Essay 1 - Deconstructing Hindu Identity

Summary

The quest for India's national identity through the route of Hindu religious nationalism began in the nineteenth century and has continued ever since. In recent years, however, it has received an unprecedented boost from those communal forces which brought a virulent version of Hindu cultural chauvinism to the centre stage of contemporary politics and produced a warped perception of India's past. This is evident from the indigenist propaganda writings which support the myth of Aryan autochthony, demonize Muslims and Christians, and propagate the idea that India and Hinduism are eternal. In an effort to prove the indigenous origin of Indian culture and civilization it has been argued, albeit vacuously, that the people who composed the Vedas called themselves Aryans and were the original inhabitants of India (Prinja 1996: 10; Guha 2005: 399). They are further described as the authors of the Harappan civilization, which the xenophobes and communalists insist on rechristening after the Vedic Saraswatī. Such views have received strong support from archaeologists whose writings abound in paralogisms (Gupta 1996; Lal 1998: 439–48); and from their followers, whose works are dotted with fakes and frauds, a notable instance being the attempt to convert a Harappan “unicorn bull” into a Vedic horse so as to push the clock back on the date of the Vedas and thereby identify the Vedic people with the authors of the Harappan civilization.