12

Mar

Decolonisation Of Culture or Movement Towards  Authoritarianism ?

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Today’s Editon

New Delhi, 12 March 2024

Irfan Engineer

 

Hindu nationalists pin their partisan acts favouring the majority community on the ‘decolonisation of ideas and culture’ hook. Decolonisation is often used interchangeably with de-Westernisation. Enactment of the three laws about the criminal justice system in 2023 – Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniya, and Bhartiya Nagarik Surakhsha Sanhita – with more than 85% of the contents from the earlier legislations were also brought in with the plea of decolonisation. The 15% that is different from the colonial legislation, strengthens the hands of police by giving them longer custody of the accused with lesser accountability and stricter bail provisions.

 Construction of the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple, the Kashi Vishwanath Temple corridor and the construction of the Mahakali Temple in Ujjain were justified as the decolonisation process. Rakesh Sinha (the Rajya Sabha Member of the BJP) in a recent article lauds the inauguration of the Hindu temple, constructed by the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) at the hands of Prime Minister Modi on the same grounds – decolonisation and de-Westernisation. He states, “Modi is the first statesman from a post-colonial society who has shown conviction to move towards the decolonisation and de-Westernisation of ideas and culture.”

While Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis came up with the idea of a clash of civilisation between the West and Islam, Sinha seems to suggest that the clash is also between the West and Hindu civilisation, at least within the boundaries of India. The Hindu nationalists were never clear as to what the contours of the clash between Western and Hindu civilisation are and which values or culture of the Western civilisation are unworthy and must be negated.

Sinha gives credit for being a statesman to Prime Minister Modi for “Bharat’s ability to achieve the goal of the unity of opposites in a world that is rife with hostilities based on religion and culture”. One fails to understand the Prime Minister’s role in the whole mission. BAPS constructed the Temple, on 27 acre land granted by the Emir of the UAE. Modi only inaugurated the Temple and yet the credit according to Sinha, belongs to Modi.

Sinha states in his article that the Hindu Temple in Abu Dhabi has the potential to redefine multiculturalism. Indeed he is right. However, multiculturalism looks good in foreign lands where Hindu residents are numerically inferior and, therefore, must have freedom to follow their culture and religion. However, within the country where Hindus are a majority, their plea is that the majority community’s religion, cultural practices and heritage must prevail and dot the social space. The BJP-governed states are renaming the cities, streets, railway stations, etc. that have Muslim-sounding names to make invisible their cultural heritage. Babri Masjid was demolished by Hindu nationalist mobs and the act of demolition was held illegal by the Supreme Court. State bulldozers are demolishing heritage Muslim religious structures that are centuries old, among them the Akhunji mosque, at least 800 years old, in Mehrauli, Delhi. New Delhi Municipal Corporation attempted to demolish a 150-year-old Sunheri Bagh Masjid on the pretext that it was causing traffic jams, even within the roundabout. The BJP CM of UP Yogi Adityanath asked the Muslim community to surrender the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi and Idgah Mosque in Mathura to the Hindu community. The UP state implemented the order to arrange worship of the Hindu deity inside the tahkhana of Gyanvapi mosque within hours of court orders even though the order gave a week.

Many other Muslim religious places are being claimed by Hindu nationalists. Recently, the Uttarakhand Assembly passed a Uniform Civil Code nullifying Muslim family law and practically imposing Hindu family laws on the people of the state, including the minorities. Hindu nationalist slogan has been – ‘one country, one culture, one law’. Homogenisation and imposition of the culture of the elite section of the ‘majority’ community in India and advocacy of multiculturalism abroad to ensure that the elite section of the Hindu community can practice and propagate their religion and culture seems to be the norm Sinha is prescribing.

The Hindu community has a rich cultural diversity. The People of India Project enlisted 4,635 communities based on language, cultural and religious practices. Scholars of Hinduism have put the number of gods and goddesses in Hinduism anywhere between 33 and 330 million. This means there are several religious practices, traditions, customs, religiosity and ways of life. There are many texts and epics to follow. This diversity is the strength of Hinduism. However, the Hindu nationalists find challenges in their mission to unite the community in the war against the Muslim and Christian communities.

Caste practices internal oppression of Dalits and marginalisation of women pose challenges in uniting the community in, what they think is a 1500-year-old war between the Muslim community and Christians. The first step in this war is uniting the community by undermining the religious and cultural diversity within the Hindu community and constructing unified sacred symbols, texts, and rallying behind a leader or authority.

The Hindu nationalists are not only invisiblizing the religion and cultural heritage of minorities in social space, but they are also homogenizing Hindu culture by imposing cultural practices of the Hindu upper caste elite on the entire community. The cow is being projected as such a unifying symbol and seems to be working at least for a large section in Northern and Western India. Vegetarianism is being made a cultural marker of Hindu nationalism. Lord Ram is being projected as a presiding deity of all Hindus – with a refashioned and re-emphasised image as a warrior rather than his central attribute of “Maryada Purushottam”, who is conscious of his duties and responsibilities and who upholds dharma.

Even while Sinha extols multiculturalism in Abu Dhabi, the Hindu nationalist’s project in India is to sanitize Hindu religion with the imposition of sacred symbols, cultural practices and way of life. They display extreme intolerance using violence and state power against anyone who expresses different beliefs. This also needs the construction of huge mesmerizing temples. Rather than decolonising, the Hindu nationalists are emulating the Western concept of the nation with a homogenous religion and culture and inventing the outsiders.

 

 All Muslim rulers who established their empire, lived within the region married local women, and their mortal remains are buried in this soil. There can be a debate about whether this can still be called as colonisation of Bharat whatever its boundaries then were. To a Hindu nationalist ideologue, their history is the history of the continuous resistance to the “slavery” or “colonisation of the Hindus”. The principle of secularism that was adopted as a state policy after independence from colonial rule stood between the achievement of their objective of establishing a Hindu raj (state). Since the year 2014, when Prime Minister Modi’s party was elected with an absolute majority, it is their time to restore the pristine “pre-colonial” Hindu culture, demolish the heritage and structures of the period built by Muslim rulers and remove “foreign” cultural influences with violence wherever necessary, and establishing a mighty authoritarian state to ensure the predominance of “Hindu” culture and religion in social space.  The Hindu nationalists have no explanation to offer as to why Hindu religion, literature, art and culture prospered under the Muslim rule.

In fact decolonisation should mean having an inclusive approach, freedom of thoughts and expression, freedom to follow any religion or belief, upholding the dignity of all human beings and treating everyone with equality. Mahatma Gandhi accepted that there is truth in every religion. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad propounded that it is an inalienable part of the Muslim faith to affirm all religions, prophets and texts that came before Islam to be true. These values are included in the Preamble of our Constitution. (Words 1305)

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