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"Presenting" the Past This page intentionally left blank "Presenting" the Past

Anxious History and Ancient Future in

S.P. UDAYAKUMAR

Wespor, connecticut PRAEGER London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Udayakumar, S. P. Presenting the past: anxious history and ancient future in Hindutva India / S. P. Udayakumar. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-97209-7 (alk. paper) 1. India—Historiography. 2. —India—History. 3. Hinduism and —India. I. Title. DS435.U33 2005 954'.0072'054—dc22 2005000450 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2005 by S. P. Udayakumar All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005000450 ISBN: 0-275-97209-7 First published in 2005 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 987654321 The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission for use of the following material: Reprinted from FUTURES, Vol. 28, No. 10, S. P. Udayakumar: "Betraying a Futurist," pp. 971-85, Copyright 1996, with permission from Elsevier. To the memory of Harry J. Friedman This page intentionally left blank Contents

Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 17 2 : Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 45 3 Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 75 4 Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 109 5 Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 147 Conclusions 173 Glossary 185 Selected Bibliography 189 Index 207 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments

This book project emerged from my graduate-school days in Hawaii, grew with my activist work in Minnesota, and matured with my freelance journalistic and teaching assignments in India and around the world. Inevitably, it has gained much from many of my teachers, friends, fellow activists, students, and readers. Since it is simply impossible to acknowl• the contributions of each one of them individually, I will recognize the most crucial ones. I am deeply grateful to my teachers Jim Dator, Johan Galtung, Jim Harpstrite, Manfred Henningsen, Robert C. Johansen, Ben Kerkvliet, Sankaran , Gil Loescher, George Lopez, Glenn Paige, Ebenezar Paulraj, Michael Shapiro, Carolyn Stephenson, and Phyllis Turn- bull, who have been so generous to me with their time, energy, insights, experiences, and resources. Special thanks are due to Professor Harry Friedman, who took great interest in my research and writing without limiting my intellectual freedom, advised me without imposing his opin• ions on me, and made himself available anytime for any kind of help, which ranged from bureaucratic paperwork to brilliant conversations about South Asian politics. I acknowledge his kindness by dedicating this book to his memory. Some of my wonderful friends offered critical helps at some crucial junc• tures of this project: Sadayappan Chidambaram, Dietrich Fischer, Monica Ghosh, Andi Giri, Shabnam Hashmi, Joseph Patten, N. Ram, Joe Schwartz- berg, Murugesan Vijayanand, Lynette Wageman, and Peter Yeronimuse. The following institutions in the United States have been instrumental in the research, writing, and manuscript preparation of this book project: the x Acknowledgments

Department of Political Science and Center for South Asian Studies of the University of Hawaii, the Hawaii Community Foundation, the J. Watu- mull Fund, the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, the East-West Center, and Monmouth University. I thank them all. Special thanks are due to my editors Brien McDonald and Michael O'Connor of Praeger Publishers, Jim Duncan, and the team at Apex Pub• lishing, LLC, for the excellent job they have done with this project. Just as my parents, S. Paramarthalingom and S. Ponmony, provided a solid foundation for me to accomplish many a task in life, it is my life- partner, Meera, and our boys, Surya and Satya, who have nourished me with their unswerving love, ceaseless companionship, constant inspira• tion, and countless sacrifices. I thank them for everything. Abbreviations

ABVP Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ADM additional district magistrate AIBMAC All India Babri Masjid Action Committee AICC All India Congress Committee AIMPLB All India Muslim Personal Law Board Archaeological Survey of India BJP Bharatiya BJS BKS BMAC Babri Masjid Action Committee BMS BSP Bahujan Samaj Party CBI Central Bureau of Investigation CRPF Central Reserve Police Force DRI Deendayal Research Institute HP HRD Human Resource Development (Ministry) 1CHR Indian Council of Historical Research ISI (Pakistani) Inter-Services Intelligence ISS Islamic Sevak Sangh MLA member of the legislative assembly MP ; member of Parliament NAG National Agenda of Governance NAM Non-Aligned Movement NCERT National Council of Educational Research and Training NDA National Democratic Alliance XII Abbreviations

NDF National Democratic Front PAC Provincial Armed Constabulary PMO Prime Minister's Office POTA Prevention of Terrorism Act RRP Ram Rajya Parishad RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh SAHMAT Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust SKJT Shri Krishna Janmasthan Trust SP Samajwadi Party UP VHP Vishwa Hindu Parishad Introduction

If you are a Brahman, born from a Brahman woman Then why did you not arrive by another orifice? If you are a Muslim, born from a Muslim woman Then why were you not circumcised in the womb? Kabir

As the 1998 parliamentary election results were trickling in in early March of that year, it was clear that the next government would be led by the (BJP). I, for one, feared that the Indian state and society were braced for serious policy reversals and felt strongly that con• cerned Indians had to keep a watchful eye by establishing the BJP Gov• ernment Watch, a loose intellectual collective to monitor the commissions and the omissions of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government. Though the initiative attracted a lot of media attention both in India and in the United States, only a few intellectuals, such as N. Ram, then the editor of Frontline, welcomed and supported it. Thus Minneapolis, where I was based, emerged as the hub of hosting a resourceful Web site (http://www.bjpgovernmentwatch.com) and dis• tributing daily e-mail digests with analytical articles, activist news, and the like. Our fledgling group's forebodings became true in just a few weeks' time, when the jingoistic BJP-led government tested nuclear bombs and embarked upon a course of dangerous nuclear adventurism. Following the expected compulsive response from Pakistan, the BJP-led govern• ment in New and the Muslim League-led government in Islamabad 2 "Presenting" the Past rendered South Asia the most dangerous place in the world. India and Pakistan were suddenly pushed back to the perverse politics of the 1930s and 1940s, marked by the two-nation theory, communal fervor, and a high level of anxiety, compounded this time by the added dangers of nuclear annihilation. Back at square one, many Indians were afraid that the 1940s nightmare would start all over again. After all, the BJP-led government was talking about a uniform civil code for the Hindus and the minorities, abolition of the special status for Kashmir in the Indian constitution, building the Ram temple at Ayodhya, and so on. The BJP-led government began to imple• ment its programs slowly but steadily, while denying vehemently that it had any hidden agenda. Quite thankfully, the BJP did not have an absolute majority in Parlia• ment and was forced to work with its coalition partners. And the onerous responsibility of being the ruling party and maintaining the law and order in the society did force the party to proceed cautiously. While this nonab- solute power weighed the BJP down, the fact of being in power stimulated the other Hindutva outfits to go faster on their fascist program. The BJP itself was caught between the reality rock and the Hindutva hard place. Accordingly, the party would switch its stand on issues abruptly, and the BJP-led government would shift position on policy matters constantly. What appeared to be an internal tug-of-war was, in fact, an in-house strategy for misleading the opponents and persisting with the hidden agenda.

THE "HINDU" HISTORIOGRAPHY AND HINDUTVA One of George Orwell's famous lines in 1984 holds a peculiar relevance for the Hindutva political program in India: "Who controls the past con• trols the future; who controls the present controls the past." The Hindutva forces had political power at the Center briefly in 1977 as part of the Janata Party government and then in two coalition governments between 1998 and 2004. But they have always had a shadow government running par• allel to the Indian state with a clear ideology, program, and well-charted strategy to switch tracks at an opportune moment and reinscribe a whole new "Hindu-sthan." They have been dauntlessly manipulating the social machinery with an eye to control the past, the present, and the future of Indians. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in September 1925 by Maharashtrian Brahmin Keshav Baliram Hedgewar and long sus• pected of complicity in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, is the leader of the pack, known these days as the (Sangh family). The RSS has 48,329 shakhas (branches) in 33,758 places (as reported in its Pra- Introduction 3 tinidhi Sabha [representative committee] meeting on March 12, 2004, at Jamdoli, ) and 2,500 pracharaks (propagandists) and can mobi• lize around three million volunteers. It has an educational organization, Vidya Bharathi, that provides education for some 1.2 million students and employs 40,000 teachers around the country. It also has more than 80 front organizations, both parliamentary and nonparliamentary, at its disposal, specializing in specific fields.1 The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP—World Hindu Council), established in 1966, organizes large-scale conventions of Hindu religious men; runs schools, temples, and hostels; and yearns to create a homogenized Hindu community. Bajrang Dal, the VHP's youth wing, organizes the lumpen elements for the movement's muscle power. The BJP is the latter-day reincarnation of the former Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), a politically isolated party that came into being in October 1951 and merged into the Janata Party in 1977. Following the collapse of the Janata Party government due to a power struggle among its leaders, the dual membership (of the former Jana Sangh members in the RSS), and other issues, the new BJP was founded in December 1980. The party has a youth wing known as the Janata Yuva Morcha (Janata Youth Front). The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the trade-union movement that has enjoyed substantial success among the white-collar workers, has more than three million members, mostly in the Hindi-speaking states. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), one of the nation's larg• est student organizations, has active units in 415 of India's 483 districts and working branches in 121 of India's 167 universities. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS—Indian Farmers' Union), and the Rashtriya Sevika Samita (National Working Women's Council) are some of the prominent Sangh Parivar organizations. To act as a think tank for the Sangh Parivar, there is the Deendayal Shodh Sansthan (Deendayal Research Institute), which was established in 1972 in memory of a Hin• dutva leader killed in 1968. The men in charge of these organizations are all RSS members or leaders. These neonationalistic right-wing Hindutva groups have been trying to thwart pluralistic conversations in India and thrust upon the peoples an authoritarian monologue instead. This elitist and vertical mobilization attempt, which has mainly traversed the colonial and postcolonial periods of "India," has been relentlessly attempting to erect a structure of cultural domination upon themselves and others. Part of this structure is the reckless attempt to reduce the multifarious faiths of Hinduism to a single, homogenous, Semiticized system with clear fundamentals. This "Syndicated Hinduism" rejects indigenous religious articulations, distorts their historical and cultural dimensions, divests them of the nuances and variety that were a source of their rich• ness, and, above all, replaces this multiplicity of religious manifestations by a premodern Brahminical version with some selected beliefs, rituals, 4 "Presenting" the Past and practices.2 Another part of the structure is crude with ludi• crous concepts such as Akhand Bharat (Greater India) that outrightly dis• misses the socio-economic-political aspirations and achievements of not just Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and other independent countries, but also the internal diversities within India itself. In a country of more than a bil• lion people, with all the major religions, several hundred languages and dialects, and quite a few racial and ethnic groups of considerable popu• lation, the Hindutva forces try to implement a Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan program. This Hindutva program is epitomized in the catchy slogan of V. D. Savarkar:

Ek dev, Ek desk, Ek bhasha, Ekjaati, Ekjeeva, Ek ashal

(One God, One Nation, One Language, One Race, One Form, One Hope!)

Yet another part of this structure is the psychedelic preoccupation with the somatic. Perceiving the Indian cultural strengths, such as diversity, tol• erance, coexistence, nonviolence, and nonkilling heritage, as weaknesses, the Hindutva forces blame this heritage for all their failings and see them• selves as victims. They argue that Hindus have been invaded and violated by Muslims, Christians, and others for centuries because of these alleged cultural inadequacies and somatic deficiencies. This gives rise to an urgent need to replace these ignominies, traumas, and debilitating resentment with feel-good and make-believe fantasies, fables, and fabrications. So Hindutva symbolizes the deliberate creation of a communal identity that strives frantically to discharge its role in creating a new, valiant Hindu his• tory. This infatuation with a communal understanding of Indian history becomes another important part of the structure of domination. When the BJP came to power in four northern states in 1991, rewriting the past and revising history textbooks became top-priority projects. The BJP-led coali• tion government in also made controversial changes in the his• tory textbooks, historical research institutes, and so on. The central and most important part of this scary structure, however, is the relentless shaping of young and impressionable minds and the indoc• trination of gullible adults through multifarious socialization agents and processes. Although many people do not undergo the schooling process in India, the Sangh Parivar always catches up with them through temple- building campaigns, rathyatras (processions), karsevas (religious voluntary service), hate speeches, and videotapes. The converted are kept in the loop through umpteen numbers of magazines, Web sites, and other inexpen• sive or free books and pamphlets. The Sangh Parivar desperately social• izes the young and the old with their anxious history to accomplish their ancient future, the indomitable Hindu Rashtra. Introduction 5

Much has been written about the structural resemblance between the Sangh Parivar and the Fascist and Nazi groups of Europe. The idea of unifying the majority community under a homogenized concept ("the Hindus"), fostering grievances over the past "injustices" perpetrated by a specific minority group (Muslims), nurturing a sense of cultural superior• ity over the concerned minority, basing popular appeal not on dreams but upon hatred, being "all things to all people," thriving on the class support of the petit bourgeoisie, being ambivalent about capitalism, reinterpreting history favorably, rejecting contrary evidence and rational discourses out- rightly, inciting violent sentiments among the "homogenous" community through cunning provocations, and carrying out actual violence against the minority community are some of the comparative aspects convinc• ingly demonstrated by scholars.3 The Hindutva coupling of communalism and nationalism resembles Hitler's combining Aryan racism and German nationalism.4 As the Fas• cists in Italy did, the Hindutva forces penetrated the administration and police and used religion as a convenient myth. The Fascists left no stone unturned, as Mussolini himself acknowledged: "We play the lire [sic] on all its strings from violence to religion, from art to politics."5 Likewise, the Machiavellian Sangh Parivar believes in the doctrine of the end justifying the means and glorifies this strategy as Krishnaneeti.6 Above all, the RSS leader, M.S. Golwalkar, who once pointed out that "it is significant that every Hindu god is armed,"7 was a great admirer of Hitler and wrote a booklet during the Second World War expressing his admiration.8 There may be scholars who believe that this is a far-fetched comparison. Of course, communalism as such may not qualify as full-fledged fascism, and the prospect of having a fascist rule in democratic India may not be especially great; however, taking consolation from the fluctuating electoral fortunes of the BJP is clearly a misplaced notion. It is particularly so given the careful organization of the Hindutva cultural logic, the slow but steady growth they have achieved over the past seven decades, and the negligible organized resistance to it. The fact that Hindutva forces have produced and planted in the minds of some people what Gyanendra Pandey calls "the new Hindu history" itself is proof of their creeping influence. Building upon the basic precepts of this "new Hindu history of Ayod- hya,"9 we can discern a larger national scheme with clear themes. First, as a communal interpretation of history, it holds that Hindus and Mus• lims are distinct sociopolitical entities and are not integrated into cohesive units at any level. The rigid framework of Us versus Them, true national• ists versus false nationalists, or true secularists versus pseudosecularists sets the confrontational mode of the content, tone, and dissemination of Hindutva history. Religion and culture on the one hand and ideology and politics on the other are often transposed, transmuted, and submerged on the terrain of history, giving rise to mythological rhetoric and political convulsions. 6 "Presenting" the Past

By attaching epic qualities and rhetorical tone to history, events become atemporalized and history is made timeless. The mythic time-schemes leak into historical, realist time, giving ample leeway to socialize Us and show Them their place. This circular narrative, which keeps returning to the same point over and over again, utilizes popular symbols and sentiments and modern communication technologies and techniques. To tighten the grip over the homogenous in-group, national history is narrowed down to a place, a spot, a building, with an out-group villain and in-group victims. So history becomes a sacred blend of cultural logic, social organization, ideological convictions, political program, and future "vision." This all- purpose psychedelic history can be anything and indeed becomes every• thing. The most important characteristic of the Hindutva program, however, is its ingenious use of history as propaganda and propagandizing history effectively through various organizations, channels, and media. After all, the role of propaganda has been very crucial in Indian civilization since ancient times to preserve the social order of the caste system and uphold the political authority of the "divine" royalty.10 Propaganda, by definition, is a means of social control that relies on techniques that induce individ• uals and social groups to follow nonrational and emotional drives. The broad principles of propaganda are, of course, to fit the situation into a rigid pattern of Us versus Them and an unresolvable conflict of good ver• sus evil; to appeal to the emotions with little reasoning, logic, argument, or ideational content; to reach for individuals and social groups by inter• preting the ends of propaganda to suit the purposes and prejudices of various constituencies; and, finally, to keep the propagandist and his or her motives and clients distinctly in the background.11 Deciphering the subjective principles that appear to underlie the propaganda plans and decisions of the Nazi propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, Leonard Doob presents a whole list.12 A cursory comparison of Nazi propaganda prin• ciples with Hindutva historical discourse is quite pertinent, as the propa• ganda-oriented Sangh Parivar thrives mainly on history. First and foremost is the need for a central authority to plan and execute the propaganda directives and oversee the various agencies' activities that have propaganda consequences. The RSS plays this role so effectively that it does not even face the complaints or constant reorganization that afflicted the Nazi propaganda machine. Goebbels believed, as does the Sangh Parivar, that propaganda should be facilitated by leaders with prestige. The sarsanghchalak and pracharaks of the RSS are as powerful and unquestionable in the production of Hindutva history as were the Fuhrer and his associates in evolving Nazi ideology. Second, propaganda is a matter of expediency, not morality, and there• fore the credibility determines whether the propaganda output should be true or false. Hindutva history, likewise, is one of expediency and is based Introduction 7 on no historiographical principles and methods or a moral position. Just as Goebbels used lies when they could not be disproved, Hindutva history makes profuse use of lies and distortions. For instance, a broadcast from the German radio station at Zeeson claimed in January 1941, "The German people respect Mahatma Gandhi as much as Adolf Hitler. Herr Hitler has the same principle as Mahatma Gandhi. National-Socialism also teaches non-violence."13 One is reminded of the Sangh Parivar's rhetorical com• mitment to "Gandhian Socialism," "Gandhian Swadeshi," and "Gandhian Ramarajya" and blatant distortions in history production. Third, like charity, propaganda begins at home. Propaganda to the home front must reinforce the anxiety about the consequences of defeat so that complacency and inactivity would not set in among the rank and file. Goebbels used this strength-through-fear as a convenient strategy of terror to terrorize the enemies. He tried to prevent his people from being frustrated by immunizing them against false hopes, but when frustration could not be avoided, he sought to diminish its impact by eliminating the element of surprise or shock and placing the frustration in perspective. Having aroused the karsevaks (religious volunteers) with their interpreta• tion of history and dealt with the frustrations of the aroused "Hindus" in a much similar way, the Sangh Parivar eventually let loose their fear-terror psychosis into action in Ayodhya in December 1992. Fourth, propaganda should facilitate the displacement of the in-group aggression onto the out-group(s). and Bolsheviks and Muslims were/ are the respective victims. Fifth, there is a set of strategies for propaganda to be effective and efficient. It must evoke the interest of the audience and hence must be transmitted through attention-getting media such as visual images and motion pictures. Goebbels was inclined to employ all media simultaneously so as to widen his scope. Hindutva history makes intel• ligent use of print media, audio, video, and all other available channels to reach its unsophisticated target audience. As propagandists must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion, the Sangh Parivar efficiently employs its national network in information-gathering activities. When operational information is not available for an effective propaganda campaign, "news" should be created through action. The var• ious rathyatras (processions), sammelans (conventions), and sansads (con• ferences) are intended for just that purpose. For Goebbels, propaganda must label events and people with distinc• tive phrases or slogans, such as schleichende Krise (creeping crisis), which he used to describe the socio-economic-political unrest in England in early 1942. For him, the phrases and slogans must evoke desired responses of which the audience was previously aware that were easy to learn, that could be utilized again and again, and that were boomerang-proof. "Man- dir Wahin Banayenge" (We'll build the temple right there) and pseudo- secularism are some of the popular slogans of the Hindutva forces that 8 "Presenting" the Past dominated the Ayodhya action and the ensuing national debate on secu• larism. Goebbels preferred "black" propaganda (whose source is concealed from the audience) to verifiable "white" propaganda. For example, when he wanted to induce the British to stop bombing Berlin, he used rumor- mongers to spread the idea that Berlin "no longer existed," meaning that the city had already been destroyed. Such a story had a better chance to be believed if Nazi authorities were not connected with it. Hindutva his• tory, likewise, is being disseminated through word-of-mouth propaganda and published material such as pamphlets by anonymous authors and publishers or sympathetic newspapers without disclosing their associa• tion with the Sangh Parivar. The Nazi propaganda minister believed that propaganda must be care• fully timed with agility and plasticity and that its psychological effects should be calculated in advance. If it was propaganda, he should speak the first word, and if it was counterpropaganda, he would not let the enemy reports sink in too deeply. He would repeat a propaganda theme until it was thoroughly learned, and reiterate it even more to reinforce that learn• ing. Thus an anti-Semitic campaign would last for weeks, and during that time 70 to 80 percent of the Nazi broadcasts were devoted to it. The repeti• tion would be deemed unnecessary when the material had convinced the public completely and/or it had reached a point of diminishing effective• ness. Typically, the Sangh Parivar whipped up the Ayodhya frenzy repeat• edly, commencing in the mid-1980s in a calculated manner; struck out the reasonings of the Muslim and other groups; and beat a retreat only after the mosque was demolished. With respect to the effect of the propaganda and the public morale, which form the sixth major principle in our discussion here, Goebbels made a distinction between Haltung (bearing, conduct, observable behavior) and Stimmung (feeling, spirit, mood). Although both components of morale were important, Haltung was sought to be maintained at all times and Stimmung was ignored as things got worse for Germany during the war. When the strong countertendencies could not be affected, propaganda must offer some action or diversion or both. As the Haltung and Stimmung of the victorious "Hindus" should not recede and halt the onward march to state power on the back of history, the Mathura and Varanasi controver• sies are being dug up by the Sangh Parivar. In the final analysis, however, there was one major contrast between Goebbels's project and that of the Sangh Parivar. Goebbels did have some things to worry about: the content, purpose, and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; his own appropriate response to it; and so forth. But the Hin• dutva forces have a wide-open field with virtually no resistance to their historiographical project. Although Muslim communalism has been com• parably vehement and has assumed various forms both in India and in Introduction 9 neighboring countries, it is not analyzed here, as our focus is the politics of the Sangh Parivar. Historically speaking, the establishment of Muslim separatism in the 1920s and the communal politics of the 1930s and 1940s exacerbated -Muslim chasm. The Hindu communal historiography had to deal with the reality of Muslim culture even after independence, and the con• venient way out was emphasizing its foreignness. This communal inter• pretation of history, reinforced by the trauma of partition and the partisan politics of India and Pakistan, gives rise to a pathological hatred and mutual fear among many Hindus and Muslims in India, especially during periods of social crisis or religious frenzy. Having planned their communal program very carefully since the mid- 1980s and incited a communal frenzy all over India, the Sangh Parivar struck a massive blow on December 6, 1992, by demolishing the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, a mosque built in 1528 by a lieutenant of the Mogul emperor Babar. The Hindu communalists claim that the very site of the mosque is the Ramjanmabhumi (birthplace of Ram), an avatar of a Hindu god and the hero of a popular epic, the Ramayana (Struggle of Ram). As a result of all this, their Hindutva ideology has gained prominence in India lately, and the structure of cultural domination stands instituted upon themselves and others.

HISTORY, MYTH, AND SOCIALIZATION The wickedness of this structure of cultural domination is that it cre• ates, as it did in , "a horrible, perverse bond between the perpetrators, victims, and bystanders." In other words, however essential for the realization of , Hitler or the Nazi system could not have carried it out alone.14 The participation of others was instrumental. And this involvement of the other social forces forms an important aspect of this study. Put tersely, we question whether the historiographical proj• ect of the Sangh Parivar builds on the popular mythification that prevails among the masses or whether they manipulate the popular understand• ing of history through their own political-socialization capabilities. Thus the central object of analysis of this book is identity-construction practices in independent India, the role of knowledge of the past in that continual process, and the interface between the two as it manifests itself in contemporary Hindu-Muslim relations and political governance. Quite inevitably, such an inquiry would stretch into an investigation of many related aspects, such as the possible role the rewriting and retelling of history plays in the communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India, the communal distrust between these two communities swaying the Indian history discourses, and the role the manifest and the latent political socializations play in this economy of knowledge of the past. Taking the 10 "Presenting" the Past

Hindutva history for a closer analysis, we will probe if there is any con• nection among the national history, popular mythification, and political socialization and governance. The modern nation today consists of constructs that are "fairly recent symbols or suitably tailored discourse," such as "national history."15 As history is the continual interpretation of the past for the ever-changing needs of the present, it is primarily a writing practice.16 Writing history, however, does not happen in a vacuum but in a particular historical and social environment, as contemporary historians only retell the old tales in the mood of their times. At any given time, there exists a high degree of implicit consensus among a people on the essential features of their his• tory. There also exists a "common and relatively coherent interpretation" of history among the politicians, officials, intellectuals, journalists, and so on. And there is the product and property of academic and popular social scientists and historians that builds upon and feeds into popular con• sciousness. Mick Moore calls the above three versions of history "popular myth," "nationalist myth," and "intelligentsia's myth."17 Similarly, Robin Jeffrey identifies three kinds of history practiced in the modern world: Popular History (or Folk History), which is the "elders' explanations of why we are as we are"; Rhetorical History (or Politicians' History), which is "versions of the past to suit specific, political purposes"; and Academic History (or Scientific History), which has been developed over the last 200 years in Europe. Jeffrey compares Popular History with Clifford Geertz's "metasocial commentary" and Rhetorical History with Leonard Thompson's "political mythology." These three types of histories interact and influence each other but coexist.18 Although Moore and Jef• frey derive interesting conclusions in their rather brief studies of Sri Lanka and , respectively, the intricate connections among the three types of histories and the complexities involved in their interaction have not been subjected to any thorough and in-depth analysis. In order to execute a close scrutiny of this trilogy and the interactions among them, the three types of histories may be augmented to broader concepts of national his• tory, popular mythification, and political socialization. National history assumes that history is ultimately founded on and representable through the nation-state identity, and that the metanar- rative it employs is quite unproblematic. Such a national history need not be the nation-state's official version of its past, as there can always be other national actors, such as the Sangh Parivar in India, with their own interpretations. Popular mythification, the widely accepted "truth" about their own past among a people, explains how a people construe the world, invest it with meaning, and infuse it with emotion. The congru- ity between national history and popular mythification is facilitated by various manifest and latent political-socialization processes. In a predomi• nantly rural country such as India with a substantial number of illiterate Introduction 11 people, political-socialization processes mainly comprise cultural story• telling, politicians' public speeches, political and religious rallies, policy promulgations, and the like. This book attempts to investigate the work• ings of this amalgamation of history, myth, and political socialization, both manifest and latent. We seek to analyze the notion of "unity of history" and the Oriental• ist constructions of cultural domination with the help of postmodernism without compromising the respect for the struggles of peoples in chal• lenging these metanarrativizations. After all, the postmodern theory of history, with its poststructuralist and historicist models, is effective for such an analysis, but one has to be watchful of this dominant European movement reabsorbing the postcolonial struggles and experiences into an international postmodern discourse and subjecting postcoloniality to yet another metanarrative and display of European/Euro-American power and control.19

"PRESENTING" THE PAST As pointed out earlier, one of the chief characteristics of Hindutva pol• itics is the psychedelic preoccupation with the sanitized Hindu history and the commitment to make India's singular future look exactly like that through systematic nowcasting in the present. This "presenting" the past, turning the past into present (tense), with powerful symbols, effective communication techniques, and persuasive language is an important phe• nomenon worth studying. Reading history as ideology (just like Michael Taussig's reading of it as sorcery), we can identify an intriguing poeticity between A's "presenting" of the past and B's unconscious "presenting" of its temporality. This poeticity is one of "appropriateness of meaning and feeling," and a reading of the powerful images of the past that are appropriated and actively used in the "presenting" process can explain the poeticity and their "appropriateness."20 Sanitizing the multifarious Indians' multisided pasts, desensitizing them to the hateful Hindutva agenda, and delineating a divisive future where they can be better controlled, Hindutva groups present the past— that is, offer it as a gift to the people of India to be taken into the future. The complex histories of "India" get transmuted into a simple conflict over a religious building with emotion-laden identity strings attached to it. The futuristic present is potent and powerful. The history that the Hindutva forces anxiously script and the ancient future they envisage for India intersect in the present. Motivated by a big• oted understanding of the past, it is in the present where attempts are being made to bring about a similar future. The present becomes the cru• cial political site where opposing forces compete for prominence. As the powers that be implement policies and programs to connect the future- 12 "Presenting" the Past conscious history and backward-looking future, the civil society comes up with corresponding social responses. Political analysis of such historical discourses could look at the political intent of writing and rewriting his• tory for the present (ab)uses, or at the political side of history, or read history as "power" or ideology. This book seeks to understand how this complex "past-present-future" drama was enacted by the Sangh Parivar in India, what kind of past was chosen, which media were used to present, how the future looked, and how they all would intersect in the present, that is, when the BJP-led government ruled India between March 1998 and May 2004. We begin with an analysis of the various streams of Indian national• isms, including the Hindutva communal nationalism that points out how social, cultural, and religious symbols are exploited by the Sangh Parivar to socialize people. Taking Ram as the core, we proceed by following up the leads provided by a closely related set of texts: the Ramayana, Rama• rajya (state of Ram) imageries in political discourses, the Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhumi controversy in Ayodhya, and the Ramraksha gover• nance of the BJP-led government in New Delhi. Delineating how a diverse society such as India was divided into Rambhakts (Ram devotees) and non-Rambhakts, we proceed to study the Ramayana, especially the most popular TV version, telecast nationally in 1987-88, and investigate if and how the characters, events, and imageries of the epic are translated into a coherent set of metaphors, idioms, and expressions so as to create a and instill a sense of history, especially among the Hin• dus in India. The next stage provides an exegesis of political socializa• tion with the help of the symbols and imageries such as Ramarajya in the nation-state sovereignty discourses during the independence struggle and after the creation of independent India. The BJP's comparison of the India that they would establish with the Ramarajya concept in their political speeches and writings forms the core of this next stage of the analysis. This leads to the ongoing controversy of the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi conflict and the communal politics behind this highly emotional issue. This analysis inevitably leads to meditations on Ramraksha, the politi• cal manifestations of the Hindutva program, and the social responses that they prompted. By studying the policies and programs of the BJP-led gov• ernment, the electoral performances of the BJP, various communal riots, and the production and consumption pattern of some of the social sym• bols, one is better able to understand the reactions of "the acquiescent" or "the silent" masses. These particular sociopolitical sites are preferred to textbooks and general-history books because the former speak louder than the texts and also because the illiterate masses have little to do with textbooks anyway. When we hear, understand, and interpret the silence of the silent, we may be able to complete the picture with some possible insights. Introduction 13

Thus we look at the religious, cultural, sociological, and ideological dimensions of the Hindutva historiographical project, going back and forth into the realms of history, myth, socialization, and governance. The discussions on the above texts point out the facts that any fixity of cat• egories, such as national history, myth, socialization, and governance, is problematic, and that the transboundary transgressions are not just unavoidable but indeed indispensable. This analysis would obviously start from the early 1920s, which witnessed the establishment of Muslim separatism and Hindu fundamentalism; would continue to the 1990s, when the Sangh Parivar's narrative of national history reached its pin• nacle with the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the attainment of state power; and would terminate in 2004, when the Sangh Parivar lost power and prominence at the Center. Evidently, a notion of reading runs through the whole study, as it deals with a set of related texts. This mode of reading and interpretation, often called deconstruction, is also seen as a philosophical position and a politi• cal or intellectual strategy. To deconstruct a discourse is to show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts by identifying in the text the rhetori• cal operations that produce the supposed ground of argument, key con• cepts, or premises. In other words, working within the terms of the system, one breaches it.21 As communalization occurs in intergroup situations, a study of communalism should investigate the concerned groups' ide• ologies, processes of identity development, and historical context within which political assertions of such an identity manifest. Although Muslim communalism is not discussed in detail here, it provides a constant back• drop to the study of Hindutva communalism. This deconstructive reading facilitates recovering the pasts from metanarratives and replacing them "with a plural field of multi-civilizational processes."22 And that is the logical destination for this project. The purpose of this book is not to denigrate any of the individuals, organizations, or other entities I discuss. Rather, it is an attempt to refuse to be an indifferent bystander in the midst of hate politics, to expose and resist the psychedelic history of the Sangh Parivar, and to rejuvenate the multifaceted dialogues of the many histories of "." I also take issue with the popular tendency to view Hinduism simply as a system of noble values steeped in a social vacuum without regard to its heavy human cost. If the Muslim, Sikh, Christian, and other communalisms are left out, it is not out of any personal sympathies or slantings but because of the inabil• ity to cover the whole variety of madness in a single project. As a one- man practitioner of one type of "dissenting-Hinduism" (with no books, no prophets, no intermediaries, and no institutions) in defiance of the Hindutva program allegedly being undertaken on my and others' behalf, I feel obliged to be out in the open and am unable (and most definitely unwilling) to hide behind a facade of neutrality. 14 "Presenting" the Past

As Barrington Moore Jr. points out, neutrality is, after all, an impossibil• ity, because any simple straightforward "truth" about political institutions or events is bound to damage some group interests. Defining objectivity as "the willingness to find oneself wrong," Moore recommends, "For all stu• dents of human society, sympathy with the victims of historical processes and skepticism about the victors' claims provide essential safeguards against being taken in by the dominant mythology. A scholar who tries to be objective needs those feelings as part of his ordinary equipment."23 This book is better viewed as an exercise in critical history writing, an attempt to resist Eurocentric discourses and practices and to refuse to be a victim or bystander or perpetrator in the Hindutva program of hateful and violent communal nationalism.

NOTES 1. For a story of the RSS's 60 years, see RSS: Spearheading National Renaissance (Bangalore: Prakashan Vibhag, 1985). For a descriptive account of the origin, growth, and spread of the RSS, see H. V. Seshadri, ed., RSS: A Vision in Action (Ban• galore: Jagarana Prakashana, 1988). Praises of various writers are compiled in How Others Look at the RSS (New Delhi: Deendayal Research Institute, 1989). Another compilation of articles "to clear the cobweb of misunderstanding and to project a clear picture of the awakened Hindu mind" is done by H. V. Seshadri, The Way (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1991). The works that criticize the RSS and other Sangh Parivar outfits are discussed in other places throughout the book. 2. Romila Thapar, "Syndicated Moksha?" Seminar, no. 313 (September 1985), p. 22. 3. Prabhat Patnaik, "The Fascism of Our Times," Social Scientist 21, nos. 3-4 (March-April 1993), pp. 69-77. For more discussion on Fascism and Hindutva, see Sumit Sarkar, "The Fascism of the Sangh Parivar," Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 5 (30 January 1993); Manini Chatterjee, "Seeds of Fascism," Seminar, no. 399 (November 1992); Indias Saffron Surge: Renaissance or Fascism? A Collection of Politi• cal Writings (Bombay: Bharatiya Janwadi Aghadi, 1993); C. Rajeswara Rao, "RSS- Janasangh—Spearhead of JP's Counterrevolution," in Parties of Right-Reaction, ed. C. Rajeswara Rao et al. (New Delhi: Communist Party of India, 1975); and K. L. Mahendra, Defeat the RSS Fascist Designs (New Delhi: Communist Party of India, 1973). For a broader discussion on Fascism with an eye on the Hindu philosophy, see M.N. Roy, Fascism: Its Philosophy, Professions, and Practice (Calcutta: Jijnasa, 1976). Discussing the Indian situation, Aijaz Ahmad contends that one could learn more from studying the Fascist experience of a semi-industrialized country such as Italy of the 1920s than from the Nazi experience of the fully industrialized Ger• many. See Ahmad, "Fascism and National Culture: Reading Gramsci in the Days of Hindutva," Social Scientist 21, nos. 3-4 (March-April 1993), pp. 32-68. 4. V.M. Tarkunde, "Hindu Communalism: Is It the Beginning of Fascism?" Secularist, July-August 1991, pp. 81-83, 93. 5. Abida Sami Uddin, "Are We Heading towards Fascism," Radical Humanist 57, no. 1 (April 1993), pp. 45-48. Introduction 15

6. Madhu Limaye, "We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us," Hindu, 13 Decem• ber 1992. 7. Sandy Gordon, "Indian Security Policy and the Rise of the Hindu Right," South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 17, Special Issue (1994), p. 197. 8. M.K. Haldar, "Hindutva and Politics," Radical Humanist 57, no. 1 (April 1993), pp. 37-^0. 9. Gyanendra Pandey, "The New Hindu History," South Asia 117, Special Issue (1994), pp. 97-112. See also his "The Appeal of Hindu History," in Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity, ed. Vasudha Dalmia and Heinrich von Stietencron (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), pp. 369-88. 10. R.S. Sharma, "Indian Civilization," in Propaganda and Communication in World History, vol. 1, The Symbolic Instrument in Early Times, ed. Harold D. Lasswell, Daniel Lerner, and Hans Speier (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), pp. 175-204. 11. Wm. W. Biddle, "A Psychological Definition of Propaganda," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 26, no. 3 (October-December 1931), pp. 283-95. 12. Leonard W. Doob, "Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda," Public Opinion Quarterly, fall 1950, pp. 419-42. See also Ralph K. White, "Hitler, Roosevelt, and the Nature of War Propaganda," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44, no. 2 (April 1949). 13. Quoted in M.N. Roy, Freedom or Fascism? (n.p.: Radical Democratic Party, 1942). 14. Omer Bartov, "An Idiot's Tale: Memories and Histories of the Holocaust," Journal of Modern History 67, no. 1 (March 1995), pp. 67-70. See also Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945 (: Asher/HarperCollins, 1992). 15. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1-14. 16. Michael J. Shapiro, The Politics of Representation: Writing Practices in Biog• raphy, Photography, and Policy Analysis (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 98-100. 17. Mick Moore, "The Ideological History of the Sri Lankan 'Peasantry/" Mod• ern Asian Studies 23, no. 1 (1989), pp. 188-93. 18. Robin Jeffrey, "Grappling with History: Sikh Politicians and the Past," Pacific Affairs 60, no. 1 (spring 1987), p. 61. 19. See Bill Ashcroft et al, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post- Colonial Literatures (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), pp. 155-56. 20. Michael Taussig, "History as Sorcery," Representations 7 (summer 1984), p. 87. 21. Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 85-110. 22. Manfred Henningsen, "The New Politics of History," in The Philosophy of Order: Essays on History, Consciousness, and Politics, ed. Peter J. Opitz and Gregor Sebba (Stuttgart, Germany: Klett-Cotta, 1981), p. 428. 23. Quoted in Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians: An Introductory Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1984), p. 222. This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 1 Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story"

The philosophical underpinnings of the Enlightenment, the political organization of the nation-state, and the academic discipline of history all came to South Asia under the colonial and Orientalist package. Ever since the Enlightenment, Western civilization has been considered a prod• uct of rational human action guided by scientific reason, which enables obtaining a better view of reality. Tending to be absolutist with respect to the rationality of the nature of the world and of the human mind, the positivists or empirical realists within the Indological discourse denied Indians the power to represent themselves and appropriated that power for themselves.1 In India, just like in other colonized areas of the world, nation and national history are the culminations of the struggles to regain that power.

NATION, NATIONALISM, AND NATIONAL HISTORY Nation and nationalism are variously defined and described. The imagi• nation explanation treats the nation as an abstract concept that emerges in specific historical circumstances in which human agency and imagination play a crucial role. The evolutionary explanation regards the rise of nations as an inevitable process in the "movement of history" and a necessary and beneficial stage in the development of human society. The nation-building concept of points to the underlying sociodemographic pro• cesses that set in motion and fuel the growth of nations and activities of the nationalists. In the constructed arguments, historians reemphasize the 18 "Presenting" the Past activities and beliefs of particular instruments, such as warfare (Charles Tilly), nationalist design (H. Seton-Watson), or political instrument (John Breuilly).2 While the dominant theories of nationalism by J. J. Rousseau, J. G. Herder, J.G. Fichte, Guiseppe Mazzini, and others see nations as "products of the natural destinies of peoples,"3 Marxist theorists situate the nation "at the point of intersection of politics, technology and social transformation."4 The liberal-rationalists, such as John Plamenatz, Hans Kohn, and Ernest Gellner, see the nationalist project as an enabling agency to realize the "universal urge for liberty and progress."5 In the final analysis, however, "nation and nationalism are cognitive artifacts we invent to mark off an intellectual universe," and nationalism is a type of political rationalization that is used for a variety of political purposes.6 Benedict Anderson posits that nationality, nation-ness, and nationalism are "cultural artifacts of a particular kind" distilled toward the end of the eighteenth century from a complex crossing of discrete historical forces that then became "'modular/ capable of being transplanted, with vary• ing degrees of self-consciousness, to a great variety of social terrains, to merge and be merged with a correspondingly wide variety of political and ideological constellations." First, the cultural conceptions that a particu• lar script-language offered ontological truth, that the had divine dispensation, and that temporality was to be perceived with cosmology and history as the same declined and set the search "for a new way of linking fraternity, power and time meaningfully together." And then "the convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language" created the possibility of a new form of imagined com• munity.7 As lack of history is often equated with want of identity in social rela• tions of individuals, families, or communities, modern nations too, as Eric Hobsbawm points out, claim to be the opposite of novel and constructed but "rooted in the remotest antiquity" and a "natural" community that requires no definition other than self-assertion. According to Hobsbawm, "fairly recent symbols or suitably tailored discourse" such as national his• tory make up the modern nation today. These invented traditions "seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past," and "use history as a legitimator of action and cement of group action."8 Is a nation, then, just imagined or invented? Anthony Smith argues that Anderson, in his historical cases, tends to relegate "the presence or absence and nature of pre-existent ethnic ties—a lingering or vivid sense of com• munity which the creators of the modern nation took as the basis of their work of 'reconstruction.'" He also contends that Hobsbawm's "invention" analysis reeks of instrumentalism that springs from the Marxian tradition of class manipulation of the "inert masses" by the ruling elites. Accord- Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 19 ing to Smith, the role of the intelligentsia is far more circumscribed than the imagination and invention approaches suggest. As he highlights the role of "the heritage of pre-modern ethnic ties,"9 Hobsbawm clarifies that nations are "dual phenomena, constructed essentially from above, but which cannot be understood unless also analysed from below."10 Accord• ingly, one of the several criteria by which people indicate belonging to a human collectivity is the membership of a historical nation. When know• ing one's history becomes part of being a nation, we "find narration at the centre of nation" in the form of origin stories, myths of founding fathers, genealogies of heroes, and so forth.11 So nation-state and national history go hand in hand in defining groups and legitimizing the groups' actions. The nation-state has come to sym• bolize what "we" are, and it "is the site of the most fundamental division between inside and outside, us and them, domestic and foreign."12 His• tory is an inevitable prerequisite for the creation of this collective con• sciousness and its conscious capacity to act. While creating this collective consciousness, the self is always delineated in relation to the Other. The constitution of the self with esteem and the Other with exoticism invari• ably results in the disposition of the Other as a less-than-equal subject. Hence the sociopolitical organization is rife with representational prac• tices that are oriented more often toward "sharpening boundaries" rather than toward "softening boundaries."13 Contending that "every social community reproduced by the function• ing of institutions is imaginary" and that "it is based on the projection of individual existence into the weft of a collective narrative," Etienne Bali- bar critiques the role of history and ideology in "the nation form." The "pre-history events," the "qualitatively distinct events spread out over time," which do not belong to a particular nation, are "repeated or inte• grated into new political structures" and made to play a role in the genesis of national formations. The historical production of the people presup• poses the constitution of a specific ideological form that should be "a mass phenomenon and a phenomenon of individuation" and should effect an "interpellation of individuals as subjects." This ideological form facilitates communication between individuals and social groups "not by suppress• ing all differences, but by relativizing them and subordinating them to itself in such a way that it is the symbolic difference between 'ourselves' and 'foreigners' which wins out and which is lived as irreducible." Calling the community instituted by the nation-state a "fictive ethnicity" ("under• stood by analogy with the persona ficta of the juridical tradition in the sense of an institutional effect, a 'fabrication'"), Balibar argues that "it is fictive ethnicity which makes it possible for the expression of a pre-existing unity to be seen in the state, and continually to measure the state against its 'historic mission' in the service of the nation and, as a consequence, to idealize politics."14 20 "Presenting" the Past

Quoting Durkheim and Mauss, Bruce Lincoln posits that "society is constructed from nothing so much as from sentiments," and these sentiments—above all those of internal affinity (affection, loyalty, mutual attachment, and ) and external estrangement (detachment, alienation, and hostility)—constitute the bonds and borders that we reify as society. ... it is precisely through the repeated evocation of such sentiments via the invocation of select moments from the past that social identities are continually (re-)established and social formations (re-)constructed. Thus, it is not just because one is Sienese that one feels pride on hearing the story of Montaperti; rather, when one feels pride in this story, in that very moment one (re-)becomes Sienese, that is, a person who feels affinity for those others who also take pride in Montaperti and estrange• ment from those who do not. (italics in original)15

History writing/telling/remembering, then, is nothing but a rereading of the past, and we look into the past with the hope of its being useful now for our present purposes. Thus history, identity construction, and narra- tivization form an integrated whole. As Albert Wendt puts it: "A society is what it remembers; we are what we remember. Like individuals, societies can and do reorder their memories It is also possible for our histories to be erased almost totally and replaced by other histories. Our history, since we swung off the trees and walked on two legs, is full of such erasures and replacements."16 To "erase" and "replace" is to narrate. According to Shapiro, real events do not exist without narratives. He quotes Benedict Anderson's point that the "" emerged only when print media began to place meaning-creating boundaries around the flux of certain activities in the late eighteenth century. Shapiro also points out that the event, "which con• tinually alters with shifts in the textual practices through which the event is constituted," underwent rapid changes during the recent bicentennial year of the French Revolution. The French particularly "renegotiated the past to make it more compatible with the dominant self-interpretations with which they now live." He further establishes that the recent profes• sional and media attention in the United States tries to construct a differ• ent "Vietnam War" than the one produced by the official discourse of the Johnson administration and the subsequent official and popular culture narratives. Shapiro quotes Jean-Francois Lyotard's position to support his argument:

We habitually pose the following sequence: there is the fact, then the account of the witness, that is to say a narrative activity transforming the fact into a narra• tive. . . . This position on the problem of history poses a theatrical model: out• side, is the fact, external to the theatrical space; on stage the dramatic narrative unfolds; hidden in the wings ... is the director, the narrator with all his machinery, the fabbrica of narration. The historian is supposed to undo all the machinery and Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 21 machination and to restore the excluded, having beaten down the walls of the theater. But it is obvious that the historian is himself only another director, his narrative another product, his work another narration.

For Shapiro "there are no 'events' outside of the spacing, connectivity and the other meaning-giving dimensions that are part of producing narra• tives."17 There are discordant arguments against the above reasoning. Although "history means interpretation" for E.H. Carr, and "historical interpreta• tions always involve moral judgements, or value judgements," he does believe in the existence of the realm of historical truth that lies between two poles: "the north pole of valueless facts and the south pole of value judgements still struggling to transform themselves into facts."18 The "philosophically idealistic assumption or presumption that there is an innermost core of true being in an event or an object of a movement or personality and that all else is incidental or accidental" was prominent in the thought of some German historians of the 1800s.19 That school of thought has survived, and J.G. Droysen, for instance, perceives history to be a convergence of objective events ("res gestae") and their subjective comprehension ("Historia rerum gestarum"). Likewise, Ranke sees history as a project of constructing events as they really were ("wie es eigentlich gewesen ist"). Like the above-mentioned "search for the essence," factual- ism—the claim that fact can stand alone—also has its roots in nineteenth- century German historiography. It was reinforced by turn-of-the-century scientism.20 Eric Voegelin understands history as "a multi-civilizational field of meaning processes without an ending." For him, history is "the process and the record of the experiences of transcending the given order of things and its various codified meaning stories. It was the constant flow of symbolic eruptions in, by, and through which concrete human beings tried to give new meaning to their disturbing or empowering experiences of personal, social or cosmic existence."21 As the above schools of thought criticize each other as "diverting attention from historical realities"22 and practicing "residual empiricism,"23 Dipesh Chakrabarty shows the way out of this debate by claiming, "It is difficult if not impossible today to deny the force of post-structuralist rejection of historicist ideas of history. Yet a heralding of the death of history in the name of postmodernity ... seems premature and disabling."24

INDIAN NATIONALISM: ORIGIN AND GROWTH The welter of historical narratives of "India" and "Indianness" that come under the broad rubric of merits close atten• tion. The interactions among all different peoples in the subcontinent be• fore the nineteenth century were predominantly cultural and social. The 22 "Presenting" the Past humiliation commonly suffered at the hands of the colonizer in the form of racism, economic exploitation, and sociopolitical domination kindled dissension, and the freedom movement brought the peoples of the sub• continent together. However, it is a mistake to view Indian nationalism(s) as purely a response to Europeanization, as there were varieties of inner struggles that arose out of the political and historical melee that the region was going through. The form and content of nationalism varied from what M.N. Roy calls the "social of the Congress," whose leaders were "rather constitutional democrats and reformers than nationalists," to the "orthodox nationalism" of the Hindu revivalists, who attempted to clothe India's backwardness in the glorious garb of "spiritual" civiliza• tion.25 The reformist and revivalist tendencies have cohabitated in many national leaders and movements, with erratic fluctuations in some cases and a relatively steady flow in others. Emanating from the Indian intellectual renaissance, Indian nationalism has included indigenous visions, derivative models of different types, and dangerous schemes that appropriate the former discourses in ingenious ways. The movements such as the Brahmo Samaj (founded in 1830) in Bengal, the Prarthana Samaj (1867) in , the Arya Samaj (1875) in Punjab, the Theosophical Society (1875), the Ramakrishna Movement, and the dynamic leaders such as Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), Swami Dayananda (1824-1883), Mahadeva Govinda Ranade (1842-1901), Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891), and Annie Besant (1847-1933) emerged and articulated new ideas amid the situ- ational background of the political institutions of the day. Echoing the social, moral, and spiritual vigor of the renaissance, most of them strongly believed in India's delivering an important message to the West and even to the whole of humanity. The establishment of the Indian National Congress in 1885 as much as the subsequent political metamorphosis it underwent intermittently came to be crucial for Indian nationalism. The political ideas and activities of both the moderate and the extremist nationalists, such as Vishnu Krishna Chiploonkar (1850-1882), Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1898), Dada- bhai Naoroji (1825-1917), Surendranath Banerjee (1848-1925), Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920), Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932), Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928), Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), and others, resonated both indigenous visions and derivative of different types. When the Congress program remained one of nation building, the extremists such as Tilak interrupted it with their "integral nationalism" toward the close of the nineteenth century. This revolt, which was more against the Congress old guard than the government, operated with the idea that the nationhood of the was a reality given their religio-cultural unity, and hence the Indian nationalism should be nur- Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 23 tured with the native traditions. When the Age of Consent Bill of 1891 proposed to increase a girl's age of consent to her marriage from 10 to 12, Tilak fiercely criticized that and emerged as the champion of orthodox nationalism. Invoking the Hindu scriptures and philosophy for the mod• ern political purposes, he founded the Anti-Cow-Killing Society, and this orthodox spirit of aggressive nationalism also crystallized in the form of organizations such as the Society for the Removal of Obstacles to Hindu Religion. The British government's interest in perpetuating the religious superstitions and beliefs and keeping the people resigned to their "fate" resulted in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858 and other such declarations assuring the orthodox forces free hand in social and religious exploitation. Tilak also delved into history to find inspiration for the present and came up with the idea of festival. Tilak's integral nationalism was accorded philosophico-spiritual sub• limity by other extremists such as Pal and Ghose, for whom independence was to be more of a spiritual uplift than political progress. When they recognized the need to give predominance to material questions, they replaced the "defense of Dharma and cow" with the Swadeshi program (encouraging the use of indigenous articles and boycotting foreign ones). As Roy puts it, this revealed "the inherent impotency of the reactionary tendencies that ran through its ideological structure." However, the mod• erates were forced to adopt Swadeshi in the 21st session of the Congress in 1906 and boycotting British goods in 1907. When the moderates tried to rescue the Congress from the extremists, it resulted in a split in 1907, and with the persecution of the latter by the British, their politics broke down.26 The indigenous nationalism of the Lal-Bal-Pal trinity of the pre- Gandhian era had a very different conception of and convictions about the Indian nation from the nineteenth-century liberal and moderate nationalisms. P. D. Saggi argues that the extremists were motivated by a strong sense of wrong, equipped with a unique historical interpretation, and tried to reawaken the people with original thinking, singular cour• age, and personal risks. With them the Indian "nationalism became posi• tive and confident."27 Lal(a Lajpat Rai) asserted that India was practically independent until the twelfth century, and the subsequent six centuries of Muslim rule was not foreign domination either because the Muslim rulers "adopted the country, made it their home, married and raised children there and became the sons of the soil." Emphasizing the alien character of the British rule and their economic exploitation, he demanded "a position of equality" for India. He insisted on Hindu-Muslim unity not "as a mea• sure of political expediency" but "as a fundamental doctrine of our faith." Having traveled in Japan, the United States, and Britain, he assured the people that "we are inferior to none on the face of the earth." He added, "If we had learnt the art of telling lies on a broad scale, if we had swept 24 "Presenting" the Past away all our past and had entered into the great arena of violence, if we had done all these things, which at the present moment represent Power in the world, we might have been considered by the great nations of the world as worthy of self-government. But we have been lacking in these qualities." So his advice to the people was "Seek truth, speak truth and act truth and I promise you shall win."28 Taking a different cue tainted by Vedic philosophy and Hindu symbol• isms, Bal (Gangadhar Tilak) asked the people, "Why should you not in the name of religion, in the name of polity, in the name of that polity which was cultivated in the past to the largest extent the history of the world has yet produced—in the name of that philosophy that is religious, I appeal to you to awaken to your position and do your level best for the attain• ment of your birthright—I mean the right of managing your own affairs in your own home."29 In a similar vein, two things stood out for (Bipin Chandra) Pal "in the past history of the Hindu people." They were the supreme sense of the Spiritual, the Universal, and the Eternal, and the constitutional and civil character of the genius of their social organiza• tion. So "Spirituality and Freedom" must be every Indian nation builder's motto, which denotes the "Ideal-End" and the "Essential-Way." He did not agree with the view that India lacked a sense of history. He argued, "If by history is meant a table of dates, names, and events, the absence of such a history, in regard to ancient and medieval India, may perhaps be admitted; ... the literature of anation [sic] furnishes a far truer and more valuable record of their growth and evolution, than what the so-called historical records have ever been able to give. And India possesses such a thought-history, almost in an unbroken series, from the prehistoric epochs of the earliest Vedic hymns, to those of the latest Moghul Emperors."30 Taking an exactly opposite position of Bipin Chandra Pal, Bankim Chan• dra Chatterjee was distressed by the Hindus' ignorance of their history. He exhorted them "to 'discover' their true histories in consonance with the 'scientific mode of thought'" because the principle of historicity was an essential procedure to acquire objective knowledge, and the knowl• edge of one's own history constituted the self-awareness of a people.31 There were also others, such as Ananda Mohan Bose and Surendranath Banerjee, who turned to Europe and espoused Giuseppe Mazzini's gos• pel of national unity through their various organizations in Bengal in the 1870s and 1880s.32 Following the Western model even more keenly, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1965) gave more definite economic and social content to national• ism and situated it within the domain of state ideology. With emphasis on industrialization to strengthen the political foundations of nationhood, his path of economic development was planned in terms of the scientific understanding of society and history.33 Thus Nehru set out to transform the "backward," orthodox, and divided society into an industrialized, sec- Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 25 ular, liberal democracy. However, only the democratic politics attained the desired level of entrenchment, and that too resulted in powerful populist pressures and further divisions of the polity. , who had to deal with all the resultant conflicts, reacted by centralizing the politics in addition to the centralized economic planning that she inherited from her father. The Nehruvian model was fast aground by the 1980s. Nonetheless, the reinscription of Western rationality and science into Indian society and the invocation of Gandhian values and vision that completely contra• dicted the former were conveniently grafted onto the Indian nationhood by the Nehru . Positioning himself completely outside the post-Enlightenment and hence nationalist thought, Mahatma Gandhi outrightly rejected Western rationalism, scientism, and historicism. For him, Truth did not lie in his• tory, and science did not have privileged access to it. The unified, unchang• ing, and transcendental Truth could be found in daily living by practicing moral living.34 Equipped with this universal Truth and the conviction that history was a contemporary myth, Gandhi could easily dismiss the Mus• lim domination of India. As far as he was concerned, the defeat was a problem for the victor, not for the vanquished. Although he did not think within the thematic of nationalism, he replaced the "gentlemanly class" as the main voice of Indian nationalism through large-scale mobilization, organizational activism, and "constant demands on the Indian for confor• mity to an internally consistent public ethic."35 Pursuing a similar universal thinking, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) repudiated Western-type nationalism molded in "armament firms," "cut• throat commerce," and "mere things" instead of "moral ideals." For him, "We in India must make up our minds that we cannot borrow other peo• ple's [Europeans'] history, and that if we stifle our own we are committing suicide." The "eventual political destiny" of India could not be reached by building "a political miracle of freedom upon the quicksand of social slavery" or by borrowing power from the sources of other people's his• tory. He dreamed of a humanity that did not suffer from the "dipsomania of organising power" but sought after a moral freedom, not just political or national freedom.36 Building on this heritage, Gandhian universalists would insist that India's national heritage include not just the ancient past but also the recent past. So Indians who follow religions of external origin should accept India's ancient past as part of their national heritage, and Hindus and other internal religious groups should embrace India's medieval and recent past. This all-inclusive Indian nation is fundamentally different from a Hindu nation.37 This is a juxtaposition to the Hindutva nationalism, which argues that Hindu religion and Indian culture have been synony• mous from the beginning of history and still represent the main cultural stream. For Hindutva forces, the followers of other outside religions should 26 "Presenting" the Past establish rapport with this cultural stream to be part of the Indian culture. The Gandhian universalists, on the other hand, would contend that reli• gion, for non-Hindus, is predominantly a way of worship and not a way of life. Furthermore, Hinduism is also a way of worship, with dogmas, rituals, and supernatural beliefs. When Buddhism and Jainism challenged the authority of the Vedas and the Vedic rituals, there occurred the differ• ence between Hindu religion and Indian culture representing respectively the Vedic doctrine and the secular aspect of life that all religions in India accepted as their own and contributed to. So a Muslim does not have to look at the Hindu mythologies exactly as a Hindu would. Hindutva nationalism is a careful mixture of both the derivative dis• course and the appropriation of indigenous factors. The thoughts and activities of Swami Shraddhananda (1856-1926), Madan Mohan Malaviya (1861-1946), Bhai Paramanand, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), Har Dayal (1884-1933), Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1889-1940), Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-1953), M.S. Golwalkar (1906-1973), and others contributed to Hindu revivalism. Nationalism for the Hindu revivalists was a vehicle for the crystallization of the cultural ascendancy of Hindu• ism, and the political and economic policies of the nation were envisaged with reference to the Hindu philosophy. The non-Hindu communities would not be given any preferential treatment in anything. Nor would there be a call for the abolition or reform of the oppressive caste system. To the contrary, the restoration of the Vedic principles demanded a purified value system. On the economic front, the state would be fiscally strong, but it should not interfere in economic life. There was a disinclination to take a critical and radical attitude on the issue of property or land rights. As opposed to the individualistic, rational, and material trends of the West, the Hindu revivalists believed in traditional, organic, and associative outlook. Though bent upon reviving the old scriptures, they offered a sci• entific interpretation of their teachings. They were not opposed to science, and in fact they traced the germs of modern science back to their old books. They were not averse to progress, but wanted that to happen in conformity with the religious teachings. This Hindu ideology had a romantic longing for the spirit of the past. With Savarkar's publication of Hindutva in 1923 and Golwaikar's assuming the leadership of the RSS in 1940 came a more coherent ideology and leadership for the Hindu revivalism. Then there was Muslim nationalism and nationalists such as Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), and Muhammad Ali (1878-1931), who started off as nationalists and later fluc• tuated in response to the demands of communal politics. Khan claimed that "our land of India is like a newly wedded bride whose two beau• tiful and luscious eyes are the Hindus and the Musalmans," and their mutual concord would determine if the bride would remain resplendent, or squinted and partially blind. However, he became suspicious of the Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 27

Congress and advised Muslims to keep aloof from it.38 Likewise, Jinnah, who used to appeal for Hindu-Muslim amity and worked vigorously for the Congress even after joining the All India Muslim League (started in 1906), changed his stand after the Nagpur Congress in 1920. Opposing the Gandhian noncooperation movement, he went on to demand a 50- 50 share of political power between "Moslem India" and "Non-Moslem India," characterized the Congress as a Hindu organization, expressed fears about "Congress tyranny" and "Hindu domination," and eventually formulated his "two nations" theory. In his letter of September 15,1944, to Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah argued,

We maintain that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test as a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, and what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitudes and ambitions: in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all the canons of International Law, we are a nation.39

In a similar fashion, Ali also sought to bring the Hindus and Muslims together during the early years of his public life, joined both the League and the Congress, led the Khilaf at movement along with his brother Shau- kat Ali (1873-1938) with the support of Mahatma Gandhi, and steered away from the Congress nationalism since the Coconada Congress of 1923. Attending the First Round Table Conference in 1930 against the decision of the Congress, he spoke that he belonged to two nonconcentric circles of equal size, namely India and the Muslim world. He argued further, "We [Indian Muslims] belong to these two circles, each of more than 300 mil• lions, and we can leave neither. We are not nationalists but supernational- ists, and I as a Muslim say that 'God made man and the Devil made the nation.' Nationalism divides; our religion binds."40 Besides these major streams of Indian nationalism, there have been a multitude of smaller and local ones. The Communist Party of India's (founded in 1925) combining nationalism with class dynamics; provincial nationalisms such as Bengal nationalism, Punjab nationalism, and so forth; various peasant uprisings; and movements such as the Satya Shodhak Samaj of Jatirao Phule, the untouchables movement of Babasaheb Ambed- kar, and various others played up the multifarious contingent identities despite the mainstream's unproblematic portrayal of a unitary India. Thus, India has been variously reconstructed by myriad groups and individuals depending upon their views of "Indianness." However, as Bhikhu Parekh contends, three broad categories could be delineated in early twentieth century with regards to the Indian statehood and national identity. Some leaders argued that India should become a Hindu state in a cultural-civilizational sense rather than a religious sense. Others felt India 28 "Presenting" the Past had no alternative but to become a multireligious state, and yet others pleaded for a secular state. By secular state, some meant sarvadharmasam- abhava (equal respect for all religions), others dharmanirapeksha (indiffer• ence to religion), and yet others suggested outright hostility to religion. Although Nehru, the most ardent secular nationalist, did not see any political role for religion for the ideological and institutional apparatus, he did welcome spirituality in politics, like Gokhale and Gandhi.41 In sum, all through the history of the search for Indianness, the spiritual side of nationalism has been quite predominant. Stressed by the renais• sance leaders and movements, it was taken up earnestly not just by the extremists such as Lai, Bal, Pal, and Ghose, but also by the moderates, including Rajagopalachari, C.R. Das, Rajendra Prasad, Radhakrishnan, the Patel brothers, and others who were staunch adherents of religious and idealistic philosophies. The braiding together of reform and revival• ism in individual leaders and the Indian National Congress as a whole was a significant factor in the nascent Indian nationalism. Even in inde• pendent India, the revivalist tendencies could be discerned in the choice of the country's name (Bharat), national symbols (Dharma ), (Sanskritized Hindi), and so forth.42 With the demise of Neh- ruvian social democracy and the loss of ardent official patronage for the secular vision, Indian nationalism slowly degenerated into blatant com• munalism with the ambivalent stance of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and the consolidated resurgence of the Hindutva forces, who were not major political actors right before or after independence.

"INDIA": NARRATORS AND NARRATIVES What matters for our purposes here, however, is how the travails of Indian nationalism get recorded and come to be retold for the political purposes of the present. Writing history, as Dipesh Chakrabarty asserts, is "neither a 'natural' nor an ancient activity in India."43 The focus of early history writing in India was the doings of kings and courtiers. Irfan Habib quotes Zia Barani, the historian of the fourteenth-century Delhi Sultanate, explaining that "the science of history consists of (the account of) great• ness and the description of merits and virtues and glories of the great men of the Faith and State."44 The modern writing of Indian history and culture began in the eigh• teenth century, and one could discern three major trends, namely the Ori• entalists, the utilitarians, and the nationalists, until the twentieth century. Having been extremely suspicious of the historical changes in Europe, especially as a result of industrialization, and alienated from their own society, the Orientalists were searching for Utopias elsewhere and found India quite helpful. The utilitarians, on the other hand, were a group of philosophers dominant in the nineteenth century and were convinced that Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 29 the British colonization was a boon to India, as British administration and legislation would end the backwardness of India. Utilitarian James Mill divided the Indian history into Hindu, Muslim, and British periods in his book History of British India and prompted the communal interpretation of Indian history. Although the subsequent historians used the nomen• clatures of ancient, medieval, and modern for the above periods, they did consider the change in the religion of the major of the time as the basis of the division.45 The belief in European superiority and Indian inferiority, or "the domi• nance of reason over superstition and civilization over barbarism," was the governing hypothesis of most of the works by British historians.46 Quoting Guha, Dipesh Chakrabarty argues that "the production of a colo• nialist historiography was from the very outset an exercise in dominance and not an act of charity."47 Ronald Inden sums up succinctly that the privileged voice within what he calls the "Indological discourse" denies to Indians the power to represent themselves and appropriates that power by hierarchizing the knowledges Indians have of themselves and turning them into subjugated knowledges. Thus Indian civilization becomes fun• damentally a defective product of its environment, unlike the European one, which is a product of rational human action. Thus, by the end of the nineteenth century, the communal riot narrative became a dominant strand in colonialist historiography.48 As a counter to this approach, the nationalist Indian historians of the early twentieth century glorified the ancient Hindu period (about 1000 B.C.E. to 1200 C.E.) and drew a kind of consolation for the present humili• ation.49 Such an interface between patriotic consciousness and the colo• nial framework of knowledge imposed upon it resulted in nationalistic thought and nationalist historiography.50 This derivative discourse of nationalist historians pictured the rise of a nation-state in ancient Hindu empires, claimed everything good in India having indigenous origins, and called the empire (320-540 C.E.) the "Golden Age." According to this rendition, everything went downhill when the Muslims came in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.51 Marxist historians focused on writing histories of domination, rebel• lions, and movements with the conviction that the Orientalists and the nationalists wrongly portrayed India as an undivided entity that had tran• scended class and ethnic divisions, and that nonclass histories suppressed the history of the oppressed. The social historians preferred placing India in the larger focus of world history to restricting it to the national one. Political economy was the major emphasis for both Marxist and social his• torians, and they described India's Third Worldness with issues such as production systems and political control.52 While colonialist historiography characterized Indian nationalism as a function of stimulus and response, bourgeois-nationalist historiography 30 "Presenting" the Past portrayed it as an idealist venture in which the Indian elite led the peo• ple from subjugation to freedom. The subaltern historiography, however, attempts to dismantle elitist historiography of both the colonialists and the bourgeois-nationalists by decoding biases and value judgments in their narratives. It also seeks to restore to the subaltern groups their agency, the role in history as subjects with their own ideology and a political agenda. It tries to recover "the contribution made by the people on their own, that is, independently of the elite to the making and development of this [Indian] nationalism" (italics in original).53 Subaltern historiography has produced a rich collection of theoretically informed historical studies by articulating the hidden or suppressed accounts of various groups, such as women, Dalits, peasants, urban poor, and other disadvantaged groups. Communal interpretation of Indian history is quite notorious. In its com• mon South Asian usage, communalism "refers to a condition of suspicion, fear and hostility between members of different religious communities." In academic investigations, it refers to "organized political movements based on the proclaimed interests of a religious community, usually in response to a real or imagined threat from another religious community (or com• munities)."54 Communalism is a modern ideology that incorporates some aspects and elements of past ideologies, institutions, and historical back• ground to form a new ideological and political discourse or mix. There have been several reasons for the rise of communal historiography. First, the Mughal period was still fresh in the memory of the people and could not be glamorized. Second, the ancient past was remote and could be known only through official texts. Third, a European bias was carried on as the historians tended to project the Catholic-Protestant struggle into India as Hindu-Muslim struggle.55 Fourth, the communal approach was also to some extent the product of a preoccupation with military-diplomatic his• tory where considerations of religion were important. Fifth, the ideology of nationalism stressed the notion of common language, culture, and his• tory.56 Most importantly, however, communalism came in handy for Indian historians mainly because of "its ability to serve as 'vicarious' or 'backdoor' nationalism." During the political struggle between the imperialist rulers and the Indian masses, the Indian historians were unable to side with the masses as they were employed in government institutions. Most of them could not, at least emotionally, side with the rulers either. So communalism enabled them to feel nationalistic without opposing and hurt• ing their personal safety.57 Communal historians were cunningly selective and crudely mislead• ing. Although they maintained that Hindus and Muslims were distinct sociopolitical entities and were not integrated into cohesive units at any level, they conveniently rejected the view that Hindus or Muslims did not form any cohesive units by themselves either. They accepted the Hindu- Muslim approach of the British but rejected their contentions about castes, Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 31 races, and Brahmin domination.58 The Hindu communal historians wor• shipped their heroes and painted the Muslims as villains, and the Muslim communalists defended the Muslim rule from British and Hindu interpre• tations and projected the two-nation theory.59 Communal historiography is a genre that engages in a manipulative discourse by employing a whole array of diversionary tactics and political exigencies. Harping on emotive polemics rather than a systematic exege• sis of historical accounts supported by documentary and other evidence, political figures and bigoted believers in a faith collate populist arguments, worrying little about objectivity or balance. Hence the speeches and writ• ings of political figures such as V. D. Savarkar, M. S. Golwalkar, and M. A. Jinnah contribute more substantially to communal interpretation of his• tory than the writings of their cohorts such as R. C. Majumdar, Z. A. Suleri, F. K. Khan Durrani, and others.60 Hindu communal historiography, or any other communal narrative for that matter, is a positivistic and simpleminded truth claim that dons the objective lens but doffs the subjective frame. "History is of little worth," claims R.C. Majumdar, "if it cannot give the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."61 This kind of positivistic approach to history leads to all sorts of absurd truth claims. The Hindutva publications are replete with such "historical" claims that tend to mock basic human intel• ligence. There have been several "historical accounts" published recently on the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi issue alone. The Hindu communal historiography assumes that "the Hindu has lost his sense of history," "his cultural capacity to punish his tormentors and exploiters," and as a result Hindusthan has become a soft state where non-Hindus spread their influence quite freely.62 It claims that history writing had been as much an Indian practice as Western, insists on uninterrupted continuation of the Hindu history, and emphasizes a rather deliberately active and even heroic reading of it. Seeking to popularize Hindu history writing, V. D. Savarkar wrote on "How to read and write history—particularly by a Hindu Sanghatanist (Hindu Organizer)" and persuaded the "organizers" to do exactly that. Such an exercise need not be dry and bereft of all emotion, and he advised his readers to take a broad sweep of historical account from the earliest times to the present.63 One of many such undertakings is a series of articles written by Sita Ram Goel in mid-1962 in the Organiser under the title "High• lights of Hindu History." According to him, Mandhata, Ambarish, Yayati, and Bharata may be mere myths for a modern mind, but for the Hindus, they are "more real than Alexander or Caesar or Ashoka or Akbar."64 Thus the is "one tremendous turning point in their [Hindus'] hoary history which, they regret, has never been the same again."65 The Hindu history is a "long and interesting story of how dynasty after dynasty of Muslim rulers disappeared in the storm of Hindu heroism which was con- 32 "Presenting" the Past stantly converging towards a single goal—the defeat and dispersal of the Muslim mlechha raj."66 Goel laments the fact that "Hindu history inspires us no more towards daring deeds and high heroism" because the history taught today is not the same history Narada, Bhishma, and Sri Krishna recited to Yudhisthira, or the history preserved in the puranas.67 Conse• quently, the long heritage of continual heroic history is being rekindled. Situating this development in its own historical context would reveal that communalism has more dimensions than mere historiographical ones. Communal narratives related to the familiar elements of religion in the daily lives of the people, and many nationalist leaders appealed to this old consciousness. While the soft and hard varieties of communalism domi• nated the national mainstream politics, the "fascist communalism" was lurking behind. While the national movement based on Hindu religious imagery, theology, and practices turned off many Muslims, Muslim lead• ers such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah drove the wedge deeper by arguing, "It is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality."68 The Muslim separatism of the 1920s and the communal politics of the 1930s and 1940s made the Hindu-Muslim separation even sharper. With the partition and the holocaust, communalism became "a consciousness which draws on a supposed religious identity and uses this as the basis for an ideology" and political action.69 History is just the initial instrument in this long journey of fear, passion, prejudice, and hatred. The tense Indo-Pakistan relations plagued by mutual insecurity and sus• picion and the common trend across the border of inciting fears of "foreign threat" or "foreign hand" among the respective citizens have contributed to the nurturing of the communal ideology also. In India, however, the state's ambivalence, acquiescence, and built-in Hindu bias have encour• aged Hindu communalism. Owing to Indira Gandhi's and Rajiv Gandhi's drift toward the exploitation of Hindu sentiments for electoral purposes, the weakening of the leftist political forces, and the proliferation of hosts of other social pressures, the Indian nationhood became contingent upon several internal identity claims competing with each other in a fissiparous social setup. In the final analysis, however, it is both erroneous and misleading to craft a primordial ancientness onto this modern hate, and we must discern the human inducements and political calculations involved in the com- munalized stories of the past.70 The precolonial and early colonial peri• ods may not have had perfect peaceful relations among major religious groups, but there was not "any unilinear or cumulative growth of com• munal identity before I860."71 The medieval Hindu-Muslim encounter, which could be seen "as a process occurring in a frontier zone," had both denigrating and tolerant representations, and the conceptions of the Mus• lim were never monolithic or uniform.72 Even during colonial times, "the baneful impact of communalism was less pronounced in princely India Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 33 than in British India."73 Thus the colonial divide-and-rule theory has been effectively appropriated by the Hindutva forces to further their political agenda.

HINDUTVA'S COMMUNAL NATIONALISM The concept of Hindutva, promulgated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, assumes that everyone who has ancestral roots in India is a Hindu and that they collectively constitute a nation. As the ideology of Hindu com• munal nationalism, it is defined as a "highly structured belief system involving the interpretation of the past, an analysis of the present, and a set of precepts and imperatives for future conduct." Incorporating the Indian tradition in a truncated manner, Hindutva ideologues stress the inimical traits of Hindu religious myth and imagery and ignore the Indian philosophical heritage and other religious streams.74 The Hindutva forces' vision of the future lies in the past, and they invoke history to justify all kinds of destructive demands. They present the past to the Indian public in attractive but false colors. Thus Indian national identity has come to be defined in terms of the Hindu value system and imageries, and the Hin• dutva forces have appropriated the wholesale rights of setting the require• ments and standards of this neo-Indian identity. To decode the logic and program of this ideology, one could read the Hindutva's Old, New, and Future Testament, We or Our Nationhood Defined (first edition, 1939; sec• ond, 1944; third, 1945), written by M.S. Golwalkar, who later became the chief of the RSS, the flagship of the Hindutva flotilla, and reiterated his stand even more vociferously in his subsequent speeches and booklets. Such a discursive analysis of Hindutva's communal nationalism would show several key ideological and political components. Appealing to the religiosity of the people, and appropriating the various religious symbol• isms, the nation is elevated to the position of a goddess. This nation wor• ship has had a long tradition among the Hindu enthusiasts all along. In Aurobindo Ghose's pamphlet Bhavani-mandir (1905), for example, God• dess Bhavani exhorted Indians to build a temple for her that was to be a secret center for training for armed struggle "to create a nation, to consoli• date an age, to Aryanise a world." In early 1908 he spoke in Bombay: "If you are going to be a nationalist, if you are going to assent to this religion of nationalism you must do it in the religious spirit. You must remember that you are instruments of God."75 Similarly, Bipin Chandra Pal argued, " is not mere love of the Fatherland but an organized cult, through which this love develops and seeks to fulfil itself. It is the religion of those that love their country To cultivate the love of the Fatherland, as a religion, we must, therefore, have patriotic rites and sacraments."76 Following the nation-worship tradition, Golwalkar sees his book We or Our Nationhood Defined as "an [sic] humble offering at the holy feet of 34 "Presenting" the Past the Divine Mother—the Hindu Nation." This "worship from an unde• serving child of Her Own" begins with a complaint about the "strange times" when "traitors" sat enthroned as national heroes but "patriots" were heaped with ignominy. And the intended outcome of the worship is "national regeneration and not ... hap-hazard [sic] bundle of politi• cal rights-the state."77 Golwalkar spoke in Delhi in 1965: "Building up of strong nation means primarily arousing a sense of an intense devotion to this our motherland." The motherland has "to be worshipped in its totality" as "our ancestors have venerated it as Vishnu-patni, as a ." According to Golwalkar, "Every particle of it is sacred, every peak of it is the abode of Divinity."78 This religiosity becomes instrumental in commu• nal nationalism, as it reifies the ideologues' ideological dominance, politi• cal hegemony, and social control. The nation worship does not take off just with the nation as the god• dess and the Brahminical orthodoxy as the chief priests; there has to be a legend, historicity, to legitimize the system. Buying into Western histori- cism and the Semitic religious patterns, mythological characters such as Ram and Krishna are counterposed as Hindu heroes and/or prophets against historical figures like Jesus and Mohammed. Locations such as Ayodhya and Mathura become the exact places where the prophets were born. The popular epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are preferred to more religious scriptures to be designated as the book(s) of Hinduism. All these symbols are effectively translated into a coherent set of metaphors and emotionally laden expressions at the backdrop of historicity. Exhorting to study, understand, and write "our history ourselves" and discard the designed or undesigned distortions, Golwalkar periodizes the Hindu history into the dim past, epic age (4,500 to 5,000 years ago), the period of Buddha and the great emperors of "peace, power and, [sic] plenty," Muslim invasions and 800 years' war, and British usurpation. All in all, "we—Hindus—have been in undisputed and undisturbed posses• sion of this land for over 8 or even 10 thousand years before the land was invaded by any foreign race." Golwalkar would "positively maintain that we Hindus came into this land from nowhere, but are indigenous chil• dren of the soil always, from times immemorial and are natural masters of the country."79 The summation of the "History of Hindusthan" then is the following:

In a nutshell we may state that in this land of ours we have lived for God knows how long, a great Nation of the grandest culture, that though, for the last thousand years or less, the land has been infested with murderous bands of despoilers in various parts, the Nation has not been conquered, far less subjugated, that through all these years it has engaged in terrible struggle to free the land of this pest and the great struggle is still relentlessly raging with varying success to both sides.80 Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 35

Mixing religiosity, historicity, and the self-interest in perpetuating the Brahminical social order, Golwalkar paints a rather cunning picture in his later work, Bunch of Thoughts (1966):

Ravana [the villain in the Ramayana story] was a shrewd aggressor. . . . He was aware that the life-centre of our society throbbed in the forest hermitages of sages and seers. Therefore, he concentrated his attacks on those jungle huts, on the sac• rificial rites that were carried on there. But those spiritual heroes braved those onslaughts and stuck to their mission of rousing and integrating the people. . . . Then the nation roused itself in the personality of Sri Rama. That great saviour was moulded and guided by a Vishwamitra, a Vasishtha and an Agastya. Not only was Sri Rama set up, but intense national consciousness of the whole of society was kept ablaze by these sages through regular discourses, discussions and various dharmic rites.81

So in this Ram-country that is immersed in a good-versus-evil war, we have the good Rambhakts led by the Brahminical orthodoxy pitched against the evil non-Rambhakts led by all kinds of Ravanas. The hierarchical and undemocratic Rambhakti setup sanctioned by the religiosity and sheathed with historicity hides dissensions and heightens the interests of the "more equal" Rambhakts. Thus the primary preoccu• pation of Hindutva is the unitary (not all-inclusive) nation on the basis of cultural unity that is automatically transformed into political unity by the ancient-nation arguments. This unitary understanding is reinforced by the consolidated highlighting of the Other and the careful and calculated hiding of the divisions in the self. This amorphous Hindu identity irons out diversity, absorbs Sramanic (Buddhism, Jainism) faiths, dismisses the validity of ideological divisions of the society such as class, and insists on conformity. Oppression of women, Dalits, and others; the pluralistic heritage of Hinduism; the religiously rooted evils; and backwardness are conveniently glossed over. Nothing can be challenged in this scheme of "divine destiny." For exam• ple, consider Golwalkar's contentions about castes: "Castes are designed to be complementary to one another. If every one of them does its duty, there can be no quarrels in the name of caste. It may be argued that there is no use today for these castes. I say if caste has become effete it will auto• matically wither away. That is the law of nature. What is important is that we must realise that these castes are limbs of the same one society and so have to share all their joys and sorrows." The unwavering religiosity of the Rambhakts with a deeply conservative consciousness is all that it takes for redemption that is mediated by the priestly orthodoxy not through any reform but strict status-quoist program. Golwalkar argues that "all the so called evils of caste etc., were there no less marked than today" and yet Hindus were "a victorious, glorious nation" during the times of 36 "Presenting" the Past the Mahabharat, Harshwardhan, Pulakeshi, and Shivaji. He concludes authoritatively, "No, it is not these that are our bane, but the dormancy of National feeling Except this meanness, we do not see any other reason why we do not still rise, as a nation, to our full height It grieves us to see how we fritter our energy in anti-national work and lay the blame upon the Social order and such other things as have nothing to do with national revival."82 This carefully doctored self inevitably leads to the engineering of the Other. Golwalkar describes the nationhood with its five unities— geography, race, religion, culture, and language—and asserts that Hin- dusthan, with its Hindu race, Hindu religion, Hindu culture, and Hindu language (Sanskrit and her offspring), complete the nation concept. As a result, "in Hindusthan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation and nought else but the Hindu Nation. All those not belonging to the national—that is, Hindu Race, Religion, Culture and Language, natu• rally fall out of the pale of real 'National' life."83 As long as they maintain their differences, they would remain foreigners. They could have a place in the national life if they "abandon their differences, and completely merge themselves in the National Race."84 The other option these "foreign elements" have is "to live at the sweet will of the national race" and "stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming noth• ing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizen's rights."85 Although the "triangular fight" among "we, Hindus," the Muslims, and the British was going on, because of the freedom movement and "wrong notions of democracy," "we began to class ourselves with our old invaders and foes under the outlandish name-Indian and tried to win them over to join hands with us in our struggle" (italics mine).86 But now, there is only one way as far as Pakistan is concerned: "Pakistan's very existence is its war potential. People argue that we should hate the sin, not the sinner. But has any one ever been able to separate the two? Not even Bhagwan Ram- chandra could do so—or else he would have destroyed only the sinful mentality in Ravana and saved Ravana himself from death. The aggres• sive mentality of Pakistan can end only when Pakistan itself is ended. There is no other way."87 L. K. Advani, an important Hindutva leader, wrote "A Four-Point Appeal to Muslims of India" in BJP Today on the 50th anniversary of India's inde• pendence. Besides purging "every trace of the Two-Nation theory from their mindset," burying vote-bank politics, and concentrating on educa• tion and economic elevation of poor Muslims, Muslims should "under• stand " and accept "the symbols and inspirational sources of our national culture," such as Ram and Krishna.88 Obviously, Advani does not consider Muslims Indians, and they can Indianize them• selves by subscribing to the Hindutva interpretations and programs. Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 37

Thus Muslim, the most important enemy of the Hindutva national con• sciousness, stands reduced to a simple stereotype: "a habitual traitor, a Pakistani spy, a religious bigot, a committed killer."89 The Hindu commu- nalists "either belittle ['s] importance or emphasise its foreignness."90 For instance, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad argues, "Islam has never learnt to argue its case with facts or logic. All through its history, it has relied on the sword and street riots. In India, it used the sword for several centuries. After the loss of its political power, it has relied on street riots. The weapon has yielded and continues to yield rich results."91 Another crucial component of this communal nationalism is its pen• chant for militancy and violence aided by male , maniacal pride, and elaborate violent rituals to preserve the political unity. Not knowing how to handle the nonviolence heritage of Hinduism that is mentioned in the Upanishads and other religious texts, feeling ashamed of the "weak Hindu" arguments, and equating all of these and the histori• cal subjugations at the hands of the Mughals and the British to cowardice, they panic to rewrite history with more militancy and heroism. Painting a weak and abominable picture of the Hindus and taking the credit for the name (Hindus) and even for , the Muslim commu- nalists add fuel to this unquenchable inferiority fire.92 Hence, the Organ• iser argues in an editorial, "We will have to rewrite our history, to remake our minds and Be Men. A gullible public is being taught to believe that India became free through non-violent satyagrahas. One cannot imagine a cruder falsification of history. For fact is that no country in the world ever got its freedom more drenched in blood than we—the blood of some six lakh men, women, and children."93 Interestingly enough, what these cow• ardly priests desire most is "masculinity, the great courage." So Golwalkar argues, "We want a 'Man' with a capital 'M'. We want a virile, masculine man. Now our people are feminine men."94 Since everyone likes "to wor• ship and admire the strong," Golwalkar presents some role models: Hit• ler, who eliminated the minorities and expanded the German territory, and Abraham Lincoln, who foiled the secession of the Southern states and maintained the integrity of the United States.95 There is an eagerness and resolve to demonstrate the newfound militancy and heroism, and it ema• nates in the assertive mobilizations, hate speeches, demolitions, and the communal riots. This meticulous groundwork does not suffice for massive following, and there is a singular need to incite a sense of purpose and an urge for redemption among the Rambhakts. And that takes some convincing rea• soning. Golwalkar argues that the old Hindu seers fully understood the concepts of nationality and national consciousness, and they emphasized only country and race because religion, culture, and language were the same all over their world. That was why Manu, the so-called law giver of the Hindus, asked the people of the world to come to Hindusthan (coun- 38 "Presenting" the Past try) to learn their duties (race, caste) "at the holy feet of the 'Eldest born' Brahmans of this land."96 It is this "want of National Consciousness" that has been the cause of all our ills. People who are opposed to Hindus "make much of the caste system," religious superstitions, illiteracy, status of women, and "all sorts of true or untrue flaws in the Hindu Cultural Organisation," and contend that the weakness of the Hindus lies entirely in these.97 Golwalkar contends that "there is hope" and advises his disciples, "Wait and work and the race spirit which all along has been protecting us from certain destruction, shall do so once again."98 The prediction of Golwalkar has definitely come true now. The "race spirit," or Brahminism, which is not fixed but a highly adaptable dogma, engages both in backlash against the newly emerging forces and in cooperating with other segments of the society such as middle and lower castes.99 Having been clothed more sophisticatedly as a nationalist ideology, it creates a highly polarized soci• ety with mass hysteria marked by hallucinatory pride, virility, and con• tempt for legality and civility by showing an inside enemy, namely the Muslims. Then, it utilizes the manipulated solidarity among the allegedly homogenous Hindus to nurture the traditional divisions and revive the prominence of the Brahminical orthodoxy. Thus Hindutva nationalism is a crudely plagiarized derivative dis• course of nationalism stuffed with the schemes of the Brahminical social order and coated with traditional Hindu vision of community organiza• tion. This cunningly appropriative scheme projects the modern values onto their "old glory" and tries to sell their status-quoist program in a neonationalist package. What V. D. Savarkar wrote to his brother from the Andamans reveals the foundational thinking of Hindutva:

The Americans need Vedanta philosophy and so does England, for they have developed their life to that fullness, richness and manliness—to Kshatriyahood and so stand on the threshold of that Brahminhood, wherein alone the capacity to read and realize such philosophy can co-exist. But India is not. We are at present all Shudras and can't claim access to the Vedas and Vedanta We, as a nation, are unfit for these sublime thoughts, ... Let us study history, political science, science, economy; live worthily in this world, fulfill the householders' duties and then the philosophic dawn might come.100

Echoing his master, Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gan• dhi, claimed: "I felt that Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with the armed forces ... the nation would be free to follow the course founded on reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nation-building" (italics mine).101 The Hindutva communal nationalism wants to establish a Western-type nation through Western instruments (militancy, reason, materialism, and so forth) and with the Western concept of a unified religion. They would Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 39 appropriate the cultural symbolisms and imageries and even the politi• cal concepts they secretly despise such as Gandhian socialism, Gandhian Swadeshi, and Gandhi's Ramarajya imagery. Trying to be everything for everybody simply shows that there are good reasons to worry. The Hindutva preference for purity and uniformity rather than plural• ity and unity, bubbling enthusiasm to demonstrate the invented militancy on a large scale, and the ambivalence in ideology and politics make one suspicious of the real intentions and worry about its fascist tendencies and aspirations. The effective communalization and nationalization of the middle class and even sections of the lower class have helped Hindutva not just to capture the state power in Delhi but also to ride on the back of the emerging social forces to entrench their status-quoist agenda and to take the country backward. As the journey to the medieval period pro• ceeds, the fringe groups among the Rambhakts tend to fall in line and the non-Rambhakts run for cover. With increased control over the internal segments of the Indian society, the fascist Hindutva may turn its atten• tion to the neighboring countries to re-create the ancient Akhand Bharat (Greater Hindusthan), and then reach for the outside world to realize their dream of Hindu imperialism. This remaking of India as a whole—politically, ideologically, histori• cally—includes a good deal of unmaking that varies from selective appro• priation to outright rejection of large parts of India's past and present histories. The unmaking swings from a bourgeois nostalgia of an impe• rial and Brahminical past to the dreams of superior violence with nuclear capability deleteriously touching women, Dalits, minorities, pluralism, and other such actors and factors of national life.102 Thus a reactionary notion of nation and nationalism has emerged and is spreading in India. The poem that Savarkar wrote to bid farewell to his friends on the eve of being extradited to India from Britain in 1910 summed up the spirit:

"Shree Ram has crowned his chosen people's brow With laurels golden green! The evil spirit is cast Away and chased back to the deep from whence It first arose! And Lo! She lordly stands, Our Mother Ind, a beacon light Humanity to guide, Oh martyred saints and soldiers, do awake! The battle is won which you fought and fell!!"

Thus work for Mother's glory till God's breath Be rendered back, the Godly mission done— A martyr's wreath or victor's crown be won!!103

Thus the Indian national idea emerged in the European context and replaced multiple identities with an identitarian absolute. While the secu• lar versions saw the nation as an "object of ultimate concern," Hindu 40 "Presenting" the Past nationalists elevated it to the status of a goddess, and nationalism became their religion. Thus both the secular and communal worship of nation have stood divorced from people and their interests. The humanistic aspect has been relegated to a subordinate position, and the national greatness has been realized in the glorification of certain symbols and not the people.104 The Nehruvian liberal nationalism marked by industry and economism degenerated into an anxiety-ridden ambiguous nationalism under his daughter and grandson when the "foreign hand" and the internal sus• ceptibilities played an increasingly important role in national integration. This degeneration of the liberal center and the dissipation of the Left gave rise to a political vacuum and brought about the opportunity for the com• munal nationalism to step in with their divinely guided course of his• tory and heroism. The Hindu communalists reconstructed the nation "by recombining living traditions and potent myths and symbols, an exist• ing ethno-religious Hindu community as the basis of the modern Indian nation." They did not invent the nation and the traditions, but "selected one of several alternatives and recombined and reinterpreted its myths, symbols, memories and traditions."105 The totalizing ideology of Hin• dutva combines nation, nationalism, history, and the communal narrativ- ity quite effectively.

NOTES 1. Ronald Inden, "Orientalist Constructions of India," Modern Asian Studies 20, no. 3 (1986), pp. 440-42. 2. Anthony D. Smith, "The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed?" in Reimagining the Nation, ed. Marjorie Ringrose and Adam Lerner (Buckingham, England, and Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1993), pp. 9-11. 3. Arjun Appadurai, "Patriotism and Its Futures," Public Culture 5 (1993), p. 414. 4. E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Real• ity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 10. 5. A. Raghurama Raju, "Problematizing Nationalism," Economic and Political Weekly 28, nos. 27-28 (3-10 July 1993), p. 1433. 6. Ernst B. Haas, "What Is Nationalism and Why Should We Study It?" Inter• national Organization 40, no. 3 (summer 1986), pp. 708-11. 7. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), pp. 4, 36,46. 8. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1-2,12,14. 9. Smith, "The Nation," pp. 20, 23. 10. Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, p. 10. 11. Geoffrey Bennington, "Postal Politics and the Institution of the Nation," in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London and New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 121. Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 41

12. William E. Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 201. 13. Michael J. Shapiro, The Politics of Representation: Writing Practices in Biog• raphy, Photography, and Policy Analysis (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), pp. 98-100. 14. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London and New York: Verso, 1991), pp. 86-105, 94, 96. 15. Bruce Lincoln, "Myth, Sentiment, and the Construction of Social Forms," in Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 20, 23. 16. Albert Wendt, "Novelists and Historians and the Art of Remembering," in Class and Culture in the South Pacific, ed. Antony Hooper et al. (Auckland, New Zealand: Center for Pacific Studies, 1987), pp. 79, 82. 17. Shapiro, Politics of Representation, pp. 49-50. 18. E.H. Carr, What Is History (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1961), pp. 23, 79,132. 19. H. Warren Button, "Why and When History Doesn't Work," American Behavioral Scientist 30, no. 1 (September-October 1986), p. 33. 20. Quoted in M. Naeem Qureshi, "Whither History? The State of the Disci• pline in Pakistan," in The State of Social Sciences in Pakistan, ed. S. H. Hashmi (Islam• abad, Pakistan: Quaid-i-Azam University, 1989), p. 139. 21. Manfred Henningsen, "What Is History and Is It at an End?" Modern Praxis 11 (1991), p. 400. 22. James E. Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Conse• quences of Interpretation (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 3. 23. Graeme Turner, British Cultural Studies: An Introduction (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), p. x. 24. Dipesh Chakrabarty, "History as Critique and Critique(s) of History," Eco• nomic and Political Weekly 26, no. 37 (September 1991), p. 2164. 25. M.N. Roy, India in Transition (1922; reprint, Bombay: Nachiketa Publica• tions, 1971), pp. 168,176. 26. Ibid., pp. 188-94. 27. P. D. Saggi, A Nation's Homage: Life and Work of Lai, Bal, and Pal (New Delhi: Overseas Publishing House, 1962), p. 19. 28. Ibid., pp. 27-28. 29. Ibid., p. 172. 30. Ibid., pp. 282, 280. 31. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 58. 32. Bruce Tiebout McCully, English Education and the Origins of Indian National• ism (Gloucester, England: Peter Smith, 1966), pp. 295-302. 33. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, pp. 131-32,143^4. 34. Ibid., pp. 93-100. 35. Ashis Nandy, At the Edge of Psychology (New Delhi: Oxford, 1980), pp. 71, 75,83. 36. R.N. Gilchrist, Indian Nationality (1920; reprint, New Delhi: Usha, 1986), pp. 154-73. 42 "Presenting" the Past

37. Jayaprakash Narayan, "The Concept of Nationhood," Minority Forum (April 1972), p. 6. Later in his political career, Narayan joined hands with the Hin• dutva forces (who were much less assertive with limited political clout that time) to take Indira Gandhi to task for her authoritarian politics. 38. Vishwanath Prasad Varma, Modern Indian Political Thought (Agra, India: Lakshmi Narai Agarwal, 1964), p. 413. 39. Ibid., p. 418. 40. Ibid., p. 424. 41. Bhikhu Parekh, "Nehru and the National Philosophy of India," Economic and Political Weekly 26, nos. 1-2 (January 1991), pp. 39-41. 42. A.R. Desai, Recent Trends in Indian Nationalism (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1960), pp. 131-34. 43. Chakrabarty, "History as Critique," p. 2164. 44. Irfan Habib, Interpreting Indian History (Shillong, India: North-Eastern Hill University Publications, n.d.), pp. 8-9. 45. Romila Thapar, "Communalism and the Writing of Ancient Indian His• tory," in Communalism and the Writing of Indian History, by Romila Thapar et al. (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1981), pp. 2-4. 46. David B. Edwards, "Mad Mullahs and Englishmen: Discourse in the Colo• nial Encounter," Comparative Studies in Society and History 31, no. 4 (October 1989), pp. 649-70. 47. Chakrabarty, "History as Critique," p. 2163. 48. Ronald Inden, "Orientalist Constructions of India," Modern Asian Studies 20, no. 3 (1986), pp. 440-41. 49. , "Historians of Modern India and Communalism," in Com• munalism and the Writing of Indian History, by Romila Thapar et al. (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1981), pp. 6-7. 50. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, p. 79. 51. Gyan Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Per• spectives from Indian Historiography," Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, no. 2 (April 1990), pp. 388-89. 52. Ibid., p. 395. 53. See Ranajit Guha, "On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India," in Selected Subaltern Studies, ed. Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spi- vak (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 37-^3. 54. Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 6. 55. Romila Thapar et al., Communalism and the Writing of Indian History (New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1981), pp. 45,51. 56. Romila Thapar, The Past and Prejudice (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1979), p. 3. 57. Thapar et al., Communalism, p. 48. 58. Thapar et al., Communalism, pp. 41-42. 59. Qureshi, "Whither History?" p. 142. 60. See Bipan Chandra, Communalism in Modern India (New Delhi: Vikas, 1984), pp. 209-11. 61. R.C. Majumdar, "History Writing in India," Organiser, 2 November 1964. Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 43

62. J. A. Naik, "Have the Hindus Lost Their Sense of History?" Organiser, 17 July 1988, p. 10. 63. S.T. Godbole, "Savarkar's Approach to History," in Savarkar Commemora• tion Volume (Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989), p. 197. 64. "The Fundamental Divergence between the So-Called 'Modern' Mind and the Hindu Mind," Organiser, 2 July 1962, p. 10. 65. "The Traditional Turning Point," Organiser, 25 June 1962, p. 5. 66. "The Fate of All Foreign Invaders," Organiser, 4 June 1962, p. 12. 67. Sita Ram Goel, "A New Series: Highlights of Hindu History (I)," Organiser, 21 May 1962, p. 12. 68. M. J. Akbar, India: The Siege Within, Challenges to a Nation's Unity (Harmonds- worth, England: Penguin, 1985), pp. 20, 26-31. 69. Romila Thapar, "Imagined Religious Communities? Ancient History and the Modern Search for a Hindu Identity," Modern Asian Studies 23, no. 2 (1989), p. 209. 70. See and Lloyd I. Rudolph, "Modern Hate," New Republic, 22 March 1993, pp. 24-29. 71. C.A. Bayly, "The Pre-history of 'Communalism'? Religious Conflict in India, 1700-1860," Modern Asian Studies 19, no. 2 (April 1985), p. 202. 72. Cynthia Talbot, "Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-colonial India," Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, no. 4 (October 1995), pp. 719-20. 73. Ian Copland, "'Communalism' in Princely India: The Case of Hyderabad, 1930-1940," Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 4 (October 1988), p. 783. 74. Sumanta Banerjee, "'Hindutva'—Ideology and Social Psychology," Eco• nomic and Political Weekly 26, no. 3 (19 January 1991), p. 97. 75. Amales Tripathi, "Sri Aurobindo—A Study in Messianic Nationalism," Calcutta Historical Journal 6, no. 1 (July-December 1979), pp. 67,73. 76. Bipinchandra Pal, Swadeshi and Swaraj (The Rise of New Patriotism) (Cal• cutta: Yugayatri Prakashak, 1954), p. 13. 77. M.S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, 3rd ed. (Nagpur, India: Bharat Prakashan, 1945), pp. 4, 6-7. 78. M.S. Golwalkar, From Red Fort Grounds (New Delhi: RSS, n.d.), pp. 5-6. 79. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, pp. 13,10,12. 80. Ibid., pp. 16-17. 81. M.S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (Bangalore: Vikrama Prakashan, 1966), pp. 65-66. 82. Golwalkar, From Red Fort Grounds, pp. 22,8. 83. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, pp. 48-49. 84. Ibid., p. 50. 85. Ibid., pp. 52-53. 86. Ibid., p. 18. 87. Golwalkar, From Red Fort Grounds, p. 21. 88. L. K. Advani, "A Four-Point Appeal to Muslims of India," BJP Today, 16-30 June 1997. 89. Banerjee, "'Hindutva'—Ideology and Social Psychology," p. 97. 90. Thapar et al., Communalism, pp. 6-7. 44 "Presenting" the Past

91. , History versus Casuistry (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1991), p. v. 92. A.A.K. Soze, "Islam and the Hindu Nationalism," Radiance, 20-26 Septem• ber 1987. 93. "Be Men" (editorial), Organiser, 10 December 1962, p. 3. 94. M.S. Golwalkar, Thoughts on Some Current Problems (Bombay: P.A. Suk- thankar, n.d.), p. 14. 95. Ibid., pp. 2,21. 96. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, pp. 60-61. 97. Ibid., pp. 66-68. 98. Ibid., p. 69. 99. Rajni Kothari, "Caste, Communalism, and the Democratic Process," South Asia Bulletin 14, no. 1 (1994), p. 12. 100. Quoted in Dhananjay Keer, Veer Savarkar (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1966), p. 137. 101. Quoted in Nandy, At the Edge of Psychology, p. 91. 102. Aijaz Ahmed, "Nation, Community, Violence," South Asia Bulletin 14, no. 1 (1994), p. 25. 103. See Keer, Veer Savarkar, pp. 79-80. 104. Jalalul Haq, Nation and Nation-Worship in India (New Delhi: Genuine Pub• lications, 1992), pp. 11,89,121. 105. Smith, "The Nation: Invented, Imagined, Reconstructed?" pp. 16-17. CHAPTER 2 Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History

Although the Ramayana has been traditionally treated as a cultural idiom or a religious text in terms of ethical mores, moral values, social and polit• ical norms, and religious identities, it is currently being made to repre• sent the Indian national history and identity. With the increasingly loud articulations of historicity, the Hindu communalists present a cleansed epic for the consumption of the modern, liberalizing, pseudonationalistic middle-class India. The carefully mediated interface between myth and history attempts at purifying the plural traditions of diverse India and creating a self-serving Hindu communal metanarrative. Taking a closer look at these concealed projects, we can probe into the historical back• drop of the "middle-class Ramayana" and behind-the-screen preparations of the communal elements involved in its production and performance.

HISTORY AS MYTH AS HISTORY National history as such is not just an exclusive enterprise of the elites or intellectuals, because the construction of it does not happen in a vac• uum but in a particular historical and social environment. Contemporary historians only retell the old tales in the mood of their times. History, as Voltaire said, is a myth rewritten by each generation. Refusing, in his pref• ace, to see "a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern" in history but only "the play of the contingent and the unforeseen," H.A.L. Fisher opens his History of Europe with these words: "We Europeans are the children of Hel• las." He writes in the same chapter, 46 "Presenting" the Past

If a comprehensive survey of the globe were to be made, it would be found that in almost every quarter of it there were settlements of European men, or traces of the operation of the European mind. The surviving aboriginal peoples in the west• ern hemisphere are a small, unimportant, and dwindling element in the popula• tion. ... To the conquest of nature through knowledge the contributions made by Asiatics have been negligible and by Africans (Egyptians excluded) non-existent.

It is clear who Fisher writes for, and how his generalizations relate to the "predetermined pattern" spanning the last 2,500 years.1 Charles Tilly underscores the connection between history and folk history:

History as an organized discipline shares a number of traits with folk history, the ways that ordinary people reconstruct the past. In the West, for the most part, people take history as a set of stories about individuals who act for well-defined motives with clear consequences. . . . Folk history rarely concerns superhuman forces, complex social processes, or ordinary people—except as objects or distant causes of history, or at the point of contact between the teller's own life and certifi- ably great events or persons. History written by specialists gains popular appeal to the extent that it conforms to these standards.2

Thus history, like politics, becomes everybody's business, and every• one—elders, ordinary people, politicians, officials, intellectuals, journal• ists—becomes a historian. When contemporary politics is conducted with reference to past events, "explanation and understanding" becomes vital.3 With the advent of electoral politics in the twentieth century, public fig• ures in India have found it necessary to invoke the past. The politicians talk to the masses about their past to rally voters, emphasize rivalries and enmities, and make use of the past to divide/unite and gain. As discussed before, both Moore and Jeffrey shed fresh light on this politicians-masses interaction in their respective studies of Sri Lanka and Punjab, and lay a convincing claim that popular myth plays a significant role in history writing. Both popular and rhetorical histories interact very closely at this plane of myth. A myth is, as Hampden-Turner puts it, "not something which is untrue but a shared cultural context for communication." It is a way of "teach• ing unobservable realities by way of observable symbols." Since a myth is orally transmitted, there will be gaps and distortions; however, a par• ticular "musical score" conveys the structure despite the missing parts. Claude Levi-Strauss holds that myths may vary in details while sharing a common structure or pattern that is identical with the pattern of mind. According to him, "What man says, language says and what language says is said by society."4 For Hans-Georg Gadamer, myth is a process of a "thinking conscious• ness." A myth encompasses fundamental issues of human existence and therefore has the capacity to generate new interpretations. Both Levi- Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 47

Strauss and Gadamer take myth "as a serious social phenomenon which reveals patterns in social existence." Levi-Strauss just reveals an unfamil• iar realm, but Gadamer explores what this means to us.5 Gianni Vattimo argues that modern philosophical theories of myth have been formulated within a metaphysical and evolutionary conception of history and that an exact articulation of philosophical theory of myth is no longer pos• sible because, according to him, this philosophical horizon of history is lost. Because of this crisis in the philosophy of evolutionist metaphysics of history, he says, the conception of myth as primitive thought appears untenable.6 Surveying the views that inform the use of the concept of myth today, Vattimo arranges them under three titles: archaism, cultural relativism, and limited rationality. Archaism considers myth a more authentic form of knowledge that is untouched by quantification and objectification of modern science, technology, and capitalism. Cultural relativism does not accord mythical knowledge any superiority over scientific knowledge typical of modernity, but simply denies any opposition between these two types of knowledge. In limited rationality, however, myth means narra• tion, and "it is distinguished from scientific knowledge not by a simple inversion of the latter's characteristics, but by a positive gesture of its own: narrative structure."7 This narrative model of limited rationality is very relevant to the theory of historiography because it uncovers the rhetorical models on which the constitution of historiography depends. The irreducible plurality of these models reveals the basis for a negation of the unity of history. In Vattimo's own words, "insofar as this plurality no longer mirrors a reality-norm, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish it from a collection of myths."8 Whether history is a set of mere make-believe stories without any human form or content has been dealt with in earlier chapters, and the focus here is simply on the role of narrativity in historical discourses. History, myths, and narrativity are integral parts of the holistic scheme of a people's past memories and present identity. Their myths create a particular discursive space for changes in the knowledge of the past. This discursiveness gains a divine ordination when religious symbols and sensibilities are added to it. Using Geertzian analysis, Henry May argues that "religion involves a set of symbols endowed with ultimate authority and tremendous motivating power, whose function is to bring together a conception of the universe and a code of conduct." Accord• ing to Geertz, the study of religion involves tracing "the socially avail• able 'systems of significance'—beliefs, rites, meaningful objects—in terms of which subjective life is ordered and outwarded behavior guided." For him, culture is "an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embod• ied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop 48 "Presenting" the Past their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." Geertz argues that every form of human behavior involves thought, and hence it can be subjected to semiotic analysis.9 Such a semiotic analysis with Vattimo's emphasis on narrative structure will lead us to concur with Iqbal Ansari that the (religion-tainted) commu• nal perceptions of history have got entrenched in the collective psyche of Indians as myths and symbols and that this "mythic-psychic-folklorish" operant of the Indian mind transforms the ordinary events and incidents in the social and cultural life affecting Hindu-Muslim relations in hue and shape. This operant of the average Indian mind makes it possible for some politicians and bigoted religious leaders to manipulate them.10 India, as a matter of fact, is a "context-sensitive society," and people perceive "much of their behavior against a background of social, religious, and historicolegendary contexts." The texts here are deliberately framed by authors—"that is, placed within contexts that provide the listener/ reader with clues for interpreting its message." This kind of metacommu- nicative strategies employed in cultural performances, which include folk dances and dramas, recitation of folktales by professional bards, telling of parables and jokes in everyday situations, religious sermons, construction of street speech, and so forth, "have an ability to transform and enhance life, often by reference to impersonal values and experiences."11 After all, as scholars agree, historical interpretation is a product of con• temporary ideology, which encourages the adoption of certain attitudes and theories about the past. Contemporary ideologies, the historian's predilections, his choice of events, the nature of his choice, his subjectiv• ity, and his narrativity are all mutually interconnected variables that give rise to the contemporary myth, often called the "national history." When a mythological story itself becomes the focal point of this contemporary myth, we witness an inverted project of history writing. The Ramayana, a popular Indian epic that employs metanarrative strategies, is an impor• tant text to delineate this connection between the popular mythological and contemporary Hindutva version of Indian national history. Jawaharlal Nehru, a rather important person in the making of the post- colonial India, claims that he "saw the moving drama of the Indian people in the present, and could often trace the threads which bound their lives to the past." He explains the past:

Everywhere I found a cultural background which had exerted a powerful influ• ence on their lives. This background was a mixture of popular philosophy, tradi• tion, history, myth, and legend, and it was not possible to draw a line between any of these. Even the entirely uneducated and illiterate shared this background. The old epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and other books, in popular translations and paraphrases, were widely known among the masses, and every incident and story and moral in them was engraved on the popular mind and gave a richness and content to it.12 Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 49

No one less than Mahatma Gandhi himself, who made a powerful use of the Ramayana to communicate to the masses of India during the strug• gle for independence, confesses, "Melodious recitations of the Ramayana, which I heard in my childhood, left on me an impression which years have not obliterated or weakened. I find the greatest consolation from the Bhagavad Gita and Tulsidas's Ramayana. I frankly confess that the Quran, the Bible and the other scriptures of the world, in spite of my great regard for them, do not move me as do the Gita of Krishna and the Ramayana of Tulsidas."13 The impact of the Ramayana and other such stories on the rural and illiterate people of India is equally deeper. As Nehru puts it:

Illiterate villagers would know hundreds of verses by heart and their conversa• tion would be full of references to them or to some story with a moral, enshrined in some old classic. Often I was surprised by some such literary turn given by a group of villagers to a simple talk about present-day affairs. If my mind was full of pictures from recorded history and more-or-less ascertained fact, I realised that even the illiterate peasant had a picture gallery in his mind, though this was largely drawn from myth and tradition and epic heroes and heroines, and only very little from history. Nevertheless, it was vivid enough.14

With this pervasive presence of Ram in north India that is reflected in daily greetings {Ram-Ram), invocation in moments of distress (Ram jaane), promissory undertakings (Ram kasam), and in the pallbearers' chant (Ram nam satya hai—Ram's name is truth), it is no wonder why Hindu com- munalists try to appropriate the Ramayana and come up with claims of historicity. According to V. D. Savarkar, "Some of us worship Ram as an incarnation, some admire him as a hero and a warrior, all love him as the most illustrious representative monarch of our race."15 Another Savarkar- like writer puts it, the Ramayana is "a scripture of the ancient Hindu Race" that reveals him "picture after picture of fascinating beauty in the life of India in that period in our history." He claims that dharma was the essence of India then and interjects that "for the sake of dharma, my countrymen of Sind have left their property, their lands, their native soil, and have migrated to India." This man's picture gets even clearer when he asserts that "pure-hearted brahmins" who were poor in material wealth but rich in the wealth of the spirit were "the pillars of the state" during Ramayanic times.16 This homogenous Hindu race, according to yet another Hindutva writer, speaks many languages with a single "vital breath" and has vast and var• iegated culture with a "central spring of spiritual strength": "the mystic spirit of India." When Judaic monotheism in its Islamic garb invaded the land of the Vedas and challenged the outer logic of superior revelations such as Valmiki's Ramayana, the inner coherence was fast forgotten by its inheritors.17 This myth is then projected onto the national history by the Hindu communalists, giving rise to subsequent sociopolitical myths. 50 "Presenting" the Past

The Hindutva forces' invocation of Ram and Ramayana along the lines of Eurocentric taxonomies such as national history facilitates not just the evocation of Hindus but also the eradication of Islam and Muslims. This composition of the cosmos implies that the "pure old glory" of Hinduism prevails and the "polluting and invading" Islam becomes simply nonexis• tent. This kind of tale "continue to mould existence for their assenting pos• sessors" and initiate a process of acculturation in which the legatees absorb the possessors' legacy, their "historical knowledge and consciousness."18 As this legacy of the Hindutva forces corresponds with the picture gal• lery the people have in their minds, the acculturation process takes tricky turns (as described in the following two chapters). What is attempted here is a cursory probe into the tale itself.

RAM STORIES: DISPARATE TELLINGS OF DIVERSE PEOPLES The broad outline of the various Ram stories may be sketched as follows: King Dasaratha, the benevolent king of Kosala, was worried that he had no successor to inherit his solar dynasty. When he confided this sad pre• dicament in his spiritual mentor, the latter advised him to perform a reli• gious sacrifice, for he had obtained the knowledge of some divine secret. Earlier on, all the gods in the heavens had complained to the protector god, Vishnu, about a demon called Ravana and his brothers acquiring tre• mendous powers, threatening to enslave them, and thwarting virtues and goodness everywhere. Vishnu promised them that Ravana had not asked for protection from a human being, and hence he himself would incarnate as King Dasaratha's son and deal with Ravana. He further revealed that the conch and the wheel he carried in his hands and the serpent on which he rested would be born as his brothers also. When the sacrifice was held successfully, Dasaratha had four sons from his three wives: Rama from Kausalya, Bharatha from Kaikeyi, and Lak- shmana and Sathrugna from Sumithra. When the aging king had made preparations to hand over the throne to his eldest son, Rama, one of his wives, Kaikeyi, approached the king and reminded him of his ear• lier promise of granting two unconditional boons of her choice as and when she demanded them. Grabbing the opportune moment, Kaikeyi demanded that her son, Bharatha, be crowned as the king and that Rama be sent to the forest for 14 years in exile. Depressed and desolate as he was, Dasaratha tried in vain to change his favorite wife's mind and slipped into a fatal melancholy. Kaikeyi, however, relentlessly engineered her cunning plans and prepa• rations. Rama accepted the situation graciously without malice toward his stepmother, expressed his determination to keep up his father's prom• ise, and prepared to go to the forest instantly. His wife, Sita, and one of Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 51 his brothers, Lakshmana, insisted on going along with Rama despite his resistance to the idea. Scarcely did the trio leave Ayodhya on their 14- year exile when King Dasaratha, who had been lying inert, died of the pangs of separation from his beloved son. Bharatha, who had been to Kai- keyi's father's kingdom along with Sathrugna, was summoned to come to Kosala to become the king. The furious Bharatha blamed his mother and set out to the forest to bring Rama back to Kosala. Unable to convince Rama, Bharatha had to be content with Rama's sandals for the throne and ruled the country as a . Besides some pleasant incidents and experiences, Rama, Sita, and Lak• shmana roamed about the forest encountering and eradicating quite a few demons and devils. When one such demon, Soorpanaka, tried to harm Sita out of her lust for Rama, Lakshmana disfigured her. That revenge• ful sister demon of Ravana, the most powerful king of all the demons in all the worlds, maliciously sowed lust for Sita in his mind. Ravana, who instantly fell lovesick for Sita, devised plans to obtain her. One day, Sita happened to see an extremely beautiful golden deer near their hut and pleaded to her husband to fetch the lovely animal for her. The magical and mysterious deer, who was none other than an uncle demon of Ravana, led Rama farther and farther away from their hutment. Realizing the trickery, Rama killed the animal, but the cunning demon feigned Rama's voice and cried for help. Hearing the cry, Sita begged Lakshmana to go to her husband's rescue. Besides being reluctant to leave Sita alone for fear of her safety, Laksh• mana was sure of his brother's abilities and tried to reason her out of her fears. But the impervious Sita kept nagging him and even started ques• tioning Lakshmana's intentions. No sooner did the frustrated Lakshmana leave than an old hermit showed up at the hut. The pious and kind Sita asked him in, and the real nature of Ravana slowly emerged, as he had been overwhelmed by Sita's beauty and angered by her convictions about the demons. Ravana, having been forbidden by an old curse not to touch any woman without her consent, lifted Sita along with the ground under her and fled in his aerial chariot. When the two brothers, Rama and Lakshmana, returned, they found Sita missing and started looking for her. Eventually, they strayed into a monkey kingdom ruled by Vali, who had been caught up in a feud with his brother, Sugreeva, and had snatched away the latter's wife. Rama helped Sugreeva kill his brother, get his wife back, and become the king of mon• keys. In return for this great favor, Sugreeva, along with his lieutenant, , offered their participation in the search for and redemption of Sita. With the help of Sugreeva's monkey army, Rama built a bridge across the ocean and led them to Lanka in the war against Ravana. The adamant Ravana would not give up despite one of his own brother's advice to see reason and rectify the situation. The 10-headed king of demons stood his 52 "Presenting" the Past ground even after the death of his son and another loyal brother. Inevita• bly Rama and Ravana came face to face in the war, and after a long and arduous struggle, Rama killed Ravana. Sita was overjoyed by this great victory, but Rama was not willing to accept Sita again, as she had lived in a stranger's household all alone for a long time. Accepting the situation with deep sorrow, Sita asked Laksh• mana to raise a fire and jumped into it. There arose the god of fire, who presented the innocent Sita to Rama with blessings. Having proved his wife's integrity to the world, Rama took Sita into his arms. In the mean• time, the period of exile had been completed, and the trio returned home, where Bharatha was anxiously waiting. Rama was crowned as the king who had Sita on his side, Lakshmana at his back, and Hanuman at his feet. And the fabled Ramarajya began in Kosala. Preferring the term tellings to versions or variants, for the latter terms give rise to an assumption that there is indeed an invariant, an original or urtext, A. K. Ramanujan points out the existence of hundreds of Rama- yanas. The list of languages that have various tellings of the Ram story is not only long but traverses such a large territory of South and Southeast Asia, ranging from Guajarati to Cambodian, Tibetan to Tamil, Sinhalese to Chinese, and Kashmiri to Balinese. Sanskrit alone has some 25 tellings that belong to various narrative genres such as epics, kavyas (poetic com• positions), puranas (mythological stories), and so forth. If dance-dramas and other such performances in both the classical and folk traditions are added, the number of grows even larger. When sculpture and bas-reliefs, mask plays, puppet plays, and shadow plays in various South and Southeast Asian cultures are added to that, the number of Ramayanas reaches almost 300.19 If we add to this list the various recitals and performances, then it becomes true that "Ram incarnates in countless ways and there are tens of millions of Ramayans."20 Every single one of these recitals or perfor• mances is a different Ramayana, for they have minutely different nuances, emphases, contemporary references, philosophical and religious interpre• tations, personal touches of the storytellers, collective feelings of the listen• ers, and so forth. The Ramayana has ever since gone high-tech. There have been several popular movies made on parts of the epic; the Doordarshan (Indian TV) made waves in India by serializing the Ramayana (to which we will turn later), and there has even been an animation production, The Legend of Prince Ram, made in Japan. The traditional distinction between katha (story) and kavya (poem) is similar to the distinction between story and discourse, or a sentence and a speech act. The various texts by Valmiki, Kampan (Iramavataram—The Incarnation of Rama), Tulsi Das (Ramcaritmanas—The Lake of the Acts of Rama), Krttivasa Ramayana in Bengali, or the Thai Ramakien (The Story of Rama) stand distinguished from one another by their different discourses. Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 53

The story or the structure and sequence of events may be the same, "but the style, details, tone, and texture—and therefore the import—may be vastly different." All later-day Ramayanas "play on the knowledge of previous tellings: they are meta-Ramayanas." Kampan's Tamil Ramayana, for instance, influenced the Telugu, , and Thai versions, and contributed to the Malaysian Hikayat Seri Ram and even Tulsi's Ramcarit• manas.21 The epic has, as Romila Thapar points out, incorporated the universal ethic of the battle between good and evil, functioned as a link between classical tradition and local culture by facilitating assimilation from one to the other, extended the geographical horizon through the inclusion of local places as locations of events, and symbolized the triumph of the monar• chical state. The epic thus becomes "a charter of validation," and the rec• ognized components of these charters of validation are "the extension of the geographical area, migration and settlement, social and political legiti• macy, and religious sanction." Thapar compares three major and different versions of the Ram story that were composed between the fifth century 22 B.C.E. and the mid-first millennium C.E. to make this point clearer. In the Buddhist Jataka literature, the Dasaratha Jataka comes closest to the theme of the Ramayana. Dasaratha, the king of Varanasi, has two sons, Rama-pandita and Lakkhana, and a daughter, Sita-devi, from his eldest queen. When the queen dies, the king elevates another wife to that status, and she demands that her own son, Bharatha, be made the successor to the throne. Being afraid that the queen may harm his older sons, he sug• gests to them their fleeing to the neighboring kingdom and claiming their rights when he dies after 12 years, as has been predicted by prophesies. Sita also joins her brothers in their exile to the Himalaya. When Dasaratha dies after nine years, Bharatha, who does not want to be the king, searches for Rama and asks him to return. Rama is adamant that he will return only after 12 years and gives Bharatha his sandals. Rama returns to his kingdom finally, makes Sita his queen consort, and rules righteously for 16,000 years.23 In Valmiki's Ramayana, which has seven books (Balakanda, Ayodhyakanda, Aranyakanda, Kishkindakanda, Sundarakanda, Yuddhakanda, and Uttarakanda), the story does not end with the Ramarajya. When people talk malice about Rama's accepting Sita, Rama commands Lakshmana to abandon Sita in the forest. She takes shelter at Valmiki's ashram and delivers twin sons, Lava and Kusha. Along with the twins, Valmiki attends Rama's horse sac• rifice, and the boys recite the Ramayana before the assembly. Having real• ized that they are his children, Rama asks Valmiki to fetch Sita so that she could take a solemn oath before the people and be purified. Sita prays to Goddess Earth to swallow her up if she was pure. That the Earth does, and then follows the death of Lakshmana. Finally Rama, Bharatha, Sathrugna, and the citizens of Ayodhya go in procession to the river Sarayu; Rama 54 "Presenting" the Past enters the abode of Vishnu (a Hindu god) in his Vishnu-form along with his brothers, and the commoners ascend the heaven. Padmacarita, or Paumacariyam in Prakrit language, is the Jaina text of Vimalasuri, which dates sometime between the third and seventh centu• ries C.E. The rewriting of this earliest of the Jaina versions of the story was important for the Jaina religion. Paumacariyam begins with King Sre- nika (Bimbisara) of Magadha asking for the correct version of Ramayana, because he doubted the authenticity of the story in the existing versions. The story begins with a description of the land of the Vidyadharas, who also comprise the rakshasas (demons) and the vanaras (monkeys). Fol• lowing a detailed account of these two groups' lineages, the Dasaratha episode is introduced. On the basis of a Jaina muni's teaching, Dasaratha desires to renounce the world, and Kekeyi demands that her son succeed to the throne. As she simply wants her son to be the king, she dissuades Rama from going into exile. Likewise, the rakshasas were not demons, as the name came from the root raksa (to protect). The text also establishes that Ravana was neither 10-headed nor a meat-eater, and "all that has been said about him by foolish poets (murkhakukavi) is untrue." All the main characters are pious Jainas and hence try to avoid violence. How• ever, the rulers do show their valor through violence, as heroism cannot be completely stifled.24 Although the events of the Ramayana may not be historically authenticated, it "can be seen as the expression of a certain historical consciousness." The historical necessity of these versions, such as the Jataka stories, Valmiki's Ramayana, and Paumacariyam, reflects "its function as a form of validation for a changing historical situation."25 In recent times, the fusion of the Ramayana and political issues has been quite commonplace. During 1920-50, the peasant leader Baba Ram Chan• dra, for instance, used the Ramcaritmanas in the Oudh countryside to radi• calize the peasants and organize them. Invoking the popular story and elaborating suitable episodes and characters, Ram Chandra defined impe• rialism in the common folks' idiom, highlighted the inner contradictions of the society, and made the peasants fight the oppressive social forces. For him the peasants were Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana; their banishment was the peasant's condition; the British and their landlord allies were like the king of gods, Indra, with all the wickedness, treachery, and rascality; and the landlords, capitalists, moneylenders, and others who exploited the people were devils. He used the Ramayana not as a devotional text but "to expose the exploitative character of the given social organization and for its transformation."26 Taking a jab at the colonial establishment with a different emphasis from Ram Chandra, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee retold the Ramayana in his Bengali satire Ramayaner Samalochana. In it a Western Indologist is sup• posedly presenting a critical version of Valmiki's Ramayana for his mod• ern readers. An illiterate king in ancient times had three wives, and one Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 55 of them, Kaikeyi, perfidiously persuaded him to send his eldest son into exile. As Indians had always been meek by nature, the son submitted to his father and did not fight for his rights. Rama took his young wife with him, but she fell in love with Ravana and ran away with him. Lakshmana never thought of himself and was loafing in the company of Rama. Like• wise, Bharatha renounced the kingdom he had acquired. Thus the whole story of the Ramayana was a history of some unenterprising people. The non-Aryan Vanaras took pity on Rama's poor condition, killed Ravana along with his family, and brought Sita back to Rama. Living true to the cruel character of his barbarous race, Rama tried to burn her alive, but she was saved by an act of providence. After some time, when her character was questioned by someone, Rama drove her out of his house and later buried her alive. Such tragedies are quite frequent among the barbarous races.27 Adopting the interpretation of the Ramayana as a chronicle of the Aryan conquest of the Dravidian kingdoms of south India, Periyar E. V Ramas- wami used the Ramayana to radicalize the Tamils in southern India against Brahminical supremacy and the domination of North Indian Sanskritic culture. For him, Rama, Sita, and all the rest of them were northerners without "an iota of Tamil culture," but Ravana, the king of Lanka or south• ern , was a Tamil. Ravana snatched Sita away because his own sister was maimed and deformed by Rama. Aiming at running down the Tamils, the story derided the men and women of Tamil Nadu as monkeys and monsters. For that reason, the veneration of the Ramayana in Tamil Nadu was "injurious and ignominious to the self-respect of the commu• nity and of the country."28 Advocating setting fire to the Ramayana in 1922, Periyar actually countered the North Indian ritual of Ravana burning by burning Rama's pictures in August 1956. His interpretation of the Rama• yana even came to be enacted as a drama under the mocking and nonsensi• cal title of Keemayana throughout Tamil Nadu. It is quite true that Periyar's critique of the Ramayana must be taken into account to understand some of the highly charged conflicts in Tamil Nadu public discourse.29 Anti-Ramayana literature is equally prodigious and powerful all over India. In Tamil Nadu alone quite a few scholars, such as Sami Vedachalam, P. V Manicka Nayagar, P. Chidambaram Pillai, V P. Subramania Mudaliar, M.S. Poornalingam Pillai, Chandrasekara Pavalar, and C.N. Annadurai, have written popular works against the Ramayana. Taking the side of the victims of the wanton heroisms of the protagonists of the Ramayana, a North Indian author comments, "Rama discarded his own wife, the most virtuous woman of all time, and exiled her to a forest to end her life there. This he did after making her pregnant. If a king could be so cruel to his own wife, how could we be expected to believe that he was the milk of kindness to his subjects?" (italics in original).30 Another original and lively work of great merit this anti-Ramayana approach has produced is the Meghnadbadh 56 "Presenting" the Past

Kavya of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Sympathizing with Ravana and the rakshasas, this Bengali story sings the glory of little-known characters such as Virbahu and Meghnad (Indrajit), the valiant sons of Ravana; Virbahu's mother, Chitrangada; Meghnad's mother, Mandodari; his wife, Promila; Lakshmana; and others. Taking an astute position, Jawaharlal Nehru interprets the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as the conquests and civil wars of the Indo-Aryans when they were expanding and consolidating themselves. He says he never "attached very much importance to these stories as factually true" and even "criticized the magical and supernatural element in them." However, he "would hate to destroy or throw away all the beauty and imaginative symbolism" that these stories contain.31 The Ramayana has traditionally been a book of ethics for men and women and young and old, and has taught moral values in daily life, ethical concerns in relation• ships, and so forth. There are lessons for everyone in the society from the common citizen to the king, descriptions of an ideal city and afterlife, and depictions of earthly conflicts and heavenly peace. As V S. Srinivasa Sastri puts it: "Of the countless benefits—one may even call them blessings— that the Ramayana can confer, the highest is the training of the emotions and of the spirit Of the lessons it teaches, the highest seems to me to be the exaltation of Dharma. On its altar everything must be sacrificed, rever• ently and cheerfully."32 The Ramayana, however, is not a religious book full of scriptural stipula• tions or preachings of the providence. Pointing out to its other potentials, C. Rajagopalachari writes, "On one occasion Gandhiji and I were talking about a girl very dear to both of us. I said: 'How did she get all these ideas and phrases of love without having read any of present-day love stories?' Gandhiji said in answer: 'But has she not read the Raamaayana? Is the Raamaayana not a love story too?' This struck me as profound."33 In sum, the story as such has its own beauty and flaws, lessons to learn and lesions to leave out (for those who take it seriously), and has been retold often with specific purposes. Just as much as its ancient histori• cal roles, the recent sociocultural and political roles of the Ramayana have been many and varied. The contemporary Ramayana that has come to be presented in a pseudonationalistic light now has an altogether different emphasis and agenda. Before we turn to the actual discourse, let us dis• cern the historical context.

RAM-BOW TO RAMBO(W): THE STORY OF THE 1980s As Ved Mehta contends, "There are moments in politics that reverberate in time like a perpetually tolling bell, and when that happens the signifi• cance of the moment often cannot be assessed until long after the tolling has begun."34 For India, the tolling of the 1980s was a series of nation- Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 57 ally pertinent and/or nationalistic events: the eruption of the Afghani• stan issue in 1979-80 with the Soviet occupation, the sudden death of Sanjay Gandhi in June 1980, the Indira Gandhi-Maneka Gandhi rift in March 1982 over the alleged RSS- and BJP-inspired convention of the lat• ter, India hosting the Ninth Asian Games in New Delhi in November 1982 followed by the smashing success of the Gandhi film that was presented in a Hinduized Congress discourse, and Indira Gandhi's assuming the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) chairmanship in March 1983 were some marginal events that put India at the threshold of a fateful decade. The issue that came to interject the communal fervor of the period, how• ever, was the Punjab issue, which began rather murkily, proceeded to a "heroic" storming of the Sikh Golden Temple by the Indian military in June 1984, and climaxed in the assassination of Indira Gandhi in December that year. It was followed by the Congress-sponsored anti-Sikh violence, the live telecast on national TV of Mrs. Gandhi's cremation by Brahmins with Vedic rituals, and an overwhelming electoral victory of Rajiv Gandhi in January 1985. The Congress party capitalized on the widespread feel• ing of soft Hindu communalism with 403 seats in the 544-member Lower House of Parliament, leaving only two seats for the BJP, which has been a professed proponent of Hindu communalism all along. The Congress clearly outdid the BJP in their own territory with such a shrewd strategy that agitated the Hindus, avoided the alienation of the usual suspects— Muslims—and garnered the support of everybody else against the small group of residing predominantly in one corner of the country. Inci• dents such as the Air India Boeing 747 crash off Ireland on June 23,1985, that killed 329 people contributed to this politics quite considerably. No sooner did Rajiv assume power in Delhi than the famous Shah Bano case ruling was declared. When the Supreme Court ruled in April 1985 that the divorce of the Muslim lady, Shah Bano, on the basis of Islamic custom was not valid,35 it gave rise to anger and resentment among most Muslims. So the Rajiv government introduced in May 1986 the Muslim Women's (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill in order to please the Mus• lims. And to counter this move and placate the majority Hindus, the Babri Masjid was unlocked by a court order on February 1,1986. We turn to this specific issue later, and suffice it now to state that this tit-for-tat strategy backfired and there ensued a dangerous confrontation between the Hindu and the Muslim communities and especially the communal elements. The Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) went to the extent of asking the Muslims to boycott the Republic Day celebrations on January 26, 1987. However, it withdrew the call later following an appeal of the president of India, but reiterated its plan of national strike on February 1. At this backdrop, the Doordarshan began the telecast of the Ramayan in January 1987. When the confused Muslim leadership was on the doldrums and the Rajiv government was striding steadily on the carefully concealed 58 "Presenting" the Past communal path with the Ramayan, the Hindu communal groups were not just licking their electoral wounds but also planning their next strategy. Along with the telecast of the Ramayan, there began a discussion of bhakti (devotion) in the special (January 1987) issue of Manthan put out by the Deendayal Research Institute (DRI) in New Delhi, the intellectual wing of the Hindutva forces led by "Nanaji" Deshmukh. The articles, contributed by university professors, college teachers, journalists, and others, discussed the anti-Muslim interpretations of Tulsidas's Ramcarit• manas, the importance of Ram Leela and Krishna Leela as ideal people's theaters, the impact of the bhakti movement in Maharashtra, the place of Krishna in Indian national life, the profeminist concept of Seeya Ram, and the potential of bhakti as a mass movement for total revolution. Interest• ingly enough, the Vaishnavajana (followers of Vaishnavism) came to be the focal point of all these discussions. A National Intellectuals Convention was held at the DRI on January 11-12 with quite a few RSS personalities, including K. S. Sudarshan, Rajen- dra Singh, Bhaurao Deoras, K. Seshadri, and Hindutva sympathizers and journalists such as Rama Swarup, Devendra Swarup, Sita Ram, and oth• ers. Besides the usual anti-Muslim and anti-British rhetoric, the meet was full of Hindu canard. Another National Thinkers Conference was held in Bangalore on April 11-12 by the Rashtrotthana Parishat, a literary and cul• tural organization, with the RSS figures of the South. Many national Hin• dutva leaders, including K.R. Sudarshan, H.V Seshadri, M.M. Joshi, and K. R. Malkani were also present. Malkani advocated having a "National Dream" and the need "to articulate it in the idiom that our people will understand, appreciate and accept with all their heart and mind." B.N. Jog of Hindu Ek Jood in Maharashtra felt that "we cannot have Ram Rajya without the modern equivalent of Rama's 'Bow & Arrow.'" Another Hin• dutva leader from Tamil Nadu, Rama Gopalan, said, "Let us give the country what sister Nivedita described as 'Aggressive Hinduism.'"36 The DRI celebrated Independence Day in August 1987 with a discus• sion on "Bharat, Akhand Bharat, Vishal Bharat," and most of the speak• ers emphasized the need for everyone to realize that they are children of Bharat Mata.37 The DRI circulated K.R. Malkani's paper "Resolving Religio-Cultural Differences in the Service of the Indian People" to a few thinkers and writers all over India to have their responses. This paper had a whole array of ideas and suggestions to bridge the chasm between Hin• dus and Muslims. Concealing the resentment that Indian Muslims do not accept Ram as their hero, and injecting the contention that Ram is actually a historical figure, the author argued,

Mohammed is not a religious prophet for Hindus; but Hindus could recognise and respect him as the Napoleon or Lenin of Arabs—the great unifier and liberator of his people. Rama and Krishna are not the religious leaders of Muslims. But they sure are heroes par excellence of all India. Even Indonesians accept Rama as their Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 59

Hero No. 1. And many Muslims have been drawn to the "Leela" (playfulness) of Krishna over the ages. Muslim maestroes sing the glories of Krishna. Fortunately the Ramayana TV serial has introduced Rama even to non-Hindus—and installed him in the heart of one and all. If Muslims and Christians like it, we can have TV serials on Muslim or Christian themes.38

While the intellectual wing of the Hindutva forces was examining issues, the cultural wing, the RSS, was issuing commands. In their working com• mittee at Haridwar on July 17-18,1987, the RSS discussed the communal violence and passed a resolution that included the following suggestion, among other things: "Situation demands that the Hindu people speed up their efforts in making their organised strength more effective and offer whole-hearted co-operation to the workers of the Sangh engaged in this task."39 The RSS organized on October 1-5 a special five-day meeting of its national executive with "prominent Swayamsevaks working in vari• ous fields of national life." At the end of the meeting, Balasaheb Deoras claimed that "the unifying and all-encompassing urge of Hindutva" lay at the root of Indian national unity and territorial integrity, and was pleased with the "growing Hindu awareness."40 However, the RSS was a little ambivalent about the strategy to bend the "growing Hindu awareness" to its advantage. In his annual Vijaya Dashami speech on October 2, 1987, Deoras said, "Some believe that the RSS is anti-Congress but that is not true. The Sangh founder Dr. Hedgewar was an office-bearer of the Congress Party. But its policy of appeasement of minorities, prompted Doctor Hedgewar to part ways with the Congress and strike out a new path for national rejuvenation." He also felt that a viable alternative to the Congress (I) did not seem possible in the foresee• able future, and further clarified that the RSS "never believed in weaken• ing of the Administration at the Centre."41 Although the All India Congress Committee (I)'s (AICC) 12-member high-profile Committee on Communalism had recommended that the party should have no truck with any communal or religious or sectarian party, the general secretary of AICC (I), Naresh Chaturvedi, claimed on October 5,1987, that there was nothing wrong in responding positively to anybody's gesture that supported the policies and programs of the party. However, another general secretary, K.K. Singh, criticized the RSS on October 7, charging that they were trying to create confusion. However, the BJP's three-day national-executive meeting that concluded at Jodhpur on October 11 kept a studied silence on the whole issue, but came down heavily on the Congress (I) and the communist parties. Following the above episode, there was another meeting on October 14- 18,1987, at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur. Besides the RSS leaders, there were prominent leaders of other Hindutva outfits, particularly Vajpayee and Advani of the BJP at the meeting. It was a "meeting together of broth• ers—each one of them following his own avocation, but all of them uni- 60 "Presenting" the Past fled in their resolve to uphold their noble family traditions." Besides other things, the "urgent need for strengthening the nation-wide Hindu Awak• ening and at the same time directing it into positive, enduring and con• structive channels was another aspect which was emphasised by all."42 One interpretation of the situation was that since the RSS could not depend solely on the BJP for the Hinduization of India, they were looking for like-minded people in the ruling party. The logic was allegedly that "when the Ruling Party, which has an all-India base is already doing what the BJP which has no all-India base, might do, why not support the one which is quite experienced." On November 16, the RSS chief even hinted at the possibility of the RSS joining politics by saying that "the RSS had not taken a vow not to enter politics."43 In the meantime, the RSS had started concentrating on religious elements to realize its Hindutva dream. The Vishal Hindu Sammelan was held in Alandi near Pune with a strong emphasis on "achieving social cohesion." The Brahminical forces, led by the RSS chief himself, felt obliged to pass resolutions on "harmful social customs" because they were "weakening the social structure" and also made "coming together of the Dalits and Muslims" possible.44 Another religious figure, Chinmayananda, called for an end of "discrimination" against Hindus in India and for the emer• gence of "a united Hindu consciousness" at an RSS meeting in Kerala. His scheme, as can be expected, gave prominence to the likes of him and made a good use of the prevalent TV Ramayan discourse of the time. He said, "In order to achieve this, it was necessary for the Hindu religious leaders, San- yasins and Dharmacharyas to come forward, in the manner in which the great sages like Vishwamitra and Vasishtha came into the open to resist Ravana's threat, during the times mentioned in the Ramayana."45 In fact, one such religious leader, Jayendra Saraswathi, did found a movement called Jana Kalyan Jana Jagaran on October 2, 1987, with the objectives of renaming India "Hindustan," establishing cow protection committees in every village and town, creating uniform civil and criminal codes for all, abolishing affirmative actions, promoting Sanskrit, and advocating a vegetarian diet, physical exercises, Hindu prayer, and teaching of Indian culture and "the glory of India's history."46 The activist elements in the Hindutva camp were slowly grasping the trend and gradually emerging out in the open. Trying to capitalize on the Punjab issue to communalize the Hindus, the BJP organized a big demon• stration in front of the national parliament on February 23,1987, to "save Punjab Hindus" and to demand the dismissal of the Barnala government in Punjab. When the BMAC organized a massive Muslim march to Parlia• ment on March 30, 1987, with regard to the Babri Masjid issue, the VHP organized a bandh (closure) on March 29 as a counter and incited com• munal incidents in Uttar Pradesh (UP). The same confused VHP that was carrying Ganga water around the country in late 1983 had gained enough Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 61 confidence to display arms in their Shobha Yatra on Ramnavami day (April 7) in Delhi and several other places along with provocative slogans. It was at this juncture that the three famous scandals of the Rajiv govern• ment, Fairfax investigation, HDW submarines, and Bofors guns, unfolded and began to occupy the Indian political scene. VP. Singh emerged as the major opposition figure and contested the highly symbolic Allahabad bye-election in June 1988. Fielding Sunil Shastri, the son of former prime minister Lai Bahadur Shastri, the Rajiv government waged a no-holds- barred fight against Singh. Although the government had promulgated an ordinance in 1988 to separate religion from politics at the wake of the Pun• jab situation, the Congress (I) brought to Allahabad the actor Arun Govil, who acted as Ram in the TV serial, in full dress and makeup as Ram. The Congress leaders and ministers such as Gulam Nabi Azad were said to have shouted from the platform in full throat, "Bolo Siyapati Ramchandra Ki Jai" when Govil appeared on stage as Ram.47 Obviously, the Hindutva forces were not going to let the Congress (I) steal their symbols this time. The RSS mouthpiece complained that the "Ramayana's lofty canons of Dharma—the hub of its universal appeal— have been sought to be trampled under foot" by the Congress (I). It further lamented, "The overall impact of it all has been that of making the nation, especially the Hindus—the laughing stock of the world. But that perhaps seems to be the secular grand design of the Tarsi Raja and Christian Rani' whose imperial destiny seems to be to exploit all religious appeals turn by turn or even simultaneously to perpetuate themselves in power."48 The National Executive of the BJP commented, "Congress desperation [sic] and total lack of scruples in this electoral battle was sharply highlighted when it tried to use television artist Arun Govil, dressed up as Rama, to boost their party prospects. It is a tribute to the maturity of the masses that Govil and Dara Singh who had earned cheers of millions when they played Rama and Hanuman on T.V evoked only jeers when they tried to canvass support for the corrupt Congress."49 While the RSS-BJP relationship was hanging in the balance with occa• sional highs and lows, the Hindu religious elements started emerging more and more assertive. Some of them organized a Temple Liberation Conference in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, in July 1988 and presented a mass petition to the state governor allegedly signed by 2.5 million "Hindu believers" to liberate the temples from the control of the government and political parties.50 Likewise, the leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mukti Yagya Samiti asserted that they would not budge on the Ramjanmabhumi issue.51 When the religious elements were flexing their muscles and the Ram• janmabhumi issue was gaining momentum, the RSS made up its mind and declared unequivocal support to the BJP. At a press conference on October 3,1988, Balasaheb Deoras gave two reasons for this support. First, 62 "Presenting" the Past

"we have many friends in the BJP which is a well wisher of Hindus," and second, the party was formed by those who preferred the RSS member• ship and left the BJP on the dual-membership issue. The much-refuted ambivalence in the RSS mind about the BJP also came to be revealed when he said, "Though it does have an all-India image, it was not equally strong in all states. I want its influence to grow in States such as Andhra Pradesh, , Tamil Nadu, also." He denied that he ever wrote to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, but acknowledged that "some of his col• leagues had in connection with RSS work."52 In the very next issue of the Organiser, its leading columnist wrote a front-page column on "BJP poised for a breakthrough." He opened the article by saying: "After eight years of somewhat aimless and fruitless wandering, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned home last week deter• mined to fight its way back to the top." The column praised the party's latest decision not to have truck with other parties, except on its own terms.53 The following issue of the Organiser reported the month-old news of the BJP leader, L. K. Advani, declaring that the "liberation of Ramjan- mabhoomi [was a] national issue" at the National Awakening Campaign in Bombay on September 28.54 From then on the RSS-BJP relationship was one of "brotherhood." When the RSS was trying to boost the morale of the BJP through the Organiser, the DRI was discussing the ways and means of strengthening the RSS in its mouthpiece, Manthan. Following their national-executive meeting at Udaipur on March 3-5, 1989, the BJP started focusing more on organizing kisan (farmers) rallies all over the country. L. K. Advani even claimed in one such rally at Raipur on March 11 that "BJP was basically a Kisan Party" and that the party was to concentrate on "grassroot problems—those of Kisans, unemployed youth, regional imbalance etc."55 Nonetheless, there remained one big worry in the Hindutva mind and that was the charge of being commu• nal. With that in mind, on July 28,1989, the BJP organized a symposium on "Nationalism and Communalism" in New Delhi, which no one less than Advani himself presided over. The meeting discussed, among oth• ers, two papers entitled "Muslims Must Join the 'Majority'—and Not Get Marginalised" and "Justice for All and Appeasement of None." The DRI celebrated the independence day by organizing a symposium on "Improving Hindu-Muslim Relations." When the BJP national executive met in Madras on July 22-24,1990, the Centre of Policy Studies presented to it a few papers, and one of them was entitled "From Restoration of Rama Janmabhoomi to Ram Rajya." The paper summed up the Hindutva thinking precisely: "Reawakening of the spirit of a nation needs a great idea, and a great effort. The options available within the current reality are always limited and none of them can possibly be exploited to break the status quo. For that to happen, there have to emerge ideas that tran• scend the current reality, that skirt the terms of current debate, and raise Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 63 the public consciousness to a different level of thinking. The Rama Jan- mabhoomi Yagna is one such idea."56 Thus a remarkable political drama was being written, planned, and pro• duced by major political forces; the Hindutva forces deliberately, the Con• gress (I) desperately, and the rest of them expediently. The stage chosen was understandably the Hindi-Urdu heartland—the states of UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh (HP), and Hary- ana. This "heartland" has 42 percent of all parliamentary seats in the (Lower House) and 38 percent of the electorate. It is also said to be "a region of common language, cultural parochialism, and high levels of economic and social backwardness."57 The Hindi-Urdu heartland has the maximum Muslim concentration and the most number of parliamentary constituencies, with over 20 percent actual Muslim electorate. Most of the tribal people, who are about 8 percent of the Indian population compris• ing some 300 communities, inhabit this middle belt from West Bengal to Rajasthan. Most of the lower caste (or scheduled castes) population is also concentrated in the Hindi-Urdu heartland. The en bloc support of these minorities, which was readily available for the Congress of the Nehru period by virtue of the fact that the party was the only source of justice and protection in an otherwise hostile envi• ronment, was not there for Indira Gandhi anymore. In the 1957 elections, the Congress secured 49 percent of the seats and 42 percent of the votes from the heartland, but in 1971 they got only 47 percent of the seats and 40 percent of the votes. In 1980, however, Indira Gandhi secured only 30 percent of the heartland seats and 31 percent of the votes. With the new majority-wooing strategy, Indira Gandhi could taste success in the Delhi Municipal Corporation and Metropolitan Council elections in February 1983, in Kashmir and in Punjab.58 When Rajiv Gandhi trod the same com• munal path more erratically than strategically, the Hindutva forces sought to reassert themselves first by preventing the Congress from stealing their platform, and second by dramatizing things in a more overt and aggres• sive fashion. When "Mr. Clean," as Rajiv was once hailed, had not only failed to take India into the twenty-first century but let the people down so ter• ribly, V P. Singh won the November 1989 general election. The BJP, with 86 seats in Parliament, played a crucial role in sustaining the new govern• ment. When the undaunted Singh implemented the Mandal Commission Report, antagonized the upper castes, and opposed the BJP's revivalist program and activities, his government fell. Singh's scheming rival, Chan• dra Shekhar, succeeded in November 1990, and the next general elections were held in May 1991. Rajiv Gandhi was killed on May 20,1991, during the election hustings, and a stopgap government took over, making it fea• sible for the political drama to enter its climax with heightened actions in the heartland. 64 "Presenting" the Past

The collapse of "Congress socialism" came to be replaced by Hindu chauvinism that, disguised as nationalism, suited "the cultural/ideological yearnings of the newly aggressive intermediate castes." The forward castes, the higher-ranking intermediate castes, and sections of the other intermediate castes have come to form a solid middle class, which is led by the upwardly mobile urban elitist culture of corporate executives, busi• nessmen, and professionals. They choose TV and films to receive consum• erism and hedonism from their capitalistic lodestars and to transmit to other sections of the Indian society. The combination of growing middle class, Hindu chauvinism, pseudonationalism, consumerist and hedonistic aspirations, the state-controlled TV messages, and the self-centered lead• ership all together brought the country to a new crossroad by the end of the 1980s. Desai would sum up: "This Hindu Nationalism beds uneasily with the other component of the new hegemonising ideology that is being erected—modernisation through capitalist rationalisation, managerial skills, and a problem solving approach. Its political equivalent is prag• matism. The 'end of ideology' as ideology—there is nothing that cannot be managed by a rational, modern, scientific-technical elite. This is the specific contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and the 'new era' which has dawned on India."59 In fact, the middle-class phenomenon of India became a sub• ject of domestic debate and international attention during the mid-1980s, and the national budget of 1985 witnessed the first major shift toward the middle classes. This trendy and nonideological middle-class era called for a modern version of the Ramayana.

EPIC CLEANSING: MAKING A MIDDLE-CLASS RAMAYANA The modern middle-class Ramayana, shown on Indian state TV from January 25, 1987, till July 31, 1988, had to be necessarily told through a high-tech storytelling system with the paraphernalia of the modern times in congruence with the new economic-liberalization policy and the onset of Western consumerism. The producer, , described the serial as "Ramayan written with a video camera." With videocassette in his mind, he expressed confidence that his Ramayan "will survive me. When I am dead, your children will be watching my cassette."60 Moder• nity meant not just multitudinousness and money but also immortality for him. The heavily centralized state, however, had other things to worry about, as liberalization in a way meant an impending threat to the already shaky national identity. So, as Thapar points out, the state emerges as the arch patron of a "sin• gle, homogenized, national culture," dismisses the legitimacy of multiple and conflicting versions of the epic, and projects what the "new culture" should be.61 The title scene of the serial declared every Sunday that it Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 65 was an amalgamation of all the major Ramayanas, and the new laundered national version was presented through the state-sponsored high-tech unifier, Doordarshan, in the "national language," Hindi. All in all, it was a modern national-integration project of the liberalizing state. An added attraction to this modern storytelling project was the rigid one-way transaction that put the state at a tremendous advantage. Tradi• tionally, as Anuradha Kapur explains, the various Ramlila (Ram's play) the• atric performances include almost the whole town and last over a month, where the Ramcaritmanas is both sung by the Ramayanis and enacted by the actors concurrently. While the less dramatic parts are just sung, the dramatic portions are both sung and enacted. The text is laid open to see• ing, reading, and hearing, and the performance makes its own text. The audiences have a choice: the eye or the ear; to see the acting or to hear the Ramcaritmanas. (Many do both, and some simply fall asleep.) Above all, as Kapur points out, there is "play" in the whole performance: for instance, in constructing supplementary theatric images so as to add and subtract from the shown, and in the effortlessness and humor with which the grotesque and the sublime are reconciled. There is also play• fulness and imagination "in the way meaning is given to the actors and gathered from them." In other words, there is ample space and avenue for play for everyone involved in the performance. The audiences enter into a transaction when they not only receive from the actors but also give something—laughter, tears, booing, applause—in return, and alter the texture of the performance. The performance goes beyond the spatial or architectural frames, and the audiences are allowed to construct their own images and complete the picture represented on stage. This human voli• tion, "the intervention of the imaginative will," makes theatrical objects volatile, and the transformation requires creativity of sight, or the ability to construct.62 Erasing this human volition and cultural articulations altogether, and eliminating the public space with an opportunity for interpretation and emphasis, the grand high-tech national Ramlila dumped the entire popu• lation of the country into one group of passive and pious audience and "schooled" them for the emerging "new era" of liberalization and global• ization. The religious sensitivities of the people came in quite handy. Con• currently, the "Syndicated Hinduism" that had been in the making for a century or so emerged more clearly at this time with more political rather than religious vigor and strong sympathy for the new social class.63 Sagar's serial, to some extent, cemented these forces together. Although the epic contained "fundamental truths" for Sagar, he defended the showy grandeur and heavily made-up people by saying that his audience would have their own vision of Ram and Ram's palace, and that "Ramayan screened with the background of a plain blank wall would be unaccept• able to these people." The epic that had been passed down to them "is full 66 "Presenting" the Past of bedecked and bejewelled women."64 Contrary to the religious values of simplicity, renunciation of materialism, nonattachment, and self-denial, the serial was what many people called a costume and jewelry show. Being representative of the new era of modern entrepreneurial middle- class, the Ramayan was essentially a moneymaking endeavor where both the spiritual sentiments of all brands and consumerist items of all sorts were displayed and promoted in a free-market bonanza of TV commer• cials. The sponsors of the serial, Mafatlal and Colgate-Palmolive, paid well for it. Sita herself sponsored products such as Khatau, Konark TV, Himtex, and Nirma washing powder. The serial was one of the biggest revenue earners for Doordarshan and fetched a sum of Rs. 2.5 million per week from the commercials.65 However, there were reports of providing only cheap vegetarian food under the pretext of shooting the "holy epic," poor living conditions, and meager wages for the junior artists and the locals of Umargaon, where the serial was shot. As the serial was a smashing success, even the major artists who were upcoming put up with the treatment. There were reports that Sagar had already made Rs. 235 million by mid-1988. All this took place in the name of promoting moral values. When Sagar was confronted with the criticism of poor production, he retorted, "What are we trying to promote? The costumes? The jewellery? The sets? Or the moral values of Ramayan?"66 When the saffron-colored Ramayan video was put out, it also became a compulsory part of the dowry in weddings in North India. Typifying the ironic values of this ambivalent class that is torn between tradition and modernity and oscillates between spiritual mores and con• sumerist core, the Ramayan came to serve as a comfortable double-sided cloak that they could don and doff as per convenience. The serial had no politically liberative use of the popular story, but seemed to have a totally reactionary agenda. First of all, as discussed earlier, the folk genres were superseded, the diverse traditions were dis• missed, and the whole serial could be described in two phrases: "singu• lar Ramayana" and "simply Ram." Sita represented the women's return to the traditional subordination, submission, resignation, and passivity. As opposed to Catakantaravana-katai, where Sita, with Rama as her chari• oteer, combats Ravana and kills him, Sagar's Ramayan depicts the more "appropriate" image of Sita as a helpless pawn in a few men's game of righteousness and power. Men rule, men decide, and men carry out things, and women play the usual submissive support roles, highlighting the emotional overtones of different situations by lamenting or laughing. Men are shrewd and hence in the public realm, but women are gullible and so restricted to the pri• vate realm. Even the marriages of Rama and his brothers are entirely dis• cussed and decided by the fathers, and the boys' mothers come to know of the event much after the actual wedding. Men stand for righteousness Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 67

(Dasaratha, Rama), wisdom (Vashista), spiritual power (Vishwamitra, Ravana), and loyalty (Lakshmana, Bharatha, Hanuman), but women sym• bolize cunningness (Manthara), ductility (Kaikeyi), desirability (Kaikeyi), lust (Soorpanaka), chastity (Sita), and usurpation (Sita, Thara). Reiterating the same old social text of man-domination and woman- subordination, the Ramayan also reproduces the "social reality" where the powerful occupy the center and everybody else is ordained to play the supportive role for their drama. When the heroic class happens to be the modern, scientific, entrepreneurial creators, as the Ramayan he-man happens to be God himself, others hardly even matter. The weaknesses of Rama are glossed over, or covered up or explained away; the villain, who does not play by the heroic rule, can never be anything but a mali• cious menace, and as can be expected, the other characters go unnoticed. Though the Ramayana may be Ram's story, everybody else's stories are twisted to fit in that. The Ramayan's correspondence with the omnipres• ence of the modern middle class and the obliteration of the marginalized groups is neither casual nor coincidental. Another loud and clear message persistently repeated and reiterated all along the Ramayan is that the Brahmins should be respected and revered. The caste system with the Brahmins on top and the shudras at bottom (inci• dentally, these people do not come into the picture at all) is ascertained time and again through contexts, dialogues, and actions. A typical sample is the pervasive presence of Brahmins, Brahminical rituals and supersti• tions, their daily practices, and their "wisdom" and teachings in the first four episodes of the serial. When a Brahmin comes to the court, the king himself washes the "holy" visitor's feet, wipes them, and pays respect. Rama himself does this quite frequently to different Brahmins. In most of the crucial situations in Ayod• hya, it is a Brahmin, Vashista, who decides things and gives commands to the king and others. Every court has Brahminical priests; the king remains the "kshatriya hand" but the priests stay the "Brahminical brain" and pon• tifical rulers all through the Ramayan. The epic is no longer a civilizational text teaching different cultural mores to diverse peoples, but a religious scripture to be defended and deified as in the Semitic religions. Having been made a singular religious literature rather than a cultural text with multifarious tellings in manifold genres, the Ramayan has come to repre• sent one humanity, one Hindus, one Hinduism, one God, one culture, one ethos, one language, one country, and one future. By the courtesy of the Ramayan, the Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan dream stands realized. Reading politics into the making of the Ramayan is by no means an idle exercise. In fact, the serial always had the political shade, from the very beginning of the project. When he spoke at a VHP function, Ramanand Sagar said that Rajiv Gandhi had always wanted a Ramayan program pro• duced, but the bureaucracy did not show any interest. According to him, 68 "Presenting" the Past

"when the Prime Minister spoke in its favor the wheels started moving." He also said that the minister of state for broadcasting, Ajit Panja, "backed the project with all his strength."67 Answering a question on why the serial was not telecast in 1986 as originally planned and the reasons for the delay, Sagar said, "The delay, I guess, could be because they were trying to find a proper atmosphere for its telecast."68 When the Ramayan was approved for telecast, the Doordarshan had sanc• tioned only 52 episodes, which would wind up with the return of Rama to Ayodhya. But Sagar dragged his "holy task" and "spiritual commitment" so much that he applied for another 26 episodes. And it was approved. The Doordarshan director had given Sagar an ultimatum, asking to wind up the Ramayan in 72 episodes, and there was also a ban on giving extensions to any of the sponsored programs on national TV. However, the Ramayan was given another extension, and many doubted the government's hand to appease the electorate in view of the coming elections.69 Most important of all, the serial fit the bill of the Hindutva forces per• fectly, as they were bent more upon instigating nostalgia among the peo• ple rather than instilling any ideological vigor or political program for the future. The right-wing reasoning goes like this: as Rama is "our national hero," the Ramayana becomes an account of "our ancient national strug• gle" against the rakshasas, and this revived "Ramayanic patriotism" alone could possibly take us to progress and prosperity. Making the Ramayana a contested terrain of modern Indian national identity, a Hindutva com• mentator quotes another saying, "To be Indian, or simply to live in India, is to open oneself to the benign moral influence of the two epics, and that their moral influence 'determines the quality of the affected person's Indi- anness whatever that very large word means.'"70 Addressing an RSS convention in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, L. K. Advani narrated an incident. He had witnessed some 25 to 30 years ago an Indone• sian ballet group perform a dance drama on the Ramayana in New Delhi. Almost all of the artists were Muslims, and when a journalist asked them how come they were performing the Ramayana, one of them allegedly said that the epic was considered a part of their cultural heritage. Advani got to his point immediately: "It is pertinent to ask, if Indonesia can accept the Ramayana as part of its cultural heritage, why not the Indian Muslim sim• ilarly accept [sic] the Ramayana as part of his own cultural heritage?"71 Condoning to Advani's point and quoting some Muslim authorities on the Ramayana, Saeed Naqvi argued that Muslims are an overwhelming majority in Indonesia, unlike in India, where they are an insecure minor• ity. He suggested removing that insecurity by having more Muslims sing the glory of Rama and Krishna. Naqvi's response was distributed by the DRI among intellectuals for more discussion. A senior journalist from Bombay was ready to support Naqvi, but wanted to deal with the present leadership of the Muslims very firmly. His advice was "Let us not forget Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 69 our History. Tolerance, yes; but not unilateral." A professor at IIT Bombay went one step ahead to claim that the "ex-Hindus [are] a part of the Hindu society as the 5th caste" and the "reconversion needs be merely psycho• logical, not ritualistic."72 The Hindutva forces also pointed out how the Islamic Iranians identified themselves with the pre-Islamic Persian leg• ends of Sohrab and Rustom. The cultural wing of the Hindutva forces was defending the Rama• yan from accusations of being communal by arguing that the serial was depicting the cultural and social values of a time when there was no other "dharma." The serial, according to them, inspired a son "to obey" his father's wishes, a wife "to accompany and follow" her husband, and a younger brother "to serve" his elder brother. This discourse of subjugat• ing by way of traditional hierarchy and accepted conventionalities has many other examples in the serial also. Interestingly enough, these cul• tural forces cannot defend their culture by its virtues, but only by pointing out the defects in other cultures. One Hindutva commentator dismisses a criticism of the above-mentioned discourse of subjugation by asking if one should slay one's own brother as Aurangzeb killed Dara for the throne.73 Defending Ram's decision to banish his wife even after her test of fire, another commentator justifies that by quoting the English proverb "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion," based on the story that Pompeia was divorced by Caesar. He hastens to add, "Pompeia is as different from Sita as chalk is from cheese."74 Yet another Hindutva zealot saw a mali• cious scheme in the criticism of the serial, because "without our Rama this nation will die and that precisely is the objective of its hostile critics."75 Contributing their share to the revivalist scheme, the VHP celebrated Tulsi Jayanti (the birthday of Tulsidas) at Talkotra stadium in Delhi mid- 1987 and paraded the Ramayan team. In another VHP function in Bombay in late 1987, Sagar said that "the epic is a part of our being. It is there in our psyche. All that is necessary is to awaken the dormant 'Sanskars'. We have only to look into our hearts and feel the power lying latent there."76 This Hindu psyche of the "new era" was much sought after by both the Con• gress (I) and the Hindutva elements. Capitalizing on the Hindu psyche's legendary weakness and modern confusion, and the desperation of its political wooers, Ramanand Sagar did the right thing at the right time. And the Right forces rightly used it for their rightist agenda. The Illustrated Weekly of India summed up precisely: "The programme has in any case come about at a time when the Hindu revivalist phenomenon is fast gain• ing momentum. Some observers believe that Sagar's success can be attrib• uted to the state of Hindu psyche. Wounded by what it perceives as the federal government's concessions to the minority, it has begun to vocally assert itself, using instruments like the epics to further its cause."77 The Ramayana becomes a contested terrain of Indian national identity where several discourses compete with one another. The myth and the his- 70 "Presenting" the Past tory, interwoven in this tussle, fight for prominence. For Hindutva forces, Ram is history and Babar is an interruption; for Muslim communalists, Ram is myth and Babar is history; for secular Indians—both Hindus and Muslims—Ram is India's heritage and Babar is India's history; and for much of India's poor, as a popular adage puts it, things remain the same whether they are ruled by Ram or Ravana. In the Hindutva Ramayana, Ram is the historical Hindu hero and Babar is the Ravana who violates the integrity of the Hindu heritage and iden• tity. The violation is multifaceted and comprises invading the Hindu land, subjugating the Hindu race, converting some of them to Islam, destroy• ing the Hindu temples, building mosques on those temples—the list of grievances is long. The pure, innocent, tolerant, and well-meaning Sitas are many in their story. But identifying themselves with the nonviolent sari-clad woman is an insult, and then they are compelled to modify the Ramayana a little bit, saying that unlike Sita in the epic, they have all along put up a stern fight against the Ravanas: Mughal rulers, the British, and the independent secular state. Any symbolic or actual enactment of this ancient fight is a welcome opportunity to justify their "dharma" and dem• onstrate their "valor." Ram has always been there; the Ramarajya has been interrupted by the Ravanas; and now is the time to put the non-Rambhakts (and hence Ravana supporters) in their place, redeem the Ramarajya, and restart the glorious Hindu journey.

NOTES 1. H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Edward Arnold and Co., 1936), pp. v, 1-2. 2. Charles Tilly, "How (and What) Are Historians Doing?" American Behavioral Scientist 33, no. 6 (July-August 1990), p. 691. 3. Dennis Kavanagh, "Why Political Science Needs History/' Political Studies 39, no. 3 (September 1991), p. 482. 4. Charles Hampden-Turner, "The Binary Code of Myth: Claude Levi-Strauss," in Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and Its Labyrinths (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 198. 5. Eloise A. Buker, "Understanding Political Culture through Story-Telling: A Structural Interpretation of Narratives from Two Political Cultures" (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii, 1981), pp. 92-94. 6. Gianni Vattimo, The Transparent Society, trans. David Webb (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), p. 30. 7. Ibid., pp. 30-35. 8. Ibid., p. 36. 9. Ronald Walters, "Signs of the Times: Clifford Geertz and Historians," Social Research 47, no. 3 (autumn 1980). 10. Iqbal Ansari, "Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India: Causes and Remedies," in The Muslim Situation in India (New Delhi: Sterling, 1989), p. 173. Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 71

11. Philip Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas ofTulsidas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 23,18, 33, 34. 12. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, 1982), p. 67. 13. M.K. Gandhi, Gita—My Mother, ed. A.T. Hingorani (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1965), p. 6. 14. Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 67. 15. Tapan Basu et al., Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993), p. 9. 16. See T. L. Vaswani, Sri Rama: The Beloved ofAryavarta (Poona, India: Gita Pub• lishing House, n.d.), pp. 5,7. 17. Sita Ram Goel, "Rama—Man, or God?" Organiser, 14 October 1963, pp. 12, 14. 18. See G.W. Trompf, "Macrohistory and Acculturation: Between Myth and History in Modern Melanesian Adjustments and Ancient Gnosticism," Compara• tive Studies in Society and History 31, no. 4 (October 1989), p. 625. 19. A.K. Ramanujan, "Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation," in Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 24-25. 20. Tulsidas, quoted in Philip Lutgendorf, "Ramayan: The Video," Drama Review 34, no. 2 (summer 1990), p. 127. 21. Ramanujan, "Three Hundred Ramayanas," pp. 25,33. 22. Romila Thapar, "The Ramayana: Theme and Variation," in India: History and Thought, ed. S.N. Mukherjee (Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 1982), pp. 221-22, 229. 23. Ibid., pp. 224-25. 24. Thapar, "The Ramayana: Theme and Variation," pp. 226-40. See also Thapar's "A Historical Perspective on the Story of Rama," Thatched Patio 5, no. 6 (November-December 1992), and Exile and the Kingdom: Some Thoughts on the Ramayana (Bangalore: Mythic Society, 1978). 25. Thapar, "The Ramayana: Theme and Variation," pp. 221,245. 26. Kapil Kumar, "The Ramcharitmanas as a Radical Text: Baba Ram Chandra in Oudh, 1920-1950," in Social Transformation and Creative Imagination, ed. Sudhir Chandra (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1984), pp. 311-33. 27. Sita Ram Goel, "Monstrosities of Modern Indology," Organiser, 14 May 1962, p. 5. 28. Periyar E. V Ramaswami, The Ramayana: A True Reading (Trichy, India: Peri• yar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution, 1972), pp. iii-iv. 29. Paula Richman, "E.V Ramasami's Reading of the Ramayana," in Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 175-77,195. 30. PH. Gupta, My Studies in the Ramayana (Visakhapatnam: n.p., 1968), p. 181. 31. Nehru, The Discovery of India, pp. 99-101. 32. VS. Krishnaswami and D. Tiruvenkatachariar, The Ramayana in Hundred Let• ters (Madras, India: Little Flower, 1962), p. xxii. 33. C. Rajagopalachari, Ramayana (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1968), p. 309. 72 "Presenting" the Past

34. Ved Mehta, Rajiv Gandhi and Rama's Kingdom (New Haven, Conn., and Lon• don: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 47-48. 35. In Islam the exercise of the right to divorce has rested with the husband, who can pronounce Talaq at his discretion. Despite the fact that the Koran holds this a most undesirable act and recommends arbitration, "the way in which Talaq can be and is sometimes effected in India is however still a cause of concern to thinking Muslims." See the pamphlet Statement on Certain Aspects of Muslim Per• sonal Law (by 10 prominent Muslim leaders) (n.p.: n.p., n.d.), p. 4. 36. "National Thinkers Meet/Bangalore, April 11-12 (Summary of Proceed• ings)," Manthan, April 1987, pp. 13, 53,56. 37. "'Bharat, Akhand Bharat, Vishal Bharat' Independence Day in D.R.I.," Man• than, September 1987, pp. 21-26. 38. K. R. Malkani, "Resolving Religio-Cultural Differences in the Service of the Indian People," Manthan, June 1988, p. 14. 39. "RSS Call for Strengthening the Spirit of Hindutva," Organiser, 30 August 1987, p. 10. 40. "Growing Hindu Awareness—An Extremely Healthy Sign," Organiser, 1 November 1987, p. 16. 41. "Organisation of Hindus Is of Supreme Importance," Organiser, 25 October 1987, p. 16. 42. "A Single Fraternity with a Shared National Vision," Organiser, 29 Novem• ber 1987, p. 6. 43. Ausaf Saied Vasfi, "Fresh Polarisations for the Next General Elections," Radiance, 18-24 October 1987, p. 1. 44. "Those Who Cavil at Hinduism Are Endangering the Nation's and Their Own Survival," Organiser, 31 January 1988, pp. 8-9. 45. "Swami Chinmayananda's Call for United Hindu Consciousness for End• ing Discrimination against All," Organiser, 6 March 1988, p. 6. 46. Muslim India, January 1988, pp. 41-42. See also "New Volunteer Force," Frontline, 17-30 October 1987, pp. 118-20. 47. See "Cries of 'Siyapati Ramachandra Ki Jai' and 'Har Har Mahadev' from Cong-I Stage," Organiser, 26 June 1988, pp. 1,15. 48. "Kalyugi Politics" (editorial), Organiser, 26 June 1988, p. 3. 49. Bharatiya Janata Party National Executive Meeting, July 1, 2, and 3,1988, Jam- shedpur (Bihar) (New Delhi: BJP Publication, 1988), p. 18. 50. "Sanyasins' Campaign for Liberation of Hindu Temples Will Be Extended All Over India," Organiser, 31 July 1988, p. 7. 51. "Hindu Leaders Refuse to Budge on Ramajanmabhoomi Issue," Organiser, 11 September 1988, pp. 1,15. 52. "RSS Chief Backs BJP," Organiser, 16 October 1988, pp. 1,15. 53. Jay Dubashi, "BJP Poised for a Breakthrough," Organiser, 23 October 1988, pp. 1,15. 54. "Liberation of Ramajanmabhoomi Is a National Issue, Says Advani," Organ• iser, 30 October 1988, p. 13. 55. "BJP Holds 3 Big Kisan Rallies in MP—Promise to Write Off Rural Loans," Organiser, 2 April 1989, pp. 1,15. 56. "From Restoration of Rama Janmabhoomi to Ram Rajya," Manthan, Septem• ber 1990, p. 56. Ramayana: Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History 73

57. A. R. Desai, Rajiv Era—A Historical Perspective (Bombay: Inquilabi Commu• nist Sangathan, 1985), p. 35. 58. Ibid., pp. 35-38. 59. Ibid., pp. 40,41. 60. "The Making of Ramayan," TV and Video World, March 1987, p. 52. 61. Romila Thapar, "The Ramayana Syndrome," Seminar, no. 353 (January 1989), pp. 71-75. 62. Anuradha Kapur, "Actors, Pilgrims, Kings, and Gods: The Ramlila at Ram- nagar," in Social Transformation and Creative Imagination, ed. Sudhir Chandra (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1984), pp. 335-57. 63. Romila Thapar, "Syndicated Moksha?" Seminar, no. 313 (September 1985), p. 22. 64. "From Films to Serials," TV and Video World, March 1987, p. 53. 65. "Extensive Epic," TV and Video World, February 1988, pp. 30-31. 66. "Off-Screen War of the Epics: Mahabharat vs. Ramayan," TV and Video World, September 1988, pp. 28-32. 67. "Hindus Will Not Rest till Ramajanmabhoomi Is Rejuvenated Like Somnath Mandir," Organiser, 20 December 1987, p. 12. 68. "From Films to Serials," p. 53. 69. "Off-Screen War of the Epics," p. 26. 70. V. P. Bhatia, "Ramayana as a 'Destabilising Force,"' Organiser, 26 July 1987, p. 13. 71. Quoted in "Naqvi's Response to Advani and Some Responses to Naqvi," Manthan, July 1990, p. 37. 72. Ibid., pp. 38-39,41-42. 73. Ram Roop Gupta, "Rama Is the Heart-Beat and Ramayana, the Song of the Soul of Crores of Hindus," Organiser, 19 July 1987, p. 7. 74. Bhatia, "Ramayana as a 'Destabilising Force,'" p. 13. 75. M. Varma, "Ramayana on TV," Organiser, 16 August 1987, p. 31. 76. "Hindus Will Not Rest," p. 12. 77. "The Ramayan," Illustrated Weekly of India, 8 November 1987, p. 12. This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 3 Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past

The popular story Ramayana has been told and retold in multifarious ways in India for all kinds of reasons. Mahatma Gandhi, for one, used it to make the masses envision the future state of India. Hijacking his powerful imag• ery of Ramarajya along with Ram and Ramjanmabhumi "temple," the Hin• dutva forces have reinterpreted it to isolate and terrorize the Muslims and bring about a crooked unity among the Hindus. They retell the story and create forms of communication and structures of meanings through which people may relate to one another. In this project they mix political and soci• ological propaganda, propaganda of agitation and integration, vertical and horizontal propaganda, and also rational and irrational propaganda. While not dismissing the communalization from below in the form of, among other things, self-assertion of subordinate social groups, I argue here that the manipulative politics of the Hindutva forces from above, with a com• munal interpretation of history and a careful and calculated propaganda, is a major factor in the present highly charged communal situation in India.

SOCIALIZATION THROUGH STORYTELLING Human socialization is predominantly political, and this political social• ization begins with one's birth and ends only with death. However, the term political socialization, which came into existence in 1960 and gained prominence in the 1970s, has been mainly used to refer to youthful learn• ing processes. Political socialization is generally defined as "the develop• mental process through which persons acquire political orientations and patterns of behavior." Much of the research in this subject concerns itself 76 "Presenting" the Past with the inquiry about the etiology of the system or the aggregate of the individual's political behavior.1 The traditional concern of researchers has been the political development of the young to see how youngsters gain their political orientations. There have been two major categories of concern in political socializa• tion research: system-level effects, which demonstrate the relevance of socialization for the operations of political systems, and individual-level concerns, which illustrate the processes by which individuals are politi• cally socialized. The latter concentration is the best-developed area, which concerns itself with Greenstein's questions "who learns what from whom under what circumstances with what effects?" Several different theories, such as the systems-persistence theory of Easton and Dennis, psychoana• lytic theory, learning theory, and cognitive-development theory, have pro• vided the guidance in political socialization research.2 Among these, the psycho-cultural approach regards political socializa• tion as a simple process and assumes that significant socialization experi• ences take place early in life, that these experiences are neither intended to have political effects nor are the political effects recognized, and that the socialization process is a unidirectional one in which the basic family experiences have a significant impact upon the secondary structures of politics. If we expand this early and latent political socialization, according to Almond and Verba, we may find that the sources of political attitudes include early socialization experiences, late socialization experiences dur• ing adolescence, and postsocialization experiences as an adult that are both political and nonpolitical and intended and unintended to have an effect on political attitudes.3 Pointing out the dearth of research on adult socialization, Sigel and Hoskin map out a theoretical spectrum with a "persistence-beyond- childhood" model on the one end, which stresses the persistence of early socialization. On the other end of the spectrum is a "constant change" model, which assumes that the political orientations of a person are mal• leable throughout life if appropriate stimuli to change is given. The inter• mediate "generations" model specifies that "events and experiences will be interpreted differentially among age cohorts who share internal con• sistency in terms of educational trends, age at which political events took place, and subsequent peer influence in response to those events."4 Even these models focus only on the changes in the individual and in the society that affect people's political orientations or actions or both. This narrow concentration on the attitude and actions toward politics and political insti• tutions with an emphasis on children's socialization may not pay enough dividends in political-socialization research today. This is because social• ization agents have multiplied in the modern world, which is preoccupied not with political attitudes or values but with political identities. A word about political-socialization agents and the preponderance of identity politics in today's world is in order here. Two different processes Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 77 of political socialization are identified: the manifest or direct socialization, which takes place in an open and direct fashion, and the latent or autono• mous socialization, which is a more subtle acquisition of political values, atti• tudes, and identities through various activities. These processes may range from school textbooks and print and electronic media to gossip and rumor, from everyday exposure to government in action to accounts of the glori• ous days of, say, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The latent socialization processes assume an even greater role, as the state's political-socialization efforts do not stop with schools or universities but permeate every sphere of life. Furthermore, other sources of political socialization, such as political parties, mass media, and institutions of worship willingly collaborate with the state in the perpetuation of national identity. Schwartz and Mannella point out that "if people learn anything about politics, or relevant to politics, from the songs they listen to and sing, the books and magazines they read, the movies and television they watch, the jokes they laugh at, the rumors they hear and spread—if the stimuli of everyday life have any significant effect on people's politics—we do not seem to know very much about it or to care very much about it in the study of political socialization."5 An important inspiration for political socialization all through human life is the question of "who we are." This collective political self, accord• ing to Dawson and Prewitt, includes feelings such as political attachments and loyalties that are directed toward the nation and its symbols. Such a political self is made and not born.6 It is made in many ways, and chief among them is the constant rewriting and retelling of national history that socializes everyone in the society—young and old, literate and illiterate, or peasants and professionals. Schooling is particularly a strong political tool in this process for the powers that be. Modern education was brought to countries such as India as a mechanism "by which colonialism has sought to render itself effec• tively permanent, creating the conditions by which the colonized could be made essentially self-colonizing, eternally subjugated in psychic and intellectual terms and thus eternally self-subordinating in economic and political terms."7 The influence of colonial education has promoted the "textbook culture" that has invested the teacher with authority on "offi• cial knowledge." The textual practices of textbooks may vary from hiding to highlighting, adding to avoiding, casual sloppiness to calculated slips, factual errors to political slanting. These are nothing but documented per• ceptions of bias or subtle bias. History programs certainly contain a lot of mythical, victimological, and banal information.8 The content and form of textbooks could be either indoctrinating or politicizing. Magnus Haavelsrud sees a radical content and method as politicization, and a reactionary content and method as indoctrination. Indoctrination may involve disguising subjective viewpoints as objective truth, exclusion of opposing causal explanations, and problematization of tactics and strategies. The students are not asked or encouraged to be criti- 78 "Presenting" the Past cal about what they read in the books. Politicization, on the other hand, does not disguise personal viewpoints behind the mask of objectivity, but encourages the quest for truth and reason through discussion of ideas.9 Quite often the students are presented in textbooks with one version of reality that "embodies certain interests, reifies certain interpretations and value judgments and gives prominence to some pieces of knowledge while rendering others invisible."10 In nationalistic contexts, the goal of history teaching is to present the history of the homeland and the nation's past to strengthen the people's patriotic consciousness. The creative imaginings of the dominant powers and the repeated recitals of those "facts" in the so-called educational process have invariably left deleterious effects on the society. India is no exception to this trend. It was European writers who had compiled the history textbooks that were used in the schools and colleges of India. They laid emphasis on difference and portrayed Hindu-Muslim relations in the light of violence, conquest, rapine, and religious bigotry. Hindus were made to believe that the Muslim period of Indian history was a nightmare. Muslims, on the other hand, fed their self-respect upon the deeds of conquest and ignored the remoter past that molded their cultural milieu. B.N. Pande quotes George Francis Hamilton, the secretary of state for India, writing to Cur- zon, the governor general: "I think the real danger to our rule in India not now but say 50 years hence is the gradual adoption and extension of West• ern ideas of agitation, and, if we could break educated Indians into two sections holding widely different views, we should, by such a division, strengthen our position against the subtle and continuous attack which the spread of education must make upon our system of Government. We should so plan the educational text-books that the differences between community and community are further strengthened." Building on this British heritage of colonial education, the communalists have continued self-colonization in full earnest by adding concoctions and falsehoods to textbook writing. For instance, in 1928 Har Prashad Shastri claimed in a Calcutta University history textbook that "three thousand Brahmins com• mitted suicide as Tippu wanted to convert them forcibly into the fold of Islam." On Pande's proving that it was a falsehood, the book was with• drawn. However, the same suicide story reappeared in junior-high-school textbooks in UP in 1972.11 When the BJP came to power in four northern states in 1991, their gov• ernment in UP added new chapters in history textbooks glorifying India's cultural heritage and reiterating that the Aryans were the original inhabi• tants of India and not immigrants. In MP they rewrote the entire textbooks from nursery to the postgraduate level with a Hindu emphasis. History books projected Hindu rulers such as Rana Pratap and Shivaji as heroes and Muslim rulers such as Aurangzeb as villains. The Madhya Pradesh State University Grants Commission introduced a new book, Bharat ki Sanskritik Virasat (Cultural Heritage of India), in the foundation courses. Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 79

The book claimed, "Indian culture is among the best in the world The Vedas, which epitomise the height of Indian culture, were written at a time when western countries were not even civilised."12 The book was often critical of Mahatma Gandhi and described the communists who refused to participate in the Quit India movement as "traitors." This kind of interpretation and teaching of history has played a major role in the spread of communalism in India. Lajpat Rai, a popular national leader, wrote in his autobiography, "At that time [when he was young] a book on Indian history called Waqiat-i-Hind used to be taught at Govern• ment schools. That book created in me the feeling that Mussalmans had subjected the Hindus to great tyranny. Gradually the respect for Islam that I had acquired from early training began to change into hatred because of study of V^aqiat-i-Hind."12 Like Rai, the educated classes derive their concept of history and identity from such communal interpretations of national history. As they are the dominant mode of Indian society, and exert considerable influence on the popular consciousness, their education/ socialization contributes substantially to shape the political culture of India. Perhaps with this in mind, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, "Communal harmony could not be permanently established in our country so long as highly distorted versions of history were being taught in her schools and colleges, through the history textbooks."14 Understanding this ambivalent enterprise of teaching history requires systematic and detailed studies of educational texts that are contextual- ized in the sociology of knowledge, and earnest ethnographies that enable our appreciation of the social context in which the texts are interpreted and transmitted.15 This closer scrutiny of the larger society with its multifari• ous socialization agents and processes for history constructions and iden• tity formations has to be focused on "social education." Such an approach becomes even more crucial when the role of a formal school system in influencing people's concept of history and identity is quite limited, and the majority of the people do not undergo the schooling process. There have been only a few research attempts along these lines, and even the ones that have been carried out have had different emphasis. Joseph Elder's brief but effective study on the development of national loyalty in India, for instance, studies the influence of parents on the forma• tion of their sons' attitudes in a variety of fields, and changes in these atti• tudes over three generations.16 Frederick Frey's research on socialization to national identity among the Turkish peasants concerns itself with attitu- dinal and behavioral changes that attend national identification.17 Despite the fact that there is a serious lack of verified knowledge and empirical theories in this area, one can safely conclude that "history preaching" plays as important a role as "history teaching" in political socialization. The Indian masses get socialized through various agents such as tradi• tional storytellers, reciters of epics, and other such storytelling perfor• mances. In discussing the appeal of the epic of the Ramayana among the 80 "Presenting" the Past educated and the illiterate, Philip Lutgendorf quotes Kapila Vatsyayan's observation that "a seeming illiterate will know the story and the words better and with a greater understanding of its value than one who reads it only as an intellectual exercise." Explaining in exhaustive detail how the Ramayana makes the Hindus a "people of the book," Lutgendorf lists series of vignettes that reflect the popularity of the story, such as group recitals in commuter trains, audiocassettes, video of the popular serializa• tion in Indian TV, rendering Ram's name in notebooks, and so forth.18 Like teachers and traditional storytellers, the role of politicians in influ• encing the masses' concepts of identity and history through their public speeches is rather important. The state-politician-public-policy trio plays the school-teacher-textbook mix with almost the same functional roles. Gyanendra Pandey points out the fact that the Congress leaders turned to the task of education in the 1930s and 1940s "for more effective politi• cal representation." The "enlightened leadership" had this obligation to educate, as they were "the makers of history." Nehru wrote, "Through nation-wide action ... (Gandhi) sought to mould the millions, and largely succeeded in doing so, and changing them from a demoralized, timid, and hopeless mass, bullied and crushed by every dominant interest, and inca• pable of resistance into a people with self-respect and self-reliance, resist• ing tyranny, and capable of united action and sacrifice for a larger cause. The nation for them is born out of the far-sighted initiatives of an enlightened leadership. They are the makers of history" (italics mine).19 The Congress leaders like Nehru adopted the same old colonial idea of representation of and responsibility for the "dumb millions." In the semi- feudal culture of colonial (as of postcolonial) India, the masses were, as Nehru put it, with "loving and hopeful eyes," "overflowing gratitude," and "faith in us." This elitist line had been adopted in some areas as long ago as 1921, when the peasants were asked to give up "meetings" and "disturbances" and to leave it to Gandhi to win swaraj (self-rule). So it was only natural for the "makers of history" to tell the masses who they were and what they should do. For instance, Nehru said, when he heard people shout "Bharat Mata ki Jai" (Victory to Mother India) in gatherings, he would ask them what they meant by that cry, and who was this Mother India whose victory they wanted.

My question would amuse them and surprise them, and then, not knowing exactly what to answer, they would look at each other and at me. I persisted in my ques• tioning. At last a vigorous Jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, would say that it was the dharti, the good earth of India, that they meant. What earth? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India? And so question and answer went on, till they would ask me impatiently to tell them all about it. I would endeavour to do so and explain that India was all this that they had thought, but it was much more. The moun- Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 81 tains and the rivers of India, and the forests and the broad fields, which gave us food, were all dear to us, but what counted ultimately were the people of India, people like them and me, who were spread out all over this vast land. Bharat Mata, Mother India, was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people. You are parts of this Bharat Mata, I told them, you are in a manner yourselves Bharat Mata, and as this idea slowly soaked into their brains, their eyes would light up as if they had made a great discovery.20

As colonial education entrusted the teacher with grandeur and authority, the Westminster-type political system granted the politician resplendence and responsibility. Both schoolteachers and politicians have continued to perform as important a political-socialization function in India as any• where else. The relatively well-meaning and expedient Nehruvian project pales in comparison with the hate campaign of the Hindutva forces. Although academic refutations in the form of modern secular historiography are going on, they are presented mostly in English in largely poor and dated textbooks, and those too have had limited reach in the country because of mass illiteracy. The Hindutva forces dominate oral culture through the audiovisual media, providing a simplistic hand-me-down history, entrenching popular myths,21 and expressing virulent anti-Muslim senti• ments and avowed belief in violence. Some of the saintly cant uttered on just one occasion include "Do you wish to live in a country dominated by the aulaad (descendants) of Aurangzeb, who burned his father in oil? Or do you want to live in a land ruled by the men of Ram, who fought valiantly to save his brother at the cost of his life? Why should we tol• erate those who eat the cows we worship? Why should Hindus give in to those who want to overpower us with their multiple breeding and anti-national views?"22 Rithambara is one of the VHP speakers who have earned national notoriety for hate speech. She crisscrosses the country and addresses meeting after meeting. Moreover, her speeches are made avail• able in audio and videocassettes. In one particular instance in Bombay, she distributed katars (knives) in black sheaths to the Durga Vahini members and exhorted them not to fail their weapons. In an hour-long speech, she appealed, "If you are required to draw them out, ensure that your katars taste blood," and the audience burst into frenzied applause.23 Hate speech has become an important component of political socialization that gives rise to "communal atmosphere" in India.

IMAGING INDEPENDENT INDIA The preindependence India had 88 "true kingdoms" whose rulers were granted 11 or more gun salutes by the British on the basis of size and historical importance.24 There were also numerous small territories 82 "Presenting" the Past both under and outside these states controlled by feudatory chiefs who exercised jurisdictional rights in their own feudatory states and owed a precarious allegiance to a powerful neighboring prince. The complex rela• tionship among these feudatories, their suzerains, the provincial adminis• trations, the government of India, and the supervisory British government did not make imaging the future independent India particularly an easy task. Nonetheless, the futures of the free India had to be imaged in order to lead the country in the struggle for independence and to usher the budding "young" country into the modern world. Some Muslim leaders imaged two independent nations for Hindus and Muslims; some Hindu leaders dreamed of "reviving" their old glorious greater India; and some leaders of the untouchables and other marginalized groups had their own legitimate fears and anxieties and fostered their own plans for freedom. Moreover, there were a prodigious number of imagings by various types of nationalists, regionalists, communists, and so forth. Even before many of these future images were fully evolved or coherently articulated to the masses, Mahatma Gandhi had caught the imagination of the people with his idea of Ramarajya or Dharma Rajya25 as a possible image of future India. Adopting the Ramayana and its major characters, such as Ram and Sita, he explicated his Ramarajya mainly through public speeches. Bhikhu Parekh contends that as Gandhi spent all his life fighting against the state, he shared the rebel's deep suspicion and biased view of it. His "theory of the state was uneven, in parts refreshingly original and profound, in others ahistorical and naive." For him, humans as souls and the state (organized along the lines of modern science) as a "soul• less machine" could not coexist. This product of material civilization was particularly unsuited to India, for it had a spiritual civilization. So he felt the need for "a new type of non-statal polity" that he called "enlightened anarchy." Under this "ordered anarchy," socially responsible and morally disciplined men and women would enjoy maximum freedom with mini• mum necessary order. This polity would be based on nonviolence; place people at the center; build up courage, autonomy, and a sense of power among them; foster strong and vibrant local communities; and regenerate Indian society and culture. It would have a central government but no centralized structure of authority; it would cultivate a sense of nationality but rely on autonomous and self-governing local communities.26 The early conceptualization of Gandhi's swaraj unfolded in the columns of Indian Opinion in South Africa in 1908. The Gujarati original was even• tually translated into English and published as a booklet entitled Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Commenting on the concept of swaraj, he wrote in 1921 in Young India, "But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. I know that India is not ripe for it I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein. But today my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 83 of Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India."27 The booklet was a "theory of life" for him and he was aware that "it requires a higher simplicity and renunciation than the people are today prepared for." Expressing his reservations on the parliamentary system in August 1924 that Parliament was barren, and that the voice of Parliament could become that of hired voters, Gandhi was "searching for a device which will enable us to listen to the voice of the entire people." Although he could not "abandon practical considerations" his ideal was just one, Ramarajya.28 He defined swaraj as Ramarajya "because it is a graphic description for a moral government based upon truth and non-violence, in other words universal religion."29 He said, "We call a State Ramarajya when both the ruler and his subjects are straightforward, when both are pure in heart, when both are inclined towards self-sacrifice, when both exercise restraint and self-control while enjoying worldly pleasures, and, when the relation• ship between the two is as good as that between a father and a son. It is because we have forgotten this that we talk of democracy or the govern• ment of the people. ... In my Ramarajya, however, public opinion can• not be measured by counting of heads or raising of hands."30 When Ram found out that Sita was a subject f censure in a particular washerman's home, he realized that it was not p per to let such criticism continue and renounced her. This he did despite the fact that the criticism was ground• less and Sita was dearer to him t n his own life. For Gandhi, this was honoring public opinion. Further re, "Even a dog could not be harmed in that State, as Ramachandra felt at all living beings were part of him• self. There would be no licentiou conduct, no hypocrisy, no falsehood in such a State. A people's govern ent would function in such a truthful age."31 If understanding of one's d ty and the observance went together, we should have Ramarajya.32 It ca be brought about "only if we become brave, give up fear and have faith God."33 Gandhi asked the people to pray to God to give them freedom r the strength to die for it.34 However, Ramarajya was not a wishful dream but a concrete politi• cal program with clear goals. His "square of swaraj" had four equally important ends, namely political' dependence, economic independence, moral and social dynamics, and dh rma. The square "will be out of shape if any of its angles is untrue."35 I his conception of swaraj, the overall population of some 31.5 crores (31 million) were the real masters, the 3.5 crores (35 million) of voters were t eir servants, and they in turn were the masters of the 1,500 legislators. Th later were "doubly servants" if they lived true to their trust. As Gandh* put it: "If the voters wake up only to register their votes every three ye rs or more and then go off to sleep, their servants will become their m sters. The only way I know to prevent such a catastrophe is for the 3.5 cr res to be industrious and wise." This large body of 3.5 crores of people c nscious of their numerical strength as 84 "Presenting" the Past one person would be quite ashamed of doing violence to a comparatively small group of 70,000 white men in India. If Indians achieved the fourfold constructive program of khadi, communal unity, prohibition of intoxicants, and removal of untouchability, they would not only avoid unnecessary suffering but attain swaraj swiftly.36 It was necessary that even the physically weakest person should be able to take due share in the struggle for swaraj in order to enjoy the same free• dom and rights as the strongest. If women and children should be able to play an equal part with men, then the struggle had to be nonviolent, for their participation was not possible in armed warfare.37 Under Ramara• jya everything would be done with justice, and the voice of the people would always be respected. So all must help, and khadi should become the "universal and constructive instrument" for this. The power of the people could be strengthened through civil disobedience. It should be the duty of everyone to contemplate Ramarajya day and night, and a true contem• plation would always include proper methods. According to Gandhi, "It should be remembered that in order to establish Ramarajya no learning is necessary. The necessary talent is found in all—men and women, young and old, and in people of all religions. The only sad thing is that not all perceive its presence now. Cannot every one of us, if we want, today give proof of qualities such as truth, non-violence, propriety of conduct, brav• ery, forbearance, courage, etc.?"38 Nevertheless, women played a prominent role in his imagings of Rama• rajya. Addressing a group of women at Giridih on October 7,1925, Gandhi explained that swaraj was not only the political home rule but also dharma raj, which was generally understood as Ramarajya. In order to attain that noble state, he exhorted the women to become like Sita, who, according to Gandhi, was the soul of Ramarajya. He advised further that the women should adopt her piety and spin their own charkha, as Sita did. Gandhi said at another meeting, "I want to establish Ramarajya. I do not talk to the men about Ramarajya because I know that they are sure to help that cause when the womenfolk come forward to do so. Therefore, whenever I talk to the womenfolk I always talk not about swaraj but of Ramarajya. This Ramarajya does not concern merely the administration of the coun• try. But certain other reforms as well are absolutely necessary." He would offer the women nothing but dharma, and it could be protected mainly by the strength of character.39 The role model he offered, Sita, was pure at heart and kept her body clean by wearing hand-spun and hand-woven khaddar.*0 Citing Sita, confirming the absence of imported cloth during her time, and claiming authoritatively that all women at that time plied the charkha and wore khadi, Gandhi drove home the message of the indepen• dence struggle. Explaining that foreign cloth did not add to their beauty, he asked them to wear khadi and to make their sons and daughters also wear the same and become pure. Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future an Entrenching the Past 85

The tactical importance for worn n in the realization of Ramarajya was not without careful consideration and convincing reasons. Speaking to the Ceylon National Congress in C lombo, Gandhi advised that "woman must play her part side by side w th man." He pointed out further: "In India our one limb is paralysed. W men have got to come up to the level of man.... they may not copy ma in all the wildness of his nature, but they must come to the level of m n in all that is best in him."41 Talking to the Sabarmati Ashram women, Gandhi said, "The ancient laws were made by seers who were men. Th women's experience, therefore, is not represented in them. Strictly speak ng, as between man and woman, nei• ther should be regarded as superi r or inferior." He noted that women were caught up "in a helpless con ition like drudges," but only women could raise themselves, and they c uld be self-supporting. According to Gandhi, "If she learns satyagraha, she can be perfectly independent and self-supporting. She will not have to feel dependent upon anyone. This does not mean that she shall not t ke any help from others. She will cer• tainly. But if such help be not fort coming she will not feel destitute. If we are detached, even while we us the articles which we receive, we are self-dependent." Although it was ossible to blame the sorry condition of women on their husbands, "w men should think how best they can themselves cast off their own weak ess."42 Hence his insistence on charkha and piety! The ingenuity of the Gandhian Ian lies in the fact that he wanted to bring about Ram's rule through Sit . He believed more in women than in men. He did not use the concept f Ramarajya before audiences of men because "in this age of rationalism, f one who talks of the spinning-wheel to women talks also of Ramarajya, this would appear to our intelligent young men as idle sermonizing." 3 When all women take to spinning, "it is through them that we woul prevent crores of rupees from being drained out of the country and sec re true swaraj-Ramarajya."44 Reposing more faith in women, he asked the not to consider anyone untouchable; to train their children, boys and gir , in ancestral traditions; to discourage early marriages; to give the childre the best education; and to give away their valuables and jewelry for kha dar.45 Another impediment Gandhi s w for achieving Ramarajya was the caste system,46 with its infamous touchability. When he was in South Africa, he was against the plan of stablishing separate schools for Indi• ans because he thought that it wou d prolong untouchability. But once in India, he accepted the proposal of aving separate schools, temples, and wells for the untouchables. He ace pted this proposal because "it would be considered foolish on my part t ignore the existence of a thing which does exist." So he came to the cone usion that as long as the untouchables were not able to make use of com on temples and so forth, it was better for them to have separate instituti ns rather than totally to deprive them 86 "Presenting" the Past of the amenities. These institutions built for the benefit of the untouchables would actually be for the general public, but the untouchables would have the first claim upon them.47 He dreamed that under swaraj, "there will be no such divisions as Dharalas, Patidars and others but all alike will be Indians. Despite 30 crores of names, they will all be one."48 His "triple programme" contained Hindu-Muslim unity, swadeshi, and "the curse of untouchability." Gandhi declared unequivocally that "even if all the Hin• dus of India were to be ranged against me in declaring that untouchability, as we know it today, has the sanction of the or the smritis, I will then declare that these Shastras and these smritis are false."49 The key to swaraj or Ramarajya was not in the cities but in the villages, and so he settled in a village "to live amongst them and show them how to live."50 He was sure that there could not be any Ramarajya "in the present state of iniquitous inequalities in which a few roll in riches and the masses do not get even enough to eat."51 He wanted to revive the Ramarajya that existed in the olden days, when "there was no such thing as grinding pov• erty." There was no such distinction as high or low because everyone in the country had peace and plenty.52 Gandhi said, "The Ramarajya of my dream ensures the rights alike of prince and pauper."53 He warned the people that whatever religion they belonged to, their prayers would not be heard by God if they had no love for the poor. Such a love could be given the best expression by wearing khadi.54 Although Gandhi admitted that he had not come across many instances of the rich acting as protectors of the poor, he was convinced that "all own• ers are not heartless." There were exceptions, and when they were mul• tiplied, it became the general rule. To make the possible real, satyagraha was an important tool. It helped for people's education and awakening, and self-purification of the ruling class. Having attained strength through the force of satyagraha, people could successfully withstand any force, for• eign or native. It could check the poison of a bitter struggle between the ruler and the subjects, or between the rich and the poor.55 Swaraj had to be achieved by the means of truth and nonviolence so that these would follow as natural consequence when the people get the powers. As Gandhi put it:

Ramarajya cannot be the result of truth and non-violence followed as a mere tem• porary expedient or policy. Ramarajya can only come out of truth and non-violence pursued as a creed. Could a son ever fulfil his filial duties as a policy? Policy is essentially a temporary expedient which one might alter as circumstances altered. It is easy enough to follow truth and non-violence so long as no sacrifice or suffer• ing is involved, but he who adheres to them in all circumstances even at the cost of life follows them as a creed.56

Gandhi called Ramarajya "the Kingdom of Righteousness."57 His prac• tical wisdom made him declare that "Ramarajya is certainly an imaginary Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future an Entrenching the Past 87 ideal, but it can also be proved that omething approximating to it did exist in former times."58 Responding to letter that wondered what a devout Muslim would feel about Gandhi's alking in the name of the Hindu gods, holding prayer meetings, and cha ting "Ramanama" (the name of Ram), he wrote: "[Ramanama] is concei ed as a mode of addressing the all- pervasive God known to me ... hy should an open profession by me of my faith offend anybody, muc less the Muslim League?" As usual, he had several creative options: " o one is obliged to join these meet• ings and having joined is not oblig d to take part in the chant." As far as Ramarajya was concerned, he wrot in Harijan in August 1946, "It is a con• venient and expressive phrase, th meaning of which no alternative can so fully express to millions. When visit the Frontier Province or address predominantly Muslim audiences would express my meaning to them by calling it Khudai Raj, while to a hristian audience I would describe it as the Kingdom of God on earth. y other mode would, for me, be self- suppression and hypocrisy."59 Spe king at a prayer meeting at Haimchar in February 1947, he reiterated aga , "Let no one commit the mistake of thinking that Ramarajya means a rt le of the Hindus. My Rama is another name for Khuda or God. I want Kh dai raj, which is the same thing as the Kingdom of God on earth. The rule f the first four Caliphs was somewhat comparable to it. The establishme of such a rajya would not only mean welfare of the whole of the Indian eople but of the whole world."60 The partition of the country, br tal Hindu-Muslim violence, and the plight of refugees made Gandhi co fess, "[Ramarajya] has become a mere dream. Let alone Ramarajya, at pr sent there is no rule whatever in the country.... If this situation canno be improved, my heart cries out and prays to God, that He should take me away immediately. Why should I remain a witness to these things?" 1 Gandhi told his friends that he was simply following a thinker who s id, "If you cannot see your way, it is better to stay where you are."62 H had a difference of opinion with the leaders concerning the situation "b cause it seemed to me that the Rama• rajya of my dreams was not materi izing."63 He did not worry because he had developed detachment and he as doing what he had been doing all along, and what he felt was true. Living true to his characteristic oral courage and spiritual wisdom, Gandhi questioned himself and is own work: "Sometimes I wonder whether during the last thirty yea s I have not taken the country in the wrong direction. However, as I ha e confessed time and again, our non• violence was not that of the brav ,"64 He felt that "our ahimsa was the ahimsa of the weak." Since ahimsa nd weakness would not go together, it should be called "passive resista ce," which is "a preparation for active and armed resistance." Therefore, 'the violence we see today is the vio• lence of cowards." If 4 or 5 men etting into a fight and dying by the sword is "violence of the brave," 1 ,000 armed men attacking a village of 88 "Presenting" the Past unarmed people and slaughtering them along with their wives and chil• dren is the "violence of cowards." Gandhi wanted to see the nonviolence of the brave before he died. It was a "unique weapon" that required "inner strength."65 He felt that his work went on well while the people were in bondage, but he could not do anything when they were independent. He pleaded, "I could teach the same lesson to our people today which I did then. If you can heed that advice today, we can go very far."66 Being a perennial optimist and persistent trier, Gandhi would not give up. He utilized simple used blankets to take the people to Ramarajya. In his prayer meeting at New Delhi in October 1947, he talked about the plight of refugees in the camps. He pointed out further that the govern• ment could not provide them all with blankets, and even other countries could not send enough of them, as the demand was much greater. He told the crowd, "But I know there are a number of people among us who have many more blankets than they need. There are a large number of poor people in Delhi who can hardly afford to have blankets. Give as many blankets as you can spare. You can start giving things like this from today." Exhorting the crowd that they should save as many people as they could, he asked them to send him woolen blankets, cotton sheets, or quilts they could easily spare. However, he put forward a condition: "I do hope you will not tell me that you are giving these things for the Hindus or the Sikhs. Human beings are all one— Let them rather tell me that they have dedicated those things to God. In that case, they will go to the deserving people."67 Even after all the madness and bloodshed, Gandhi was still hopeful that Indians could build Ramarajya and welcomed even the smallest signs toward that direction. He was very pleased with the comment of Jawaharlal Nehru that he did not like being called prime minister. Gandhi thought that it would be more appropriate to call him "the first servant of the nation." He felt that "if the officers under Jawaharlal were to think so, our country would become a land of gold. We would have Ramarajya, the kingdom of God upon earth. Then our freedom would be complete. If after attaining freedom we continue to conduct ourselves in the man• ner we are doing now then that freedom will irk me. Is this the kind of freedom we are going to have? No, it cannot be."68 The above examples confirm Johan Galtung's contention that the ideal society of Gandhi, "his Rama Raj (Kingdom of God) was to be approximated more than realized, to be a guiding star, an image on one's mind more than a blueprint to be implemented in all its details."69 Borrowing Kant's words, B.N. Ganguli points out that Gandhi was try• ing to apply the "perfect law in the imperfect state" and "to apply the eter• nal truths to our daily life and problems." Gandhi's vision of the future was "not a forecast based on scientifically plausible hypothesis," but "an inspiring picture" of what the world would be like if his ethics were Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 89 adhered to. The element of myth (defined as ambiguity) in his speeches and writings involved the "present morality stated futuristically." Thus he was able to lead "one of the greatest mythopoeic movements of modern times." He never considered himself a visionary, but a "practical idealist" who "combined high moral adventure with a series of 'experiments with truth.'" He presented his "Utopia of a democratic polity" in the form of an Indian myth that had gone deep into the Indian masses' psyche, and he "evoked the power of this myth in motivating them for mass political action."70

THE "RIGHT" RAMARAJYA Claiming to represent and articulate the views of the Indian mercantile community, G. D. Birla, a leading businessman and principal contributor to the Congress party, alleged at the second session of the Indian Round Table Conference,

I say it is truth that it would be the greatest mistake of your lives if you do not take the opportunity of coming to terms with India. I know the youth of my country. It is quite possible that a few years hence you will not have to deal with men like Mr. Gandhi who has proved in many respects a greater Conservative than many of you, you may not have to deal with Princes, you may not have to deal with capitalists like myself, you may have to deal with new men, new conditions, new ideas, and new ambitions. Beware of that, (italics mine)71

Birla was even more explicit in his letter to Sir Samuel Hoare and argued that Gandhi "alone is responsible for keeping the left wing in India in check."72 While Birla preferred Gandhi for fear of leftist politics, a latter- day M.N. Roy supporter blamed Gandhi's Ramarajya concept for "the sinister influence of reaction and counterrevolution leading to the all- round crisis" in free India. In a book long on rhetoric but short on logic, the author identifies the Congress regimes of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi with the Ramarajya of "revisionist Gandhians" and the BJP gov• ernment with that of "puritan Gandhians."73 As though fulfilling these conservative prophecies, the right-wing elements in Indian politics have increasingly but insincerely adopted Gandhian ideas in their political pro• grams. Howard Erdman, for one, identifies several levels of Indian conserva• tism. At the higher level there was an indigenous (maharajas, rajas, nawabs, and landed "nobles" such as jagirdars, taluqdars, zamindars, etc.), who took a pro-British stand when their pompous princely states or ancien regimes yielded to the inherent instability. There was no national focal point for aristocratic , as there were no stable and indig• enous macropolitical institutions or broad class identifications. At another 90 "Presenting" the Past level, there was the "real" India, to be found in the three pillars of the "self-regulating" Indian society—the joint family, caste, and village—that enabled India to withstand instability in the broader polity. This "defence of the old order" revealed a mixture of conservatism with local variants of Utopian socialist and Luddite postures. At the middle level, the urban and the rural propertied middle classes were divided. The landed peas• ants were happy to see the demise of the aristocracy, but the village-based agrarian order remained to be dealt with in terms of major social trans• formations. The urban industrial-professional classes, on the other hand, were critical of both aristocratic conservatism and villagism. It must be noted here that similar to the absence of "lords temporal," there were no "lords spiritual," as Hinduism had no organized church to act as a focal point for religious conservatism. However, the British presence affected the outlook of various classes and the pattern of the interclass relations. Erdman concludes that as the nationalist movement progressed in the twentieth century, the aristocracy increasingly aligned with the British, and the urban industrial and professional class increasingly joined hands with the Congress, and this situation forestalled any fascist-type alliance between them.74 Notwithstanding the fact that he fails to understand the complicated Gandhi-Congress relationship, A. R. Desai completes the picture with his analysis. Although the Congress had a declared objective of establishing Ramarajya, it liquidated the "princely-monarchic order of which Rama was considered the doyen during its progressive phase" and ushered in "a new era of the non-monarchist bourgeois republican political order in India." Because of its "peculiar origin, belated arrival and weak histori• cal position," the Indian bourgeoisie never evolved or elaborated secular, rationalist, or materialist philosophies during either British or postin- dependence periods. Being a byproduct of imperialist capitalism rather than that of a struggle against feudalism, including feudal religion, Indian capitalism did not have to dislodge the prevailing feudal and prefeudal philosophies. The overall global capitalism was also on a declining phase, with the ruling bourgeoisie in capitalist countries abandoning rationalist and materialist urges for religio-mystical outlooks. As a result, the Indian bourgeoisie built up a secular bourgeois democratic state with modern scientific, technological, and liberal democratic education, but remained revivalist in the cultural field by choosing "Bharat" as the name of the country, in tune with its old Hindu tradition; Sanskritized Hindi as the national language; and pre-Muslim national symbols such as the Dharma Chakra to resurrect the cultural values of the pre-Muslim past and so forth.75 When all is said and done, the ideological trend at the wake of independence was far from clear, and a neat categorization of socioeco- nomic groups or political parties with right or left doctrinal strands was even farther away as there were many and important variations. Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 91

In the state of Rajasthan, attempts were made to organize the princes and jagirdars, but the former did not see any point in such a collabora• tion, as their interests were perceived to be different. As a matter of fact, the princes were granted regular privy purses, but the jagirdars were to get only compensation. In 1947 some of the leading jagirdars of the for• mer Jaipur and Jodhpur states founded the Ram Rajya Parishad (RRP) to organize the feudal-conservative elements of the society. The party had the blessings and involvement of many religious figures, such as Swami Karapatri as the founder, Shankaracharya of Dwarka as the patron, and Swami Swarupanand as the president. Although some princes extended their sympathy to the new party in its mobilization of the anti-Congress forces, none of the prominent Rajput princes joined the RRP. This lack of dynamic leadership resulted in the failure of bringing all the anti- Congress feudal-priestly-conservative elements into the RRP fold and in a large number of independent candidates in the first general elections in 1952.76 However, the real contest was between the Congress, which stood for democracy and parliamentary institutions, and the RRP, which wanted "to revive Ram Rajya in which the concept of 'Dharma' was predomi• nant." The idea was to expose the relative weakness of the democratic order as opposed to the feudal leadership and "to prove the superiority of the old order." Ramarajya came in handy to represent the old order.77 Another author contends that the RRP "is by far the most orthodox Hindu party." The party wished "to return to the glorious days of Rama's rule, where everybody was contented, prosperous and religious."78 The RRP was against "secularized, anti-Shastric Hindu Code Bill," and "killing cows, monkeys, fish or locusts." They supported the demand for Akhanda Hindustan (Greater India), arming "every deserving citizen," promoting Hindi, the right to own property, and adequate compensation for land taken away. They were against any reform of the caste system and wanted to give the untouchables "high posts in the management of sanitary departments, and the leather and hides and allied trades."79 In the 1952 elections, the RRP won 24 seats with 11.4 percent of the vote. The hardly one-year-old Jan Sangh also fielded candidates in the 1952 elections and raised India's partition, rising prices, and Congress misrule as the issues in its campaign. In the absence of crystallization of party ideology, the Jan Sangh did not look distinct from the RRP. Both the RRP and the Jan Sangh delved into ancient Indian folklore and myths to build a positive halo around their election symbols of rising sun and lamp. There was also a caste dimension to this election, as the Congress was regarded by the upper-caste Rajputs as Jat-dominated. Hence a vote against the Congress was considered to be a vote against the Jats. The RRP, which was the major opposition party in the state assembly in 1952, was reduced to a weak party in 1957, with 17 seats and 9.9 percent of the vote. The party 92 "Presenting" the Past became quite insignificant in the 1962 elections, with only three seats and 2 percent of the vote. One major reason was that the leaderless RRP follow• ing was attracted by the conservative Swatantra party, which had Rajput leadership. Ramarajya was also used by another obscure outfit known as Akhil Bharatiya Ramrajya Parishad in Delhi. The BJP came to utilize the con• cept of Ramarajya in the late 1980s. The party decided in June 1989 to endorse the construction of the temple for Ram in Ayodhya. Their mani• festo for the 1989 parliamentary elections, and for the 1991 parliamentary and state elections, "clearly set Rama Rajya as the goal of the party and the nation."80 The BJP advertisements during the 1991 elections listed accusa• tions and complaints against other parties and exhorted the voters, "Let's go for Ramrajya, Let's go with BJP." This was accompanied by three catch- phrases as though they explained the Ramarajya: "Ram, Roti, and Insaaf" (Freedom from fear, Freedom from want, and Freedom from discrimina• tion). The asterisk mark on Ram explained, '"To liberate all forms of life from fear, is my vow' To Indians, Ram is an ideal, a symbol of integrity, justice and compassion."81 But the BJS, the earlier incarnation of the BJP, had made fun of the Ramarajya concept and degraded women in their slogan in the 1967 elections in UP:

UP mein Banjh raj Delhi mein rand raj Unke upar Kamraj Kaise banega Ram raj82

(In UP there is a barren rule In Delhi the rule of an uncontrolled woman Over that there is a rule of desire Then how to create Ram's rule?)

According to the BJP, "Rama and Rama Rajya are our national heritage whose potentiality is being realised only now." The Ayodhya Ram temple movement "was not just a plea for a temple for Sri Rama, ... instead it reflected a far deeper quest for recapturing our national identity." Thus the Ayodhya movement "implies the recommencement of our national journey as a politically independent state for the attainment of Rama Rajya that is Swarajya by Swadeshi as codified by Mahatma Gandhi." The BJP argued that the Ayodhya movement defined the tenets of Indian nationalism "in terms of the native idiom" and it was rooted in plural• ity of both religious and secular thought rather than "Semitic intolerance and exclusivism." The "plurality" reflected in the crafty ploy of the party was to make a political capital out of some famous national figures and their popular imageries: "The movement for restoration of the Temple at the birthplace of Sri Rama ... developed into a massive protest against Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 93 the derailment of all that inspired the freedom movement—the elevat• ing chant of Vande Mataram which Maharishi Bankim Chandra gave to this nation, the goal of Rama Rajya held out by Mahatma Gandhi as the destina• tion of free India, the ideal of Spiritual Nationalism expounded by Swami Vivekananda, the spirit of Sanatana Dharma which Sri Aurobindo described as the soul and nationalism of India, and the mass devotion to the mother• land built around the Ganapati festival by Bal Gangadhar Tilak" (italics in original).83 The desperate Congress party also towed blatant communal lines toward the late 1980s. They used Arun Govil, the man who played Ram in the famous TV serial Ramayan, in their campaign for the 1988 Allahabad bye-election. Not to be outdone by the BJP in the 1989 general elections and to please the larger Hindu community, Rajiv Gandhi tacitly supported the VHP's Ramshila (foundation-laying) campaign and proclaimed that his party would usher in Ramarajya if they won.84 He claimed that launching his Congress party's election campaign at Ayodhya (Faizabad), "where Lord Rama lived, gave him immense satisfaction."85 He was also reported to have said, "one should be proud to be a Hindu," but he later denied making such a statement and clarified that he had remarked "one should be proud to be an Indian."86 In the final analysis, however, Mahatma Gandhi's passionate dreams of the future came to be usurped and marketed rather ingeniously by various political and other actors. As the "lords temporal" have either launched or redirected political parties to attain Ramarajya, the "lords spiritual" have been prating about it all along. For instance, at the Sadhu Sammelan held in Delhi on April 2-3,1991, the religious leaders issued three appeals that every Hindu should rise to "liberate" and "reconstruct" the three tem• ples in Ayodhya, Mathura, and Varanasi allegedly destroyed by Muslim invaders; that every Hindu should use his vote to destroy the politicians who caved in to Muslim pressure; and that every Hindu should realize the only way to herald Ramarajya was to vote for the BJP.87 One Hindu religious figure contends that the "principles of Rama Rajya were upheld and followed by the succession of Hindu kings in Puranic times." According to him, "The two distinguishing features of our culture embodied in our spiritual and secular classics and handed down in our tradi• tion are Dharma and Satya. Dharma is the Law of the Universe, Satya is the Law of Men. It is these that sustain the World and make it go on its ordained course" (italics mine). Ram possessed these virtues "in a perfect measure," but Raavanaraajya (Ravana's rule) was marked by adharma and asatya. Above all, "in Rama Rajya the name of Rama lived for ever in the tongues of men and the whole world resounded with it."88 So Ramarajya has come to be identified predominantly with Rama• nama (Ram's name) and Ram worship rather than imaging an ideal soci• ety. For instance, Ramdas or Samartha, one of the most famous saints of 94 "Presenting'' the Past

Maharashtra, insisted on worshipping Ram, spreading the message of Ram through institutions, and building temples for Ram in order to build Ramarajya. Talking of a Maharashtrian village that reminds of Ramarajya, the RSS general secretary, H. V Seshadri, describes the various features of it and the different activities undertaken by the villagers: total prohibition, abolition of untouchability, ban on smoking, conflict resolution by the vil• lage committee, and developmental activities such as setting up a school, digging community wells, and so forth. Nonetheless, the reconstruction of the village temple was the "very first project" as it was "the focal point of devotion for the entire village."89 This village Ramarajya had two other appealing characteristics for the RSS leader. First, the village reformer is said to have claimed, "There are Jains, Buddhists and other Hindus but no Muslims or Christians in our village." Second, the village had regis• tered bodies for irrigation, educational development, and other areas, but "there are no elections for any of these bodies." Even the chairman and the vice chairman of the village are "unanimously selected by the Grama Sabha" (village council).90 These kinds of shallow, hateful, and totalitarian tendencies marked their understanding of Ramarajya when the BJP established their rule in four northern states in 1991. One of the first things they did was amending the UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act. In fact, cow slaughter had already been banned in 1955, but the amendment extended the ban to oxen and buffalo, tinned beef, and eating any of these meats in trains and planes in UP. The penalties for violation were also raised from a fine of Rs. 1,000 and two years of rigorous imprisonment to a fine of Rs. 10,000 and seven years of imprisonment. Although the president of India put the amendment on hold, the UP government abused it to implicate entire Muslim villages in false cases.91 In almost all cases, it was the RSS workers who informed the police that a cow had been slaughtered by Muslims. The police would arrive, find no evidence, and conclude that the crime did take place but the evidence was destroyed. Then large numbers of Muslims would be arrested, their homes and shops burned, and Muslim women molested.92 In fact, soon after the BJP came to power, the Muslim exodus from the Hindu-dominated villages began.93 The UP Minority Commission that was to study and recommend solutions to the socioeconomic and educa• tional problems of Muslims and other minorities was abolished. The sec• ond official-language status accorded to Urdu was scrapped. There were incessant communal riots around the state in Varanasi, Meerut, Jabalpur, Hapur, and so on. The Hindu communal elements enjoyed the patron• age of the state and police, and Muslims were terrorized and intimidated. There were a dozen cases of death in police custody during the first 16 months of "BJP Ramarajya," and all but one were Muslims.94 On the other hand, an exorbitant amount of Rs. 18.6 crore (186 million) was allotted for the "beautification of Ayodhya," and the scrutiny of the breakdown of expenses revealed that Rs. 6.5 crore (65 million) was unac- Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 95 counted for. The demolition gathering of the karsevaks in December 1992 was claimed to be a mela (festival), and the government sanctioned Rs. 21 lakhs to provide infrastructural support. In order to "erase memories of national humiliation," they changed the names of places: Allahabad to Prayag-raj, Faizabad to Saket, to Lakshmanpuri, and Begum Hasrat Mahal Park to Urmila Vatika. There were incessant uprisings within the government of the upper-caste legislators against the "back• ward" chief minister, . Singh was selected to blunt the sharp• ness of the Mandal Commission issue, but the party leadership was under a Brahmin, . The health minister in the cabinet, Dinesh Jau- hari, was dropped on charges of corruption, and the principal secretary, Nripendra Mishra, was accused of CIA connections and dropped.95 In MP, the BJP government granted autonomous status to the RSS-backed Vidya Bharati schools. As a result, one of the questions in the mathematics text• book for primary school children was "If 15 kar sevaks demolish the Babri Masjid in 300 days, how many kar sevaks will it take to demolish the mas• jid in 15 days?"96 Although the BJP governments in these states, and in Rajasthan and HP, had a few stray and unimportant accomplishments, the overall pattern was one of untruth and overt violence. It is quite obvious that there is a remarkable difference between Gandhi's understanding of Ramarajya and that of the Hindutva brigade. Unlike in Gandhi's universal humanism, where there is no Ravana, the Hindutva forces have effectively replaced Ravana not with just Babar or Aurang- zeb but the whole Muslim community. Whereas Gandhi wanted to bring about his Ramarajya through the empowerment of the weaker sections of the society such as women, untouchables, and the poor masses, the Hindutva Ramarajya scheme is exclusively for Men (with a capital M) and their might, where angry adult Ram is all-pervasive with Sita to be seen nowhere; might means both physical force and also economic flirtations with indigenous capitalism. Above all, Gandhi's Ramarajya was a vision leading the masses toward the future, but the Hindutva scheme is a mis• sion taking the masses backward. The "right" Ramarajya can be summed up in a simple phrase: "retelling history." Licking their historical wounds and lacking all convictions about modern politics and socioeconomic poli• cies and programs for the ills of the nation, the reactionaries reinterpret their "glorious past" and retell it with money and manipulation, power and pomp. Bereft of any national vision or political program, the BJP as much as the Sangh Parivar have embarked on empty, insincere, and tran• sient insinuations of Ramarajya.

BUILDING AND RALLYING RAMARAJYA In both history teachings and preachings, Hindu temples have come to form the core of Ramarajya. Indian history, for Hindu communal his• torians, begins with Muslim invasions. Whatever happened before "is 96 "Presenting" the Past taken to be an undifferentiated, unchanging continuation of Ram Rajya." This myth of medieval "Muslim tyranny" and Hindu (especially Rajput, Maratha, and Sikh) national resistance was developed or endorsed in the late nineteenth century by the nationalist leaders such as Bankim Chan• dra Chatterjee, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, and so forth.97 In history textbooks also, the medieval history of India begins with the invasion of Muslims and the destruction of Hindu tem• ples. It is presented as the single major issue ever since the first Arab con• quest of Sind began in 712 under Muhammad bin Qasim. Explaining the temple-breaking issue, an Indian high-school history textbook on medi• eval history put out by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) points out,

In India his [Mahmud of Ghazni (997-1030)] memory is only that of a plunderer and a destroyer of temples. Mahmud is said to have made 17 raids into India.... [The] raids of Mahmud into India were aimed at plundering the rich temples and cities of northern India in order to continue his struggle against his enemies in Central Asia. For his plundering raids into India the ghazis came handy to him. Mahmud also posed as a great but shikan or "destroyer of the images" for the glory of Islam. From the Punjab, Mahmud raided Nagarkot in the Punjab hills, and Thanesar near Delhi. His most daring raids, however, were against Kanauj in 1018, and against Somnath in in 1025. In the campaign against Kanauj, he sacked and plun• dered both Mathura and Kanauj, and returned via Kalinjar in Bundelkhand loaded with fabulous riches.... the Ghaznavids continued to make plundering raids into the Gangetic valley and Rajputana.98

The textbook underscores the theory that "the love of plunder went side by side with the defence of Islam."99 However, credible historians point out that the issue was much more complex, and several explanations can be given for the destruction of temples, such as treasure, piety, iconoclasm, and political exigencies. Most importantly, there were exceptions of all sorts that prevent any possible sweeping generalization. Romila Thapar writes that the raids into India were an annual feature for Mahmud, and from 1010 to 1026 his invasions were directed to temple towns such as Mathura, Thanesar, Kanauj, and finally Somnath because "temples were depositories of vast quantities of wealth, in cash, golden images, and jewellery." The succeeding Muslim rulers, such as Muhammad Ghori, Qutbuddin Aibak, Bakhtiyar Khalji, and so forth, are also said to have destroyed temples. Muhammad Ghori is believed to have destroyed a large number of temples, including the ones in Banaras (Varanasi). Some of the later Delhi sultans were popular as temple breakers and idol smashers. The chroniclers wrote about these activities in length to prove the Islamic devotion of their patrons. More than piety, iconoclasm could also have been the reason for this vandalism. Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq (who came to power in 1357), for instance, Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 97 destroyed the Jagannatha temple at Puri as the finale of a campaign in Orissa. The chroniclers tried to show that the sultan was making life dif• ficult for the infidels and to earn him the respect of the orthodox section of his community.100 Iconoclasm helped with impressing the superiority of the foreign rulers on the native population. Muslims were still a fraction of the total popu• lation, and the Muslim elites could not have felt very secure. The rulers called the subjects infidels, and the subjects considered the rulers barbar• ians. For Muslims, a Hindu temple was not just a symbol of pagan reli• gion with its false gods, but also a sign of exclusion. Despite their political power, Muslims were strictly denied access to several spheres of Hindu life. Hindu temples reminded the ruling Muslim elite of this exclusion because "the temple had long been the center of Hindu social life in the village. The temple was a place where Hindus congregated, and congre• gations ... [could] become centers of revolt The temple was the bank, the landowner, the employer of innumerable artisans and servants, the school, the discussion centre, the administrative centre for the village, and the place for major entertainments in the form of festivals."101 All the above factors may have contributed to the temple breaking and looting. It is also important to note the instances of Muslim rulers facilitat• ing temple repairs, threatening to destroy mosques in enemy territory, and patronizing non-Muslim buildings. For instance, a letter from his superior to Muhammad bin Qasim, the Arab conqueror of Sind, clarifies,

The letter of my dear nephew Muhammad bin Qasim has been received and the facts understood. It appears that the chief inhabitants of Brahmanabad had peti• tioned to be allowed to repair the temple ofBudh and pursue their religion. As they have made submission and agreed to pay taxes to the Caliph, nothing more can be properly required from them. They have been taken under our protection, and we cannot in any way stretch out our hands upon their lives or property. Permission is given them to worship their gods. Nobody must be forbidden or prevented from following his own religion. They may live in their houses in whatever manner they like, (italics mine)

Sultan Sikandar Lodi "wished to destroy" the mosques of Jaunpur in order to demonstrate his power to a fellow Muslim ruler. Firuz Shah admired the pillars of Ashoka at Meerut and Topra so much that he transported them to Delhi. He placed one of them in a prominent position on the roof of his citadel in spite of his being told that it was a magical charm and was associated with religious ritual.102 The communalist theory, however, would emphasize the religious dif• ferences between Hindus and Muslims and ascribe the temple destruc• tion to that difference. Hindu communalists claim that most of the Muslim monuments were originally Hindu monuments. For instance, they claim that the Qutub Minar in Delhi was originally Vishnudhvaja, built by 98 "Presenting" the Past

Samudragupta in 280 B.C.E. and finished by Chandragupta II in 268 B.C.E. Even the Taj Mahal is said to have been a temple known as "Tejo Mahalyaya," built in the fourth century C.E., and Shahjahan made it into a mausoleum by removing the idols, putting them away at the basement, and erecting the outer walls. There are all kinds of other historical build• ings, such as the Jama Masjid in Delhi, that the sants lay a claim on. In fact, the VHP has prepared a list of some 2,000 "Muslim monuments which stand on the sites and/or have been built with the materials of Hindu temples, and which we wish to recall as witnesses to the role of Islam as a religion and the character of Muslim rule in medieval India."103 There have been several temple/mosque controversies and conflicts in independent India, and the building preoccupation of the whole subconti• nent is quite astounding. One of the first things done in independent India was the decision of Sardar Patel on November 13,1947, to reconstruct the Somnath temple that had been destroyed by Mahmud Ghazni. On May 11, 1951, President Rajendra Prasad, despite Prime Minister Nehru's protest, installed the idol in the temple amid chants of Vedic hymns and rituals. The Ahmedabad riot of 1969 that claimed 2,000 to 3,000 lives and millions of rupees worth of property had its roots in a temple building. A stray inci• dent between a few Hindu sadhus (monks) and a group of Muslim young• sters in a Muslim celebration next to the Jaganath temple led to a battle, and "a stray bottle seems to have struck the glass-case containing the sacred 'murti'" of the temple. The Hindu Sangram Samiti (Hindu Struggle Committee) circulated a handbill saying, "Muslims have meanly attacked Ahmedabad's famous Jaganathji Temple and desecrated idols. Muslims are repeating history At the time of Indo-Pak war (1965) Muslims bom• barded India's old Dwarika temple and damaged it. In Pakistan all remain• ing temples were razed to the ground and idols of gods and goddesses were desecrated and they were used as step-stones in mosques."104 Two of the most tumultuous events in independent India's history had to do with buildings. The first one was the Indian army's attack on the Golden Tem• ple at Amritsar in June 1984 that led to the assassination of Indira Gandhi and a Congress (I) backlash on the Sikhs in Delhi and around India. The demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6,1992, was the second that caused widespread riot all over the subcontinent and the destruction or damage of hundreds of temples in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The three most prominent disputed shrines with which the Hindutva forces are currently preoccupied are the Ramjanmabhumi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the Krishnajanmasthan-Shahi Idgah in Mathura, and the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi Masjid in Varanasi. It is a popular belief that the original Krishnajanmasthan temple was located at the precise spot of Krishna's birth—the prison cell of his evil uncle Kamsa. Mahmud of Ghazni burned the temple to the ground and carried off its wealth when he invaded in 1017. The Keshavadev temple was rebuilt in 1150 but was Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 99 destroyed again in the early sixteenth century by Sikandar Lodi. Bir Singh Deo of Orchha, who was made king by Jahangir in the place of Bir Singh's elder brother for the favor he did to him by killing Abul Fazl, Akbar's friend and adviser, who had tried to block Jahangir's succession to the throne, built the temple around 1615. Auangzeb destroyed this in 1669 and is said to have taken the idols to Agra to bury under the steps of a mosque "so that people might trample upon them forever." He then built a mosque on the site. A few British administrators, such as Frederick S. Growse, took interest in the temple to "detest the bigotry of the barbarians who destroyed it." A group of businessmen who had purchased the site in the early 1940s began construction of a new temple in 1953.105 The garbha griha (sanctum sanctorum) of the present Keshavadev Katra was completed in the early 1960s. The door that opens through the com• mon wall of the idgah and the temple is said to have been the main entrance of the destroyed temples. The taikhana (basement) of the idgah, which the above door leads to, is believed to store paintings and idols. This belief is held as the proof that this was the site of the original temple. The Shri Krishna Janmasthan Trust (SKJT) was established on February 21, 1951, and there were disputes over the ownership of the land and sharing it between the temple and the mosque. Several court cases were pending until 1968 when the SKJT and the Shahi Idgah Trust struck a compromise with two conditions: that the idgah would be surrounded by a 20-foot wall on the north and the south, and that there would be no windows on the side of the temple. If there are bickerings between the two bodies now, they are mostly small and trivial.106 Likewise, the Vishwanath temple is believed to have been destroyed by Qutubuddin Aibak, the commander of Mohammad of Ghor, after defeat• ing the Raja of Kannauj in 1194. An affluent Gujarati merchant rebuilt the temple during Shamsuddin Iltumish's regime (1211-1226 C.E.) only to be demolished again during the rule of either Hussainshah Sharqui (1447- 1458) or Sikandar Lodi (1489-1517). Raja Mansingh of Jaipur built the tem• ple during Akbar's rule, but orthodox Hindus boycotted it, as he had let Akbar marry his sister and Jehangir his daughter. Raja Todar Mai rebuilt the temple with Akbar's funding at its original site in 1585. Aurangzeb is believed to have pulled down that temple in 1669 and constructed the Gyanvapi mosque. Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore rebuilt the temple on an adjoining plot in 1777, and an image of lingam was placed inside for wor• ship. In 1839 Maharaja Ranjit Singh donated 22 maunds of gold from his exploits in to plate the domes of the temple. The mosque with its minarets and the temple with its domes are virtually twin struc• tures.107 In the final analysis, however, monuments stand mystified "when poli• tics denies scholarship the right to restore the historical record, or worse, remakes history for authoritarian ends."108 Having built a psycho-political 100 "Presenting" the Past

Ramarajya around the Babri Masjid with fear and hatred, the Hindutva elements effectively rallied it around the country, agitating Hindus and isolating Muslims through various political and religious rallies. In May 1983 the Dharmasthan Mukti Yagna Samiti sent a memorandum to the prime minister, demanding the restoration of the holy shrines of Vara- nasi, Mathura, and Ayodhya. A year later, on July 27,1984, Sri Ram Janma Bhoomi Mukti Yagna Samiti was formed to "liberate" the Ayodhya shrine. On October 7 that year, hundreds of thousands of devotees assembled on the banks of the Sarayu River in Ayodhya and took a pledge to liberate the shrine. The very next day, a 130-kilometer march was started from Ayod• hya to Lucknow, the state capital, administering the pledge to the crowds on the way. From October 15 to 31 Sri Rama Janaki Ratha toured the main towns of UP to mobilize public opinion and to administer the pledge. Some 5,000 telegrams, 65,000 signatures, and 31,000 letters were sent to the UP government in order to press the demand. Having suspended the agita• tion following Indira Gandhi's assassination and the general elections, the VHP resumed it by giving an ultimatum to the government until March 6, 1986. The second Dharma Sansad, held at Udupi, Karnataka, constituted a working committee to enlist support of all groups for the agitation. The VHP also raised a volunteer corps known as Bajrang Dal in every town and village of UP. On October 23,1985, seven rathas went all over UP and North Bihar to propagate the message of the Samiti. On December 7-13, 1988, the VHP organized Rama-Janaki Rathayatra in Bhopal to create Hindu awareness on the Ramjanmabhumi issue. On September 17-22, 1989, Indraprastha Dharma Yatra started from Delhi with 1,850 sants and traveled 20 to 25 kilometers a day to various places in order to spread the "message" of Ramjanmabhumi. On November 10, 1989, a shilanyas (foundation-laying ceremony) was conducted at Ayodhya with about 150,000 consecrated bricks from different parts of the world. From August 21 to September 15,1990, various Dharma Yatras were con• ducted in several parts of the country, and Rama Sankeertana Samitis were constituted. On September 1, 1990, Sri Rama Jyoti (Ram light) was lit at Ayodhya. On September 25, 1990, L.K. Advani started his 10,000- kilometer rathyatra from Somnath to Ayodhya so as to participate in the karseva on October 30. Sword-brandishing Rajput youth and the activists of the BJP, VHP, and Bajrang Dal led the rath and rent the air with Hin• dutva cries.109 On September 28, 1990, sants went on yatras in different parts of the country From that day onward, until October 10,1990, devotional hymns were sung in front of Sri Rama Jyotis installed in the temples around the country. As many as 800 of the 7,000 jyotis were lit in UP.110 When Advani was arrested and the rathyatra stopped on October 23,1990, the BJP spon• sored total strikes around the country. On October 30,1990, the karsevaks ascended the domes of Babri Masjid and hoisted saffron flags. On Novem- Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 101 ber 2,1990, some 26 karsevaks were killed in police firing. They were com• memorated as martyrs, and the spots where they had been shot dead were turned into shrines. About a dozen shops in the area sold exclusively pic• tures of the incidents culled from newspapers and magazines. Advani's renewed rathyatra on November 19 took four hours to cover the seven- kilometer distance between Faizabad and Ayodhya, as it had "to wedge its way through a turbulent sea of humanity."111 In order not to leave the southern states out of this frenzied drama, on November 21 Advani started his 41-day all-states Bharat Yatra from Thiru- vananthapuram, Kerala. The state president of the BJP had organized his own rathyatra touring 130 of the 140 state assembly constituencies between October 11 and 26. The Sant Sammelan held in Allahabad from January 15 to 17 decided to carry out an "education campaign" by religious fig• ures all over the country starting February 1,1991. On April 2-3,1991, the Dharma Sansad met in Delhi, and on April 4 a huge rally called Vishal Hindu Sammelan was held at the Boat Club in Delhi. On October 30,1991, "Martyrs Memorial Day" was observed by the VHP and the sants. The BJP president, , took out the Ekta Yatra on December 11 from the southernmost tip of the country, Kanyakumari. The plan was to travel through 14 states and hoist the national flag at the yatra's destina• tion, Srinagar in Kashmir, on January 26, India's Republic Day. He sought to establish that the BJP was concerned about the unity and integrity of the country and to precipitate the confrontation with the ruling Congress with their inability to handle the problem of terrorism and secessionism. Another important motive of the Ekta Yatra was to broaden the party's appeal by going beyond Ram to sentimental nationalism. Although the yatra passed through more than 200 parliamentary constituencies, the crowds all along were more interested in Ayodhya rather than terrorist threats in Kashmir and Punjab. On July 9, 1992, karseva was recommenced with rituals and construc• tion of the temple. On October 29-30,1992, the fifth Dharma Sansad was organized at Delhi and announced the resumption of karseva on December 6, 1992. On November 29, 1992, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi declared that they would proceed from Varanasi and Mathura, respec• tively, to Ayodhya to mobilize karsevaks and participate in the karseva. Fol• lowing the demolition of the mosque, the BJP tried to hold a massive rally on February 25,1993, in Delhi, which the Indian government banned and foiled. The VHP's "mass contact" programs had other ingenious strategies too. For instance, 11,500 khadaun (wooden sandals) were consecrated in Nandi Gram in Faizabad on September 27,1992, and were transported to all cor• ners of the country. The VHP wanted to place at least one pair in a local temple for every area with a population of 100,000 people. Stickers such as the one in the RSS headquarters in Nagpur instructed people, "HELLO 102 "Presenting" the Past

Nahin; Bolo Jai Sri Ram" (Not hello; say Jai Sri Ram). The Hindutva mes• sage was hammered home through all kinds of little things such as T- shirts, bangles with "Sita-Ram" written on them, and even bindis (forehead marks) with a lotus (the BJP election symbol) and Ram embossed on them. The very image of Ram was changed in the VHP posters from a beatific smile to a warlike image, with trident and bow at the ready. The slogans too turned more militant, from " Bachcha-bachcha Ram ka, Janmabhoomi ke kaam ka" (Every child belongs to Ram and for the work of Ramjanmab• humi) to "Janmabhoomi ke kaam na aye, vo bekaar jawanee hai" (Youth that does not serve Ramjanmabhumi is youth lived in vain).112 The Hindutva political socialization is rather high-tech. The pub• lic speeches of Hindutva figures are preserved in audiocassettes and replayed all over the country. Like speech cassettes for masses, popular- music cassettes are targeted at the youth. For instance, the cassette Ram ki nam le makes Sita play a seductive damsel calling out to Ram in a popular Hindi film tune to "come to me Ram with the golden deer." Then there are videocassettes put out by the VHP on various topics with elements of mass commercial entertainment "to both mobilize and keep alive a sense of participation when the movement is not going through its dramatic moments." In one of the election campaign videocassettes, called Ram rajya ki ore chale, the BJP program was presented with small kits enacted by some of the famous TV Ramayan serial stars. The ingenuity of these productions is that they mask their call to violent confrontation with the secular state when they seemingly give a different message. The video called Ramji Ki Sena Chale opens with a human Hanuman (a monkey dis• ciple of Ram) climbing the raised platform that overlooks the podium. The soundtrack reproduces the wavering, bugle-like sound copied from the signature tune of a popular TV serial, Tippu Sultan, that precedes the long shot of Tipu and his army marching to battle. This militaristic reference, given to the chant of "Ram rajya ayega" (Ramarajya is coming), presents the mindset of the Hindutva scheme.113 While the RSS and other Sangh Parivar organizations compensate the role of schools, they have a concerted action program at the media front. Their processes of indoctrination range from arousing speeches to agitat• ing videos, or communal narratives to handbills, and they all engage in one-way transaction with little room for dissension or dialogue. The Hin• dutva forces have had institutions for the educated and insinuations for the illiterate. There have been numerous educational institutions with a different focus on diverse age-groups, such as the Saraswati Shishu-man- dir, Vidya Bharati, Gurukula Ashram, Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal, and so forth. There have been specialized agencies such as the Samskar Bharati to revive traditional skills, the BMS to organize labor, the BKS to orga• nize the peasantry, and the ABVP to organize students. A whole range of publications, which include Organiser, Panchajanya, Rashtra Dharma, and Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 103 similar newspapers and magazines in various regional languages have assisted also. There have been innumerable programs to teach Sanskrit and and to impart "Bharatiya values" in music and science. How• ever, the pinnacle of the Hindutva program has been history and human thinking. The Bharatiya Itihas Sankalana Yojana was founded in 1973 to "present an authentic chronology of Indian history dating back to the beginning of Kaliyuga," which is said to have started some 5,000 years ago. The Bharatiya Vichara Kendra was created in Kerala in 1982 "to make our national mind free, vigorous and creative."114 The various "mass contact" programs were ingeniously devised and developed to radicalize the illiterate masses. For instance, the BJP paraded the mortal remains of the karsevak "martyrs" killed in Ayodhya police firing through remote villages. The Hindutva group would descend on these vil• lages with loudspeakers blaring that Hinduism was in danger and convene meetings at the village temples. They would distribute scarves, badges, and even wristwatches with pro-Ramjanmabhumi slogans emblazoned on them. They would shout "Siya Ram Chandra ki," and the crowds would respond "Jai!" A few people might get converted and others disperse with reservations; nonetheless, the communal message of the Hindutva political socialization would have been imparted. The Hindutva forces not only have built up a social and political orga• nizational structure to capture the consciousness of the people, but also have utilized the growing number of riots as major instruments of com• munalization. They have effectively used every imaginable agent of socialization to agitate all sections of the society through both manifest and latent processes of political socialization. With the popular religious icon Ram, they have entered both the urban and rural social congrega• tions, and with Ramarajya, they have entered the political consciousness of the masses.

NOTES 1. Jack Dennis, Political Socialization Research: A Bibliography (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1973), pp. 5-6. 2. Dean Jaros, Socialization to Politics (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 8, 21, 136-47,139. 3. and , The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), pp. 266-71. 4. Roberta Sigel and Marilyn Hoskin, "Perspectives on Adult Political Social• ization—Areas of Research," in Handbook of Political Socialization: Theory and Research, ed. Stanley Allen Renshon (New York: Free Press, 1977), p. 262. 5. David Schwartz and Charles Mannella, "Popular Music as an Agency of Political Socialization: A Study in Popular Culture and Politics," in New Directions in Political Socialization, ed. David Schwartz and Sandra Schwartz (New York: Free Press, 1975), p. 290. 104 "Presenting" the Past

6. Richard Dawson and Kenneth Prewitt, Political Socialization (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), pp. 15-24. 7. Jorge Noriega, "American Indian Education in the United States: Indoctri• nation for Subordination to Colonialism," in The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, ed. M. Annette Jaimes (Boston: South End Press, 1992), p. 374. 8. H. Warren Button mentions David Fischer providing an entertaining and informative list of errors, which are labeled in Latin and alphabetically arranged from antiphrasis to zeugma. See Button's "Why and When History Doesn't Work," American Behavioral Scientist 30, no. 1 (September-October 1986), p. 38. 9. Magnus Haavelsrud, "Indoctrination or Politicization through Textbook Content?" International Journal of Political Education 3 (1979), pp. 79-82. 10. Christine E. Sleeter and Carl A. Grant, "Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in Current Textbooks," in The Politics of the Textbook, ed. Michael W. Apple and Linda K. Christian-Smith (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 97. 11. B.N. Pande, Towards National Integration: Islam and Indian Culture (Patna, India: Khuda Baksh Memorial Annual Lecture, 1985), pp. 34-35, 37-39. 12. India Today, 15 August 1992. 13. Quoted in Bipin Chandra, Communalism in Modern India (New Delhi: Vikas, 1984), p. 210. 14. Ibid. 15. Alka Malvankar, "Text and Context in Sociology of Education," Economic and Political Weekly 26, no. 3 (January 1991), p. 104. 16. Joseph W. Elder, "National Loyalties in a Newly Independent Nation," in Ideology and Discontent, ed. David E. Apter (New York: Free Press, 1964), pp. 77-92. 17. Frederick W. Frey, "Socialization to National Identification among Turkish Peasants," Journal of Politics 30, no. 4 (November 1968), pp. 934-65. 18. Philip Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas ofTulsidas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 39,409-15. 19. Gyanendra Pandey, "Congress and the Nation, 1917-1947," in Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-independence Phase, ed. Richard Sisson and Stanley Wol- pert (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 131-32. 20. Ibid., pp. 126,131-32. 21. Tapan Basu et al., Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993), p. 3. 22. Shahnaz Anklesaria Aiyar, "The VHP: Flexing Its Muscles," India Today, 30 April 1991, p. 52. 23. S. Balakrishnan, "Ensure That Your Knives Taste Blood," Illustrated Weekly of India, 10-16 October 1992, pp. 18-19. 24. John McLeod, "Towards the Analysis of Hindu Princely Genealogy in the British Period, 1850-1950," South Asia Research 6, no. 2 (November 1986), pp. 181, 191. 25. Raj means "that which is befitting," and hence Raja implies "one who does credit to the office." Rajya is such an ideal state. Gandhi's speech at Morvi on January 24, 1928, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Publica• tions Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1988), xxxv (September 1927-January 1928), p. 491. (Collected Works will hereafter be referred to as CWMG.) Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 105

26. Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 110-13. 27. M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad, India: Nava- jivan Publishing House, 1962), pp. 14,17. 28. CWMG, xxv (August 1924-January 1925), p. 34. 29. CWMG, xxxiii (January-June 1927), p. 9. 30. Speech at Morvi on January 24, 1928. CWMG, xxxv (September 1927- January 1928), pp. 489-90. 31. Ibid., p. 490. 32. Speech on khadi at Amalner on February 12, 1927. CWMG, xxxiii (January-June 1927), p. 68. 33. A letter dated July 3, 1947. CWMG, lxxxviii (May 25, 1947-July 31, 1947), p. 267. 34. Speech at prayer meeting at Madras on January 26, 1946. CWMG, lxxxiii (January 20,1946-Aprii 13,1946), p. 38. 35. Speech at exhibition ground at Faizpur on December 27, 1936. CWMG, lxiv (November 3, 1936-March 14, 1937), pp. 191-93. Also see "Independence," CWMG, lxxxiv (April 14,1946-July 1946), p. 80. 36. Speech at exhibition ground at Faizpur on December 27,1936. CWMG, lxiv (November 3,1936-March 14,1937), pp. 194-95. 37. Speech at prayer meeting at Goalpara on January 13,1946. CWMG, lxxxii (November 1,1945-January 19,1946), p. 416. 38. "Swaraj and Ramarajya," in CWMG, xliii (March-June 1930), pp. 112-13. 39. CWMG, xxviii (August-November 1925), pp. 283-84,295. 40. Speech at public meeting at Katras on January 13, 1927. CWMG, xxxii (November 1926-January 1927), p. 557. 41. Speech to Ceylon National Congress in Colombo on November 22, 1927. CWMG, xxxv (September 1927-January 1928), p. 297. 42. CWMG, xxxii (November 1926-January 1927), p. 488. 43. Speech at Morvi on January 24, 1928. CWMG, xxxv (September 1927- January 1928), p. 489. 44. "What Should a Hindu Widow Do?" CWMG, xxxv (September 1927- January 1928), p. 419. 45. Speech at women's meeting at Masulipatam on April 13,1929. CWMG, xl (February-May 1929), p. 237. 46. Speech at Morvi on January 24, 1928. CWMG, xxxv (September 1927- January 1928), p. 488. 47. "Complications of Untouchability," in CWMG, xxxii (November 1926- January 1927), pp. 526-27. 48. Speech at Ras on March 12,1931. CWMG, xlv (December 1930-April 1931), p. 287. 49. Speech at public meeting at Wardha on December 20, 1926. CWMG, xxxii (November 1926-January 1927), pp. 441-42. 50. Speech at Gujarati Sahitya Parishad on October 31,1936. CWMG, lxiii (June 1-November 2,1936), p. 417. 51. CWMG, lxxxviii (May 25,1947-July 31,1947), p. 2. 52. Speeches at Chickballapur and Chintamani on May 31, 1936. CWMG, lxii (October 1,1935-May 31,1936), pp. 468-69. 106 "Presenting" the Past

53. Answers to Zamindars on July 25,1934. CWMG, lviii (May 18-September 15,1934), p. 248. 54. Speech at Mission School in Muzaffarpur on January 25, 1927. CWMG, xxxiii (January-June 1927), p. 11. 55. "Of Princes and Paupers," CWMG, xlv (December 1930-April 1931), pp. 328-30. 56. Message to Karnatak Provincial Conference on May 18,1931. CWMG, xlvi (April-June 1931), pp. 166-67. 57. Ibid. 58. Letter to Premabehn Kantak dated December 31,1934. CWMG, lx (Decem• ber 16,1934-April 24,1935), p. 38. 59. "Ramanama Again," in CWMG, lxxxv (July 16,1946-October 20,1946), p. 135. 60. Speech at prayer meeting at Haimchar on February 26, 1947. CWMG, lxxxvii (February 21,1947-May 24,1947), p. 23. 61. Speech at prayer meeting in New Delhi on October 4,1947. CWMG, lxxxix (August 1,1947-November 10,1947), p. 283. 62. Discussion with Dr. Sushila Nayar and Aruna Asaf Ali in New Delhi on July 8,1947. CWMG, lxxxviii (May 25,1947-July 31,1947), pp. 298-99. 63. "Interview to Deputation from Quetta" (New Delhi, July 8, 1947), ibid., pp. 299-300. 64. Ibid. 65. Speech at prayer meeting in New Delhi on July 4, 1947. CWMG, lxxxviii (May 25,1947-July 31,1947), p. 274. 66. Speech at prayer meeting in New Delhi on October 4,1947. CWMG, lxxxix (August 1,1947-November 10,1947), p. 283. 67. Ibid., pp. 284-85. 68. Speech at prayer meeting in New Delhi on December 2, 1947. CWMG, xc (November 11,1947-January 30,1948), p. 162. 69. Johan Galtung, The Way Is the Goal: Gandhi Today (Ahmedabad, India: Gujarat Vidyapith, 1992), p. 58. 70. B. N. Ganguli, Gandhi's Social Philosophy: Perspective and Relevance (Delhi: Vikas, 1973), pp. x-xi, 31-32,174. 71. Indian Round Table Conference (Second Session) 7th September, 1931-lst Decem• ber, 1931 Proceedings (London: HMSO, 1932), p. 370. 72. Howard L. Erdman, The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism (Cam• bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 41. 73. Prem Nath Bazaz, The Shadow of Ram Rajya over India (New Delhi: Spark Publishers, 1980), p. 36. 74. See Erdman, Swatantra Party, pp. 6-9. 75. A.R. Desai, Recent Trends in Indian Nationalism (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1960), pp. 66,131-34. 76. K. L. Kamal, Party Politics in an Indian State: A Study of the Main Political Par• ties in Rajasthan (Delhi: S. Chand and Co., n.d.), pp. 75-77. Also see "Rama Rajya Parishad," in Times of India Directory and Yearbook 1954-55 (London: Bennett, Cole- man, and Co., 1955), p. 1122; 1955-56, p. 978; 1956-57, p. 976. 77. Ibid. Ramarajya: Envisioning the Future and Entrenching the Past 107

78. Horst Hartmann, Political Parties in India (Meerut, India: Meenakshi Prakashan, 1982), p. 112. 79. Times of India Directory and Yearbook 1954-55, p. 1122. 80. BJP's White Paper on Ayodhya and the Rama Temple Movement (New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party, 1993), p. 8. 81. BJP advertisements, India Today, 15 May 1991, pp. 48-49. 82. See K. L. Mahendra, Defeat the RSS Fascist Designs (New Delhi: Communist Party of India, 1977), p. 62. 83. BJP's White Paper, pp. 7,15. 84. Inderjit Badhwar and Prabhu Chawla, "Moment of Truth," India Today, 30 November 1989, p. 24. 85. "PM lashes out at BJP," Hindu, 4 November 1989. 86. "Congress (I) Manifesto Highlights Unity Theme," Hindu, 7 November 1989. 87. Shahnaz Anklesaria Aiyar, "The VHP: Flexing Its Muscles," India Today, 30 April 1991, pp. 51-52. 88. Jayendra Saraswati, "Rama Rajya," in Glory of Rama (10th National Geeta Gyana Yagna and Sadhana Camp) (Bangalore: Chinmaya Mission, 1983), pp. 108- 9,112. 89. H. V. Seshadri, "The Village That Reminds Us of Ramarajya," Organiser, 8 February 1987, p. 6. 90. H. V. Seshadri, "A Karma Yogi in Action," Organiser, 1 March 1987, p. 6. 91. S.N.M. Abdi, "Aspiring for Ram Rajya," Illustrated Weekly of India, 9-15 January 1993, p. 30. 92. "Living in Fear," Illustrated Weekly of India, 9-15 January 1993, p. 31. 93. Dilip Awasthi, "Nawabganj Muslims: Running Scared," India Today, 15 October 1991, p. 44. 94. "Living in Fear," pp. 31-32. 95. Abdi, "Aspiring for Ram Rajya," pp. 30-31. 96. Vishwapriya Iyengar, "Too Bad to Be True," Illustrated Weekly of India, 9-15 January 1993, p. 34. 97. Basu et al., Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags, pp. 72,4. 98. Satish Chandra, Medieval India: A History Textbook for Class XI (New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training, 1990), pp. 36-37. 99. Ibid., p. 35. 100. Romila Thapar, A History of India, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968), pp. 232, 277-78. 101. Ibid., pp. 278-79. 102. Ibid., pp. 278,279-80. 103. Arun Shourie et al., Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them (A Preliminary Survey) (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1990), p. 88. 104. Iqbal A. Ansari, The Muslim Situation in India (New Delhi: Sterling Publish• ers, 1989), pp. 174-75. 105. See David L. Haberman, Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 76-79; Frederick S. Growse, Mathrua: A District Memoir (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1882); Romila Thapar, "The Early History of Mathura," in Mathura: The 108 "Presenting" the Past

Cultural Heritage, ed. Doris Meth Srinivasan (New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies, 1989). For a much broader description of the Mathura temple, see Alan W. Entwistle, Braj: Center of Krishna Pilgrimage (Groningen, the Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 1987). 106. See Shastri Ramachandran, "The Other Disputed Shrines," Illustrated Weekly of India, 5-11 December 1992, pp. 26-27. 107. S.N.M. Abdi, "Two Props for Ayodhya," Illustrated Weekly of India, 5-11 December 1992, pp. 30-32. See also Baidyanath Saraswati et al., Shri Kashi Vishwa- natha: astha aur vyavastha ka prashan (Varanasi, India: Nirmalkumar Bose Smarak Prathishtan, 1983). 108. Michael W. Meister, "Mystifying Monuments," Seminar, no. 364 (December 1989), p. 27. 109. "BJP on the Warpath," India Today, 15 October 1990, p. 34. 110. Dilip Awasthi and Farzand Ahmed, "Crucible of Conflict," India Today, 15 October 1990, p. 38. However, BJP's White Paper, p. 41, claims that Ram Jyotis were lit "in lakhs of villages. 111. Dilip Awasthi, "The Siege Ahead," India Today, 15 December 1990, pp. 48- 49. 112. Inderjit Badhwar and Pankaj Pachauri, "Communalism: Dangerous Dimen• sions," India Today, 31 October 1989, p. 29. 113. Basu et al, Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags, pp. 97-101. 114. See "Educating and Ennobling the Young Minds" and "New Value-Thrust in Diverse Fields," in RSS: A Vision in Action, by H. V. Seshadri (Bangalore: Jaga- rana Prakashana, 1988), pp. 223-84. CHAPTER 4 Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom

Having bifurcated the Indian citizenry into Rambhakts and non- Rambhakts, the Hindutva forces have successfully coerced everyone into accepting (or resisting) a fabulous mythology as their history and a fas• cist fantasy as their future. These schemes are presented even more effec• tively in the Ram temple campaign. The Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi issue was not built up for any rea• sons of piety or morality but purely for political-mobilization purposes. Admitting the fact that the Ayodhya movement did contribute to the BJP's success, Atal Behari Vajpayee wrote in Frontline, "We joined the movement because Sri Ram epitomises the cultural heritage of all Indians, he sym• bolises our cultural nationalism. Through this movement, we were able to unleash the suppressed aspirations of millions of Indians and canalise their nationalist fervour towards nation-building The Ayodhya move• ment seeks to restore the temple at the birthplace of Sri Ram since this would contribute to the restoration of our cultural heritage as well as set right a grave historical wrong/' The Babri Masjid, according to Advani, was meant to serve as a "continuous ocular demonstration" of the cul• tural subjugation of the Hindus, and hence its effacement from the face of the earth is "not a matter for regret." This "grave historical wrong" has been effectively turned into a concrete grievance of the present and gifted to the Hindu progeny to carry forward.1 This future-causing and future- resembling present site is of celluloid nature, with a simplistic story line of the good and the evil fighting the battle of righteousness; all the glitz and glamour of political power, divine ordinations, and domination and vio- 110 "Presenting" the Past lence; one-way communication; and repeated screening for constant con• sumption. This Bollywood-type program bobs up modern Indian identity, history, and futures.

HINDU, HINDUTVA, AND HINDUDOM The emaciated-looking Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) met with the well-built Indian wrestler Gama in the late 1920s in Punjab. Joking about their apparent physical difference, Gandhi asked Gama if he would care to wrestle with him. Replied Gama, "How can I hope to win against one who has single handedly flipped an empire onto its back." The real strength of the thin and old leader was perceived by the nationalist wrestlers to be his celibacy, which was connected to "morals, muscles and politics."2 A similar perception, recoded into "innocence, somaticity, and strength," has been dominating the Hindutva ideology and actions also. Striking their first mosque-like blow on January 30, 1948, by shooting down the towering leader, the assassin Nathuram Godse (1910-1949), a Chitpawan Brahmin, whimpered: "May the Country properly known as Hindusthan be again united and be one, and may the people be taught to discard the defeatist mentality leading them to submit to the aggressors" (italics mine).3 The Babri Masjid, like Mahatma Gandhi, has been a blot on the orthodox Brahmins' innocence, somaticity, and strength. The "celibacy-supporting Hindu" Gandhi could be identified a little with the Brahmin innocence; however, his complicity in the Muslim conspiracy outweighed the virtue. In Godse's own words: "I am prepared to concede that Gandhiji did undergo suffer• ings for the sake of the Nation. I shall bow in respect to the service and to him. But even this servant of the country had no right to vivisect the coun• try by deceiving the people."4 This vivisection—in other words, the weak• ening of the Hindu body politic—was haunting the Brahmin psyche. We have to understand that it was the Brahmins (considered to be the "high caste") who stood out among the Hindus in the power configura• tions during the Mughal and British periods and emerged powerful in the independent India. It is not only misleading but also wrong to use a broad term such as Hindu in this context, as the lower castes have always been excluded and even discriminated against. When we talk of a "Hindu" today we are necessarily talking about Brahmins. Of course, there are wan• nabe Brahmins among other upper castes, and the willingly Brahminized among the backward castes, and they all perpetuate the same oppressive Brahminical discourse by subscribing to Brahminical mores and values. These fake Brahmins can be lumped with the Brahminical orthodoxy for our purposes here, for they feel, think, speak, and act the same way. Despite some philosophical interpretations, such as that one's meritori• ous qualities could sometimes override one's "lower" birth to become a Brahmin, a Brahmin is invariably defined as someone who is born into a Brahmin family of Brahmin parents, and this "pure descent" has always Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 111 been a major criterion of being a Brahmin. Although self-denial, knowl• edge of the Vedas, and birth into the Brahmin caste are the three condi• tions of being a Brahmin, only a person born of Brahmin parents should be given Vedic education. Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt's Sedition Committee Report of April 15, 1918, which had gone into the causes and methods of the armed activities against the British, found out, among other things, that leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Chaphekar brothers, Ranade, Kanhere, Shivram Mahadev Paranjape, the Savarkar brothers, and others belonged to the Chitpawan Brahmin caste. The latter-day Hindu Mahasabha leaders, such as B. S. Moonje, N. C. Kelkar, and M. R. Jayakar, were also Chitpawan Brah• mins. Most of the seven men who plotted the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi—Nathuram Godse, Narayan Apte, Vishnu Karkare, and Gopal Godse—were Brahmins. My point here is not any skewed casteist accusa• tion, nor do I suggest that the feeling of hostility and animosity toward the British was limited to this particular community. All I want to point out here is that, as I develop fully later, the role of reactionary Brahmins and Brahminism is quite crucial in churning out a virulent Hindutva ideology and status-quoist forces. Incidentally, it was V. D. Savarkar who coined and defined the terms Hindutva, Hindudom, and Pan-Hindu in his presidential address at the Hindu Mahasabha Calcutta session in 1938. According to him, Hinduism means "the school or system of religions the Hindus fol• low." Hindutva "refers not only to the religious aspect of the Hindu people as the word 'Hinduism' does but comprehends even their cultural, lin• guistic, social and political aspects as well. It is more or less akin to 'Hindu Polity' and its nearly exact translation would be 'Hinduness.'" And the "Hindu people spoken of collectively" is meant by Hindudom.5 The "innocence, somaticity, and strength" themes of the Brahminical orthodoxy need to be elaborated here in order to understand the geneti• cally degenerated modern Hindutva versions. The cosmological orienta• tions and social configurations of Hinduism have been formulated by and for Brahmins, who occupy the topmost position in the caste hierarchy. The creation began, according to their story, with the Golden Age (the Age of Truth), when polarities of differentiation such as the mundane reality and the ultimate reality, or life and death, had not been distinguished. When the mundane world was created as a process of dismemberment of the Brah• min by human nature or time, that self-differentiation created a tension between mundane and cosmic orders, or pollution and salvation. The two complementary ways to overcome this chasm were performing the ritual activities ascriptively allocated to groups on the basis of the purity of their bodily substance (varna), and renouncing the world (sanyasa). Although these two approaches were distinct, they were closely interrelated.6 This religiously oriented taxonomy of varna creates a quadripartite division of the society that is legitimated by the cosmogonical discourse and presented as primordial, eternal, and given. The Vedic texts organize 112 "Presenting" the Past even the animal world along the lines of varna, and those "natural" divi• sions among the animals helped reinforce the social varnas. Confusing and coalescing the social and the natural, the non-Aryans/non-Brahmins were relegated to the status of "the empty husks of real human beings."7 This classificatory scheme along with the socio-cosmic totality has always privileged the Brahmins through all different phases of Hinduism: Vedic sacrificial religion (ca. 1500-500 B.C.E.); the rise of theism, Buddhism, Jain- ism, orthodox Brahminism, devotionalism, and sects; and finally renais• sance and reform during the last two centuries.8 Even during imperial interruptions, these indigenous elites adjusted to the new regimes by joining them or becoming collaborators. Pamela Price points out that "the nineteenth century is sometimes discussed as a time not only of the Brit• ish Raj, or rule, but as a time of the Brahman Raj."9 Even today, as former prime minister V. P. Singh claims, "We [Indians] are ruled by an upper caste Hindu raj."10 In a micro-level sociological inquiry of the Brahmin community of Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh to study their slide from prominence, an Indian author concludes that "there is no more correspondence between the sacred or ritual power and secular and monetary power." The most important reason for the slide from prominence is said to be the "reverse discrimination" emanating from the reservation policy of the government for the improvement of the "backward" and "scheduled" castes. With this economic slide and the increasing boycott of Brahmins in socio-ritual contexts by the non-Brahmins, the basic organizing principles of the tra• ditional Hindu society come to be challenged seriously.11 Though Brah• mins, who constitute roughly 15 percent of the Indian population along with other upper castes, may not form a homogenous social or political group at the national level, the Brahminical orthodoxy is afraid of losing even the ritual hegemony. Above all, the most fundamental rule of power and authority in the caste system, that the lower castes must serve the privileged ones, stands seriously challenged. Consequently, the reaction• ary forces panic to react, and the emergence of virulent Hindutva should be seen at this backdrop. The "innocence" convictions of the Brahminical orthodoxy have it that Brahmins have always tried "to realise and enjoy the higher and more excellent things of life by the intensive cultivation of the spirit of renun• ciation." They have always sought "to guide the secular life and the spiri• tual life of the Hindu community without dominating it or debasing it." The caste system, which is "based on equality and mutual aid and service and interdependence," only "aims at a co-ordinated life in substitution for a competitive life." According to this reasoning, "we cannot abandon or destroy or dilute it at the bidding of the novi homines of to-day [sic]." Loathing about the "many evils" afflicting the Brahmin society, the Brah• minical orthodoxy lists imitating the other races and communities, "the Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 113 heady wine of " and "the burden of our unfortunate mediae• val age" as some of them, and holds that all the degeneration began when the "Purdah settled like a pall upon Northern India."12 To redeem the "innocence," one needs to be aware of one's "somaticity," as they together form the psycho-physical aggregate of human personality. In Hindu thinking, "the body has never been regarded as purely physical" or "antithetical to the essence of man," for that matter, and hence the body becomes "the foundation for all human endeavors." Conspicuously, cul• tivation of the body becomes vital to reach physical goals such as health and strength, and also to achieve spiritual goals. So the bodily activities in Hindu culture, such as ritual, chant, recitation, dance, iconography, erot• ics, and the martial arts, are not merely physical, but constitute a founda• tion for attaining any goal within the reach of man. "The body may not be the end, but it certainly stands at the beginning."13 The somaticity of the Brahmin belief system is the insistence on physical preparation for spiritual discipline; in other words, cleanliness for holi• ness. The Brahmin must discipline the body and senses by rising early, bathing in cold water, and performing surya namaskara (sun worship) and cleanse the mind by sandhya (sunset) worship, meditation, yoga, practic• ing brahmacharya (celibacy), learning Sanskrit, and so forth. This psycho• somatic wholeness, of which the importance of the body is part, has to be maintained because "Manu says that the duty of the Brahmins is the protection of the treasury of Dharma."14 Such a divinely ordained duty of defending Dharma invokes the need to be pure (including physical purity, inner-self purity, environmental purity, etc.), and that means warding off the corrosive effects of lower-caste people, women, Muslims, modernity, and so forth. More than the naturally endowed innocence and the daily reality of somaticity, it is the inherent weakness, or concern for strength, that has been tormenting the orthodox Brahmin psyche. The 1920s witnessed a pre• occupation with the trained male body. Shraddhanand, a Hindu Mahas• abha leader, issued an appeal in 1923 entitled "Save the Dying Race" and wrote "Hindu Sangathan, Saviour of the Dying Race" in 1924. The evoca• tion was that the much divided, physically weak, and dying (low-caste) Hindu was surrounded by an overwhelming and expanding presence of Muslims. The situation was a contest between two bodies. Piyush Ghosh, the editor of Amrita Bazar Patrika, declared in April 1925, "Bengalees as a nation were degenerating and were a dying race. Physical culture was the only remedy to this race-degeneracy." In the same month, Lajpat Rai asked his audience to be like as he faced his beloved enemy, Bhisma. The above concern about the condition of the lower castes emanated not from any reformatory zeal but from the sheer unreliability of lower castes in times of actual combat as a result of the growing Brahmin and non- Brahmin conflict. The literate upper-caste Hindus hence felt the need to 114 "Presenting" the Past do away with the dependence on the lower castes and learn combat skills themselves. This analysis transpired in the inaugural meeting of the RSS in 1925 also.15 Take celibacy as an example. As sexual ecstasy becomes a symbol for the ecstasy of man's union with God, the coupling of the earthly and the divine makes any copulation a psychologically uncomfortable experience, devaluing the somatic in the process. The orthodox Brahmin thus gets pre• occupied with the value and the power of semen, and avoiding the loss of it and the pleasures of sex. The exercises by which advanced yogis can draw up spilled semen suggest that it is not the pleasure of orgasm so much as the draining of "strength" that has to be avoided. Along the lines of the "twice-born" theory of Brahmins, one Hindutva zealot puts it, "Our first birth is the result of sex-subservience and our second birth comes from sex-sublimation." The sex-sublimation leads one to self-realization and power.16 These predilections and preoccupations of Brahminical orthodoxy took a unique political shape when a few Maharashtrian and Punjabi Brahmins reacted to the developments of their time. As far back as 1923, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) articulated in his pamphlet Hindutva/Who Is a Hindu? the modern Hindutva ideology, with clear delineations on who was a Hindu, what were the preconditions to be a Hindu, and who could be "the Other" of Hindus. In 1925, another Maharashtrian, Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1889-1940), took to the task of providing an organi• zational backup by founding the RSS. The location and the timing were important. The decline and collapse of the Congress-Khilafat alliance right after Mahatma Gandhi's unilateral withdrawal of the Non-cooperation Movement in February 1922 was followed by widespread riots across the subcontinent. The mid-1920s witnessed a massive communalization of political life in Malabar (the Moplah rebellion of 1924), Bengal, Multan, and Punjab. Although there were no major riots in Maharashtra and Muslims were such a small minority, there had been a powerful anti-Brahmin move• ment of "backward" castes from the 1870s, when Jyotiba Phule founded his Satyashodhak Samaj. By the 1920s, the Dalits (poor and downtrodden) also organized themselves under Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Moreover, the Maratha Kunbi rich peasantry was given reserved seats in the Legislative Council, and between 1920 and 1923 the non-Brahmin representatives started a sustained attack on the privileges of the Brahmin elite. The Montague-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919 also played an impor• tant role by extending franchise to the rich sections of the rural areas and creating traumatic effects for the Brahmins in Punjab, who until then had a monopoly in education, bureaucracy, and overall Punjab politics. The gov• ernment in Punjab increasingly favored agrarian interests of rural areas that appeared to be Muslim at the cost of the urban centers because of the rich peasant lobby. The fears of Muslim dominance in Punjab and Bengal Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 115 along with the Brahmin and non-Brahmin struggle led to a reaction of the Brahminical orthodoxy, who had to act immediately to restore the slip• ping hegemony. Savarkar and Bhai Paramanand (1876-1947), who used to believe in Hindu-Muslim unity against the alien conqueror, emerged as Hindu militants,17 and their ideology was put to work. The status-quoist Brahminical inclination of Hedgewar and his cohorts was no secret. The temple incident at Kagal near Kolhapur was just one example. The RSS founder had gone there to present the local RSS branch with the flag. When the swayamsevaks (volunteers) began to gather at the temple where the program was going to be held, the priests prohib• ited the untouchable RSS volunteers from entering the temple. The RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, completes the story: "When Doctorji came there he learnt about this. He simply said, 'That all Hindus are one, is the basis of my work'—and returned without entering the temple."18 V.D. Savarkar, the president of the Hindu Mahasabha, spelled out the Hindutva forces' intentions more articulately:

It must be plainly mentioned here that even those who are at present bracketed as untouch• ables are themselves guilty of this sin [untouchability] just like those who are bracketed as touchable Hindus.... The sin is common to all of us and therefore, let us all join hands together and be determined to remove this curse with a supreme effort. In the meanwhile our Sanatani brothers may rest assured that barring the fundamental rights which every citizen is entitled to in public life, the Hindu Mahasabha will always refrain from having any recourse to law to thrust any religious reform on any sect within the Hindu fold even in the case of untouchability. (italics in original)19

Savarkar further clarified that the lines of action on removing untouch• ability "would be made clear from time to time as the work proceeds."20 Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1906-1973), who assumed leadership of the RSS in 1940 on Hedgewar's death, reiterated the same Brahmin bias of the organization: "Living in this holy land we built a great Dharma ... com• bining highest material prosperity with purest spiritual beatitude. In this confluence we tried to build great empires, consolidating the people into a well ordered Society, striving to make every individual happy and free from want and to offer him opportunities to achieve the highest flights of philosophy and spiritual peace—each according to his own genius, inclination and persua• sion and in this endeavour we set up lofty ideals of individual purity and holiness, of love and service, of sacrifice and selflessness, of devotion and dedication" (italics mine).21 The Hindutva commanders and outfits have been consistently dubi• ous about the caste system and untouchability over a long period of time. After all, Ram himself beheaded a so-called sudra, Sambuka, for practic• ing austerities and aspiring for heaven. Talking in the , the upper house of the Indian parliament, in August 1988, the BJP leader A. B. Vajpayee eloquently argued for the safety of the "Harijans and Tribals" 116 "Presenting" the Past in India. He seemed to problematize the case of the Shri Nathdwara tem• ple of Rajasthan, where harijans were not allowed to enter. However, his twisted logic worked in the same old Hindutva fashion: "Nobody can be allowed to shut the doors of a temple on the plea that the temple belonged to a particular sect. If there is any regulation for the sake of 'Maryada' it should apply to all. If wearing of a Kanthi with a string is essential to have entry into the temple of Shri Nath ji, then it is a different thing." Although Vajpayee dismissed the varna system based on birth, he supported the same scheme based on vocation. According to him, "Whatever vocation we choose, it denotes our Varna. . . . Whatever vocation a man chooses depends upon his qualities, actions and nature which are not the same in all persons."22 The inhumanity of the Brahminical orthodoxy was marked not just by their naked casteism but also by their antifemale concept of brahmacharya. Most of the Hindutva leaders have been unmarried. When a Mahila Samaj activist, Lakshmibai Kelkar, wanted to found a female version of the RSS called Rastra Sevika Samiti in 1934 and approached Hedgewar for assis• tance, he explained that the RSS leaders had taken a vow of brahmacharya, and an association with an organization of women would be a direct vio• lation of their vow. Only an indirect help seemed the proper thing to offer to those women.23 Decades later, another RSS supremo, Balasaheb Deoras, argued against the entry of women into the RSS "on pragmatic grounds and not on the relaxation of sexual morality when men and women came together." He thought that women could not take part in the shakhas (drill meetings) in the morning and the evening as "they had domestic respon• sibilities."24 This conviction of Hindu innocence glosses over caste oppression, subjugation of women, and dehumanization of the Other, but rather gets engrossed with one's own somaticity and the self-centered need for untouchability, unseeability, unedibility, and so forth. Building on and feeding into this somaticity, a spiritual strength manifests, taking one closer to the actual realization of the abstract understanding of innocence one begins with. Only the somatic is real in this spiritual journey that starts with an understanding of the innocence and proceeds with more and more strength to the future realization of it. So the somatic is an important link and a sensible point to start with. When translated politically and organizationally, this understanding provides a virulent ideology such as Hindutva, which may be defined as "a highly structured belief system involving the interpretation of the past, an analysis of the present, and a set of precepts and imperatives for future conduct."25 The Hindu somatic, or the Hindu Rashtra, absorbs all different religious groups in an unproblematic fashion: Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and so-called animists are as much Hindus as Arya Samajists, Theosophists, and Brah- mos, and Shaivites, Vaishnavites, and Tantriks. According to Hindutva Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 117 reasoning, they all share the same religious culture, same social life, and same personal law. So they are one, and the government should not divide them. The RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, editorially commented that when the government did not make any distinction between Shias, Sunnis, Khojas, Memons, and Ahmediyas among Muslims, or between Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and so on among Chris• tians, why should they "divide the Hindus for smaller differences"?26 A Hindutva zealot claims, despite all the religious and linguistic differences, frequent quarrels, and lack of political unity, there had always been a fun• damental unity transcending these divisions. For him, the binding factors of the Hindu Rashtra have been the Hindu religion, Sanskrit language, and the Indian culture.27 This allegedly homogenous Hindudom has a great heritage of innocence to strive for. According to Golwalkar, they started their work in the RSS to rouse a just appreciation of our past, to note its greatness for emulation and its evils for avoidance, to revive the memory of our being one people, with one holy Motherland, one heritage, one culture and therefore one Nation, to wipe off all fissiparous tendencies whether based on sects and faiths, caste and creed, or on political, economic or linguistic differences, to create absolute purity of character in all individuals, to inculcate in them the spirit of service, sacrifice and selfless dedication to the people, to teach that individual interests need to be subordinated to those of the people, as a whole, to build up an integrated, organized and dis• ciplined corporate social life in place of the present disintegrated, disorganized, undisciplined life of individual self-seeking, to establish inviolable ties of abiding brotherhood in this great ancient Hindu People—thus to bring about an all-round regeneration of this greatest of all peoples and set it up once again on its high ped• estal of the Cultural Guide of the World.28

The glorious and triumphant past was incessantly interrupted by invad• ers, and every time the Hindus emerged as victors. In Golwalkar's words: "During the last one thousand years of our struggle with those aggres• sors never had we accepted their sovereign rights over any part of this land. Even when they held sway over vast portions of our country as in the times of an Akbar, or an Aurangzeb not a day passed without a Rana Pratap, a Guru Govind Singh, a Chhatrasal or a Shivaji challenging them and asserting our national freedom." But "for the first time in 1947, we gave up the fight,... and acquiesced in an unchallenged domination of the aggressor over huge portions of our land."29 The Hindu somatic came to be vivisected as a consequence of lack of strength: "The tearing away of the limbs of our mother and the gory blood-bath of millions and millions of our kith and kin is the price that we have paid for that ignoble attitude." Keeping up with the valiant tra• dition, "if partition is a settled fact, we are here to unsettle it." Golwalkar reasons, "How can a son forget and sit idle when the sight of his muti- 118 "Presenting" the Past lated mother stares him in the face every day? Forget? No true son can ever forget or rest till she becomes once again her complete whole."30 To "unsettle" is to require strength. After all, "it is activity, dynamism and heroism that rule the world. Indeed veerabhogya vasundhara (This Earth is for the valiant) sums up the philosophy of a successful life in this world."31 For such heroism, "Today, more than anything else, Mother needs such men—young, intelligent, dedicated, and more than all vir• ile and masculine. When Narayana—eternal knowledge—and Nara— eternal manliness—combine, victory is ensured. And such are the men who make history—the men with capital 'M.'"32 The Hindutva ideology, greatly influenced by the "fictitious past" and the "threatened present," enmeshes the somaticity of the territory with the grand oneness of the "innocent" Hindu nation, which requires more strength to defend it at any cost. The lamentation of the present is mainly due to the fact that the liberation from the British has not realized for them the much-aspired Hindudom, but the Hindus have had to deal with Mus• lims amid them and around them. This agony has only deepened and deteriorated with the independent India's persistence with secularism and democracy. The innocent Brahminism with its innocuous spirituality is perceived to be in greater danger now because of a clear "multilateral conspiracy" to divide, denude, and destabilize the Hindu somatic's socio- economic-political reality. The civil and political rights of the religious minorities, the conversion of oppressed Hindus to other faiths (Islam in particular), Dalit mobilization, implementation of the Mandal Commis• sion report for job reservation, economic competition from other groups, and other factors of this nature are believed to be adding to this "emascu• lation scheme." More than ever, the Hindu has to be strong, and there is a singular need for aggression. So the "Angry Hindu" cries out:

Yes, certainly I am angry. And I have every reason to be angry. And it is also right for me to be so. Otherwise I would be no man. Yes, for too long I have suffered affronts in silence. For ever so long I have been at the receiving end My people have been kidnapped by the hostiles. My num• bers have dwindled ... my adored motherland has been torn asunder.... My temples have been desecrated, destroyed. Their sacred stones are being trampled under the aggressor's feet. My gods are crying. They are demanding of me for reinstatement in all their original glory. When I speak out my agony, you of the secular tribe condemn me as a threat to our "secular peace". . . . Why, you cannot even tolerate the Ramayana on the TV.... You have derided me as an "Angry Hindu". On the contrary, I take it as a com• pliment. For so long—for too long—I was lost in a deep coma. I saw nothing, I heard nothing, felt nothing—even when my motherland was cut off. But all such incessant blows have at last awakened me. Now I have begun to see, I have begun to hear, I have begun to understand, and I have begun to feel—what tragedies have overtaken me. . . . Hereafter I will sleep no more. I will not remain dumb; I Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 119 will speak out. I will not remain inert; I will begin to act. I will not run away from challenges; I will face them.33

A psychoanalytical reading of the Brahminical orthodoxy's psyche today would reveal that they feel threatened by their inherent weakness. Discussing the characteristics of the religious outlook of the Hindu ortho• doxy, one writer contends that they give the individual a deep sense of security by making him part of a cosmic process where there are no mis• takes and chance occurrences. They also reduce the danger of acute anxi• ety by minimizing frustration and by defining religious duties precisely with little room for any uncertainty. These traits tend to produce together an acute sense of helplessness.34 Another scholar points out that the prom• inence of the Brahmins in the Hindu civilization must have given rise to a narcissistic community, and that "a nation of narcissists will show weak patriotism and public spirit." According to him, a typical narcissist tends toward political indifference, although he hopes for benefits and tries to gain them by submission. Thus the "Hindu rule is stable internally but weak in opposing attack from without."35 When the modern nationhood, which is "not a space-and-time-independent mode of self-affirmation," is sought to be built "on the ruins of one's civilizational selfhood,"36 we encounter "angry Hindus." An awareness that they had been tolerant of the foreign out of their innocence, that they lacked organization and courage because of the defi• cient somaticity, and that they did not resist foreign rulers and alien rule out of their weakness has come to torment the Hindu psyche. Thus mod• ern secularism, for them, smacks of tolerance; pluralism seems to under• mine Hindu unity; and lack of organization, assertiveness, and aggression reminds them of their weakness. So they oppose secularism, assert Hin• dutva, reclaim mosques, and terrorize the Muslims. The crux of this project, however, is the somaticity, the united Hindu body. The Brahminical ortho• doxy, who have always remained privileged and powerful in the society, interpret the situation in status-quoist terms without accommodating the lower castes or changing anything in the oppressive Hindu social life but pointing out a common enemy, the Muslims. This enemy, as described earlier, is just an identitarian exigency in their game of reactionary politics. An Indian scholar, B.P.R. Vithal, puts it like this: "The confrontation with the Muslims is, therefore, not so much a basic Hindu-Muslim issue as an attempt on the part of the upper castes to find an outside enemy as a chal• lenge to unite the community itself, obviously under their leadership. This explains the comment often made that Ayodhya has, at one stroke, nulli• fied the divisive effects on the Hindu community of the Mandal Report and the Dalit movements."37 In the final analysis, the Babri Masjid is a symbol of this complex para• noia of the Brahminical orthodoxy. In corresponding fluctuations with the 120 "Presenting" the Past rise and ebb of socio-economic-political events in the subcontinent, the mosque stood challenging the Brahminical preoccupations of somaticity, the catholic tolerance and assimilation of their faith, and the inherent vul• nerability for contamination, betrayal, or even subjugation. The mosque symbolizes not just the physical defeat of Hindus at the hands of the Mus• lims but also the perpetuation of the humility through modern secularism. Their old mythical Ram temple as much as the glorious Hindu historical era stood deposed by the invaders, and the old "Hindu glory" lay buried in and overshadowed by a historical trauma. The retribution of removing the mosque and rebuilding their temple is only a logical action to demon• strate their valor; accomplishing that by actual physical demolition only adds to their self-perception and their depiction of the "neo-Hindu" image to the Muslims and the larger world.

"HINDUISE POLITICS AND MILITARISE HINDUDOM" Just like the preindependence period, the independence-struggle era did not have much of a communal fervor. The Hindu-Muslim question dur• ing the independence struggle was confined to a few Muslim intellectual landlords and capitalists who were cooking up a problem that actually was not there in the minds of the masses. In the 1937 elections, when the peasantry got a chance to vote for the first time, the Congress contested on a nationalistic plank with unity, democracy, and secularism as the leading principles, whereas the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha con• tested on a communalist platform. Gandhi offered the slogans "heart unity between Hindu and Muslim" and "Hindu-Mussalman ki jai" (Victory to Hindu-Muslim unity). He associated the Congress with the peasants, took up their causes in the indigo movement in Bihar and the Bardoli struggle in Gujarat, and held the upper-class Hindu and Muslim powerbrokers in contempt. The Muslim League was decisively rejected, the Hindu Mahas• abha completely routed, and the Congress won 26 of the 58 Muslim seats it contested. Of the 485 seats allotted to Muslims in the provinces by the Communal Award of 1932, the League won only 108. In its stronghold, the United Province, the League won only 29 seats out of 22S.38 The Hindu and Muslim peasants and masses proved that the League and the Mahas• abha were not their vanguards. But the postindependence period witnessed a growing Hindu and Mus• lim reactionary revivalism. The two-nation theory, the bloody partition, and the accompanying holocaust; the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and beyond; controversial mass conversions of Hin• dus to Islam; the upper-caste Hindu jealousy over the foreign-remittance prosperity of Muslims; the growing urban Muslim and their rising political consciousness; and the resultant fear and insecurity among the Brahmini- Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 121 cal orthodoxy all contributed to the growing Hindu communalism. The most important of all these, however, was a particular Hindu understand• ing of history and the quest for its vindication. The communal neo-Hindus can be broadly divided into three groups, with their primary focus on the themes of innocence, somaticity, and strength. With the "blessings and benedictions" of all different religious figures, such as the sadhus, sants, mahants, purohits, sankaracharyas, and their respective cults, the VHP emerged in 1964 as a single powerful group to protect their "innocent" faith. The First World Hindu Conference was held at Allahabad (VHP prefers the pre-Mughal name of Prayag) in 1966 and the Second World Hindu Conference in 1979. It was claimed at the 1966 meeting that the last known gathering of Hindu leaders took place in 648 C.E.39 The VHP was founded to consolidate and strengthen the Hindu society; to protect, develop, and spread the Hindu values; and to help all Hindus living abroad. Being aware of the fact that Hindus both in Hindusthan and abroad need an awakening into their essential unity in philosophy, religion, and culture, and that the Hindu world should save itself from Christianity, Islam, and communism, this central organization helps, among other things, "to supply the pure spirit of the Hindu way of life."40 Even as early as 1939, Savarkar clarified that religious questions would be left to "different Hindu schools of religious persuasions," and that the Hindu Mahasabha would not be a "Hindu Dharma Sabha" but a "Hindu Rashtra Sabha."41 Thus the Mahasabha, which was also often referred to by Savarkar as the Hindu Sanghatan movement, represented the Hindu somatic. For him, the party "will always prove a sure and devoted source of strength, a reserve force for the Hindus to fall back upon to voice their grievances more effectively than the joint Parliament can do, to scent dan• ger ahead, to warn the Hindus in time against it and to fight out if needs be any treacherous design to which the joint State itself may unwittingly fall a victim."42 The All India Hindu Sabha was founded in 1915, and the first session was held at Hardwar with Maharaja Manindra Chandra Nandi as president. It was registered under the Societies Registration Act on December 13, 1917, at Lucknow, and in April 1921 its name was changed to the All India Hindu Mahasabha.43 The Hindu Mahasabha used to work in close collaboration with the Con• gress. The Mahasabha was a forum within the Congress that was used by Mahasabha members to express Hindu views and to work for the protec• tion of Hindu interests, but not necessarily as an anti-Muslim group. Some leaders, such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and Lala Lajpat Rai, were promi• nent in both the Congress and the Mahasabha, and served as president of both. Congress leaders Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, C.R. Das, Moti Lai Nehru, and the Ali brothers attended the Mahasabha's Belgaon session in December 1924. However, the 10th session of the Mahasabha, 122 "Presenting" the Past which met in April 1927 at Patna under B. S. Moonje, protested against the establishment of separate electorates and reiterated its determination to carry on the movement of shuddhi (purification) and sanghatan (organiza• tion).44 Although there was no definite date of the Congress-Mahasabha break, this meeting set the latter on a separate course. The Congress even• tually passed a resolution in June 1934 forbidding its members from join• ing the RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, and Muslim League. The inclusion of some of the Hindu Mahasabha members, including V.D. Savarkar, in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case damaged the organization substantially. The year Savarkar spent in prison during the arduous trial wrecked the health of the powerful leader and finished him as much as the Mahasabha as a force in Indian politics. The members wanted either to change their movement's name or to concentrate on cul• tural and social activities, or to include non-Hindus in their work. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, the vice president of the Mahasabha and the industry and supply minister in the Nehru cabinet, asked the Mahasabha to change its name and later resigned from the Mahasabha in 1949 and from the Nehru ministry on April 19,1950, over differences with the prime minister on handling the situation in Kashmir and East Bengal. Mukherjee founded the BJS (also known as the Jana Sangh) on October 21,1951. By the end of 1960, membership had risen from 215,370 the pre• vious year to 274,907, the local committees had increased from 2,551 to 4,313, and constituency committees had expanded from 495 to 584. The party had one member in the Rajya Sabha and four members in the Lok Sabha.45 Although the Hindu Mahasabha fought three general elections after independence, it was pushed aside by the new and more popular party, the BJS. The party was preoccupied with northern issues such as the promotion of Hindi, refugee interests, and resistance to Pakistan. With a "restrictive and exclusive" interpretation of Hinduism, "its doctrines were inspired by an activist version of Hindu nationalism and, indirectly, by the values of Brahmanism rather than the devotional and quietist values of popular Hinduism."46 The Hindu Mahasabha accused the BJS of believing in "capitalism of the Western type" and professing "secularism" with soft corners for Paki• stan and anti-Hindu elements in India; however, both parties' policies and programs were very similar. The Hindu Mahasabha held the reestablish- ment of Akhand Bharat (Greater India) by undoing the partition as one of its "cardinal creed."47 The BJS used to observe August 15 as Akhand Bharat Day to reaffirm people's faith in the unity and integrity of India.48 In its election manifesto for the fourth general elections in 1967, the Hindu Mahasabha contended that they stood "for just and fair treatment to all non-Hindu minorities" but "they should merge themselves in the main current of Hindu nationalism and give up separate national consciousness on the basis of religion and culture."49 The BJS's manifesto for the same Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 123 election complained that "some people have been from time to time put• ting forward separatist demands claiming special privileges and protec• tion on the basis of province, religion, caste or language." In order to put an end to the "discriminatory practices" of the "disruptionist elements," "a uniform civil code will be enacted to govern the laws of marriage, adop• tion, interitance [sic], etc. of all Indian citizens."50 The Mahasabha took pride in the facts that they had "championed the necessity of militarisation" from the very beginning, and that its president B. S. Moonje established the Bhonsle Military School at Nasik with the aim of "militarising the youth of the country." Pleading for an increase in the defense budget and defense preparations "on gigantic scales," the Mahas• abha believed in manufacturing nuclear weapons.51 The BJS manifesto too called for several such measures, including a vast army with increased strength, producing nuclear weapons and missiles, introducing intensive military training in all colleges for two years, and so forth.52 The Mahas• abha manifesto unequivocally declared that they stood for the restoration of all Hindu temples, such as Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, Ramjan• mabhumi in Ayodhya, and Krishnajanmabhumi in Mathura, that were "in illegal possession of Moslems." Although Hindus had been "successful in ousting the Muslim occupiers," the Mahasabha manifesto lamented that absolute right of the Hindus had not yet been established as the strug• gle was still on.53 The RSS, the silent masters of the BJS, went even one step further in suggesting the removal of the Taj Mahal and preserving it as a Hindu memorial, which it was before being "stolen by the Mughal ruler"; the removal of the mosques now in situ that were originally Hindu temples from their present locations; and imposing a capitation tax on all Muslims until a reasonable sum of money is collected to compensate the Hindus for their losses in the Somnath temple destructions.54 As indicated earlier, there has been a tradition of the Hindu somatic's preoccupation with strength. The Mahasabha's call for the organization of Hindu self-defense squads in August 1923 in its Benaras session did not bring about the desired result. Savarkar repeated the call to "Hindu- ise politics and militarise Hindudom" (originally promulgated in 1939) as his message to Hindudom on the eve of his 59th birthday on May 25, 1941. He said, "The Hindus should henceforth test all national and inter• national politics and policies through the Hindu point of view alone.... And secondly, as the first and immediate step to militarize Hindudom, let every Hindu youth who is capable to stand the test, try his best to enter the army, the navy and the air force or get the training and secure employment in the ammunition factories and in all other branches con• nected with war crafts."55 Much later, in May 1942, Savarkar set up a secret organization called Hindu Rashtra Dal to do the work "that could not be openly undertaken by a political party." Both Nathuram Godse and Nara• yan Apte, Mahatma Gandhi's assassin and accomplice, were selected as 124 "Presenting" the Past its office bearers, and they held training camps in their areas. The camps "trained volunteers in Indian games, physical exercises, shooting practice with airguns, and also classes in Savarkar ideology."56 In 1925 the RSS started organizing, promoting, and demonstrating the "Hindu strength." Their founder, Hedgewar, "had delved deep into past history" and resolved that the "past blunders" should not be repeated. The country that had attained commanding heights in the past "found itself defeated and disgraced at the hands of a handful of foreign invaders." "Several grave defects had crept into our national being and corroded our internal strength," making the country easy prey for the invaders. "With the basic Hindu weakness continuing to plague us even after Indepen• dence," Hedgewar knew that "an overall Hindu morale alone could prove an effective antidote to all such anti-national challenges," and sought "to strengthen the same."57 The Swayamsevaks came to stand "for the all-round progress of Bharat- avarsha [India] by strengthening the holy Hindu Dharma, Hindu San- skriti and Hindu Samaj."58 Such a task, quite conspicuously, "requires stout and steady hearts which shall remain unshaken amidst adversities and temptations. It is to mould such inspired lives that the Sangh lays utmost stress on day-to-day samskars, day-to-day inculcation of all those qualities of head and heart which go to foster strength and competence in the individual to march on the path of lifelong dedication."59 This lifelong dedication includes continual physical preparation, military discipline, ideological indoctrination, and religious fervor. The RSS leader calls out, "Let those ancient embers of devotion lying dormant in every Hindu heart be fanned and joined in a sacred conflagration which shall consume all the past aggressions on our motherland and bring to life the dream of Bharat Mata reinstated in her pristine undivided form."60 As a result of this rigor• ous organization and indoctrination, the RSS has become what Golwalkar called an "unconquerable, invincible fortress" whose gusto, bravado, enthusiasm, and heroics attract the victims of socioeconomic problems and lead them on the path of hatred, violence, and racial or communal arrogance.61 The RSS is also joined in this "cultural revival" by militant groups such as and Bajrang Dal. The first Shiv Sena movement, inaugurated on June 19, 1966, in Bombay, arose directly from urban unemployment, demanding jobs for Maharashtrians in Bombay, where they were (and continue to be even today) a minority. This original project, created by Bal Thackeray, was basically chauvinistic rather than religious and cam• paigned for the expulsion of immigrant workers so as to make place for the "sons of the soil." They took on the communists because the strikes of the latter jeopardized their employment prospects, and attacked Muslims for being agents of Pakistan and for having come to usurp jobs from young Maharashtrians. The Shiv Sena incited terrible against Muslims Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 125 in 1971, 1984, and 1986 and also played a major role in the 1993 riots. It was prominent from 1966 until 1975, declined during a period of working- class militancy known as the "Samant wave," and regained strength after 1981 with the "saffron wave." Evolving their regional perspectives toward a national vision, they advocate solutions such as expulsion of Muslim foreigners, prohibition of strikes and "negative" unions, and militariza• tion of youth. There are Shiv Senas in MP, UP, Delhi, Punjab, , and Jammu Kashmir linked loosely and diversely to the parent organization in Bombay62 Bajrang Dal, whose name literally means "Hanuman Party," claims to be for the protection of Hindus. These lumpen elements assume different names in different parts of the country, have no ideology or pro• grams, and indulge in random acts of violence. The role of the RSS was crucial and critical in the BJS's coming to rep• resent the Hindu somatic. This brotherly relationship benefited the RSS also, as they were coming out of the ban imposed at the wake of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and badly needed a political vehicle. Commenting on the alleged "RSS influence on Jana Sangh," the RSS mouthpiece, Organ• iser, editorially commented, "If by influence is meant 'interference' it just does not exist: RSS has neither the time nor the inclination for it; and the RSS constitution lays down that its office-bearers shall not hold office in any political party. But if by influence is meant 'inspiration' it is very much there and that is so much the better for Jana Sangh" (italics in original).63 The editorial went on to point out that BJS president Deendayal Upad- hyaya, parliamentary group leader Atal Behari Vajpayee, and General Sec• retary Sundar Singh Bhandari were all RSS pracharaks (propagandists). When Indira Gandhi imposed the infamous "emergency" on India in 1975, it brought a twist to the Hindutva politics. Behind the bars in the Bangalore jail during the "emergency," L. K. Advani wrote in his diary on October 21,1976, that it was "a significant day," as the BJS had completed 25 years of its existence. He also mentioned receiving a letter from Madan Lai Khurana, who was in a Tihar (Delhi) jail, referring to the possibilities of forming a unified opposition party in the near future. The letter, accord• ing to Advani, said, "Jana Sangh members who have been exerting them• selves in this direction would have a feeling of satisfaction, not unmixed with sorrow, when this actually comes about. It would be the feeling a Hindu household has on the occasion of a daughter's marriage,... happy that a duty has been discharged, but sad over the parting."64 Eventually, a few major non-Congress (I) parties came together into an alliance and then founded the new Janata Party. They won the March 1977 elections but collapsed in 1979 as a result of some self-centered politicians' power squabbles and buffooneries, lack of ideological or programmatic cohesion, and most importantly, the dual membership of some people both in the Janata Party and in the RSS. The BJS, which had decided in April 1977 to merge with the Janata Party, walked out of it in April 1980 and took 126 "Presenting" the Past a reincarnation as the BJP later that year. Their program included, among other things, promoting "Gandhian socialism" and "positive secularism." The BJP president, A. B. Vajpayee, explained that Gandhism meant "decen• tralisation of economy" and socialism meant "poor man to be the centre of all economic activity." However, some ridiculed the concept and sought to replace that by Ramrajyavad or Samatavad, and in order to appease the RSS ranks, who were heavily represented, , an RSS stalwart, was brought in to defend "Gandhian socialism."65 The Organiser editori• ally commented that Gandhian socialism was "an attempt at humanising socialism and making Gandhi intelligible to the 'modern' mind." The same editorial also defined their secularism as something that was opposed to a secularism "that will ridicule religion or appease communalism."66 The BJP general secretary, L. K. Advani, explained that the new party, in con• trast to the BJS, was not based on ideology but idealism. These feigned attempts at outgrowing the sectarian politics of the BJS, giving senior titular positions to non-BJS leaders, overcoming the narrow focus on the interests of the trading community, and establishing a genu• ine national image were lauded by the national press quite prematurely. editorially noted, "It will be wrong to dismiss all these shifts as no more than tactical manoeuvres." India Today welcomed the BJP (Bombay) convention "for presaging a saner phase in Indian poli• tics." When some critics pointed out the controversial past of the party members, the Organiser was there to defend them: "those in the BJP who belonged to RSS, are proud of the RSS; Those in the BJP who belonged to BJS, are proud of BJS; and all those now in BJP, are proud of BJP."b/ Growing in self-confidence over the next few years, the BJP made an appeal on May 7-9,1983, at its national executive to all parties except the Muslim League and the communists to come together in the form of a National Democratic Front (NDF) to defeat the Congress. Ironically, the BJP chose to join hands with their worst detractor in the 1978-79 Janata debacle, Char an Singh and his Lok Dal. The NDF had a glorious start in August 1983 but disintegrated by the 1984 general elections, in which the BJP won only two parliamentary seats. They engaged in a self-appraisal and proved shortly that the BJP was, after all, a "child of RSS and heir to Hindu Mahasabha."68 Living true to their heritage of preoccupation with somaticity and strength, the party admitted into its fold at least 6 former lieutenant generals, 11 major generals, 12 brigadiers, 14 colonels, 2 air chief marshals, 3 air vice marshals, 2 air commodores, 6 wing commanders, and scores of other ex-members of the defense services. These military men were engaged in a so-called defense cell that would finalize the party's approach on issues like defense and security.69 Thus the history of the Hindutva forces has been deceitful, duplicitous, and destructive. Although they have adopted different nomenclatures at different times and different methods on different occasions, their purpose Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 127 has always been establishing Hindu Rashtra. Evidently, the innocence, somaticity, and strength division of labor of these Hindutva forces are by no means rigidly established, and there has been a lot of intermingling and interdependence. The Hindutva culture has been very tolerant and even supportive of ad hoc associations and groups. The borders between the RSS, the VHP, the BJP, its youth wing (called Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha), the ABVP, the BKS, the BMS, and other Hindutva outfits have also been very blurred. As an RSS leader put it: "they feel themselves as part of a wider family sharing common national goals and aspirations, and bound by fraternal ties."70 With the conscious and unconscious help of disparate political entities and the dispassionate civil society in India, the Sangh Parivar, fantasizing about their Hindu Rashtra with a deviant and outdated casteist ideology of Hindutva, cooked up a monumental issue to concretize their dreamy project. By December 1992, the Hindutva ele• ments managed to create an image both at home and abroad that Indian politics had been, after all, Hinduized, and the "homogenous Hindudom" militarized.

THE BABRI MASJID-RAMJANMABHUMI CONTROVERSY I have chronicled elsewhere a detailed chronology of the Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhumi controversy up until the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992.71 A cursory look at the postdemolition phase of the Ayodhya movement would show the cunningness of the Hindutva forces equally clearly. One of the immediate responses of Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao's government to the demolition was the setting up of the Liberhan Commission on December 16, 1992, to probe the sequence of events leading to the demolition. He also imposed a nonserious ban for two years on the communal organizations: the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Jamaat-i-Islami, and Islamic Sevak Sangh (ISS). Besides the UP govern• ment, they dismissed the BJP-run state governments of MP, Rajasthan, and HP on December 16,1992, but kept the Congress governments in Maha• rashtra and Gujarat despite the fact that communal violence ravaged more homes and humans in these two states. A presidential reference was made on January 7, 1993, to the Supreme Court under article 143(A) of the Indian constitution asking the court if a Hindu temple or any Hindu religious structure had existed at the same site prior to the construction of the Babri Masjid. Also on January 7, Rao's government passed the Ayodhya Ordinance of 1993, preserving the status quo as on January 6,1993, rather than on December 5,1992, the day before the demolition. The arbitrary date of January 7,1993, helped the inept Rao government to hide conveniently all its commissions and omissions in the mosque demolition. 128 "Presenting" the Past

The government's further failure to appeal against the Allahabad High Court's decision of permitting the devotees darshan of Ram at the make• shift temple helped perpetuate the false legality accorded to the mosque demolition. Converting the above ordinance into the Acquisition of Cer• tain Areas at Ayodhya Act, the undeserving and incompetent custodian of the disputed land rendered all the past illegalities as legal. More impor• tantly, the Ayodhya Act allowed the New Delhi government to hand over any part of the land it had acquired to a trust "set up on or after the com• mencement of this Ordinance." This could help the Rao government keep the VHP out of the temple-construction project, but the rulings of the P. K. Bahri tribunal that quashed the ban on the RSS in June 1993 and the K. Ramamoorthy tribunal that annulled the ban on the VHP in June 1995 brought the Hindutva forces back into the game. On February 3,1993, BJP leader A. B. Vajpayee decried any court intervention in the matter, because the Ram temple was a matter of faith. About eight months after the demolition, at the Independence Day (August 15) rally in 1993, Prime Minister Rao promised the nation that "whatever has been demolished, we will build it, rebuild it."72 However, Rao changed his stand within a year. Addressing a massive rally orga• nized by the Congress (I) party at the Red Fort grounds on July 14,1994, he declared that he would not entrust the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya to any VHP-controlled trust. There was no mention about the reconstruction of the mosque. While some lauded Rao's effective stealing of Hindutva's political thunder, others wondered why he should rake up the controversy unnecessarily at that point. The Indian Express commented editorially that Rao's assertion about the temple construction and studied silence on the reconstruction of the mosque signaled a retreat from his ear• lier assurances to the Muslim community.73 BJP leader L. K. Advani was quick to retort that the issue was not who would construct the temple but whether it would be constructed at the site where the Babri Masjid stood, and the present makeshift temple was constructed on December 6,1992. When the Rao government attempted to float an apolitical trust, the Ayodhya Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Pratishthan, under the aegis of the four powerful sankaracharyas of Sringeri, Dwarka, Puri, and Kanchi, the VHP was forced to review its temple policy, and the group decided to lend its support to the new trust. VHP chief Ashok Singhal, who had declared that the Ayodhya site would be forcibly occupied if it were not handed over to the VHP's own Ramjanmabhumi Nyas, said in July 1994 that the occupa• tion would take place only if the government constructed the temple at a place other than the present makeshift temple. Instead of falling into the government trap by taking on the sankaracharyas, the VHP demanded that the temple be built at the makeshift temple site and that no Islamic structure come up near the proposed temple. Although these two condi• tions would definitely prevent the new trust from making any progress Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 129 toward temple construction, the VHP made an additional attempt to seize the Ayodhya movement. Acharya , a top leader of the group, decided to undertake a 21-day fast on August 3, 1994, to emphasize the "sacrosanct nature" of the site of Ram's birthplace for temple construc• tion. As the central government was preparing to hand over much of the 67 acres of land to the Pratishthan to build a temple that would be twice as large as the one planned by the VHP, the Supreme Court upheld the acquisition of the disputed 67 acres of land in Ayodhya on October 24, 1994. However, the court struck down section 4(3) of the act, which abated any pending "suit, appeal, or other proceeding,"74 and thus revived the case pending before the special bench of the Allahabad High Court. The Ayodhya campaign did help the BJP to consolidate its political base to an extent, but it also provided a strong inducement for the secular oppo• sition parties to join hands in the common struggle to halt the advancement of the Hindutva forces. As a result, in the 1993 UP state-legislature elections the BJP suffered a decisive rebuff, and the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance came to power and lasted only until June 1995. In a characteristic cunning move, the BJP opted to play a subor• dinate role in the BSP-controlled successor government. The BJP's Kalyan Singh, who was at the helm of affairs during the mosque demolition in December 1992, took over as the chief minister of UP again on September 21, 1997. Shortly after assuming office, he paid a well-publicized visit to Ayodhya, to the annoyance of his coalition partner, the BSP. A Muslim min• ister in his cabinet described Singh's supplication before the idols installed at the site of a demolished mosque as a grave provocation and vowed to retort with a conspicuous act of faith at the same venue. Having briefly receded from public attention, the Ayodhya issue came to the foreground once again. Using the idiom of the early 1990s, Advani claimed that Indian cultural nationalism was assimilative and Ram was a symbol of India's culture and civilization. On July 3,1997, he announced at Ayodhya that the BJP would not be content till a temple was built there. Seeking to build more prisons in people's minds, Advani claimed on September 20, 1997, that Sri Ram Lalla was actually in prison and the sooner he was released the better. As Advani was comparing the legal proceedings with debilitating prisons that curtailed free movement, the RSS supremo, Rajendra Singh, went one step further and declared on November 25 that "Ayodhya-type solutions were necessary for the Kashi and Mathura shrines" and warned that "Muslims should once and for all give up claims to the Kashi and Mathura shrines."75 On September 9,1997, the special judge in the Ayodhya case, Lucknow, framed charges against 49 accused, and 33 of them filed a revision petition in Allahabad High Court. The unrepentant Advani, however, claimed that it would only help their cause. When asked about the Ram temple at Ayodhya, Kalyan Singh said, "That is not on the agenda of the State Government. I have made it 130 "Presenting" the Past clear that the construction can be completed only when the BJP comes to power at the Centre."76 With the installation of BJP governments both in UP (September 1997) and in New Delhi (March 1998), the temple movement did get a boost in early 1998, and the VHP accelerated carving stone pillars and other stone- cutting work. When the Week magazine reported in June 1998 that the VHP was planning to install a prefabricated Ram temple in Ayodhya, the opposition parties wanted an unambiguous commitment from the BJP- led government to check such attempts, but that was not forthcoming. The home minister L. K. Advani assured Parliament that the October 24, 1994, Supreme Court order to maintain the status quo at the disputed site would be strictly implemented and that the pillar work did not break any law. Although Prime Minister Vajpayee promised to uphold the rule of law, RSS chief Rajendra Singh proclaimed bluntly that the temple would be built at the very place where what he called the disputed structure was demolished. The VHP leader, Ashok Singhal, however, embarked on a more intimidatory rhetoric, saying, "The Constitution does not have any provision to punish the judiciary but religious leaders have." Any delay in the construction of the temple could break the patience of the sadhus, who "can then take any decision."77 The crux of the matter is that the BJP had always advocated negotiated settlement or suitable legislation in Parliament to resolve the temple issue and consistently resisted the judicial approach. The party's 1989 Palampur national-executive resolution itself had stated that "the nature of this con• troversy is such that it just cannot be sorted out by a court of law." Mindful of the fact that the party had neither the capability to bring the parties to a negotiated settlement nor the necessary parliamentary strength to push through any legislation, the BJP had to feign a newfound faith in the judi• cial process. However, the BJP's vice president, Kishen Lai Sharma, stated on June 16,1998, that if the court verdict went against the temple construc• tion on the disputed site, the party would bring about a constitutional amendment to facilitate the temple construction. In July 1999, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court directed the special judge not to conduct the proceedings in the Babri Masjid demolition case, since four criminal revision petitions filed by 33 accused were pending before the High Court. In January 2000, UP Chief Minister , a BJP man, stated that his party had placed the Ram temple issue on hold to remain in tune with its partners in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. Later he claimed that the media had twisted his remarks and said that his government had nothing to do with the temple construction. Even as unruly statements were made and recanted by the Hindutva stalwarts, stonecutting and pillar work had been going on in full swing. In the meantime, there seemed to be a welcome change in RSS think• ing about the temple issue. In his August 2000 reply to a Muslim leader's Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 131 letter, RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan said, "There is no denying the fact that in a democratic society we all have to accept the judicial verdict. But at the same time, for the present and future amicable relations between the two communities, it is most desirable to arrive at a mutual settlement on the basis of any of the options offered by me in the earlier statement."78 Con• tradicting this spirit of supremacy of judicial verdict, the VHP declared that the Ram-temple construction would commence after March 2001. Later, the Margdarshak Mandal, the highest decision-making body of the VHP, met on October 18-19, 2000, at and adopted a resolution that the date to start the Ram-temple construction would be announced by the Dharma Sansad (religious leaders congregation) at the Maha Kumbh to be held at Allahabad in January 2001. The VHP also decided to send its activists to three lakh villages in the country to establish Ram Sankeertan Mandals and collect letters in favor of temple construction. Even as the special judge hearing the Babri Masjid demolition cases fixed December 15, 2000, for further proceedings, the BJP compared the "people's movement" led by L.K. Advani for building a Ram temple that caused the demolition of the Babri Masjid and widespread death and destruction to the "freedom movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders like Lokmanya Tilak and Subhas Chandra Bose." Two BJP members of Parliament (MPs), Swami Chinmayanand and Swami Aditya Nath, commented in early December 2000 that the "only relevant issue about Ayodhya that remains to be discussed is whether a temple should be built at the disputed site or a mosque" and went on to claim that "there was always a temple there, there is a temple there, and only a temple can come up there." They argued "it was the responsibility of Parliament to enact the law to allow building of the Ram temple."79 Prime Minister Vajpayee himself said in an informal chat with reporters on December 7, 2000, that there were two ways of resolving the Ayod• hya issue: everyone accepting the possible court verdict, or Hindus and Muslims arriving at a common decision. Articulating his party's age-old formula, he added, "The mandir can be built where it already exists, the masjid can be built on an alternative site."80 On December 15, 2000, the Allahabad High Court dismissed a writ petition filed in 1993 seeking direc• tion to the central government and the UP government to permit Hindus to perform worship and other religious rites at the disputed site. The court rejected the petition, as the matter was sub judice before the Lucknow bench of the court. As proof for the BJP-led government's undermining and communalizing every section of the Indian society as well as the state, the director of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) claimed that the Babri Masjid had no religious significance and hence Muslims should hand over the disputed site as a goodwill gesture to Hindus. If that was not acceptable, the mosque could be relocated. However, "since the location of Rama's birthplace cannot be changed, the temple cannot be moved."81 132 "Presenting" the Past

The VHP planned to take a model of the temple in procession from a workshop in Jaipur to Ayodhya. A decision on the temple issue was going to be taken during the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad on January 19- 21, 2001. On the eve of this meeting, the VHP said it would convince or even "coerce"82 the Vajpayee government to give away the disputed land acquired by the Center in Ayodhya for construction of the Ram temple. If the government did not hand over the land to dharmachayaras by Shivratri next year, Ramchandradas Paramahans said, "We will be forced to take over the Janambhoomi complex and start construction of the temple any day any moment." He added further, "Law is not bigger than faith. If sup• porters of the Ram temple movement unite, the law will have to take the back seat."83 Toning down the provocative rhetoric and giving up the original plan of issuing an ultimatum to the Vajpayee government, the VHP-led Dharma Sansad adopted a resolution asking "all relevant organizations" to "remove all hurdles in the way of the construction of a Sri Ram temple at the Ramjanmabhoomi by March 12, 2002, the day of Mahashivatri."84 The VHP also worked out a program of chanting Ram's name in villages starting on November 26; offering jalabhishek in temples from September 18 to October 16, 2001; and organizing a sant yatra (procession of sadhus) from Ayodhya to Delhi between February 18 and 25, 2002, to serve notice on Parliament and the government to remove hurdles to the temple con• struction. The Puri sankaracharya indicated that he would call a meeting of the most respected dharmacharyas, vallabhacharyas, nimkacharyas, ramana- dacharyas, madhavacharyas, and others on January 22, 2002, at the Kumbh Mela grounds in Allahabad to discuss the issue. Despite all this heat and dust, Prime Minister Vajpayee did not respond to media queries on the Dharma Sansad setting a deadline. The VHP's chetawani yatra (warning rally), which started from Ayodhya on January 20, 2002, culminated in New Delhi on January 26. The sants held a rally at the Ramlila grounds on January 27, where they announced that the temple-construction program would begin as announced earlier. On February 24, 2002, the 100-day purnahuti yagna began as a prelude to the temple construction. However, on February 27, the focus of the coun• try shifted to Godhra, a small town in Gujarat, where some 58 people, most of whom were karsevaks who were on their way back from Ayodhya, were burned to death in the S6 and S8 coaches of the Sabarmati Express train. Communal tensions grew rapidly all across Gujarat and led to a bloody carnage in this state, ruled by BJP hardliner . On March 8, the Vajpayee government received a letter from Ramjan• mabhumi Nyas, a VHP outfit, seeking permission to perform a symbolic puja on March 15 on the acquired undisputed land as part of the 100-day yagna. On March 13, the Supreme Court heard a public-interest petition seeking a ban on the proposed puja. Although the government told the Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 133 court that a limited-scale puja could be allowed without violating the 1994 Supreme Court judgment, the court forbade "religious activity of any kind by anyone either symbolic or actual including bhumi puja or shila puja" and also forbade the government of India from handing over any "part" of the acquired land to "anyone." Nor shall "any part of this land be per• mitted to be occupied or used for any religious purpose or in connection therewith."85 The case was adjourned for 10 weeks and would be placed before a larger bench. On March 15, the prime minister sent an official in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to receive the shila after a puja as a step toward the building of the temple. According to the Statesman, the PMO official handed over the pillars to the additional district magistrate (ADM) "with the instruc• tion that they be the first stone slabs for construction of a temple when• ever it is and put on plinth."86 The VHP hailed this as an indication of the government's acceptance in principle of the demand for a Ram temple. On March 16, Prime Minister Vajpayee claimed the accepted shila would be used only if the Supreme Court verdict in the title suit went in favor of the Hindus. While claiming that "the court is the final authority," he also called for a negotiated settlement as the issue should not be allowed to "become a festering wound."87 On the same day, a 500-strong mob of VHP, Bajrang Dal, and Durga Vahini activists stormed the Orissa state assembly building to demand the disputed land in Ayodhya and worsened the com• munal tensions in the country. The future program of the temple move• ment was discussed at the two-day meeting of the VHP's margdarshan mandal at Hardwar beginning on June 22, 2002. Claiming that the 100-day yagna was a success, the VHP decided to launch a Ram naam japa yagna in every village. In February 2003, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) decided to oppose the government's plea before the Supreme Court for vacation of stay on religious and other activities on the 67 acres of land the central government had acquired. In March 2003, per the directives of the Allahabad High Court to seek evidence whether or not a temple had existed in the area where the Babri Masjid stood, the Archaeological Sur• vey of India (ASI) began excavations at the disputed site. The VHP refused to commit to giving up the claim on the disputed site if the excavations failed to establish the existence of a temple or religious structure at the place. Instead, the VHP's international general secretary, Pravin Togadia, wanted the Muslims to hand over to the Hindus "at least three of the 30,000 shrines—Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura" the Muslims had taken over, and if that was not done voluntarily, the "VHP does not know what will happen." On earlier occasions, Togadia had threatened a "civil war."88 Organizing a trishul diksha (trident distribution) program around UP, the VHP made it clear that the evidence gathered during the excavation in Ayodhya would not affect the temple construction. As it was 134 "Presenting" the Past becoming clear that there would not be much evidence of a preexisting temple in Ayodhya, the VHP challenged Muslims to give up their claims over the Kashi and Mathura sites, as the Hindus had enough evidence of preexisting temples. By mid-April 2003, it was indeed clear that the month-long excavation at the disputed site in Ayodhya had not revealed any temple remains, though the ASI had dug to early historic levels. On the contrary, the find• ing of glazed ware in substantial quantity in the upper and middle layers of all three trenches dug thus far indicated the existence of Muslim habi• tation before the mosque construction, according to a report prepared by the Aligharh Historians Society and the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) in Delhi. In June 2003, even as Prime Minister Vajpayee made a ludicrous plea that politics be kept out of the Ram-temple issue, the Kanchi sankaracharya claimed that 90 percent of Muslims were in favor of a temple on the dis• puted site. But the AIMPLB and other Muslim organizations termed both these statements an attempt to run away from a judicial verdict. In the meantime, the Supreme Court rejected a petition challenging the March 5 order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court directing the ASI to excavate the disputed site. The petitioner submitted that the exca• vation order would set a bad precedent that anybody could demand an excavation of any religious site on the pretext that another religious struc• ture preexisted the present one. In the second campaign within a year to boost their temple-construction plans, the VHP began a ritual to enlist the support of 50 million people. Some 200 bags with Ramraksha Sankalp Sutra (sanctified thread), a map of the proposed temple, and soil from the disputed site were consecrated at a yagna near Ayodhya and would be distributed all over the country between July and October 2003. Those who received the thread would take a pledge to keep it on their wrists till the Ram temple was constructed. In June 2003, the Sunni Central Waqf Board, a plaintiff in the Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhumi title suit, and a few other Muslim parties accused the ASI of fabricating archaeological evidence and selectively collecting the artifacts being found at the site. According to them, the ASI team collected molded bricks, sculpted stone fragments, and terra-cotta figurines, but threw away glazed pottery, glazed tiles, and animal bones. With a lack of archaeological evidence to support the preexisting- temple theory staring at its face, the VHP claimed that it would not come in the way of the temple campaign. As reported in the Hindu, a VHP sec• retary claimed that "our faith is that it was the place of Rama's birth."89 So the VHP started advocating legislation by Parliament as the only way to resolve the issue. The top VHP leadership castigated the BJP and its government for betraying the Ramjanmabhumi movement that had cata• pulted them into power. The VHP said they were not reclaiming all 30,000 Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 135 temples allegedly destroyed under the Mughal rule or the 3,000 temples on which mosques were built, but wanted only the three shrines in Ayod• hya, Kashi, and Mathura. The RSS stated publicly on June 17, 2003, that they backed the VHP stand of not giving up claims on Kashi and Mathura and opposing the opening up of 1,000 mosques protected by the ASI for Muslims to offer namaaz. In a fresh bid to resolve the Ayodhya tangle, Kanchi sankaracharya Sri Jayendra Saraswati sent new proposals to the AIMPLB through a letter dated June 16, 2003. The board chairman, Maulana Rabey Hasni Nadwi, said that the two-page formula was positive in nature to an extent and he would place it before the 51-member working committee of the board on July 6, 2003. The proposal had five points, including the AIMPLB giving a no-objection statement for the construction of a temple on the undis• puted land and a discussion on an amicable settlement over the disputed area that could be given to the court for a final verdict. When the board sought some clarifications, the sankaracharya sent another letter dated July 1, 2003. Fearing that the VHP would be sidelined in the temple issue, the RSS insisted that the VHP would have to be taken on board and that legislation was the only way out. At the end of the two-day (July 5-6, 2003) national- executive meeting, the RSS said that the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya was a matter of national self-respect and honor and that the three temples at Ayodhya, Mathura, and Kashi should be restored on the lines of the Somnath temple. Even as the RSS called the Muslim leaders to respect Hindu sentiments, hardliners in the BMAC warned the AIMPLB not to bargain over the original site of the mosque. The AIMPLB rejected the Kanchi sankaracharya''s proposal, saying that the site of the Babri Mas• jid was the property of Allah and could not be alienated by sale, gift, or otherwise. The core of the proposal was an appeal to Indian Muslims to "donate the Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya" combined with veiled threats to "prepare themselves for giving up the mosques at Kashi and Mathura."90 In the meantime, the ASI said in its fresh progress report submitted to the special bench of the Allahabad High Court that it had found "struc• tural anomalies" in 46 of the 84 trenches dug near the disputed site at a considerable depth. The Hindutva forces, however, were bent on bringing in parliamentary legislation. In a meeting at the prime minister's residence on July 12, 2003, the BJP leadership conveyed to RSS chief K.S. Sudar• shan its inability to bring in any legislation because both its allies and the opposition parties would be opposed to that. With elections round the cor• ner, the party did not want to do anything that would unravel the NDA. Moreover, both the National Agenda of Governance (NAG) adopted by the coalition government in 1998 and the common NDA manifesto of 1999 were silent on the Ram-temple issue. Although the BJP had rejected judi• cial verdict as a possible solution in its 1989 Palampur resolution, the party 136 "Presenting" the Past later admitted a broad consensus within the ruling NDA that it would be an acceptable solution. The party wanted to explore the possibilities of adopting legislation in Parliament and sought the support of its allies and the Congress party. But they all summarily rejected the cunning move. On August 1, 2003, both Prime Minister Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Advani pledged at the funeral of Ramchandradas Paramhans, the chairman of the VHP outfit Ramjanmabhumi Nyas, that a Ram temple would be built at Ram Janmasthan (birthplace). Vajpayee asserted further that he would strive toward the cause the mahant lived for. The opposition parties criticized the prime minister's declaration on a sensitive issue that was sub judice and accused him of reneging on his commitment to Par• liament that the solution to the dispute would be determined by a court verdict or through a negotiated settlement. However, Vajpayee disowned that statement later and said there was no change in the government's Ayodhya policy of solving it through talks or courts. On September 19,2003, the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court hearing the Babri Masjid demolition case discharged Advani but found grounds to proceed against seven other accused, including VHP leader Ashok Singhal, Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, , and so on. On October 17, the VHP orga• nized the Sankalp Sammelan (Mass Awareness Campaign) to press for the construction of Ram temple. Even as the UP government of cracked down on the VHP activists, Prime Minister Vajpayee exhorted that the VHP be trusted in its claim that it would hold the meet• ing peacefully. VHP leader Praveen Togadia warned openly that the coun• try would be engulfed in communal riots if the Rambhakts were stopped from having a darshan of the deity in Ayodhya. A fresh effort was made to resolve the Ayodhya issue, and part of that was an appeal made by the Dalai Lama. Behind the scenes, a Jama Masjid Trust was set up at Ayodhya, and a large piece of land, away from the central-government-acquired land in and around the disputed site, had been identified for the trust to build a mosque. However, the AIMPLB insisted that it was the only authorized body to deal with the Ayodhya issue on behalf of the Muslim community. Even in the run-up to the 2004 general elections, Advani always spoke about the BJP's development agenda with an Ayodhya footnote. And the footnote changed depending upon the audience. While he bellowed in Mathura that the Ram temple would be built in Ayodhya and India would have Ramarajya, he was quite mellow in Aligarh, a mostly Muslim town, saying that the Ram temple would be built through negotiations and without any bitterness. The two-day governing council meeting of the VHP that began on June 30,2004, at Kolkata announced that the organization would begin the con• struction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya within a year. The BJP discussed the issue at some length at its national-executive committee meeting in Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 137

Raipur from July 18 to 20. After more than 11 years of its constitution, the Liberhan Commission completed all oral arguments and evidence on June 30, 2004. Although set up in December 1992, the commission started its effective sittings from January 1993 and was in abeyance for about two years because of certain interim orders passed by the Delhi High Court. The commission started regular hearing from 1995, first in Lucknow and later in Delhi. Of the three possible routes to an amicable solution to the Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhumi issue, namely talks, courts, and legislation, the Hindutva forces have always been unreasonable in talks, averse to courts, and unable to pass legislation, but quite adroit in using violence—in words, actions, thoughts, and emotions. Given the enormous intricacies and complexities involved in the conflict, the talks have all along proved to be tough and are not poised for any sudden breakthrough now. The court verdict could take a lot more time, and the lack of any concrete evidence from the excavations is not going to be particularly helpful for the Hindutva side. Similarly, the legislation option is sealed, with the BJP decimated and a hopelessly weak opposition party with no ally of any significant strength in Parliament. This leaves only the violence option wide open for the Hindutva forces. As the Bajrang Dal commemorated the mosque-demolition day (December 6) as Shourya Diwas (Gallantry Day) in 2000, we can expect a lot more "gal• lantry" in the future.

THE DEMOLITION POLITICS Despite the Sangh Parivar's notoriety and impropriety, it is only fair not to put the entire blame for communalism squarely on their shoul• ders. Without any awareness of the wider ramifications of their conduct, much of the Muslim community has all along rejected their Hindu past, hounded dissidents, refused women their rightful place, dwelled on nar• row interpretations of the Islamic faith, and failed to condemn atrocities on minorities in Islamic countries.91 In the political arena, however, as Sudhir Chandra argues, "if communalisation of politics is taken as a critical vari• able, very little would seem to divide most Indian political parties from the BJP." Even the United Left Front in West Bengal is concerned about the communalization of its rank and file, and possibly the intermediate leadership. With a high fluidity marking political alignments, one cannot worry only about the position of the BJP in the Indian political system.92 The moral bankruptcy of the Congress party is particularly a case in point. At the first meeting of the National Integration Council, the then vice president, Zakir Hussain, raised an issue in the presence of the prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Wondering why the veteran Congress leader, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was fielded as a candidate from a constitu• ency with substantial Muslim population, he asserted that it would have 138 "Presenting" the Past served the cause of secularism better if the maulana were put up from a Hindu-majority constituency even at the risk of getting defeated. Con• gress communalism touched the deepest low in the early and middle 1980s, when Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi played the "Hindu card" and manipulated the state apparatus to their party's advantage. With an unpronounced Hindu communal plank, Indira Gandhi trounced the BJP in Delhi and the Jammu region in the 1983 state elections. Soon fol• lowed Operation Blue Star at the Sikh Golden Temple in June 1984, which stirred up a vague communal fervor among the majority of Indians. Indira Gandhi's assassination by her Sikh bodyguards in October 1984 and the ensuing Congress-sponsored against the Sikhs delineated a clear anti-Sikh atmosphere. As a result of all these, Rajiv Gandhi obtained a massive mandate in the December 1984 elections. The telecast of the pseudonationalist TV serial Ramayan in 1987-88 during Rajiv's rule, his opening of the locks at the Babri Masjid to counterbalance the Muslim personal-law issue, and other such moves worsened the situation further. Even in the wake of the Sangh Parivar's agitations in Ayodhya, the Con• gress government in Delhi did not counteract decisively. With the erosion of secular values in the overall political scene in India, the ever-growing fear and anxiety of the Brahminical orthodoxy, and the increasing realization that the opportune moment had come to capture power at the Center, the Sangh Parivar started in the early 1980s their Hin• dutva offensive. The movement to liberate the three janmabhumis (in Ayod• hya, Mathura, and Varanasi) was initiated through two Dharma Sansads (religious meetings) held in 1984 and 1985 by the VHP. The BJP's national executive met on June 9, 1989, at Palampur (HP) and took a categorical position on the Babri Masjid issue. They complained that the other par• ties, the Congress in particular, showed "callous unconcern" toward "the sentiments of the overwhelming majority in this country—the Hindus." The executive demanded that the Ram Janmasthan be "handed over to the Hindus—if possible through a negotiated settlement, or else by legisla• tion. Litigation certainly is no answer."93 The Babri Masjid issue had not figured even once in any of the speeches of the first president of the BJP, A. B. Vajpayee, nor had it appeared in any of the party resolutions passed during the first decade of the party. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary, however, L.K. Advani, who had been the president since 1986, claimed in an interview that the "distinct features of the BJP's personality"94 included their stand on Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir; their demands that the Minority Commission be replaced by a Human Rights Commission; that the directive principle of state policy in respect of uniform civil code be implemented; and that a Ram temple be constructed in Ayodhya at the site believed to be Ram's birthplace. When the Ayodhya confrontation was intensified in the late 1980s, the Sangh Parivar worked with great consolidation and complementarity. As Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 139 the political wing, the BJP kept the dialogue open with the government for negotiations, retreating whenever necessary. The cultural wing, the RSS, kept directing the campaign with unmitigated communal fervor. The reli• gious wing, the VHP, Bajrang Dal, and the sadhus (religious figures), were ever ready for action. Together they utilized every medium of expression to their advantage: "the court as a delaying tactics; the media through demonstrative actions that hit the headlines; and of course the political platform for negotiations bypassing all political parties including the Con• gress and even Parliament All the time the fire was kept burning with the fuel of religious symbols and myths."95 As the Congress government of P. V. Narasimha Rao, a Brahmin from southern India, found the Ram• janmabhumi campaign a convenient cover to hide its liberalization policy debacles, the upper-caste-controlled media played up the anti-Mandal agitations and tacitly supported the Hindutva politics by downplaying the communal riots. The inefficiency of other government agencies, such as the ASI, could be seen in the fact that there was no discussion anywhere if the karsevaks and others found any evidence or remains of the "old Ram temple" when they demolished the mosque. And no one ever asked how the Sangh Parivar and the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee (AIBMAC) could be the custodians of the eleventh-century temple and sixteenth-century mosque and could negotiate on behalf of all Hindus and Muslims in India. The Babri Masjid was razed to the ground by the karsevaks in full view of the top brass of the BJP-VHP-RSS. Operation Demolition commenced at 11:50 A.M. on December 6,1992, and lasted nearly six hours. The lead• ers addressed the crowd in a massive public meeting that was under way some 300 yards away from the mosque. The Supreme Court observer, Tej Shankar, "could not be traced in the vicinity of the complex."96 The district magistrate of Faizabad, R. N. Shrivastava, evaded questions from journal• ists and later turned the Rapid Action Force of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) back by saying that the chief minister of the state, Kalyan Singh of the BJP, had rejected the idea of deploying Central forces. Having made a token attempt to stop the karsevaks, the CRPF withdrew from their positions. The Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and the local police watched silently as milling crowds barged into the complex chanting, "Jai Shri Ram." According to one report, "the euphoric crowd dashed into the structure from all sides with shovels, axes and whatever they could man• age As the first batch of volunteers who had climbed on to the domes struck them with shovels the whole atmosphere got electrified with slo• gans of establishment of a Hindu rashtra."97 The semantic field in which the mosque demolition can be deciphered is quite broad, and the interpretations range from innocent mob theory to conspiratorial communal ignominy. For obvious reasons, the major• ity-minority theory has gained wide currency. Hindutva forces argue that the minorities are given too much leverage in the society and enjoy too 140 "Presenting" the Past many advantages without enough reciprocity. This reciprocity, from the Hindu communalists' view, would include Muslims not organizing them• selves rigorously along religious lines, not converting Hindus to Islam, and being "Indians" before being Muslims. The Hindutva groups seek to level even the marginal advantages of the minority communities, and the minority status itself is being denied. A Hindutva-type commentator argues, "Hinduism being not a monolithic, but a collection of perpetu• ally feuding entities, every Hindu is a member of a minority." According to him, "all that the Government has to do is to extend the non-Hindu minority privileges to the Hindus also."98 But the fact remains that the Hindutva forces, a minority among the Hindus, uphold "a particular view of nebulous Hinduism" that will enslave "not only the citizens believing in other religions, but also the Hindus who will aspire for knowledge, for freedom, and for decent living."99 While some analysts think that it was just mob hysteria that demolished the mosque, others argue that it was not just lumpen elements running amok, but there were other significant forces operating within. Report• ers covering the Ayodhya incidents in 1990 found among the militants not just pious devotees but also young men who were venting their pent- up anger at authority in general. Arguing that the mosque is a symbol of the constitution, Bharat Jhunjhunwala contends that "the position taken on the mosque or the Constitution is dictated by the economic interests of the various groups." According to him, the cooperative and secular constitution influenced by Gandhian ideals has become "the preserver of the middle classes and the poverty of the Muslim-Christian minorities" in the changed economic scenario. The political groupings, the Congress, the Left, and the BJP, having been inspired by the philosophies such as Gandhism, Marxism, and Hindutva, respectively, operate from differ• ent political bases, such as the middle class and minorities, the industrial working class and the peasantry, and the business community and land• owning farmers. Unlike the first two political constituencies, the economic interests of the third group are not vested in the constitution, because it is an exploiter of them rather than a supporter. The taxation, controls, and corruption of the bureaucracy and high wages of labor are all reflected in the policies of the BJP.100 Putting the economic issue in terms of "security and participation," another commentator sums up: "It is not the question of a mosque or a monument or even of memories of Mughal or Vedic glory. It is the ques• tion of a sense of security and participation in the making of this coun• try's destiny"101 Another explanation given for the Ayodhya crime is that the mainstream political parties in India have lost their interest in politi• cal principles and programs and have come to rely on antisocial forces in political contention. Moreover, there is a distinct lack of an alliance of political forces against communalism and for socioeconomic development based on self-reliance and mass welfare. Another theory argues that the Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 141 controversial mass conversions of Hindus to Islam and jealousy over the foreign-remittance prosperity of Muslims have instigated Hindu fear and communalism. The Indian communists look at the demolition from a larger perspective. Having robbed India of its economic sovereignty with the IMF-dictated economic policies, imperialism waits at the doorsteps, threatening India's national sovereignty. "When the working class was fervently trying to mobilise the people in the struggle against the policies," the Sangh Parivar launched its assault on the unity and integrity of the country. Their tim• ing "has no doubt suited the imperialists and their agents."102 Although the imperialists and their agents may not have a direct hand in the crisis, it is true that the Hindu-Muslim communalisms do not take part in an isolated theater of Ayodhya, or India for that matter. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh also sets the larger stage for this demolition. A Pakistani commentator, Iqbal Jafar, argues rightly that the intolerant approach to religion and politics in Paki• stan weakened the liberal forces all over the subcontinent. He writes, "BJP without its counterparts in the neighbouring countries could not have grown so powerful as it eventually did. Having rejected not only secular• ism but even a just, tolerant and enlightened version of Islam, we should not have expected the Indian secularism to be real and effective."103 The mosque demolition, which proved to be profitable political capital in the neighboring countries, is a good example for this interactive funda• mentalism. The Babri Masjid incident came on the eve of Banazir Bhutto's proposed second march to Islamabad and provided a great opportu• nity for the ruling coalition to divert the public's attention. The Nawaz Sharif government swiftly called for a general strike in Pakistan to protest against the "demolition and desecration."104 Bhutto and fundamentalist groups also competed to grab the center stage. As a result, the million- strong Hindu community, most of whom live in Sindh, paid a heavy price. In Karachi, mobs destroyed almost all the temples and ransacked Hindu localities. The Bangladeshi Muslim fundamentalists went one step ahead of their Pakistani counterparts and vowed to carry forward their riotous movement until the Ayodhya mosque was reconstructed. All these readings had varying degrees of validity, as the karsevaks came from a wide section of the Indian society, and therefore all the larger issues of the society were linked to this destruction and the resultant communal riots. However, it is important to note that the Ramjanmabhumi move• ment included the retelling of a communally charged history, effective translation of mythical lore into modern mobilizing metaphors and ideol• ogy, transforming the resultant frenzy into retaliatory corrective measures, and utilizing all these to emerge powerful, with added strength to the accentuated status quo. Ram and history have come to be potent weapons of the "innocent" Hindutva forces to attain their Hindu Rashtra somatic and establish their strength. 142 "Presenting" the Past

The militaristic adult Ram carrying bow and arrows, as opposed to the nonviolent baby Ram, inspires the present crusade. The young and male karsevaks of today not only worship Ram but also have a particular under• standing of Indian history. Having been brainwashed by the rhetoric of the "heroic heritage" of the past and the "pathetic situation" of the pres• ent, the Hindu youth are made to feel ashamed of their "impotence" and "weakness." They are presented with a clear enemy and a visible symbol to destroy to establish their strength and glory and regain their pride and hegemony. History and Hindutva are an integral whole. The preamble of the constitution of the RSS establishes that the organization was created, among other things, "to make them [Hindus] realise the greatness of their past" and "to bring about an all-round regeneration of the Hindu Samaj." Savarkar himself has clarified: "Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as it is sometimes taken to be by being confused with the other conjugate term Hinduism, but a history in full."105

NOTES 1. Atal Behari Vajpayee, "The BJP's Onward March/' Frontline, 9-22 August 1997. 2. Joseph Alter, "Somatic Nationalism: Indian Wrestling and Militant Hindu• ism/' Modern Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (July 1994), p. 583. 3. Gopal Godse, Gandhiji's Murder and After, trans. S.T. Godbole (Delhi: Surya Prakashan, 1989), p. 522. 4. Godse, Gandhiji's Murder and After, p. 526. 5. V.D. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1984), pp. 78,10. 6. Harriet Hartman, "Can a Hindu Utopia Be a Muslim Utopia? Examples from 12th Century India and Beyond," International Journal of Comparative Sociology 29, nos. 1-2 (January-April 1988), pp. 112-13. 7. Brian K. Smith, "Classifying Animals and Humans in Ancient India," Man 26, no. 3 (September 1991), pp. 528, 538-44. 8. C.J. Fuller mentions these phases in his "Hinduism and Hierarchy," Man 26, no. 3 (September 1991), p. 550. 9. Pamela G. Price, "Ideology and Ethnicity under British Imperial Rule: 'Brahmans', Lawyers, and Kin-Caste Rules in Madras Presidency," Modern Asian Studies 23, no. 1 (1989), p. 163. 10. V.P. Singh, India Today, 31 October 1992. 11. J. Radha Krishna, Brahmans of India (Allahabad, India: Chugh Publications, 1987), p. 195. 12. K.S. Ramaswami Sastri, The Future of the Brahmin (Madras, India: Central Co-operative Printing Works, 1935), pp. 3,10, 2. 13. Frits Staal, "Indian Bodies," in Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, ed. Thomas P. Kasulis et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 70-71, 90. Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 143

14. Sastri, The Future of the Brahmin, p. 4. 15. Pradip Kumar Datta, "'Dying Hindus': Production of Hindu Communal Common Sense in Early 20th Century Bengal," Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 25 (19 June 1993), pp. 1315,1310. 16. See "The Esoteric of Strength: Sex-Sublimation," in Anthony Elenjimittam, Philosophy and Action of the R.S.S.for the Hind Swaraj (Bombay: Laxmi Publications, 1951), p. 92. 17. See T.C.A. Raghavan, "Origins and Development of Hindu Mahasabha Ideology: The Call of V D Savarkar and Bhai Parmanand," Economic and Political Weekly 18, no. 15 (9 April 1983), pp. 595-600. 18. "Glimpses of a Great Life," Organiser, 2 April 1962, p. 10. 19. Presidential address delivered by V. D. Savarkar at the Hindu Mahasabha's 21st session, held at Calcutta in 1939. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan, p. 114. 20. Ibid. 21. See M. S. Golwalkar, Justice on Trial: A Collection of the Historic Letters between Sri Guruji and the Government (1948-49) (Bangalore: Prakashan Vibhag, 1969), p. 71. 22. When Will Atrocities on Harijans Stop? A.B. Vajpayee's Speech in Rajya Sabha on August 4,1988 (New Delhi: BJP, n.d.), pp. 5,9. 23. J.A. Curran Jr., Militant Hinduism in Indian Politics: A Study of the R.S.S., mimeograph (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1951), p. 81. 24. Dina Nath Mishra, RSS: Myth and Reality (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), p. 137. 25. Sumanta Banerjee, "'Hindutva'-Ideology and Social Psychology," Economic and Political Weekly 26, no. 3 (19 January 1991), p. 97. 26. "Objectionable in the Extreme" (editorial), Organiser, 15 April 1963, p. 3. 27. Debajyoti Burman, "Hindu Rashtra," Organiser, 15 November 1963, p. 31. 28. Golwalkar, Justice on Trial, pp. 72-73. 29. M.S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (Bangalore: Vikrama Prakashan, 1966), pp. 152-53. 30. Ibid., p. 93. 31. Ibid., p. 92. 32. Ibid., p. 397. 33. "'Angry Hindu!'—Yes; Why Not?" Organiser, 14 February 1988, p. 9. 34. William Stephens Taylor, "Basic Personality in Orthodox Hindu Culture Patterns," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 43, no. 1 (January 1948), p. 9. 35. P. Spratt, Hindu Culture and Personality: A Psycho-Analytic Study (Bombay: Manaktalas, 1966), pp. 352-55. 36. Ashis Nandy et al., Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. xi. 37. B.RR. Vithal, "Roots of Hindu Fundamentalism," Economic and Political Weekly 28, nos. 8-9 (20-27 February 1993), p. 337. 38. M. J. Akbar, India: The Siege Within, Challenges to a Nation's Unity (Harmonds- worth, England: Penguin Books, 1985), pp. 26-31. 39. See Prem Singh, "VHP: Origin and Metamorphosis," Link, 3 January 1993, pp. 10-12. 40. Shivram S. Apte, secretary of the VHP, explained this in his article "Why Vishva Hindu Parishad," Organiser, 2 November 1964, pp. 15-16. 41. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan, p. 87. 144 "Presenting" the Past

42. Savarkar's presidential address at the 21st Hindu Mahasabha session at Calcutta in 1939. Ibid., pp. 87,89. 43. Indra Prakash, Hindu Mahasabha: Its Contribution to India's Politics (New Delhi: Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, 1966), pp. v-vi. 44. Ibid., pp. 23, 30-33. 45. Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Bharatiya Jana Sangh: Ninth Annual Session Lucknow December 30 and 31, 1960 and January 1, 1961, Annual Report (n.p.: n.p., n.d.), pp. 1-3. 46. B.D. Graham, Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Devel• opment of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 253. 47. Election Manifesto of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (New Delhi: Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, 1966), pp. 20-21, 2. 48. Upadhyaya, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, pp. 4-5. 49. Election Manifesto, p. .15. 50. Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Election Manifesto 1967 (Delhi: n.p., n.d.), pp. 7,9. 51. Election Manifesto, pp. 5, 9. 52. Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Election Manifesto 1967, pp. 3^. 53. Election Manifesto, pp. 16-17. 54. "The Moving Finger Writes," Organiser, 26 May 1968, p. 8. 55. V.D. Savarkar, Historic Statements (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1967), pp. 1-2. 56. Manohar Malgonkar, The Men Who Killed Gandhi (Delhi: Macmillan, 1978), p. 35. 57. H.V. Seshadri, RSS: A Vision in Action (Bangalore: Jagarana Prakashana, 1988), pp. 4-6. 58. This is part of the after-independence RSS pledge. See K. R. Malkani, The RSS Story (New Delhi: Inpex India, 1980), p. 200. 59. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, p. 61. 60. Ibid., p. 96. 61. Govind Sahai, R.S.S.: Ideology, Technique, and Propaganda (New Delhi: n.p., 1956), pp. 8,17, 64. 62. Gerard Heuze, "Shive Sena and 'National Hinduism/" Economic and Politi• cal Weekly 27, no. 40 (3 October 1992), pp. 2189-95. 63. "Calicut" (editorial), Organiser, 7 January 1968, p. 3. 64. Lai K. Advani, A Prisoner's Scrap-Book (New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1978), pp. 178-79. 65. Narendra Sharma, "BJP's New Look," in The Only Alternative, ed. L.K. Advani (New Delhi: n.p., n.d.), pp. 7-9. 66. Ibid., p. 10. 67. Ibid., pp. 4,11,17. 68. A.G. Noorani, "BJP: Child of RSS and Heir to Hindu Mahasabha," Main• stream, 27 July 1991, pp. 16-19. 69. "The Disgruntled Generals," Illustrated Weekly of India, 7-13 March 1992. 70. Seshadri, RSS: A Vision in Action, p. 315. 71. S.P. Udayakumar, "Historicizing Myth and Mythologizing History: The Violent 'Ram Temple' Drama," in Handcuffed to History: Narratives, Pathologies, and Violence in South Asia, ed. S.P. Udayakumar (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001). Ramjanmabhumi: Hinduizing Politics and Militarizing Hindudom 145

72. "Return to Ayodhya" (editorial), Indian Express, 21 July 1994. 73. Ibid. 74. Hindu, 25 October 1994. 75. Telegraph, 26 November 1997. 76. "Democracy Has Won," Frontline, 1-14 November 1997. 77. Asian Age, 18 June 1998. 78. "A Welcome Change in RSS Thinking," Hindu, 25 August 2000. 79. "Legislation Demanded for Building Temple," Hindu, 7 December 2000. 80. Neena Vyas, "PM for Temple at Disputed Site," Hindu, 8 December 2000. 81. "Babri Mosque Has No Significance: ICHR," Hindu, 18 December 2000. 82. "VHP Will 'Coerce' Government on Temple," Hindu, 19 January 2001. 83. "Ram Temple Construction Next Year," Hindu, 20 January 2001. 84. "No Date Set for Temple at Dharam Sansad," Hindu, 21 January 2001. 85. "Supreme Court Says 'No' to Puja, Orders Status Quo," Hindu, 14 March 2002. 86. "How They Keep Trying," (editorial), Statesman, 19 March 2002. 87. "Court Is the Final Authority, Says PM," Hindu, 17 March 2002. 88. "Ayodhya Excavation: VHP Won't Give Commitment," Hindu, 11 March 2003. 89. "Lack of Archaeological Evidence Irrelevant: VHP," Hindu, 12 June 2003. 90. "Muslim Board Rejects Seer's Proposal to 'Gift Babri Site'," Hindu, 7 July 2003. 91. Dileep Padgaonkar, "Anguished India," Seminar, no. 401 (January 1992), p. 43. 92. Sudhir Chandra, "Of Communal Consciousness and Communal Violence: Impressions from Post-Riot Surat," Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 36 (4 Sep• tember 1993), p. 1887. 93. "BJP's White Paper on Ayodhya and the Ram Temple Movement," New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (April 1993), p. 38. 94. Manini Chatterjee, "Seeds of Fascism," Seminar, no. 399 (November 1992), p. 8. 95. Banerjee, "'Hindutva'-Ideology and Social Psychology," p. 32. 96. Hindu, 7 December 1992. 97. Ibid., p. 1. 98. P. V. Indiresan, "Ayodhya and Structural Adjustment," Hindu, 12 Decem• ber 1992. 99. Sunil Bhattacharya, "India and Secular Democracy," Radical Humanist, Feb• ruary 1993, p. 1. 100. Bharat Jhunjhunwala, "Economic Forces behind Babri Question," Main• stream, 16 January 1993, pp. 17-22. 101. R. Prasannan, "Secularism: It Survived Partition and Bluestar, It Shall Sur• vive This One Too," Week, 20 December 1992, p. 49. 102. "The Country's Black Day" (editorial), Working Class 22, no. 5 (January 1993). 103. Iqbal Jafar, "High Noon in Ayodhya," Dawn, 11 December 1992, p. 11. 104. Vinod Sharma, "Sharif Calls for Strike in Pak," Hindustan Times, 8 Decem• ber 1992. 105. Quoted in Raghavan, "Origins and Development," p. 597. This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER 5 Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State

Privileging the Gandhian concept of civil society and the heritage of non• violence, I argue that the centrality of religion and social morality is quite crucial to understanding the Indian public space. The multiple and com• plex sites of social production of memory are the crossroads where the religious feelings and values and the political processes meet and interact. A cursory look at some of these sites, symbols, and sociopolitical processes such as riots, elections, and policy promulgations reveals that the shrewd political acumen of Indian civil society is not to be hijacked by the Sangh Parivar and that the popular myths and memories are open for compro• mise but closed for control.

CIVIL SOCIETY: A GANDHIAN HERITAGE The debates on civil society, with its emphasis on human agency and the political aspects of human society, have been aided enormously by practitioners-cum-theoreticians such as Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik, who played a crucial role in the collapse and disintegration of the state- socialist formation in their own respective countries. Not believing in the blind forces of history but in human action, both Havel and Michnik have made important contributions to the concept of civil society. The most important thing for Havel (whose performance record as the leader of the Czech republic was rather mixed) is that human beings should be the mea• sure of all structures, including economic structures, and not that humans be made to measure for those structures.1 Likewise, Michnik contends that 148 "Presenting" the Past people should transform themselves from a "sack of potatoes" into execu• tors of their own interests and aspirations, and should look after those, the independent flow of information, free learning, and culture. He posits that different sociological mechanisms come into play in a society that demands its rights and transforms itself from object to subject.2 Being the public realm constituted by private individuals, civil society points to those elements of both individualism and community that have characterized Western political thought. Adam Smith recognizes civil society as that realm of "natural affections and sociability," and Marx dis• tinguishes that as the arena where a man "acts as a private individual, regards other men as means, degrades himself into a means and becomes a plaything of alien powers." Civil society referred to a realm of social mutuality in the eighteenth century and characterized "that aspect of social existence which existed beyond the realm of the State" in the nine• teenth century.3 Hannah Arendt contends that the distinction between the private and public spheres of life corresponds to the household and the political realms that existed as separate entities since the rise of city-state. But the emergence of the social realm, which is neither private nor public, is a new phenomenon whose origin coincided with the emergence of the modern age, and it found its political form in the nation-state.4 Deriving and transforming the concepts of civil and political society from Hegel, Gramsci differentiated them as follows: "What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural 'levels': the one that can be called 'civil society', that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called 'private', and that of 'political society' or 'the state'. These two levels cor• respond on the one hand to the functions of 'hegemony' that the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of 'direct domination' or command exercised through the state and 'juridical' gov• ernment." Gramsci's dichotomy of civil society and the state should not be misunderstood to mean that they are physically divided into separate areas with a clearly defined boundary between them. Both of them are composed of social relationships.5 Arendt attests to this claim by stating that "in the modern world, the social and the political realms are much less distinct." She further argues that "the two realms indeed constantly flow into each other like waves in the never-resting stream of the life pro• cess itself." The division between the public and private realms, between the sphere of polis and the sphere of household and family, and between activities related to common world and those related to the maintenance of life, is extraordinarily difficult for us to understand, as "the dividing line is entirely blurred."6 Whether we should establish democracy at the superficial level or bring about social change at the fundamental level is only the secondary issue for the civil society. What is primary is the people's responsibility to chal• lenge things and change them. After all, it is the people who participate Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 149 in the state policies and take part in the gross social injustice.7 Describ• ing the events in his country as "cultural revolution," Vaclav Havel said that "what is most important about this revolution is what the students began with. It is its humanitarian dimension."8 But then the civil society's struggle may not be the same everywhere. Differentiating between Soli• darity's decade-long struggle in Poland, the 1956 Hungarian-type rebel• lion in China in 1989, and the triggering factors of the society toppling the state in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania, David Strand argues that the nature of civil society differs substantially from country to country "without losing the common denominator of independence, or potential independence, against state power which lies at the heart of the concept."9 Our interest in civil society here is in relation to the pluralism of India that has given rise to negative political manifestations in the form of scores of communal conflicts and interethnic rivalries. Even as the identities that provide meaning to people result in parochial sentiments, the Indian state desperately tries to create national integration and fails to see Indians hav• ing different and conflicting identities and interests. Thus the nationalistic discourse preempts civil society, and the civil society falls victim to com• munalism. This leaves not much political space for the different ethnic communities in India to negotiate their positions and compromise their civic values constantly. After all, civil society cannot be identified with institutional arrangements or legislative guarantees. Will the onset of the liberalization of the Indian economy and the arrival of transnational capital create the much-needed political space for vari• ous communities in the Indian society? While the laissez-faire conser• vatives fantasize about "the autonomous performance of the economic realm," Marxists believe in "planning functions by the party state" and total control.10 Will the bourgeois equality that dissociates political values from social morality and gives rise to a structure and processes in which the rich and powerful enjoy disproportionate opportunities and use the machinery for their own interests11 help bring about Indian civil society? Dipesh Chakrabarty rightly contends that "in countries such as ours, sev• eral contradictory struggles have to fuse into one. The struggle to be a 'citizen' must be part of the struggle to be a 'comrade.' We have to fight for 'equality' at the same time as we try to criticize and transcend the bour• geois version of it. Giving up these battles means embracing an illiberal, authoritarian, hierarchical social order in the name of socialism."12 Claiming that "India defies simple generalizations or easy projections" and analyzing "the weak-strong state" of India, Rudolph and Rudolph contend that the Indian state has alternated between autonomous and reflexive relations with the society over the past decades since indepen• dence. As the centrist pattern of partisan politics marked by secularism, socialism, democracy, mixed economy, and nonaligned foreign policy 150 "Presenting" the Past adds strength to the state, social pluralism prevails over class solidarity in the society. Although often challenged, the Indian state has demon• strated enormous "capacity to manage, manipulate, or repress a society that is eager but only partially able to speak for itself." Although India has a competitive party system, a good degree of social mobilization, and a plethora of voluntary organizations, "the associational life has proved too fragmented to agree or act on alternative national political doctrines." Class politics has never been the medium for representing the classes of Indian society or for expressing conflicts among them. Organizations rep• resenting languages, castes, and territorial interests, and those speaking for disadvantaged minority groups such as "backward" classes, untouch• able castes and tribes, Muslims, and other sectoral interests such as agri• culture have been more successful in creating consciousness and identity and in influencing political action and policy agendas.13 Despite the mind-boggling pluralistic nature of Indian society, absence of class-based mobilization, lack of positive or charismatic political lead• ership, and virtual impossibility of moving this huge nation of more than one billion people (living in 27 cities with a population of one million and above, more than 4,000 towns, and some 594,000 inhabited villages) to any single political cause, India is holding together and moving forward. In the absence of any agenda, overt class conflicts have become more acute within the ruling classes between the major segments of industrial and agricultural capital. The oppression of the lower castes has become more intensified. However, "increased mass awareness of civil and democratic rights has led to an opening up of new political spaces in which political movements and parties would be well placed to raise the demands of the backward castes, scheduled castes, Dalits, adivasis and other oppressed sections of society. It is the long-term consequences of this development that will constitute the backbone of future politics in India."14 It is this promising development that induces a curiosity about the impact of the communal relations between Hindus and Muslims in the evolving Indian civil society. A full-blown civil society, as Havel and Mich• nik have postulated, will be marked by an ethic of civic responsibility, civic courage, practical morality (humanly measured care for our fellow human beings), and civil disobedience. Decades ago Mahatma Gandhi raised these concerns, lived this philosophy, and let the world hear loud and clear through his actions. He argued in one of his early and seminal works,

The English have not taken India; we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them They came to our country originally for purposes of trade. . . . They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 151 bought their goods? History testifies that we did all this. In order to become rich all at once we welcomed the Company's officers with open arms. We assisted them.... That corporation was versed alike in commerce and war. It was unham• pered by questions of morality. Its object was to increase its commerce and to make money. It accepted our assistance, and increased the number of its warehouses. To protect the latter it employed an army which was utilized by us also. Is it not then use• less to blame the English for what we did at that time? The Hindus and the Mahom- edans were at daggers drawn. This, too, gave the Company its opportunity and thus we created the circumstances that gave the Company its control over India.15

According to the Gandhian philosophy, in a pluralistic society, every single group of people's interests and concerns, sarvodya (welfare of all), needs to be addressed and accommodated. For such a never-ending dia• logue and compromise to be possible, the society has to have swaraj (self- rule) and must be marked by a quest for satya (truth), and the quality of ahimsa (nonviolence). This Gandhian understanding of civil society, with its standpoint outside the thematic of post-Enlightenment thought, its unique achievement of reconciling the contradictory aspects of national• ism and enlightened anarchy, and its involving the whole people within the political nation with the science of nonviolence, is immensely inspiring in contemplating on the contemporary Indian society.16 After all, Gandhi's borrowings from and contributions to the nonviolence heritage of India have been quite extraordinary. Despite the partition holocaust and the recurrent communal violence in independent India, the ethico-moral power and the remarkable resilience of the Indian civil society have been very much instrumental in absorbing the shock and healing the wounds rather fast. This inner resourcefulness and the creative conflict-transformation capabilities of the Indian masses despite the overwhelming differences is part of the Gandhian heritage and its language of morality. The secular character of the Indian constitution, with equal recognition and respect for all the religions, is also due to the pedagogy and policy built with the Gandhian praxis. India's contribution of the policy of nonalignment at the international level has been another consequence of the Gandhian principle and practice of religious plural• ism. Gandhi's positive and creative response to the various religions of India and his untiring efforts to organize and interpret life in the light of the basic values these religions offer is another important contribution to the cultural revival of the country.17 This claim is not to reduce India or Indians to essences, as some empiri• cists and idealists would do, but to point out the centrality of religions in ordering and interpreting life in the subcontinent. What Mahatma Gan• dhi encountered on a peace march in the riot-hit area of Noakhali in Ben• gal provides a good example. When he was walking through the Babu Bazaar, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, a fanatic barged out of the crowd, stifled Gandhi's throat, and threw him on the ground. As he 152 "Presenting" the Past was falling, Gandhi started reciting Surat-e-Fatiha, which he had memo• rized from the Koran. The offender stood astonished to hear such a fine recital of the Koran from the lips of a staunch Hindu and apologized to him for his murderous deed. The man, Khan Mondol, became the most trusted disciple of Gandhi.18 Although misconstrued manifestations of religious enthusiasm are commonplace (which, by the way, render making any essentialist claims ludicrous), the daily transactions of life in India are definitely influenced by religions and the values they preach. Even Jawaharlal Nehru, with his secular and modern bent of mind, who called communalism the "greatest enemy of the country," proclaimed to Parliament once that "only a return to moral and spiritual values could control nuclear energy and save man• kind."19 But for this language of morality and nonviolence heritage, com• munal violence and bloodshed would be India's daily reality. Even after 57 years of independence, almost all political parties and actors invoke Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence and religious pluralism to win over the masses to their side. The degree of similarity that exists in the attitudinal preferences and ideological consistency of the citizen and the elite belief systems in India is a rather remarkable phe• nomenon. As Nehru points out, the series of revolutions in India since 1945, such as the withdrawal of the British, the merger of the princely states, and the land reform, were effected through nonviolence by both the masses and the elites.20 It is this inner dialectics of the Indian state and the civil society that comes to the rescue at the time of tensions and turmoil in India. After all, rulers and the ruled are overlapping classes that are mutu• ally, if not symmetrically, defining, and hence the history of the one cannot be done without also doing the history of the other. And finally, the capac• ity for action is still there with people, but it has to act into a web of human relationships with a revelatory character as well as an ability to produce stories and become historical, which together form the source of mean- ingfulness that illuminates human existence.21 When the Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhoomi dispute at Ayodhya spread hatred and havoc across the country with an alarming rise of communalism, a unique demonstra• tion occurred in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Tens of thousands of people formed a 450-mile-long human chain across the length of the state and pledged to promote national integration and communal amity.22 In this transformation of relationship as opposed to a seizure of power lies the interests of the civil society.

POPULAR MEMORY: A MIXED HISTORY The poetics of the interface between the state and civil society is nowhere more visible than in the sites of social production of memory, since popular memory, after all, is "a dimension of political practice." Though unequally, Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 153 everyone participates in this production through public representations and through private (and collective) memory. The agencies that constitute and control the public historical sphere may be called "the historical appa• ratus," and their products become "the field of public representations of history." The "dominant memory" points to the power and pervasiveness of specific historical representations, their connections with dominant institutions, and the part they play in winning consent and building alli• ances in the process of formal politics. The private memory denotes the knowledge of past produced in the course of everyday life that may be recorded in intimate cultural forms such as letters, diaries, and so forth.23 Memory as such directs our attention to "the past-present relation," and hence all political activity is a process of historical argument and definition and all political programs involve some construction of the past as well as the future. Thus the relation between history and politics is an internal one, that is, about the politics of history and the historical dimensions of politics.24 Michael Bommes and Patrick Wright posit, "Memory has a tex• ture which is both social and historic: it exists in the world rather than in people's heads, finding its basis in conversations, cultural forms, personal relations, the structure and appearance of places and, most fundamentally for this argument, in relation to ideologies which work to establish a con• sensus view of both the past and the forms of personal experience which are significant and memorable."25 In a set of oral traditions such as India's, there are an infinite variety of situations that prompt people to generate messages that either convey news or interpret existing situations. The lat• ter class of messages that deal with "the expression of experience" include personal reminiscences, etiological commentaries (on existing objects), traditions (explanatory glosses), and linguistic (folk etymology) and liter• ary (oral art) expressions. They represent a stage in the elaboration of his• torical consciousness and are among the major wellsprings of culture.26 The filmic constructions of history in India, for example, reproduce the Indian historiographical tradition that does not separate history from myth, legend, and drama. So impersonation in the Bombay film world takes the culturally privileged form of syncretism in which history is an amalgam of mythical tales, legends, and folk knowledge rather than the "truth" of past events and personages. After all, itihasa—the nearest equivalent term for "history" in Sanskrit, meaning "thus it was" or "so it has been"—constitutes a genre of composition like kavya (poetry) or natya (drama). It is not considered to be a presentation of facts as such but refers to legend, history, and accounts of past events. The Indian historical tradi• tion grew out of, among many other things, the literary forms that pre• vailed during the Vedic period, such as gathas (songs), narasamsi (eulogies of heroes), akhyana (dramatic narratives), and pur ana (ancient lore). Today, mythology, genealogy, and historical narrative are considered to be the three major constituents of Indian historical tradition.27 154 "Presenting" the Past

So in this vast, diverse, and intricate India, the context is definitely "one of a multiplicity of different, yet interlocking, histories—legendary, secu• lar, reformist, sectarian, legitimist, nationalist, rebellious, nativistic—all of which end, as it were, in a final denouement." Hence it is only appro• priate to avoid the sequential narrative with an implied teleological range and to go for an "open-ended strategy of multiple description" that helps us to move freely between sequence and episode and draw upon the many histories of India.28 Thus there are innumerable religious, cultural, historical, political, economic, legal, and other factors that contribute to and constitute the popular memories of the vast and complex Indias. These local-national, resilient-rigid, gullible-shrewd, erratic-consistent, dissenting-agreeing, tangible-elusive memories evade any kind of quantification, generaliza• tion, theorization, or even meaningful representation. The communal- nationalistic discourses preempt this difficulty by imposing a singularity and specificity on the many memories. For example, consider the following story of the Sangh Parivar that effectively taps into all the historiographi• cal traditions of the Indian society, the myths, the memories, the fears, and the prejudices, and circumvents the representational difficulties. The story merits reproduction in full in order for the precursory nature of the Hindutva logic and program to be grasped:

Nothing could escape him. If it was a temple it must be felled. If it was an idol it must be shattered. His back slightly bent, one of his hands resting behind him and the other count• ing the beads of his rosary, Aurangzeb paced up and down in his shamiana. "Ya Allah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "So many years I have been camping in the Deccan—and yet these thrice-cursed Marathas are not crushed.... " The generals sitting by his side did not say anything. They had no answer on the invincibility of the kafirs. Pounding a fish in the palm of his hand the Badshah exclaimed, "I must serve Allah! If I cannot do it by destroying the kafirs, I must destroy their gods and god• desses " With an imperious gesture he turned to his generals and commanded, ''Wherever we camp, see that no Hindu temple remain [sic], no Hindu deity remains ... fell them all and build mosques there." All too glad to carry out such a bidding the generals departed on an orgy of destruction. In the evening a messenger entered the imperial tent and saluted. ''May it please your majesty," he began, "news has come that very nearby there is a famous temple of the kafir God Shiva.... Because it is a famous temple, your majesty may perhaps wish to put an end to it with your own hands...." "What is it known as?" "It is known as the Jyotirlinga of Omkareshwar...." "We shall certainly call on this kafir god and put an end to him...." As the bearded band halted before the famous temple and Aurangzeb got down from his mount, the priests knew what was coming. Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 155

The Moghal Badshah strode into the Hindu temple and confronted the priests. "Any reason why this temple, this insult to Allah, should be spared destruc• tion?" he asked ironically. Calmly the head-priest said, "Even if you destroy this Jyotirlinga, that would not mean God's destruction for He is eternal. . . . But this Jyotirlinga is a living deity—in its surface you can find the reflection of your next birth...." "Is it?" Aurangzeb was interested. For a moment he forgot his idol-hatred and gazed steadily into the crystal-clear surface of the white Jyotirlinga. For a while absolute silence reigned in the temple. Slowly a vague figure appeared on the surface of the linga—and Aurangzeb gave an inarticulate cry of rage It was the figure of a pig. "Burn down this temple immediately!" he shouted in mad rage and strode out. The temple was burnt. But the fire did not burn the linga. It was only black• ened. Since then, the Jyotirlinga of Omkareshwar is black in colour.29

This singular, specific, and linear rendering of the popular memory is turned into the dominant memory through the careful manipulation of India's traditional strengths, such as the dramatic narrative and other social beliefs, practices, and prejudices. The role of a formal school system in influencing the people's concept of history and identity is rather limited in India, as almost half of the popu• lation is not literate. As textbooks and general history books play no cru• cial role in identity construction among the masses of India, it is quite meaningless to try to analyze the overall Indian society's political inputs through the print media. Setting out for a similar "psycho-social discovery of India," Sudhir Kakar argues that such an exploration "must begin with the cluster of ideas, historically derived, selected and refined, through which Hindu culture has traditionally structured the beliefs and behav• iour of its members." He talks of Hindu philosophy in the sense of "the prescriptive configuration of ideal purposes, values and beliefs which per• colate down into the everyday life of the ordinary people and give it form and meaning." Despite Kakar's complete dismissal of Muslims and other minorities from his analysis of India and "the psychological terrain of the Indian inner world," this premise could be adopted here because the focus of this book is also exclusively on the Hindu domain.30 This Geertzian view of seeing religion as a cultural system of symbols informs only little unless we recognize that there are human origins, par• ticular class interests, and historical and cultural conditionality at work in religious discourses. Any study of religion may have to rewrite what the religious may try hard to elide as long as that religion is considered to be a human product conditioned by the space and time in which the concerned humans lived.31 So the religious feelings and values (as much as the "sym• bol systems"32 that we might add here) are produced and managed in the political processes,33 and the latter do tap into the former for specific validation and mobilization purposes. 156 "Presenting" the Past

This "symbolic capital," as Pierre Bourdieu calls it, is nothing but "a transformed and thereby disguised form of physical 'economic' capital," and it produces its proper effect inasmuch as it conceals the fact that it originates in material forms of capital that are also the source of its effects. In other words, the tight regulation of exchange in specially demarcated objects not only sanctions but also constitutes privilege by establishing some referential coordinates of value that are natural and legitimate.34 As modern nations are imagined through a variety of representational practices, symbols do play a large role in that exercise. The signifying symbols and strategies may vary from case to case depending on contin• gencies such as space, time, motivations, and so forth. In the Hindutva cosmology, however, the political legitimation has been achieved through religious symbols by playing up familiar images of the people and their popular associations with traditional mythology and legends. The visual idioms are adopted predominantly through (hi)storytelling, problematiz- ing historical structures, taking out processions, and so forth. It would be quite instructive to see how the BJP-led government utilized a few potent symbols such as the liberation of Hindu gods from the historic Muslim infamy, creating a uniform civil code for both Hindus and minorities, and so forth for their political sustenance, with no substantive progressive political agenda. After all, it is in this political space of past-present inter• section where the preferred future is constructed and the present is made to look like the past and the impending future.

THE BJP-LED GOVERNMENT'S PERFORMANCE If voted to power, Atal Behari Vajpayee had promised in 1991 that the BJP would serve kheer (dessert) and not the usual khichri sarkar (spicy mixed government) of the others.35 However, when voted to power in 1998, one of the first things that the kheer government did was to explode nuclear weapons, the favorite Rambaan (panacea) of the Hindutva forces, allegedly in the interests of the country's samraksha (security). Having contributed almost nothing to the shaping or the execution of the nuclear program of the country, the BJP-led government merely con• firmed what had been known to the world ever since the 1974 nuclear test. The samraksha logic quickly boiled down to Uncle Sam-raksha (pro• tection) when the Vajpayee government bent over backward to please Washington, D.C., and to get into their notorious nuclear club. In fact, India came to lose much of the sense of security that had prevailed for the past few decades. Moreover, the country that had always been looked up to in the international arena for its heritage of nonviolence, nonalign- ment, panchshila, appropriate technology, and alternative development paradigms suffered spurious charges, sanctions, aid cutoff, loan defer• ment, and so forth. Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 157

Right after the nuclearization of India, the BJP's minister of human resource development (HRD), Murli Manohar Joshi, reconstituted the ICHR, a major academic body that comprises reputed historians and archaeologists and administers research projects and fellowships in his• tory and archaeology. Four of the 18 new nominees were part of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's panel of historians that strove to establish the existence of a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid. And another five were closely associated with the Sangh Parivar's efforts to discredit the opposition viewpoints. The disciplinary bias of some of these new council members was rather overt and unprofessional. Although the objective of the council has always been to "promote objective and scientific study of history," the June 1, 1998, order of the Department of Education shifted the emphasis: "The Council will give a national direction to an objective and national presentation and interpretation of history and also advise the Government of India on all such matters pertaining to historical research and history methodology as may be referred to it from time to time." The "rational" interpretation was replaced by "national" interpretation, and this change substantially altered the objective of the council. Conse• quently, Aryans are hailed as the indigenous inhabitants of India who have nurtured the Hindu nation from time immemorial. Aliens and invasions are said to have interrupted the "glorious past" of ancient India, and this medieval history represents India's dark ages, when all the ills and evils crept into the national life. The Hindus who have been constantly fighting the invaders are sidelined by the modern secular India, and this has to be corrected. Moreover, the BJP-led government sought to discredit the Congress-led and nonviolence-inspired movement for Indian inde• pendence, and to replace Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru with Hedgewar, Savarkar, and Golwalkar as national leaders. Another powerful political symbol that has come to dominate the Indian political scene is the issue of a uniform civil code. Following the Shah Bano case of 1985, the Supreme Court renewed its plea for a uniform civil code by dismissing the Hindu husbands' right to practice polygamy under the cover of converting to Islam. Ruling on a case involving four Hindu wives, the apex court nullified the second marriages of their husbands and invoked the need for a uniform civil code that will supersede the Personal Law. The factor that gave rise to such an invocation is that a born Muslim can have four wives as per the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Applica• tion Act enacted by the British in 1937. Above all, the Indian constitution has promised in Article 44 to bring about such a uniform civil code as a principle of state policy. The court asked the prime minister to take a fresh look at the article and file an affidavit by August 1996. While the National Front and Left parties were against imposing any uniform code on the Muslims, the BJP seized its opportunity to press its long-standing demand for a common code for all the communities.36 158 "Presenting" the Past

The BJP as much as the Sangh Parivar leaders argue that a uniform civil code is meant to alleviate the gender inequities inherent in the various personal laws, and whoever opposes it is against equality and dignity. It is important to note that these are the same people who have not taken an articulated and unambiguous stand on the caste oppression of untouch• ability or the biases of the Hindu laws against women. The Shariat Act of 1937 merely declares that all Muslim personal matters such as marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, inheritance, and succession will be gov• erned by the Shariat, and does not actually codify the Muslim Personal Law. Although both the Center and the state(s) can legislate on the per• sonal laws, Article 254 of the Indian constitution stipulates that no state bill that is "repugnant" to a Central law can come into force without the president's sanction. The BJP, which is in power in certain states, argues that there are few Central provisions in Muslim Personal Law, and hence their state governments could codify the Muslim Personal Law without any reference to the Center. A former Supreme Court judge's recommen• dation that the Hindus should set an example by reforming and secular• izing their own laws, which may inspire the minorities to do the same and pave the way for a uniform civil code, remains completely unacknowl• edged by the Hindus. Even as the Indian civil society was struggling to recognize and deal with the widespread ramifications of the powerful symbol-based hate pol• itics of the Sangh Parivar, the latter was modifying the very secular and democratic foundations of the Indian state. The 2002 Gujarat carnage, an offshoot of the renewed Ayodhya campaign that was marked by uncon• scionable failures and active connivance of the Gujarat police and state machinery, was exactly that. Some of the notorious characteristics of the Gujarat holocaust included extreme polarization of Hindu and Muslim communities; exclusionary attitudes that held as though the pain, loss, and betrayal the Muslims suffered was the concern of that community; and using the sexual subjugation of women as an instrument of violence. One shudders at the thought of India having these kinds of social ramifica• tions and political modifications. Analyzing the underlying structures out of which the Gujarat-like inhumanity springs, Radhika Desai pins down a form of capitalist development combined with upper- and middle-caste and class Hindu assertion and points out that this has been accepted as the way for India. Although the seeds of this malaise were actually sown in the 1970s, the 1980s witnessed an acute class and caste polarization in forms such as the antireservation riots and so forth. When political power did not reflect social and economic power, successive Congress (I) gov• ernments foundered on the impossibility of a government in contradic• tion with civil society. The upper and middle castes and classes expressed their frustrations on the streets, and the BJP, along with the Sangh Parivar, made accelerated gains.37 Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 159

Even as the right-thinking secular-minded Indians hung their heads in shame over the barbaric pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat, they were equally puzzled about the callous indifference of the Vajpayee regime in Delhi. When Prime Minister Vajpayee addressed the nation, the public expected him to go beyond platitudes about tolerant "traditions" and declare unequivocally that his government would not allow innocent citi• zens to be butchered no matter what their religion was. On the contrary, Vajpayee seemed to buy the theory that the ghastly Godhra carnage was the result of a large-scale organized conspiracy involving the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI); that the post-February 27 violence was "natural and spontaneous"; and that there was nothing outrageous about a democratic government turning a blind eye to organized atrocities. The Vajpayee government was also silent on the deeply offensive Bangalore resolution of the RSS, which rationalized the Gujarat pogrom and threat• ened Muslims by telling them their safety depended not on constitutional- democratic legality, but on Hindu "goodwill." When Prime Minister Vajpayee made his long-overdue visit to Gujarat, the country expected him to acknowledge the exceptional character of Gujarat's five-weeks- long carnage as independent India's worst pogrom, to vow to identify and punish those guilty of barbaric crimes committed there, and to send Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, packing. Interestingly enough, none of these things have happened. The Indian media exposed ministerial and police sponsorship of the carnage, which had gutted India's claim to secular pluralism and tolerance. The National Human Rights Commission's preliminary report removed the last ves• tiges of any doubt that Modi had lost his sanction to rule. A government that repeatedly failed to defend its citizens' right to life—the most funda• mental right—had no business remaining in power. Worse, a government that connived at snatching away that right, or became complicit in its sys• tematic violation, deserved to be put on trial. The Hindu fundamentalist outfits were extracting municipal records, employment exchange registers, telephone-bill addresses, electoral rolls, and even a public relations firm's business list to compile a dossier of Muslim residential addresses before the Godhra outrage. There is no ques• tion that both the Gujarat government and the Union Home Ministry also knew the first steps toward replicating the "Night of the Long Knives" by the Brown Shirts had begun in Gujarat. Collecting lists of intended vic• tims identified on the basis of religion, carrying gas cylinders to cut open safes of Muslim business houses, and training people to create cooking- gas explosions without blowing themselves up are clear indications of pre• meditated genocide. The same Vajpayee government saw a danger to the constitution when some members of a politician's family were murdered in Bihar, or when Mamata Banerjee complained of political violence in communist-ruled 160 "Presenting" the Past

West Bengal. Similarly, the Orissa legislative assembly was not by any means a lesser seat of democracy than the Jammu and Kashmir assem• bly, or, for that matter, the national parliament. Nonetheless, there was no attempt to haul up the VHP attackers in Orissa under the newly enacted draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). The 2002 Gujarat pogrom was quite different from most other communal riots India has witnessed in recent times. There were several distinct factors that had to do with the Hindutva ideology, and the emerging Hindu Rashtra made it that way, and quite naturally secular Indians worry about the country's future. Employing several tactics such as stereotyping, scapegoating, victim blaming, oversimplifying issues, doublespeak, eliminating choice, and implementing a comprehensive agenda in a piecemeal fashion, the Sangh Parivar has managed to bring hatred closer to present-day politics, to heighten the importance of religious beliefs for political behavior, to offer fundamentalism as a means of achieving social stability, and to occupy the center stage of Indian national politics and the core of the sociocultural transactions. Rather than presenting a coherent vision and program for the country, the Sangh Parivar creates ideological confusions and tries to reap political dividends from the chaos. When the country was yearning for a leadership that would build its future on one billion dreams and hopes, the BJP-led government resur• rected the country's past with nonissues, secretive projects, dangerous adventurisms, and divisive programs. For the BJP-led Aya Ram Gaya Ram government, which sought to retain power through opportunistic alliances with a bunch of parties and leaders who were either ideologically blind or politically lost and to preserve the bigoted parivar vote bank with unprin• cipled politics, Ramraksha (Ram protection) became the most favorite program. Members of the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, and other "brotherly" organizations intruded into the Indian bureaucracy, military, police, and management positions, giving rise to serious repercussions both in the governance of the country and in crisis management (such as riot control). Marginalization of women, violation of children's rights, intimidation of minorities, perpetuation of caste oppression, and annihilation of dissent damaged the socio-economic-political life in India. The BJP that characterized itself once as "the party with a difference" led a dubious government in Delhi that was best described as "the govern• ment without a difference." Scams and scandals surfaced at regular inter• vals, and there was hardly any department that had not been affected by multi-crore swindles. The telecom scandal, the sugar scam, the UTI fraud, the Ketan Parekh stock-market swindle, defense-deal deceptions exposed by Tehelka.com, the coffin scam, the petro scam, the land scam, and many other fiascoes exposed the true colors of the BJP and its government in Delhi. The party president, , himself was videoed while accepting wads of currency notes from alleged arms dealers. Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 161

We have established clearly that the Sangh Parivar as much as the BJP- led government has cashed in on the symbolic capital rather prodigiously by producing and marketing their sociopolitical discourses through mass- mediated cultural and religious symbols. As we have concentrated enough on the production and distribution side of the Sangh Parivar's symbolic politics (with little substantive progressive political worth) in the previ• ous chapters, a brief investigation of the consumption pattern and con• sumer behavior will shed light on the other side of this transaction. The Sangh Parivar's attempts to direct these symbols and emotions toward the communal direction may have fetched some short-term excitement and political gains, but the long-term schemes have been proved difficult if not immobilized altogether.

SILENT MESSAGES: BATTLES AND BALLOTS To discern the inner workings of any civil society can only be a matter of conjecture, even with all the modern tools such as opinion polls, surveys, and so forth. Having looked at the popular memory that is engineered by the Sangh Parivar's symbolic politics, we could look at the communal strife and the electoral performance of the BJP after 1992 to fathom the interiority of the Indian civil society to some extent. Consider first the recurrent phenomenon of communal riots. Gyanen• dra Pandey argues that the communal riots are treated as aberrations in the sense that it is "an exceptional moment" in the history of India, and as absences because the history of violence is almost always about context, and the violence itself is assumed known. There is little effort to inves• tigate its contours and character, and its forms. This history of sectarian strife has always been written up as a secondary story to the primary one of India's independence struggle. This collective amnesia generated by the nationalist historiography, journalism, and filmmaking is due to their reluctance to open up the old wounds. Leaving little room for human agency (emotions, feelings, perceptions) and human responsibility, the usual accounts describe the essential and unchanging character of the majority of the people concerned. This "totalizing standpoint of a seam• less nationalism," or the "yearning for the 'complete' statement" and such privileging of the general over the particular, the larger over the smaller, the mainstream over the marginal have to be challenged.38 The spate of communal tension and distrust in India during the 1980s had been mooted largely by the recession of social reformation and the occupation of that political space by communalism, aided by the elec• toral politics of major actors such as the ruling Congress and the resur• gent Sangh Parivar. Various political developments coupled with the link between the crisis of Congress hegemony and the rise of the BJP, and the disparity between the ambiguous efforts of the Congress to secure both 162 "Presenting" the Past the secular and communal spaces and the pronounced communalism of the assertive BJP, set the crisis of regime in the late 1980s. The crisis was worse in UP because the political struggle for the state power had pitted the upper castes and classes against the "backward" and lower castes, and the intensified intercommunity conflicts were poised to displace the upper castes from power. Although these political and structural developments at the national and state levels formed the larger background, there were always local factors in most of the communal strife. For instance, the 1991 riots of Varanasi had the undercurrents of business competition between the traditional Hindu wholesale traders and the newly emerging Muslim traders, who used to be the weavers.39 The full-fledged communal violence was at its peak from mid-1990 until mid-1993. For instance, as a result of Advani's rathyatra alone, there were 116 communal riots all over India that killed 564 people between Septem• ber 1 and November 20, 1990. UP and Gujarat witnessed the maximum number of riots (28 and 26, respectively), which killed 224 and 99 people in those states.40 The widespread carnage the country witnessed following the mosque vandalism in December 1992 was the first massive wave of violence ever since the partition holocaust in 1947. In that bloody aftermath, there were more than 1,700 people killed and 5,500 injured all over India, with heavy tolls in Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP, MP, , and Rajasthan. However, southern India, with the exception of Karnataka, remained almost peace• ful, and in Tamil Nadu only two people died in police firing.41 The final tally revealed another important fact, that rural India remained much saner than the urban areas. Some 1,100 people were killed and 3,300 injured in major cities such as Bombay, Surat, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Banga• lore, Mysore, and so on.42 So even when communal islands of India were burning, they were surrounded by the sea of normal life in which Hindus and Muslims were engaging themselves in business, pilgrimages, celebra• tions, and daily living. The argument here is not to deny the shame of recurrent communal violence, or to dismiss the victims' loss and pain, or even to make the aberration argument, but just to point out the erratic jumps in the communal curve of national life. For example, there were scores of cities, towns, and villages all over India that witnessed commu• nal violence for the first time since 1947. Along with the human goodness and its inviolability advocated by all different religions, communalism, its human provocateurs, and the vul• nerability or acquiescence do coexist in ample measure. However, the civil society does not fall prey to communal violence intuitively or impulsively. The missing link is the "investment" in rioting. A group of social scientists that investigated the communal riots that occurred in December 1990 and February 1991 in a UP town called Khurja, which had had no communal Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 163 strife since 1947, concluded that "our investigations show a sustained and massive BJP-RSS investment in rioting." The strategy of the Sangh Parivar is simple. Since the emotional Ramjanmabhumi issue alone would not be quite adequate to keep up the levels of social tension and to forge a unified Hinduism, they needed to add the riots and create a permanent state of communal division that would also subsume the internal contradictions within the Hindu society. That dual strategy was deemed necessary to capture power both at the state and the Center.43 However hesitant and painful, there have been several efforts to encoun• ter the violence and the destructive potential face to face. The wounds are not quickly bandaged and hidden from sight anymore, but the sores and the pains are dealt with openly. The naked communal consciousness is out in the open and is being talked about in the newspapers, tea stalls, TV serials, movie theaters, and on the streets. What we have is not just the videotapes of rapes in accompaniment with the Hindutva chants and rites, but the awareness that the private and public viewing of those also have become part of the Hindu heritage. In the final analysis, to borrow M. J. Akbar's words, "if the India of the communalist has not died as yet, neither has the India of harmony. If I was depressed by the first on the road to Ayodhya, I was also elated by the second—visible to those who want to see it, and on the same road."44 The second indicator we can use to gauge the inner workings of the Indian civil society is the electoral preferences of the people of the Hindi- Urdu heartland. That all Hindutva politics has centered around obtaining political power at the Center is widely known and discussed. However, the shrewd Indian electorate has gauged the communal politics rather well and demonstrated its acumen repeatedly. To begin with, let us take a look at the BJP's electoral performance over the past three general elec• tions for the national parliament. In the 1984 (December) elections, the BJP contested in 224 seats but won just 2 seats, with a meager 7.74 percent of the vote. In the 1989 (November) elections, the party fielded its candi• dates in 226 constituencies and won 85 of them, with 11.36 percent of the vote. And in the 1991 (May-June) polls, the BJP contested in 460 seats and improved its toll to 119 seats, with 20.21 percent of the vote. The 1984 elections were held right after Indira Gandhi's assassination, and the sympathy wave and the national sentiments against Sikh funda• mentalism played a crucial role in that poll. When "Mr. Clean" Rajiv Gan• dhi and his government wanted a fresh mandate from the people in 1989, accusations of corruption figured so prominently that he lost the election that was held at the backdrop of an unfolding communal drama. Rajiv Gandhi lost to a coalition called the National Front, and the BJP, which had won 86 seats, offered the crucial support to V P. Singh's minority govern• ment by staying out of the coalition. They withdrew the support following 164 "Presenting" the Past the issues of the Mandal Commission and Mandir at Ayodhya. In the 1989 state assembly elections in UP, the Janata Dal won a majority of the seats (203 out of 425), and the BJP got only 57.45 The February 1990 state assembly elections in a few northern states pushed the BJP to the center stage of Indian politics. While the Congress (I), which was the ruling party in all the states that went to the polls, won 417 of the 1,559 seats it contested, the BJP bagged 498 with candidates in some 1,000 seats.46 The BJP formed governments on its own in MP (with 219 members of the legislative assembly [MLAs]) and HP (with 44 MLAs), and in coalition with the Janata Dal in Rajasthan (85 MLAs) and Gujarat (67 MLAs). In their 1991 general elections manifesto, the BJP committed to building the Ram temple at Ayodhya by relocating the "superimposed Babri structure with due respect," as they considered the temple construc• tion "a symbol of vindication of our cultural heritage and national self- respect."47 The BJP, which had 85 members in the outgoing Parliament, improved their position to 119, polling 20.21 percent of the total votes in the 1991 elections. Although 183 of the BJP candidates forfeited their deposits, failing to poll the minimum votes necessary, the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, just after the first round of polling, did affect the outcome to some extent. The majority of the BJP MPs were elected from the Hindi-Urdu heartland.48 With this newfound mandate from the people, the Sangh Parivar was marching forward with their Ayodhya program. Even in the midst of this communal frenzy, a nationwide India Today-MARG poll revealed that more than half of the people were against demolishing the mosque and wanted both the temple and the mosque to coexist. Even in the BJP-ruled states, 48 percent favored coexistence. Only a meager 16 percent opted for the demo• lition of the mosque to build the temple.49 Immediately after the December 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, all four BJP state governments were dismissed by the Central government. Another India Today-MARG opin• ion poll in July 1993 found out that there was an almost overwhelming view that the Ram temple should be constructed in Ayodhya. Even 50 per• cent of the Muslims accepted the construction. Among those who wanted the temple built, only 51 percent wanted it on the controversial spot. Some 44 percent of the people polled wanted the temple away from the site, or the temple and the mosque side by side. On the question of who should build the temple, even half of the BJP sympathizers wanted an indepen• dent trust to build it and not the VHP.50 When the BJP-run state governments were dismissed in UP, MP, HP, and Rajasthan at the wake of the mosque demolition, and elections were conducted in November 1993, the BJP put up a stern fight. Their election manifesto began with a quote from the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas: "In the Kingdom of Rama, no one suffered any torment—material, physical or spiritual. No one died a premature death. No one was subject to pain and Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 165 anguish. All (citizens) were healthy and handsome. There was no pov• erty, misery or humiliation. Nor was there any ignorance or ignominy."51 Among other issues, Ayodhya figured prominently in the BJP manifesto. Dividing the Indian polity into "anti-temple forces" and their own Ayod• hya movement, "the biggest mass movement in the history of indepen• dent India," the manifesto claimed that the 1991 election was a "virtual referendum on Ram Janmabhoomi" issue that they had won by promis• ing the temple construction.52 According to the manifesto, on December 6, 1992, "matters took an unexpected turn when, angered by the obstructive tactics of the Narasimha Rao government, inordinate judicial delays and pseudo-secularist taunts, the karsevaks took matters into their own hands, demolished the disputed structure and constructed a makeshift temple for Lord Rama at the garbha griha/'53 The manifesto claimed further, "Owning responsibility for its inability to prevent the demolition," the BJP government in UP resigned. With this apologetic and evasive explanation, the BJP sought "a positive mandate for its programme and policies."54 The mandate they eventually received clearly indicated the disapproval of the majority of the people in the Hindi- Urdu heartland.55 The BJP was denied a "positive mandate" in the 1993 elections and won only 176 seats in UP as opposed to 211 in the 1991 polls. In MP, the party won just 116 seats as opposed to 219 seats in 1990. In HP, the BJP won 8 seats compared to the 44 seats it won in the 1990 elections. The BJP leaders had exhorted the voters in these states to decide if the December 6 vandalism was an exhibition of "national shame" or an act of "national pride." They also gave a victory cry to the masses, "Aaj chaar pradesh, kal sara desh" (Victory in four states today, the rest of the country tomorrow). Despite all the rhetoric, the people decisively rejected the BJP. There was a noticeable swing away from extremism in the rural areas on account of the inappropriate politicization of Ram, the impact of violence on economic growth, and the unwanted strengthening of the local police forces.56 In another round of state elections in November-December 1994, the BJP won only two seats in Andhra Pradesh, as opposed to the five seats they had in 1989. In Karnataka, they improved their position from 4 in 1989 to 40 in 1994. In the March 1995 state elections, the BJP pulled itself together in Gujarat and Maharashtra (in alliance with Shiv Sena), but lost Bihar and Orissa. However, in the following local elections in UP, the BJP captured 70 per• cent of the seats in the 11 municipal corporations and 8 of the mayoral seats, as well as 114 of the 196 chairperson's seats in the Nagar Palika Parishads (city boards) and 97 of the 418 seats in the Nagar Panchayats (town areas). The independent candidates won 60 percent and 75 percent of the seats respectively in the above bodies, capturing the political space vacated by the SP and BSP alliance. The BJP did not make any inroads into the social segments such as the Dalits, the "backward" castes, the working 166 "Presenting" the Past class, and the urban poor, but simply enlarged its homogenous support base, namely the upper castes and lower-middle and middle classes for ideological and political support and allegiance. The failure to acquire a heterogeneous base resulted in the taming of the party and projecting Atal Behari Vajpayee as the party's prime ministerial candidate.57 With no electoral wave in its favor and the absence of a plank of past util• ity such as Ayodhya,58 the BJP resorted to parivartan yatras (social change tours) around the country. Although the party improved its performance in the 1996 parliamentary elections by bagging 160 seats, it could not emerge as the dominant party either in the Hindi-Urdu heartland or in the whole country. The party's emphasis on negativity (anti-Muslim, anti- reservation, etc.) and the lack of consolidation of the "backward" castes in the "proud Hindu identity" that is integral to the upper caste groups could be some of the major reasons for this.59 In the 1998 general elections, the BJP won 182 seats out of the 388 that it contested and formed the gov• ernment in New Delhi with its alliance partners. When the BJP-led coali• tion government collapsed following the withdrawal of support by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from Tamil Nadu, another gen• eral election was forced on the Indian electorate in 1999. The BJP barely managed to win the same number of seats it had in the previous Parlia• ment (182), although it contested this time only in 339 constituencies. In the 2004 general elections, however, the overconfident BJP that boasted about a "shining India" under their rule won just 138 seats out of 364 that it contested, with 37.91 percent of the vote. When all is said and done, as a rural voter had told a journalist during the 1991 campaign: "Ram bhakti is one thing, politics another."60 Although the BJP's jingoism did have some influence in its electoral performance initially, the party pulled away from its communal agenda strategically and cunningly. The Indian civil society considered the BJP to be another political party that could be an alternative to the steadily dete• riorating Congress party. Given the fact that there is no viable alternative, Indian voters have reinstalled the ousted arrangement. In a world that is tormented by state collapse and accompanying ills, the Indian voters appreciate the need for a functioning government in New Delhi, but are not confident about any single party or leader. The only recourse for them then is to vote in a coalition that has not had its chance yet. At the same time, they have also demonstrated their maturity and shrewdness by dis• couraging the BJP combine's phony patriotism, nuclear adventurism, and needless militarism. Whatever the Indian voters' intent may be, we need to accept their verdict in the true spirit of democracy. The Gandhian understanding of "the real India," which he correctly thought was living in the villages, is privileged here because it is the Indian mass culture that is playing a crucial role in the interface between national history, mythification, and political socialization. Despite all the Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 167 constitutional commitment to secularism, average "real Indians" still take that to mean equal respect for all religions, and religion plays a large role in their daily life. They do not accept the elite-cultivated secular behavior or the sophisticated compartmentalization of religion and politics. This is why the great antireligious political movements of E.V.R. Periyar in Tamil Nadu or M.N. Roy in Bengal and others, whose politics were expedient for their times and enjoyed popular support, are nowhere in the Indian scene today. Modifying Louis Dumont's "singular Dharma" contention, we could posit that the immediacy of plural dharmas is a major organiz• ing principle of the Indian society. While the Sangh Parivar is trying to set these many dharmas against each other and to wiggle through that confrontation to state power, other politi• cal actors are either assisting them or averting meaningful confrontations. They tell the people that the Hindutva mobilization is wrong and impul• sively look outside of India toward capitalist or communist convictions of god, governance, and growth. On the contrary, the Sadbhavna (commu• nal amity) movement in Varanasi that was formed by the local citizens to counter the Sangh Parivar mobilization did not brand the demolition as "a black day for secular India" but "a day of shame for Hinduism." Invoking the bhakti (devotion) tradition of Hinduism and the Sufi tradition of Islam, they paraded Tulsidas, Chaitanya, Kabir, Nanak, Raidas, and Meera and demanded to know how the Hindutva crusade could be justified.61 The concern that this approach may give rise to "soft communalism" is a valid one. But then we have to look at the ground reality and the histori• cal facticity. The religiosity of the Indian polity is so central that we can neither deny it nor wish it away. More than 700 years of Mughal and Brit• ish domination have not dampened this spirit of spiritual search on the subcontinent, but only added to it by introducing additional faiths and in the process complicating the search further. Trying to wipe it clean as the Marxists do, or attempting to push it over as their liberal counterparts do, have been and will prove to be futile exercises. The only alternative would be channeling that great repository of human energy into the proper chan• nels of life and living. Here the Gandhian model comes to our rescue. He may not have been immaculate, his method may not have been impeccable, but his approach has strong potentials for the subcontinent. For him, it is a land of faiths, and everyone has to better him or herself in his or her own faith and carry it around in all he or she does in his or her daily life. He is indifferent to the idols or the skullcaps or other such ostentatious manifestations and opposes the religious institutions, evils, and superstitions, but evokes the human-making, life-facilitating, and harmony-promoting aspects quite vigorously. You see the shining light of life within you, within the other, and all around you. A polity illuminated by such a light will produce hon• est leaders, conscientious humans, and a humane society. This collectively 168 "Presenting" the Past inspired spiritual quest is not politically motivated communalism. The Indian civil society, to some extent, lives this philosophy.

NOTES 1. Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala, trans. Paul Wilson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 13. 2. Adam Michnik, Letters from Prison and Other Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 157-58. 3. Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 3. 4. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (: Press, 1958), p. 28. 5. Roger Simon, GramscVs Political Thought: An Introduction (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1982), pp. 70, 68, 71. 6. Arendt, The Human Condition, pp. 33,28. 7. Yuri Afanasyev, "The Coming of Dictatorship/' New York Review, 31 January 1991, p. 38. 8. New York Times, 8 December 1989. 9. David Strand, "Civil Society'' and "Public Sphere" in Modern China: A Perspec• tive on Popular Movements in Beijing, 1919-1989, working paper in Asian/Pacific studies (Durham, N.C.: Duke University, 1990), p. 22. 10. Manfred Henningsen, "Civil Society versus Socialism," Modern Praxis 2 (1992), pp. 388-408. 11. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 91. 12. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890-1940 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. xiv. 13. and Susanne Rudolph, In Pursuit ofLakshmi: The Political Econ• omy of the Indian State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 1,6,20. 14. T. V. Sathyamurthy, "State and Society in a Changing Political Perspective," Economic and Political Weekly 26, no. 6 (9 February 1991), p. 308. 15. M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad, India: Navaji- van Publishing House, 1938), pp. 38-40. 16. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, pp. 100-101,110. 17. T. K. John, "Theology of Liberation and Gandhian Praxis: A Social Spiritual• ity for India," in Leave the Temple: Indian Paths to Human Liberation, ed. Felix Wilfred (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books, 1992), p. 96. 18. Firoz Bakht Ahmed, "The Mahatma and the Muse," Hindu, 28 January 1996. 19. Quoted in Satish K. Arora and Harold D. Lasswell, Political Communication: The Public Language of Political Elites in India and the United States (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), pp. 57, 22. 20. Quoted in ibid., pp. 38-39. 21. Arendt, The Human Condition, pp. 320-25. 22. Center for South Asian Studies Newsletter (University of Hawai'i-Manoa) 7, no. 3 (1991), pp. 10-11. Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 169

23. Popular Memory Group, "Popular Memory: Theory, Politics, Method," in Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics, ed. Richard Johnson et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 205-10. 24. Ibid., pp. 211-13. 25. Michael Bommes and Patrick Wright, "'Charms of Residence': The Public and the Past," in Making Histories: Studies in History-Writing and Politics, ed. Rich• ard Johnson et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. 256. 26. Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 3-8. 27. Sumita S. Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947-1987 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), pp. 160-62. 28. Majid Hayat Siddiqi, "History and Society in a Popular Rebellion: Mewat, 1920-1933," Comparative Studies in Society and History 28, no. 3 (July 1986), pp. 442^3. 29. Sakalesh, "Historical Legend, The Next Birth," Organiser, 9 July 1962, p. 11. 30. Sudhir Kakar, The Inner World: A Psycho-analytic Study of Childhood and Society in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 14-15. In a later book, Kakar includes both Hindus and Muslims "to bring out the subjective, experiential aspects of conflict between religious groups, to capture the psychological experi• ence of being a Hindu or a Muslim when one's community seems to be ranged against the other in a deadly confrontation." With the help of interviews, psy• chological tests, and speech transcripts of Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists, he seeks to analyze the fantasies, social representations, and modes of moral reason• ing about them that motivate and rationalize arson, looting, rape, and killing. See Kakar, The Colours of Violence (New Delhi: Viking, 1995), pp. viii-ix. 31. Brian K. Smith, Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 324. 32. A phrase used by Brian Smith; see ibid. 33. See Peter van der Veer, "'God Must Be Liberated': A Hindu Liberation Move• ment in Ayodhya," Modern Asian Studies 21, no. 2 (April 1987), p. 300. 34. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni• versity Press, 1977), p. 183. 35. India Today, 15 May 1991. 36. Zafar Agha, "Striking Down a Right," India Today, 15 June 1995. 37. Radhika Desai, "The Image of India's Future?" Hindu, 6 March 2002. 38. Pandey argues further that the changing character and modes of sectar• ian strife need careful study, and it must be emphasized that there is no essen• tial riot around which only the context changes. His prescription is to negate the prescribed center of vantage point, such as the nation-state, and reject the official archive as the primary source for the construction of general history. Pointing out the provisionality and contested character of all unities, such as periods, territo• ries, social groups, political formations, and other objects of historical analysis, he highlights the role of what the historians call a "fragment," such as a weaver's diary, a collection of poems, creation myths, women's songs, family genealogies, and local traditions of history, to challenge the state's construction of history. See Gyanendra Pandey, "In Defense of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today," Representations 37 (winter 1992), pp. 27-55. 170 "Presenting" the Past

39. Dipak Malik, "Three Riots in Varanasi, 1989-90 to 1992," South Asia Bulletin 14, no. 1 (1994), p. 55. 40. From a 1992 Delhi Forum publication, as presented in K.N. Panikkar, "Reli• gious Symbols and Political Mobilization: The Agitation for a Mandir at Ayod• hya," Social Scientist 21, nos. 7-8 (July-August 1993), p. 71. 41. "Bloody Aftermath," India Today, 31 December 1992, pp. 58-61. 42. See Raj Chengappa and Ramesh Menon, "The New Battlefields," India Today, 31 January 1993, p. 28. 43. Uma Chakravarti et al., "Communalisation of a U.P. Town," Hindu, 16 June 1991. 44. M.J. Akbar, Riot after Riot: Reports on Caste and Communal Violence in India (New Delhi and New York: Penguin Books, 1988), pp. 128-29. 45. Harold A. Gould, "Patterns of Political Mobilization in the Parliamentary and Assembly Elections of 1989 and 1990," in India Votes: Alliance Politics and Minority Governments in the Ninth and Tenth General Elections, ed. Harold A. Gould and Sumit Ganguly (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993), p. 44. 46. Bhaskar Roy, "Emerging Power," India Today, 31 March 1990. 47. "The Manifestoes: What Is an Offer," Frontline, 25 May-7 June 1991, p. 49. 48. The following was the statewide tally: Bihar, 5; UP, 50; HP, 2; Delhi, 5; Hary- ana, 0; Rajasthan, 12; and MP, 12. The other major stronghold was Gujarat, 20. It is interesting to note that most of the BJP candidates who lost their deposit hailed from other parts of the country with a rather decent record in the heartland: Bihar, 25; UP, 4; HP, 0; Delhi, 0; Haryana, 9; Rajasthan, 0; and MP, 0. Likewise, the party had polled 22.89 percent of the votes in the 198 constituencies that had the election on May 20, and obtained only 18.46 percent in the 262 constituencies that had elec• tions after Rajiv Gandhi's death. It is also important to note that in 70 constituen• cies the party won with a very narrow margin of 10,000 to 50,000 votes. See Lok Sabha Poll: An A.l.R. Anahjsis (New Delhi: All India Radio, 1991), pp. 13-14,17-50, 52, 73. 49. Some 180 interviewers traveled to 30 parliamentary constituencies across 11 states and Delhi (which account for 465 seats in Parliament) and interviewed 5,650 registered voters, including 527 Muslims who were aware of the Ayodhya issue. See "Politics of Opportunism," India Today, 15 August 1992. 50. Some 200 interviewers traveled to over 300 locations in 34 parliamen• tary constituencies spread across India and interviewed 11,172 registered voters between July 14 and 20. See "Three Way Split," India Today, 15 August 1993. 51. Shiv Lai, Election Activity in India 1993, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Election Archives, 1994), p. 162. 52. Ibid., pp. 171-73. 53. Ibid., p. 172. 54. Ibid., pp. 172,178. 55. Constructed with the figures from Bhaskar Roy, "Emerging Power," India Today, 31 March 1990; Ramesh Vinayak, "Raiding the Votebanks," India Today, 15 October 1993; and Lai, Election Activity in India 1993, pp. 53-54, 66, 78,102,119. 56. Inderjit Badhwar, "Saffron Setback," India Today, 15 December 1993. 57. Geeta Puri, "UP polls: BJP's Hold Only on Upper Castes," Indian Express, 12 December 1995. The collapse of the two successive coalition governments of the SP (Mulayam Singh Yadav) and the BSP (Mayavati) must have eroded their Ramraksha: Ram-ifying the Society and Modi-fying the State 171 popularity in the local elections. The Janata Dal and the Congress were nowhere in the picture. See "BJP's Success" (editorial), Indian Express, 29 November 1995. Of course, it is also true that individuals rather than their parties matter more in the local elections, and that there is little in common between voter behavior during local elections and during larger state assembly and national parliamentary elec• tions. See Dilip Awasthi, "Why the BJP Scored," India Today, 31 December 1995. 58. "BJP's Battle" (editorial), Indian Express, 4 January 1996. 59. Paul R. Brass, "The Rise of the BJP and the Future of Party Politics in Uttar Pradesh," in India Votes: Alliance Politics and Minority Governments in the Ninth and Tenth General Elections, ed. Harold A. Gould and Sumit Ganguly (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993), p. 276. 60. Shahnaz Anklesaria Aiyar, "A Scorching Campaign," India Today, 31 May 1991. 61. Malik, "Three Riots in Varanasi," pp. 55-56. This page intentionally left blank Conclusions

As a prominent "sign of the modern," and hence irrevocably linked to the nation-state, history has been implicated as the necessary condition both in hegemony and in struggle in India, that is, both in the constitu• tion of anthropological cultures of the precolonial past and in the freedom struggle. This "sinuous and subtle relational field of colonial hegemony" displaced Indian subjectivity and agency in relation to everything but its own presence and concealed its refiguration of the categories and logics of Indian social life.1 Instead of freeing history from such "modernized modalities,"2 most of the Indian nationalisms tended to be "derivative discourses," and the postcolonial Indian state adopted the very colonial mentality by internalizing the "intimate enemy."3 Indian nationalisms, as Gyanendra Pandey contends, have been played out over the last hundred years between the poles of modernization and cultural identity. While the former agenda has been more and more clearly specified over the decades, the latter, which was crucial to the national• ist campaign from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, has been accorded less and less attention. Although India had come to be seen as a composite society of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, and others toward the end of the nineteenth century, it was only in the 1920s that the people of India were seen as the real ground to build up Indian nationalism and the national movement. The Gandhian and Nehruvian focus on the masses of India led on in the 1930s and thereafter to a social• ist thrust in Indian nationalism with equal importance to social and eco• nomic independence along with political swaraj.4 174 Conclusions

The late-nineteenth-century nationalism contested the colonial represen• tations of Indians as "unmanly, disorganized, irrational and unworldly" by writing the history of the Rajputs, the Marathas, and the Sikhs by high• lighting their military valor, worldly struggles, and scientific achieve• ments. With the end of the First World War, the emergence of Gandhism, and the onset of Hindu-Muslim conflict, the national history of the 1920s and 1930s started to move away to the common culture of Hindus and Muslims and the Indian tradition of tolerance and syncretism. Ashoka, Akbar, Kabir, and Nanak became the new symbols of national pride.5 As Pandey puts it effectively:

Through the wide-ranging and continuous debates about the character of the "real" India, through the variety of Indian histories constructed, through changing emphases and arguments and perspectives, the nationalists of the later-nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries established a sense of the Indian past as plural, dynamic and greatly enriched by numerous and many-sided contacts. Such a vision could speak of uniqueness, of the glories and achievements of Indian civilization, but also of internal contradiction, of compromise and the acceptance of differences, and with all that of "modernization" and "internationalism" and ""—including the dreams of social and economic equality and the advancement of all those who lived in India.6

With the end of the national struggle in the early 1950s, it was assumed that the national history, national culture, and national visions were all consolidated and needed no more debate. The Nehruvian project of nation building got in full swing with its preoccupations such as electoral politics, industrial development, and so forth, and the question of cul• tural identity and dignity was lost. The obscurantist elements, who were once marginal in national politics, have usurped the question and tried to rewrite and retell who "we" are, what constitutes "Indian" history and culture, and where we go from here.7 Thus, the "inflexible (and some• what dated) scientism, based on an arrogant belief in the infinite power of nineteenth and twentieth century 'man', has not only closed off many possibilities of reflection and debate, but also opened up space for other arrogant believers to stake their claim to 'authenticity' on the grounds of attention to particularity: a concern with indigenous (or, as it is quickly dubbed, 'national') culture, religious sensibilities and the rights of society as against the individual and the state."8 The concept of secularism deserves a special mention here. Western secularism was born out of the Enlightenment, which sought to wean humans away from the fetters of religion. This separation of religion from the state and science came to form the basis for the industrial revolution and Western civilization. Thus the nation-state, liberal democracy, parlia• ments, modernization, development, individualism, free trade, hedonism (often put as "our way of life" in the United States), and consumerism Conclusions 175 all stand to gain from the Western understanding of secularism in vary• ing measures. Any problematization of this Western secularism triggers a knee-jerk reaction among many as if there was only one alternative. Their fears of immediately push their mind-set, despite all their civilizational endowments, back to the colonial days. The "rational, objective, scientific, secular" West feels surrounded by "irrational, subjec• tive, unscientific and religious barbarians."9 It is this Western colonial atti• tude—among other things, such as the lack of results from the neocolonial socio-economic-political arrangement and institutions, economic disap• pointments, social frustrations, and political confusion—that gives rise to resentment among the peoples of the Third World and makes them turn inwardly to search for results. When they do turn inward, the Western theory of "beauty and the beasts" stands vindicated. The cycle continues and will most probably continue forever until the self-righteous "beauty" and the vindictive "beasts" change their mind-sets. This is not to imply that religious nationalism of the Hindutva type is an answer for the quandary. Instead, what is attempted here is to explore whether all non-Western modernities should or could adopt Western secu• larism, and whether there are no other ways of combining religion and politics. Louise Dumont's argument provides the point of departure here: "Communalism, on the one hand, differs from nationalism in the place that religion seems to play in it, while on the other, the religious element that enters into its composition seems to be but the shadow of religion—that is, religion taken not as the essence and guide of life in all spheres, but only as a sign of the distinction of one human, at least virtually political, group against others."10 Dumont's contention makes so much sense in a multire- ligious country such as India. The Hindutva communal nationalism in India has a significant religious component. The "deride and rule" policy of the Hindu orthodoxy directed toward the lower castes has been the foundational principle in Hinduism and has never helped to bring about any kind of social justice or solidar• ity among the various sections of Hindus. The strict hierarchy, status- consciousness, negation of any dialogue or reformation, and overall reac• tionary backwardness in thinking and disposition gave rise to a political culture of that order with internal rivalries and petty quarrels. That inher• ent weakness only facilitated the invasions and overruns. Even today's insincere solidarity rhetoric glosses over the fundamental issues involved, such as Brahminical supremacy or caste oppression, and this shallow exer• cise tries to buy time to achieve two things: to trick the "lower" Hindus into the old trap and to put the non-Hindus in their place. If and when the non-Hindus are subdued, the "lower" Hindus will be targeted. So Hindu nationalism is not just religious nationalism but also a casteist nationalism. It is an inferiority complex fueled by the historic defeats of the Hindu elites and fanned by their desperate attempts of making up for 176 Conclusions that through opportunism and reactionary resurgence. Taken aback by the Islamic fanaticism growing rapidly around themselves and the internal erosion of their power by the more assertive and upwardly mobile lower castes, the Hindu orthodoxy panics and tries to bring things under their control. When the surrounding "enemy" is spotted within, that provides a good excuse to mobilize the secondary enemies, whose turn will come when the Muslims are dealt with appropriately. The internal Muslim communal elements are not less virulent than the Hindu communalists either. Both these psychologies are preoccupied with numbers. Unlike the syncretic legacy of Hinduism, Islam (as well as Christianity) attaches enormous importance to head count, and reserves redemption exclusively for the in-group. They measure their strength and spirituality by number and would do anything to convert the entire world to their faiths. The Hindu orthodoxy is equally preoccupied with num• bers, so as not to be reduced to a minority, but would not budge for any reformation within its domain. Thus the Hindutva program is an all-encompassing program for "national visions" that asserts so desperately that Hindus are a nation; Sanatana Dharma gives the national identity, undivided India is the motherland, and Sanskrit is the national mother tongue. There is no Mus• lim or British period in the Hindu history, which is "a history of continuous Hindu struggle against Muslim invaders and British colonialists." People who subscribe to "alien religions," which are "enemies of our nation," are minorities, and the goal would be "to bring our minorities back into our nation after destroying the deadly intoxication of these ideologies." They do not accept the partition of the country, and the goal there would be "to re-unite the whole of our ancestral homeland into our motherland, no matter how long it takes." By accomplishing all these, the Hindu would liberate themselves and earn their freedom.11 What the Sangh Parivar does is to unmake this diversity through selec• tive appropriation and outright rejection of India's past, present, and future and remake it in its own nazi-fascist mold. Their simplified history and symbolic politics would negate all other histories, subject regional minorities to the centralized authoritarian state, stop the upward mobil• ity of the dominated castes, suppress women's aspirations, and establish a polity marked by backward bourgeois nostalgia of an imperial past, nuclear power, and hallucinations of regional dominance.12 Thus the three concepts—national history, mythification, and political socialization—designate the three aspects of a single problematic, namely the relations between history and identity constructions. As the discus• sions on the Ramayana, Ramarajya, and the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmab- humi issue point out, the boundary lines between these domains cannot be clearly marked, and there is a lot of overlapping. The Sangh Parivar's program is such an ingenious one that they incorporate all kinds of Conclusions 177

Goebbels's principles of propaganda in manipulating these popular sym• bols and sentiments to promote their political agenda. Their notorious historical convictions and historiographical methods and their ingenious socialization techniques and technologies are paying high dividends. Thus the Hindu history stands corrected with the assertions that Ary• ans were the original inhabitants of India; India's independence struggle began 2,500 years ago; the Congress was established by the British to perpetuate their rule in India; Hedgewar, the RSS founder, was one of the greatest leaders of the Indian independence struggle; scores of his• torical monuments, such as the Qutub Minar and Taj Mahal, were in fact Hindu buildings; and so forth. In reality, however, the Hindutva history reproduces the same logic of the colonialist history; the primordial Hindu- Muslim conflict and the convulsions in the former discourse are portrayed as wars in the latter. It is also not an antistatist history, as it feigns being. This Hindutva history aims only at its propagandistic values and not at the factual intent or historical accuracy. So the commotion and the accom• panying emotions are the intended achievements of the Sangh Parivar, and not scientific corroboration of any kind.13 As Gyan Pandey points out, the Hindutva history poses as "a history that speaks in the language and voice of the people about their most deeply-rooted beliefs and desires"; uses the local languages; plays with the notions of religion, culture, and politics; and effectively popularizes its history among the people through ingenious ways.14 They have a long list of names and locations of Hindu temples allegedly mutilated and converted, a brief tale of their "sad metamorphosis," and their present- day use, which is invariably as mosques. While the national history of the Sangh Parivar culminates in Ayodhya, their local histories also follow the same dialectic with the same enemies all over India to entrench the desired effects among the Hindus and to invigorate their political agenda. Although this project has made some dent in Indian politics, there are several social indicators, such as the voting pattern, occurrence of commu• nal riots, and so forth that clearly suggest that the peoples of India are not swept away completely by communal politics and that they do employ enough political discrimination in judging the situation. However, that is no reason to be complacent about the schemes of the Sangh Parivar. Intervening in the Indian debate on secularism,15 Partha Chatterjee asserts that Western secularism and Indian secularism would inhabit com• pletely autonomous discursive domains despite their family resemblances. In India, the use of state legislation to achieve religious reform contradicts the modernist principle of freedom of religion (liberty). The equality of citizenship is also compromised by the system of religion-based personal laws inherited from the colonial times. The separation of state and reli• gion (neutrality) suffers the same fate, as the state is entangled in religious affairs in many ways. So, extending the equality principle, the state could 178 Conclusions favor all religions equally; however, the state's reforming the personal laws of only the majority community cannot be defended. But the state does have a duty to protect the cultural diversity and the rights of minority communities. Such an articulation of diversity is impossible in the unitary rationalism of the language of rights. The contours of liberal-democratic theory that define the relation between the state and civil society in terms of individual rights do not offer any help. Thus the universal form of the modern nation-state proves to be inadequate for the postcolonial world.16 So a uniform civil code for all will only create more troubles, rather than a solution for the problem. Recognizing the reality of separate religion-based personal laws and the involvement of the state in the affairs of religious institutions, "equal citizenship stands qualified by the legal recognition of religious differences," and one has the right to negotiate the status in the public arena.17 The secular state could achieve only little through legislation and judi• cial interventions to bring about reform within minority communities or tolerance within the majority community. The Aligarh Muslim University controversy, the Shah Bano case, the Ayodhya crisis, and the Religion Bill are just a few examples of complete failure.18 The only option for a minority protagonist is to engage in a "strategic politics" that is neither integration- ist nor separatist. On the grounds of autonomy and self-representation, the protagonist will, on the one hand, resist the assimilationist powers of governmental technology and its universalist idea of citizenship, and on the other, struggle to bring about more representative public institutions and practices within his or her own community.19 As for the majority community, and even for the minority communities for that matter, they have to rediscover the role of religion in politics. Gan• dhi, for one, contended that "my politics and all other activities of mine are derived from my religion" and that "my religion is ethical religion."20 Hence Gandhi's religion is not static, obscurantist, and beyond reason but dynamic, rational, and progressive. If religion is "a constant moral quest," as Gandhi wants it to be, it becomes necessary to cut its rigid relationship off from a particular social and political arrangement and not from social and political arrangements in general.21 Gandhi used to describe religions as "rivers that meet in the same ocean," and that metaphor stressed only their similarity of the final goal and not the equality or identity in the essence of the religions. Replacing the attitude of tolerance with equal• ity since 1930, Gandhi used the metaphor of "branches of the same tree" to denote the sameness of essence.22 He wrote, "After a study of those religions to the extent that it was possible for me, I have come to the con• clusion that, if it is proper and necessary to discover an underlying unity among all religions, a master-key is needed. That master-key is that of truth and non-violence. When I unlock the chest of a religion with this master-key, I do not find it difficult to discover its likeness with other reli• gions."23 Conclusions 179

This "truth and nonviolence" is nothing but the "passion for the service of the suppressed classes," the children of God. This Gandhian under• standing of religion acknowledges the interrelatedness of all people and things in the universe, shuns the extreme individualism that characterized the ancient search for God by advocating service to humanity, views a human person as an integral reality, and hence dismisses the traditional separation of secular and religious realms and broadens the place and notions of worship (such as spinning wheel, communal amity, removal of untouchability, and so forth). Gandhi never built temples, went on pil• grimages, or offered gifts to such places.24 The moral power he derived from his commitment to Truth and involvement with the people's prob• lems activated "the small inner voice," and that voice led him in every• thing he did. How can religion and politics, or anything human for that matter, be separate? Integrating the religious values and traditions of the peoples of the subcontinent, Gandhi built an integral socio-economic-political program that rejected untouchability, oppression of women, and poverty; retracted centralization and control; and repudiated the state as a soulless machine. It is little wonder that the Sangh Parivar does not take Gandhian under• standing of religion or his overall dream seriously. The Indian elites and intelligentsia are also prostrated by their mindless admiration for West• ern Europe, North America, and fast-disappearing communist citadels because the Gandhian holistic approach to the Indian problem is much harder and requires inner dialogue and social responsibility on their part. The anarchist, nonstatist, and culturally plural religiosity Gandhi devel• oped would not surrender the civil society to religious bigots but insisted on the role of practical morality. As Balraj Puri asserts, "A better knowl• edge of the realities of the Indian heritage where religion and politics were neither mixed nor divorced but related in an autonomous manner should help the country to outgrow the obsession with the Eurocentric concept of nationalism that cannot ensure either the national unity or its material and spiritual growth."25 In the final analysis, there is no homogenous Hindu community in India, and the Indian civil society is politically shrewd and resilient. That an Indian respects some of the social myths does not automatically mean the faith can be converted into ideology or activism. This heterogeneity and ambiguity is the inherent strength of the Hindu communities, and it could and should be exploited by the non-Hindu communities to establish and foster transboundary transactions. The majority-minority, Hindu- non-Hindu, and other such binary divisions of the Indian society are not only simplistic but practically impossible, as every community (religious, linguistic, or caste) can be a majority at the local level but a minority at the national level. Nonetheless, this is no justification not to do anything, but an invitation to go back to work: 180 Conclusions

Negating the claim that Hindu-Muslim or Hindu-Sikh conflicts are primordial forces that happen outside history and human agency, we have to turn down the communal construction of identity and history. Iqbal Ansari argues that the communal perceptions of history have got entrenched in the collective psyche of Indians as myths and symbols and that this "mythic-psychic-folklorish" operant of the average Indian mind opens them up to manipulation by some politicians and bigoted religious leaders. As he contends, the situation cannot be remedied just by present• ing a "decommunalised scientific perspective on history."26 The task calls for more. We should take a clear look at contemporary politics, make the motives visible, and show how they are transformed. Rudolph and Rudolph argue that politics of interest is being overtaken by cultural politics around the world. They see the mosque demolition as young Hindu men's "renego• tiation of political and economic power and status, or rather as a sign of the pathology of renegotiation." These "victims of modernization," who belong to the old, established Hindu middle classes, seek to victimize the "pampered Muslims" and lower castes, who were their inferiors before in status and income. These Hindus, who are accustomed to Muslim invis• ibility and deference, respond to Muslim mobility and wealth by challeng• ing Nehru-style secularism, which offers special protection to Muslims. It is only after Prime Minister V. P. Singh implemented the Mandal Com• mission report (which recommended 49 percent of federal jobs for "back• ward" castes, untouchables, and tribals) in August 1990 that the Hindu reactionaries precipitated the Ayodhya issue.27 The hope lies in the politi• cal processes that transcend the easy identity constructions such as Us ver• sus Them and engages in constant negotiations and renegotiations among the multiple identities. Unity and not uniformity, plurality and not purity, should be the maxim. Such political transactions have to be firmly rooted in the rich Indian heritage of nonviolence. India has inherited a rich and sophisticated philosophy of nonviolence that Mahatma Gandhi refined, adapted, and implemented in the struggle for independence. That heritage played a crucial role in developing a secular constitution to respect all faiths and cultural diversity and adopting a foreign policy of nonalignment in a world of power blocs and nuclear weapons. The spirit of nonviolence has to be reinvented. The reactionary attempts of the Sangh Parivar to create a unified image of Hinduism and Hindus within the hierarchical and highly oppressive Brahminical tradition have to be exposed. There is no such thing as a Hindu society, because Hinduism comprises everything from animism to Tantric exercises and mysticism, and incorporates roughly 3,000 castes and subcastes.28 Along with this negation of the metanarrative of Hindu iden• tity, it has to be exposed how the political identities are crafted in benign and malignant ways in print and electronic media, texts and textbooks, Conclusions 181 films and videos, arts and performances, campaign strategies, collective memories, stories about the past, politicians' and intellectuals' discourses, and any such arena where the self and the Other are represented.29 In spite of all these communalists, fundamentalists, and status-quoist forces, there does exist a composite culture influenced by Hindu, Islamic, and other traditions. There is considerable influence of Islam in Indian poetry; fine arts such as music, dance, and painting; ways of speech, modes of dressing; foods; architecture; and so forth. The very word Hindu has been given by Muslims. There are Hindus and Muslims living together in virtually every town and village of India and taking part in each other's daily lives. Indian Muslims have much more in common with Indian Hin• dus than with Muslims from anywhere else. Likewise, all Indians have much more in common with each other than do the peoples of other mul• tinational states. This needs to be pointed out vigorously. Building up on the emerging Indian (maybe someday, South Asian) civil society through all these tasks and strategies, Hindus, Muslims, and everyone else have to constantly negotiate and renegotiate their values and interests. The "functioning anarchy" called India must be kept diverse, plural, and multivocal lest it should aspire to superpower status. As Gal• tung points out, the crystallization of the violent strains in the "hegemo- nial systems, sewn together seamlessly with an impeccable logic" and the ascending sense of sacred time and place will lead only to decline and fall.30 The Indian experiment could be instructive for the world, as India is, to borrow the words of Selig Harrison, the whole world put in close quarters.

NOTES 1. Nicholas B. Dirks, "History as a Sign of the Modern," Public Culture 2, no. 2 (spring 1990), pp. 25, 29. 2. Ibid. 3. These are the phrases of Partha Chatterjee and Ashis Nandy, respectively. See Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986); and Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983). 4. Gyan Pandey, "Nationalism, Communalism, and the Struggle over His• tory," in Communalism in India: Challenge and Response, ed. Mehdi Arslan and Janaki Rajan (New Delhi: Manohar, 1994), pp. 50-52. 5. Ibid., p. 53. 6. Ibid., p. 55. 7. Ibid., p. 57. 8. Gyanendra Pandey, "The New Hindu History," South Asia 17, Special Issue (1994), p. 112. 9. Addressing Americans, or maybe Westerners in general, Juergensmeyer comes up with "lists of what in religious nationalism we cannot live with, and what we can," and "aspects of religious nationalism that we cannot live with easily, but 182 Conclusions with which we might have to learn to coexist." See Mark Juergensmeyer, "Can We Live with Religious Nationalism?" Peace Review 7, no. 1 (1995), pp. 17-22. 10. Louis Dumont, Religion/Politics and History in India: Collected Papers in Indian Sociology (Paris and The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1970), pp. 90-91. 11. Abhas Chatterjee, The Concept of Hindu Nation (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1995), pp. 44-45. 12. Aijaz Ahmad, "Nation, Community, Violence," South Asia Bulletin 14, no. 1 (1994), p. 25. 13. "The available information is quite adequate to support the categorical statement that there was no temple, either of stone or of brick or of both materi• als, lying below the mosque at the site during the three centuries (the thirteenth to the fifteenth) which preceded the construction of the mosque." See D. Mandal, Ayodhya: Archaeology after Demolition: A Critique of the "New" and "Fresh" Discoveries (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993), p. 65. 14. Pandey, "The New Hindu History," pp. 97-99. 15. Secularism is interpreted by the Sangh Parivar as a policy of appeasement toward religious minorities, especially Muslims. There is no dearth of Hindutva material on this and other aspects of secularism. For example, see Anand Pan- dya, Hypocrisy of Secularism (Injustice to Hindus) (Karnavati, India: Vishva Hindu Parishad, 1990); R.S. Narayanaswami, Discrimination against Hindus in Constitu• tion and Law (Madras, India: Vishwa Hindu Parishad, 1991); Arun Shourie, A Secu• lar Agenda: For Saving Our Country, for Welding It (New Delhi: ASA Publications, 1993); N.S. Rajaram, Secularism: The Nezo Mask of Fundamentalism, Religious Subver• sion of Secular Affairs (New Delhi: Voice of India, 1995). However, the Muslim side of the story is quite different. For example, in the national parliament, with 544 seats, there are only 19 Muslim members, and a proportional representation of the Muslim population (almost 12 percent of India) would have as many as 100 of them. The Muslim presence in the central government services amounts only to 2.2 percent of the total employees, and in the army they are not even 1 percent of the armed forces. They are also under rep resented in state legislatures, public- sector companies, private-sector industry, and trade. See Abdus Samad, "Coming Together," in Ayodhya and the Future India, ed. Jitendra Bajaj (Madras, India: Centre for Policy Studies, 1993), p. 113. 16. Partha Chatterjee, "Religious Minorities and the Secular State: Reflections on an Indian Impasse," Public Culture 8 (1995), pp. 11-27. 17. Ibid., pp. 35-36. 18. On the Religion Bill, see Anil Nauriya, "Politics of Religious Hate: Beyond the Bills," Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 37 (11 September 1993); and Nitin G. Raut, "The Religion Bill: A Political Gimmick," Freedom First, no. 420 (January- March 1994). 19. Chatterjee, "Religious Minorities," pp. 36-38. 20. Quoted in Antony Chirappanath, "Religions in National Integration: A Gandhian Perspective," in Role of Religions in National Integration, ed. Thomas Manickam (Bangalore: Dharmaram Publications, 1984), pp. 84-85. 21. Ibid., p. 93. 22. J. F. T. Jordens, "Gandhi and Religious Pluralism," in Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism, ed. Harold G. Coward (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 7-11. Conclusions 183

23. Quoted in ibid., p. 12. 24. T. K. John, "Theology of Liberation and Gandhian Praxis: A Social Spiritual• ity for India," in Leave the Temple: Indian Paths to Human Liberation, ed. Felix Wilfred (New York: Orbis Books, 1992), pp. 87-89. 25. Balraj Puri, "Politics of Ethnic and Communal Identities," Economic and Political Weekly 25, no. 14 (7 April 1990), pp. 703-5. 26. Iqbal Ansari, "Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India: Causes and Remedies," in The Muslim Situation in India (New Delhi: Sterling, 1989), p. 173. 27. Susanne Rudolph and Lloyd Rudolph, "Modern Hate," New Republic, 22 March 1993, pp. 24-29. 28. Ved Mehta, "The Mosque and the Temple: The Rise of Fundamentalism," Foreign Affairs, spring 1993. 29. Rudolph and Rudolph, "Modern Hate," pp. 26,29. 30. See Johan Galtung, "On the Way to Superpower Status: India and the EC Compared," IOCPS Occasional Paper 2 (October 1991), p. 8. This page intentionally left blank Glossary

abhishek anointing adharma nonrighteousness ahimsa nonviolence Akhand Bharat Undivided (or Greater) India akhyana dramatic narratives andolan a (political, etc.) movement asatya untruth avatar incarnation bandh closure bhakti devotion Bharat Mata Mother India brahmacharya celibacy butshikan iconoclast Dalits oppressed (so-called untouchables) darshan having sight (of); audience (with); worshipping dharma righteousness; law of the universe Dharma Sansad Hindu religious gathering dhwaj poojan flag worship Doordarshan Indian national TV ekatmata integration ganasangha of tribal chiefships or 186 Glossary gathas songs ghazi victor over (non-Muslim) unbelievers Hindusthan region of Hindu; India Hindutva Hindu qualities; Hindu identity itihasa history (thus it was) jagirdar holder of a jagir (estate or freehold given by government in return for services) jai abhishek anointing with water Jataka anthology of Buddhist stories jyotirlinga one of many lingams kafir infidel; unbeliever (especially in Islam) kalash pounded pinnacle or ball on top of a dome kalash pratisthan installation (of kalash) karseva offering service with or by the hand; (religious) voluntary service karsevaks (religious) volunteers Kashi Varanasi katha story kavyas poetic compositions khadi hand-spun cloth khudairaj state of God kisan farmers Krishnajanmasthan Krishna's birthplace; temple in Mathura Krishnaneeti Krishna's justice Lingam phallic symbol, the Hindu deity Shiva Mahila Samaj Women's Association mandir temple masjid mosque muni monk namaz (Muslim) prayer narasamsi eulogies of heroes natya dance nritya mandap dance venue nyas trust Paduka Rajya state ruled by Bharatha with Ram's shoes parikrama ritual circular course around an object of worship pracharaks propagandists prasad remnants of food offered to an idol; sacrament offered at Hindu temples puranas mythological stories; ancient lore Glossary 187 raksha to protect rakshasas demons Ramarajya state of Ram Ramayana a Hindu epic (Struggle of Ram) Rambaan Ram panacea; single dose of medicine for every possible disease Ramjanmabhumi birthplace of Ram Ramlila Ram's play Ramraksha Ram protection Ramshila foundation-laying ceremony for Ram's temple rathyatra car procession sadbhavana communal amity sadhus Hindu religious figures sadhu sammelan convention of sadhus samraksha protection samskars any of various sanctifying or purification rites Sanatana Dharma Immemorial Dharma: Hinduism as involving acceptance of orthodox belief and practice sandhya twilight Sangh Parivar (Rashtriya Swayamsevak) Sangh family; RSS and other Hindutva outfits santaan descendants sants Hindu religious figures sanyasa renouncing the world sanyasi one who has renounced the world sarsanghchalak supremo (literally "highest director") sarvodaya welfare of all satya truth Sawan fifth month of the Hindu lunar calendar (July-August) shamiana a large tent shoba yatra a jubilant procession Somwar Monday suryanamaskara sun worship swadeshi encouraging the use of indigenous articles and boycotting the foreign goods swaraj self-rule swayamsevaks (RSS) volunteers talukdar large landholder; owner of an estate Upanishads Hindu religious scriptures 188 Glossary

Vaishnavajana Vaishnavas, a sect of Hinduism vanara monkey varna bodily substance, philosophy of caste vidyapeeth university Vijayadashami 10th day of the light half of the month Asvin, and the festival celebrating the victory of Ram over Ravana held on that day waqf Muslim endowment board yagna rites zamindar landlord Selected Bibliography

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Acquisition of Certain Areas at All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Ayodhya Act, 128 Kazhagam, 166 Additional district magistrate All India Babri Masjid Action Com• (ADM), 133 mittee (AIBMAC), 139 Advani, L.K., 36, 59, 62, 68,100-101, All India Congress Committee (I) 128-130,136,162 (AICC), 59,61,98,125,128 Afghanistan, 57, 99,141 All India Hindu Mahasabha, 121-123, Age of Consent Bill, 23 126 Agra, 99 All India Muslim Personal Law Board Ahmedabad riot, 98 (AIMPLB), 133,134,135,136 Aibak, Qutubuddin, 99 Ambedkar, Babasaheb, 27 Air India Boeing 747 crash, 57 Amrita Bazar Patrika (newspaper), 113 Akbar, M.J., 99,163 Amritsar, 98 Akhanda Hindustan, 91 Anderson, Benedict, 18,20 Akhand Bharat, 4, 39,122 Andhra Pradesh, 112 Akhil Bharatiya Ramrajya Parishad, Ansari, Iqbal, 48 92 Anti-Cow-Killing Society, 23 Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad Apte, Narayan, 111, 123-124 (ABVP), 3,102 Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Ali, Muhammad, 26, 27,121 133,134,135,139 Ali, Shaukat, 27,121 Arendt, Hannah, 148 Aligarh Muslim University, 178 Arya Samaj, 22,116 Aligharh Historians Society, 134 Assam, 162 Allahabad, 61, 93, 95,101,131,132 Auangzeb, 99 Allahabad High Court, 128-131,133, Aurangzeb,78,81, 99,117,154-155 135,137 Aya Ram Gaya Ram, 160 208 Index

Ayodhya, 7, 8, 34; beautification of, Bharatiya Vichara Kendra, 103 94-95; bye-election, 93; Ordinance, Bharat ki Sanskritik Virasat, 78-79 127; Ram temple movement, 92, Bharat Yatra, 101 128-139. See also Babri Masjid; Bharti, Uma, 136 shrine liberation, 100-101 Bhavani-mandir (Ghose), 33 Azad, Gulam Nabi, 61 Bhonsle Military School, 123 Azad, Maulana Abul Kalam, 137 Bhopal, 100 Bhutto, Banazir, 141 Babar, 9, 70, 95 Bihar, 159,165 Babasaheb Ambedkar, 27 Birla, G.D., 89 Babri Masjid, 57, 60, 95, 98,119,128- Bir Singh Deo, 99 129,139-141 Black Propaganda, 8 Babri Masjid Action Committee Blavatsky, Madame, 22 (BMAC), 57, 60,135 Bolsheviks, 7 Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhumi issue, Bombay, 62, 68, 81,124,153 9,12,31,109,133-135,176 Bommes, Michael, 153 Babu Bazaar, 151 Bose, Ananda Mohan, 24 Bahri, P.K., 128 Bourdieu, Pierre, 156 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), 129,165 Brahmacharya, 113,116 Bajrang Dal, 3,100,124,125,127,137 Brahmins, 31, 34,35,57, 60, 67,110-16, Balibar, Etienne, 19 119-20 Banaras, 96 Brahmo Samaj, 22 Banerjee, Mamata, 159 Britain, 23,28-29,110 Banerjee, Surendranath, 22,24 Buddha, 34 Bangalore, 58 Buddhism, 26,35,53,112,116 Bangladesh, 98,141 Bunch of Thoughts (Golwalkar), 35 Bano, Shah, 57,178 Barani, Zia, 28 Capitalism, 5,18,47, 90, 95,122 Begum Hasrat Mahal Park, 95 Caste system, 6, 26, 35, 38, 67, 85, Bengal, 22,114-116 91,112,115; bourgeoisie, 5, 29, 39, Besant, Annie, 22 90,149,176; Dalits, 30, 35, 39, 60, Bhandari, Sundar Singh, 125 114,119,150,165; lower, 38, 63, Bharat, 28,90 110,112-114,119,150,162,175, Bharatha, 50-51, 53, 67 176,180; middle, 39,45, 64-70, 90, Bharatiya Itihas Sankalana Yojana, 103 140,166,180; peasants, 27, 30,114; Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), 3, 92, untouchables, 27, 82,85, 86,91,158, 122-123 180; upper, 63,91,95,110,112-113, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 1,156- 119-120,139,162,166 161; BSP and, 129; Gandhian social• Catakantaravana-katai, 66 ism promotion, 126; MPs, 131,164; The Center, 2,13,132,138,158,163 Nagpur meeting, 59-60; national Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), executive meetings, 59,130,135, 136 136-37,138; parading of karsevak Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), martyrs, 103; rathyatra, 100-101; 139 RSS backing, 62, 95,125; scandals, Centre of Policy Studies, 62 160 Ceylon National Congress, 85 Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), 3,102 Chaitanya, 167 Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), 3, Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 21,28, 29,149 102 Chandra, Baba Ram, 54 Index 209

Chandragupta II, 98 Desai, Radhika, 158 Charkha, 84, 85 Deshmukh, Nanaji, 58 Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, 22,24 Deutsch, Karl, 17 Chatterjee, Partha, 177 Dharma, 93 Chaturvedi, Naresh, 59 Dharma Chakra, 28, 90 Chetawani yatra, 132 Dharmanirapeksha, 28 Chinmayanand, Swami, 60 Dharma raj, 84 Chinmayananda, 60 Dharma Sansad, 100,101,131,138 Chiploonkar, Vishnu Krishna, 22 Dharmasthan Mukti Yagna Samiti, Chitpawan Brahim, 110, 111 100 Christians, 94,117,173 Dharma Yatras, 100 Civil society, 147-52 Dharmendra, Acharya, 129 Coconada Congress, 27 Doordarshan, 52,57, 65, 66, 68 Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, 68 Droysen, J.G., 21 Colgate-Palmolive, 66 Dumont, Louis, 167,175 Colombo, 85 Durga Vahini, 81 Committee on Communalism, 59 Durrani, F.K.Khan, 31 Communal Award, 120 Dutt, Michael Madhusugdan, 56 Communalism, 4, 5; AICC (I), 59; ban Dwarika temple, 98 on organizations of, 127; Congress, Dwarka, 128 138; fascist, 32; Hindu, 9,49, 57,97, 140,176; Hindutva, 12-13, 38,175; Education, 3, 77-79, 81,95, 96,101-3, Muslim, 8,13, 31,141; narratives, 155,180 32; neo-Hindus, 121; of political life, Ekta Yatra, 101 114; riots/violence, 37, 94,139,141, 160-63,177; Sangh Parivar, 137; Fairfax investigation, 61 soft, 167; teaching of, 79 Faizabad, 95 Communist Party, 27, 59 Fascists, 5 Communists, 79, 82,124,126,141,159, Fazl, Abul, 99 167,179 Fichte, J.G., 18 Congress party, 57, 89, 91-93,121, First World Hindu Conference, 121 136-38,166 Fisher, H.A.L., 45-46 "Four-Point Appeal to Muslims of Dal, Janata, 164 India, A" (Advani), 36 Dalai Lama, 136 "From Restoration of Rama Janmab- Das, C.R., 28,121 hoomi to Ram Rajya" (paper), Dasaratha, 50-51, 53-54, 67 62-63 Dasaratha Jataka, 53 Fundamentalism, 13,120,141,159, Dayal, Har, 26 160,163 Dayananda, Swami, 22 Deendayal Research Institute (DRI), Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 46-47 58,62 Galtung, Johan, 88 Deendayal Shodh Sansthan, 3 Gandhi, Indira, 28,32, 63; assassina• Delhi High Court, 137 tion of, 57, 98,100,138,163; crema• Delhi Municipal Corporation, 63 tion of, 57; emergency imposition Delhi Sultanate, 28 on India, 125; Maneka Gandhi rift, Deoras, Balasaheb, 59, 62,116 57; state manipulation by, 138 Department of Education, 157 Gandhi, Mahatma, 2, 7, 25,28; assas• Desai, A.R., 64, 90 sination of, 38,110, 111, 123; ideals 210 Index

of, 14,25,152; noncooperation Hedgewar, Brahmin Keshav Baliram, movement, 27; political concepts, 7, 2, 26, 59,115,117,118,177 39; Ramarajya imaging of women, Herder, J.G., 18 84-88,92,95; socialism, 7, 39,126; Hikayat Seri Ram, 53 swaraj, 82-84; universalists, 25-26; Himachal Pradesh (HP), 63,95,127, vision of the future, 88-89, 93 164,165 Gandhi, Rajiv, 28, 32, 63, 67,138,163 Hindodum, 111 Gandhi, Sanjay, 57 Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, 82 Gandhian heritage, 7,126,147-52,179 Hinduism, 13, 26,34, 35, 111 Gandhi (film), 57 Hindu Mahasabha, 111, 120,121 Gandhism, 126,140,174 Hindu Rashtra, 4,117,123,127,141, Ganguli, B.N., 88 160 Geertz, Clifford, 10,47-48,155 Hindus: ancient period, 29; chau• Germany, 5 vinism, 64; communalism, 9,49, Ghazni, Mahmud, 98 57, 97,140,176; imperialism, 39; Ghori, Muhammad, 96 Mahasabha leaders, 111, 113; Mus• Ghose, Aurobindo, 22, 23,28, 33 lim relations, 9, 32,48, 62, 78,150; Ghosh, Piyush, 113 preconditions for being Hindu, 114; Giridih, 84 somatic, 116-18,121,123,125 Godhra, 132 Hindu Sangram Samiti, 98 Godse, Gopal, 111 Hindutva: defined, 111; history, preoc• Godse, Nathuram, 11,38,110, 111, cupation with, 4,11; ideology, 118; 123-24 nationalism, 25-26, 38; Old/New/ Goebbels, Josef, 6, 7,8,177 Future Testaments, 33; slogans, 6-7; Goel, Sita Ram, 31-32 symbolism of, 4 Gokhale, Gopal Krishna, 22, 28 Hindutva, Hindudom, Pan-Hindu, Golden Age, 29, 111 defined, 111 Golden Temple, 98 Hindutva (Savarkar), 26 Golwalkar, M.S., 5, 26, 31, 33, 33-36, Hindutva/Who Is a Hindu (Savarkar), 115 114 Gopalan, Rama, 58 Hindu-Urdu heartland, 63,163,164, Government, 1, 22,46,161-66 166 Government Watch, 1 History: bourgeois-nationalist, 29-30; Govil, Arun, 61 colonial, 29-30,177; communal, Gramsci, Antonio, 148 9, 29-31; elitist, 30; filmmaking, Growse, Frederick S., 99 153,161; genealogy, 19,153; Hin- Gujarat, 127,132,158-60,162,165 dusthan, summation of, 34-35; Gupta, Ram Prakash, 130 historians, 10, 29-31, 95-96,157; Gyanvapi mosque, 99 interpretation, 20-21,48, 78-79; literary forms, 4,12,28, 31-32, 78, Haavelsrud, Magnus, 77 153,155; medieval, 96; memory Haltung, 8 and, 152-156; Muslim period, 78; Hampden-Turner, Charles, 46 myth and, 45-50,153; national, 10, Hanuman, 51-52, 61, 67,102,125 45,48; propagandizing, 6; puranas, Harijan, 87 32; revision, 6; subaltern, 30; text• Harijans, 115-116 books, 77-79,81, 96,155,180; types Havel, Vaclav, 147,149,150 of, 10; Western, 34 HDW submarines, 61 History of British India (Mill), 29 Index 211

History of Europe (Fisher), 45-46 Jews, 7 Hitler, Adolf, 5, 7, 37 Jhunjhunwala, Bharat, 140 Hoare, Sir Samuel, 89 Jingoism, 4 Hobsbawm, Eric, 18,19 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 26, 27, 31, 32 Holkar, Ahilyabai, 99 Jodhpur, 91 Human resource development (HRD), Jog, B.N., 58 157 Joshi, Murli Manohar, 101,136,157 Human Rights Commission, 138 Hussain, Zakir, 137 Kabir, 167 Kaikeyi, 50-51,55,67 Iitumish, Shamsuddin, 99 Kakar, Sudhir, 155 Improving Hindu-Muslim Relations Kaliyuga, 103 symposium, 62 Kanchi, 128 Inden, Ronald, 29 Kanyakumari, 101 Independence, 9,12,81-89 Kapur, Anuradha, 65 Independence Day, 58,128 Karachi, 141 Indian conservatism, 89-99 Karapatri, Swami, 91 Indian Council of Historical Research Karkare, Vishnu, 111 (ICHR), 131,157 Karnataka, 162,165 Indian National Congress, 22, 28 Karseva, 100,101 India's Republic Day, 101 Karsevaks, 95,101,132,139,141-42 India Today MARG poll, 164 Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi Masjid Indo-Pakistan relations, 32 shrine, 98 Indraprastha Dharma Yatra, 100 Kashmir, 160 Industrialization, 24-25, 28,174 Kelkar, Lakshmibai, 116 Iramavataram (Kampan), 52 Kerala, 103,152 Iran, 141 Keshavadev Katra, 98-99 Islam, 37, 50, 70, 78-79,98,120-121, Khadi, 84,86 141,157,181 Khan, Syed Ahmad, 26-27 Islamabad, 141 Khilafat movement, 27 Islamic Sevak Sangh, 127 Khurja, 162-63 Kisan, 62 Jafar, Iqbal, 141 Krishna, 34,49, 58-59, 68, 98 Jagannath temple, 97, 98 Krishnajanmasthan, 98,123 Jagirdars, 91 Krishnaneeti, 5 Jahangir, 99 Krttivasa Ramayana, 52 Jainism, 26,35,112,116 Kumbh Mela, 132 Jaipur, 91 Jamaat-i-Islami, 127 Lajpat Rai, Lai, 23,28 Jama Masjid, 98,136 Lakshmana, 50-55, 67,95,116 Jamdoli, Rajasthan, 3 Lalla, Sri Ram, 129 Jammu, 160 Language: Hindi, 65; Prakrit, 54; San• Jana Kalyan Jana Jagaran, 60 skrit, 28, 36, 52, 60,103,113,117, Janata Party, 3,125 153,176; Urdu, 94 Janata Yuva Morcha, 3 Laxman, Bangaru, 160 Jataka literature, 53 The Legend of Prince Ram (animation), Jauhari, Dinesh, 95 52 Jeffrey, Robin, 10,46 Legislative Council, 114 212 Index

Levis-Strauss, Claude, 46,47 Moonje, B.S., 122,123 Liberhan Commission, 127,137 Moore, Barrington, Jr., 14 Lodi, Sikandar, 97, 99 Moore, Mick, 10,46 Lok Dal, 126 Movements, 22 Lower House of Parliament, 57 Mughal rule, 30, 37,110,135,167 Lucknow, 95,100,121,129,130,131, Mukherjee, Syama Prasad, 122 137 Mulayam Singh Yadav, 136 Lutgendorf, Philip, 80 Muslim League, 1,27,120,126 Lyotard, Jean-Francois, 20 Muslim Personal Law, 133,138, 157-58 Machilipatnam, 112 Muslims: BMAC Parliament march, Madhya Pradesh (MP), 63, 78,95,127, 60; exodus, 94; Hindu relations, 9, 162,165 32,48, 62, 78,150; in Indonesian, 68; Madhya Pradesh State University militant group attacks on, 124-25; Grants Commission, 78 propaganda, 7; in Punjab, 114-15; Mafatlal, 66 separatism, 9,13,32; taxation of, Mahabharata, 31,34, 56 123 Maha Kumbh, 131 Muslim Women's (Protection of Maharashtra, 22, 58,94,127,162,165 Rights on Divorce) Bill, 57 Mahashivatri, 132 Mythification, 10-11,45-50,166,176 Mahila Samaj, 116 Mahmud of Ghazni, 96, 98 Nadwi, Maulana Rabey Hasni, 135 Majumdar, R.C., 31 Nagar Palika Parishads, 165 Malaviya, Madan Mohan, 26 Nagar Panchayats, 165 Malkani, K.R., 58 Nagpur Congress, 27 Mandal Commission Report, 63,95, Nanak, 167 118,119,164,180 Nandi, Maharaja Manindra Chandra, Mansinghx, Raja, 99 121 Manthara, 67 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 22 Manu, 37 Naqvi, Saeed, 68 Maratha Kunbi, 114 Nasik, 123 Marathas, 96,174 Nath, Swami Aditya, 131 Margdarshak Mandal, 131,133 National Agenda of Governance Martyrs Memorial Day, 101 (NAG), 135 Marxist, 18,29,149 National Awakening Campaign, 62 Mass contact programs, 101-3 National Council of Educational Mathura, 8, 96,98,123,133-35 Research and Training (NCERT), 96 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 18, 24 National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Meghnadbadh Kavya (Dutt), 55-56 130,135,136 Mehta, Ved, 56 National Democratic Front (NDF), 126 Metropolitan Council, 63 National Front, 157,163 Michnik, Adam, 147-48,150 National Human Rights Commission, Minority Commission, 94,138 159 Mishra, Kalraj, 95 National Integration Council, 137 Mishra, Nripendra, 95 National Intellectuals Convention, 58 Modi, Narendra, 132,159 Nationalism, 17-21; BJP symposium, Mondol, Allahdad Khan, 152 62; communal, 5,12-13,14, 33-40, Montague-Chelmsford Reforms, 114 175; Hindu, 26, 64,122,175; Indian, Mookerjee, Shyama Prasad, 26 12, 21-28, 92,173; indigenous, 23; Index 213

Muslim, 26; provincial, 27; reli• Pracharaks, 3,6,125 gious, 175; resistance movement, Prarthana Samaj, 22 96; spiritual side of, 28; theories Prasad, Rajendra, 28,98 of, 18 Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 94 Nationalism and Communalism sym• Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), posium, 62 160 Nationalists, 22, 26, 28, 29, 30, 96 Prime Minister's Office (PMO), 133 National Thinkers Conference, 58 Princes, 91 Nation-state, 10,12,19, 29,169,178 Propaganda, 6-8,75,125,177 Nazis, 5, 6,8 Provincial Armed Constabulary Nehru, Jawaharlal, 24-25, 28,48,49, (PAC), 139 56,80, 98,121 Puja, 132-33 Nehruvian project, 25,40,81,173,174 Punjab, 10, 22,46, 57, 60-61,114 New Delhi, 1,57, 62, 67, 88,128 Puri, Balraj, 179 Ninth Asian Games, 57 Purnahuti yagna, 132 Noakkhali, 151 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 57 Qasim, Muhammad bin, 96, 97 Non-Cooperation Movement, 27,114 Qutub Minar, 97-98,177 Nuclear weapons, 1, 39,156-57 Racism, 5,22 Operation Blue Star, 138 Radhakrishnan, S., 28 Orchha, 99 Rai, Lala Lajpat, 22,113,121 Organizer (publication), 31, 37, 62,102, Raidas, 167 115,117,125,126 Raipur, 62 Orientalists, 28,29 Rajagopalachari, C, 28,56 Orissa, 133,160,165 Rajasthan, 91,116,127,162 Rajputs, 91,174 Padmacarita, 54 Rajya Sabha, 115 Pakistan, 1,36,98,141 Ram, 12,34, 36,49-56, 58, 61, 70, Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence 93-94 (ISI), 159 Rama, 35, 50-55, 58-59, 61, 66-69, Pal, Bipin Chandra, 22, 23, 28, 33 92-93 Pande, B.N., 78 Rama-Janaki Rathayatra, 100 Pandey, Gyanendra, 5,161,173,174, Ramakien (Thai epic), 52 177 Ramakrishna Movement, 22 Pan-Hindu, 111 Ramanujan, A.K., 52 Panja, Ajit, 68 Ramarajya, 12, 75, 82-95,100,136,176 Paramanand, Bhai, 26 Rama Rajya, 92-93 Paramhans, Ramchandradas, 136 Ramaswami, Periyar E.V., 55 Parekh, Bhikhu, 27, 82 Ramayana (Valmiki), 12,34,45, 52-57, Parliament, 130-32,134,136,137,139, 64-70 152,164,166 Ramayaner Samalochana (Chatterjee), Parsis, 173 54 Patel brothers, 28 Rambhakts, 12,35,37,39,136 Paumacariyam, 54 Ramcaritmanas (Tulsida), 52,53, 58 Phule, Jatirao, 27,114 Ramchandra, Bhagwan, 36 Pluralism, 35, 39,119,149-52,159 Ramdas, 93-94 Political socialization, 9-12, 75-81, Ram Janmabhoomi Mukti Yagya 102-3,176 Samiti, 61 214 Index

Ramjanmabhumi Nyas, 128,132,136 Sadhu Sammelan, 93 Ram Janmasthan, 136,138 Safdar Hasmi Memorial Trust (SAH• Ramji Ki Sena Chale (video), 102 MAT), 134 Ram naam jap yagna, 133 Sagar, Ramanand, 64, 65, 67-68, 69 Ramnavami day, 61 Saggi, P.D., 23 Ram rajya ki ore chale (video), 102 Samajwadi Party (SP), 129,165 Ram Rajya Parishad (RRP), 91-92 Samartha, 93-94 Ramraksha, 12,160 Sambuka, 115 Ramraksha Sankalp Sutra, 134 Sammelans, 7 Ram Sankeertan Mandals, 131 Samskar Bharati, 102 Ranade, Mahadeva Govinda, 22 Samudragupta, 98 Rao, P.V. Narasimha, 12-128,139 Sangh Parivar, 2, 5, 9,137-39; hate Rashtra Dharma (publication), 102 politics of, 13,158,160,161; Indian Rashtriya Sevika Samita, 3 historical tradition, 154-55; organi• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS): zations of, 3 brahmacharya vow, 116; founding Sankalp Sammelan, 136 of, 2; Golwalkar's leadership of, 5, Sankaracharyas, 128,132,134,135 26, 33,115; Rao's ban on, 127,128; Sansads, 7 support of BJP, 61-62 Sants, 100,101 Rashtrotthana Parishat, 58 Sant Sammelan, 101 Rastra Sevika Samiti, 116 Saraswathi, Jayendra, 60 Rathyatra, 4, 7,100 Saraswati, Sri Jayendra, 135 Ravana, 35, 36, 50-56, 66-67, 70,95 Sarsanghchalak, 6 Religion: Catholic-Protestant struggle, Sarvadharmasamabhava, 28 30; freedom of, 177; Gandhian Satya, 93,151 understanding of, 151,179; Hindu Satyagraha, 86 acceptance of various groups, Satya Shodhak Samaj, 27,114 116-17; Hindu-Muslim struggle, 30; Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar, 4,26, 31, Jaina, 54; nationalism, 175; plural• 33, 38, 39,49,115,122-23 ism, 151,152; Vedic rituals/sacri• Schleichende Krise, 7 fices, 26, 57,98,112 Second World Hindu Conference, 121 Religion Bill, 178 Secularism, 8,118-20,138,141; Nehru- Republic Day celebrations, 57 style, 180; positive, 126; pseudo, "Resolving Religio-Cultural Differ• 7; state, 28, 70,102,178; Western, ences in the Service of the Indian 174-75,177 People" (Malkani), 58 Sedition Committee Report, 111 Rithambara, 81 Semitism, 3, 8, 34, 67, 92 Round Table Conference, 27, 89 Seshadri, H.V., 94 Rousseau, J.J., 18 Shahi Idgah Trust, 99 Rowlatt, S.A.T., 111 Shahjahan, 98 Roy, M.N., 22,23, 89 Shaivites, 116 Roy, Ram Mohan, 22 Shankaracharya of Dwarka, 91 Rudolph, Lloyd and Susanne, 149,180 Shanker, Tej, 139 Shapiro, Michael J., 20-21 Sabarmati Ashram, 85 Shariat Act, 158 Sabarmati Express train massacre, 132 Sharma, Kishen Lai, 130 Sadbhavna movement, 167 Sharqui, Hussainshah, 99 Sadhus, 98 Shastri, Har Prashad, 78 Index 215

Shastri, Lai Bahadur, 61 Supreme Court, 127,129,130,131, Shastri, Sunil, 61 132,133,134,139 Shekhar, Chandra, 63 Surya namaskara, 113 Shilanyas, 100 Swadeshi, 23, 92 Shivaji festival, 23 Swadeshi Jagran Manch, 3 Shiv Sena, 124-25 Swaraj, 82-84 Shobha Yatra, 61 Swarajya, 92 Shourya Diwas, 137 Swarupanand, Swami, 91 Shraddhanand, 113 Swatantra party, 92 Shraddhananda, Swami, 26 Swayamsevaks, 115,124 Shri Krishna Janmasthan Trust (SKJT), Symbols, 6,10,11,12,40, 47-48; 99 election, 91,177; history and, 34; Shri Nathdwara temple, 116 national, 18,28, 36, 77, 90,174; reli• Shrivastava, R.N., 139 gious, 47,139,155,156,161 Shudras, 67 Syndicated Hinduism, 3, 65 Sikh Golden Temple, 57,138 Sikhs, 57, 98,116,173,174 Tagore, Rabindranath, 25 Singh, Charan, 126 Taj Mahal, 98,123,177 Singh, Dara, 61 Talkotra stadium, 69 Singh, Kalyan, 95,129 Tamil Nadu, 55,162 Singh, K.K., 59 Tantriks, 116 Singh, Maharaja Ranjit, 99 Temple Liberation Conference, 61 Singh, Rajendra, 58,129 Temples, 4, 96-100 Singh, V.P., 61, 63,112,163 Thackeray, Bal, 124 Singhal, Ashok, 128,130,136 Thapar, Romila, 53, 64,96 Sita, 50-55, 66, 70, 82-85, 95,102 Thara, 67 Socialization, 7,10,11 Theosophical Society, 22 Societies Registration Act, 121 Theosophists, 116 Society for the Removal of Obstacles Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 61,101 to Hindu Religion, 23 Tilak, Gangadhar Bal, 22, 23, 24, 28 Somnath, 98,100 Todar Mai, Raja, 99 Soorpanaka, 51, 67 Togadia, Praveen, 136 South Africa, 82 Togadia, Pravin, 133 Soviet occupation, 57 Tughluq, Firuz Shah, 96-97 Sri Lanka, 10,46 Tulsi, Das, 52, 53 Srinagar, Kashmir, 101 Tulsidas, 69,167 Sringeri, 128 Tulsi Jayanti, 69 Sri Rama Janaki Ratha, 100 Two nation theory, 2, 27, 31, 36,120 Sri Rama Jyoti, 100 Sri Ram Janma Bhoomi Mukti Yagna Udaipur, 62 Samiti, 100 Udupi, Karnataka, 100 Sri Ram janmabhoomi Pratishthan, Uniform civil code, 2,123,138,156, 128 157,158,178 Status-quoist program, 35,38, 39, 111, Union Home Ministry, 159 115,119,181 United Left Front, 40,137,140,157 Sudarshan, K.S., 131,135 United Province, 120 Suleri, Z.A., 31 Upadhyaya, Deendayal, 125 Sunni Central Waqf Board, 134 Upanishads, 37 216 Index

Utilitarians, 28-29 Vishwamitra, 35, 60, 67 Uttar Pradesh (UP), 60, 78, 92, 94,100, Vishwanath temple, 99,123 127,129,162 Vithal, B.P.R., 119 Vivekananda, Swami, 22 Vaishnavajana, 58 Voegelin, Eric, 21 Vaishnavites, 116 Vajpayee, A.B., 59,109,115-16,125, Waqiat-i-Hind, 79 128,130-32,136 Wendt, Albert, 20 Varanasi, 8,98,123,162,167 We or Our Nationhood Defined (Gol• Varna, 111-12,116 walkar), 33-34 Vashista, 67 Women, 39,84; brahmacharya, 113,116; Vasislitha, 60 divorce rights, 57; oppression of, 30, Vatsyayan, Kapila, 80 35,158,176,179; Ramarajya imag• Vattimo, Gianni, 47, 48 ing, 84-85, 92, 95; Rastra Sevika Vedas, 24,26,38,49,57, 79,98, 111, 153 Samiti, 116; Shariat Act, 158; Sita's Vimalasuri, 54 representation of, 66-67 Vishal Hindu Sammelan, 60,101 World Hindu Conferences, 121 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), 3, 37, 60,98,100-102,127-28,136 Yagna, 132,133 About the Author

S. P. UDAYAKUMAR directs the South Asian Community Center for Edu• cation and Research (SACCER) at Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, India.