Words of wisdom!
By Harbans Mukhia
K. S. Sudarshan is reproducing the ideological constructs of precisely that
despicable West he would like India to turn its back upon.
IT IS very seldom that K. S. Sudarshan, Sarsanghchalak of the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in any public utterance fails to lambast the Indian
Muslims for being bullies (and correspondingly the Hindus for being cowards) or
for refusing to own up the ancient Hindu mythological figures such as Ram and
Krishna. Nor does he fail to cite the example of Indonesian Muslims in contrast
who actually own up the figure of Ram in their land, and not being the worse for
it. In his much-awaited public address to Delhi's `intelligentsia' on Mahatma
Gandhi's birthday, he repeated these gems of wisdom, as expected. These seem to
constitute the limits of his knowledge about Islam and Hinduism. The other
highlight of his address as reported in the press was staunch hostility to
western forms of economy, knowledge, culture, even means of achieving hygiene
for which we Indians are, he assured us, much better equipped thanks to the
almost unlimited availability of cow's urine.
One assumes that Mr. Sudarshan finds all the learning that the RSS in its
shakhas imparts for the complete education of an Indian, especially a Hindu,
adequate. Those of us Indians, including Hindus, who did not have the benefit of
getting educated in the shakhas, but elsewhere in schools and colleges, will
feel rather disturbed on two counts. One, the grouping together of all Muslims
and all Hindus under single heads is actually the legacy of Western intellectual
endeavour from the 18th century onward and in particular of the British colonial
regime in India. The RSS has entirely and unquestioningly imbibed all of this
and keeps diffusing in its shakhas and in such momentous public addresses as Mr.
Sudarshan gave on October 2 and is likely to repeat on several other occasions.
Second, his assumption that the Indian Muslims withdraw themselves from any
identification with Hindu religious or cultural symbols is derived from his
probably brief and limited acquaintance with his own counterparts among the
Muslims ‹ persons such as Imam Bukhari or Syed Shahabuddin. Just as Mr.
Sudarshan projects himself and persons such as Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia
as the exclusive representatives of the Hindu community, religion and culture,
he also accepts the Imam and Mr. Shahabuddin as the exclusive representatives of
the Muslim community, religion and culture. For him there are no other shades
outside of these, one pure white, the other a deep black, but necessary for the
sustenance of the first.
The first point first. The coming of Islam to India from the 10th century on
mediated through various agencies ‹ conquerors, theologians, sufi saints,
traders, poets, scholars ‹ created several Muslim images of the Hindus, the
term itself being of Arabic coinage. For the conquerors, the Hindus were the
archenemy whose territory was open for grabbing through the battlefield.
Incidentally, other Muslim rulers too were similar enemies, for their territory
had no more sanctity against raids.
Mahmud of Ghazni, the archetypical Muslim conqueror, also had no problem
employing 300 Hindu soldiers and one General Tilak for waging wars against other
Hindus and they in turn had no problem helping him either. For theologians, the
Hindus were kafirs, who needed to be converted to Islam by persuasion or force.
For poets, however, kafir was the term of endearment, always used as synonym for
the beloved. Sufis sought love rather than subjugation as the path of salvation
for all humankind. Hindus for them were no enemies, but friends. Traders in
their turn were more keen on earning their profits from wherever they could and
hardly cared about the religious identity of their customers. Of scholars, al-Biruni
was the most outstanding, hardly the one who would think of killing or
converting the Hindus. But for al-Biruni our knowledge and understanding of the
Hindu religion and society of his day would be so much poorer.
All these differential images of the Hindu (and the Muslim) community got erased
with the advance of Western analytical categories, and were replaced by
homogenised categories such as the Orient as a whole and Christendom, Hindu
civilisation, Islamic world, etc. The British, under the influence of both
evangelical as well as utilitarian philosophies, made these homogenous
categories the premise upon which to establish their governance in India. Mr.
Sudarshan is reproducing the ideological constructs of precisely that despicable
West he would like India to turn its back upon.
Second, if Mr. Sudarshan could find the determination to look at the Muslim
community beyond the shoulders of such stalwarts as the Imam and Mr. Shahabuddin,
and acquire some familiarity with the Indian Muslims in the small towns and
villages, his complaint that they shun any association with the Hindu cultural
legacies would disappear in a jiffy, if, that is, he is willing to allow it to
disappear. It is here that the vast majority of Indians ‹ Hindus and Muslims
and others ‹ live and it is here that the neat boxes into which people such as
Mr. Sudarshan tend to fit Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs and Christians and others
quickly dissolve.
For, in these villages the Muslims grow up singing Radha and Krishna bhajans and
lyrics as integral parts of their lives and celebrate Holi, Dussehra and Diwali
as zealously as the Id ul-Fitr. Indeed, even as they observe the roza (fast)
during the month of Ramzan and celebrate Id at the end of it, they know much
about why Dussehra and Diwali are celebrated.
Mr. Sudarshan might also be astonished to know that it is not entirely a
one-sided participation in the religious and cultural festivals of the other; in
numerous, mainly rural or semi-urban locales, the Hindus also observe several
Muslim festivals with equal zeal or solemnity as the occasion demands. This
indeed is the basic feature of popular forms of all religions ‹ Hinduism,
Christianity, Islam. Where theology tends to be fractious, popular religion is
assimilative.
It is not merely that Mr. Sudarshan's familiarity with Indian Islam is very
limited; it is the same with Hinduism. Several proselytising religions,
Christianity and Islam among them, are premised upon the notion of the final
truth being revealed to their prophet. The final truth must in the end vanquish
all falsehood. Thus in their respective perceptions, Christianity or Islam must
prevail over the entire world some day before the Day of Judgment. Hinduism does
not contain the notion of the final truth, hence it is not a proselytising
religion and is not predicated upon the notion of final triumph over the others.
In his aggressive positing of irresoluble conflict between Hindus, on one hand,
and Muslims and Christians, on the other, which implies the ultimate subjugation
of the Christians and the Muslims by the RSS-trained and led Hindus, Mr.
Sudarshan is abandoning that defining element of Hinduism which has allowed it
to survive for several millennia of history.
But then Mr. Sudarshan is aware that systems can be moulded not by the force of
truth or logic but by the relations of power and the present dispensation is so
perched that his words will carry weight with it, never mind their threat to
India's Indian-ness.
(The writer is Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU.)
Published in:
The Hindu
Saturday, Oct 05, 2002
Opinion - Leader Page Articles