Hinduism and race

 

Swami and writer Ishwar Sharan, whom I know from contributing to his book on Saint Thomas, has republished on the Bharata Bharati website a text I wrote in 2007, on how the Churches have repositioned themselves vis-à-vis racism, and how, in contrast, Hindus choose to live in the past and keep on using the language appropriate for the colonial age. Shrill tirades against “white Christian nations” will not do to counter the missionary effort in India, now mostly carried out by natives. Christianity has changed races several times in its history and its association with white racism was only a phase, long gone now and kept alive only in some Hindus’ fevered imagination. Even the odd expressions of white racism, like the recent attack on Sikhs in the US probably was, are typically condemned by the Churches.

In reaction, Mrs. Radha Rajan has written on 28 August 2012: “Swamiji, why this renewed attack against Hindu intellectuals now? And permit me to be blunt, none of this will deter me from always looking out for Sonia Gandhi even in our religious domain.”

 

Well, go ahead and criticize the Italian bar-maid who became the de facto “empress of India”. I don’t think she is all that important, but I agree that the Churches can put pressure on Christian politicians to facilitate their operations. I don’t think any country should have a foreigner as its most powerful politician, but native Christian politicians are more dangerous to Hinduism, and a few have more conversions to their credit.

 

But more serious is that my article gets perceived as an “attack against Indian intellectuals”. Well, to the extent that Indian intellectuals identify the Churches with “foreign” and “white”, I think indeed that they are anachronistic and wrong. That is just my dissenting opinion, which I don’t conceive of as an “attack”. I find differences of opinion quite normal, the very stuff of intellectual life, and those who can only see them as attacks are not intellectuals.

 

 

Hindu racism?

 

Radha Rajan says: “I don’t want to be told how to fight my  battles and what weapons to use.” My knowledge of ground realities in India is very limited, but through my journeys, through the writings of Hindu activists and now through the internet, I get the impression of Hindus suffering defeat upon defeat. There are some signs of light, some local Hindu gains, but over all, the evolution is not good. Just look at the demographic gains of Christianity and Islam, and the confused and weak stand of the Hindu’s main political representative, the BJP. So the weapons being used do not seem to be very effective. I think they could use a reality check, hence my article. 

Radha Rajan also wrote: “Now this is once again white intellectual elite attempting to define the parameters and idiom of racism. Racism is as much about race as it is about politics as done by the white race. The white race, as a political category is despised by its victims for the political instruments it devised and used to subjugate non christians and non whites.”

 

The age in which the white race dominated the world lasted only a few centuries. Indeed, Hindus never tire of telling us that in the premodern age, most world trade was in the hands of the Asian powers India and China, so Western dominance was only a brief intermezzo. It is quite unhistorical to base essentialist pronouncements on such a short episode. Don’t Hindus think in ages, Westerners only in centuries?

 

But I agree that here, Radha Rajan represents a very large Hindu opinion. That section of Hindus claims to engage with Christian missionaries but is in fact fixated on “whites”, a vanishing minority among them. But it is so much easier if you can recognize the enemy by his skin colour instead of by a complicated thing such as his religious ideology. And Hindus, just like most people, like to take the easy option. Moreover, this reduction of complex ideological issues to race is highly secular, so there is a premium in secular India on preferring the Christian or Muslim race-follow to the differently-coloured ideological friend. That is why the fearful BJP will prefer to say that, for instance, Bangladeshi intrusion on Bodo lands is not a religious but a foreigners’ problem, even while Mumbai Muslims express their solidarity not with their Bodo fellow-countrymen but with their foreign fellow-Muslims.

 

According to Radha Rajan: “To now say that this dislike and expression of dislike of the white race is also racism is to say a rape victim's natural revulsion of the male species is sexism. The white race either wants to be ring master with the rest of the world playing circus animals or it wants us to look up at it helplessly while it assumes a paternalist role.”

 

It is not clear whether she (and some other Hindus who have reacted) differentiates between my view and my description of the Churches’ view, but since we’re all deemed white, I guess it’s all the same. This undisguised expression of anti-white racism may earn her some popularity but is misconceived.

 

I will not bother with the moral issues in her explicit defence of racism. Maybe she can show its successes, and they would justify it, who knows? What I want to explain, is that this is not about “natural revulsion” against the white race, but just the reverse. As US-based Communist Vijay Prashad once explained, Hindus in the US pretended to be white when being white was fashionable (basing their own claim of whiteness on the Aryan Invasion Theory) but changed over to a non-white identity when being non-white became more gainful. So, in this construction of things, which Chennai-based Mrs. Radha Rajan must know through the similar discourse of the Dravidianist parties, she is a lot whiter than she pretends.

 

Caste discrimination is presented by the Churches and their Dalit wardens as precisely a case of white racism against natives, viz. by the Aryan invaders who became the upper castes (including Radha Rajan’s own Aiyangar Brahmins)  against the aboriginals, who were turned into the lower castes. This is not about the British colonizers resenting the Indians’ anticolonialism and therefore criticizing anti-white racism, but about the anticolonialism of the lower castes resenting the earlier colonization by the Aryan invaders, the ancestors of Radha Rajan. To the British back then, and to the Dalit and Dravidianist spokesmen now, upper-caste imperialism is of the same kind (essentially foreign, though far more thorough) as British imperialism. Whether there was an Aryan invasion may be disputed, but I merely observe that the Churches are successfully building on that scenario.

 

The art of making enemies

 

This is also an occasion for me to express my amazement at Hindus’ propensity to see and make enemies everywhere, even among Hindus. In the Panchatantra, where a teacher has to instruct some princes through fables in the art of statecraft, one of the five books is devoted to the art of making friends. But today’s Hindus seem better at the art of turning friends into enemies.

 

Radha Rajan and other Vijayvaani authors have earlier attacked the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha for its 2008 “Jerusalem Declaration”, a remarkable diplomatic victory for the Hindus. The underlying theology may have been unsophisticated, if only because the event was rather improvised, and criticism is allowed, but hey, Jews have common interests with Hindus (the defence against Muslim terrorism and against Christian missionary subversion being most acute), so this building of bridges deserved some applause.

 

They have also criticized and antagonized the NRIs in general, Rajiv Malhotra in particular. US-based ex-businessman Mr. Malhotra has built an enormous database of highly relevant information, and developed pro-Hindu and pro-India arguments in his books. While fighting Christianity, he is attacked in the back by envious Hindus. If it can be any consolation, Malhotra is no better than Radha Rajan when it comes to making friends. I have witnessed how he antagonized many Hindus through his sharp and unforgiving (but truthful) language, even some people who were allies only a year ago. At any rate, at a time when the situation of Hindus in India and Hindus abroad is ever more similar, wisdom dictates that these two categories refrain from antagonizing each other.

 

And now, Radha Rajan also wants to antagonize Hinduism’s Western allies. When I first came to India, the Ayodhya movement was gathering strength, and what I, as coming from the country where most EU institutions are housed, got to hear all the time from Hindu activists, was the theme of a “Western-Indian alliance against Islam”. Back then, Hindus were vaguely aware of a similarity between the West and India. Thus, colonialism started as a way of by-passing the Muslims, who threatened Europe for a thousand years and conquered parts of it. As late as the early 19^th century, Europeans and even American seafarers were victims of enslavement by Muslims, just like the Hindus. (Of course Europe and the Islamic world also cooperated, though problematically: the European slave-trade, of which the abolition’s 200^th anniversary occasioned my article, started as a Portuguese subcontractor’s operation in a far larger and centuries-old Muslim slave-trade.) Today, European worries about Islamic encroachment remind one of what India is going through. So, among other things, we have that in common.

 

But now, Christianity is seen as more of a threat than Islam, and it gets identified with the West. Indeed, Westerners who have explicitly broken with Christianity are routinely dismissed by Hindu internet warriors as “Christians”. At the same time, recent interventions by America and/or NATO, made possible by their victory in the Cold War, have made the West seem very unsympathetic. Attacks on India’s old NAM ally Yugoslavia, on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (with the French and British leaders shaking hands there and looking very neo-colonial) are not liked by a people that remembers foreign invasions too well, albeit that these came from its Chinese and Pakistani neighbours. These Western interventions were criminal and mistaken, but it’s not to me that our governments will listen. At any rate, this development doesn’t change the earlier anti-Islamic equation, but it has changed the Hindus’ focus.

 

So, some Hindus invent reasons to treat “whites” as the enemy: the Partition of India back then and the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh today is blamed on the British (The Empire’s Last Casualty is the secular-sounding title of a recent Hindu book on Bangladeshi persecution of its minorities), not on its real Islamic perpetrators; the Pakistani and otherwise Islamic terror attacks on India are blamed by Vijayvaani on covert American influence. It seems that some Hindus are white supremacists: for something meaningful to happen they always have to find a white hand behind it.

 

Well, suit yourselves. I only tried to sharpen the Hindu perception of how the Churches function today, and therefore to correct some misperceptions. But I would never want to tell Hindus how best to face their self-declared enemies. If you prefer to live in the colonial past or in a delusional world of your own creation, do your worst. If your weapons are more effective than mine, show me the successes you achieve with them.

Only, I hear laughter in the background. It must be by brown Christians who go on converting Hindus all while Hindu activists have their gaze fixed on “white racist Christian missionaries”.

 

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Questioning the Mahatma (book review)

Mahatma Gandhi was a heartless and manipulative tyrant without the redeeming feature of political merit. On the contrary, his vision for India was confused, he twisted the meaning of straightforward terms like Swarajya (independence) to suit his own eccentric fancies, he never overcame his basic loyalty to the British Empire, and he didn't have the courage of his conviction when it was needed to avert the Partition of India. While playing the part of a Hindu sage in sufficient measure to keep the Hindu masses with him, he never championed and frequently harmed Hindu interests. Finally, his sexual experiments with young women were not a private matter but had an impact on his politics. Thus says a new study of Gandhi's political record by Hindu scholar Mrs. Radha Rajan.





The latest American book on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Joseph Lelyveld’s Great Soul, has drawn a lot of attention. This was mainly because of its allegations about yet more eccentric sexual aspects of his Mahatmahood on top of those already known. In particular, Lelyveld overinterprets Gandhi’s correspondence with German-Jewish architect Hermann Kallenbach as evidence of a homosexual relationship. Bapu’s fans intoned the same mantra as the burners of Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses: “Freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to insult revered figures.” Well, if it doesn’t mean that, it doesn’t mean much.

In particular, Lelyveld has all the more right to disclose what he found in the Mahatma’s bedroom because the latter was quite an exhibitionist himself, detailing every straying thought and nocturnal emission in his sermons and editorials. But do these tickling insinuations carry any weight? Other, more troubling aspects of Gandhi’s résumé are far more deserving of closer scrutiny. Some unpleasant instances of his impact on India and Hinduism have been discussed thoroughly in a new book, Eclipse of the Hindu Nation: Gandhi and His Freedom Struggle (New Age Publ., Kolkata), by Mrs. Radha Rajan, editor of the Chennai-based nationalist website, www.vigilonline.com .

Radha Rajan was already the author, with Krishen Kak, of NGOs, Activists and Foreign Funds: Anti-Nation Industry (2006), a scholarly X-ray of the NGO scene, exposing this holier-than-thou cover for both corruption and anti-India machinations. The present book likewise takes a very close look at a subject mostly presented only in the broad strokes of hagiography. In particular, she dissects the Hindu and anti-Hindu content of Gandhi’s policies. Both were present, the author acknowledges his complexity, but there was a lot less Hindu in him than mostly assumed.

Rama had Vasishtha, Chandragupta had Chanakya, Shivaji had Ramdas, but Gandhi never solicited the guidance of any Hindu rajguru. By contrast, every step of the way in his long formative years, he read Christian authors and welcomed the advice of Christian clergymen. This way, he imbibed many monotheistic prejudices against heathen Hinduism, to the point that in 1946 he insisted for the new temple on the BHU campus not to contain an “idol”. (p.466)

Gandhi took his Hindu constituents for granted but never showed any concern for specific Hindu interests. The story that he staked his life to quell the massacres of Hindus in Noakhali in 1947, turns out to be untrue: his trip to East Bengal took place under security cover and well after the worst violence had subsided. There and wherever Hindus were getting butchered en masse in 1947-48, he advised them to get killed willingly rather than fight back or flee. It is breathtaking how often his writings and speeches contain expressions like: “I don’t care if many die.” And it was the first time in Hindu history that anyone qualified going down without a fight against a murderous aggressor as “brave”.

All his fasts unto death proved to be empty play when he refused to use this weapon to avert the Partition, in spite of promises given. It was the only time when he ran a real risk of being faced with an opponent willing to let him die rather than give in. Radha Rajan documents how unpopular he had become by then, not only among fellow politicians who were exasperated at his irrationality, but also among the masses suffering the effects of his confused policies. Had Gandhi not been murdered, his star would have continued to fall and he would have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Gandhi made a caricature of Hinduism by presenting his own whimsical and eccentric conduct as quintessentially Hindu, such as the rejection of technological progress, maintaining sexual abstinence even within marriage, and most consequentially, extreme non-violence under all circumstances. This concept owed more to Jesus’ “turning the other cheek” than to Hindu-Buddhist ahimsa. He managed to read his own version of non-violence into the Bhagavad Gita, which in fact centres on Krishna’s rebuking Arjuna’s plea for Gandhian passivity. He never invoked any of India’s warrior heroes and denounced the freedom fighters who opted for armed struggle, under the quiet applause of the British rulers whose lives became a lot more comfortable with such a toothless opponent.

The author acknowledges Gandhiji’s sterling contribution to the weakening of caste prejudice among the upper castes. His patronizing attitude towards the Harijans will remain controversial, but the change of heart he effected among the rest of Hindu society vis-à-vis the Scheduled Castes was revolutionary. However, once educated SC people started coming up and speaking for themselves, his response was heartless and insulting. Thus, a letter is reproduced in which the Mahatma with chilling pedantry belittles an admiring Constituent Assembly candidate from the scavengers’ caste for his “bookish English” and because: “The writer is a discontented graduate. (…) I fear he does no scavenging himself” and thus “he sets a bad example” to other scavengers. In conclusion, he advises the educated scavenger to stay out of politics.(p.480) Few readers will have expected the sheer nastiness of this saint’s temper tantrums.

Likewise, his supposed saintliness is incompatible with his well-documented mistreatment of his sons and especially of his faithful wife, whom he repeatedly subjected to public humiliation. Here too, Gandhi’s sexual antics receive some attention. The whole idea of an old man seeking to strengthen his brahmacharya (chastity) by sleeping with naked young women, is bad enough. Perhaps we had to wait for a lady author to give these victims a proper hearing. Radha Rajan documents the fear with which these women received Gandhi’s call to keep him company, as well as their attempts to avoid or escape this special treatment and the misgivings of their families. She praises the self-control of Gandhi’s confidants who, though horrified, kept the lid on this information out of concern for its likely demoralizing effect on the Congress movement. The Mahatma himself wasn’t equally discreet, he revealed the names of the women he had used in his chastity experiments, unmindful of what it would do to their social standing.

When Sardar Patel expressed his stern disapproval of these experiments, Gandhi reacted with a list of cheap allegations, which Patel promptly and convincingly refuted. Lowly insinuations turn out to be a frequent presence in the Mahatma’s correspondence. As the author observes: “Reputed historians and other eminent academicians have not undertaken so far any honest study of Gandhi’s character. Just as little is known of his perverse experiments with women, as little is known of his vicious anger and lacerating speech that he routinely spewed at people who opposed him or rejected him.” While careful not to offend the powerful among his occasional critics, like his sponsor G.D. Birla, “he treated those whom he considered inferior to him in status with contempt and in wounding language”. (p.389)

Unlike in Lelyveld’s account, the references to Gandhi’s sexual gimmicks here have political relevance. More importantly, Gandhi’s discomfort with Patel’s disapproval was a major reason for his overruling the Congress workers’ preference for Patel and foisting his flatterer Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister on India instead. Thus, argues Radha Rajan, he handed India’s destiny over to an emergent coalition of anti-Hindu forces. To replace Nehru as party leader, he had his yes-man J.B. Kripalani selected, not coincidentally the one among those in the know who had explicitly okayed the chastity experiments. The Mahatma’s private vices spilled over into his public choices with grave political consequences.


(book review published in The Sunday Pioneer, 15 May 2011)


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