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What is of interest in the history of the term Hindu, is that its origin lies in its being a geographical name.
I have over the years of my research been struck by the frequency with which the present makes use of the past either in a detrimental manner where it becomes a part of various political ploys, or alternatively in a positive manner to claim an enviable legitimacy and inheritance.
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The noticeable decline in liberal values is disturbing, especially as fewer and fewer persons appear concerned about this decline.
If the past is to be called upon to legitimize the present, as it so frequently is, then the veracity of such a past has to be continuously vetted.
In contemporary times we not only reconstruct the past but we also use it to give legitimacy to the way in which we order our own society.
History is not just a directory of information; it also involves analyzing and interpreting this information.
The history of India was constructed in accordance with nineteenth century European views on what history should be and what was thought to be Indian history.
Three arguments were foundational to the colonial view of Indian history. The first was periodization. James Mill in The History of British India published in 1818-1823, almost two hundred years ago, argued for three periods: Hindu civilization, Muslim civilization and the British period.
The second assertion was that the pre-colonial political economy conformed to the model of what was called Oriental Despotism.
The third aspect was that Hindu society has always been divided into four main castes—the varnas.
Dravidian became the counter-point to the Aryan.
Colonial historians drew on texts encapsulating the upper-caste perspectives of Indian society and extended it to the whole of society.
The political ideologues of the Hindu Right endorse a history rooted in colonial interpretations and are anxious to make that period of history a Hindu utopia.
On a universal scale the civilized were the colonizers and the uncivilized were the colonized.
In the questioning of existing explanations the validity of periodizing Indian history as Hindu, Muslim and British was increasingly doubted. It had projected two thousand years of a golden age for the first, eight hundred years of despotic tyranny for the second, and a supposed modernization under the British.
A society has many pasts from which it chooses those that go into the creation of its history. The choice is made by those in authority—the authority being of various kinds—although occasionally the voice of others may be heard.
The alienation implicit in modernization is sought to be assuaged by the creation of a past and of ideologies that legitimize the present.
Religion as an ideology needs to be analyzed in all its dimensions, for, unless its political, social and economic dimensions are openly discussed, even if it is claimed that such discussion hurts sensibilities, there can be no real move away from dogma to humanism.
To stop at moral judgement on whether caste was good or evil is insufficient, as the assessment has to go much further and examine why this form of discrimination/organization was chosen.
Identity by religion, cutting across caste, region and language, has become something of a fantasy for pre-modern times.
The existence of autonomous individuals free to criticize was once a landmark of our civilization.
Religion rarely fights for the equality of all in material life.
Periodization based on religion as the sole criterion of historical activity is a negation of history.
If large numbers of Hindus converted then the majority of Muslims were indigenous Hindus and cannot be regarded as alien.
Religious nationalism takes an extreme form in communal historical writing.
Nations are not easily forged since many identities have to be coalesced.
All nationalisms require and search for utopias from the past and the more remote periods of history are chosen, partly because there is less detailed evidence on such periods and therefore it is possible to fantasize more freely about them.
Political ideologies focusing in particular on what they call ‘cultural nationalism’—and this is common to many societies apart from the Indian—blatantly exploit history.
Organized religion, however, is different from the religion of the individual.
The secular critique of communalism is not an opposition to religion but to the abuse of religion.
Communalism is the political exploitation of a religious ideology.
The discarding of the icon by both the Brahmo and Arya Samaj was almost a knee-jerk reaction. It was seen as a pollution of the original religion but possibly the jibe of idol worship may have enhanced this reaction.
The absence of conversion accounted for the absence of the distinction between the true follower and the infidel or pagan.
Religious violence is not alien to Hinduism despite the modern myth that the Hindus are by instinct and religion a non-violent people.
One is often struck by how different the message of the Gita would have been and how very much closer to non-violence if Gautama Buddha had been the charioteer of Arjuna instead of Krishna.
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In the same Mahabharata where the protagonists go variously to heaven or hell, Krishna preaches the centrality of rebirth and the system of justice associated with it.
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It is said that the Hindus must have been upset at seeing Turkish and Mongol soldiers in their heavy boots trampling the floors of the temples. The question is, which Hindus? For, the same temple if it was now entered by mleccha soldiers was open only to upper-caste Hindus and its sanctum was in any case barred to the majority of the population who were regarded as the indigenous mleccha. The trauma was therefore more in the notion of the temple being polluted rather than the confrontation of one religion with another.
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Social and economic inequality was accepted as normal by Vedic Brahmanism and whether one approves or disapproves of it, it was an established point of view. To propagate the texts associated with this assumption and yet insist that they are appropriate to modern values of democracy and secularism is hardly acceptable.
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‘Aryan’ and ‘Dravidian’ used as terms for peoples confuses language and race since these are language labels, and should correctly be used as, ‘Aryan-speaking people’ and ‘Dravidian-speaking people’.
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Historically the interesting question is when and why did the prohibition on eating beef become the requirement of a good Hindu.
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We know from many examples all over the world and from many periods of history that it was perfectly feasible for people of different racial origins, brought together through migration, trade, conquest or persecution, to find themselves ultimately using the same language.
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The Mahabharata can be viewed as a civilizational text not because it reflects the propagation of a particular view of these dharmas but because, among other things, it speaks to the debate on social ethics, especially between the brahmanical perspective and those that question it—a debate that has continued over many centuries.
The occasional woman philosopher such as Gargi, who is often quoted to prove the high status of women in ancient times, is actually the proverbial swallow and does not make a summer.
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If the shar’ia required that a woman suspected of adultery should be stoned to death, the Bhagvad Gita establishes a mindset by referring to women and low castes as sinfully born, and khap panchayats do the rest.
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One could well ask if there is some subconscious link in the patriarchal mind between the agni-pariksha, fire-ordeal of Sita; the encouraging of women to become satis, the practice of entering the fire jointly in a jauhar when a Rajput raja was defeated in a campaign; and the frequency of dowry deaths in recent times.
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The Gita, for example, speaks of shudras, vaishyas and women as one category, all being papa-yoni, born of sinful wombs.
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Insistence on the subservience of women did not dull male ardour in worshipping female deities, encapsulating the quintessential female force.
The act of immolation is first described in Greek texts, quoting from earlier accounts referring to incidents of the fourth century BC. Widows are burnt on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands among the Katheae (Kshatriya or khattiya) in the Punjab. Unable to explain this practice the author remarks that it was an attempt to prevent wives from poisoning their husbands!
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State intervention to try and control incidents of widow immolation begins during the time of the Sultans and the Mughals.
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Putting wives through fire has continued since ancient times, from Sita to sati to dowry deaths. It is a curious aspect of our social culture.
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