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Religious identity has come to the
bigger prominence in the social-political space during last few
decades. The rise of communal and fundamentalist politics has
vitiated the popular perceptions about ‘who are we’ and this in
turn has deepened the divides in the society. Recently RSS supremo,
Sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat stated (September 2012) that, “When
we use the word ‘Hindu’, we refer to everyone in the Indian
society—be it Hindus, Muslims or Christians—since it is a word
that gives us our identity and nationalism.” Will it be acceptable
to all Indians? The statement operates at two levels, one
religious and two political-national.
Are we all Indians, Hindus, as being stated by Bhagwat? It is true
that the word Hindu itself came into use since around 8th century,
when those coming from the West, Iraq, Iran to this side of the
continent coined the word Hindu for those living on East of Sindhu.
In their language word H is used more often for S, so Sindhu
becomes Hindu. This word initially begins as a geographical
category. Later various religious traditions, Brahmanism, Nath,
Tantra, Siddh, and Bhakti, prevalent in this part of the continent
started being called Hindu, and Hinduism became the broad umbrella
for these different religious traditions. Today while in some
parts of the World word Hindu still has geographical meaning, here
in India and broadly at most of the places this word is primarily
used as a religious category.
Ambedkar, pained by the ignominies hurled on untouchables by Hindu
caste system, expressed his sorrow by stating that, I was born a
Hindu; that was not in my hands but I will not die a Hindu. He
embraced Buddhism and left the Hindu religion. As communal
politics started coming up to oppose the emerging Indian
Nationalism, the feudal sections and Kings came together to give a
religious colour to their opposition to emerging nationalism. In
contrast to Indian national movement, they, feudal-lords-kings,
posited Muslim Nationalism or Hindu nationalism. The parent
organization which in due course gave rise to religious
nationalist organizations, was United India Patriotic Association
(UIPA) formed in 1888. In the formation of this organization Nawab
of Dhaka and Raja of Kashi were the main people. Later some other
middle class educated elements also joined in. This UIPA was the
parent organization from which Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha
emerged.
While Islam, being a Prophet based religion, did not require any
redefinition, Hinduism being an umbrella of various religious
tendencies required to be defined for providing a base to Hindu
religious nationalism. That’s how Savarkar came up with the
definition that all those whose Punyabhu (Holy Land) and Pitrabhu
(father land) is in this part of the World are Hindus. This was a
political definition of Hinduism, as Savarkar was championing
Hindu nationalism and wanted to exclude Muslims and Christians
from being a part of nationalism envisaged by him. This definition
of Savarkar also included Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs into Hindu
fold, calling them as mere sects of Hinduism, which is not
unacceptable to the followers of those religions. As these
religions are also full-fledged religions.
Now to say, as Bhagwat is doing, that all Buddhists, Jains, Indian
Muslims and Indian Christians have a Hindu identity is far from
true. It is in a way a political imposition of Hindu identity and
thereby Hindu rituals etc. on religious minorities. In the similar
vein, nearly two decades ago Murli Manohar Joshi, another RSS
Pracharak, then BJP President, stated that we are all Hindus,
Muslims are Ahmadiya Hindus, and Christians are Christi Hindus and
so on and so forth.
During freedom movement, two concepts of nationalism developed.
One was the Indian nationalism, which was the hallmark of the
founders of Indian National Congress. This was the defining
principle of World’s largest ever mass movement, India’s freedom
movement. Here nationalism is geographical and religion is
personal. Majority of Indians supported this concept and joined
the movement, which not only aimed to throw away the yoke of
British colonialism but also laid the foundations of caste and
gender transformation, and gave the defining principles of Liberty
Equality and Fraternity, which came to be enshrined in our
Constitution. The other Nationalism was religious nationalism,
which began from the landed élites primarily and was later to
divide in two parallel nationalisms, which had similar principles.
These were Muslim Nationalism (Muslim League) and Hindu
Nationalism (Hindu Mahasabha and RSS). These nationalisms not only
kept aloof from the freedom movement, were opposed to the mass
movement for freedom struggle but they also subtly protected the
caste and gender hierarchy of feudal times in the name of ‘our
glorious traditions’ or ‘our religion’ and so on. These religious
national streams took back their nationalisms to ancient times.
Muslim League claimed that ‘We Muslims are a Muslim Nation since
the time Mohammad bin Kasim, established his kingdom in Sindh’.
While Hindu nationalists claimed that we are a ‘Hindu nation since
times immemorial’.
In this understanding; projection of
Nationalism to the earlier times is totally flawed. The very
concept of Nationalism begins from last three centuries or so,
while putting an end to Kingdoms due to changes in industries and
education. Even before kingdoms, there were other patterns of
society, which can by no stretch of imagination be called as
Nations. These concepts of nations glorify the kings belonging to
their religions, while they also demonize or look down upon kings
of ‘other’ religions, forgetting that the very system of kingdoms
is highly exploitative and hierarchical.
At the same time during freedom movement, the ‘religious nation’
concepts gave a status to other religious minorities as the status
of second class citizens. This has what has happened in Pakistan
with the logic of Muslim nationalism unfolding there and this is
what is happening to Indian minorities with the ascendance of
Hindutva nationalism. Hindutva word is again not synonymous with
Hindu religion, it is parallel to ‘political Islam’, Hindutva is
‘political Hinduism’ so to say. Golwalkar the major ideologue of
RSS-Hindutva had formulated in his book ‘We or Our Nationhood
defined’ that the Muslims and Christians must subordinate
themselves to Hindus, else they will not deserve any citizenship
rights. In India unfortunately his prophesy is getting actualized
by and by, with the rise of communal violence and its aftermath.
To say that we are all Hindus is a political assertion to
subjugate religious minorities on one hand and to uphold caste and
gender hierarchy on the other. The later part related to
hierarchical inequalities is the unspoken part of religious
nationalism, political ideologies based on religion. To identify
Hindu with our nationalism-identity is to oppose the very concept
of Indian Nationalism, values of freedom movement and values of
Indian Constitution. Such political agenda of RSS as articulated
by Bhagwat is to stifle the democratic space offered to us by our
Constitution to all of us, including religious minorities, and is
an attempt to bring back the Golwalkar’s articulation in a more
shrewd way. It will also be the beginning of telling the
minorities that they will have to follow Hindu rituals, and Hindu
holy books, Hindu deities amongst others. So, saying that we
regard all as Hindus, is not an expression of magnanimity but is a
way to impose Hindu identity on religious minorities. In sum a
substance, Hindu is not the identity of all Indians, its religious
identity only of Hindus. And of course ‘Hindu’ is not nationalism
in any sense of the word as our nationalism is Indian.
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