Nation, Nationalism and the Indic Ethos

I have been a critic of the populist version of Hindutva and that is my position but even so, I understand the necessity of the same for the larger dialectic. They are the antithesis of populist liberal thought. In fact, all such thought cannot be categorized as 'good' but then again 'good' is a very ambiguous term which is determined by way too many factors. It would be safer to consider acceptability - all liberal thought is not acceptable to all and it is very wrong on the part of a select few to decide what is progressive and what is not. So, my position does not give me the right to assert what is right and what is wrong but my opinion and my position are as important. This is an entitlement the Constitution of India gives me and as a citizen, I am entitled to it. Likewise, an individual who holds even the most extreme right-wing opinions has this same entitlement.

 On Hinduism, Dharma and Indian Civilization

While there is an ensuing debate about Hinduism being a religion, the diversity of practices makes it tough to be categorized as one. It is only acceptable that Hinduism could be categorized as a general way of living. Most practitioners will agree, this way of life that is Hinduism is a way of debate and openness. Ideally, it is, therefore, a very plural space that encourages individuals to practice whatever they wish to but interestingly this plural space has left Hinduism open to various interpretations.

Personally, I understand Hinduism as a form of a national imagination that unites the various cultural practices of the diverse array of people who inhabit this land, under one umbrella. For an Indian reader who has been conditioned by a colonial education system has the idea of 'Unity in Diversity' instilled in them. For such an individual it is very tough to grasp the idea of Hinduism as a plural national imagination obviously because western thought dictates that Hinduism is a full-fledged religion and not just a standard way of life. The populist rhetoric of a violent nature has also not helped the image of Hinduism as a national imagination either. It has, in fact, helped the critics in establishing a narrative that views the whole right-wing intelligentsia as a bunch of disillusioned violent idiots. There is also a terminology in place for such individuals who create and follow this bandwagon of populist rhetoric - 'Bhakts'. The 'Bhakt' is actually a term for someone who is knowledgeable and therefore devoted to a certain cause or an entity or for that matter any kind of idea. In this case, though, it means a blind devotee to a religion whose existence as religion itself is still being debated.

It will be very interesting to note that Indian civilization does not have the concept of religion at all. An alternative of, and closest to the concept of the western construct of religion is 'Dharma' which is more like an essential code of conduct more akin to the present-day western construct of a national Constitution. 'Dharma' defines what one has to do or the rules one has to follow in various aspects of real-life and it is different for different individuals. A warrior's code of conduct is different from a scholar's which is again different for an entrepreneur. It is here that the concept of the infamous Varna comes in. The Varna is a system that our colonial masters defined as the caste system and that is how we know it today. The system transcends from the idea of the division of responsibility in a society where all members are interdependent on each other - much like the responsibilities shouldered by the Executive, Legislative, and the Judiciary today.

While the creators of the Varna system never intended for it to be a hereditary one, its practice increasingly became hereditary in nature. The Bhagwad Gita, which is a holy text for most Indic faiths puts this beautifully in Chapter 4  Verse 13: 

"chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛiṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam" which translates to "The four categories of occupations were created by me according to people’s qualities and activities. Although I am the creator of this system, know me to be the non-doer and eternal."

A perverse form of the system led to the accumulation of power at the hands of a select few who reserved this power for their progeny which was further consolidated with intra-marriages within the particular profession and this eventually led to nepotism in the more lucrative professions. Although I do not intend to engage in the contemporary 'what-about(ism)' phenomenon and yet I find it essential to point out that these are vices of the present western society too - first the aristocrats with Feudalism in Europe and now the Capitalists after industrialization.

So, the phenomenon of accumulation and Centralization of power is not limited to only the Indian civilization, the West is equally plagued by it. In a more equal society that respects and pays equally, for all professions, such a system would never have been a bone of contention but communism has typically failed around the world at least till date and unless we are able to find an alternate system that will be able to incentivize individual effort as well as ensure that nepotism stays out - we are stuck with capitalism. The Bolshevik revolution which led to the rise of the Soviet Union and with it Leftist scholarship around the world has had its widespread implications. Thanks to scholars such as Piere Bourdieu we now understand concepts such as 'social capital' and 'cultural capital' which like financial capital determine the capacity of an individual to achieve a level of success in a specific society.

The Varna system is, in my opinion, an adept example of this. The system creates exclusive communities that have access to each other within that community and this puts them at an advantage while pursuing a specific profession. Through specialized early training and access to the cultural and social capital, it makes the individual potent to meet the challenges of that particular profession but because it is so dependent on family and society it disregards individual choice and it is here that we meet the actual vice of this system. Modern western societal constructs place more importance on the individual and not society as a whole. For a colonizer whose primary aim was self-preservation never understood the Varna system as it is but as a system that restricts the social mobility of an individual to attain positions in more financially lucrative professions.

In modern times it is necessary to adapt and as such categorizations like the Varna are not necessary anymore - we have the new system of the 'Haves' and the 'Have-nots' or like the more elite left-leaning individuals would call it - the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. So it's up to us if we should ditch a vice for another vice or come up with another innovative system that will be able to incentivize individual achievement, eliminate nepotism, ensure an equal society, and while doing all that still preserve our civilizational nature of society before self.     

The Indic Identity

So coming back to Hinduism as a religion, I think it should ideally be referred to as the Sanatan Dharma or probably even the Constitution of the then flourishing Indian Civilization. It might be very tough for someone with colonial conditioning to comprehend this but nonetheless, there is substantial evidence to assert that this Sanatan Dharma is essentially monotheistic in practice. In the west Sanatan Dharma is viewed as a polytheistic religion with multiple pagan Gods - 330 million (33 crores) to be more precise. Some of the oldest scriptures of this Sanatan Dharma interestingly prove otherwise and have placed on record that all paths of worship lead to one 'Brahm' which is the ultimate and inconceivable truth. The concept of a one true God itself does not exist but only paths to it. It is therefore very common among the practitioners of Sanatan Dharma to pay respect to anything they feel they have a connection to and this could include anything like mountains, rivers, stones, trees or even mere objects like pens, pencils, knives, weapons etc.

I have a particularly favorite quote from the Rig Veda, which is also the oldest scripture of the Indian Civilization - 'Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti', and this translates to - there is only one truth but sages interpret it differently. In a more famous phrase 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', the Indian Civilization regards the entire world as one big family. Evidently, the Indian civilization does show recognition of the existence of different populations and opinions about cultural practices and considers all as their family and this is quite akin to the idea of today's 'Humanist' thought. To further consolidate my argument I would like to point out that other Indic religions like Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism do not have established methods of conversion which is very much unlike the Abrahamic religions. The following passages from the Holy Bible and the First Kalma Tayyab point to the civilizational nature of the civilizations that evolved with them.

Corinthians 8:6 from the Bible - "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." 

First Kalma Tayyab - "Laa Ilaaha Illa-Illallah Muhammadur-Rasoolu-Ilaah." which translates to "There is none worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah"

While I quote these passages with amateur knowledge of any religious text, be it the Bhagavad Gita, Holy Bible or the Holy Quran I am quite certain that the preaching from these Abrahamic religions are an antithesis to the pluralism of the Indic practices and as is nature of any dialectic, there is bound to be conflict. Unfortunately though in this conflict it is this pluralism that is the Achilles heels of the practitioners of Indic traditions. It is this pluralism that transcends from the Dharma and as such is so ingrained that it does not allow for any counter to this totalitarianism of Abrahamic thought. The west’s championship of pluralism in the current times is therefore quite contradictory when it was they who decimated its concept in Indian society in their 200 years of occupation.

Sanatan Dharma allows for worship through multiple pathways that manifest in the form of various Gods and Goddesses. It was a Nation-building process with room for the acceptance of any cultural practice or worship and not a mere religion. To further strengthen this assertion, I would like to point out that Buddhism and Jainism evolved out of the same Sanatan Dharma while excluding the practice of the inherent Varna system in the latter. It is very unfortunate today that the practitioners of contemporary Sanatan Dharma or as it is called today Hinduism only understand its importance as a religion and not as a nation-building tool.

'Hindu' is merely a collective term for all Indic Identities and it includes all the practitioners of the ancient cultural practices that existed and evolved on this land. The implications of this lack of understanding of our very own national identity have led to a state of confusion to the extent that sub-nationalistic aspirations among different ethnoreligious communities plague the Indian national imagination. We are not sure what binds us together anymore and I think the primary reason for this is asserting the concept of 'Unity in Diversity' and not asserting enough on the commonalities of the Indic identity. I prefer recognizing myself as an atheist but an atheist within this Indic identity. India is the natural home of all Indic identities irrespective of the cultural practices they follow. 

Securing an Indic National Ethos

We are very old as a civilization but still a very young nation in modern terminology. Our national imagination and its structures are still entrenched in western thought. In order to rediscover ourselves, we need to look at a nation that has done it well and in a very short period of its existence. Israel did not exist on the maps of the World up until 1948. Israel is a nation that had a completely migrant population at the time of its creation primarily due to the Holocaust that the community had to face at the hands of the Nazi Government in Europe.

Israel today has various ethnic Jews like Ashkenazi, the Jews who migrated to Europe and then returned, the Mizrahi Jews who had stayed in Ancient Mesopotamia which is now Iraq, and then eventually returned, and a few others but they all identify as Jews of Israel today. The Holocaust made the Jews realize the importance of a homeland, a homeland from which their tribes had been evicted after Prophet Muhammad’s conquests of their lands. The creation of Israel brought all the ethnic Jews of the world back to their ancestral homeland.

The Jews who belong to an ancient civilization just like the Hindus (all Indic identities) of the Indian Civilization and are minorities in a world where followers of Christianity and Islam are in majority. The practitioners of Indic traditions in India by this reasoning are ethnic minorities and have every right to protect their indigenous rights in terms of their cultural practices and traditions.

All Jews around the world have the right to return to their ancestral homeland Israel through Israel's 'ḥok ha-shvūt' or the Law of Return. It is therefore that I propose that all Indic identities facing discrimination in any part of the world or for that matter just wish to return to the motherland should have a safe home to return to. The Jews were hounded and killed and had nowhere to go to when they were in their greatest hour of distress. If the indigenous Indic cultural identity of the motherland is not saved then there will be no home for the practitioners of the Indic traditions to return if they face discrimination anywhere in the world. Much like the Jews before the creation of Israel who were discriminated against all across Europe. It is a matter of survival for the indigenous Hindus (Indic Identities) of this land.

I have grown up as a linguistic as well as a religious minority in a far-flung North-Eastern state of this Nation and I am aware of the implications of the normalization of systemic violence and I don't wish it for anyone else. I do not want to assert victimhood and even so, I want to stress that the practitioners of indigenous Indic traditions need to protect the core Indic identity of this Nation. We already have a plural societal structure in place but there is a need to instill pride among the practitioners of it so that alien cultures are not able to create an alternate narrative of a degenerate national imagination and thereby create new identities based on religion, language etc. to forge separate national imaginations that seek secession from the Indian nation by laying claim over parts of this holy land. It is time to unite and rediscover the Indic ethos!