Obsession with categories

[hinduwoman]

When it comes to Hinduism most Indologist scholars seem to be obsessed with trying to reduce it to categories they can understand. Each group keep on insisting that this and this are the 'essence' of Hinduism, these are the common factors that unite whole Hinduism, there is actually a coherent structure that make it a religion in the Western sense, or even that it is actually a plurality of religions.

The problem is that Hindus never bothered their heads about such things. For the ordinary man everything just overlaps, and they are not worried about any coherent structure or essence. Except high-end intellectuals I don't think the average Hindu even aims at synthesis.

So why do the scholars ignore living Hinduism, as it is actually practiced, and instead focus on categories? Does this have something to do with Christian concept of what constitutes a religion or reductionism?

[Lohan]

More likely simply the difference between the analytical approaches of Western and Eastern thinkers. Whereas Western thought has been historically based on reducing things to smaller and smaller divisions and categories to understand the whole, Easterners have always looked first at the larger, holistic picture. Whether this reflects the influence of Christianity, or just the trend dating back to Enlightenment rationalism, I couldn't tell you. However, I do lean towards the latter.

[NearNihil Experience]

Lohan pretty much said it, but here's my take.

They are Deconstructionists.

Can't leave anything alone...or understand that in all its little parts, from atoms to galaxys (and us somewhere in between), can be understood as a singular whole.

You also mentioned reductionism. Quite possibly another underlying motivation for the inability to understand the universe as one -and- many, is the western intellectuals underlying non-pluralism...polytheism has not really been a cultural issue for over 1500 years. The underlying one -and- many mentality was gone with it. As I understand Indian\ Hindi polytheism, a major theme is Brahma(One) and Dharma(Many) are both required to get a full understanding of the universe and your individual place in it. PLease tell me if its otherwise...I'm just starting to study Hindu. And theres alot to it, history especially.

Western religions don't really have that. They teach a seperation and elevation above nature. Thats why we don't have veggetarians as a majority and some of us think its funny that Hindus and Buddhists don't eat meat for religious\ spiritual reasons. And why we rape the planet most effectively with industry and pollution and overuse of resource. :banghead:

And remember, these are mostly people who claim to have one God, but spend alot of time and effort worshipping very different aspects and incarnations of that "one". No category error here.
:rolleyes:

And the need to put things in easy to label and find categories. White people in general don't like unknowns in their lives, and stereotypes and break-down categorization makes it easier for us to handle life's encounters. Otherwise we get edgy and patriotic...

hope this sheds a little light

[victorialis]

Originally posted by hinduwoman
When it comes to Hinduism most Indologist scholars seem to be obsessed with trying to reduce it to categories they can understand.

Scholars write theses. A good thesis is built around a single idea.

It is difficult to write effectively about plurality and come off as though you've actually said anything -- that is, as though you've drawn a conclusion. A multifaceted analysis unresolved by a single, supportable, logically drawn conclusion seems unsatisfying and poorly argued. If one must write without making value judgements (like those implicit in a preference for categories), one cannot draw conclusions; one can only report. That makes the work difficult to evaluate in a general context.

Scholarly writing in any discipline is built upon other scholarly writing. (I've always disliked that fact. It seems incestuous.) Scholars in training have to adopt the habits of their mentors in order to gain their approbation and be validated as scholars themselves. In his own research Prof. X quotes the work of Dr. Y, whose work has already been validated by his peers.

I don't know how Eastern scholars work, so I can't make a comparison. But an older culture that has had an oral tradition before having developed a written one is likely to be a lot more comfortable with the inconclusiveness that comes with discussions of plurality.

I thought I remembered someone on this board saying that Hindu sacred texts run to hundreds of volumes. Is that right?

[Sarpedon]

Christians, muslims and jews are easily divided up into groups, because whenever they disagree with each other, they kill each other. This makes it easy to categorize them. I think that scholars from christian backgrounds therefore assume that conflicts are intinsic to religion, and simply to expect to see them everywhere. I expect that ornithologists, when looking at clouds, see bird shapes more frequently, while entymologists see bugs. These things are probably similar.

[hinduwoman]

Contratheos:
Actually Hinduism enfolds monotheism, pantheism, polytheism, monism, henotheism, the personal God, the Impersonal Unmoved Mover, animism, totemism, stoneworship --- in devotional literature they are all woven together as if there is no distinction. Except philosophers and leaders, the ordinary devotee rarely bothers to separate the various strands.

Brahman is the Supreme Being who pervades the whole universe. It is present everywhere in rocks, in fire, in water, in trees, in worms, in birds, in both predator and prey, in humans. The various gods are its various aspects on a higher level. Though it is the creator it is not distinct from creation. When the universe grows old it dissolves and fades back into Brahman in its unmanifest form; then time begins again, a new universe is created and Brahman becomes manifest in various forms.
The truly wise man learns to disregard outward appearance and instead find the Reality of the Brahman underlying whole creation.
According to one explanation when there was nothing but the consciousness of Brahman existing, it desired companionship and declared "I shall be many". That is the origin of creation. It then split itself into male and female principles and went about procreating the various forms of lives. That is why humans desire companionship of their own kind and do not like to be alone.
This is the most well known philosophical school.

However there are dualists who believe that God is distinct from creation and worship accordingly. To them God created the world merely willing it.



Also there is another problem. There are various communities in Hinduism each with a particular God which they think is the Highest/Brahman. The Vaisnavas worship Vishnu as THE God, Saivas Shiva, while Shaktas focus on the Mother Goddess as creator, sustainer and destroyer ( it is slightly different from classical Brahman). The Vaisnavas acknowledge Shiva as a great god, but to them he is only an aspect of Vishnu. For the Saivas it is reversed.
There are smaller communities where the Highest God is different. Over the millienas many of these smaller groups were absorbed into larger ones.

There are various ways to attain God. One can know God through knowledge, through work, or through bhakti (devotion , love). The latter is felt to be highest because it is the most intense. Again the forms of devotion vary. For example in Krishna worship, (an incarnation of Vishnu) Krishna can be worshipped as master, as a friend, as a lover, or as a child while the devotee is the mother.
The last two are extremely popular. I think that is because in these two phases, God comes down to earth in human form as supplicant to human beings for their love; the humans have power over God. When Krishna is worshipped as a lover/beloved his youthful exploits of an affair with Radha, dancing with shepherdesses etc. is celebrated; the devotees imagine themselves to be Radha or a shepherdess with whom he had flirted. When he is worshipped as a child his exploits of stealing butter, playing with other boys, being punished for his naughtiness and generally driving his mother to distraction is stressed.
For myself I think it is significant that these two phases of Krishna's life is referred to as lila or play. When Krishna became adult he did all kind of serious things and preached in Gita. As a child and adolescent he of course did obligatory demon-slayings, but so far as I can see these are not really stressed in bhakti. When he steals the clothes of shepherdesses bathing in a pool, or lies his head off to his mother he is not setting any noble example or remotely contributing to the welfare or salvation of the world, for which purposes avatars are born. God here is just playing around for the sheer fun of playing --- that makes these two phases very attractive (A paper here I fancy).

At popular levels there are lots of gods and goddesses worshipped indiscriminately. Sometimes a tree, a snake would start getting worshipped. Usually they are worshipped with material expectations or getting a better rebirth. Last year when there was a draught, inhabitants of several villages dumped the images of Hanuman Ganesh and Shiva in fields; the unfortunate deities were told in no uncertain terms that until rain comes they are going to stay there.
A kind of dichotomy --- village deities are worshipped not for salvation but for immediate gain and they get miffed if you refuse to propitiate them; Brahman does not give a damn if you worship it or not.


Because there are so many varities, one common theme is that all religions are equally valid paths of salvation. (This cuts down religious wars). "Truth is One, sages call him by many names".
However various communities differ as to what is the most superior. For example, Islam will take Muslims to God but a Shakta will say that he will know God far quickly and easily than a Muslim by worshipping the Goddess . Or that though searching for knowledge would eventually bring God to you, bhakti is the easier path: difference between travelling by plane and walking the whole way.
There is nothing that can be called orthodox, heterodox or heresy.
*************************************************

Dharma has no exact equivalent in European languages, though it gets translated as religion. It literally means that which sustains or holds up. It covers every sphere of life:
It is the dharma of snow to be cold.
It is the dharma of a plant to do photosynthesis.
It is the dharma of poison to kill.
Dharma makes the sun set.
The householder's Dharma is to marry and maintain his family --- work.
The warrior's dharma is to fight --- duty.
Raj dharma --- the king's obligations.
Lok dharma --- the things the public usually do.
Kula dharma --- customs of a particular family.
Vaishnav dharma --- creed centreing on worship of Vishnu
Dharma anusthan --- ritual ceremony
Sadharan dharma --- conduct obligatory on everyone regardless of caste or gender: charity, forgiveness, non-violence, compassion etc.
Varna dharma --- if you are born into a certain community then you are dutybound to carry out the work associated with it/ caste -system.
Sanyas Dharma --- renunciation of the world
Dharma in the sense of virtue or righteousness.
Appad dharma --- in times of distress it is permitted to abandon one's caste duties, rituals, taboos.
Yuga dharma --- in every age laws regarding people's behaviour change to suit new circumstances. What was good in one age become forbidden in next and vice versa. (In short, except sadharan dharma no eternal commandments; this allows flexibility in changing society)
Sanatan Dharma --- the eternal way; actually name given by Hindus to Hinduism as a whole (Hinduism is a foreign word).
(Probably left out a few other meanings).

When it comes to the cosmic level the term can mean the law of the universe, the principle that keeps everything running and dying, or simply balance.

Dharma is thus practically everything, meaning the whole social-moral-cosmic complex.

Dharma as moral conduct is context-specific. While one must tell the truth everytime, it is dharma to lie to a murderer about his intended victim. If one tells the truth in this case knowing the consequence he is guilty of adharma.
CONTEXT IS VERY IMPORTANT WHEN DISCUSSING DHARMA AS ETHICS.

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Victorialis:
You have got it right. Hindu sacred texts were never written down as revealed scriptures. They were written but everyone happily revised them to their heart's content. Mostly the sacred stories were passed down orally. This meant that even today the texts are being constantly revised and new deities generated.

This is why there are hundreds of Hindu scriptures. It is important to note that none can be really said to be elevated over others on all-India level. The British desperately tried to find the equivalent of Bible and fixated on Vedas. But really, before Muller the Vedas were not even collected as a single text. Many communities had their own different sacred text and simply ignored the Vedas. Similarly, the British administration fixated on Manusamhita as THE authoritative lawbook for Hindus just because it was the oldest. But again, it was one book among many. The laws Hindus followed varied from region to region, and which religious group had influenced it most. Also Pundits if called to judgement did not actually base all decisions on what the books had written: they interpreted them according to their temperament (could be worse, could be better).
Today, Bhagawat Gita tops the charts, but that was not the case before.
The Missionaries got it more right when they complained about Ramayana and Mahabharata being the source of all Satanic errors in Hinduism.. They were pan-Indian texts and the more popular source of morality, religion, role models. Of course once again the problem is that there are numerous versions of the epics and all of them are true (for a given value of 'truth').
________________________________________________

RE Environment: I am not sure what to think of it. In the past people sacred groves were tended, pools dug, feeding animals were considered a sacred duty: good for environment which has degraded ever since modern scientific education and industrialism took hold and nature became less sacred.
See http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/traditions/bishnoi.html

But the basis of these are superstitions; Ganga is heavily polluted because images and offerings are submerged into it.

[victorialis]

Originally posted by hinduwoman
:
Also Pundits if called to judgement did not actually base all decisions on what the books had written: they interpreted them according to their temperament (could be worse, could be better).
hinduwoman, this is interesting. I have heard the Brits compare their legal system to the American system and say that the British system is better because it focuses more on the spirit of the law than on the letter (most recently with regard to the section of business law that has to do with accounting). They say this is more efficient as well as more just, because (1) it keeps bad law from proliferating (as in the US) and (2) it is more flexible.

Unfortunately, this approach is no less prone to abuse than the American system. It relies not only upon the probity of whoever does the interpreting, but also upon the integrity of the bureaucracy that manages the cases that get brought. Especially with regard to the second part, this is asking a lot these days; if the system mangles the caseload by getting bogged down in its own procedures, the probity of the interpreters doesn't really mean much because the system has already failed.

So it is interesting that the British in India attempted to establish "seminal" religious texts for social engineering purposes when (it appears to a layperson like me) their own legal history and precedents point in precisely the opposite direction. Maybe the attempt to be legally monolithic in India was intended to utilise the benefit of hindsight, but it was certainly rolling the ball uphill.

The concept of dharma as you've described it seems to fill all the troublesome experiential gaps that exist between the individual and the law. But it leaves the concept of justice to have meaning only on the "cosmic" level, which I think is why westerners reject it and prefer the illusion of what justice can be had in civil society.

Westerners are able to accept that portion because of the messianic elements in the major religions. For everyone, "jam tomorrow" -- if not for me, then perhaps for my grandchildren. This messianic hope of "jam tomorrow" motivates the monolithic western attitude toward the whole world -- as opposed to the more realistic pluralist attitude of the east.

The idea of having to "mother" a deity, as you've described in some of the bhakti devotional ideas, would either frighten or dismay most westerners. Too dizzying a role reversal. I intuit a connection here to my own observation that there are a lot fewer adults about in the west than there used to be. I often wonder where they've all gone, the adults.

[Amit Misra]

Hinduwoman wrote:
When it comes to Hinduism most Indologist scholars seem to be obsessed with trying to reduce it to categories they can understand. ...Hindus never bothered their heads about such things...So why do the scholars ignore living Hinduism, as it is actually practiced, and instead focus on categories?
...and a lot of lyrical prose besides. From a position of ignorance and extreme irreverence, I reiterate: there is no such thing as Hinduism or even Sanatan Dharma. Both are categories of convenience. Hinduwoman's insistence that there is such a thing as "living Hinduism" is specious. Of course, there is a huge bunch of people who would reply "hindu" if asked what their religion is, but IMHO, what they mean is that they are not adherents of a standardized, canonical religion.
What I mean to say is that hindus can't have their cake and eat it too. Hinduism has no attributes associated with other religions, including several of Eastern origin like Buddhism. It is more like a hodgepodge of tradition, custom and beleif.
Scholars (and not thesis writers per se as Victorialis suggests) engage with subjects of study in the real world. This is what differentiates them from mystics. Scholars can be mistaken, but an honourable mistake is (again, IMHO) far better than sloppy acceptance of...monotheism, pantheism, polytheism, monism, henotheism, the personal God, the Impersonal Unmoved Mover, animism, totemism, stoneworship as all applicable to a phenomenon described prima facie as a religion.
In this context, it is important to ask why "Hindus never bothered their heads about such things." The easiest explanation is: because they never were, nor shall be, Hindus. They were, and continue to be, practitioners of the mishmash of tradition, etc., alluded to above. Had they concieved of an inclusive category larger than the caste identity (or lack thereof) forced on them, they would have certainly questioned whether there was worth assigning an appelation, e.g., hinduism.
Equally important, this imagined religion that Hinduwoman refers to: "Living Hinduism, as it is actually practiced," begs the question: how is it practised? If I may dare to anticipate a Hindu answer that turneth away wrath, a reply could well be something to the effect that anything done by a hindu is hinduism. The ritual murder of infants by Tantriks ? Sure. All-night jamborees of devotional music in residential localities at 100,000 watt amplification? That too. Massacre of muslims in Gujarat from Feb 2002 onwards? Of course!
Amit

[victorialis]

Originally posted by Amit Misra
Scholars (and not thesis writers per se as Victorialis suggests) engage with subjects of study in the real world. This is what differentiates them from mystics.

Amit, I applaud your differentiation between scholars and thesis writers, and would like to begin undergraduate work at the institution where you observed this.

I can't agree about the differentiation between scholars and mystics, however. With the passage of time, the two look more and more alike to me. The idea that anything done by a hindu is hinduism has a strongly mystical fragrance about it. Or is any conclusion drawn by a scholar, scholarly and not mystical? Such are the answers that turn away wrath.

But I take your point about sloppy acceptance. Hinduism was presented to me as "a way of life rather than a religion." This formulation raised more questions for me than it answered -- which is all to the good. Hence, in vigilance against sloppy acceptance, I ask the following question:

Is anything done by a jewish person, Judaism?

I mean no disrespect to genuine scholars, by the way. And they know who they are, even when they profess ignorance.

[Amit Misra]

My first feeling is of relief: for not having been sat upon by hinduwoman for my views...
Victorialis, my institution does not offer undergraduate studies, specially not in religion and philosophy, but you are welcome to sit at the feet of the master if you'd like to work on drug delivery systems for tuberculosis!:p
Lets not get too deep into the "no true scotsman" line of discussion. Would you agree to my position that it is possible to intuitively differentiate between scholarship and humbug? Similarly, to distinguish b/w mystics (the inspired) and scholars (the perspiring)? I'd say that an answer put forward by a scholar is likely to be an answer, while a mystic is more likely to pose a question than to answer it.
You also wrote:The idea that anything done by a hindu is hinduism has a strongly mystical fragrance about it.
It does, and I'm sorry if I sounded as if I was endorsing such mysticism. I'm most vehemently not. I stick to my stand: hinduism is nothing at all. Its a word. Like god. There is no social reality that can be described as hinduism. There is no practice that can be called 'non-hindu.'
And then you ask me (rather unfairly, if I may say so!), whetherIs anything done by a jewish person, Judaism?
I must answer No. The hassidim have to conform to various tenets, observe various rules and have the (dubious) advantage of being able to refer to a limited body of written work in the event of disputes about practice and belief. Things that they do outside the ambit of religious prescription are not Judaism-- that's called living your life. It is the hindu apologists who make such a big deal out of living your life by calling whatever you do "hinduism."
And thanks: I got the compliment right at the end of your post, though belatedly.

[andy_d]

I don't think it's an East/West thing at all. Look how many lists Buddhism has. There's a list for everything.

It's a preoccupation of academics the world over.

[victorialis]

Originally posted by Amit Misra
My first feeling is of relief: for not having been sat upon by hinduwoman for my views...
Victorialis, my institution does not offer undergraduate studies, specially not in religion and philosophy, but you are welcome to sit at the feet of the master if you'd like to work on drug delivery systems for tuberculosis!:p

The allure of an environment in which results matter is powerful indeed. If I had any science background I'd begin looking into the possibilities today, but alas, I haven't. It made my day to have the offer, though.

Lets not get too deep into the "no true scotsman" line of discussion. Would you agree to my position that it is possible to intuitively differentiate between scholarship and humbug?

Having enjoyed the heart-cleansing mirth that overtakes me whenever "no true scotsman" is mentioned, I will agree to this without reservation. It's not only possible but indispensable.

Similarly, to distinguish b/w mystics (the inspired) and scholars (the perspiring)? I'd say that an answer put forward by a scholar is likely to be an answer, while a mystic is more likely to pose a question than to answer it.

This observation sits well with me. In return I observe that mystics do come up with answers, but no one will endorse them; therefore, in order to retain an audience, mystics stick with questions (Socratic method). Mystics, too, perspire -- only not in a collegial setting; they do not thrive there. And scholars are also inspired, although they prefer being in the nominative rather than the accusative with regard to the action of the verb inspire. Scholarship is an active-voice activity (as it should be; it maintains accountability). A mystic who employs active voice is better known as a loony. This does not reflect so much upon his/her work product as upon the environment in which s/he works.

What scholars and mystics have in common is commitment, diligence, sincerity, and a work product that the overwhelming majority of their fellow beings have no idea how to apply -- which is also, probably, as it should be. If we didn't lose what we can't use, we'd all be carrying too much kit to do anything.

You also wrote: (quotes of quotes don't appear)
It does, and I'm sorry if I sounded as if I was endorsing such mysticism. I'm most vehemently not. I stick to my stand: hinduism is nothing at all. Its a word. Like god. There is no social reality that can be described as hinduism. There is no practice that can be called 'non-hindu.'

This has to be true if the whole concept of "hindu" was imposed upon the scene from without, which I think hinduwoman already mentioned -- that "hindu" is a foreign word. I take this to mean it was coined or put into usage as a catch-all for the diversity of what is now India. If that's correct, the act of coining is itself an admission that what is being described by the word is not fully understood. Otherwise, the coiner would use the correct and specific terms that apply. It seems appropriate that those whose business it is should now take up the term and make something authentic of it.

Amit, I never suspect you of endorsing mysticism. I recognized some irony in the statement I chose to challenge. It illustrates the pitfalls of this analysis so well. If we say hinduism is nothing at all (I understand the sense in which this is true), we appear to be dismissing the topic out of hand. That seems unwise; the concept is the ground upon which some (many? or just a very vocal minority?) define themselves and understand their world. In the presence of a desire for self-definition, I have nothing better to suggest -- except to mention that any label we stick on ourselves and our world will eventually transform itself into a limit, so it's well to choose labels carefully, if at all.

Constructive social self-definition is a popular pastime. Successful attempts at it seem to be very short-lived, though. Constructive asocial self-definition, OTOH, seems to create mystics.

Margaret Thatcher said, to general horror and outrage, "There is no society." For my money, she was absolutely right. Society is an idea we launch with constructive and benevolent intent, but when wielded, it promptly turns into an exclusionary device or a rationale for aggression.

And then you ask me (rather unfairly, if I may say so!), whether (quotes of quotes don't appear)
I must answer No. The hassidim have to conform to various tenets, observe various rules and have the (dubious) advantage of being able to refer to a limited body of written work in the event of disputes about practice and belief. Things that they do outside the ambit of religious prescription are not Judaism-- that's called living your life. It is the hindu apologists who make such a big deal out of living your life by calling whatever you do "hinduism."

My question was unfair, and I appreciate your tackling it despite that. An outsider to both hindusim and judaism might well ask the question anyway, with no ill intent. What about reformed judaism, or orthodox judaism, or zionism, or any other particular strand in the fabric of historical judaism which is not the hassidic portion? It is no longer possible for judaism to be viewed apolitically. Many individuals who are jewish by heritage feel this as a tremendous subjective burden that intrudes drastically upon their personal sense of identity.

It's the outsider's view that messes up these definitions. Yet they exist as much for the outsider as for the members of the group. To an outsider to judaism, it's all very well for a member of one subgroup to disavow the activities of another subgroup -- but it sheds little light. I'm inclined to think judaism will never get over this. One can't unring the bell.

And thanks: I got the compliment right at the end of your post, though belatedly. [/B]

I thank you for batting these ideas around with me. It's always a pleasure to talk with people who think.

[Amit Misra]

I thank you for batting these ideas around with me. It's always a pleasure to talk with people who think.
:( That sounds like a goodbye line..."gee, its been nice knowing you, but, well..."
I bat on regardless, though, addressing a disappearing back.
(both scholars and mystics have) a work product that the overwhelming majority of their fellow beings have no idea how to apply
Disagree. I'd say the majority have their own ideas about how to use the work product of each. Nuclear fission and the Bomb, Jesus and the Christian Church(es), and several other instances of ideas going the way that is endorsed by their executors and not their originators. Ergo, the majority of their fellow beings are much smarter than scholars and mystics.
It seems appropriate that those whose business it is should now take up the term (hindu?) and make something authentic of it.
Disagree strongly. As you said, one can't un-ring the bell. There is a moral obligation on those who make it their business to define present-day hindus to declare whether they propound a 'new' or 'protestant' hinduism; the adherents of which are to be henceforth known as "neo-hindus;" or to admit that what they're talking about is not the great tradition of obfuscation referred to in the international literature as 'hinduism.' In order to claim legitimacy, they must define the scotsman, however untrue he may be to the historical personage with the coffee. I wonder if you are aware of the political ideology of 'hinduttva.' It is a kind of fascist / neo-nazi / BNP credo that keeps throwing "hindu" in the face of all Indian citizens (and, cannily enough, at prosperous Indian emigres to get funds).
I may have put my foot in my keyboard right then: anyone who admires Baroness Thatcher (condolences, Sir Denis passed away yesterday) is not likely to empathise with my pinko mewlings about fascist and suchlike....

[victorialis]

I see why it looked like an exit line. There's no chance of my turning my back on anyone who has courtesy, a computer, and a command of language. The bell curve is bulbous with those who possess no more than two out of these three.

Nuclear fission and the Bomb, Jesus and the Christian Church(es), and several other instances of ideas going the way that is endorsed by their executors and not their originators. Ergo, the majority of their fellow beings are much smarter than scholars and mystics.

Here is a fascinating endorsement for a fully interdisciplinary approach to life on earth -- fascinating because all the examples continue to have a negative net impact on humanity. That's a value judgment, of course, for which I must bear responsibility.

If I take your premise correctly, it would follow that the intent of the originators has no lasting significance. This is a strong disincentive to innovation -- although it would certainly account for Brahman's indifference to worship. :D

Brahman, OTOH, is also beyond moral obligations.

There is a moral obligation on those who make it their business to define present-day hindus to declare whether they propound a 'new' or 'protestant' hinduism; the adherents of which are to be henceforth known as "neo-hindus;" or to admit that what they're talking about is not the great tradition of obfuscation referred to in the international literature as 'hinduism.' In order to claim legitimacy, they must define the scotsman, however untrue he may be to the historical personage with the coffee.

I suspect that those most actively concerned have no more use for a true scotsman of their own than the Scots have. Isn't the authentic neo-hindu protean by design?

Hang on, it's coming to me as we speak, couched upon a glowing cloud -- I can see the prototypical neo-hindu now: s/he is the embodiment of obfuscation. What, therefore, can the prototypical neo-hindu not do? Nothing is beyond his/her compass!

That's a very sexy idea. It loses nothing by having no concrete characteristics -- to the contrary: because it's fully interactive, one can fill in all the gaps oneself. I am reminded of the school of thought from which a self-proclaimed artist can point to an utterly inscrutable object in the studio and say, "That's art because I did it."

Honestly: on its own terms, is such blather worth refuting? But that's its greatest strength.

I wonder if you are aware of the political ideology of 'hinduttva.' It is a kind of fascist / neo-nazi / BNP credo that keeps throwing "hindu" in the face of all Indian citizens (and, cannily enough, at prosperous Indian emigres to get funds).

My limited understanding of hinduttva and the BNP is responsible for my curiosity about the bigger picture. It amazes me that a pluralist tradition is actually being put to this use. I sense that it should not amaze me and I am interesting in finding the gap in my thinking through this example.

No doubt someone here could enlighten me as to the kinder, gentler side of hinduttva -- in reply to which I am bound to say, "That is your hinduttva." It is unlikely to be the egalitarian individual's hinduttva that will have perceptible social impact. Perceptible social impact will come from the lowest common denominator in the discourse, whether that LCD is constructive or destructive.

I may have put my foot in my keyboard right then: anyone who admires Baroness Thatcher (condolences, Sir Denis passed away yesterday) is not likely to empathise with my pinko mewlings about fascist and suchlike....

Baroness Thatcher is a phenomenon that could not fail to intrigue me. It seems important, living in England, that I never forget: it took a handbag-wielding Valkyrie to turn the UK economy around in my lifetime. That speaks volumes to me about socialism in general and about British national life in particular, neither of which have settled comfortably into my understanding and probably never will.

He must have been quite a character, Sir Denis. I was surprised to learn he was in his late 80s. He had been ill for some time, I think. I am sorriest for her sake.

[Vylo]

Within hinduism there is a concept of many paths to the same destination. That is, that hinduism, christanity, judiasm, etc etc, are all correct, yet different paths to the same destination; salvation.

[hinduwoman]

Victorialis ---
The concept of dharma as you've described it seems to fill all the troublesome experiential gaps that exist between the individual and the law. But it leaves the concept of justice to have meaning only on the "cosmic" level, which I think is why westerners reject it and prefer the illusion of what justice can be had in civil society
Don't know about Westerners, but the performance of Dharma had always been greatly controversial and subject to debate. "hard it is to know what right Dharma is". --- Mahabharatra; a perpetual lament through the epic.

[hinduwoman]

Amit, had not sat on you because havenot connected to the net for a while. :)

No such thing as a hindu It is more like a hodgepodge of tradition, custom and beleif.
In that case you are backing up my argument that Western desire to categorise Hinduism is futile.
Also I venture to guess that in arguing Hinduism does not exist as a religion but there are only disparate groups, you have overlooked its political ramifications. This means that Muslims are the majority religion in India. Therefore they should not claim any special privileges, but instead it is various Hindu groups that should be pampered because they are minorities.
Either Hinduism is a majority religion, or there are only minority groups which must be protected by virtue of being a minority and Muslim attacks on Hindus must be regarded as majority oppression. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Equally important, this imagined religion that Hinduwoman refers to: "Living Hinduism, as it is actually practiced," begs the question: how is it practised? If I may dare to anticipate a Hindu answer that turneth away wrath, a reply could well be something to the effect that anything done by a hindu is hinduism. The ritual murder of infants by Tantriks ? Sure. All-night jamborees of devotional music in residential localities at 100,000 watt amplification? That too. Massacre of muslims in Gujarat from Feb 2002 onwards? Of course!

Again you have backed up my position. Living Hinduism is how the Hindus express their devotion to their chosen gods, the daily religious rituals they practice. Every family and region has their own myths and customs. Tantriks sacrifices are Hindu, so are attempts to stop them. Flesh and blood offered to Khandoba is Hindu, so is the Veg. Brahmin. The unbreakable saptapadi marriage is Hindu, so too is the divorce initiated by woman by leaving two coconuts. Touching the sivalingam is Hindu religious worship, so is the worship of a HP goddess where she is not seen by anyone and the priest binds a cloth round his eyes in case he looks at her image. All these is what I call living Hinduism, as actually practiced by Hindus.
Or take the creation of Santoshi Ma, a brand new goddess, through nothing other than a film --- not all scholarly studies are going to be able to make sense of that phenomenon in theological/mystical terms or by studying old scriptures.
However massacre of Muslims in Gujrat is not yet Hinduism as such. If this becomes an annual rite with invocations to Ram then it would be a Hindu ritual.

There is no practice that can be called 'non-hindu.'
Yes there is, when you are referring to Hinduism as a religion.
There is eternal soul (though I am not sure about the rebirth part). You can get away claiming there is no God, but not that there is no eternal soul.
Saying that your religion alone possess the TRUTH. Claiming that all other religions are false is absolutely non-Hindu.

Ok, now for a note of my own:
There is something called Hinduism because Hinduism has produced a specific culture and concepts associated with it that no other culture has produced. In Hinduism secular and sacred are thoroughly mixed up and so there is difficulty in separating religious components from cultural components. But the fact remains: Hindus are not Jews, Christians and Muslims (though in places there had been fusion of the two), they are not Shintoes, Taoists or aboriginal (though they would welcome foreign gods and philosophies). People are defined as much as what they are not and how they differ from other groups as by what they are and the similarities they share.

Take the concept of Dharma. I believe it is something no other culture has come up with. It is specifically Hindu. The problem is that it has both sacred and lay implications.

There are pan-Indian gods and tradition that enable the Hindus to identify themselves as Hindus. When Hindu labourers were taken as indentured slaves to Carribean plantations, they could no longer keep up with their traditional practices and caste rules. Because they came from different regions their deities were not known to each other either. But everyone knew the story of Ramayana, who Kali was. That provided a common bond and created a distinctly Hindu community.
There was this hit song from (completely forgotten the film) where Rekha (?) stands in the gardenhouse of the villainous politician overlooking the Ganges in Allahabad and sings, "Ram teri Ganga maili papiyoki pap dhote dhote". Every person that calls himself Hindu, from Ph.D. holder to the illiterate landless worker knew what she meant. The songwriters expected their target audience to respond to the religious cues.

There is a common background that can be called Hinduism or sanatan dharma

[hinduwoman]

BJP/RSS is commonly called fascist/Nazi which just goes to show that the critics have not studsied definitons properly.

Theirs is a new kind of domination that reflects Hindu pluralist ethos. Instead of trying to exclude anyone they try to include every Indian under the name 'Hindu' whether they want to be Hindu or not.
Their rationale is that anyone who lives in India and shows respect for Indian way of life is a Hindu whatever the religion may be. Unfortunately they equate Hinduism as a religion as well as a culture, with Indianness. Muslims and many Christians object to being called Hindu-Muslim or Christian-Hindus while a number of Sikhs complain about being legally considered Hindus.

One reason for their popularity is because pure Islam is a threat. History of Islamic rule + war with Pakistan + Islamic terrorism within the country + Muslim mullahs and politicians + resistance in Islam to reform = demand for protection by Hindus.

As for calling their movement neo-Hindus, sorry, that again is a lable being stuck on them by outsiders. In commonspeak, neo-Hindus are converts from other religions.

Amit read a little history and you will see that Hinduttva is not a new movement but a long time in the making. It begun with Brithish rule when the Hindus reformers were seized with zeal of creating Hindu churches on the models of Protestant Churches. So it is silly to complain that this is a completely new movement that is destrying traditional Hinduism. It arose inevitably from historical and social circumstances. Read the debates during the writing of Constitution and you will see that even Nehru and Ambedkar --- heroes of secularism --- sound rather like Savarkar.

[victorialis]

hinduwoman, I was fortunate the other day to find in my miniscule local library Zaehner's Hinduism, accounting for about 1/6 of the entire philosophy section and tantalisingly described on the cover as "the best short introduction to Hinduism in existence." A bold claim!

Zaehner makes a qualified case for Gandhi as an historical Yudhishthira ("the fact remains that he {Gandhi} saw himself as an interpreter of the Hindu dharma as it really is, not as, in a corrupt age, it had come to be" p.184). Zaehner points out that subsequent reformers have not answered the questions posed by the need for change (with reference to the orthodox group Mahasabha, Zaehner says "they are fighting a losing battle and they know it," p.186).

Is there any merit in Zaehner's observations?

If attempts to define the present-day Hindu are politically inapt, perhaps it would be more beneficial to approach the matter from the opposite direction and address (as Zaehner claims Gandhi did) the sanatan dharma. Its very elusiveness would offer ample scope.

Has hinduttva made any perceptible inroads in explicating aspects of the sanatan dharma? It does not seem an unreasonable expectation, if hinduttva is a natural development of social and historical circumstances. I would not expect such grapplings with the sanatan dharma to be conclusive or even overt; but shouldn't there be some hint, some clue, that can be traced to Gandhi's dharma of conscience?

Re pure Islam: I am also looking forward to reading Olivier Roy's The Failure of Political Islam, from which I've just chosen the following excerpt at random:

"In short, what prevents Islamic society from producing totalitarianism (its respect for the family and lack of interest in the social sphere) also prevents it from producing any true social framework: it rejects any space for conviviality and sociability, if only by the strict implementation of the separation of the sexes and, in particular, of the confinement of women to the house."

Roy's book was written nearly ten years ago, and it will be interesting to see how well its ideas and conclusions have held up. The above excerpt paints quite a stark picture.

[Amit Misra]

hinduwoman tries to hoist me by my own petard in claiming "pampering" for the diverse social groups that converge under the umbrella term of hinduism. Touche, I say. I still maintain that democracy is not majoritarianism, and that if these diverse groups were to absolutely reject the claim of the Vishva Hindu Parishad to be representative of 80 million hindus, I'd say good for them. The fact is they show no signs of doing so. I therefore maintain that hinduttva is a political philosophy, notwithstanding hinduwoman's appreciation of its urge to include rather than exclude diversity within its fascist ambit. i do not go against my stand that it is not a religion.
hinduwoman says islam, then, must be the majority religion of india. i'd agree if the rest of the hindus came out with express statements of their lack of allegience to hinduism and claim the pampering that they would then deserve. you cannot have your cake and eat it too (we bandy that about a great deal, don't we?)
hinduwoman's well-meant advice to read history is well take, but returned with interest. she finds me unedeucated as far as the work of koenraad elst is concerned. i did, you know, try to read what he calls his "last book" on ayodhya. i blew my top at the preface. the man has the gall to admit that "Ayodhya has been fun" !! he finds it funny that hundreds of people lose their lives, india's parliamentary politics gets subcverted by fundamentalist hindu initiatives, its secular institutions get eroded to parodies of themselves, and a host of other collateral issues "funny"! i, on the other hand, find it alarming that she is not even aware of the popular journo-historiography of William L Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). Read it, hw, and see for yourself German history repeating itself in India.
Victorialis's riposte to hw and her reply to me go unanswered this time. Just want to ask if V has read Julian Barnes' description of how baroness Thatcher used to "bawl at the opposition like a fishwife"?
Actually, I confess to grudging admiration for an ability to bawl, like a fishwifeor a hindu...
amit

[victorialis]

I ask indulgence for the following sidebar:

I think I understand what you're saying, Amit. I must make clear that in my own lexicon, neither "handbag-wielding" nor "Valkyrie" are pejoratives, as used in my earlier post; quite the contrary.
The continuing, if deeply ambivalent, admiration for Thatcher in this part of the world would argue that they are not true pejoratives in many other lexicons, either.

It is edifying today, in fact, to watch New Labour attempting to wield the handbag in the UK; and it is commented upon in precisely those terms, both here and in Europe. Thatcher got results -- which is why she will be neither forgiven nor forgotten.

End of sidebar.

[Amit Misra]

hinduwoman said apropos a single feature common to all kinds of hinduism:
There is eternal soul (though I am not sure about the rebirth part). You can get away claiming there is no God, but not that there is no eternal soul.
Disagree. The Lokayata tradition denies god, soul (eternal or short-lived, both) and rebirth.
and as a practice that is non-hindu:
Saying that your religion alone possess the TRUTH. Claiming that all other religions are false is absolutely non-Hindu.
Careful of categories there. No religion can be false or true. Beliefs, yes, but religion no. Claiming that religions are true or false is absolutely sloppy.
Jesus says something to the effect that only those that come to Me shall be saved. The others, presumably, shall suffer for eternity. Allah tells Mohammad that unbelievers shall be punished, but that MOhammad's conduct towards an unbeliever should be to say "to you, your religion, and to me, mine." This makes Jesus and Allah c/o Mohammad hindus, doesn't it?

[hinduwoman]

I specifcally said that if you are speaking of Hinduism as a RELIGION ...

Lokayatas are not religious hindus, though culturally they fall within Hindu philosophical systems.

Same answer to the second question. Religions believe that the knowledge they have is true. In their terms therefore Hindus believe that ALL religions are true, i.e, valid paths to salvation.
But I do not get how Jesus and Muahmmad can be called Hindus. Jesus said only those who believed him would be saved --- not Hindu.
Muahmmad said 'to you your religion, to me my religion' when he was weak. when he became strong it was give the call to islam and kill those who refuse; all other religions are false.

[hinduwoman]

hinduwoman says islam, then, must be the majority religion of india. i'd agree if the rest of the hindus came out with express statements of their lack of allegience to hinduism and claim the pampering that they would then deserve. you cannot have your cake and eat it too (we bandy that about a great deal, don't we?)
But you said in your earlier post that there is no such thing as Hinduism; then how can the Hindus say anything about a non-existent religion?
On the other hand if you are willing to accept 'Hindus' saying there is no such thing as Hinduism, then why not accept it when they say there is such a thing as Hinduism?

I do know something about the rise of Hitler and I also know why it cannot happen here.
In the first place there are too many conflicting interests. Germany was a homogenous country with one dominant race and religion and culture, eager for guidance and revenge. Its uniformity made it easier for sustained fanaticism. India is simply split into so many segments that is impossible for anyone to dominate. Even the RSS became split into RSS proper and VHP; and the BJP is struggling to survive by making concessions to its allies each of whom represents differing interests.
Secondly where is the charismatic leader who can unite everyone? Cannot see any candidate for the post of Fuhrer and going by the way BJP functions there probably won't be one.
Indian police and bureaucracy had always been corrupt and obedient to the ruling dispension --- that was how the British had set them up. As soon as Hindutvva as a political force loses power they will kowtow to whoever is in power.
BJP keeps on losing elections more than they are winning. They promised to be a party with a difference but they were not. Corruption, law and order problems, all has remained the same. That is why come 2004, barring some unforeseen events, there will again be a hung parliament.
You can argue that they will stage something like Hitler did with Reichstag, but what? That would take a great deal of resources and pre-planning and would be leaked.

[Amit Misra]

But you said that hinduism was a culture. I say that if those who prefer to call themselves hindu should come out and say that we are hindus and that hinduism is not a religion, and therefore we are actually a bunch of religious minorities. the indologists with whom your post began would then heave a sigh of relief and say, fine, hindus exist as a cultural but not religious category. it is the insistence of hindus to project a common religion that is the source of confusion. no use blaming the british. it has traditionally been the brahmin-rajput vested interest in propagating their dominance that ahs led to claims of a pan-hindu religious identity. to sum up, i accept the hindu contention that there is something called hinduism, but reject the implication that this hinduism is a religion. hinduttva, on the other hand is both a religion and a culture.
Hitler: germany was considered one country after the german unification. principalities and duchies within germany continued to harbour the same resentment against unified germany and otto von bismark that you have in tripura, nagaland, jharkhand, etc. in india. recall the famous aphorism about the states of schlesweig and holstein: "only 3 men knew the truth about the sovereignity of schleswig and holstein: one was dead, the other was mad, and third said that he had forgotten..." recall, too, the bitterness about alsace-lorraine. and, most importantly, recall that austria, hitler's 'pitrubhumi and punyabhumi' was unified with germany through the anschluss.
"races," dominant or subservient, are a biological misnomer: there is no such thing as race either, not to mention hinduism!
those you posit as "eager for guidance and revenge" were the worst collection of thugs, goons and delinquents--the lumpen element, much as the constituency of the togadias, vajpayees and advanis.
"charismatic leaders" are people who sieze the day. narendra modi, the butcher of gujarat, is one candidate. there will be others as long as apologists keep excusing "hindu" fascism as a kind of revenge against just the same kind of imagined slights as hitler was able to play upon. hinduwoman, i implore you: do not unwittingly defend the poison spread in the name of hinduism....
with reference to your not getting my point about how islamic and christian ponouncements can be construed as hinduism, never mind. just so long as you acknowledge that in order to be amenable to scholarly study, a religion must define the parameters and boundaries within which it functions. if it does not do so of its own accord, scholarship must, perforce try to dig out whether there are any such boundaries and parameters.

[victorialis]

Amit, there are a couple of matters left out of this comparison with the rise of naziism, specifically: (1) imposition of the sociopolitically daft Treaty of Versailles with its insupportable requirement for German reparations, and (2) the worldwide economic chaos after WWI that created especially high unemployment and inflation in Germany.

These conditions made "the imagined slights upon which hitler played so effectively" into an overmastering desire for a separate reality.

I'm not in a position to know whether these points support your analogy or not. Are there parallels here?

I hear often the word fascism being tossed around in this part of the world, usually with regard to parties of the extreme right. As used in that context, the word appears to be highly oversimplified shorthand for any undesirable unknown. Not having experienced fascism myself, I am unsure of what it connotes, although its denotation includes elements of racism and belligerent nationalism, which are less elusive concepts.

If there is no such thing as race, how can there be racism -- or fascism?

[Amit Misra]

(1) imposition of the sociopolitically daft Treaty of Versailles with its insupportable requirement for German reparations, and (2) the worldwide economic chaos after WWI that created especially high unemployment ...
Paralleling the treaty of Versailles is the Transfer of Power by the British to India and Pakistan in 1947. As to the worldwide economic chaos, do I need to commit myself further as a pinko to point out that the World Bank/IMF-led neo-liberal economy of globalised Capital and repressed Labour has led to disastrous effects on the Indian peasantry and lower-income groups?
The belligerence of the Hindu Right is hidden from no-one. They tore apart a 16th-century mosque with their bare hands (exaggeration: they had crowbars, pickaxes, ropes and a colluding government as tools) in 1992. They routinely intimidate, threaten, heckle, beat-up, assault, murder and massacre those whom they consider their enemies.

[victorialis]

Amit, I shall defer to your historical knowledge of the adroitness/maladroitness of the Transfer of Power; the Indian point of view on that is now the only meaningful point of view in the matter. Without having been there myself, I am unable to evaluate the comparison with naziism/fascism on that point.

I would also agree that something very like worldwide economic chaos appears to be underway at the moment. Whether this is progressive or degenerate is contentious, the picture being incomplete and economics being a rather unfortunate blend of maths and politics. What is clear is this: while panic is self-fulfilling, misapprehension needn't be. The mobility of capital can certainly destabilise. Should capital then be allowed, or even required, to stagnate? Have you an alternative model?

It's a cruelly moot point for those who have no capital, of course, and the accumulation of capital has become no easier since liberalisation has begun. But when I hear repression of labour, I have the same gut-level suspicion that I experience when I hear the word fascism.

I would agree that from an individual's perspective it becomes more difficult every year to see a difference between corporate business practice and theft; but we can say little about the repression of labour when France grinds regularly to a halt as a result of public-sector industrial action, or when UK firefighers strike with a demand for a 40% pay hike. In fact, I do not see either side of the labour/capital struggle managing to steer clear of manic short-termism; it's a complete chance medley. Both sides cry foul when they do not get everything they want in the short term.

Nobody gets everything they want in the short term. If the innate virtue of labour is supposed to be a given, why does it behave no better than capital?

Because when it does so, it no longer counts in the political entity of Labour.

Another of the excruciating ironies of our times: it is considered unsophisticated not to be afraid of the unknown. Inevitably mysterious to most of us are the IMF and the World Bank. What on earth do they do? Why do they do it? I know I wouldn't want the job of arch-interventionist in the global monetary system. All that study, and then no matter what course of action is chosen, someone, somewhere, will scream. Yet if there were not such an authority, someone would call for its creation, maybe more so now than ever before.

Money is neither objective nor simple. If it were, one currency would suffice on the planet and there would be no controversy in accounting. Money's thoroughgoing subjectivity makes it very, very unsatisfactory to most of us, especially the majority (which includes me) who do not fully understand how money and markets work. It's that unfortunate intersection between maths and politics, again.

Could it be that the disastrous effects upon the Indian peasantry have something to do with protectionist agricultural policies in rich-world countries? Or perhaps with trade restrictions? The outlook for labour in India is improving; high-tech jobs are migrating there, to the teeth-gnashing dismay of high-tech workers elsewhere.

If individual workers can no longer tell what skills they would be best served acquiring, it must also be said that the corporate world does not know, either (which I do find culpable -- to no avail whatsoever). There is an equality of uncertainty. Is this not the most equitable situation, given the inevitabillity of uncertainty?

If neoliberal economics could enforce upon individual economies the adoption of free trading practices, it would be illiberal. This reflects upon the big players, who are being hypocritical (as well as insular and short-termist), more than it reflects upon the value of liberalisation. Trade restrictions read like domestic security, which makes them also read like responsible policy. Liberalisation realises optimum benefit only from the active participation of those who least want to engage in it, ie, those who benefit directly from protectionism. This is a human failure, not a neoliberal failure. Destructive self-interest is not restricted to capital; labour engages in it too.

The violence of the Hindu right, to which you allude, is belligerent indeed. Do you identify those examples as belligerent nationalism? They aren't outward-looking, nor are they new; such activity appears to be a shrewd attempt, with an eye to the presence of mass-communication opportunities, to hijack the cultural ethos of Hinduism for near-term local political purposes.

Bizarre, though, to see violence being linked with pluralist tolerance. No thoughtful observer is fooled. It is a nonsense of dialectics.

Having opined decisively upon what is none of my business, I look forward to our conversation continuing.

And to drag this free-trade diatribe back onto the topic: it might be the blurring of categories that is creating all this unrest and multiplying the uncertainty.

[Amit Misra]

Well, well, well. Where do I begin? Let's belabour the connection between Versailles/Germany and Indian-Pakistani independence a little more. Versailles was reviled by Hitler et alia as an instrument for the humiliation of the Germans (as, in many senses, it was). The partition of India has similarly been portrayed as a vindictive act carried out by the British at the instigation of Jinnah of the Muslim League and through the acquiescence of Gandhi and Nehru, in order to humiliate hindus. No prizes for guessing who puts this particular twist on the interpretation of an unfortunate epsode in history. I don't however, agree that the Indian take on the events of 1947 is the only "meaningful point of view now." On the contrary, we need a healthy dose of irreverence for our then leaders from the British side of the fence.
You suggested earlier, using Zaehner's (haven't heard of him) analysis of Gandhi as a hindu reformer, that Gandhi did have some fix on 'true hinduism.' Much as I admire MK Gandhi for his political acumen and humanism, I must disagree with Zaehner. It was always Gandhi who was fighting a losing battle against the orthodoxy on the one hand and modern thought on the other. Nehru is quite an apt symbol of modernity in contention with Gandhi-- the two could disagree strongly but amicably. The hindu Right, demonstrating its Fascist nature disagreed with him the way fascisti do: they shot him dead.
Got to rush now. more later.

[victorialis]

Gandhi's limitations: Zaehner (writing in the early 1960s) says Gandhi considered himself orthodox and would not oppose the Brahmins because without them, he felt the social fabric of Hinduism would collapse. Also, that Rabindranath Tagore "realized, and said so with great forthrightness, that [the use of the spinning wheel] was a purely artificial form of karma-yoga, doomed to extinction once the magical personality of the Mahatma was removed from the scene" (p.190). Incidentally, I had perceived Tagore as a poet/mystic -- yet if Zaehner is correct, Tagore's is the comment of a pragmatist.

I'm putting Zaehner forward to find out whether he knew what he was talking about, or was merely producing isolated and incestuous scholar-product.

Irreverence for the Mahatma would be a non-starter in the west now, in view of his impact upon the human rights movement. Collective nonviolence is still quite the novelty, and the very idea of a Great Soul wafts like a divine breeze through the hair of westerners. This works against rational analysis.

Agreed that Gandhi's failures and limitations must be scrutinised with equal or greater vigour. How can westerners do this in light of how little Hinduism is understood? It's bound to be uphill-going for those who are, by dint of geography, conscious that they perceive the spinning-wheel symbolically. The most open minded may well miss the fact that it was no more than a symbol in India as well -- a propitious but limited coincidence with a local reality.

More urgently: how can anyone critique MK Gandhi without the risk of ahimsa falling by the wayside? Far too easy (especially for westerners) to identify this vital idea with his "magical personality," as if he invented it and it departed along with him.

Fascism? Amit has provided a concrete component I shall use in building my connotations for fascism: the willingness to resort to political murder. "Dead" is a good reality-check; quite unambiguous. However:

Gandhi's murderer could have been, simply, a rightward loony whose action benefitted some politicos and hamstrung others. To omit this possibility from consideration is to be less than thorough. Similarly I question those who have made an industry out of revisiting the murder of John F. Kennedy. They will accept but one conclusion, are not particular about its form or provenance, and will dig for it and spin the results to fit, until everyone else goes home. And John F. Kennedy will remain dead -- which is why everyone else goes home.

Amit, although I am one post ahead of you, I hope you will return at your convenience to whatever points you did not have time for, today. I am still cogitating over the characterisation of Partition as a vindictive act, and the implication that Nehru and Gandhi would acquiesce in the humiliation of Hindus -- Gandhi's selflessness being taken a priori as a weakness instead of a strength. I begin to see your point of view much more clearly. It would not matter whether the Transfer of Power had been done well or badly; all depends on how it was received.

[hinduwoman]

Victorialis,
many Hindus would say they are not against the varna system but against the caste system. In theory Varna system is based not on birth but on conduct and merit; so when Gandhi said he would not oppose Brahmins he was saying we need ideal Brahmins to keep society intact.
Yes, Tagore opposed Gandhi on this basis.

If we are critiquing Gandhi's notion of ahimsa we shall have to do it from the Indian persepective. The Indians who opposed his notion of total non-violence based themselves on Hinduism also.

Godse, Gandhi's killer is not a loony. He held that Gandhi betrayed India by agreeing to the partition. In fact Gandhi had become quiet unpopular and I think his murder endowed him with a halo of marytrdom which he would not have gained afterwards.

You do not know it but Gandhi told the refugees fleeing from Pakistan that they should have stayed back in their homeland and accepted whatever their muslim brothers did to them --- a number of Hindus today dislike him for that reason.

[hinduwoman]

Amit,
Hinduism as a whole is culture, but it also contains significant religious components. Religion is simply defined as , "belief in superhuman controlling power, especially in a personal god or gods entitled to obedience and worship". Religion always thus contains component of superstition/supernatural which is not true of culture. As I said earlier Hinduism does lay out two basic parameters: (1) There is an eternal Soul, (2) All religions are 'true'. That is why the Gita synthesized every philosophical doctrine and customs in use (including Sankhya) but left out Carvakas.
Culture and religion are not always easy to distinguish, but it can be done. I regard Mahabharata to be brilliant, a story of the whole human race in fact --- I accept it as a part of my culture. But when someone believes that the gods actually existed and things happened in the epic as described then it becomes a religious text.

As for Hinduttva, it is not about hindu religion as such, ie. having to believe that the gods are real or Vedas are apaureshiya. Savarkar defined it as: '
" 'The day of Panipat rose, the Hindus lost the battle, but won the war. The triumphant Hindu banner that our Marathas had carried to Atak was taken up by our Sikhs and carried across the Indus to Kabul... This one word Hindutva ran like a vital spinal cord through our whole body politic and made the Nayars of Malabar weep over the sufferings of the Brahmins of Kashmir"
: 'The story of the civilisation of a nation is the story of its thoughts, its actions and its achievements... The fall of Prithviraj is bewailed in Bengal; the martyred sons of Gobind Singh, in Maharashtra. An Aryasamajist in the extreme north feels that Harihar of the south fought for him, and a Sanatanist in the extreme south feels that Guru Tegh Bahadur died for him. We had kings in common. We had kingdoms in common. We had triumphs and disasters in common "
"Prophets and poets, lawyers and law-givers, heroes and historians, have thought, lived, fought and died just to have it spelled thus. For indeed, is it not the resultant of countless actions -- now conflicting, now co-mingling, now co-operating -- of our whole race? Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with other cognate terms like "Hinduism," but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.'

Hindutva is a purely political movement. It is an attempt to define a Hindu nation.

[victorialis]

welcome back, hinduwoman.

If I understand what you've said about caste-vs-varna, the ideal Brahmins in the varna system could come from any part of society; they would be exemplars, role models (merit and conduct). It would not matter if they were brahmin by lineage or not -- except that they would not have the priestly training, and so could not serve as the social repository of sacred functions.

I begin to see why you say the ultimate dharma is very hard to talk about. Context is everything -- and everything has a context.

I also see your point about Godse. It was fine for MKG to choose asceticism for himself; anyone may make that choice. But if MKG seriously recommended to Hindus who were children, students or householders that they should abruptly leap into renunciate-mode when faced with violence, well... that is absurd indeed, and seems entirely insupportable within hinduism.

However, I have another cognitive problem. I ask the following respectfully:

When is murder not the mark of a loony? Is it sane when done for politics?

Perhaps I am splitting hairs here. I had the idea that Godse took the thing upon himself. But it almost doesn't matter whether he made a fully private decision to act or was "driven to it" by others; surely it is safe to say that most of the Hindus who were disaffected with MKG did not actually want him killed... ?

By that reasoning I arrived at the conclusion that Godse was an individual who was willing to act outside normal social bounds; his act cannot be positively, responsibly construed as an embodiment of popular will. Where am I going wrong with this?

I think you're quite right about the martyrdom. If MKG was that politically unsophisticated, then his influence was already spent -- whether westerners, who admire his "Christlike" qualities, can accept that fact or not.

Savarkar's words (in your subsequent post) are quite stirring.

[Amit Misra]

Should capital then be allowed, or even required, to stagnate? Have you an alternative model?
So we're the blind leading the blind when it comes to economics. I probably understand less of economics, but I'd answer your question about stagnating capital in the affirmative. Lets a take wide detour to Gandhi. Gandhi's economic model of self-sufficient villages minimises the role of capital in economic activity. to all intents and purposes, capital can bl** well stagnate as long as consumer needs are addressed by low-capital cost, labour intensive production and distribution within a restricted area. Gandhian economics does not seem to address urbanised or urbanising society, however. the spinning wheel certainly was ubiquitous in rural Punjab and parts of UP in the 19th century. it died an ignominous death in the hands of gandhi's followers who set up a "Khadi and Village Industries Board" to compete with capital-intensive, mechanised production of fibre. And we, the urban elite Indians, just didn't want or need homespun when factory-made cloth could be had for much less. In retrospect, one can agonise over whether Indians were unworthy of an alternative economic model, or whether the said model was unworthy of the aspirations of the urban Indian elite. I'd say that the alternative model was much more sustainable in the long term, but vulnerable to sabotage in the short-term. So here, you have an instance of vested interests getting what they want in the short term. I refrain from comment about alternative models as proposed by Marx et al, primarily because I haven't read about them!

[Amit Misra]

If the innate virtue of labour is supposed to be a given, why does it behave no better than capital?
I really don't know whether labour's virtue is a given, but I get an uncomfortable feeling that we're mixing up our categories again! The labourer is either virtuous or not; labour movements are either good for the labourer or designed to further the interests of the leaders of the movement; the British Labour Party is a poor joke, but Capital is a different kettle of fish. It does not behave. Capitalists behave benignantly or malevolently, &c, &c...
Let me hasten to add that this bit of pedantry would have been uncalled for, had it not been for my perception that Labour is more sinned against than sinning. What, after all, does laissez faire teach us about Firefighters, say? They want a 40% wage hike. You think its not justified. They go on strike. You realise that you want them on the job. Both of you settle for a 20% wage hike for the firefighter. What would you have happen instead? A caricature Victorialis leans languidly from a rose-bedecked balcony, watching starving firefighters battle infernos and realises that they could do with a 10% wage hike. The firefighter touches his cap and bows respectfully, and societal harmony is preserved intact.
(So now you know why people like hinduwoman who deign to talk to me end up disliking me!)

[hinduwoman]

Victorialis, I agree that political assassination is as reprehensible as ordinary murders, and that most Indians who disliked him did not really want to kill him (though they might have been glad that he was dead).

The problem is Gandhi had been built up to such an icon that any criticism was met by horror. Gandhi did great things and undoubtedly united the masses which no one else could have done. But whether the philosophy he preached and his actions did more good than harm --- that is very much in the air.
Interestingly Jinnah --- accepting that he was a politican and opportunist --- had an intersting take on him: before Gandhi came there were only nationalist Indians; after Gandhi came there were Hindu and muslim politics.


Yeah, Savarkar was extremely charismatic --- that was half the problem. The other half was that his statements do contain some grains of truth about Muslim intolerance for other faiths.
Frankly I have often felt that Savarkar is what Muhammad would have been in Indian conditions. Savarkar did not quiet advocate the slaughter of all non-Hindus or discrmination in the way Islam does, but basically he was a warleader who liked a homogenous society and was willing to indulge in violence to gain his ends.

[hinduwoman]

Amit our disagreement is on certain points about Hinduism, Hinduttva and minority. It has nothing to do with economics as such.
Like you I am a novice in the field; the only basic law I can see is what Mulk Raj Anand said, "There are only two castes in the world, the rich and the poor"; the rich exploit the poor and the poor try to become rich. That has always been true from the most ancient times. [shrug]

As for liberalisation, I still don't know whether it has been ultimately good or bad for the poor. :confused:

[victorialis]

Amit, emerging with difficulty from my languor amidst the roses :D, I could say a lot more about the firefighters; but I'm aware that I've already diverted this thread several times. Perhaps hinduwoman will continue to patiently scroll past all this.

Suffice to say that what lost the firefighters my sympathy was their refusal to accept (or even attend) the arbitration to which they'd previously agreed, combined with willingness to strike during those times when the public felt most vulnerable (holidays). I saw no honour in such strategy; in fact, I saw it as a tacit admission that they really did not wish to be part of the solution.

This is why "Old Labour" was unelectable. New Labour knows this. New Labour also knows its own constituency is what makes reform of the public services impossible; they began admitting obliquely last week that they won't be delivering on what they promised. I've been enjoying watching them squirm. Any movement that cannot take Yes for an answer is in real trouble -- it's always been the contention of the left that they're kept out of power; and now, in power, they can do no better.

Capital (investable resources) does behave, in that it goes where the opportunity is -- under liberalised conditions. Are you really saying that investment should be compelled to remain within arbitrary political or economic boundaries? Would such compulsion, do you think, transform nonviable business models into viable ones?

Here is a contrariwise example: the dotcom debacle. Private capital, great and small, absolutely flung itself at those businesses, on poor or nonexistent advice -- which is now being characterised as something very like compulsion ("my broker told me to do it! let's sue him!"). Resources went steadily down the drain, illustrating the limits of unalloyed enthusiasm as a performance metric.

Would political enthusiasm perform any better economically than simple greed? Supporting examples are few and small-scale, while examples to the contrary are many and large-scale.

I am sorry to hear that you can even consider the homespun model as a question of Indian worthiness. That worthiness is a given, incontestable. Would the adoption of a surface uniformity like that of Mao's China (everyone in Mao jackets) have been an improvement to Indian life? Surely not. Mao's destructive impact on Chinese cultural heritage is painful to contemplate; its full extent may never be known.

If you have not read Marx, you've done your critical faculties a great service. It's significant that Marx's political following developed and emerged into activism well in advance of the publication of Kapital (1920), and that he never did publish a full statement of his thought. Why complicate matters with thorough exposition, when an active following already exists on the strength of an oversimplified Manifesto?

Several generations of political activists have grimly operated under conditions in which no one can bring themselves to admit that Marx makes little sense, despite Engels' best efforts. Marx substitutes emphasis and repetition for logic, and his most vociferous followers do likewise. Marx was vindicated in some of his predictions, but his prescriptives have been disastrous, in more ways than may be immediately apparent... painful as that undoubtedly is for those who have devoted their lives to social justice in his name.

A genuine and active concern for the poor cannot be successfully wedded to a readiness to waste resources out of passionate anger. It's no better and no more moral than greed.

[victorialis]

hinduwoman, after I asked about Godse, I came across another idea that makes your response a bit clearer to me.

Hinduism (I am reading in Billington) has no moral absolutes: there are no proscriptions or imperatives in dharma -- certain types of behaviour are cautioned against (a warning to the unwary), but not forbidden. Appropriate behaviour varies with social role and stage of life, and norms are supplied by tradition and social cohesion.

It seems that ample room for personal interpretation is more or less built into Hinduism, unlike western ethical systems, in which personal interpretations of justice are viewed as private deviance (malign or otherwise).

If this is accurate, then my question about murder and looniness was actually beside the point; and Gandhi's ability to unite the masses, then, was functionally inappropriate. He was advocating an explicit and specific dharma, which I gather is precisely what dharma is not.

Might that also have been Savarkar's undoing?

I ask this wondering if hinduttva can overcome the same limitation. Those who were unite-able by Gandhi thereby gained an entree into political life that they previously lacked. Once this was achieved, there was no further explicit purpose to the unity and it returned to pluralism.

On liberalisation and the poor:
...far from rising, global inequality has actually been falling substantially... if it is measured in the way which is normal within countries, as the distribution of individual incomes, [inequality] has narrowed considerably. Given the rapid growth in China over the past 20 years, and the less rapid but still healthy growth in India, that observation makes eminent sense: huge chunks of the world's population have been climbing out of poverty...

Another study, by an Indian economist named Surjit Bhalla, in a book for the Institute for International Economics called "Imagine There's No Country," confirmed those findings as well as the consequent drop in world poverty. Measured by the benchmark favoured by the World Bank of income of $2 a day or less, adjusted to cater for differences in purchasing power, the proportion of the world's population in poverty dropped from 56% in 1980 to 23% in 2000, on Mr Bhalla's calculations...

Where rich-country campaigners -- and, even more important, rich-country governments -- need to work harder is in distinguishing the real problems of the third world from those sweepingly claimed by anti-globalisation campaigners. Poverty is being reduced, thanks to globalisation, as is inequality; but neither is being reduced rapidly enough, and the process is leaving plenty of people behind.
(available to the perspicacious at www.Economist.com/surveys)

[victorialis]

here's the complete URL for the above excerpt:

http://www.economist.com/surveys/showsurvey.cfm?issue=20030628

But I recommend the previous URL as well. These surveys are very accessible to the interested layman, as is the entire publication.

[Amit Misra]

I ask pardon for dispensing with the quotes altogether.
In this post, I'd like to highlight the fact that categories are important for meaningful conversation, and indispensible for scholarship. If we've all read through the thread, we must acknowledge that there are several dialectics (pink word? all right dvandvas of advaita fame) that emerge. Hinduwoman, I am sorry to say, keeps bringing up what we pinkos called soft-Hinduttva, but makes it plain that there is a clear distinction between hindus and hinduttva-ites, as there is between Gandhians and Savarkarites (Godse was Savarkar the Coward's creature), etc, etc. Victorialis introduces a rare edge of sophistication into our usual brawls, but firmly states her position as a Tory with a heart. I, with my sublime arrogance and certitude about being right, insist on a world according to the Left.
These are categories of convenience. They are identifiable, but not rigid. I may be persuaded one day (fat chance) that the rapacity of the Global North has actually benefited "huge chunks" of the world's poor. That would re-define my category.
Since individuals are important primarily to themselves, secondarily to "near and dear ones" and at a far remove to communities, it does not matter very much which category an individual falls within. Categories, however, need to be carefully defined,as in Nyaya or Sankhya darshan if the purpose is to talk about bunches of humans.
Hinduism eludes categorisation as a religion. So, for that, does "Indian Culture" or Indian cuisine. "The Idea of India" as Sunil Khilnani describes it in his 1997 book, is very much that of a Nation-State and little else.
Wish I had the time to go into what Joseph Stiglitz, the former World Bank bigwig (might have misspelt his name) has to say about Structural Adjustments and poverty. Seek, and ye shall find: the sinner repentant....

[Amit Misra]

I am also deeply horrified at the way our discussion on Gandhi is proceeding. Hinduwoman is, IMHO, articulating a reprehensible opinion that Gandhi's murder was regrettable, but his demise was welcome to "hindus." Those who welcomed his death were the very same people who had interests vested in the continuance of British Raj: the Brahminical toadies of the British Empire. Such interest groups had, for generations, bootlicked their way into favour with whichever ruler that came their way. Gandhi's contribution to the awakening of Indian opinion towards the necessity of a moral basis for governance pulled the rug from under their feet.
"Hindus," including several members of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, mourned his death in overwhelming numbers. Check out Desh Raj Goyal's account of his emotional state as a young RSS volunteer on the day of MKG's funeral.
Godse was crazy in only one sense: his mind had been taken over by the fascist indoctrination of Hinduttva.

[victorialis]

Originally posted by Amit Misra
...These are categories of convenience. They are identifiable, but not rigid.

Amit, I agree with this conclusion. What I don't see is how this squares up with your idea of the utility of categories. I'll try to break down my incomprehension by following your statements in order. Perhaps all depends upon who does the waffling. I like my own waffling, and you prefer yours. :D As is supported by your next statement:

I may be persuaded one day (fat chance) that the rapacity of the Global North has actually benefited "huge chunks" of the world's poor. That would re-define my category.

Although I don't see exactly how a statistical argument could accomplish this result in reality, on principle I agree heartily: it's your right to reject this if you will. I would reject it myself, on the strength of what you say next, if I agreed with it.

Since individuals are important primarily to themselves, secondarily to "near and dear ones" and at a far remove to communities, it does not matter very much which category an individual falls within. Categories, however, need to be carefully defined,as in Nyaya or Sankhya darshan if the purpose is to talk about bunches of humans.

Here is a distinction I don't understand. How can significance accrue to a treatment of bunches of humans where it does not accrue to the same treatment of individuals? If it does not accrue to individuals, why would you care about your own category being redefined?

I ask this not to annoy, but with a certainty that you've got a reason. It is a very, very fine point, but I hope you can say what it is, because it goes to the heart of my initial curiosity about the viability of pluralism today. It's as though there is a different metaphysical reality to humankind that we think is inapplicable or irrelevant to the individual human being.

Hinduism eludes categorisation as a religion. So, for that, does "Indian Culture" or Indian cuisine. "The Idea of India" as Sunil Khilnani describes it in his 1997 book, is very much that of a Nation-State and little else.

Would this mean a Nation-State uninformed by culture or history? I am grappling with the meaning-content of "nation-state" in another longstanding conversation -- in which my (europhile) interlocutor maintains that nation-states are all but irrelevant and only power-blocs now count. We've been unable to pin down the "all but" portion with specifics, and this example might help.

Wish I had the time to go into what Joseph Stiglitz, the former World Bank bigwig (might have misspelt his name) has to say about Structural Adjustments and poverty. Seek, and ye shall find: the sinner repentant....

Yes, indeed, I'm aware of that controversy. It's a microcosm of the whole global/antiglobal debate.

[victorialis]

One would expect crocodile tears from any committed opponent of Gandhi, cryptofascist or otherwise, on the occasion of his death. Anything else would be extremely bad form.

Similarly, had Jinnah missed the classic opportunity to "blame the dead guy" for interfaith conflict, we would surely not know Jinnah's name today. I doubt he actually underestimated himself in the manner that his remark attempts to telegraph.

I've already gathered, Amit, that you see evil in hinduttva. But if I cannot get past my horripilation at the fact of political killings, I probably won't be able to step outside of my front door in the morning -- and any understanding of this process of collective self-definition will continue to elude me.

It's also to be expected that any political movement will be burdened with accountability for the actions of its extremists. Rather than seeking to understand the extreme element (which behaves rather similarly in all cases anyway), I am interested in the moderate element -- which must be present for a "movement" to exist at all, even if its loonies waste all the political capital.

[hinduwoman]

Victorialis, here are some more links on Godse and Gandhi if you are interested:

http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/jan/29godse.htm
http://forumhub.com/indhistory/17516.03.45.32.html

Yes, having no moral absolutes makes it easier for Hinduism to adapt otself to new circumstances.


Amit, you are saying that even members of Hindu mahasabha wept. does this mean you are acknowledging that not all Hinduttvites are evil?

Hinduism eludes categorisation as a religion
And that was precisely my opening post.

[Amit Misra]

What I don't see is ...(snip)... the utility of categories.
I'm saying that the utility of categories lies in their enabling a process of reasoning from the 'particular' to the 'general' situation.
I don't see exactly how a statistical argument could accomplish this result (of redifining my category)
I'll be literal minded and insist that a statistical argument having the ability to induce a change in my convictions would re-define my categorization as a this, that or other.
How can significance accrue to a treatment of bunches of humans where it does not accrue to the same treatment of individuals? If it does not accrue to individuals, why would you care about your own category being redefined?
Still being absolutely literal. 'Significance' of the statistical variety is highly dependant on the largeness of the bunch it talks about. Significance of subjective/intuituve insight, similarly, should be gauged with reference to the scope of its applicability.
I have a pretty good idea that my wife would like a dress just this shade of brown. It is a valuable insight at a personal level, and accurate as one can get; yet it is utterly trivial when I put it down here in a discussion thread. It doesn't allow anyone who reads this information to conclude that wives like brown dresses (though if someone got it into their head to give my wife an unexpected present, I'd know how it came about :eek: )
Still arguing from example, I'd hazard an insight: any man's wife would like to get a dress as an unexpected present from him. This applies to the category of wives. It does not apply to non-wife women (at least, I've never tried to give a brown dress as an unexpected present to anyone else's wife, but I'd be unwilling to risk it). Knocking it off here- I write far too much junk to make effective points.
Khilnani, though, is worth a read. Birbeck College faculty, if I remember correctly.
hinduwoman: you started your post with hinduism eluding categorization and yet being a religion/culture. I still maintain that it does so because it is niether a religion nor a culture.
sorry got to rush
amit

[victorialis]

Originally posted by hinduwoman
Yes, having no moral absolutes makes it easier for Hinduism to adapt itself to new circumstances.

hmmm... another light bulb is glowing now. If there are no moral absolutes, then even tolerance is not a requirement of Hinduism; it's only a recommendation.

In the interview, Gopal Godse said hinduttva is culture. I am pondering what, exactly, he means by this. He does not mean caste, language, or locality; this was clear, he said as much. It appears he meant a shared history. To what extent is it actually shared -- and to what extent is it merely a presumption upon the good manners of the listener, who, having heard historical tales, has no personal stake at the moment in disputing what is in the past?

Gopal Godse went on to say "we are together," and I wonder also what exactly he means by that. Is it for the listener to supply the particulars of the meaning? Some listeners of good will are going to do so, happily, because they are already, by nature, so inclined; they like the idea of togetherness on principle. Others who are more cautious will not supply the meaning, and will either dispute the contention openly, or leave it unaddressed.

All attempts I have found so far at defining culture share at least one of two characteristics: (1) they refer to an undifferentiated totality (no categories), and/or (2) they refer to specific periods or populations (using categories -- these, or others).

Gopal Godse's comments appear to reflect the "undifferentiated totality" approach to culture. If so, then the hinduttva he points to is undifferentiated. How then can it also be distinct, politically relevant or meaningful?

[hinduwoman]

Godse was using Savarkar's definition.
The point is (I think) before the British came with their idea of a homogenous Hindu society I don't think such a concept of Hinduism as a nation existed. As a shared consciousness, as a religion different from Islam and Christianity (though in some places the blending made it hard to sort out which is which), and sometimes as a political force --- yes. But it did not extend to the whole of India.
Take Shivaji for example. He set up a Hindu empire after wresting it from the Mughals. It was very Hindu all right. But Gujrat et al which was looted by Marathas did not feel very thrilled about it. But in 19th century a new kind of consciousness of Hinduism as a nation was fashioned --- and Shivaji was suddenly the hero for whole of India. Tagore a Bengali wrote odes celebrating Shivaji festival (which did not exist before completely overlooking the fact that nursery rhymes of Bengal sing of the horrors of Maratha invasion.
That is why I say that insiting Hinduttva is a new force is silly. It is at least two hundred years old, growing out of the confrontation with British.


Yes, tolerance as a religious principle is strongly upheld, but since dharma is contextual, it is upto the individual to decide how much.


some more on Gandhi:
Gandhi after being declared a mahatma became intoxicated with his own saintliness. In 1940 this is what he advised the British government:
"I want you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island with your many beautiful buildings... If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself, man, woman and child to be slaughtered... I am telling His Excellency the Viceroy that my services are at the disposal of His Majesty's government, should they consider them of any practical use in enhancing my appeal."
I can only agree with Aurobindo's (who in spite of being hailed as a saint, did not lose his head) reaction: "He must be a little cracked."



Amit if Hinduism is neither a religion nor a culture, then we have to fall on the standby "It is a way of life", which means --- what?

[victorialis]

Amit, I've been thinking about your brown dress story. There seems to be something circular in my thinking about this which I have not identified yet. I had written a response a couple of days ago, having to do with independent variables and degrees of freedom, but it was nonsense.

You mentioned nyaya a few posts back. Since then, I came across an idea that seems germane to my confusion. It is from http://www2.carthage.edu/~lochtefe/nyaya.html:
The Nyayas subscribe to the causal model known as asatkaryavada, which posits that when a thing is created, it is a whole new aggregate, completely different from its constituent parts.
The salvageable kernel of my unposted nonsense response was this: it is, in some ways, inappropriate to consider human beings in the aggregate, which is precisely what statistical arguments do. That's the whole thrust of pluralism, and also my reason for questioning your concern with categorization.

For some purposes (e.g., in your professional work), there is no other way to gain reliable knowledge, and so in that context it is appropriate: there is a discrete purpose to quantitative analysis for therapeutic purposes, and it is effective: disease processes are arrested and reversed, and lives are saved.

For the purposes of self-determination, though -- that's where the statistical approach seems all wrong to me. The individual can -- and in practice, does -- view all such categorizations as provisional, and can reject those which are not constructive, conducive or otherwise agreeable (as you did earlier). Of course I say this from a viewpoint which has no experience of Varna; maybe that's why I don't understand.

If one takes a leftward view of political matters, and has a professional respect for the validity of quantitative methods, it is reasonable to believe (contrary to Thatcher) that society does exist, "as a whole new aggregate, completely different from its consitutent parts." Collectivism and socialism take this assumption a priori. It's also reasonable, by extension, to assume it's proper to ground social management in, and participate in political change using, scientific principles.

Yet we both know that statistics are manipulable; on what other basis would you have rejected the material I quoted earlier about poverty/inequality? (again, I'm not offended by this; I hold a few paradoxical beliefs of my own and I take it as a compliment that you will say what you really think.) More from the same academic website named above:
One of the unique features of the Nyaya school is their belief in inherence (samavaya), a weak relational force which is like a subtle sort of glue connecting various things: wholes and their parts, substances and their attributes, motions and the things that move, and general properties and their particular instances.
The existence of this "weak relational force" would further support your preference for a collectivist approach. The question for me is how and why this force breaks down.

[victorialis]

hinduwoman, I agree with your observation that hinduttva is not a new force. (Interestingly, from a very similar argument, neither is globalisation: the process of globalising trade has been underway since the 1400s CE, and it still has a long way to go. The exploitive nature of colonialism/imperialism is properly recognised as unjust and as a thing to be rejected, but it doesn't change this fact.)

It seems then that hinduttva (as it is called in its present incarnation) as a nationalist idea emerges only under certain conditions: i.e., in the presence of a perceived antagonist. This makes sense; without some social/cultural (nascent political) opposition to act as a catalyst, there is no perceived need for an explicit Hindu identity. And once Hindu nationalism is catalysed, the inner contradictions you mentioned in the example of Shivaji are put aside, which is also reasonable in the face of a threat. Hinduism is not alone in this phenomenon, nor in the belated recognition of inner contradictions in its political formulae.

Such formulae can function powerfully under an enormous load of inner contradictions. Maybe that's what Amit is worried about.

From this I am prompted to wonder whether the core of the idea of nation-states today isn't based quite simply upon a presumption of the presence of antagonism. Unfortunately I can take that idea no further; antagonism does exist (if sporadically) and social organisation cannot leave it out of the reckoning.
What is best done about it, no one knows yet.

I cannot know whether Gandhi achieved moksha; acclaim and achievement are not the same thing. But I've been reading that such achievement puts one beyond good and evil, beyond rules and duty.

Achievement of moksha would create, then, a unique (and rather lonely) outlook on the world, and it has to be asked: does such an outlook qualify one to advise others?

If others cannot appreciate the full wisdom of enlightened pronouncements, wouldn't any Mahatma experience a very low ceiling on political effectiveness?

Maybe it is meant to be that way.

I liked Amit's comment on Gandhi's bringing to people's attention the necessity for a moral basis for governance. That's a valid achievement all by itself. Perhaps it is wrong to have expected more of Gandhi.

[hinduwoman]

To bring up Savarkar again, he pointed out that all nations are based on a certain degree of exclusiveness --- the Others are not us.
My personal belief is that nationalism is tribalism writ large, and in Indian context it is casteism in a larger context. Not caste precisely but castes do share many of the features of a nation --- exclusive membership, but new blood allowed under special dispension, endogamy, common cultural traits, common gods, common history, common myth of origin.


Hinduttva as a force I believe would disappear when Hinduism is no longer seen as being beseiged by Islam and Christianity.

Gandhi does have valid achievements, but the problem is what is morality exactly? ahimsa is moral, but (Savarkar again) in certain circumstances it is positively immoral.

[Amit Misra]

victorialis wrote:
(snip) it is, in some ways, inappropriate to consider human beings in the aggregate, which is precisely what statistical arguments do. That's the whole thrust of pluralism, (snip)
In the interest of scholarship, however, it becomes important to define what one is talking about. It then becomes necessary to say whether one is treating humans in the aggregate, and if so, as an aggregate defined by certain boundaries (e.g. atheists / tories / hindus); or whether one is discussing a single person (e.g. Gandhi as a political figure). This is one of the constraints of scholarship: to negotiate between the Scylla of reductionism and the Charybdis of over-generalisation.
Scholarship, of course, is not the be-all and end-all of human activity. Only, it should not come under the thrall of politics if it has to retain any of its self-respect. Scholarly attempts at categotrization of "hindus" should be welcome rather than suspect. Let has have the people who study "hindus" come out with opinions, so that those of umbrella organisations claiming to speak for "hindus" can be evaluated. The scholarly opinion might reasonably be expected to be free from the biases that motivate political activity to appropriate phenomena such as "living hinduism" (hinduwoman's first post).
This is all the more urgent, since political "hindus" have, of late, declared a Goebbelsian war on scholarship-- in the sciences as well as humanities--that needs to be fought on all fronts.

[hinduwoman]

Victorialis, apropos our discussion of modes of relgious worship: I often feel that Hindu modes of worship produce more intense emotional response. This is perhaps why atheism is less prevelant in Hinduism, and why deconverted atheists still retain ties with it.

For example I find hymns like these very moving: (free translatuions) ,

I am dyed in the colour of my love, Rana*
I am dyed in the colour of my love.
I do not care what you think,
I do not care what anyone says
I will follow my beloved
Wherever he goes
I am dark for my lover is dark
I have left hearth and home for his sake
I am dyed Rana, in the colour of my love.

*Rana --- poetess' husband and king.

I have not stolen any butter ma,
The other women are lying.
They are all jealous of you and me.
The older boys are bullies they put butter on my mouth
See how small I am,
How can I climb so high?
I am a good boy mother
I have not stolen any butter.
Then did Yosada* laugh and taking the Omnipotent on her lap
Smother Him with kisses.

Yosada --- foster mother of Krishna.


Or the loss when the daughter is lost finally in the deity:

Whom have you brought home my husband,
Whom have you brought back?
My Uma lisped when she tried to talk
She stumbled clutching my robe
My darling is soft and golden
This woman stands ten armed , beweaponed
At her tread the earth shakes,
The gods kneel before her offering homage
If she is my daughter why is she so terrible?


I might be prejudiced but I don't think Abrahamic religions have such deeply intimate relationship with their gods.

[victorialis]

I am sorry for taking so long to reply. This is a very enjoyable conversation and have been thinking about it for these several days I've been away.

hinduwoman, the hymns you posted reminded me of my favorite judeo-christian scripture: the Song of Solomon (http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Bible/Song_of_Solomon.html). I am unaware of anything even remotely similar in other Judaic writings or in the Quran. The sacred feminine is largely a matter of silence in the Judaic tradition, and if Islam includes a sacred feminine, I haven't detected it.

There have been Christian mystics who approach this kind of devotion/adoration. I'm thinking in particular of Julian of Norwich, a contemplative nun who proposed an image of Jesus as Mother. But she's a far cry from mainstream Christianity.

It's interesting that Bible-studying Christians of my acquaintance have had very little to say about the Song of Solomon (also known as the Song of Songs). Those I've asked have confined themselves to stating that the SoS is merely an extended metaphor for the union of Christ with his Church: they don't want to hear what other meanings might be found in it. Such reticence supports your contention that Abrahamics don't have deeply intimate relationships with their gods. There's a little more to the story, but I think you're still on target with that idea.

The emotional intensity of some Christian worship is easily underestimated if you've not been in the same room with it. Some churches are quite dull -- not all of them. The exceptions stand in stark contrast to the sort of cool, contained social atmosphere that obtains in secular society.

Experienced against the background of a skeptical/cynical rationalist culture, the collision of emotion with the sacred is rather explosive in its effect upon susceptible persons. Growing up, I watched literally hundreds of schoolmates, friends and neighbors go through this. Most of them came out the other end of the experience in something like 18 months. Some never emerged.

Such a religious experience, when genuine and not simulated, is invasive in every way -- a personal crisis -- and that's as it should be. One should accept no less. For that reason, I understand why many new Christians happily obey when their church tells them they need constant, close spiritual supervision; they're being subtly encouraged to fear being alone with their god any more than they must (without proper training, at least). Who knows what might happen?

This closely supervised and orchestrated spirituality -- which I must admit I find bizarre -- makes the whole affair look rather packaged and bureaucratic, like a group holiday, and not very personal or authentic. Yet, from the vantage point of a guest in various churches (where I lived, it was impossible to avoid being invited) and living/working in communities with heavy concentrations of believers, I have observed some quite extraordinary behaviour in people of all ages and all walks of life. These people would not break so consistently with the broader social norms without some motivation. Whether the motivation is intrinsic or extrinsic, I cannot say.

It is a unique sensation to be completely surrounded by such strange behaviour, such raw, studied holiness, in the midst of a modern city of ten million people, and to be aware that one is not participating, is not affected, and is never going to be affected. It's like being in a movie, and being the only one who knows it's a movie.

Some congregations I've visited go to such extremes of ecstatic behaviour that the individual believer would probably not be willing to risk engaging in certain standard practices outside the church (e.g.: handling poisonous snakes, or spontaneously falling down on the ground). But as supervised group experiences, these practices pass as both safe and sacred.

The many personal experiences that have been recounted to me, all seem to conform to a prescribed pattern. I expect that those experiences which do not conform to the pattern remain private. Where I lived, private ecstasy was heavily frowned upon as being either delusion or the sin of pride.... which is probably why there have not been more Julians. I think she spent her life immured in a cell.

And I think your conclusion about Abrahamic spiritual intimacy is quite close to the truth of the matter, as regards Christianity -- because however many individual exceptions there may be, they are never mainstreamed. Islam does not seem to differ much from this, except in one significant respect: its ecstatics are more likely to be violent than reclusive. Judaism seems to have more of an honored place for the emotions in its scheme of things, but Judaic mysticism is so vast in scope, we could almost make up our own in the sea of it.

[hinduwoman]

A Hindu scholar argued that Christian God is violent and cruel, and that is why a devout Christian is called 'god-fearing' instead of god-loving. Good point, I think!
In Christianity and Islam God is always an authority figure. In Hinduism I find the gods to be more human and under the authority of humans. For example, in one temple (I forgot where) the temple of child Krishna had a hole in its roof. Apparently the head priest was a very strict person who would not let the child Krishna out of his sanctum. So one day when he was away the god came out and played with neighbourhood children. But the priest caught him and spanked him. Krishna threw a tantrum and that is how the roof got a hole. But apparently he was too afraid of the priest to do anything to him.
In one version when Shiva came to be married to Parvati, Parvati's mother was deeply shocked at finding a son-in-law who is halfnaked, wearing snakes and escorted by drunkards. So she chased him away wielding a broom refusing to let the marriage ceremony begin. The thought of the LORD running hell-for-leather with an enraged mother in law in hot pursuit beating him with a broom makes a mockery of the concept of Godhead, but it makes the God more accessible and understandable to his worshippers. That is why missionaries had such a hard time converting Hindus --- who wants to leave such gods for a bad-tempered one?
Again personal bias maybe, but if I have to accept a god then it is better to have gods that are afraid of human beings than someone who sends down floods and plagues.

Such a religious experience, when genuine and not simulated, is invasive in every way -- a personal crisis -- and that's as it should be. One should accept no less
and that is how the biography, real or made-up, of Hindu saints read. Each of them becomes insane in their devotion and left off normal life.

[victorialis]

hinduwoman, you're right about the perception of the Judeo-Christian god. He is an authority figure; I suspect he was designed that way on purpose, at a specific point in the human timeline, to modify the concept of deity and compensate for the ambiguity inherent in dharma and tao.

IMO, western peoples found this ambiguity and elusiveness unbearable, and therefore propounded their own god-concept to eliminate existential tension. The "one God" (Jehovah or Allah) became a specific and exclusive locus of justice, like a tribal elder or a local warlord. In order to serve that purpose satisfactorily, the god had to be of a nature far removed from the human: he had to be perfect, awesome, incorruptible, and singular.

Under the auspices of such a god, whatever parts of life are perceived as irreconcilable and/or unjust can be subsumed into the realm of divine mystery, thus relieving humans of any final responsibility for understanding or resolving such matters. That's the nature of a Christian (not Jewish) relationship with the Old-Testament Jehovah, and AFAIK, Allah is received pretty much the same way. Allah and Jehovah are both designed as ultimate authorities/arbiters, absolute lawgivers and long-term world-protectors. The Judaic tradition has found a more active role for human intellect with regard to the interpretation of the given laws, but the Muslim, Jew and Christian all share the obligation of obedience/submission to an authoritarian god.

It's quite telling, with regard to the success of Christianity, that so much of historical Christian experience reflects the god of the Old Testament -- the sender of floods and plagues you've referred to, the one who says "Vengeance is mine."

It's telling because for Christians, the New Testament is supposed to have superseded the paradigm of the Old Testament. The old covenant was the Law (the will of god, to be obeyed); the new covenant, represented by the appearance of Christ ("the only begotten son of God") was supposed to change the relationship between humans and scary old Jehovah, whose laws were just too tough for people to obey as they should.

The new covenant was supposed to effect a reconciliation that would enable humans to experience the god of love instead of the god of vengeance: "He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins" (1 John 4:10, NASB). Those sins were failures of obedience, and the propitiation was supposed to serve as Jehovah's blanket forgiveness of inevitable sin -- Jehovah's remission of vengeance.

The mystery of this propitiation (in which the god, not the worshipper, offers the sacrifice) and the possibilities that it opens up have not penetrated collective Christian consciousness very deeply these 2K years. History shows quite clearly that western consciousness still bears the deep imprint of the old god of vengeance. I suggest the following historical explanation.

When Christianity became the state religion of the Romans, its character was permanently changed (some say: wrecked). You can see how easily the god of vengeance could retain a secure place in a religion that was specifically adapted to be conferred wholesale upon the Roman legions by the Emperor Constantine. "Christian soldiers," as the old hymn goes, have been "marching off to war" ever since.

This continual marching off to war could be interpreted as the best imaginable evidence that Christianity was never meant to be a mass religion. War, one