HVK Archives: Making India Hindu - a book review
Making India Hindu - a book review - Organiser
M. V. Kamath
()
23 March 1997
Title : Making India Hindu - a book review
Author : M. V. Kamath
Publication : Organiser
Date : March 23, 1997
In his preface to the book on India that he has edited. David
Ludden says that in December 1992 it became obvious to him that
American college teachers did not have good enough books on hand
for teaching about the history? of politics and communal conflict
in India. He therefore set out to fill the lacunae. Scholars were
invited to prepare papers on the subject of communalism and out of
some 29 papers that were received Ludden chose a dozen that make
for this book. But the best part of the book surprisingly is his
own Introduction, in which he claims that India's "new communalism"
has arisen during a struggle to reconstruct the country politically
and that "the struggle is centrally concerned with the legitimacy
of the state. the distribution of state resources, power in
society, and justice". Further he notes that this struggle
"involves ideological and organisational innovation, mass
mobilisation, re-interpretations of the national heritage, shifting
loyalties and competition for all the votes that have been let
loose from the shredded net of Congress control".
This analysis automatically gives a new complexion to the old
concepts of communalism. and it is regrettable that the
contributors to this volume, half of whom are Indians have not
addressed themselves to the editor's thesis. in a meaningful and
substantial way. Communalism is no doubt discussed in its many
facets and some relevant questions are also asked but like the
seven blind men of Hindustan who tried to define the contours of an
elephant spatially but not holistically, Ludden's contributors see
the issue of communalism in a fragmented way disappointing the
reader who is led to expect the emergence of the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth.
Questions are asked that raise one's expectations to a high level.
Thus. commenting on the rath-yatra undertaken by L.K. Advani, one
contributor, Richard H. Davis asks: "How is it that a usually
unimpressive procession, led by a minor electoral party, addressing
a controversy about a modest sixteenth century mosque, in an
out-of-the-way pilgrimage city, could generate so much social
turbulence, political upheaval and public debate?" Another
contributor. Amrita Basu asks: "Which social forces were ultimately
responsible for the Hindu nationalist campaign that culminated in
the destruction of the mosque in Ayodhya... and the massacres of
Muslims that accompanied it?" Then there is Victoria L. Farmer who
raises the question: "To what degree was the communalism of the
last decade a symptom or by-product of increasing centralisation
and state control of cultural production and economic
distribution?" Peter Manuel follows this up with yet another query:
"Do current developments reflect profound, long-standing,
grass-roots animosity, or, alternately, are they merely the
products of contemporary elite manipulation, ultimately conditioned
by factors other than religious ones?" The most relevant and
indubitably the most profound questions are asked by Mushirul
Hasan. The most disquieting feature of the Hindutva wave, as Hasan
saw it, was not just the demolition of the Baburi structure at
Ayodhya, but the manner in which Muslims were made to look like a
community "outside the national mainstream". "How is it", he
asked, "that the image of the other has not altered or modified
over time? Why did alternate ideologies fail to mediate
effectively and reconstruct a different paradigm?" He followed up
these important questions by raising yet another question: "Does
the explanation lie in the Muslim intelligentsia's own assertion of
a unity of interest and ideal and in its conviction that all
Muslims were part of an indivisible community with one way of
thinking? Or that they were logical victims of their own
myth-making, claiming for themselves an alien culture, if not
origin. and being so regarded by others?". Then comes the
heart-searing answer: "I am inclined to believe that this was so!"
Of all the essays, Mushirul Hasan's touches the heart of the
problem. He examines the question of why, the Muslim has been
considered an 'alien' in India, irrespective of the fact that-as
one contributor pointed out-Muslims have been in India far longer
than they have been for instance, in Turkey! Could it be because
the Muslims have "preserved in their blood the pride of a
conquering race and cherished hopes of re-establishing their rule"?
Has that aroused suspicions and resentments in Hindu hearts? But
then, Hasan points out, there is the "Islamic little tradition'
that developed "with its roots firmly anchored in Indian soil" and
autonomously from centralised political control. despite itinerant
Islamic preachers sporadically imposing their will in certain
pockets of
Muslim population. To strengthen his argument of the existence of
this Islamic "Little Tradition" Hasan quotes from knowledgeable
British civil servants from Crooke to Malcolm Darling who had noted
the "strong tendency among Muslims to assimilate in all externals
with their Hindu neighbours". The culprit, according to Hasan was
the setting up of separate electorates for Muslims by the British
which "put a formal seal of approval on the institutionalised
conception of Muslim political identity and contributed to the
forging of communitarian identities that were, both in conception
and articulation. profoundly divisive and inherently
conflict-oriented".
Commendable as Ludden's effort is to understand the nature of the
communal problem in India, the choice of the essayists leaves much
to be desired. Perhaps he should have asked a dyed-in-the-wool
Hindu "communalist" to say what hurts him. That, at least, would
have set the stage for a threadbare discussion of the rights and
wrongs of his feelings. Instead, Ludden has depended upon
academicians who, by definition, have all knowledge but no soul.
Scholarship does not respond to emotion and communalism is nothing
else but a mirror of deeply-felt emotional hurts. Ludden's
contributors, like Ludden himself show a sad dearth of feeling for
Hindu hurts. The result is a barren discussion of ideas that skirt
the main issue of our times: Hindu perception of Islam. Tanika
Sarkar comes close to an understanding of it in her study of Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyaya's works. But barely. In the circumstances
all that one can say is that Ludden promises more than he can
deliver. Worse, the title of the book is needlessly provocative and
an inexcusable misstatement if not misreading, of current thinking
among 'Hindu' nationalists. Ludden has the capacity to be
objective but not the imagination to be accurate. He would do well
to start all over again.
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