part in Indian political conflicts, though the word is often used and exploited. Religious differences as such do not come in the way, for there is a great deal of tolerance for them. In politics, religion has been displaced by what is known as communalism, a narrow group mentality basing itself on a religious identity, but in reality concerned with power and patronage for the interested group." (Discovery of India)’
Nehru is often set aside by present-day Hindutva supporters because he is perceived as being "soft" towards minorities. It was not softness; it was Nehru's sense of justice which demanded total equality among all. He was—rightly so—afraid that ‘Minorities can be dealt in a hundred ways but majority in a democratic system would be dangerous if it functioned as a religious majority.’ I don't think I understood the terrible implications of that simple sentence at the time. Nehru understood the horrible implications of his own observations, repeating elsewhere:
"The alliance of religion and politics is a most dangerous alliance, and it yields the most abnormal kind of illegitimate brood."
Again, I might not have understood the real urgency of these warnings simply because there was no social atmosphere around me to justify what Nehru was saying. I heard of chote-mote (small) incidents of conflict between the two communities, but such conflicts were short-lived, and soon everything used to become normal. Indian films played a major role in depicting a society of harmony and fraternity. Hindus and Muslims were shown having close relationships.
Now, I am told that such close relationships were "artificial". I don't know; not only did I use to enjoy and appreciate this, but everybody near me approved of it. There is a joke that an aspiring actor once told a film director that he felt very insecure being a minority. The director asked, "Why should you feel so when you are a Hindu?" The aspirant started counting the names of the heroes, and every hero's name ended with 'Khan'!
I was just yesterday seeing an old film song clip on television—one of those melodies that spoke of shared humanity—and it struck me how far we have drifted from that innocence. The screen reflected a unity that today is being rewritten as a lie. But for me, it was the truth.
Contrast this with present-day films, like The Kashmir Files or The Kerala Story — and so many others whose names I forget simply because I have never seen them. They seem to express immense hatred of the "other" by the simple device of misrepresenting facts, or presenting a very small incident as if it were the whole truth about a society. The earlier films gave a message of love and harmony; the present-day ones tell us how bad things are!
Films do affect our psyche. While the earlier ones instilled in us a sense of peace and security, recent films try to convince us that persons belonging to the other community are not just "bad", they are enemies against whom we must always be alert. My God! How could anyone do this? Of course, it seems 80% of our netas (politicians) have only one job: collecting money with one hand and declaring all non-Hindus as our enemies with the other. Worst still, there is some poision which has been absorbed by the air we breath, as a result of which 80% Hindus believe that both that Muslims are their enemies, and hating them or be violent towards them is what their religion or “Hindutva” is all about. This politics of division is alien to the India I know.
There is hardly anything common between the traditional Hinduism and Hindutva. Traditional Hinduism worships many gods, and at the same time declares that all gods are but different names of one Supreme Divine Reality (Ekam Sat vipra bahudha vadanti, Rig Veda ). But the ideology of Hindutva declares that there is but one God called Ram, who is the symbol of both Hinduism and Indian nationalism.
The core of traditional Hinduism is religious toleration, which has determined the history and culture of India. Hinduism declares that there is one Divine Reality only, but it can be worshipped in different forms according to one’s beliefs and emotional needs. This is the doctrine of ishta devata, the deity of one’s choice which idea makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world.
Hinduism also advocates ahimsa which, though borrowed from heterodox sects of Buddhism and Jainism, has been so much internalized by traditional Hinduism that it can be safely acknowledged as belonging to the core of Hinduism. On the other hand, the central message of Hindutva is aggression and destruction of enemies, real or imaginary. The original Hinduism believes in the unity of all humankind, nay, all living beings. This follows automatically from its faith in one Atman being the Self of all. The Bhagavatgita has expressed this vision thus:
The Self abiding in all being and all beings abiding in the self sees he who has been made steadfast by yoga, and everywhere sees the same…….
He, O Arjuna! Who sees with equality everyone in the image of his self, whether in pleasure or in pain, he is considered a perfect yogin.
Though the Mahabharata is mainly a tale of wars, even it declares again and again “Ahimsa paramo dharmah”( non -violence is the supreme duty). Further it says in Shanti Parva::
Don’t treat others in a way in which you would not want to be treated by others.
How can a man who wants to live himself kill another? Therefore, you should wish for others whatever you want for yourselves.
In the entire theistic - devotional (Bhakti) tradition devotion to the Lord is conceived in such a way that it is integrated with the love and compassion for all living beings. Tulsidas, the Bhakta poet who declared Ram as the avatar of God, says:
Knowing Sita and Ram residing in all beings, [or all beings being enveloped by Sita and Ram] I bow down to all of them.
Kabir declares:
Numskull! You have missed the point.
It is all one skin and bone …..
Who is a brahmin , who is a shudra?
Kabir says plunge into Rama,
There no Hindu, no Turk.
Guru Nanak repeatedly declared, ‘Na koi Hindu, na Musalman’ (No one is Hindu or Muslim), meaning that all these distinctions are false.
But the contemporary supporters of Hindutva seem to say that not only Hindus and Turks are different, they are not the children of the same God; nor does their God- Ram- reside in the hearts of Muslims and Christians who are the children of another God! If it were not the case, they would not have emphasized the differences so much as to forget the common humanity of us all.
As we have seen above, no one can kill or harm anybody if he is convinced that the same Atman or God resides in all of us, as all the Hindu texts have proclaimed. As far as the destruction of any place of worship is concerned, I challenge every Hindu to find a single Hindu text which exhorts such a dastardly act.
Moreover, having declared Ram as the symbol of Hinduism, they should not go on appealing to other gods, which they are doing all the time, as they do not want to miss any opportunity to secure their desired boons from anyone who can give them that! The entire idea is farcical.
The supporters of Hindutva have randomly picked on their mythology to project Hinduism as an aggressive religion, but have not bothered to learn any thing from the characters of their gods. Ram is a God of righteousness and compassion, Krishna of Vrindavan is a God of love, Krishna of the Bhagvadgita teaches doing one’s duty selflessly; and Shiva is declared ‘Bhole nath’ a simple hearted God who is easily appeased, and so on. None of these values have any meaning for the Hindutva people.
To conclude, “Hindutva” is an attempt at semitizing Hinduism. Thus, in the name of saving Hinduism from the onslaught of the Semitic religions, the protagonists of Hindutva have semitized Hinduism, thereby destroying whatever was unique to it. The uniqueness of Hinduism lay in its extreme liberalness, religious toleration, and vision of one Divine Reality residing in all, and being worshipped in many forms, features which distinguish it from Semitic religions.
By undermining all these and trying to project Hindutva as a self- assertive, aggressive, and strictly monotheistic religion, Hindutva has destroyed Hinduism as it existed along the ages, and tried to project a hybrid religion which misses the good points of both, i.e., Hinduism and Semitic religions ,and saves only the negative aspects of Semitic approach. Also this brings me to my final judgment.
Born and brought up in a typical Hindu home, where never was heard a word of hatred against other faiths; I am not able to relate to the present-day philosophy and practice of Hindutva. Therefore, I want to dissociate myself from the present-day Hindutva. I believe in, and practise, the Rig Veda's dictum "Ekam Sat, vipra bahudha vadanti" (Truth is one, though learned men talk of It differently), and Guru Nanak's declaration "Na koi Hindu, na koi Musalman", adding that I am only an Insan (human being).
[The writer, Dr. Saral Jhingran, did her PhD on Advaita Vedanta from Rajasthan University in 1972. Since then she has held several UGC fellowships, and finally retired as a research scientist affiliated to the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library. Her specializations are philosophy of Religion, Indian philosophy, and above all ethics. She is also involved in social issues, and upholds a secular humanitarian standpoint. She has authored 6 books on religion and morality.]
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