Contested Meanings: India's National Identity, Hindu Nationalism, and the Politics of Anxiety
Author(s): Ashutosh Varshney
Source: Daedalus, Vol. 122, No. 3, Reconstructing Nations and States (Summer, 1993), pp. 227261
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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Ashutosh Varshney
Contested Meanings:
India'sNational
Identity,
Hindu Nationalism, and thePolitics of
Anxiety
primary
The
impulse of this essay
is explanatory,
not normative.
It is important to keep this distinction inmind because the
rise
of Hindu
strong
nationalism?generates
the customary
nationalism,
dealing with Hindu
or celebrate,
not to explain.
is to denounce
intellectual
tendency
must
For an academic
take clear
however,
analysis,
explanation
or
over
denunciation
celebration.
precedence
emotions.
subject?the
While
three arguments.
between
three
essay makes
First, a conflict
varieties
of nationalism
has marked
different
Indian politics
of late:
a Hindu
a secular
and two separatist
nationalism,
nationalism,
The
nationalisms
in the states of Kashmir
is a reaction
to the two
India's
Hindu
national
identity,
nationalism.
and Punjab. Hindu
nationalism
In imaginations
nationalisms.
about
a
there was
space for
always
conceptual
other
it remained
a weak
force until
political
of politics
The rise of Hindu
recently, when
changed.
can thus be attributed
to an underlying
nationalism
and a proximate
in India's national
strains
base. Competing
the
identity constitute
Still,
the context
reasons are supplied by the political
base. The proximate
underlying
A mounting
circumstances
of the 1980s.
about
the future
anxiety
of India has resulted
from the separatist
of
the
1980s,
agitations
vacuum
and from a deepening
in Indian
institutional
and ideological
politics. India's key integrative political institution since 1947, the
party, has gone through a profound
Congress
organizational
decay,
with no centrist parties taking its place. And secularism,
the ideological
of a multireligious
India, looks pale and exhausted.
mainstay
Claiming
Ashutosh
227
Varshney
is Associate
Professor
of Government
at Harvard
University.
228
Ashutosh Varshney
to rebuild
the nation, Hindu
and ideological
alternative.
India's
looks
exhausted
India
and must,
institutional
Second,
is intrinsically
secularism
to
unsuited
nationalists
as an
themselves
present
not because
secularism
therefore,
inevitably
come to grief. That is the principal claim of the highly influential
recentwritings by T. N. Madan and Ashis Nandy.1 Insightful though
their arguments
are, Madan
varieties
between
different
and Rajiv
was
Gandhi
and Nandy
do not sufficiently differentiate
of secularism.
The secularism
of Indira
not a logical
culmination
of the secularism
of
Nehru. Politics over the last decade discredits the kind of secularism
practiced by the various regimes in the 1980s. It does not discredit
secularism
se.
per
Third,
though
Hindu
nationalism
a reaction
to separatist
the most profound
poses
and
secular
challenge
nationalisms,
to the governing
principles and intellectual maps of an independent India. Hindu
has
nationalism
territorial
Hinduism.
a commitment
to the
impulses:
as well
as a political
to
commitment
two
simultaneous
integrity of India
Given India's turbulent
it is unlikely
history of Hindu-Muslim
can realize
nationalism
both
that Hindu
relations,
its aims.
What happens to India, therefore, depends on how powerful Hindu
nationalism
and
becomes,
in which
the way
this
is
contradiction
resolved.
issue
is, of course, not the only contentious
question
two other orders?social
in India. Apart
from the national
order,
in recent times. The traditional
been challenged
and economic?have
The
caste
national
hierarchy
of the Hindu
social
order,
slowly
eroding
due
to the
political equality of liberal democracy, has been explicitly confronted
by politics
emphasizing
the mobilization
of lower
castes.
The
Fabian
socialist core of the economic order is in its death throes, being
and international
openness
by an emerging market orientation
is
in
Some
of
in the country's
economic
this
welcome
change
policy.
come
Because
it
and
of
has
but
much
India,
suddenly
simultaneously.
attacked
of change
of the simultaneity
to the nation's
of threats
independence?Indian
a large number
mosque,
and on occasions
even
as
levels,
and especially
because
most
serious
since
integrity?the
recent years have been experienced
in
politics
as an anxiety,
as a fear of the
of Indians
by
unknown,
at several
a
loss
such as the demolition
of
inner
coherence.
of the Ayodhya
A
yearning
for
229
Contested Meanings
impose some order on anxieties
to this enterprise.
central
that can
designs
Politics
reequilibrating
unmistakable.
remains
THREE CONTESTING NATIONALISMS
THE CONTEXT:
is
IN INDIA
People everywhere have an idea of who they are and what they owe
. . .The liberation of
themselves.
spirit that has come to India could
as
come
not
a release
. . .India
alone.
was
now
a country
a million
of
. . .But there was in India now what didn't exist 200
little mutinies.
a
central will, a central intellect, a national
idea. The
years before:
Indian Union was greater than the sum of its parts.
?V.
one may
While
with
disagree
about
Naipaul
S. Naipaul2
a "national
whether
idea" existed in India in earlier times, he is rightly pointing to a
and a "central"
little mutinies
both
paradox:
or "national
idea" are
a
at the same time. As disintegrative
tendencies
surfacing
deepen,
sense of pan-Indian
is also growing. The two tendencies?
nationalism
the mutinous
and a national
resurgence?are
disaggregation
fighting
no
at
accounts
it out, with
clear victor
the moment.
Recent
of India,
on the
concentrated
ones, have mostly
The merit of Naipaul's
in his
lies
position
are dualistic,
not unitary.
that the political
tendencies
It
the
especially
disintegrative
recognition
journalistic
tendencies.
is also the kind of duality for which direct evidence, privileged in
the social
exist.
One
cannot yet be provided.
sciences,
has either to derive
inferences
trends, or, like Naipaul,
the method
is, follow
Separatist
recently have
tendency.3
Hindu?are
one has
to travel,
of a "writer."
in Kashmir
nationalisms
been
The
the most
other
committed
powerful
varieties
two
to India's
No
large-scale
available
from
and
talk, hear,
surveys
political
see?that
in Punjab
until
of
the
expressions
disintegrative
of nationalism?secular
and
and
today
territorial
integrity,
though
they
seek to do it in different ways.
The
nation.
not
three
nationalisms
Separatist
part of the
do not
nationalists
Indian
have
claim
nation.
They
the same
that
Sikhs
of the
conception
are
and Kashmiris
are nations
by
themselves.
Their point is not simply that there is something distinctive about
the Sikh and Kashmiri identities that separates them from India;
rather, to use Ernest Gellner's
unit
be congruent."4
should
"the political
and the national
words,
a cultural
A nation
is not merely
230
Ashutosh Varshney
a cultural
with
investing
community
at
with
the
and,
very least,
sovereignty,
autonomy.5
political
These movements,
then, are not mere ethnic assertions.
Ethnicity
as a term designates
a sense of collective
which
may be
belonging,
even
or
based on common
(or
descent,
history,
language,
religion
it means
configuration;
some
combination
of these).6 An ethnic group may function without
a nation
and statehood
implies bringing
ethnicity
a state of its own;
In principle,
together.
in which
arrangement,
subnationalism
this congruence
may
case the concerned
be satisfied
in a federal
nationalism
becomes
a
or an ethnicity.
The larger federal entity, then, has
one may
claims on that group's
the highest
loyalty.
Alternatively,
is
Sikh
That
what
nationalists
for
short
of
opt
sovereignty.
nothing
aimed at and Kashmiri nationalists are still fighting for. A Bengali
can
be both
and Gujaratis
are nations.
so can a Gujarati.
a Bengali
and an Indian,
Bengalis
are ethnic groups:
for separatists,
Sikhs and Kashmiris
secular
and
for Indian nationalists?both
However,
Sikhs
Hindu?the
The
of
not nations.
groups,
not succeed
in their aims,
in
course, may
settle for the status of a state in the Indian
separatists,
case they may
Sikh nationalism
federation.
which
are ethnic
and Kashmiris
seems
to have
entered this phase already.
to remember,
that the Sikh uprising was
It is important
however,
not simply a cultural battle for a separate
itwas a political
identity;
to repeat,
A nation,
is not just a cultural
battle
for nationhood.
it is a sovereign
cultural
community.
secular nationalism,
nationalisms,
since independence,
national
identity
In principle,
of
India.
the geographical
integrity
rather,
community;
Unlike
separatist
doctrine
of India's
preserve
all ethnic
the official
seeks
to
it includes
in its definition
of the nation,
and
groups
religious
to
various
the
cultures.
their
beliefs
and
security
respects
Giving
is considered
ethnic and religious
part of nation-building.
groups
or a good Bengali
and a good Indian at
One can be a good Muslim
and
the same
time.
A
is the opposite
of nation-building.
nationalists,
a
not
does.7
does
Hinduism,
pot
melting
produce cohesion;
It alone can
to Hindu
is the source of India's identity.
nationalists,
This claim inevitably begs the question:
cohesiveness.
provide national
to Hindu
That,
salad bowl
Who
is a Hindu?
Savarkar,
the ideological
means
"A Hindu
nationalism,
explains:
land. . .from the Indus to the Seas
father of Hindu
a person who
regards this
as his
as well
as his fatherland
231
Contested Meanings
Holyland."8 The definition is territorial (land between the Indus
and the Seas), genealogical ("fatherland"), and religious ("holyland").
Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists can be part of this definition,
for they meet all three criteria. All these religions were born in
can meet
and Muslims,
Parsis,
however,
is not their "holyland."
only
Can
non-Hindu
be part of India? Yes,
but only by
groups
the
Hindu
nationalists.
Of
the
whose
say
groups
assimilation,
holyland
to Hindu
is not India, Parsis and Jews are, according
nationalists,
India.
Christians,
two criteria.
assimilated,
already
With
Jews,
India
having
become
part of the nation's
mainstream.9
the departure of the British, Christianity also lost its political
edge, being no
Muslims
became
with
rulers. Ultimately,
longer associated
foreign
the principal
of
the
Hindu
nationalists,
adversary
of their numbers,
but also because aMuslim
homeland
in part because
in the form
of Pakistan
five percent
of Pakistan,
of pre-1947
Muslims
caused
in 1947.
India's
partition
India was Muslim.
Even
Twenty
after the formation
remained
the largest minority,
constituting
12 percent of the country's
population
today. This explains,
in part, the enormous
attention
nationalists.
given to Islam by Hindu
to be
is not that Muslims
The Hindu
nationalist
claim
ought
from the Indian nation. While
excluded
that may be the position
of
Hindu
the
Hindu
nationalist
is
that
extremists,10
argument
generic
about
to become
part
of
the
Indian
nation,
Muslims
must
to the
agree
following: 1) accept the centrality of Hinduism to Indian civilization;
2) acknowledge
and not
heroes,
key Hindu
regard them
that Muslim
3) accept
figures
as mere
rulers
such
as Ram
as civilizational
religious
figures of Hinduism;
in various
parts of India
(between
roughly 1000 to 1857) destroyed the pillars of Hindu civilization,
especially Hindu Temples; and 4) make no claims to special privileges
such
as the maintenance
special
state
assimilate,
for
grants
not maintain
nor
of
laws,
religious
personal
their educational
institutions.
their
distinctiveness.
demand
They
Through
must
Ekya
(assimilation), they will prove their loyalty to the nation.11 It is
to note
interesting
this argument?for
that
the Muslim
example,
politicians
Sikandar
Bakht
who
have
and Arif
accepted
Beg?have
of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the principal
political party representing the ideology of Hindu nationalism in
been members
the electoral
arena.12
232
Ashutosh Varshney
Hindu
two simultaneous
impulses:
building
as "Hinduizing"
the polity
and the nation.
are not excluded
from the definition
of
groups
thus has
nationalism
a united
India
as well
and other
Muslims
is premised
inclusion
India, but
upon
on acceptance
assimilation,
not
to
Hindu
becomes
nationalism
the minorities,
in
and practice.
both
principle
the Rashtriya
in 1925
in the state of Maharashtra,
acceptable
exclusionary,
Created
core
institutional
(RSS, National
Sangh
Swayamsevak
of Hindu
goes much
however,
century
Corp)
is the
The
trend,
ideological
as a way
to resurrect
Viewed
back.
further
revivalism in the second half of the
a response
was
Voluntary
nationalism.13
India's cultural pride, Hindu
nineteenth
of
If assimilation is
the political and cultural centrality of Hinduism.
to British
rule.
This
revivalism
preceded the national movement headed by the Congress party in
the first half of the twentieth century, but it could not dominate the
movement
itself.14
movement:
Nehru's
Nehru's
hostility
were
There
secularism
to religion
two principal
and Mahatma
iswell-known.
modes
Even
in the national
Hinduism.
Gandhi's
a devoutly
religious
Gandhi could not be called a Hindu nationalist. He was a Hindu
was
not a Hindu
Hinduism
Gandhi's
nationalist.
and a nationalist,
and having
and tolerant.
inclusive
respect for
Being a good Hindu
of non-Hindus
Inclusion
other religions were not contradictory.15
as a corollary
Gandhi's
of this position.
Pakistan
for
of
formation
the
love for Muslims
was,
during
a
In 1948, when
Hindu
fanatic
Hindu
nationalists,
incomprehensible.
was
set
decades.
back
Hindu
nationalism
assassinated
Gandhi,
by
the
killed the Mahatma,
nationalists
Hindu
In popular
perception,
in the Indian nation
followed
even
father
were
told
in the post-1948
generation
Many
to keep a safe distance
from Hindu
nationalists.
of the nation.16
by their parents
A weak
political
acquired
force
for
political
unprecedented
a century,
strength
Hindu
since
nationalism
has
the mid-1980s.
At
no point before 1989 did theHindu nationalists receive even a tenth
In 1989, this share
vote. The average was 7 percent.
to 11.4 percent, and, in 1991, to over 20 percent.
Electorally
has
nationalism
to northern
and western
India, Hindu
of the national
increased
confined
politically penetrated all parts of India, including the South and the
East.
In the southern
of the vote
western
in 1991.17
India,
state of Karnataka,
In Gujarat, Mahatma
its share
of
the vote
it won
nearly 29 percent
home state in
Gandhi's
in 1991 was
a remarkable
51
233
Contested Meanings
The 1991 elections
percent.
brought BJP governments
four states: Uttar Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan,
to power
in
and Himachal
Pradesh. Of these, Uttar Pradesh is the biggest state in India, and
Pradesh
Madhya
the biggest.
among
Equally important, by 1991 support for Hindu nationalism had
gone
the urban
beyond
trading
include villagers and the modernized
classes.18
known
Hardly
its customary
community,
for Hindu
to
base,
(and modernizing) middle
in
and Westernized
religiosity
their daily life, nearly thirty retired generals, including a Jewish
former general, joined the BJP in 1991. So did a host of former civil
servants.
was
For
a moment
a party customarily
of great symbolic
associated
with
The
it
obscurantism,
BJP savored
the
mosque
in
significance.
and proudly
its modern
recruits.
displayed
not
It is
clear whether
the demolition
of the Babri
moment
of 1992 will ultimately hurt or strengthen the Hindu
December
nationalists.19
That
of a mosque
could
in and of
demonstrates,
ideology.20
last politically
as inconceivable
as the mass demolition
something
as a political
be undertaken
and executed
project
itself, the new mobilizing
assassination
of Mahatma
Gandhi
The
manifestation
critical
of
to mobilize
capacity
individual who
act of Hindu
its organized
the masses.
was motivated
THREE STRAINS AND TWO
IDENTITY AND HINDU
nationalism,
nor
strength
IMAGINATIONS:
answer,
world.22
identities
as indeed
but
that was
this
the
not
a
an
of its
expression
act of an angry
of Hindu
nationalism.21
an insane
by the ideology
INDIA'S NATIONAL
NATIONALISM
is an Indian? Deceptively
Who
It was
of
capacity
in 1948 was
it is with
respect
simple, the question
to several
other
on comparative
nationalism
suggests
have historically
been based on several principles
Literature
is hard to
nations
in the
that national
of collective
belonging: ethnicity (Japan, Italy, Germany, and much of Europe),
religion (Ireland, Pakistan, and parts of theMiddle East), ideology
in the United
(successfully
Union
and Yugoslavia),
States, unsuccessfully
and territory
(Spain,
in the former
Soviet
Switzerland,
and
a
number of ThirdWorld nations).23 One should note that the territorial
idea
inevitably
becomes
part
of all nation-states,
but
territory
not have to be the defining principle of national
identity.24
does
234
Ashutosh Varshney
in some cases,
Moreover,
collective
Rather,
belonging.
one
of
which
becomes
exist,
another
time. As
no
there may
be
competing
dominant
notions
Stanley Hoffmann
clear
of
of
principle
identity may
the other at
at one
time,
there are two competing
argues,
views about the French identity.One isbased on the French Revolution
and the principles of freedom and equality, which bring French
national
identity
quite
to the definition
close
of the American
nation.
A second one is based on quasi-ethnicity (conceptualized as history
and heritage), which in French history leads to the Vichy regime
States, as Samuel Huntington
today.25 In the United
constituents
the
of
the
"American
argued,
key
creed"?liberty,
and the rule of law? have not
individualism,
democracy,
equality,
and
to Le Pen
has
nor can they possibly,
together,
always existed
a coherent
set.26
logical
What
for they do not
turns on the distinctive principles of national
form
identity?
vary. Some of the most passionate
political
implications
political
moments
have been over the issues of freedom
of America
and
Their
have been over ethnicity.
just as those of Germany
Similarly,
strains in national
identity open up distinctive
competing
political
one direction
a
in
Excessive
drift
forth
and
reaction,
brings
logics.
to
momentum.
strains
A
competing
begin
acquire
political
rising
equality,
people today are feeling threatened by the increasing
is conceptualized
of France, which
ethnic diversity
by some as a
monoethnic
society, a conception
opposed
by others as too narrow
number
and
of French
destructive
of
as Huntington
history,
when
any one value
minority
of
the principles
has argued,
rights; higher
individualism
is taken
In American
the Republic.27
"Conflicts
easily materialize
to an extreme:
law versus
popular
rule versus
majority
liberty versus
sovereignty;
versus
democracy."28
national movement,
three competing
themes about India?territorial,
cultural, and religious?have
fought
notion
is that India has a
The territorial
for political
dominance.
enclosed between
the Indus river, the Himalayas,
"sacred geography,"
equality;
Since
the rise of the Indian
the Seas, and emphasized
the time of the Mahabharata.29
and
tolerance,
pluralism,
and
for twenty-five
The cultural
syncretism
define
years since
is that ideas of
hundred
notion
Indian
society.
India
is
not only the birthplace of several religions (Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism, and Sikhism), but in its history it has also regularly received,
accommodated,
and absorbed
"outsiders"
(Parsis, Jews,
and "Syrian"
235
Contested Meanings
of St. Thomas,
arriving as early as the second
it reached Europe).
India before
reached
thus Christianity
century,
even syncretistic
and
of
culture
forms
In the process,
syncretistic
become
and
have
forms of religious
part of
emerged
worship30
a coming
and
which means
from syncretism,
India. Apart
together
Christians?followers
of cultures,
merging
and
pluralism
tolerance
also
have
existed
with
finding their niche in India and developing
different communities
Sarva Dharma
Sambhava
of interaction.31
principles
of
is the best cultural
for all religions)
expression
(equal respect
such pluralism.
Finally, the religious notion is that India is originally the land of the
Hindus, and it is the only landwhich theHindus can call their own.
the Hindu
India has
holy
Rameswaram,
(Benaras, Tirupati,
now
and the
and
Kedarnath,
Ayodhya)
places
Badrinath,
Puri, Haridwar,
of the last
and the confluence
holy rivers (Cauveri, Ganga, Yamuna,
two in Prayag). Most
of India is, and has been, Hindu
by religion32?
to
in
70
the
twentieth
65
between
century
percent
early
anywhere
and
82 percent
today.
of
deal
great
ethnic
society: a faith in Hinduism
within Hindu
exist
may
diversity
brings the diversity
is a Hindu
in this fashion
India viewed
together.
A
nation.33
In
The three identity principles have their political equivalents.
the territorial
discourse,
political
"territorial
integrity";
the cultural
and the religious
pluralism";
idea
is called
idea
idea is known
"national
is expressed
as Hindutva,34
unity"
as
or
"political
or political
The political notion of pluralism itself has two meanings,
Hinduism.
issues. The principle
of
and religious
the linguistic
dealing with
to respect the linguistic diversity
of India:
federalism was developed
not only would
but the ruling
the states be organized
linguistically
be
would
also
autonomy
party
federally
organized,
leaving enough
about religion has
for state-level
party units. The political
principle
so that
In general,
be left untouched
religion would
state
to
in
if
could
but
the
did
have
exist,
society
religious pluralism
so
in religious
it
strict
would
do
with
intervene
neutrality.
disputes,
two
The
levels.
state would
came
to define
These
India's
maintain
India's
strains
three
national
The
nationalist.
and
religion
best source
a posture
secularism.
have
yielded
of equidistance,
territory.
is Jawaharlal
and
territory
the secular nationalist
Nehru's
that
two principal
about
imaginations
secular nationalist
and the Hindu
identity?the
former combines
For
a principle
The Discovery
culture;
the
latter
the
construction,
of India. Syncretism,
236
Ashutosh Varshney
are the main
and tolerance
pluralism,
India's history:
themes
of Nehru's
recalling
of
Ancient
in itself, a culture and
India, like ancient China, was a world
a civilization which gave shape to all things. Foreign influences poured
in and often influenced that culture and were absorbed.
Disruptive
to an attempt to find a synthesis.
tendencies gave rise immediately
Some kind of a dream of unity has occupied
the mind of India since
the dawn of civilization.
That unity was not conceived as something
.of beliefs. Itwas something
imposed from outside, a standardization..
its fold, the widest
tolerance of belief and custom
deeper and, within
was practised and every variety acknowledged
and even encouraged.35
Notice
culture,
of India, while
the
Aurangzeb,
finds
nationalists,
Amir
Nanak,
or pluralistic
figures,
subscribing
faiths37?are
the heroes of India's history
Guru
Kabir,
Ashoka,
all syncretistic
Indian
in
unity
a
of
conception
"holyland."
and Gandhi?
Khusro,
Akbar,
that Nehru,
unlike Hindu
in religion.36 He has no
not
intolerant
Moghul,
to a variety
of
in The Discovery
"puts the clock
back."38
to illustrate
the difference
the best way
between
culture
Perhaps
to
is
cite Nehru's
will. Nehru wanted
and religion
his ashes scattered
not
in the Ganga,
it was
culturally
because
it was
religiously
necessary
but because
appropriate:
. .A small handful
I die, I should like my body to be cremated.
When
of (my) ashes should be thrown into the Ganga..
.My desire to have
a handful of my ashes thrown into the Ganga at Allahabad
has no
so
as
am
I
I
far
concerned.
have
been
attached
religious significance,
ever since my childhood
to the Ganga and Jamuna rivers inAllahabad
as
I
this
attachment
has
.The Ganga,
have
grown...
grown older,
and,
is the river of India, beloved of her people, round which
especially,
are intertwined..
.her hopes and fears, her songs of triumph, her
victories and her defeats.
She has been a symbol of India's age-long
and yet ever the
culture and civilization,
ever-changing,
ever-flowing,
me
a
a
to
same Ganga...
.Ganga has been
symbol and memory of the
past of India, running into the present and flowing on the great ocean
of the future.39
To
religious Hindus,
India's culture,
of
part
but
literal,
metaphorical.
not
literally
is sacred. To Nehru,
itwas
the river Ganga
was not
dear. The
sacredness
and equally
was
India's geography
sacred,
Similarly,
emotions
The
and attachment
but metaphorically.
237
Contested Meanings
were equally intense. To draw a parallel,
by the geography
a
not have be
and love the land
Jew to celebrate
religious
can
also
do
that.
Consider
how Nehru
of Israel. Secular
Jews
narrates
of India?as
and
the geography
topos, not as a
territory
generated
one does
holyland:
I think of India, I think of broad fields dotted with innumerable
.of the magic of the rainy season which pours life into
small villages..
it suddenly into a glistening
the dry parched-up
land and converts
expanse of beauty and greenery, or great rivers and flowing water...
When
of
.and above all, of the Himalayas,
tip of India...
or some mountain
in the spring,
valley in Kashmir
new flowers, and with a brook bubbling and gurgling
the southern
snow-capped,
covered with
through it.40
As
discussed
their own
strains
earlier, multiple
An
political
of a national
excessive
shift
implications.
a reaction.
Let us take secular
produces
an example.
If secular nationalists
violate the principle
on the argument
let us say, by attacking
federalism
identity have
one of
towards
the strains
as
nationalism
of pluralism?
that too much
a serious principle
unity?
they undermine
a
to
of the nation
reaction.
Such attacks
itself, and begin
generate
to the concerned
state's view of national
do not correspond
identity,
which has a place for regional identity as well. A man from Tamilnadu
federalism
is both
weakens
national
and an Indian.
a Tamilian
Sometimes
the reaction
takes
the
form of separatist
in turn, generate
And these agitations,
agitations.
concern
about
territorial
The
solution
thus
integrity.
centralizing
worsens
the disease.
Indira Gandhi
undermined
federalism
repeatedly
on the grounds
of "national
integrity,"
only to generate
separatist
nationalisms.
the other hand, one can also go too far in protecting
pluralism.
was
a special
status
in the Indian Constitution.
given
was
to be responsible
Delhi
for foreign
affairs,
defense,
only
and the currency;
the state government
would
communications,
On
Kashmir
handle
the rest. Other
arrangement,
Indian
thus, had
states had
the potential
fewer powers.
of contradicting
The Kashmir
the territorial
principle ifKashmiris claimed they were still unhappy. Nehru
Kashmir
and was
instrumental
in shaping
its special
status,
loved
but he
himself had to deploy force to quell Sheikh Abdullah's vacillations
between
India
and
independence.41
A
second
form
of
pluralism
238
Ashutosh Varshney
deemed
excessive
harmful
and therefore
laws."
"personal
under a common
for national
the various
Should
religious
their distinct
or under
integrity concerns
in India be
groups
laws? If
religious
laws destroy national
that separate personal
a reaction
in the religious
whose
unity,
community
they generate
on
the other hand,
laws are at issue.
If,
they promote
personal
on
concessions
minorities
that
such
make
the
laws
argument
personal
a
set
in
that the
reaction
the
off
secure, they
majority
community
state may have gone too far in minority
up
appeasement,
opening
secular nationalists
fissiparous
civil code
claim
tendencies
national
and undermining
unity.42
Since the territorial principle is drawn from a belief in ancient
heritage,
encapsulated
in the notion
figures in both imaginations,
over
time.
nationalist
political
of
"sacred
geography,"
and
it has acquired political hegemony
in common
between
the two competing
as
most passionate
America's
Therefore,
just
imaginations.
concern
moments
and equality,
India's most
freedom
It is the only
thing
concern
the 1947 partition
its "sacred geography,"
explosive moments
most
the
threat
of another
Whenever
obvious
the
example.
being
breakup,
another
partition,
looms,
it unleashes
remarkable
passions
in politics. Politics based on this imagination is quite different from
seen when Malaysia
was
and Singapore
split from each other
in
the Czech
and Slovak Republics
in the 1960s, or when
separated
an
not
of
their
national
inalienable
1992. Territory
part
being such
were not desecrations.
In India,
divorces
territorial
these
identity,
what
however,
they become
identities
If national
reason),43
answered.
tolerance,
an
Why
and
desecrations
of the sacred
are imaginations
counterfactual
important
(though
geography.
not unreal for that
to be
remains
question
not put the ideas of pluralism,
did secular nationalists
so that
at
of India's definition,
heart
the
syncretism
the territorial idea was displaced? Why
could it not be a purely
and syncretism which
of tolerance,
pluralism,
imagination
between
for the tensions
in principle
could be a solution
territory
the
father
of
embodied
the
Mahatma
culture?
and
nation,
Gandhi,
was a source
these ideas in his person and politics.44
That, however,
cultural
of strength aswell as an impediment. Gandhi, a devout Hindu both
in
to mobilize
the masses
in his private and public
life, used religion
to
a
movement
the
educated
confined
the national movement,
turning
in the
into a mass movement
classes
and anglicized
upper middle
1920s.
Given
Gandhi's
religiosity,
these
ideas
got
inextricably
239
Contested Meanings
with
entangled
Muslims.
Hinduism,
making
the founder
For Jinnah,
was Hindu
under Gandhi
mass movement
created
them
suspect
in the eyes of many
Indian nationalism
of Pakistan,
The nonviolent,
and shook
the British,
nationalism.
a nation
religious foundations of mass politics
inclusive
but
the
led also to Hindu-Muslim
riots.
Because
with
Gandhi
and tolerance
became
associated
syncretism,
pluralism,
in their construction
and Hinduism,
the secularists
of
identity sought to escape the religious trappings. The political
in putting
consisted
these ideas at the heart of India's
challenge
of
them
India's dominant
discourse
definition,
part
making
political
national
linking them to Hinduism?that
without
them
is, explicitly defending
as inalienable
parts of Indian culture common
It is conceivable
of India.
and communities
traditions
Nehru
his
and
colleagues
They did not. Nehru
have
might
undertaken
to all religious
that a secular
this
challenge.
sought instead a solution in modernity
economic
big dams
became
and
of the modern
development:
"temples
that all interpretations
of India's past would
generate
a national
that creating
idea in terms of India's past
controversy,
was
he tried to make modernization
and
inherently
problematic,
age."
Believing
on
identity, something
could agree. National
everyone
presumably
identity, by this
itself from a common
past or from common
reading, could dissociate
economic
development
the basis
for national
towards
a common
which
and gravitate
origins,
Let us forget
purpose.
future: this was Nehru's
and
the traditional
discourse,
ideological
to modernity.
commitment
political
Nehru
future or a common
let us build a modern
past,
refrain.
State policy,
thought, would
deepen
As a consequence,
institutions,
the nation's
the historically
derived
ideas of pluralism and tolerance became the implicit idiom of
Nehruvian politics: while they informed his political conduct, they
were
not explicitly
articulated
since Nehru
has paid
and
tolerance.
pluralism
Politics
From
Religion
versus
as the basis of India's national
identity.
even less attention
to the principles
of
Culture
to Religion
as Culture
Finding a blending of territory and pluralism insufficient, theHindu
nationalists
a nation.
embodied
argue that politics,
Emotions
and loyalty
do not make
laws, and institutions
in the secular view is
do. Pluralism
in laws (such as personal
laws and the protection of
240
Ashutosh Varshney
educational
institutions)
minority
as federalism).
to Hindu
According
and
in political
institutions
laws can always
nationalists,
politically manipulated,45 and a proliferation of prominority
led to the building of a cohesive
nation.
tendencies"
have
Rather
regularly
erupted.
is the source of India's
from Hinduism,
which
has not
explicitly ground politics inHinduism,
(such
be
laws
Instead, "fissiparous
than running
away
culture,
one
should
not in laws and institutions:
The Hindu Rashtra
[nation] is essentially cultural in content, whereas
the so-called secular concept pertains to the state and is limited to the
territorial and political aspects of the Nation.
[T]he mere territorial
essence can never be
from
its
divorced
cultural
concept
cum-political
to
to
the
impart any sanctity
country's unity. The emotional
expected
can
be furnished only by culture and once that
binding of the people
is snapped then there remains no logical argument against the demand
by any part to separate
In their
above
of Hinduism,
Hindu
of Hinduism?Hinduism
conception
two meanings
between
quotation
itself from the country.46
suggests),
nationalists
fluctuate
as a culture
as a religion.
and Hinduism
not the name of a religious faith like theMuslim
(as the
is
"Hindu
and the Christian;
a top-ranking
life here," declares
Sheshadri,
In the same vein, Advani,
RSS
leader.
President
of the BJP, once
since
is
Hinduism
the
of
the
that
nation, Muslims
description
argued
it denotes
the national
Sikhs could be called Sikh Hindus,
could be called Muslim Hindus,
could
and Christians
when
However,
be called
Hindu
Christian
Hindus.47
make
nationalists
speeches
and the rituals
imagery,
sense).
It is not
inHindustan
over
is for Hindu
While
meaning,
meant
they are correct
those who
lived
(the everyday term for India inmuch of the North),
"Indian"
has
term,
Labels
acquire
meaning.48
For a secular nationalist,
are clearly
nationalists.
in its original
the last few centuries
and
(religious in an idol-worshipping
the intended
distinction
between
are sanatani
at all clear what
religion and culture
that the term Hindu,
for the liberation
is imbued with religious
of Lord Ram's birthplace, the phraseology
the term
"Hindu"
has become
"Hindu"
replaced
new meanings
the two
for
the
a religious
civilizational
in history.
and culture?
terms?religion
are properties
tolerance
of all
A
and not simply of Hinduism.
and
syncretism
separable:
in India,
and communities
religions
of Indian culture does not
celebration
require
one
to be a Hindu.
241
Contested Meanings
For Hindu
synonymous.
into
symbols
the
nationalists,
They make
two
their
and Hindu?are
terms?India
no special attempts
of culture.
conceptions
to incorporate Muslim
The Hindu
nationalist
monuments
to the great Moghul
such as the Taj Mahal
names of North
unclear. Many
object even to the Muslim
attitude
remains
Indian cities: Aligarh, they say, should be called Harigarh, Allahabad
and
Prayag,
Lucknow
so critical
The Hindu
for the secular
nationalist
on Islam
discourse
nationalist
the cultural
blend into each other, and the
and religious meanings of Hinduism
distinction
In Hindutva,
Lakshmanpur.49
disappears.
is selective and ominous.
two broad forms: syncretist and exclusivist.
Islam developed
into the preexisting
Indian culture,
Islam
just
Syncretistic
integrated
In India,
as Indonesian Muslims
their pre-Islamic
heritage of Ramayana
Islam may
be a personal
Exclusivist
and Mahabharata.
faith, or
an ideology,
sometimes
may also enter the political
sphere, becoming
Islam
has
fundamentalist
Syncretistic
qualities.50
produced
displaying
retained
some
and literature.
of the pillars of Indian culture, music,
poetry,
to conceptualize
ifMuslim
India's culture
It is not possible
today
are completely
excluded. Moreover,
Indian Muslims
have
influences
an anti-Muslim
Pakistan.
By generating
against
110 million
threaten
nationalists
Hindu
discourse,
embittering
in
those
their
Muslims
syncretistic
including
religiosity
permanently,
to
Islam is a faith, a way
and culture,
and also those for whom
also
wars
fought
sustain
argue
against
One may
lives, but not a political
ideology.
is
and ideological
battle
of nationalists
that the political
can
and Muslim
How
Islamic fundamentalism
separatism.
troubled
private
it be against all those who profess faith in Islam? In the Hindu
nationalist
discourse,
is its natural
hysteria
It should
blur.
easily
An
anti-Muslim
outcome.
now
are
secular and Hindu
be clear why
nationalisms
so
and
have
remained
for
decades.
adversaries,
ideological
way,
ingenious
these distinctions
Mahatma
Gandhi
to combine
sought
In an
the
two.
Tolerance
and pluralism, he argued, stemmed from his belief in
Hinduism.
Being
could
easily
a Hindu
go together.
and having
Frequently
respect
referring
for Muslim
culture
to his appreciation
of
Christianity, Buddhism, and Jainism, he never defined India as a
Hindu
nation.51
The
nation,
religions; being aMuslim
Indian.
he
argued,
should
incorporate
all
in no way excluded one from being an
242
Ashutosh Varshney
of course,
Gandhi,
its political
and failed. India acquired
to persuade
but he was unable
Jinnah
from
Pakistan.
creating
"Midnight's
succeeded
and
identity
independence,
and
the Muslim
League
were
India and Pakistan,
born
independent
together.
failure to prevent
the partition
of India sent two signals.
Children,"
Gandhi's
To the secular nationalists,
Indian
and
religion
it highlighted
To
nationalism.
the antinomy between
the Hindu
reinforced their belief in the complementarity
and
the
between
death,
Islam
on
nation
Indian
and
therefore,
one
nationalism
Indian
Hindu
the
and
secular
it
nationalists,
between Hinduism
and a basic
hand,
antinomy
on the other.
Since Gandhi's
nationalisms
have
been
locked
in a conflict for political power and for the ideological shaping of
India. The first battle for political and ideological hegemony after
independence
not so clearly
was
won
in favor
the battle
by secular nationalism;
The context
of secular nationalists.
is
today
since the
1980s has changed.
HAS THE "SECULAR PROJECT" UNRAVELED?
The Organizational
Decay
of the Congress Party
In twentieth-century
of secular nationalism
embodiment
India, the principal
organizational
a powerful
Once
has been the Congress
party.
with
the
and
of
the nation,
associated
building
founding
organization
the Congress
colossus.
Nations,
party is today a rusty, clay-footed
are politically
not
as we know,
do
exist.
created;
Just
they
naturally
over the course of many
were
as peasants
into Frenchmen
turned
to turn an old civilization
into a
attempted
years,52 the Congress
nation in the first half of the early twentieth century. Of the other
countries
large multiethnic
and Yugoslavia
Soviet Union
on the basis of conciliation
was
based
on
in the world,53
the Communists
also sought to create nations,
and
in the
but not
Because
their nation
democracy.
a
not clear how deeply
it was
coercion,
building
or a Bait was
or how ardent a Georgian
Croat
felt for Yugoslavia,
the masses
The Congress
for the Soviet Union.54
party mobilized
into a national movement,
pride and belief in India, and,
generated
an ideology
an ideology
most
of nonviolence,
of all, maintained
that emphasized that even the British were to be politically defeated,
not
killed.
While
violence
erupted
periodically,
it was
not
the
243
Contested Meanings
cornerstone
almost
of
three
movement.
the national
decades.
As
a result,
The
the
mobilization
idea of
India
lasted
as a nation
reached every part of India. By the 1930s and 1940s, Gandhi,
and the Congress
Nehru,
party were everywhere.
of an insurgency
until recently,
they were viewed
a
Hindu-Muslim-Sikh
insurgent Kashmir,
today's
embraced
Gandhi
Nor
coalition
openly
burning with communal
The emergence
of Pakistan was the greatest
The Muslim
could not be won over.
League
even as the rest of India was
over partition.
of the Congress.
the Muslim
could
violence
failure
In Punjab,
the site
as local folk.
In
in good
subcontinent,
India so painstakingly
over
win
League
of the
part because
promoted
in the
all Muslims
of
idea
interreligious
party.
by the Congress
Indira Gandhi (1969-1984) and Rajiv Gandhi (1985
1991), the Congress declined as an institution. Electoral success
Under
emaciation.
coexisted with organizational
The organizational
decay
of the Congress
coincides with
Indira Gandhi's
rise to unquestioned
to promote
had used his charisma
power by the early 1970s. Nehru
not
to undermine
the
it, strengthening
intraparty
democracy,
in
to
the
Indira
Gandhi
used
her
charisma
process.
organization
on
make
the party utterly
her, suspending
dependent
intraparty
as a result.
and debate,
and weakening
the organization
democracy
were
Nehru's
in
debated
party forums,
positions
ideological
openly
and sometimes
state
rejected.
Party elections
regularly
produced
even when
disagreeable,
on the party.
her
respected.
imposed
positions
She would
the state-level
leaders if they dared to oppose
suspend
not
state
to elect its leader.
she
would
allow
the
unit
Since this
her;
a
not
in
could
be done
that elected
its office holders,
she
party
level
were
leaders;
their
democratic
victories,
Indira Gandhi
She also tried
party elections.55
finally did away with
national
but
that
failed
elections,
attempt
miserably.56
an organizational
there was
and
By the late 1980s,
ideological
the Congress was listless.
it stood
for. Professing
vacuum
in Indian politics. Organizationally,
not obvious
it was
what
Ideologically,
secularism,
purposes.
embraced
its leaders
Professing
the market.
undifferentiated,
patronage.
What
were
unafraid
some
socialism,
The Congress
unanchored medley
is worse,
most
to suspend
to use
of
for political
religion
its leaders wholeheartedly
is no
longer
a party
but
an
of individuals sustained by
opposition
parties
have
followed
244
Ashutosh Varshney
the Congress'
elections
lead. They do not have organizational
either,
matter
cohesion.
for that
do they show ideological
to this institutional
rot:
There
have been two major
exceptions
nor
the Communist
class-based
Party of India, Marxist
of the CPM
mobilization
has
(CPM) and the BJP. The
some
inherent
limitations
in India, making it hard for the CPM to extend its popularity
beyond isolated pockets. At the national level, the discipline of the
to the Congress.
If the available
emerge as an alternative
are
in Ayodhya
of the Babri mosque
the demolition
correct,
reports
was
in discipline.57
failure
Before
the party's
first major
that, the
BJP may
BJP came increasingly to be associated with a party that could claim
discipline,
government
corruption.
and organization.
not tainted with
probity,
principles,
for long,58 it was
Most
and
politicians
parties
not been in
Having
a lust for power
or
looked
hopelessly
compromised by the end of the 1980s. It is to be seenwhether these
images of the BJP will survive the Ayodhya imbroglio.
Secularism
as a Modernist
Ideology
Judaism in India for nearly
itwent to Europe, and
time
the
2,000 years, Christianity
for more than 1,200 years; it is traditional India which
Zorastrianism
.As India gets modernized,
has shown such tolerance...
religious
riots
.In the earlier centuries,
is increasing..
violence
inter-religious
were
rare and localized...
and
somehow,
.[S]omewhere
religious
vision of life
violence has something to do with the urban-industrial
It is not modern
India which
has tolerated
from before
and with
the political
process
the vision
lets loose.
?Ashis
to the contradiction
Nandy59
the
analysts draw
in
undoubted
everyday life, on
though slow spread of secularization
on the
rise of fundamentalism,
the one hand, and the unmistakable
are only apparently contradictory,
other. But surely these phenomena
Social
attention
between
iswhat secularism
of faith, which
for in truth it is the marginalization
is, that permits the perversion of religion. There are no fundamentalists
or revivalists
in traditional
society.
?T.
N.
Madan60
a
and Ashis Nandy,
by T. N. Madan
in
in
India
has
secularism
argument
emerged
against
powerful
to the
recent
is collapsing,
secularism
India's
years.
according
not
but
far enough,
it has
antisecularist
gone
view, not because
With
these words
written
245
Contested Meanings
it has
because
too
gone
far.
is a victim
Secularism
its official
of
success.
on
at two
levels?a
argument
larger
proceeds
an India-specific
level. The theoretical
attack
in the generic
of modernity,
is embedded
critique
antisecularist
The
level and
theoretical
secularism
now
so common
in the disciplines
of anthropology,
literary criticism,
and history (especially of the developing world).
Secularism, in this
concomitant
of the project of modernity,
view, is a necessary
as facing
is
serious
viewed
and rationality.
Modernity
difficulties all over the world,
revivals.
basic
The
itmocks
leading to religious
flaw
of modernity,
for his morality,
the believer
science,
political
(and ethnic)
to this view, is that
according
no alternative
but it provides
of life is, what
of what
the purpose
the good
life is, or
conception
in our families and communities.
ourselves
how we should conduct
Politics
founded
irremediable
on
defects.
such
No
a modernist,
means
secular
are considered
vision
suffers
detestable
from
so
enough
long as they facilitate the realization of political ends. Holding
source of ethics, and having
sacred,
lacking an alternative
nothing
no internal restraints on political
and secularism
behavior, modernity
cannot
Because
of
human
denude
live
morality.
politics
beings
notions
without
creates
on
right
the defensive,
to the origins
Pointing
that
it
argue
and wrong,
the
secular
and modernist
setting off a religious
of secularism,
the
is a Western
concept
with
it
because
Moreover,
increasing popular
skepticism.
condescension
toward
secularism
religion,
project
also generates
believer
of
puts
the
reaction.
antisecularists
also
in
foundations
the
Enlightenment and Reformation. The Enlightenment heralded the
supremacy
of
for
reason
over
his
salvation
belief,
and,
without
the individual
by making
the intermediation
of the
responsible
the rise of Protestantism
made
the separation
of the state
Church,
Secularism
in Western
and Church
became
embedded
possible.
is no similar civilizational
culture. There
in
niche
for secularism
India.
was,
Religion
and
meaning
morality
and
remains
for most
today,
Indians.
source
the ultimate
Communal
riots
of
never
took place in traditional India, for traditional religiosity allowed for
of religious tolerance and coexistence.
however,
principles
Modernity,
has led to two results in the realm of religion and politics.
Because
of the link between
secularism
and amoral politics,
riots
communal
in India have
increased
with
the advent
of modernity.
And
because
246
Ashutosh Varshney
on the defensive,
fundamentalism
the believer
places
two sides of the same coin. Principles
have become
secularism
secularism
and
of tolerance will have to be derived from traditional India in the
manner
of Mahatma
not
Gandhi,
as
secularism
from modernist
did.
Nehru
in an argument
the
about
engage
of
For
and
between
purposes
morality.
modernity
to
Indian politics
of "modernist
the application
logic"
is not
This
relationship
this paper,
is more
the
to
place
suffice
It will
pertinent.
and secularism
modernity
lead
life is philosophically
in human
The
Enlightenment.
to reverberate
to note
to a moral
spiritual
of the Counter-Enlightenment
fields of knowledge:
literature,
even
in the natural
surprisingly,
themes
and
sciences,
several
Moreover,
of
students
leading
that
vacuum
in the Counter
grounded
in several
social
view
the
that
and
rationality
are morally
continue
philosophy,
sciences.61
accept
neutral.
the
As
(and science)
rationality
are
and
science
Einstein
Albert
essentially
rationality
argued,
Unless
not
about
about
morally
grounded,
"is,"
"ought."
in moral
Embedded
can indeed be destructive.
ends,
rationality
to human
life.
a
can
contribution
remarkable
it
make
however,
claim
that
Nuclear
this
energy,
reasoning.62
antisecularists
The
neutral.
morally
may
not
It does
leads
therefore
secularism)
religious
tolerant
society
indeed
system.
if there
is the
be
right
however,
follow,
to intolerance
of
contrasting
conceptions
and
also be intolerant
each
to Einstein,
according
truth,
violent,
Moral
religiously
notwithstanding
men
do not
are multiple
and
best
example
of
is
that modernity
that modernity
(or
Given
and violence.
men may
driven
the morality
make
necessarily
exclusive
of
a
conceptions
of morality.
The antisecularists
of tradition,
the tolerant
do not distinguish
or between
Mughal
the various
ruler,
types
and Aurangzeb,
between different types
of modernity.
Akbar,
the intolerant
one,
were both products of medieval India. Akbar built bridges across
communities; Aurangzeb destroyed them. Not only did he repress
"infidels"
to impose
"heretics"
Shikoh,
but he also sought
groups),
religious
Muslim
the
within
community,
targeting
purity
religious
Dara
his own brother,
and killing
and "apostates,"
was
Islam
used
he
crime
Shikoh's
in the process.
heresy:
(the non-Islamic
247
Contested Meanings
to combine
to justify his attempt
features of Islam and Hinduism.
can thus be tolerant
as well
as brutally
tradition
and
Religion
violent.63
Varieties
of Secularism
Innocence
and
Tolerance,
(and Modernity):
and
modernity
Similarly,
Two
trends have marked
can
secularism
recent
the
come
Arrogance,
in various
of
behavior
India's
forms.
secular
One may be called secular arrogance,
the other secular
Secular arrogance was best exemplified
by Indira Gandhi,
are very
Gandhi.
of
variants
Both
these
secular innocence
by Rajiv
can
which
different
from Nehru's
be
called
secular
secularism,
politicians.
innocence.
tolerance.64
Nehru,
a modernist,
have held
might
strong
reservations
about religion, but his private beliefs did not translate into an
arrogant abuse of religion in public life. It is principles in public
life, rather
than
cosmologies
governing
issue. In their private lives, Nehru,
all been
have
a-religious
life, which
are at
Indira and Rajiv Gandhi may
there
(though
private
are
indications
that
Indira
Gandhi turned towards religion in the last years of her life). In their
public life, however,
they were profoundly
and secular
associated
with
innocence,
the last decade,
that tolerance
different.
India's
view best.
fit the Nandy-Madan
over
time would
degenerate
Secular
arrogance
of
decline
political
Itwas not preordained
into arrogance
and
innocence.
is the idea that political
be used
arrogance
power may
or to subdue him. The believer
to co-opt
the believer,
is
not only as an object of modernization/secularization
(an
Secular
either
viewed
aim which a number of modernists
including Nehru agreed with),
as a pawn on the political
which modernists
chessboard,
never
worst
In
like Nehru
its
form, secular arrogance
imagined.
but
also
combines two drives: the use of the believer by the politician for
secular,
political
purposes,
and
the wish
to crush
him.
This kind of process was initiated by IndiraGandhi. Her political
dalliance with Sikh religious extremism in the late 1970s was
dangerous. To defeat the Akali Dal, amoderate Sikh party which
competed with the Congress in Punjab, she used a religious leader,
Sant Bhindranwale. Religious preachers like Bhindranwale felt that
the Sikh community was losing its soul, in part by the economic
prosperity that the Green Revolution had brought about. Indira
248
Ashutosh Varshney
Gandhi
not
would
Akali
concede
the
secular
demands
share of river waters
(a greater
of fiscal resources),
but she conceded
factions
investment
of the moderate
or a
larger federal
several demands
of
the religious extreme (declaring Amritsar a Holy City, banning
smoking there, and allowing Sikh religious broadcasts over the
state-controlled
That was
radio).65
in striking
to the situation
contrast
in the late 1950s and early 1960s when religious issues figured in
Punjab politics. Nehru refused to legitimate theMaster Tara Singh
faction
associated
a
with
based
religiously
he
Instead,
politics.
strengthened the Sant Fateh Singh faction associated with linguistic
demands,
the
defeating
neither politically
nor would
religion,
religious
trifle with
he
in the
faction
end.66 He
would
to
religion, despite his opposition
legitimate
leaders
religious
in politics.
Indira Gandhi used religion for political purposes; Bhindranwale
used politics for his religious pursuits. She achieved a dubious
success
in the end.
politics,
control.
were
targeted
The moderate
but
Akali
her rivals in party
factions,
out of
the preacher
and his men went
and his followers
piety, Bhindranwale
weakened,
to restore
Seeking
the heretics and apostates,
then the "infidels."
They
eventually
took shelter in the Golden Temple, the Vatican of the Sikhs, and
conducted their religious mission from there. Indira Gandhi finally
ordered
The
event
the army
desecration
to invade
inHindu-Sikh
of
the temple.67
was
a transformative
Temple
It led to Indira Gandhi's
assassination
the Golden
relations.
by her Sikh bodyguards. June 6, 1984 (the attack on the Golden
Temple) and October 31, 1984 (Indira Gandhi's assassination)
began
a cycle
of desecration
and
Even
revenge.
the most
patriotic
Sikhs felt violated by her desecration of the Golden Temple. A large
part of theHindu middle class was equally revolted by the action of
her Sikh bodyguards.
Indira Gandhi's
motivations
remain unclear,
are
several
Amoral, Machiavellian
interpretations
although
possible.
to be her hallmark.
statecraft was known
the moderate
Weakening
Akalis
was
her goal;
the
legitimacy
of means
was
not
an
issue
for
her. Given her notion of politics and power, in all probability she
imagined that state power would ultimately subdue Bhindranwale;
that
would
even
a mighty
desecration,
the
Sikh
co-opt
community,
after
either
the
enticements
or crush
of power
its "pretensions."
She paid for this arrogance with her life, and itmay take a long
while before the Hindu-Sikh wounds are fully healed.
249
Contested Meanings
as
Secularism
can
innocence
if combined
with
spell danger
In India, secularism
is not defined
the state and church.68 The founders
also
of secularism.
India's definition
as a radical separation
between
that
argued
in the Indian
context,
the state
keeping
equally
distant
from all religions and not letting it favor any one in public policy
was
the best
solution.
in a radical
the clarity entailed
a
as equidistance
is
nebulous
Unlike
secularism
church-state
concept.
can also be translated as equal proximity.
state
ismoving
one particular
move
subsequently
towards
can
the distance,
such equalizing
But
communities.
unstable
Nehru,
equidistance
Shah
distrust
into
all
the religious
in religion.
An
around. Under
Under
equiproximity.
itwas.
Rajiv Gandhi,
The
soothing
embroiled
results,
breeding
was
not turned
equilibrium
the state, to equalize
other religions.
Each
at
gets more
separation,
distance
If it is alleged that the
religion,
towards
aimed
be
step may
the state
Equal
was
turning
point
a Muslim
Bano,
the
Shah
Bano
filed
woman,
case
in the mid-1980s.
for maintenance
after
being
divorced by her husband. The husband argued that maintenance
was
not permissible
the country's
under
under
Court
Supreme
civil
argued
Islamic
law. Shah Bano sought protection
not
the Islamic personal
code.
The
law,
that the country's
civil law overrode
any
a Muslim
personal
laws.69 Faced with
supported
his party
to soothe Muslim
the Court. Then,
to pass a law in parliament
that made
to the civil
law) superior
personal
maintenance
of divorced
giving
required
consequently
for years, was
Muslim
emotional
erupted.
opened
government
The
Shah Bano
to press
their
feelings,
the Shariat
in matters
(Islamic
the
concerning
that secularism
He argued
to the minorities.
A Hindu
site in Ayodhya,
and worship.
The
storm
closed
largest
seen inDelhi followed, with riots breaking
the distance
between
trying to equalize
more
in religion.
became
entrapped
Twisted Meanings,
first
he ordered
women.
security
The Temple-Mosque
to Hindu
pilgrimage
demonstration ofMuslims
out. Ostensibly
law
furor, Rajiv Gandhi
religions,
the
Embattled Symbols
case gave Hindu
a remarkable
nationalists
claims on the disputed
Temple-Mosque
opportunity
site. Hindu
belief about the birthplace of Ram, argued Hindu nationalists, was
enough
for
the construction
of a Ram
temple.
Courts,
they
said,
250
Ashutosh Varshney
could not pronounce
that civil
response
laws) had
become
on matters
of faith. The government's
to
faith (or religious
prior
religious
a contradiction
In the Shah Bano case,
in terms.
judgments
laws were
after all, the superiority of religious faith over civil law had already
and the Supreme Court had been
by the government,
of law
the superiority
The
secular contention
about
affirmed
been
overturned.
over
faith
not
could
to only
apply
possibly
one
community.
After agitating for and getting a faith-based legislation, Muslim
the mosque.
claim
not, without
contradiction,
or
were
either
arguments
legal. The
religious
even
a mosque
was always
was
that a mosque
leaders
could
Their
argument
not in use
religious
if it was
as the disputed mosque had been for several decades. And the legal
argument
was
that as a mosque,
the building
was
their property
and
could not be destroyed. By the time L. K. Advani led themobilization
to rebuild
the Ram
in 1990,
temple
these
their
whatever
arguments,
legal validity, were becoming part of the political process where a
different
they
also
logic operated.70
had to be made
Arguments
were
acceptable
to the masses
not
only
to be made;
in general.
It is in the political realm that the secular andMuslim leadership
showed a lack of imagination, playing into the hands of Hindu
nationalists.
temple issue,
a movement.
as a mosque
versus
So long as the issue was presented
not
and
could
remained
the dispute
generate
religious,
a Ram versus Babur
it became
But when
issue, which
the BJP simultaneously
it, it took on nationalistic
presented
an alien conqueror;
Ram was
overtones.
Babur was unquestionably
an army
with
invaded
India
not. Babur, of Turko-Mongol
descent,
an
of
Babur's
several
and founded
descendants,
Though
empire.
is how
especially Emperor Akbar, blended into India's culture, Babur himself
remains
an outsider
in popular
Contrariwise,
imagination.
though
no Hindu god isuniformly popular all over India, for all of Hinduism's
pantheism,
Ram
is one
of
the most
popular.
His
popularity
has
made him both a religious and cultural figure. The Ramayana (the
tale of Ram) is themost popular epic, especially inNorth India. An
annual and popular enactment of the tale of Ram (Ramlila) in
which many Muslims have traditionally participated, makes Ram a
in much
culture
part of everyday
to experience
culturally
religious
Muslim
of Ayodhya,
of India.
One
the Ramayana
does
not have
to be
in India.
and secular leadership dwelled on the religious meaning
and
refused
to
encounter
the
second,
nationalistic
251
Contested Meanings
The
meaning.
various
no historical
there was
a mythological
initially argued that Ram was
historians)
proof
(and the secular
committees
mosque-action
for Ram's
either
existence
figure;
or for his
This was
a gratuitous
without
proof.
Core beliefs of many
argument.
can one prove
How
that Prophet
religions flourish
to a mosque
Mohammed's
in Sri Nagar:
hair was brought
Muslims
so. Similarly,
of Kashmir
believe
how can one prove that Buddha
or that Jesus was
in Sri Lanka,
left his tooth
born of a virgin.
birthplace.
Religious belief does not depend on rational evidence. If the Shariat
was
the word
Muslim
leaders
of God
had
no
proof was
required?as
in the Shah Bano controversy?how
for which
claimed
the
could proof be sought for a Hindu belief?
The
problem
was
by
compounded
three more
facts.
First,
it is
widely known that the disputed mosque had not been used for the
are known
to have been
decades.
Second, mosques
in the past, even inMuslim
countries.
By repeatedly
attacking
an article of faith over a mosque
not used for decades,
the mosque
action committees
and Muslim
of
gave the appearance
leadership
utter intransigence.
Was
Babur so much more
Ram
than
important
in India? The question was repeatedly
asked by a large number
of
of them nonreligious.71
many
Hindus,
last
several
moved
Finally, while theMuslim
to save
Muslim
the Babri mosque,
leadership was conducting its struggle
some
of
the most
visible
leaders
of the
community, for example, Shahabuddin and Imam Bukhari,
a call
for the boycott
of India's Republic
The
aim,
Day.
was
to
to
to
draw
attention
their
This
demands.
them,
according
not only for Hindu
disastrous
strategy was symbolically
nationalists,
but for a large number of secular Indians. The fight was presumably
not with
with Hindu
India as a nation.
The Republic
bigotry,
Day
a matter
was
of pride
for the entire nation,
not simply
for the
gave
Hindus. Some of India's Muslim
leaders did indeed reject the call
a boycott.
the most
visible
leaders continued
Unfortunately,
There were
also moments
undeterred.
when
Shahabuddin
tried to
for
identify with Sikh militants who were bent upon undermining the
nation.
As
I have
separatist
as well
Indian Islam has taken syncretistic
argued,
are syncretistic
forms. Most Muslims
in their culture,
not in their religious beliefs. Why Muslim
the cultural
syncretism
of Indian Muslims
as
if
leadership did not reflect
but chose
instead dangerous
252
Ashutosh Varshney
symbolic
is an unresolved
politics
Muslim
puzzle.
well
be
A
reaction
the
against
in the
rooted
leadership may
emerging,
realization
that Muslim
in India has not
increasing
leadership
care
of the Muslim
good
community.72
existing
The
actually
existing
is a pseudosecularism;
argues,
or what he calls
of minorities,
and wrong,
right
to the BJP's critique
of the
in India, Advani
Secularism
muscle
thus, provided
in India.
secularism
context,
but
taken
it has meant
excessive
appeasement
is both
argument
The
"minorityism."
the wrong
side was
scarcely
noticed
in the
politics of the late 1980s.
Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists, added to the Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes (nonreligious minorities, nonetheless
as minorities),
more
constitute
In a "first-past-the-post"
electorate.73
viewed
than
37 percent
of
India's
British-style
parliamentary
a 40 percent vote can easily translate
into 50 to 60 percent
seats. Since, according
to conventional
wisdom,
legislative
not
vote as a bloc but the
the fractious majority
does
community
system,
of the
in the system for power-seeking
is a temptation
to
in an
programs.
parties
prominority
develop
Purely
India's political
sense, therefore,
system does indeed gravitate
minorities
do,
centrist
electoral
there
towards the minorities,
not
enough,
Whatever
perceptions
though the minorities may feel that this is
is some
justice in their claim.
the objective
truth?if
there is one?the
of
problem
are
in
dominates
the discussion. Minorities
visible
India's
and
there
and cultural
upper political,
bureaucratic,
layers.
led the armed
and Sikhs have
forces of India.
famous
Jewish
general,
War. Muslims
led
India
to victory
Roman
Catholics
General
a
Jacob,
1971
Indo
in the
in the
positions
regularly
occupied
Cabinet.
The man who produced
India's first medium-range
missile
is aMuslim.
leads the national
The man who
cricket team, a sport
are among
is a Muslim.
that generates
national
Muslims
hysteria,
of the country. Muslim
film stars
the leading classical musicians
Pakistan
have
been
role models,
have
even
for Hindu
youth.
Minority
educational
institutions have legal privileges, enjoying special grants from the
The Constitution
India's only Muslim
gives Kashmir,
a
several
laws inapplicable
federal
state,
status,
majority
special
making
there even as the rest of the states are bound by these laws. Finally,
on political grounds,
in 1986, the government,
overruled
the Supreme
government.
Court
by declaring
that Muslim
personal
law was
superior
to the
253
Contested Meanings
in matters
law
civil
country's
and
of marriage
Muslim woman could opt out of itwithout
argue,
The
set of facts,
film and sports
Muslim
that
and Muslim
remain
same
stars, musicians,
of religion
irrespective
talent matters
politicians
to present
the BJP story.
are proof
and scientists
and that a largely Hindu
is used
however,
no
leaving the faith itself.74
secularists
unhappy, many
to do more.
the state ought
IfMuslims
and
divorce,
has a serious flaw. The
argument
are among
BJP forgets that Muslims,
despite these special provisions,
in the country.
and least educated
the poorest
Often,
community
are
in
riots.
the
of
also
object
police brutality
they
concessions
boils down to how many
of perceptions
The problem
not
may
society
be unfair.
are sufficient.
to the minorities
in India
question,
to
point
or elsewhere.
economic
the
This
There
Muslim
backwardness
is no objective
answer
politicians
of Muslims
to this
and
secularists
and
argue
for
greater assistance. The BJP points to the visibility of minorities
in
is enough.
life, saying that enough
political
When
secularism was equated with secular tolerance and legitimated
that itwas the responsibility
arguments
by Nehru's
principled behavior,
and
India's
cultural
secure could
to make minorities
be
community
in
such
favor
of
open arguments
minorities,
Despite
were
not able to win
nationalists
When
against Nehru.
of
the majority
openly made.75
Hindu
principled
mobilization
replaced
secularism?not
legitimating
a concern
but maintaining
secularism,
by unprincipled
religion
in political
for minority
welfare?was
the secular project
began
to
unravel.
as a
the worth
of secularism
disprove
and
Madan
have
and
political
principle,
argued. Morality
not
in
to
first
of
do
have
from
all,
emerge
meaning
politics,
religion;
liberal conception
of ethics.
they can also emerge from a modernist,
was moral
as well
as a-religious.
Nehru
Moreover,
nonreligious
can also be politically
even in societies
ethical behavior
legitimated,
This
weakening
does
not
as Nandy
marked by intense religiosity. Secularism by itself thus does not
make
one
the 1980s
amoral
behaved,
This distinction
or unethical.
it is not what
If this
is how
secularism
is crucial for explaining
secular politicians
of
as a principle
entails.
the events of the last
decade.
If the India of the 1990s did not follow fromNehru's
is reviving
Nehru's
secular
modernism
a solution
for
secularism,
the current
254
Ashutosh Varshney
difficulties?
The
of Nehru's
defense
should not be construed
secularism
as an argument
for its revival. As already
the Nehruvian
indicated,
on
certain ideas of political
for secularism
relied
liberalism
rationale
and modernity.
did not make
Nehru
a case
for his project
of India's civilization, for which The Discovery
in terms
of India laid the
to leave their pasts and become
He wanted
Indians
groundwork.
are indeed created,
futures
modern.
While
they are not typically
to leave their pasts
It is hard for nations
created on a clean slate.
The more
behind.
issue
pertinent
is: How
does
a nation
reconstruct
itspast? Which traditions should be revived, andwhich ones dropped?
Since
a nation's
past
is not
undifferentiated,
contesting
visions
are
generally available. The ideological task is to retrieve that which
valuable,
England
a future
is
a political
retrieval
this selective
and to make
reality. An
in India; only
could not have been, and cannot be, created
one of India's several pasts
is possible.
consistent
with
Strictly speaking, Nehru's political pluralism and his opposition
are separable.
to religion
to
reconceptualize
possible
on the other.
It is
does not depend
Nehru's
secular nationalism,
by combining
One
political pluralism with his understanding that India's history is
marked by cultural pluralism. One does not have to defend political
in terms of a modernist
liberal theory; one
and tolerance
pluralism
can also defend
and cultural traditions.
it in terms of India's historical
can thus be civilizationally
A pluralist
and secularism
democracy
the pluralistic
vision
of politics
This
anchored.
requires
recalling
a politics
heroes of India's past, explicitly
and syncretistic
defending
in cultural
and
the
of secularism
and ideology
terms,
mobilizing
on
that understanding.
people
CONCLUSION
What
happens
to India now
on who
rules India and what
depends
to be. Hindu
have a moderate
nationalists
is going
the ruling ideology
faction.
faction and an extremist
dialogue
with
the Muslim
The moderate
faction
emphasizes
civil code, state
the special status of
on a common
community
educational
institutions,
and
grants to minority
to
other
all
it
Kashmir
states).76 This faction,
though
(making
equal
these
not dominant,
is not
ideological
Against
inconsequential.
a center-right
the right wing
towards
staged a coup
position,
pushes
into action by
of the cadres were
in Ayodhya.77
galvanized
Many
255
Contested Meanings
of a Ram
the promise
regardless of the political implications.
two
these
At
that promise
and wanted
temple
to be kept,
It is still not clear which of
long run.
are
there
four
level,
1) a continuation
possibilities:
a
economic
rule, though with
promarket
changed,
factions
out
win
will
in the
the national
of Congress
ideology (with or without a revived organization); 2) the rise of the
BJP to national power with the center Right in command; 3) the rise
of the BJP with the right wing in command; and 4) a non-Congress
or a coalition
of the Congress
with other
is
know,
considerably
open-ended.
scenarios.
present
coalition,
Politics,
can only
as we
If Hindu
scenario
could
be
define
the most
to come
at all, the second
to power
It
its relatively
face.
would
peaceful
probably
or not the moderates
view of Hinduism.
Whether
nationalism
an inclusive
entail
can
were
anti-BJP parties.
As of now, we
remains
unclear. Much
BJP politics
of
and how well
leaders
go
BJP
popular
on where
depends
they communicate
the base, how the Congress behaves, and whether Muslim
with
politics
change
at all.
It is the third scenario which means the end of India as we know
it civilizationally (and perhaps also territorially). As Ayodhya has
shown,
Hatred
associated
the
is bigoted,
and exclusionary.
communal,
It
of its politics.
will bring back the hatred
not the understanding
1947 partition,
that
right wing
is the cornerstone
with
the
created India as a nation. To believe that 110 million Muslims
be beaten
into
submission
therefore,
Much,
half of the century.
is to believe
is at stake.
Politics
can
a lie, a most
lie.
dangerous
a
nation
in the first
created
or even
revive it, add to its troubles,
as
it. Syncretism,
and
tolerance?defended
pluralism,
not
of Indian culture as it has historically
attributes
existed,
simply
at the center of India's political
and placed
those of Hinduism,
Politics
will
unmake
discourse?remain
India's
best
bet.
The
political
party
that
can
give a forceful and organized political expression to this cultural
reading has the best chance of keeping India together. It is not clear
which political party will mount an ideological challenge to the BJP
on
these
lines.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article is based on three field trips to India in January 1991, May 1991, and
October 1991-January 1992. The Samuel P.Huntington Fund and the Government
256
Ashutosh Varshney
Department atHarvard University financed the field research. The CFIA South Asia
Seminar atHarvard, theHarvard-MIT Joint Seminar on Political Development, the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars inWashington, and the Center
for Policy Research inDelhi provided excellent settings for reflection and discussion.
For comments, I am grateful to Abhijit Banerjee, Amrita Basu, Jorge Dominguez,
Robert Frykenberg, Stanley Hoffmann, Donald Horowitz, N. K. Jha, Atul Kohli,
T. N. Madan, John Mansfield, Uday Mehta, Pratap Mehta, Vibha Pingle, and
Myron
I alone
Weiner.
am
responsible
for
the arguments
presented
here.
ENDNOTES
1T.N. Madan,
"Secularism in its Place," The Journal of Asian Studies 46 (4)
"The Politics of Secularism and the
(November 1987); and Ashis Nandy,
Recovery of Religious Tolerance," Alternatives 13 (3) (1988).
2V. S.Naipaul,
India: A Million Mutinies Now
(New York: Viking, 1990), 517-18.
3Reports indicate that by now the insurgency in Punjab, after a decade of brutal
violence, has in all probability died down. Even though Sikhmilitants threatened
violence if the people participated in elections, the last two elections saw large
turnouts of over 70 percent, indicating an erosion in the ability of militants to
shape politics. See "A Victory for Hope," India Today, 15 February 1993.
4ErnestGellner, Nations
and Nationalism
(Oxford: Blackwell,
1983).
5See Isaiah Berlin, "The Bent Twig: On the Rise of Nationalism," The Crooked
Timber of Humanity
(New York: Vintage Books, 1992). Also see Stuart
Hampshire's review of Berlin's views in "Nationalism," in Edna and Avishai
Margalit,
eds.,
Isaiah
Berlin:
A Celebration
(Chicago,
111.:University
of Chicago
Press, 1991).
6Somewould like to separate religion from this list, letting ethnicity incorporate the
other attributes. From the viewpoint of political identities and group solidarity,
it is not entirely clear that this separation is justified in principle. It does become
critical, however, when ethnicity and religion clash (East and West Pakistan,
Kashmiri Hindus andMuslims, Irish Protestants and Catholics, Black andWhite
Ethnic Groups in Conflict
American Christians). See Donald Horowitz,
(Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1985).
T borrow thisway of distinguishing models from Ashis Nandy,"The Ramjanmbhumi
Movement
and the Fear of Self," paper presented at the CFIA South Asia
Seminar, Harvard University, April 1992.
8V.D. Savarkar, Hindutva
(Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1989), 110-13.
9Nanaji Deshmukh, Rethinking Secularism (Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1989).
10One only has to hear the tapes of Sadhvi Ritambhra, a prominent Hindu activist
repeatedly allowed by the BJP tomake speeches during 1990 -1992, to appreciate
how much hatred the right wing has for theMuslims.
nSavarkar, Hindutva; Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Akhand Bharat Aur Muslim Samasya
(Undivided India and theMuslim Problem) (Noida: Jagriti Prakashan, 1992); and
M. S.Golwalakar, Rashtra (TheNation) (Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1992), 301-306.
257
Contested Meanings
12SikandarBakht is aVice President of the BJP. His position on the demolition of the
Babri mosque is explained in an interview in Saptahik Hindustan (Delhi), 23-30
December
1992.
13TheRSS does not participate in elections. The best study of the RSS isWalter
in Saffron (Boulder, Colo:
Anderson and Sridhar Damle, The Brotherhood
Westview Press, 1986).
14The
three main
of Hindu
proponents
nationalism
within
the national
movement
were Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Sardal Patel, and P. D. Tandon.
15Fora brief view of Gandhi's position on religion, seeMahatma Gandhi, My God
(Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1962) and Hindu Dharma (New
Delhi: Orient Paperbacks,
1978). See also Margaret Chatterji, Gandhi's
1983).
Religious Thought (London:MacMillan,
16Agovernment investigation committee found that theRSS was not direcdy involved in
some RSS
the assassination;
individuals
were.
In the eyes of the populace,
this was
not
an important distinction. For details, see Bruce Graham, Hindu Nationalism
Indian Politics (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1990), chap. 3.
17SeeJames Manor,
Political Weekly,
and
"BJP in South India: 1991 General Elections," Economic and
13-20 June 1992.
18Indianow claims to have a two hundred million strong middle class. It is generally
believed that a fairly large segment of the new middle class supports Hindu
For how the rise of Hindu nationalism may be related to the
nationalism.
emergence of a new middle class, see Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, "Modern
Hate," The New Republic, 22 March 1993.
19Opinion polls indicate that the BJP has benefited in the short run. The most
reliable opinion survey indicates that if elections had been held inDecember
1992, the BJP would have won 170 seats in parliament instead of its current
119, though itwould still not have won as many as the Congress party. Cf.
Prannoy Roy, India Today, 15 January 1993.
20For
a detailed
analysis
of
the Ayodhya
movement,
see Ashutosh
Varshney,
in Philip
"Battling the Past, Forging a Future? Ayodhya and Beyond,"
Westview
India
Colo.:
Press,
1993).
ed.,
(Boulder,
Briefing
Oldenburg,
21For an
analysis
of Mahatma
Gandhi's
assassination,
see Ashis
Nandy,
"The
Final
Encounter: The Politics of Gandhi's Assassination," inAshis Nandy, At the Edge
of Psychology (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981).
22For earlier scholarly attempts at defining India's national identity, see Rajni
Kothari, Politics in India (Boston,Mass.: Little Brown, 1970), chaps. II,VII, VIII;
Ravinder Kumar, "India's Secular Culture," inRavinder Kumar, The Making of
a Nation
(Delhi:Manohar Publishers, 1989); and Ainslie Embree, Imagining
India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989).
23EricHobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990); and Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985).
and Culture: Religion and Politics Among
24SeeDavid Laitin, Hegemony
Yoruba (Chicago, 111.:
University of Chicago Press, 1986).
the
258
Ashutosh Varshney
Tanner
Hoffmann,
25Stanley
lectures
on
"The Nation,
Nationalism
and After:
The
Case of France," (forthcoming); also see Stanley Hoffmann, "Thoughts on the
French Nation Today," in this issue of Dcedalus. For a comparison of French and
German national identities, see Rogers Brubaker, Immigration and Citizenship in
Germany and France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).
American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony
26Samuel P. Huntington,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), chap. 2.
27JudithMiller,
"Strangers at the Gate," The New York Times Magazine,
September 1991; and The Economist, 22 March 1991.
American
28Huntington,
15
16.
Politics,
29Diana Eck, "TheMythic Construction of the Land of India," paper presented at
the South Asia Seminar, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 16
March 1990. Also see Ainslie Embree, ed., Alberuni's India (New York: W. W.
Norton
and Co.,
1971).
M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult ofMuin-al-Din Chishti ofAjmer (Delhi:Oxford
30P.
University Press, 1989); Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Cults: Islam and
Christianity in South India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
31A clear
between
distinction
three
terms ?pluralism,
and
syncretism,
assimilation?
should bemade here. Pluralism would indicate a coexistence of distinctive identities.
Syncretism would signify not a tolerant coexistence of distinctions but a merging of
cultures/religions, leading to a new form of culture/religion. In its interaction with
Hinduism, Islam, especially Sufism, developed forms of piety and culture that
represented Indian as opposed toArab versions of Islam (for example, worship at the
graves of great Sufi saints). Syncretism should also be distinguished from assimilation.
Whereas
means
32Some
means
assimilation
a
absorption
cultures
between
give-and-take
historians
disagree.
They
argue
into the dominant
and
that
syncretism
culture/religion,
religions.
a Hindu
identity
is at best
a creation
of
the last two hundred to three hundred years. Before that, there were different
sects, but no Hindu identity as such. See Romila Thapar, "Imagined Religious
Communities? Ancient History and theModern Search for Hindu Identity,"
Modern Asian Studies 23 (2) (1989); and Robert Frykenberg, "Constructions of
Hinduism at the Nexus of History and Religion," Journal of Interdisciplinary
History 23 (3) (Winter 1993).
33M. S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood
Defined
(Nagpur: Bharat Publications,
1939).
34Savarkar,
Hindutva
Savarkar
Hindutva.
is a religious
35Jawaharlal Nehru,
1989), 62.
36In a similar
vein,
term.
and many
For
The Discovery
Rajni
Kothari
writes:
them,
Hindu
other
it has
of India
a cultural
that
meaning.
(Delhi: Oxford
"In contrast
contest
nationalists
to the great
University
historical
Press,
empires,
the unity of India owed itself not to the authority of a given political system but to
the wide diffusion of the cultural symbols, the spiritual values, and the structure
of
roles
and
functions
characteristic
of
a continuous
civilization.
The
essential
unity of India has not been political but cultural." Kothari, Politics in India, 251.
A contrast with another largemultiethnic nation, theUnited States, can be drawn
259
Contested Meanings
here.
commentators
Several
that
argue
the unity
of
States
the United
lies
in the
political principles that founded the nation, while different communities evolved
their distinctive cultures. See Michael Walzer, What It Means To Be An
American (New York: Marsilio, 1993).
some
37Of these,
were
are past
others
rulers,
cultural
purely
Kabir
figures.
and Nanak
saints
that inspired syncretistic beliefs and preached interreligious
understanding and love. See John S.Hawley andMark Jurgensmeyer, Songs of
the Saints of India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
38Nehru,
The
270.
Discovery,
39"Will and Testament," in S. Gopal, ta., Jawaharlal Nehru: An Anthology
Oxford University Press, 1980), 647-48.
(Delhi:
40Nehru, The Discovery, 63. Also see his discussion of the role of Dharti (land) in
the peasant conception of Bharat Mata (Mother India) in Ibid., 57- 60.
41For a fuller discussion of Kashmir, see Ashutosh Varshney, "India, Pakistan and
Kashmir: Antinomies of Nationalism," Asian Survey, November 1991, and "Three
Compromised Nationalisms: Why Kashmir Has been a Problem," inRaju Thomas,
ed., Perspectives
on Kashmir
42Arun Shourie, Religion
43BenedictAnderson,
(Boulder,
in Politics
Colo.: Westview
Imagined Communities
44JudithBrown, Prisoner ofHope
Press,
1992).
(Delhi: Roli Books, 1987), 91-124.
(London: Verso Press, 1983).
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990).
45Nanaji Deshmukh, Rethinking Secularism
H. V. Sheshadri et al, Why Hindu Rashtra
(Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1989);
(Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1990).
46H.V. Sheshadri, "Hindu Rashtra: What andWhy," Hindu Vishva
(12) (Silver Jubilee Special Issue 1989-1990): 30.
(Prayag) 25
^Interview with L. K. Advani, Sunday (Calcutta), 22 July 1990.
"Constructions
48Frykenberg,
of Hinduism."
49Interviews in Lucknow with Hindu nationalists, December
50AshisNandy
Politics
51How
1991.
has suggested the distinction between faith and ideology in "The
of Secularism."
could
Gandhi
be
a Hindu
as well
as
respect
other
religions?
In
a
statement that has become legendary, Gandhi described his
metaphorical
pluralism thus: "I do not want my house to be walled on all sides and my
windows stuffed. Iwant the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house
as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. " Statement made
on 1 June 1921.
52EugeneWeber,
Press, 1976).
Peasants
into Frenchmen
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
53TheUnited States isperhaps the best successful case of multiethnic nation-building
in the world. SeeMichael Walzer, What ItMeans To Be An American.
54WalkerConnor, The National Question inMarxist Leninist Theory and Strategy
-71.
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983),!-42,128
260
Ashutosh Varshney
'Earlier in 1991, the Congress had its first party elections since 1973.
56Thedebate between those who argue that Indira Gandhi was a prisoner of social
forces and those that argue that she led her party's decline will never be settled.
See Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: The Crisis of Governability in India
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
57Interviewwith Atal Behari Vajpayee
in India Abroad,
18 December
1992.
58TheBJP has formed state goverrnments, though at the central level, ithas been part
of the ruling coalition only for two years (1977-1979).
59Nandy, "The Politics of Secularism and theRecovery of Religious Tolerance," 155.
60Madan,
61For
in its Place,"
"Secularism
see Milan
literature,
749.
"The Depreciated
Kundera,
Legacy
in his
of Cervantes,"
The Art of theNovel (New York: Harper and Row, 1988); for philosophy, see
Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current (Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1980), and
L. Kolakowski, Modernity on Endless Trial (Chicago, 111.:
University of Chicago
Press,
and
1990);
for natural
Einstein's
on
essays
science
and
(New York: Crown Publishers, 1954,1982).
36-53.
and Opinions,
Ideas
62Einstein,
see Albert
sciences,
religion in Ideas and Opinions
63Also see the paper by Chris Bayly, "The Pre-History of Communalism? Religious
Conflict in India, 1700-1860," Modern Asian Studies 19 (2) (1985).
^Distinctions have thus far been drawn between the secularism of Nehru (a-religious
tolerance) and the secularism of Gandhi (interreligious tolerance based on religiosity).
See, for example, Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, "Rethinking Secularism," Pacific
Affairs 56 (Spring 1983). Distinctions within themodernist secularism, as opposed to
between
and
modernist
"traditional"
not yet been
have
secularisms,
drawn.
65SeeMark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi's Last Battle (London:
J. Cape, 1985).
66See Paul Brass, Language, Religion and Politics
Cambridge University Press, 1975).
67Therewere other ways
later
out
flushed
desecrating
to deal with
its targets
by
in North
India
(Cambridge:
the problem: the Rajiv Gandhi government
constructing
a siege
the
around
temple,
not
by
it.
68Donald Eugene Smith, Religion and Politics in South Asia (Chicago, 111.:
University
of Chicago
Press,
1963).
For
a comparison
of
Indian
and American
secularism,
seeMarc Galanter, "Hinduism, Secularism and the Indian Judiciary," Law and
Society inModern India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).
69The Supreme Court also argued that even the Shariat, if read carefully, permitted
maintenance.
judgments
Muslims
on
religious
argued
matters.
that
Strictly
a secular
speaking,
court
the
had
second
no
business
argument
to pass
not
was
required for the judgment. For the political controversy around the Shah Bano
(Delhi: Ajanta
case, see Asghar Ali Engineer, The Shah Bano Controversy
Publishers, 1987). For the legal issues involved, see John Mansfield, "Personal
Laws or a Uniform Civil Code?," in Robert Baird, ed., Religion and Law in
Independent India (Delhi:Manohar Publications, 1993).
261
Contested Meanings
or
Laws
"Personal
70Mansfield,
a Uniform
Civil
courts
since
times
British
have
given
mostly
Code?,"
that
argues
legally
leaders had a case. First of all, Indian
speaking, both the secularists andMuslim
to
precedence
religious
laws
on
The Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case broke the
personal matters.
the superiority of the civil code. By legislating on the basis
tradition?declaring
of the Shariat, Rajiv Gandhi merely restored an old practice. Secondly, the
existing
protection.
in legal
mosque,
The
was
terms,
verities,
legal
also Muslim
unfortunately,
lost
which
property,
their meaning
called
against
for
the
emerging political verities. Advani's political mobilization was indeed enormous,
making legal intricacies largely irrelevant against the rising political tide.
71Basedon numerous field interviews conducted from 1990 -1992.
72India Today, 15 February 1993. Javed Habib, a member of the Babri Masjid
Action Committee, was perhaps the only Muslim politician to have publicly
demonstrated
a keen
appreciation
He
the problem.
of
was,
however,
no match
for the senior and more prominent Muslim politicians. See Javed Habib, "Main
Bhi Ram ko Maryada Purushottam Manta Hun" ("I also accept Ram as a
Symbol ofMoral Excellence"), Dharmayuga, 16 January 1991.
73For further implications, seeMyron Weiner, The Indian Paradox (Delhi: Sage
Publications, 1989), chap. 7. On how the term "minority" is used in India,
see Myron Weiner,
"India's Minorities: Who Are They? What Do They
in Ibid.
Want?,"
74Theoretically, aMuslim
wives,
yet he can
annul
judge married
the marriage
according to the Shariat can have four
of a Hindu
and
grant
divorce
on
grounds
of
adultery. This theoretical possibility pointed out by Ainslie Embree, Utopias in
Conflict (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1990), has not yet
become
a reality.
75SarvepalliGopal, Anatomy of a Confrontation (London:Zed Books, 1992), 17-20.
^Interview with Atal Behari Vajpayee, "Mere Adavaniji SeMatbhed Hain" ("I
Have Differences with Advani"), Dharmyuga (Bombay), 16-31 January 1991.
Vajpayee is the leader of the moderate faction. He was Minister for External
Affairs in the Janata Government (1977-1979) and led the BJP from 1981-1986.
77Interviewwith Vajpayee,
Varshney,
"Battling
India Abroad,
the Past,
Forging
19 December
a Future?."
1992. Also see Ashutosh