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Rethinking Religion in India: the Colonial Construction of Hinduism

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Rethinking Religion in India: the Colonial Construction of Hinduism RETHINKING RELIGION IN INDIA This book critically assesses recent debates about the colonial construction of Hinduism. Increasingly scholars have come to realise that the dominant understanding of Indian culture and its traditions is unsatisfactory. Accord- ing to the classical paradigm, Hindu traditions are conceptualized as features of a religion with distinct beliefs, doctrines, sacred laws and holy texts. Today, however, many academics consider this conception to be a colonial ‘construction’. This book focuses on the different versions, arguments and counter-arguments of the thesis that the Hindu religion is a construct of colonialism. Bringing together the different positions in the debate, it pro- vides necessary historical data, arguments and conceptual tools to examine the argument. Organized in two parts, the first half of the book provides new analyses of historical and empirical data; the second presents some of the theoretical questions that have emerged from the debate on the construction of Hinduism. Where some of the contributors argue that Hinduism was created as a result of a western Christian notion of religion and the imperatives of British colo- nialism, others show that this religion already existed in pre-colonial India; and as an alternative to these standpoints, other writers argue that Hinduism only exists in the European experience and does not correspond to any empir- ical reality in India. This volume offers new insights into the nature of the construction of religion in India and will be of interest to scholars of the History of Religion, Asian Religion, Postcolonial and South Asian Studies. Esther Bloch and Marianne Keppens are Doctoral Researchers at the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium. Rajaram Hegde is Professor in History and Archaeology at Kuvempu University, Karnataka, India. He is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Local Cultures – a research collaboration between Ghent University and Kuvempu University. ROUTLEDGE SOUTH ASIAN RELIGION SERIES 1. HINDU SELVES IN A MODERN WORLD Guru faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission Maya Warrier 2. PARSIS IN INDIA AND THE DIASPORA Edited by John R. Hinnells and Alan Williams 3. SOUTH ASIAN RELIGIONS ON DISPLAY Religious processions in South Asia and in the Diaspora Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen 4. RETHINKING RELIGION IN INDIA The colonial construction of Hinduism Edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens and Rajaram Hegde RETHINKING RELIGION IN INDIA The colonial construction of Hinduism Edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens and Rajaram Hegde First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens and Rajaram Hegde for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contribution All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Rethinking religion in India : the colonial construction of Hinduism / edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens, and Rajaram Hegde. p. cm. – (Routledge South Asian religion series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Hinduism–Historiography. 2. Hinduism–History–18th century. 3. Hinduism–History–19th century. 4. India–Civilization–18th century. 5. India–Civilization–19th century. I. Bloch, Esther. II. Keppens, Marianne. III. Hegde, Rajaram. BL1151.5.R48 2010 294.509′034–dc22 2009025369 ISBN 0-203-86289-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–54890–X (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–86289–9 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–54890–8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–86289–6 (ebk) The Trustees of the Bhagat Family Trust, which kindly sponsored a part of the first conference Rethinking Religion in India, would like to acknowledge their parents and mentors, Harish and Suraj Bhagat and Manghan and Sheela Manwani. CONTENTS Acknowledgements ix Notes on the contributors xi Preface xiii Introduction: rethinking religion in India 1 MARIANNE KEPPENS AND ESTHER BLOCH PART I Historical and empirical arguments 23 1 Hindus and others 25 DAVID N. LORENZEN 2 Hindu religious identity with special reference to the origin and significance of the term ‘Hinduism’, c. 1787–1947 41 GEOFFREY A. ODDIE 3 Representing religion in colonial India 56 JOHN ZAVOS 4 Colonialism and religion 69 SHARADA SUGIRTHARAJAH 5 Women, the freedom movement, and Sanskrit: notes on religion and colonialism from the ethnographic present 79 LAURIE L. PATTON vii CONTENTS PART II Theoretical reflections 93 6 Colonialism, Hinduism and the discourse of religion 95 RICHARD KING 7 Who invented Hinduism? Rethinking religion in India 114 TIMOTHY FITZGERALD 8 Orientalism, postcolonialism and the ‘construction’ of religion 135 S.N. BALAGANGADHARA 9 The colonial construction of what? 164 JAKOB DE ROOVER AND SARAH CLAERHOUT Index 185 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The contributions in this volume were inspired by an intellectual gathering in New Delhi in January 2008, at the inaugural conference of the five-year conference cluster Rethinking Religion in India. This meeting of minds would not have been possible, if not for the generous support of the Bhagat Family Trust, and the munificent help of Dr. Purushottama Bilimale, Dinesh Shenoy and Gurudath Baliga. The contributors to this volume sat together in Platform and Roundtable sessions for sustained discussions, sharing their different visions, at times involved in passionate disagreements, at times enthusiastically agreeing. The fertile soil of the contributions together with the glasshouse effect of the heated discussions brought forth unforeseen and fruitful ideas, eventu- ally crystallizing into the chapters of this volume. Footage of the talks and discussions that took place during the conference can be watched on www.youtube.com/cultuurwetenschap, a video project that would not have been possible without the hard work of two people, Rana Ghose and Raf Gelders. We would like to thank the contributors for their timely and insightful contributions. We are also deeply indebted to the unremitting support and help, and the constructive suggestions and comments of the ‘Ghent group’ – the members of the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap of Ghent University (Belgium) – namely S.N. Balagangadhara, Sarah Claerhout, Nele De Gersem, Jakob De Roover, Raf Gelders, Alexander Naessens, and Sarika Rao as well as of the ‘Kuvempu team’ – the members of the Centre for the Study of Local Cultures of Kuvempu University (Karnataka, India) – namely J.S. Sadananda, Shilpa Achari, Dunkin Jalki, Kavitha P.N., Mahesh Kumar C.S., Santhosh Kumar P.K., Vani Palve, Praveen T.L., and Shankarappa N.S. We would also like to thank Routledge for their assist- ance, and especially Dorothea Schaefter for her continued interest in and following up on the research and projects of the latter groups. The editors and the publisher would like to thank the following for permis- sion to reprint the following material in Rethinking Religion in India: ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Oxford University Press for permission to reprint excerpts in Chapter 5: Laurie L. Patton, ‘Women, the Freedom Movement, and Sanskrit: Notes on Religion and Colonialism from the Ethnographic Present’, from an article originally published as ‘Cat in the courtyard: the performance of Sanskrit and the religious experience of women’ in T. Pintchman (ed.) Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition, 2007, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (parts of pp. 126–129; 131; 135–138), www.oup.co.uk. Interventions for permission to reprint excerpts in Chapter 8: S.N. Balagan- gadhara, ‘Orientalism, Postcolonialism and the “Construction” of Religion’ from an article previously published in Balagangadhara, S.N. and Keppens, M. (2009) ‘Reconceptualizing the postcolonial project: beyond the strict- ures and structures of Orientalism’, Interventions, 11: 50–68, http:// www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge. S.N. Balagangadhara for permission to reprint excerpts from Balagangad- hara, S.N. (1994; 2nd edn 2005) ‘The Heathen in his Blindness . .’: Asia, the West, and the dynamic of religion, New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 231–247, © 2005 S.N. Balagangadhara. x CONTRIBUTORS S.N. Balagangadhara (a.k.a. Balu) is Professor in Comparative Science of Cultures and Director of the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuur- wetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium. In recent work, he analyses the dominant accounts of India as descriptions of the western cultural experience. Esther Bloch is Doctoral Researcher at the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium. Her research focuses on the contemporary European experience and images of India. Sarah Claerhout is Teaching and Research Assistant at the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium. Her research concerns
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