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DEMONS IN HINDUTVA: WRITING A THEOLOGY FOR HINDU NATIONALISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

M. REZA PIRBHAI
M. REZA PIRBHAI*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Louisiana State University
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Abstract

This article explores the vast body of English language works on Hinduism published since 1981 by Voice of India—an influential right-wing Hindu publishing house headquartered in New Delhi, but contributed to by Indians at “home” and in diasporic communities, as well as Europeans and North Americans. Focus on the construction of the Hindu “Self” and the non-Hindu “Other” shows the manner in which European thought, primarily represented by the contributions of colonial-era British and German indologists, but bolstered by evangelicals, Utilitarians and Arabo-Islamicists from the same era, has become an important feature of postcolonial forms of Hinduism. In particular, the influence of fin de siècle German indologist Paul Deussen, mediated by such colonial-era Hindu thinkers as Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Mahatma Gandhi, not only defines Voice of India's theology, but leads to the construction of a Hindu Self that is the personification of “Aryan godliness” and a non-Hindu Other that is essentialized as a “Semitic Demon.” Although closely associated with and often serving the political initiatives of the Sangh Parivar, the authors of this theology have been kept at arm's length by the organization for reasons of political expediency. Both the growing network of contributors to and consumers of this view, and its periodic use by the Sangh Parivar, insure that it represents a significant development in the ideology of Hindutva.

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Articles
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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 2008 , pp. 27 - 53
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

1 The proactively “Hindu” parties in British Punjab included Swami Dayananda's “Arya Samaj” (f. 1875), V. D. Savarkar's Hindu Mahasabha (f. 1915), and K. B. Hedgewar's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (f. 1925). The prime party seeking to incorporate non-Hindus, but nevertheless define the “nation” as a conglomeration of religious communities, was the Indian National Congress (f. 1885), particularly as led by Mohandas K. Gandhi. Such “communal” notions even infiltrated the “Communist Party of India” (f. 1925), the last major influence creeping into the region during Swarup's and Goel's youth.

2 S. R. Goel, How I Became a Hindu, available at http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hibh/ch8.htm. Also see K. Elst, “Ram Swarup (1924–1998)—Outline of a Biography,” available at http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/hinduism/ramswarup.html; and “India's Only Communalist—A Short Biography of Sita Ram Goel,” available at http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/hinduism/sitaramgoel.html. A complete list of Voice of India authors and their publications is available at http://www.voi.org; http://www.voiceofdharma.org; and http://www.voiceofdharma.com.

3 The Sangh Parivar (lit. “Family of Associations’) comprises the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Janata Party (formerly Bharatiya Jana Sangh), Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Akhil Bhatatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Saraswati Shishu Mandir, Vidya Bharati, Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Rashtriya Sevika Samiti and Bajrang Dal. These represent political parties and student and women's organizations, as well as educational institutions. Such organizations and parties also work closely with like-minded groups in India, such as Shiv Sena (f. 1966). Further, the Sangh Parivar has very successfully spread its ideology through the temples, business associations and student organizations of Indian diasporic communities in Europe and the Americas, some of the latter recently venturing as far as to sue the California Board of Education for its “anti-Hindu” curriculum. See Girish Agrawa, “Sangh Spreads Its Cloak in American Campus,” Radiance 44/51 (24 June 2007).

4 The term “Hindutva” and its primary definition can be traced to the Hindu Mahasabhite, V. D. Savarkar. See V. D. Savarkar, Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu (Bombay, 1969 (reprint)). For the theological debates that divide the Sangh Parivar, despite the political consensus on Savarkar's notion of Hindutva, see Jyotirmaya Sharma, “War in the Parivar,” The Hindu, 11 Sept. 2005.

5 Goel, How I Became a Hindu, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hibh/ch8.htm.

6 Non-Indian contributors include Koenraad Elst (Belgium), David Frawley (US), Bojil Koralov (Bulgaria), Michel Danino and Francois Gautier (France), and Nicholas Kazanas (Greece). Many of these individuals are associated with the Aurobindo (Ghose) Ashram in Madras. See http://www.voi.org; http://www.voiceofdharma.org; and http://www.voiceofdharma.com.

7 Goel, How I Became a Hindu, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hibh/ch8.htm.

8 See, for example, Halbfass, W., India and Europe (Albany, NY, 1988)Google Scholar; and Pandey, G., ed., Hindus and Others (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar. Relevant articles can also be found in Sangari, K. and Vaid, S., eds., Recasting Women (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990)Google Scholar; Tetreault, M. A. and Denemark, R. A., eds., Gods, Guns and Globalization (London, 2004)Google Scholar; Mehdi, A. and Janaki, R., eds., Communalism in India (New Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar; Bose, S. and Jalal, A., eds., Nationalism, Democracy and Development (Delhi, 1997)Google Scholar; and a volume devoted to and titled “An Intellectual History for India,” in Modern Intellectual History 4/1 (2007). Also see Frykenberg, R. E., “Accounting for Fundamentalisms in South Asia: Ideologies and Institutions in Historical Perspective,” in Marty, M. and Appleby, R. S., eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms (Chicago and London, 1994), 591–616Google Scholar.

9 For works specifically on British Orientalism and South Asia see Ballantyne, T., Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire (New York, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Inden, R., Imagining India (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar; King, R., Orientalism and Religion: Post-colonial Theory, India and the “Mystical East” (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Trautmann, T., Aryans and British India (Berkeley, CA, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sugirtharajah, S., Imagining Hinduism (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; and Rocher, R., “British Orientalism in the Eighteenth Century: The Dialectics of Knowledge and Government,” in Breckenridge, A. C. and van der Veer, P., eds., Orientalism and the Post-colonial Predicament (Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar.

10 See Said, E., Orientalism (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; and idem, Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993).

11 For scholarly considerations of Muller's views see Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, 57; for Mill see J. Majeed, Ungoverned Imaginings: James Mill's “The History of British India” and Orientalism (New York, 1992); and for Elliot see Habib, I., “Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate—An Essay in Interpretation,” Indian Historical Review 4/2 (1978), 287–303Google Scholar.

12 P. van der Veer, “Hindu Nationalism and the Discourse of Modernity: The Vishva Hindu Parishad,” in Marty and Appleby, Accounting for Fundamentalisms, 658. Although there are many variants, the essence of “perennial philosophy” among Orientalists can be gleaned from Campbell, B., Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement (Berkeley, 1980)Google Scholar; and Sedgwick, M., Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (New York, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See Mitter, P., Much Maligned Monsters (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar. For an important work on the centrality of demonization in the Christian construction of the “Other” see Pagels, E., The Origin of Satan (New York, 1995)Google Scholar.

14 Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, 75–85; 91–105.

15 Ibid., 2–7, 62–3.

16 Cited in Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 41–2.

17 Cited in Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, 15, 33, 50–52.

18 S. Marchand, “Religion and Race in German Indology; or, From the Perennial Philosophy to the Indological Reformation” (presented at the Exchange of Ideas between South Asia, India and Central Europe, Harvard University, October 2005), 14. For German Orientalism more generally see Kontje, T., German Orientalisms (Ann Arbor, MI, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murti, K., India: The Seductive and Seduced “Other” of German Orientalism (Westport, CT, 2001)Google Scholar; and Sartori, A., “Beyond Culture-Contact and Colonial Discourse: “Germanism” in Colonial Bengal,” Modern Intellectual History 4/1 (2007), 77–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Marchand, “Religion and Race in German Indology,” 5, 18–19. For the circumstances of Vivekananda's meetings with Deussen, as well the importance of the latter's perspective on Vedanta to that of the former, see Halbfass, W., ed., Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta (Albany, NY, 1995), 273–318Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., 19.

21 Van der Veer, “Hindu Nationalism and the Discourse of Modernity,” 658; and Halbfass, India and Europe, 403–18.

22 Halbfass, Philology and Confrontation, 229–318.

23 Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Almora, 1924–32), 4: 150–52, in Hay, S., ed., Sources of Indian Tradition, 2 vols. (New York, 1988), 2: 75Google Scholar.

24 Vivekananda, Complete Works, 4: 307–9, 33: 276–7, in Hay, Sources, 2: 76–7.

25 Vivekananda, Complete Works, 4: 307–9, in Hay, Sources, 2: 77–9.

26 Also see Hansen, T. B., The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (Princeton, NJ, 1999)Google Scholar.

27 Vivekananda, Complete Works, 4: 307–9, in Hay, Sources, 2: 78.

28 Gandhi, M. K., Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, ed. Parel, A. (Cambridge, 1997), 7, 66–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Halbfass, Philology and Confrontation, 257–318.

30 Veer, P. van der, Religious Nationalism (Berkeley, CA, 1994), 12.Google Scholar.

31 Sarda, H. B., Life of Dayanand Saraswati (Ajmer, 1946), 170–72Google Scholar, in Hay, Sources, 2: 56–8.

32 Saraswati, D., The Light of Truth, trans. Upadhyaya, G. P. (Allahabad, 1960), 548–9Google Scholar.

33 Gandhi, M. K., The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi, 1958–78), 17: 406Google Scholar, 25: 563, 26: 415, in Hay, Sources, 2: 250–52. Contrary to Gandhi's claims, Hacker writes, “the duty of nonviolence, which Tilak, and Aurobindo [Ghose] in his political period, did not recognize, but which by now has become a universally binding ideal, was first discovered by Gandhi in Leo Tolstoy's writings before he attached it to the traditional Indian idea of ahimsa.” See Halbfass, Philology and Confrontation, 308, also 257–72.

34 Ghose, A., Speeches (Calcutta, 1948), 76–80Google Scholar, in Hay, Sources, 2: 153–4.

35 Ghose, A., The Doctrine of Passive Resistance (Calcutta, 1948), 77–9Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., 74, 77–9; and idem, India's Rebirth (Hermanville, 2000). An online version of the latter has been consulted here, available at http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/ir/IR_part2.htm.

37 A. Embree, “The Function of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: To Define the Hindu Nation,” in Marty and Appleby, Accounting for Fundamentalisms, 624–5. Also see Golwalkar, M. S., We or Our Nationhood Defined (Nagpur, 1944)Google Scholar, and idem, Bunch of Thoughts (Bangalore, 1988).

38 Vivekananda, Complete Works, 4: 307–9, in Hay, Sources, 2: 77–9.

39 This appeal was posted on the inside cover of Goel, S. R., Story of Islamic Imperialism (New Delhi, 1982)Google Scholar, among other Voice of India works in the stacks of Robart's Library, University of Toronto, Canada.

40 Shourie, A. et al. , eds., Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, 2 vols. (New Delhi, 1990), 1: vGoogle Scholar.

41 Kak, S., India at Century's End (New Delhi, 1994), 25Google Scholar.

42 Goel, How I Became a Hindu, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hibh/ch9.htm.

43 Frawley, D., Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations (New Delhi, 2001)Google Scholar. The online version is consulted here. See http://www.bharatvani.org/books/civilization/partI1.html. Frawley and other Voice of India authors have also published this thesis independently, as in the case of Feuerstein, G., Kak, S. and Frawley, D., In Search of the Cradle of Civilization (Delhi, 1999)Google Scholar. Further, the American Institute of Vedic Studies includes affiliate organizations across the US, Europe and India (e.g. the European Institute of Vedic Studies), supports its own press (Lotus) and includes the works of such Voice of India contributors as Subash Kak on its list of intellectual associates. The most prominent Indian connection is with the Aurobindo (Ghose) Ashram in Madras. See http://www.vedanet.com.

44 Frawley, Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/civilization/partI1.html.

45 See Goel, S. R., Defence of Hindu Society (New Delhi, 1983)Google Scholar. The online version is consulted here. See http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hindusoc/ch1.htm>. The same is echoed in Frawley, Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations, http://www.bharatvani.org/books/civilization/partI1.html. The defence of this ethnology and chronology, in the guise of a rebuttal against the Orientalist “Aryan-invasion theory,” is a mainstay of Voice of India publications, including such works as Rajaram, N. S., Aryan Invasion of India: The Myth and the Truth (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar; idem, Vedic Aryans and the Origins of Civilization (New Delhi, 2001); idem, The Politics of History: Aryan Invasion Theory and the Subversion of Scholarship (New Delhi, 1995); Frawley, D., The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India (New Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar; and Elst, K., Indigenous Aryans (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar. For a scholarly evaluation of such Voice of India arguments, as well as their relationship with colonial-era Hindu and Orientalist views, see Bryant, E., The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate (New York, 2001), 46–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 140–297.

46 R. Swarup, The Word as Revelation, 131–3, cited in K. Elst, “Hindus and Neo-Paganism,” http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/Hinduism/neopaganism.html. Also see Goel, Defence, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hindusoc/ch2.htm.

47 Kak, India at Century's End, 25.

48 See Lal, K. S., Muslim Slave System in Medieval India (New Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar; idem, The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (New Delhi, 1992); idem, Indian Muslims: Who are They (New Delhi, 1990); S. Majumdar, Jihad: The Islamic Doctrine of Permanent War (New Delhi, 1994); Elst, K., Negationism in India—Concealing the Record of Islam (New Delhi, 1992)Google Scholar; Goel, S. R., Heroic Hindu Resistance to Muslim Invaders (New Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar; and idem, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (New Delhi, 1982). These and other titles on this theme, as well as articles by these and other authors, can also be found online at http://www.voiceofdharma.com and http://www.voi.org.

49 See, for example, K. Elst, “Ram Swarup (1924–1998)—Outline of a Biography,” http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/hinduism/ramswarup.html.

50 Jayanti, “Preface,” in Shourie et al., Hindu Temples, 1: vi. These charges also play a prominent role in Voice of India works concerned with the Babri Masjid (Ayodhya) campaigns, led by groups associated with the Sangh Parivar. For example, see Dubashi, J., The Road to Ayodhya (New Delhi, 1992)Google Scholar; and Elst, K., Ayodhya: The Case against the Temple (New Delhi, 2002)Google Scholar.

51 See Ye'or, Bat, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (Madison, NJ, 1985)Google Scholar; idem, The Decline of Eastern Christianity: From Jihad to Dhimmitude (Madison, NJ, 1996); and idem, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide (Madison, NJ, 2001). For scholarly critiques see Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, NJ, 1984); Qureshi, E. and Sells, M. A., The New Crusade: Constructing the Muslim Enemy (New York, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Beinin, J., The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora (Berkeley, 1998)Google Scholar. For the New York Times article cited see C. S. Smith, “The World: Europe's Jews Seek Solace on the Right,” New York Times, 20 Feb. 2005 (late edn), Section 4, 3.

52 See Spencer, Robert, Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World's Fastest-Growing Faith (New York, 2002)Google Scholar; and Spencer, Robert, ed., The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (Amherst, NY, 2005)Google Scholar. See also Ibn, Warraq, Why I Am Not a Muslim (Amherst, NY, 1995)Google Scholar. The former Spencer work is published by Encounter Books in the name of “American conservativism,” and the latter is published together with Ibn Warraq and Ram Swarup's Understanding Islam Through Hadis: Religious Faith or Fanaticism (deemed “hate literature” by Indian courts) by Prometheus Books in the name of “secular humanism.” Despite the labels of Hindutva, American conservatism, the Jewish right and secular humanism, the convergence of all these perspectives on the issue of Islam and Muslims is best illustrated by the fact that Ibn Warraq provides the foreword and Ye'or the largest portion of articles in Spencer's The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

53 Elst, Negationism in India, http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/ch1.htm, and http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/ch2.htm.

54 Of course, any authors or works referencing “Hindu” iconoclasm or violence against the Other are also attacked. For a broader list of authors declared “negationists” and/or agents of “alien ideologies,” as well as links to a variety of articles directed against them, see http://www.voi.org/indology.html.

55 Goel, Defence, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hindusoc/ch2.htm.

56 Kak, India at Century's End, 24.

57 Jayanti, “Preface,” in Hindu Temples, 1: vi.

58 S. R. Goel, “Some Historical Questions,” in Hindu Temples, 1: 19.

59 R. Swarup, “A Need to Face the Truth,” in Hindu Temples, 1: 36.

60 See Goel, S. R., Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Aggression (New Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar; and, Talreja, K., Holy Vedas and Holy Bibles: A Comparative Study (New Delhi, 2000)Google Scholar. Other anti-Christian works include Goel, S. R., History of Hindu–Christian Encounters (New Delhi, 1989)Google Scholar, idem, Papacy: Its Doctrine and History (New Delhi, 1986); I. Sharan, The Myth of St Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple (New Delhi, 1991); Swarup, R., Hindu View of Christianity and Islam (New Delhi, 1992)Google Scholar, idem, Hinduism vis-à-vis Christianity and Islam (New Delhi, 1992), and idem, Pope John Paul II on Eastern Religions and Yoga: A Rejoinder (New Delhi, 1995). Such works can also be found online at http://www.voiceofdharma.com; http://www.voiceofdharma.org and http://www.voi.org.

61 See Talreja, Holy Vedas and Holy Bibles, http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch8.htm, http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch22.htm, http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch23.htm, http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch27.htm.

62 Ibid., http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/hvhb/ch8.htm.

63 R. Swarup, “Islamic Theology of Iconoclasm,” in Hindu Temples, 1: 295.

64 Ibid., 296–7.

65 Ibid., 295–6.

66 Ibid., 296–7.

67 Ibid., 297.

68 Ibid., 298.

69 Ibid., 293.

70 Ibid., 293.

71 Swarup, “A Need to Face the Truth,” 33–6.

72 Swarup, “Islamic Theology of Iconoclasm,” 297–8.

73 Goel, History of Hindu–Christian Encounters, http://www.www.voi.org/books/hhce/Ch3.htm.

74 Swarup, “Islamic Theology of Iconoclasm,” 357.

75 Ibid., 357.

76 Ibid., 357.

77 See Vivekananda, Complete Works, 1: 184; Swarup, Hindu View of Christianity and Islam, 45–6, 107; Goel, S. R., ed. The Calcutta Quran Petition (New Delhi, 1999), 238–49Google Scholar; and K. Elst, “Wahi: The Supernatural Basis of Islam,” http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/articles/irin/wahiusa.html.

78 Goel, Defence, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/hindusoc/ch3.htm.

79 Elst, Negationism in India, http://www.koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/ch1.htm.

80 Swarup, “Islamic Theology of Iconoclasm,” 299.

81 S. R. Goel, Hindu Society under Siege (New Delhi, n.d.). The online was version was consulted here. See http://www.voi.org/books/hsus/ch3.htm.

82 Ibid., http://www.voi.org/books/hsus/ch3.htm.

83 Ibid., http://www.voi.org/books/hsus/ch2.htm.

84 Ghose, India's Rebirth, http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/ir/IR_part2.htm.

85 S. R. Goel, “Foreword,” in Majumdar, Jihad: The Islamic Doctrine of Permanent War, http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/jihad/for.htm. Also see H. Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (New Delhi, 1991).

86 For the Sangh Parivar's role in the latter atrocities, particularly the place of its demonizing ideology, see “Compounding Injustice: The Government's Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat,” Human Rights Watch Publications 15/3 (July 2003).