Abstract
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Why I am a Hindu is Shashi Tharoor’s cautiously evaluated response to the speculated Hinduism of the Hindutva ideologues. It is directed principally at Rightist rhetoric that equates not just Hinduism with nationalism, but also secularism with being anti-Hindu (and by that very logic, anti-national). Tharoor’s riposte, as he has explicitly stated, stems from his positioning not as a secularist but as a practising Hindu.
The text is a tripartite exploration of Tharoor’s personal, political and antidotal engagement with contemporary projections of Hindu discourse. In the first section titled, ‘My Hinduism’ Tharoor delves into individual conversance with the faith that he was born into. Hinduism, he states, is a religion without governing fundamentals, inherently eclectic and commodious in its adaptability to historical developments. Since Hinduism is a continually evolving spectrum (Sanatana Dharma), it reflects the coexistence of several conflicting views. This paradoxical complexity exhibited by Hinduism has been viewed as its weakness by some who see it as bereft of a unifying organisational force that underlies other religions. Such concerns have fuelled the Hindutva mission that zealously seeks to consolidate and standardise Hinduism under its aegis. Tharoor however, emphasises that validity and acceptance of difference is the core strength of Hinduism and responsible for establishing the foundation of India’s democratic culture.
In the second segment of the book, Tharoor observes the emergence of what he calls ‘Political Hinduism’. This was in part a reaction to fierce competition from the monotheistic culture of the British colonialists who claimed to possess all the regalia of modernity, scientific knowledge and progress; as also the influence of 19th century European fascist discourse on nationalism and racial purity. Furthermore, Tharoor’s observations extend to include a striking resemblance between the Hindutvavadis and 20th-century Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East and South Asia, with regard to their cognitive process––the emphasis on a glorious past, decline attributed to predacious invaders, fortification of grievances against past injustices, their antipathy to westernisation (many elements of which they have subconsciously emulated), and the aspiration for political unity of a race/religious culture through the process of decontamination.
The fundamental intention of the author is revealed in the last section of the book, ‘Taking Back Hinduism’. Tharoor’s primary grouse is with what he considers as the usurping and distortion of an essentially uncontainable, flowing, syncretic religion into a straitjacketed masculinist racist ideology in the name of nationalism. As he notes, the Hindutva ideologues should have no more prerogative over defining who a Hindu is or what Hinduism is about than any other lay Hindu. As a practising Hindu, he also rejects the conflation of Hindu and nationalist. For Tharoor, being Hindu and being a liberal is not in the least conflicting. Moreover, it is liberalism as a political ideology that is most compatible with the syncretic nature of Hinduism.
While Tharoor acknowledges that taking pride in one’s religious and cultural legacy is important, he stresses that the cultural nationalism promoted by the Sangh Parivar by fuelling bygone resentments and inciting hatred and suspicion towards minorities is not just highly divisive, but also responsible for incapacitating India’s soft power in the world. It is an ideology that draws its energy from the premise of victimhood and constantly feeds on the narrative of defeat, humiliation and retribution.
Tharoor rejects the notion that religious identity should determine nationhood, which is the very basis that differentiates India from Pakistan. He also maintains that while minority communalism distinctly appears as separatism, there is the perilous likelihood of majoritarian communalism looking like nationalism. It is easy to perceive minority communalism as an act of splintering from the whole, but one forgets that majoritarian communalism is the same––an act of fragmentation, purported as nationalist aspiration.
Tharoor’s assertion that Hindu nationalism is neither Indian nationalism nor authentic Hinduism is valuable at this juncture of Indian democracy. Because while there are Sanghivadis that profess that a true Hindu (and nationalist) is one who is anti-secular, there may be those who feel they must be anti-Hindu or at the least, Hindu-distant to profess their loyalty to secular ethics. The author’s work is significant in that it offers an alternative to the deeply dichotomised rhetoric of religiosity, secularism and nationalism. One can be nationalist, anti-Hindutva and anti-majoritarian, without being anti-Hindu. It is also essential for the novice, whose lack of comprehension of Hinduism may lead to the mistaken belief that the Hindutva ideologues are the sole representatives of Hindu culture, and that adhering to the Hindutva ideology is the logical progression of being Hindu. Just as the narrative of liberal Muslims circumvents the polarities of Islamic fundamentalism and secularism (in the Western sense), Tharoor offers the possibility for practising Hindus or just liberals, if they so wish, to see beyond the extremes of political Hinduism and staunch disavowal of religion.
As the author himself underscores, his account is that of a practising Hindu wanting to retract the discourse of Hinduism from the clutch of fundamentalist forces. So though he does not completely overlook the seriousness of the caste issue, in his enthusiasm to reclaim Hinduism (and perhaps as a politician, the Hindu vote bank), he is hasty and impetuous in tidying up the muddle of Hinduism. While he donates a generous volume of lexes to his personal engagement with Hinduism, Tharoor is rather sparse in his critique of the non-egalitarian and excessively rigid manifestations of Hindu society, which constitute the daily lived experience of several people. It may be true that there are many postulates and theoretical underpinnings of Hinduism that illustrate flexibility, acceptance of heterogeneity and belief in all pervasiveness of divinity, but the ground reality of Hinduism is differently experienced by different communities.
Exemplifying a few cases of gender equality and feminine worship in Hinduism, while necessary and noteworthy, does not exonerate a religious ideology that has over centuries, embodied and demonstrated an abysmal patriarchal and caste-based bias. While in his experience as a privileged Hindu, he is free to reject customs and practices that he does not align with, there are thousands of Hindus that are bound by the restrictive dogma of caste hierarchy and indeed shackled to caste discrimination based on notions of purity and superiority of one group over the other. They experience none of the freedom and fluidity that Hinduism bestows upon him. His statements on caste are ambivalent. On the one hand, he does not want to be guilty of ignoring the elephant in the room. He admits clearly that caste consciousness is so deeply etched in the Hindu psyche that even after hundreds of years after conversion to other faiths, the baggage of caste identity is difficult to jettison. On the other hand, he is quick to say that caste has nothing to do with religion and is purely a social practice (the fact remains that the categorisation of ‘caste’ is exclusive to ‘Hindu’ society). In saying so, he himself is excluding the ‘lived Hinduism’ of many dalits, Bahujan communities, the very thing he accuses the Hindutvavadis of doing. He also ineptly assumes that regressive practices like child marriage were a defensive reaction to Muslim invaders, when in fact marriage of women before puberty (women were perceived as the gateway to a caste because of their reproductive ability) was an integral part of the patriarchal caste endogamy, intended to restrict caste mobility. While there may have been retrogressive practices established due to fear of invasions and their consequences, it is not as though the Hindu society was entirely devoid of social injustices before.
On the question of communalism and secularism, though Tharoor is deeply critical of the current government, he remains reticent about the transgressions of the Congress government. Clearly his role as a member of the party is portentous when it comes to his autonomy as an author. He is, for example, extraordinarily gentle and obscure in the way he smudges over the communal appeasement tactics of the Rajiv Gandhi government. The secular policy of the Congress government has been mercurial and constantly reflective of an ongoing insecurity. This has not only discredited the concept of secularism but has also, in part, been responsible for opening a Pandora’s box of Hindu fundamentalism in India.
Tharoor’s book, individual political obligations and derelictions notwithstanding, is imperative in augmenting a more diverse political discourse on secularism, fundamentalism, nationalism and democracy. His main apprehension concerns the legacy of Hinduism being reduced to the Hindutva rhetoric. It has undeniably, endowed India with a philosophical and spiritual underpinning that sustains and aids the idea of an all-embracing secular Indian nationalism, a characteristic worthy of retention. In times of exceptional polarisation of people and ideologies, his attempt to resuscitate pluralism and inclusiveness is well-intentioned and may provide reasonable perspective for the practising Hindu, the secularist and even the Hindutvavadi.