Some Hindu activists claim that truth is not that important, that you have to give any particular audience the kind of narrative most likely to convince them, regardless of truth. My position is that the short-term gains from this tactic are more than offset by the damage you will incur from it in the long run. Here is one example.
Some years ago, I was attacked on the IndianCivilization.yahoo.com list for having mentioned the fact that in 1990, BJP general secretary Krishan Lal Sharma had proposed a "Mahatma Gandhi formula" for amicable settlement of temple disputes. He claimed that Gandhi had written in his papers Navjivan and Young India that Hindus and Muslims should give back any places of worship they had taken from one another. When I brought that apisode to the list's attention, someone challenged me to produce the evidence. But the event had taken place well before newspapers had internet archives; and my original clippings had gone into my pile where it would be too time-consuyming to look them up.
Of course, for a defender of the BJP spokesman, it would have been proper to settle the dispute for good by producing the evidence that KL Sharma had failed to provide, viz. a copy of the claimed Mahatma article.
But now, we owe it to Babri Masjid advocate AG Noorani that the documents are available. He has edited a two-volume book The Babri Masjid Question 1528-2003 with a selection of documents. On the RISA list it was falsely praised as the most complete source, when in fact it is complete only on the pro-Babri side and leaves out most (and at any rate all the strongest) pro-temple documents. But then Noorani is a lawyer, whose job it is to present and manipulate the data so as to serve his client's interests, and truth be damned. However, he is meticulous in presenting the data likely to embarrass the pro-temple side.
On p.61-65 of vol.1, we get the story on how "concocted 'Gandhi formula' for Ayodhya dispute backfires". It transpires that Sharma, whose claim was reported in the Indian media on 5 December 1990 (the article from The Statesman is reproduced), had his information from one of the propellors of the dispute, Ramgopal Pandey Sharad, involved in the "miraculous appearance" of the murti-s in the Babri Masjid in 1949. In his book Sri Ramjanmabhumi Virodhiyon ke Kala Karname (Black Deeds of the RJB opponents), Pandey claims to have written to Gandhi in Wardha about the Ayodhya dispute and received from Gandhi's secretary Mahadev Desai a letter assuring him that Gandhi would write an article on the matter in the Hindi Navjivan. He also reproduces the article, purportedly published in Navjivan on 17 July 1937, in which Gandhi acknowledges the numerous Islamic temple demolitions and advises that Hindus and Muslims voluntarily return the places of worship taken from the other.
Pandey's forgery had already been exposed by Gandhi acolyte Jivanji Desai in the Harijan Sewak of 13 July 1950. He pointed out, among other things, that the Navjivan had ceased publication in 1932 and that Mahadev Desai never signed his letters in the way "reproduced" by Pandey. I would add that Pandey's version has some mistakes against the use of the English article (the/a), very common among Hindi-provincialist Hindu activists (check the Organiser even today) whereas Gandhiji's English was up to standard.
And yet, KL Sharma went ahead and repeated Pandey's forgery, probably in good faith, having assumed that he could trust such a formidable champion of Hindu interests. So Pandey thought he was being clever with his concoction, but all he achieved was that his own followers were misinformed, not his opponents; and that one of these followers, in a high position where his failures would impact the Hindu interest in general, ended up repeating the concoction in good faith and getting rubbished as a forger and liar. A fine lesson for those Hindutva activists who think that accuracy is but a luxury for intellectuals and that lies can be a shortcut to political success.
Read more!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
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)
Read more!
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)
Read more!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Decoding Hinduism (book review)
Most Hindus have no clear idea where their own religion fits in the global religious landscape. Even the most illiterate Christian or Muslim ‘knows’ that his religion was brought into the world in order to supersede all other religions, which are false. The Hindus’ grasp of their relation to other religions, even (and perhaps especially) among the English-speaking literates, is characterised by crass ignorance and sweet delusions.
In Universal Hinduism (Voice of India, Delhi 2010), American scholar and Hindu convert David Frawley sets out to clear up this confusion. He takes the reader through the basic data that set Hinduism apart from the others, and specific Hindu schools from one another and from Buddhism. He also discusses what it has in common with the world’s eliminated and surviving Pagan religions, and sometimes with forms of Islam and Christianity too. In his typical kindly style, he gives every practice and every belief its due, but keeps his focus on the potential of Sanatana Dharma to heal modern society as well as to lead man to enlightenment.
One of the most useful parts for Hindus will be Frawley’s discussion of the motivation and strategy behind the missionary penetration of Hindu society. On this, most Hindu nationalist discourse is shrill and ill-informed. It usually amounts to an anachronistic identification of Christianity with “White racism” (which was a passing phase in the Church’s long history). Among other mistakes, this ignores the difference between Catholics and Protestants, with the latter marketing Christianity in India most aggressively. Such sloppiness contrasts sharply with the diligence and thoroughness of the Christian effort in mapping out the Hindu world, theologically as well as sociologically.
If Hindus want to develop a more realistic assessment of the missionary enterprise, Frawley’s chapter on it is a good place to start. He explains Christianity as a belief system and reveals its Pagan roots along with its anti-Pagan stance in terms that Hindus will understand. Thus, Catholic and Orthodox icon worship is a thinly veiled continuation of Pagan murti-puja, with the Virgin Mary as the acceptable face of the Goddess. Protestants had already pointed out that much of what endears the Virgin, the Saints and their idols and pilgrimages to the common worshippers is plain Paganism. The co-optation of Pagan elements into folk Christianity, that is, of the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin (whose temple in Mexico was forcibly replaced with a chapel) as the Virgen de Guadalupe, is being replayed in India today by the mainstream Churches under the label “acculturation”. By contrast, Evangelical Protestants pursue a more confrontational strategy, labelling Hindu gods as devils and making no compromise with “idol worship”. They are very straightforward about the essential exclusivism that contrasts Christianity and Islam with pluralistic Hinduism.
On the contention between Hindu nationalism and Hindu universalism, Frawley charts a middle course. Of course, Hinduism is tied to India, yet at the same time it is ever more present on all continents and has even welcomed some unsolicited native converts there, besides sharing some values and practices with other religions worldwide. There is little point in trying to Indianise these others, but the common ground should be explored further, as is being done at the annual Gathering of the Elders of Ancient Traditions and Cultures, where Native American, Yoruba and Maori medicine-men make common cause with Hindu gurus like Swami Dayananda Saraswati. “All such true spiritual traditions face many common enemies in this materialistic age”, so “they should form a common front”.
At the same time, non-Indians who adopt Asian spiritual practices should realise that this system for liberation is embedded in a culture with many other dimensions. Some of these more worldly elements (arts, dress, lifestyle) could usefully be adopted as well. Frawley ought to know, as a practising Ayurvedic doctor who habitually wears Indian clothes. Thus, vegetarianism is not merely a different cuisine, it is objectively superior to meat-eating, and this is now being acknowledged by non-Hindus concerned about health and ecology. While differences must be tolerated, it doesn’t mean that all beliefs and practices are of equal value.
Knowledge is preferable to faith. At inter-faith conferences, Hindus usually cut a sorry figure, ill-prepared as they are; but at “inter-knowledge” meetings, they would have more to offer. The Hindu-Buddhist network of teaching traditions aims for “liberation through knowledge” rather than “salvation through faith”. Defensively, they should uphold religious diversity (on a par with the concern for biodiversity) against the levelling campaigns of missionary creeds and consumerism. But in a forward perspective, they should also communicate their own tradition of respect for all that is sacred and integrate it with the modern world.
(book review published in The Sunday Pioneer, Delhi, 13 March 2011)
Read more!
In Universal Hinduism (Voice of India, Delhi 2010), American scholar and Hindu convert David Frawley sets out to clear up this confusion. He takes the reader through the basic data that set Hinduism apart from the others, and specific Hindu schools from one another and from Buddhism. He also discusses what it has in common with the world’s eliminated and surviving Pagan religions, and sometimes with forms of Islam and Christianity too. In his typical kindly style, he gives every practice and every belief its due, but keeps his focus on the potential of Sanatana Dharma to heal modern society as well as to lead man to enlightenment.
One of the most useful parts for Hindus will be Frawley’s discussion of the motivation and strategy behind the missionary penetration of Hindu society. On this, most Hindu nationalist discourse is shrill and ill-informed. It usually amounts to an anachronistic identification of Christianity with “White racism” (which was a passing phase in the Church’s long history). Among other mistakes, this ignores the difference between Catholics and Protestants, with the latter marketing Christianity in India most aggressively. Such sloppiness contrasts sharply with the diligence and thoroughness of the Christian effort in mapping out the Hindu world, theologically as well as sociologically.
If Hindus want to develop a more realistic assessment of the missionary enterprise, Frawley’s chapter on it is a good place to start. He explains Christianity as a belief system and reveals its Pagan roots along with its anti-Pagan stance in terms that Hindus will understand. Thus, Catholic and Orthodox icon worship is a thinly veiled continuation of Pagan murti-puja, with the Virgin Mary as the acceptable face of the Goddess. Protestants had already pointed out that much of what endears the Virgin, the Saints and their idols and pilgrimages to the common worshippers is plain Paganism. The co-optation of Pagan elements into folk Christianity, that is, of the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin (whose temple in Mexico was forcibly replaced with a chapel) as the Virgen de Guadalupe, is being replayed in India today by the mainstream Churches under the label “acculturation”. By contrast, Evangelical Protestants pursue a more confrontational strategy, labelling Hindu gods as devils and making no compromise with “idol worship”. They are very straightforward about the essential exclusivism that contrasts Christianity and Islam with pluralistic Hinduism.
On the contention between Hindu nationalism and Hindu universalism, Frawley charts a middle course. Of course, Hinduism is tied to India, yet at the same time it is ever more present on all continents and has even welcomed some unsolicited native converts there, besides sharing some values and practices with other religions worldwide. There is little point in trying to Indianise these others, but the common ground should be explored further, as is being done at the annual Gathering of the Elders of Ancient Traditions and Cultures, where Native American, Yoruba and Maori medicine-men make common cause with Hindu gurus like Swami Dayananda Saraswati. “All such true spiritual traditions face many common enemies in this materialistic age”, so “they should form a common front”.
At the same time, non-Indians who adopt Asian spiritual practices should realise that this system for liberation is embedded in a culture with many other dimensions. Some of these more worldly elements (arts, dress, lifestyle) could usefully be adopted as well. Frawley ought to know, as a practising Ayurvedic doctor who habitually wears Indian clothes. Thus, vegetarianism is not merely a different cuisine, it is objectively superior to meat-eating, and this is now being acknowledged by non-Hindus concerned about health and ecology. While differences must be tolerated, it doesn’t mean that all beliefs and practices are of equal value.
Knowledge is preferable to faith. At inter-faith conferences, Hindus usually cut a sorry figure, ill-prepared as they are; but at “inter-knowledge” meetings, they would have more to offer. The Hindu-Buddhist network of teaching traditions aims for “liberation through knowledge” rather than “salvation through faith”. Defensively, they should uphold religious diversity (on a par with the concern for biodiversity) against the levelling campaigns of missionary creeds and consumerism. But in a forward perspective, they should also communicate their own tradition of respect for all that is sacred and integrate it with the modern world.
(book review published in The Sunday Pioneer, Delhi, 13 March 2011)
Read more!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The ethnic meaning of "Arya"
In debates on the politically controversial term Arya, we keep hearing from Hindus and Buddhists that it only means "noble", as in the Buddha's "four noble (Arya) truths". This bespeaks a deficient sense of historicity, i.c. the realization that terminology is susceptible to change.
While the term had no racial ("Nordic") or linguistic ("Indo-European") meaning, it did originally have an ethnic meaning. On this, invasionist linguist JP Mallory and anti-invasionist historian Shrikant Talageri agree. At least, it has a relative ethnic meaning, not designating a particular nation, but being used by several Indo-European nations (viz. Anatolians, Iranians and Paurava Indians) in the sense of "compatriot", "one of us". This term, in India, then evolved to "one who shares the civilizational norms of the Vedic Paurava tribes", "Veda-abiding", "civilized". And thence "noble".
The use of Arya cognates in Hittite and Lycian (Anatolian) in the sense of “compatriot, fellow citizen” is given in standard textbooks of Indo-European linguistics, such as JP Mallory’s, and in the On-line Etymological Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/
The same in Iranian is beyond dispute. Iran itself is from Airyanam Khshathra. In 2006, Tajikistan hosted the UNESCO-sponsored World Aryan Fair, where “Aryan” in effect meant “Iranian”, including Baluch, Kurd, Osset (Scythian), Pathan and Tajik. Non-Iranians including Indians were Anairya to them, regardless of whether they called themselves Arya.
The evidence for Arya used in the Rg-Veda in the sense of “compatriot” is given at length in Talageri’s latest two books, The Rg-Veda, a Historical Analysis and The Rg-Veda and the Avesta, the Final Evidence. He arrived at his conclusions without any knowledge of the linguists’ findings. What he shows is that the Paurava tribe, in which (particularly, in whose Bharata clan) the Veda hymns were composed, referred to its own members as Arya. All others, including Iranians (“Dasa”, “Dasyu”, “Pani”) and non-Paurava Indians (Yadava, Aikshvaku et al.), were counted as Anarya.
Contrary to Arya Samaji and other modern-moralistic interpretations, Arya does not mean “good” nor Anarya “bad”: even a hostile reference to a traitorous fellow-Paurava calls him Arya, even non-Paurava friends whose virtues are praised remain Anarya. It is only when Paurava Vedic tradition become normative for the neighbouring tribes that Arya gradually loses its Paurava exclusiveness and acquires the non-ethnic meaning of “Vedic”, “partaking of Vedic tradition”, “civilized”, “noble”; and “Anarya” becomes “barbarian”.
One resultant semantic development is "upper-caste", meaning those people who received the Vedic initiation. Since Kshatriyas and Brahmins had their own more specific titulature, the general honorific Arya often designated the Vaishya. It is also used as a form of address to any honoured person, which is probably the origin of the present-day honorific suffix -ji, evolved through the Prakrit forms ayya, ajja, 'jje. In South India, the term Arya designated the Northern immigarnts who described themselves as such: Buddhist and Jaina preachers and Brahmin settlers. They latter's caste names Aiyar and Aiyangar are evolutes of Arya.
It is in the sense of "noble" that the Buddha spoke of the Arya 4 truths and 8-fold path. However, we must take into account the possibility that he used it in the implied sense of “Vedic”, broadly conceived. That after Vedic tradition got carried away into what he deemed non-essentials, he intended to restore what he conceived as the original Vedic spirit. After all, the anti-Vedicism and anti-Brahmanism now routinely attributed to him, are largely in the eye of the modern beholder. Though later Brahmin-born Buddhist thinkers polemicized against Brahmin institutions and the idolizing of the Veda, the Buddha himself didn’t mind attributing to the gods Indra and Brahma his recognition as the Buddha and his mission to teach; and when predicting the future Buddha Maitreya, had him born in a Brahmin family; and had over 40% Brahmins among his ordained disciples.
I haven’t looked into original sources about this yet, but surmise that pre-war racists waxed enthusiastic about descriptions by contemporaries of the Buddha as tall and light-skinned. That would be “Aryan” in the then-common sense of “Nordic”. Nowadays, some scholars including Michael Witzel suggest that the Buddha’s Shakya tribe may have been of Iranian origin (from Shaka, “Scythian”), which would explain their fierce endogamy. They practised cousin marriage, e.g. th Buddha himself had only four great-grandparents because his paternal grandfather was the brother of his maternal grandmother while his maternal grandfather was the brother of his paternal grandmother. The Brahminical lawbooks prohibited this close endogamy (gotras are exogamous) and like the Catholic Church, imposed respect for "prohibited degrees of consanguinity"; but it was common among Iranians. (It was also common among Dravidians, a lead not yet fully exploited by neo-Buuddhists claiming the Buddha as “pre-Aryan”.) The Shakya-s justified it through pride in their direct pure descent from Arya patriarch Manu Vaivasvata, but this could be an explanation adapted to the Indian milieu hiding their Iranian origin (which they themselves too could have forgotten), still visible in their physical profile. Thus far the “Iranian Buddha” theory.
It is possible and indeed likely that other Indian tribes contemporaneous with the Vedic Paurava-s also called themselves Arya (and the Paurava-s Anarya), but they have left us no texts to prove it. Such usage may have facilitated the adoption of the term Arya in the (to them) new meaning of “Vedic”.
The 19th-century claims of the use of an “Arya” cognate as ethnic self-designation in Celtic (“Eire”) and Germanic have been abandoned, as well as the relation with German Ehre, “honour” (which is from *aiz-, cognate with Latin aes-timare, whence English esteem). There is no firm indication that it ever was a pan-Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European self-designation and thus a valid synonym for “Indo-European”.
Read more!
While the term had no racial ("Nordic") or linguistic ("Indo-European") meaning, it did originally have an ethnic meaning. On this, invasionist linguist JP Mallory and anti-invasionist historian Shrikant Talageri agree. At least, it has a relative ethnic meaning, not designating a particular nation, but being used by several Indo-European nations (viz. Anatolians, Iranians and Paurava Indians) in the sense of "compatriot", "one of us". This term, in India, then evolved to "one who shares the civilizational norms of the Vedic Paurava tribes", "Veda-abiding", "civilized". And thence "noble".
The use of Arya cognates in Hittite and Lycian (Anatolian) in the sense of “compatriot, fellow citizen” is given in standard textbooks of Indo-European linguistics, such as JP Mallory’s, and in the On-line Etymological Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/
The same in Iranian is beyond dispute. Iran itself is from Airyanam Khshathra. In 2006, Tajikistan hosted the UNESCO-sponsored World Aryan Fair, where “Aryan” in effect meant “Iranian”, including Baluch, Kurd, Osset (Scythian), Pathan and Tajik. Non-Iranians including Indians were Anairya to them, regardless of whether they called themselves Arya.
The evidence for Arya used in the Rg-Veda in the sense of “compatriot” is given at length in Talageri’s latest two books, The Rg-Veda, a Historical Analysis and The Rg-Veda and the Avesta, the Final Evidence. He arrived at his conclusions without any knowledge of the linguists’ findings. What he shows is that the Paurava tribe, in which (particularly, in whose Bharata clan) the Veda hymns were composed, referred to its own members as Arya. All others, including Iranians (“Dasa”, “Dasyu”, “Pani”) and non-Paurava Indians (Yadava, Aikshvaku et al.), were counted as Anarya.
Contrary to Arya Samaji and other modern-moralistic interpretations, Arya does not mean “good” nor Anarya “bad”: even a hostile reference to a traitorous fellow-Paurava calls him Arya, even non-Paurava friends whose virtues are praised remain Anarya. It is only when Paurava Vedic tradition become normative for the neighbouring tribes that Arya gradually loses its Paurava exclusiveness and acquires the non-ethnic meaning of “Vedic”, “partaking of Vedic tradition”, “civilized”, “noble”; and “Anarya” becomes “barbarian”.
One resultant semantic development is "upper-caste", meaning those people who received the Vedic initiation. Since Kshatriyas and Brahmins had their own more specific titulature, the general honorific Arya often designated the Vaishya. It is also used as a form of address to any honoured person, which is probably the origin of the present-day honorific suffix -ji, evolved through the Prakrit forms ayya, ajja, 'jje. In South India, the term Arya designated the Northern immigarnts who described themselves as such: Buddhist and Jaina preachers and Brahmin settlers. They latter's caste names Aiyar and Aiyangar are evolutes of Arya.
It is in the sense of "noble" that the Buddha spoke of the Arya 4 truths and 8-fold path. However, we must take into account the possibility that he used it in the implied sense of “Vedic”, broadly conceived. That after Vedic tradition got carried away into what he deemed non-essentials, he intended to restore what he conceived as the original Vedic spirit. After all, the anti-Vedicism and anti-Brahmanism now routinely attributed to him, are largely in the eye of the modern beholder. Though later Brahmin-born Buddhist thinkers polemicized against Brahmin institutions and the idolizing of the Veda, the Buddha himself didn’t mind attributing to the gods Indra and Brahma his recognition as the Buddha and his mission to teach; and when predicting the future Buddha Maitreya, had him born in a Brahmin family; and had over 40% Brahmins among his ordained disciples.
I haven’t looked into original sources about this yet, but surmise that pre-war racists waxed enthusiastic about descriptions by contemporaries of the Buddha as tall and light-skinned. That would be “Aryan” in the then-common sense of “Nordic”. Nowadays, some scholars including Michael Witzel suggest that the Buddha’s Shakya tribe may have been of Iranian origin (from Shaka, “Scythian”), which would explain their fierce endogamy. They practised cousin marriage, e.g. th Buddha himself had only four great-grandparents because his paternal grandfather was the brother of his maternal grandmother while his maternal grandfather was the brother of his paternal grandmother. The Brahminical lawbooks prohibited this close endogamy (gotras are exogamous) and like the Catholic Church, imposed respect for "prohibited degrees of consanguinity"; but it was common among Iranians. (It was also common among Dravidians, a lead not yet fully exploited by neo-Buuddhists claiming the Buddha as “pre-Aryan”.) The Shakya-s justified it through pride in their direct pure descent from Arya patriarch Manu Vaivasvata, but this could be an explanation adapted to the Indian milieu hiding their Iranian origin (which they themselves too could have forgotten), still visible in their physical profile. Thus far the “Iranian Buddha” theory.
It is possible and indeed likely that other Indian tribes contemporaneous with the Vedic Paurava-s also called themselves Arya (and the Paurava-s Anarya), but they have left us no texts to prove it. Such usage may have facilitated the adoption of the term Arya in the (to them) new meaning of “Vedic”.
The 19th-century claims of the use of an “Arya” cognate as ethnic self-designation in Celtic (“Eire”) and Germanic have been abandoned, as well as the relation with German Ehre, “honour” (which is from *aiz-, cognate with Latin aes-timare, whence English esteem). There is no firm indication that it ever was a pan-Indo-European or Proto-Indo-European self-designation and thus a valid synonym for “Indo-European”.
Read more!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Still no trace of an Aryan invasion
Last night, 1 March 2011, I attended a lecture by Cambridge (UK) archaeologist Cameron Petrie on the state of the art in Harappan excavations and the emerging picture of the "Indus" civilization. Interesting, but no real news.
Just a few highlights in this modest blog report. Petrie showed a map of excavation sites used by Michel Danino in "a popular book" on the Indus-Saraswati civilization, next to his own map. Danino's map shows a high concentration of sites along the Ghaggar river, i.e. the remains of the once-mighty Saraswati; but Petrie's map shows a paucity of sites in the same region. That looks serious. But the very next item in his talk reversed this impression. He reported on a survey of Haryana by a Ph.D. candidate from Rohtak who during 2008-10 identified hundreds of as yet unexcavated Harappan sites. His map showed a concentration of "new" sites precisely in the "empty" Ghaggar region... So, this seems to confirm that the Saraswati was an important centre of Harappan civilization after all.
Incidentally, for the most common chronology proposed by the non-invasionist school, a non-urbanized Saraswati basin would not be such a problem. People like K.D. Sethna and Nicholas Kazanas date the Rg-Vedic age to the early Harappan and even pre-Harappan age, in conformity with the lack of an urban setting in the Rg-Veda. But the latter information could also be matched to a Harappan date but in a non-urbanised border region of the Harappan area, as Shrikant Talageri opines. The latter also points out that the Asuras, a term apparently referring in that context to the Iranians, the Vedic Indians' westerly neighbours, are often described as more advanced in material culture. So, locating the Vedic tribes outside the metropolitan area could make sense. And the impression of a west-to-east gradient in Harappan development, confirmed once more by Petrie, would therefore not be a problem for Talageri's position. But many scenarios remain possible.
Petrie purposely avoided the topic of the alleged Aryan invasion. His survey of Harappan history at no point necessitated such a hypothesis, for the story could apparently be told with reference only to purely internal developments. He only agreed to discuss it when asked by the chairman in question time, but remained non-committal. He said the question was so complicated that it would perhaps never be decided.
At that point I proposed to narrow the question down to a degree of simplicity where a field archaeologist would definitely be able to answer. He agreed that Prof. B.B. Lal had made his name in the 1950s and 60s by detailing our knowledge of the Painted Grey Ware and identifying it as characteristic of the invading Aryans moving eastwards, deeper into India; and that Lal had later repudiated any claims of an Aryan invasion and is now a leading light of the non-invasionist school. Lal now says that no archaeological trace of an Aryan invasion has ever been found or identified. Petrie also conceded that Harvard Sanskritist Prof. Michael Witzel had likewise admitted that "as yet" no such arcaheological evidence of an Aryan invasion has been discovered. So, a very simple question would be: did Cameron Petrie, as a field archaeologist fresh from the recentmost excavation, ever come across actual pieces of evidence for an Aryan invasion. He smiled and agreed that he too had no such sensational discovery to announce. So: as of 2011, after many decades of being the official and much-funded hypothesis, the Aryan Invasion Theory has still not been confirmed by even a single piece of archaeological evidence.
Read more!
Just a few highlights in this modest blog report. Petrie showed a map of excavation sites used by Michel Danino in "a popular book" on the Indus-Saraswati civilization, next to his own map. Danino's map shows a high concentration of sites along the Ghaggar river, i.e. the remains of the once-mighty Saraswati; but Petrie's map shows a paucity of sites in the same region. That looks serious. But the very next item in his talk reversed this impression. He reported on a survey of Haryana by a Ph.D. candidate from Rohtak who during 2008-10 identified hundreds of as yet unexcavated Harappan sites. His map showed a concentration of "new" sites precisely in the "empty" Ghaggar region... So, this seems to confirm that the Saraswati was an important centre of Harappan civilization after all.
Incidentally, for the most common chronology proposed by the non-invasionist school, a non-urbanized Saraswati basin would not be such a problem. People like K.D. Sethna and Nicholas Kazanas date the Rg-Vedic age to the early Harappan and even pre-Harappan age, in conformity with the lack of an urban setting in the Rg-Veda. But the latter information could also be matched to a Harappan date but in a non-urbanised border region of the Harappan area, as Shrikant Talageri opines. The latter also points out that the Asuras, a term apparently referring in that context to the Iranians, the Vedic Indians' westerly neighbours, are often described as more advanced in material culture. So, locating the Vedic tribes outside the metropolitan area could make sense. And the impression of a west-to-east gradient in Harappan development, confirmed once more by Petrie, would therefore not be a problem for Talageri's position. But many scenarios remain possible.
Petrie purposely avoided the topic of the alleged Aryan invasion. His survey of Harappan history at no point necessitated such a hypothesis, for the story could apparently be told with reference only to purely internal developments. He only agreed to discuss it when asked by the chairman in question time, but remained non-committal. He said the question was so complicated that it would perhaps never be decided.
At that point I proposed to narrow the question down to a degree of simplicity where a field archaeologist would definitely be able to answer. He agreed that Prof. B.B. Lal had made his name in the 1950s and 60s by detailing our knowledge of the Painted Grey Ware and identifying it as characteristic of the invading Aryans moving eastwards, deeper into India; and that Lal had later repudiated any claims of an Aryan invasion and is now a leading light of the non-invasionist school. Lal now says that no archaeological trace of an Aryan invasion has ever been found or identified. Petrie also conceded that Harvard Sanskritist Prof. Michael Witzel had likewise admitted that "as yet" no such arcaheological evidence of an Aryan invasion has been discovered. So, a very simple question would be: did Cameron Petrie, as a field archaeologist fresh from the recentmost excavation, ever come across actual pieces of evidence for an Aryan invasion. He smiled and agreed that he too had no such sensational discovery to announce. So: as of 2011, after many decades of being the official and much-funded hypothesis, the Aryan Invasion Theory has still not been confirmed by even a single piece of archaeological evidence.
Read more!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Queen Beatrix on Islam
In an obvious allusion to social problems with Islam, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands stated in her 2010 Christmas speech: "The danger is that what unites us gets obscured and differences are magnified. Then walls of supposed oppositions are raised and positions hardened."
Within the outlines of such a platitudinous court speech, Her Majesty seems to be saying that the rise of Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, and "Islamophobia" in general, promotes polarization. Whereas all human beings essentially share roughly the same needs and aspirations, the warners against Islam ("Islam bashers") will create artificial separation walls. It is in this sense that most observers viewed the royal speech, Geert Wilders included. In a first reaction, he twittered that the twelve recently arrested Somali terror suspects "in the Netherlands certainly were not looking at what unites us."
But there is another possible reading. The whole structure of Islam itself, rather than "Islamophobia", is set up precisely to erect "walls of supposed oppositions" between people. The wall between “Henk and Ingrid” (typical Dutch names) and “Ahmed and Aisha” is not the handiwork of the critics of Islam but of Islam itself. Apart from some superficial features of language and geographical origin, there is essentially little difference between both couples. It is only Islam that condemns the former to disenfranchised subordination (dhimmitude) in this life and afterwards an eternity in hell, while the latter are to inherit the heavens later and the earth now.
This difference is not real, it exists only in the imagination of Islam believers, it's an "supposed opposition”. But Islamic law does lay down that this imaginary opposition gets a very tangible impact, namely all kinds of inequalities between Muslims and non-Muslims. The believers arrogate to themselves rights that they deny to the unbelievers. This self-righteousness, which is the self-proclaimed essence of Islam, erects "walls of supposed oppositions". Would the Queen, speaking on behalf of the Dutch people, have had that analysis in mind?
Read more!
Within the outlines of such a platitudinous court speech, Her Majesty seems to be saying that the rise of Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, and "Islamophobia" in general, promotes polarization. Whereas all human beings essentially share roughly the same needs and aspirations, the warners against Islam ("Islam bashers") will create artificial separation walls. It is in this sense that most observers viewed the royal speech, Geert Wilders included. In a first reaction, he twittered that the twelve recently arrested Somali terror suspects "in the Netherlands certainly were not looking at what unites us."
But there is another possible reading. The whole structure of Islam itself, rather than "Islamophobia", is set up precisely to erect "walls of supposed oppositions" between people. The wall between “Henk and Ingrid” (typical Dutch names) and “Ahmed and Aisha” is not the handiwork of the critics of Islam but of Islam itself. Apart from some superficial features of language and geographical origin, there is essentially little difference between both couples. It is only Islam that condemns the former to disenfranchised subordination (dhimmitude) in this life and afterwards an eternity in hell, while the latter are to inherit the heavens later and the earth now.
This difference is not real, it exists only in the imagination of Islam believers, it's an "supposed opposition”. But Islamic law does lay down that this imaginary opposition gets a very tangible impact, namely all kinds of inequalities between Muslims and non-Muslims. The believers arrogate to themselves rights that they deny to the unbelievers. This self-righteousness, which is the self-proclaimed essence of Islam, erects "walls of supposed oppositions". Would the Queen, speaking on behalf of the Dutch people, have had that analysis in mind?
Read more!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Ayodhya verdict a Congress Party achievement
The Allahabad High Court’s recent verdict on the contending Ayodhya claims by Hindus and Muslims is, on the whole, to be welcomed. It proposes an allotment of the disputed territory that is imperfect but reasonable-looking and welcomed in English-speaking circles as likely to put an end to the dispute. While unambiguously allotting the exact site where the Babri mosque used to stand to a Hindu claimant on behalf of the deity Ram Lala (baby Rama), it also awards one-third of the Government-held plot to the Muslim claimants.
Both parties disagree with this division, so the Supreme Court will have to go over the merits of the case too. Those future deliberations are not for a historian to comment upon, but I imagine that they can be expedited if the Muslim litigants present to the Supreme Court the plan proposed in enlightened Muslim circles, viz. to build an Islamic-style peace monument on their part of the land, rather than a mosque that would serve as a perpetual provocation. Even simpler is if the Court follows logic and leaves the entire site to the Hindus; but in a formula without explicit Muslim consent, they probably fear for Muslim "direct action" against the site and against the Indian polity.
For now, let us consider some highlights of the Allahabad High Court’s lengthy verdict. Its chief merit is that it re-establishes respect for genuine history. This, I propose, is the ultimate result of a wise policy pursued by Congress Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. They discreetly promoted the long-term project of rebuilding a Hindu temple at the contentious site by linking the decision about the site’s future to the historical question about its past. The consensus in all pertinent testimonies by Muslims, Hindus and Europeans, still upheld as dry fact in the 1989 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was that a Rama temple had been forcibly replaced with the mosque attributed to Babar.
In a typical exercise of Congress culture, Gandhi intended to preserve peace by leaving the site to the Hindus (who were already using it as a temple since 1949), all while compensating the Muslim leadership for its acquiescence with some appropriate favours, starting with the Shah Bano amendment and the ban on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Not very principled, but pragmatic and likely to avoid bloodshed. This plan was upset by two developments.
One obstruction was the BJP’s erratic intervention. First the party capitalized on the issue in a mass campaign, but then effectively dropped it after reaping the dividend in the 1991 elections. This “betrayal” provoked some Hindu activists into bypassing their leaders and taking the surprise initiative of demolishing the mosque structure in 1992.
The more serious obstacle was the shrill and intimidating campaign of history denial by a section of partisan academics and journalists (with the whole guild of Western India-watchers in their pocket). Screaming “secularism in danger!” and raising the stakes beyond all proportion, they continued to dominate public discourse until September 2010. They managed to turn the old consensus into a mere ”belief” of “Hindu extremists”. But insiders knew they had been checkmated in 1991. Rajiv Gandhi had forced minority government leader Chandra Shekhar to organize a scholars’ debate, where newly presented evidence only confirmed the old consensus view. The anti-temple academics got no farther than proposing some feeble insinuations against a selected few of the documents and archaeological findings. They did not come up with a single piece of evidence in support of an alternative scenario.
But the new Congress PM Narasimha Rao (in my opinion the best PM the Republic of India has had) stayed the course. All while exploiting the BJP’s discomfiture and making the right noises to humour the anti-temple circles, he arranged a presidential reference to the Supreme Court on the question of the pre-existence of a temple at the site. This way, once more a Congress PM directed the focus of the controversy to the historical evidence, knowing fully well that this could only bolster the Hindu claim. The Supreme Court in effect had the question sent on to the High Court, which ordered a radar scan and the most thorough excavations ever of the disputed site. By 2003, the results were in: of course there had been a temple.
On that basis, the High Court has now given a verdict acknowledging the historical and archaeological evidence and reprimanding the anti-temple academics for their grossly flawed methods of research and argumentation. Moreover, the judges ordered the site henceforth to be treated as indeed the Rama Janmabhumi, the birthplace of Rama. Everybody remains free to believe otherwise, but the belief of millions of Hindus concerning Rama’s birth there is to be respected as much as, say, the Islamic belief that the Kaaba was built by Adam. No Muslim is ever told that he can only go on Hajj pilgrimage after proving this belief about the Kaaba; and neither should Hindus be required to prove Rama’s birth location.
By that standard, incidentally, the whole history debate, forced upon us by the campaign of history denial, was an unnecessary distraction. Establishing historical truth is interesting and important for its own sake, but it should not be a precondition for respecting fellow human beings in their religious practices. For settling this dispute, the consideration that the site is sacred not to Muslims but very much to Hindus, and not in the Middle Ages but today, really ought to have been sufficient.
Read more!
Both parties disagree with this division, so the Supreme Court will have to go over the merits of the case too. Those future deliberations are not for a historian to comment upon, but I imagine that they can be expedited if the Muslim litigants present to the Supreme Court the plan proposed in enlightened Muslim circles, viz. to build an Islamic-style peace monument on their part of the land, rather than a mosque that would serve as a perpetual provocation. Even simpler is if the Court follows logic and leaves the entire site to the Hindus; but in a formula without explicit Muslim consent, they probably fear for Muslim "direct action" against the site and against the Indian polity.
For now, let us consider some highlights of the Allahabad High Court’s lengthy verdict. Its chief merit is that it re-establishes respect for genuine history. This, I propose, is the ultimate result of a wise policy pursued by Congress Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. They discreetly promoted the long-term project of rebuilding a Hindu temple at the contentious site by linking the decision about the site’s future to the historical question about its past. The consensus in all pertinent testimonies by Muslims, Hindus and Europeans, still upheld as dry fact in the 1989 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was that a Rama temple had been forcibly replaced with the mosque attributed to Babar.
In a typical exercise of Congress culture, Gandhi intended to preserve peace by leaving the site to the Hindus (who were already using it as a temple since 1949), all while compensating the Muslim leadership for its acquiescence with some appropriate favours, starting with the Shah Bano amendment and the ban on Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Not very principled, but pragmatic and likely to avoid bloodshed. This plan was upset by two developments.
One obstruction was the BJP’s erratic intervention. First the party capitalized on the issue in a mass campaign, but then effectively dropped it after reaping the dividend in the 1991 elections. This “betrayal” provoked some Hindu activists into bypassing their leaders and taking the surprise initiative of demolishing the mosque structure in 1992.
The more serious obstacle was the shrill and intimidating campaign of history denial by a section of partisan academics and journalists (with the whole guild of Western India-watchers in their pocket). Screaming “secularism in danger!” and raising the stakes beyond all proportion, they continued to dominate public discourse until September 2010. They managed to turn the old consensus into a mere ”belief” of “Hindu extremists”. But insiders knew they had been checkmated in 1991. Rajiv Gandhi had forced minority government leader Chandra Shekhar to organize a scholars’ debate, where newly presented evidence only confirmed the old consensus view. The anti-temple academics got no farther than proposing some feeble insinuations against a selected few of the documents and archaeological findings. They did not come up with a single piece of evidence in support of an alternative scenario.
But the new Congress PM Narasimha Rao (in my opinion the best PM the Republic of India has had) stayed the course. All while exploiting the BJP’s discomfiture and making the right noises to humour the anti-temple circles, he arranged a presidential reference to the Supreme Court on the question of the pre-existence of a temple at the site. This way, once more a Congress PM directed the focus of the controversy to the historical evidence, knowing fully well that this could only bolster the Hindu claim. The Supreme Court in effect had the question sent on to the High Court, which ordered a radar scan and the most thorough excavations ever of the disputed site. By 2003, the results were in: of course there had been a temple.
On that basis, the High Court has now given a verdict acknowledging the historical and archaeological evidence and reprimanding the anti-temple academics for their grossly flawed methods of research and argumentation. Moreover, the judges ordered the site henceforth to be treated as indeed the Rama Janmabhumi, the birthplace of Rama. Everybody remains free to believe otherwise, but the belief of millions of Hindus concerning Rama’s birth there is to be respected as much as, say, the Islamic belief that the Kaaba was built by Adam. No Muslim is ever told that he can only go on Hajj pilgrimage after proving this belief about the Kaaba; and neither should Hindus be required to prove Rama’s birth location.
By that standard, incidentally, the whole history debate, forced upon us by the campaign of history denial, was an unnecessary distraction. Establishing historical truth is interesting and important for its own sake, but it should not be a precondition for respecting fellow human beings in their religious practices. For settling this dispute, the consideration that the site is sacred not to Muslims but very much to Hindus, and not in the Middle Ages but today, really ought to have been sufficient.
Read more!
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