OME years ago, in the city of Bombay, a young Muslim Splaywright wrote and staged a play that had gods — Hindu gods and goddesses — as major Facing Extermination characters. Such plays are not uncommon in ; some would say A Report on the Present State of the Gods that they are all too common. This one and Goddesses in South Asia also included gods and goddesses who were heroic, grand, scheming and comical. This provoked not the Ashis Nandy audience but Hindu nationalists, particularly the Hindu Mahasabha, a at least some Hindus felt that on that the particular style of interaction spent political force for a long time, day Hindutva might have won, but humans have with gods and in Bombay. This city is now being Hinduism had certainly lost. It had lost goddesses. Deities in everyday dominated by a more powerful Hindu because a tradition at least fifteen Hinduism, from the heavily Brahminic nationalist formation, the Shiv Sena. hundred years old (things might have to the aggressively non-Brahminic, It is doubtful if those who claimed been different in the pre-epic days) are not entities outside everyday life, they had been provoked were really was sought to be dismantled. During nor do they preside over life from provoked. It is more likely that they these fifteen hundred years, a crucial outside, but are a constituent of life. pretended to be offended and identifier of Hinduism — as a religion, Their presence is telescoped not only precipitated an incident to make their a culture and a way of life — has been into one’s transcendental self but, to political presence felt. After all, use Alan Roland’s tripartite such plays have been written in division, also into one’s familial India since time immemorial. and individualised selves and Vikram Savarkar of Hindu even into one’s most light- Mahasabha — a grandson of hearted, comical, naughty Vinayak Damodar Savarkar moments.2 Gods are above and (1883-1966), the non-believing beyond humans but are, father of Hindu nationalism who paradoxically, not outside the thoughtfully gifted South Asia human fraternity.3 You can adore the concept of Hindutva — or love them, you can disown or organised a demonstration in attack them, you can make them front of the theatre where the butts of your wit and sarcasm. play was being staged, caught Savarkar, not being literate in hold of the playwright, and matters of faith and pitiably threatened to lynch him. picking up ideas from the culture Ultimately Savarkar’s gang of Anglo-India to turn Hinduism forced the writer to bow down into a ‘proper’ religion from an and touch Savarkar’s feet, to inchoate pagan faith, was only apologise for writing the play. ensuring the humiliating defeat The humiliation of the young of Hinduism as it is known to playwright was complete; it was most Hindus. duly photographed and Since about the middle of the published in newspapers and last century, perhaps beginning news magazines. from the 1820s, there has been a Though Savarkar later deep embarrassment and claimed that Hinduism had won, discontent with the lived for he had not allowed a Muslim experience of Hinduism, the to do what Muslims had not Makhanchor: ’s mischievous pranks, experience which paradoxically allowed Hindus to do with such as stealing butter reenacted by this child on the young Muslim playwright, Islam’s symbols of the sacred, Janmashtami

No.99 (March-April 1997) 5 Savarkar’s victim, represented. is the same, as Ernest Gellner Vikram Savarkar is only the last believes, Hindu nationalist in a galaxy of people — Hindus, thought cannot be any different, non-Hindus, Indians, non- we are sure.5 If you, however, Indians — who have felt read the Hindutva literature, you uncomfortable with the over- will find in it a systematic, populated Indian pantheon, its consistent, often direct attack on richly textured, pagan Hindu gods and goddesses. personalities, their Most stalwarts of Hindutva have unpredictability, variety and all not been interested in Hindu too human foibles. For nearly religion and have said so openly. 150 years, we have been seeing Their tolerance for the rituals and a concerted, systematic effort myths of their faith has been even to either eliminate these gods less. Many of them have come to and goddesses from Indian life Hindutva as a reaction to or to tame them and make them everyday, vernacular Hinduism. behave. I am saying ‘Indian’ This rejection is a direct product and not ‘Hindu’ life self- of nineteenth century Indian consciously, for these gods modernity and its models of the and goddesses not only ideal Hindu as a Vedantic populate the Hindu world but European or, for that matter, regularly visit and occasionally Vedantic Muslim. That is why poach on territories outside it. until recently in no shakha of the They are not strangers outside Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh 4 India, either. By indirectly Bharat Mata: the imperialist goddess of Hindu or RSS, the voluntary force that participating in the effort to nationalists being used to exterminate the vast constitutes the steel frame of retool or gentrify them that has pantheon of gods and goddess Hindu nationalism, there could been going on for over one be, by the conventions of the hundred years, Savarkar was RSS, any icon of any deity except only following the tradition of Baptist reform movements, from Brahmo Bharatmata, Mother India. The evangelists like William Carey and Samaj to Arya Samaj, have been Ramjanmabhumi temple is the first Joshua Marshman and the rationalist dutifully picked up by formations till temple for which the RSS has shed religious and social reformers such as recently at the periphery of politics in any tear or shown any concern and Rammohun Roy and Dayanand India, such as the ones centering that concern, to judge by their Saraswati in nineteenth century India, around Hindutva. Today, participation in worship or rituals at who felt that the country’s main overwhelmed by the experience of the the temple, seems skin-deep. problem was its idolatry and the rather Ramjanmabhumi movement and the In 1990-91 I had interviewed at poor personal quality of its gods and destruction of the Babri mosque at great length the chief priest of the goddesses. These reformers wanted Ayodhya, we no longer care to read Ramjanmabhumi temple itself, Baba Indians to get rid of their superfluous the entire Hindutva literature Lal Das, a remarkably courageous, deities and either live in a fully produced over the last seventy five ecumenical man of religion who was secularised, sanitised world in which years. We think we know what they murdered soon after the mosque was rationality and scientific truth would have to say. If all nationalist thought demolished. He told me that during prevail or, alternatively, set up a proper the previous seven years of the monotheistic God like the ‘proper’ For nearly 150 years, we movement in support of the temple, Christians and Muslims had. Vikram have been seeing a no major political leader of the Savarkar was attacking in the movement had cared to worship at the playwright a part of his self no longer concerted, systematic effort temple, except one who had got a acceptable, but not easy to disown to either eliminate these done through a third party without either. gods and goddesses from herself visiting the temple. I may tell The early attacks on the gods and Indian life or to tame them at this point my favourite story about goddesses by the various Hindu and make them behave. the devotion to Ram of the Hindu

6 MANUSHI nationalists. Once, in the course of Gods and goddesses may campus. And Sabarimala, one of the his only visit to an RSS shakha, more potent deities in South India, is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi survive as potentialities even also known for his Muslim friend.) looked around and found on the walls in the most austerely Gods and goddesses are not of the shakha portraits of some of the monotheistic, anti idolatrous unknown even in starkly famous martial heroes of Hindutva faiths. monotheistic religions. They may not such as Shivaji and Rana Pratap. Being be there centre stage, but are waiting a devotee of Ram, Gandhi naturally just outside the doors of idolatrous faiths. They are not asked, ‘Why have you not put up a consciousness. Most of the anger permitted into the main hall, but they portrait of Ram also?’ Those were not against Satanic Verses was inspired are there, just outside the door, the days of the Ramjanmabhumi by the gratuitous insults Rushdie constantly threatening to enter the movement and the RSS leader heaped on some of Islam’s revered main hall uninvited, as in some of the showing him around said ‘No, that we figures, but a part of it might also have best known Indonesian mosques cannot do. Ram is too effeminate to been a response to the latent fear that where the entrance doors and serve our purpose.’ the banished might return. In boundary walls are guarded or I am not going to speak about particular, the non-Islamic or pre- manned by Hindu or Buddhist gods such tense styles of relating to gods Islamic forms of consciousness which and goddesses. (The reverse also and goddesses, which invites one to the book unwittingly invokes may or holds true. Some gods and goddesses fight their causes without caring for may not threaten ‘mainstream’ Islam, do have a special symbolic place for them. I am going to speak about gods but continue to haunt many Islamic anti-polytheism. Lord Thirupathi, the and goddesses who inhabit the world communities in those parts of the presiding deity nowadays of India’s that we live in, sometimes as house world where such forms are no longer high politics, has a Muslim son-in-law guests, sometimes as our neighbour’s one’s distant, integrated past. Thanks whose temple is right within the Lord’s headache, sometimes even as private to colonial constructions of ‘true’ ghosts without whom we think Islam in the nineteenth century, we can live in greater peace. they often seem an immediate, Nagaraj accuses me of writing destabilising temptation in the on these things as an outsider. neighbourhood. It is probably ‘You come to the gods and no accident that the countries goddesses as an intellectual, where the main agitation against academically,’ he says. I have The Satanic Verses took place often felt like telling him that I were Iran, Pakistan, India and do not want to come to them, among expatriate Indians and but they force me to do so. Pakistanis in Britain. There is an inevitable logic Shamoon Lokhandwala through which these mentions medieval religious obstreperous deities infect our compositions of western Indian life, pervade it, even invade and Muslims that depicted Prophet take it over, independently of our Muhammad as the last of the ten likes and dislikes. Like most avataras and served as sacred other South Asians belonging texts of the Muslims.6 But even to a whole range of faiths, I have in the more austerely no choice in the matter. monotheistic versions of Islam, For even among people, gods and goddesses may communities, cults, sects and survive as aspects or qualities religions who deny gods and of God, as in the ninety nine goddesses, persist relationships names of Allah. Even in Judaism, typical of religions with a surfeit despite the faith’s hard of gods and goddesses. Gods monotheistic core, the dialogical and goddesses may survive as relationship between God and potentialities even in the most humans in everyday life has austerely monotheistic, anti- Sangh Parivar’s reformed macho Ram many of the features of

No.99 (March-April 1997) 7 pantheistic faiths. In this relationship, much sarcasm, wit, accusations of Jaya partiality and injustice, light-hearted banter and sharp criticisms of the Victory to you Durga, Mother, divine dispensation — of the kind that Give me strength Vikram Savarkar did not relish — is Give me knowledge pure usual. It is neither seen as blasphemy Give me love and devotion. nor as detracting from the majesty of Give me demon-killing weapons the divine. Such dialogues can be and armour for my arms. found in old Judaic folk tales, Give wealth and fame, contemporary Jewish writers, and Give peace to every home. even in extreme conditions like Give me supreme nectar, recorded reactions of Jewish victims remove the strain in the Nazi concentration camps. of a death-like living. Theological monotheism is not a Give untiring inspiration in work foolproof protection against Give new lessons theophily or attempts to fraternise in the realm of energy. with the sacred. Give me your armour of assurance. In South Asia, such dialogical Let every atom of my life relationships with divinity sometimes be permeated by the light acquire oracular grandeur. Many of conciousness. know the story that philosopher I bow to you, Durga. Ramchandra Gandhi has made Om Sarvamangale Shive Sarvathasadhike famous.7 As he tells it, while on a visit Sharanye Trayambake Gauri, Narayani Namastute. to Kashmir, the famous religious leader and social reformer Kazi Nazrul Islam Vivekananda (1800-1902) went to a Translated by J.P. Das temple of goddess Kali and asked her what many self-conscious, (From Sunirbachito Nazrul Geetimalancha, Calcutta, 1975, song No. 364) westernised Hindus must have begun asking in the nineteenth century — why had she tolerated so much both latent in the visionaries. In a the pilgrimages. She went to the vandalism and destruction of cosmology dependent on gods and pilgrimages, but retained her sharp, temples? As Vivekananda puts it, he goddesses, it is a moral self- wily, ruthless political self. The issue heard in his heart the reply of the great affirmation that can be of ‘agency’ in such matters is mother goddess, ‘Do you protect me simultaneously a rational argument. important but not simple. The or do I protect you?’ This worldly articulation of the same heavens, though continuous with Even the most fearsome deities in process can be found in the Indian everyday life on the earth, expect South Asia have, I like to believe, a politician’s perpetual fascination with nobody to be passively dependent on double responsibility that they have astrology, palmistry, yajnas or it. It refuses to deliver results or to balance — they have to protect sacrificial rituals, and Tantra. Prime answers in the belief that ‘agency’ has both their devotees and the humanity Minister Indira Gandhi, for instance, been transferred to the right quarters. of their devotees. The human undertook a series of pilgrimages This compact is fully understood by responses gods and goddesses give during her last years (she overdid it, all the parties involved.8 Nothing to human predicaments may also be some spitefully say, because she lost shows this better than the art and the responses to the limited human ability count). I have never heard of a science of astrology. Astrology is to give or accept human answers politician, either in her party or in the most popular in four sectors in South grounded in secular reasons or secular opposition, who underestimated her Asia: business (especially if it morality. These responses may be rational, cost calculating, political self. involves speculative ventures), another kind of self-excavation Nobody believed that she would spectator sports, the film world, and represented by visions of the devotee passively manage fate by depending politics. However, I have never heard where the questions and answers are on the good consequences of making anyone claiming that the successful

8 MANUSHI business persons of the region vis-a-vis the other deities. Gods and rather than the rule. Second, gods can depend on astrology to solve their humans are not distant from each also be vulnerable and require the help problems in the stock market. They other; human beings can, if they try of humans for fighting demons or do business to the best of their hard enough, approximate gods. They other gods. knowledge and understanding, and can even aspire to be more powerful That is, human inferiority to gods then take the help of astrologers, and venerable than gods. Tapas, is not absolute; no wide chasm tantriks and temple priests to penance of various kinds, and separates the goals and motivations negotiate terms with the gods and sometimes even the benediction of of the gods from those of goddesses. As if astrology was merely one god, wisely or foolishly given, humans.Indeed, on some planes, the another way of asking questions, can give one superhuman, godly differences between immortal humans equipped with a vague awareness that powers. First, spirituality is partly a and gods become notional. For the the answers might be known to one, gift of mortality; it is associated more classicists, this proposition is difficult but needed to be endorsed by with the mortals than with the gods, to swallow because, of the seven suprahuman specialists.9 Thus, when who are usually seen to have a streak immortals mentioned in the after elaborate rituals and of hedonism. The persistent (Ashvathama, Bali, Vyasa, Hanumana, consultations with astrologers, on an asceticism of is an exception Kripa, Vibhishana and Parashurama), average 80 per cent of the nearly 500 none can, except perhaps Hanumana, commercial films produced in India in ...human inferiority to gods is claim divine status.10 Perhaps it will a year routinely bomb at the box office, not absolute; no wide chasm be safer to say that there is a film producers or directors do not give continuity between the divine and the up their belief in astrology. They separates the goals and earthly, that the chasm between gods blame it on their own imperfect reading motivations of the gods from and humans in South Asia is narrow of the future and flawed ritual those of humans or shifting. At times, some gods might performances (which is another even be less effective, potent, way of acknowledging one’s or pious than humans. faulty reasoning). Presumably, Maybe that is the reason modernity will now make sure why allgiance to a deity is that psychotherapists occupy often personalised, why the space astrologers and sometimes it looks like a priests, backed by gods and bilateral contract or a secret goddesses, now do. It will be intimacy between two in many ways a less colourful unequal but sovereign cultural life, but that is a individuals. This allegiance, a different story. rather typical feature in this When gods and goddesses part of the globe, may enter human life in South Asia, manifestly have little to do they contaminate it not in the with one’s faith. Anybody way the modern, sophisticated, who knows something about urbane believer fears they the great sarod players, would do. Nor do they do so Alauddin Khan and Ali Akbar the way the rationalist thinks Khan, will also know that both the idea of God dominates the have been great devotees of lives of devotees. They enter the goddess Saraswati. Yet, human life to provide a they have also been quasihuman, sacral presence, simultaneously devout to balance the powerful forces Muslims, and proudly so. of desacralisation in human That devotion to Islam and relationships, vocations and Islamic piety does not require nature. This familiarity has bred them to reject their personal not contempt, as the Vikram goddess or isthadevi who Savarkars of the world suspect, presides over the most but a certain self-confidence Radha and Krishna by Pakistani Painter: A.R. Chugtai important area of their life,

No.99 (March-April 1997) 9 musical creativity. Alauddin Khan the Indologists have been and it may abilities. At least some British once composed a new raga called well survive its well-wishers. The more householders maintained temples in Madanmanjari. As its name indicates, continuous traditions of this their homes not because they were the raga invokes Krishna and the civilisation may reassert themselves lapsed Christians or crypto-Hindus, Vaishnava culture. When someone in our public life. A majority of people but because they were afraid of the took courage to ask the Ustad why in South Asia know how to handle local gods and the and did he had used such a Hindu name, the the gods and goddesses, their own not want to antagonise them. It was Ustad, I am told, was surprised. ‘Is it and those of others. The gods and their idea of buying an insurance Hindu? I composed it in honour of goddesses, on the other hand, not policy in matters of the sacred. The my wife Madina Begum,’ he is only live with each other, they also apparently sharp theological supposed to have said. What looked invite us to live with their plural world. distinctions between some religions blatantly Hindu to some can look to Years ago, while studying the may, in specific cultural contexts, others a marker of Islamic devotion. psychological landscape of western observe the logic of complementary The piety of neither is disturbed. colonialism in South Asia, I checked self-organisation. While studying the some nineteenth century documents I have come to suspect that the Ramjanmabhumi movement, I found on Calcutta, because Calcutta is theistic worlds in South Asia observe a hillock at Ayodhya, venerated both where it all began. Not being a a series of principles of mediation in by the local Hindus and Muslims. The historian, many of the documents their relationships with each other. Hindus considered it to be the surprised me. For instance, the These mediations endorse continuity discarded part of the sacred scrappy details of British households and compatibility, but also a degree Gandhamadan of Ramayana, which showed that they had a large retinue of anxiety, hostility and violence, Hanumana had foolishly carried, of servants, including often a though not perhaps distance or unable to locate the magical drug priest who did puja in the house. inexplicability. Whether the Vishalyakarani that he was told to find Many of the British houses also had protagonists are Bosnian Muslims on the hill, for the treatment of small temples which the Brahmin and Serbs in East Europe, Hutus and Lakshmana’s fatal war wounds. The retainers took care of. Apparently, Tutsis in Africa, or Hindus and Muslims associated the same hillock these householders went to Church Muslims in South Asia, familiarity can with Hazrat Shish, and considered it a on Sundays, but found nothing breed contempt and venomous, remnant of Noah’s ark, discarded of inconsistent in the puja at home.11 genocidal passions, especially in a all places at Ayodhya, after the great The standard reading, I guess, would situation of imminent massification, deluge was over. be that the Indian wives or concubines threatening to negate one’s cultural When gods and goddesses of the British in India — the Suez selfhood. invade our personal lives or enter our Canal was not yet dug and most A respected Pakistani political lives as our guests, when we give British in India had Indian spouses analyst and journalist once claimed them our personal allegiance, they — required this facility. However, in a conversation that ‘the ultimate may or may not apparently have much something else also might have been fear in many Pakistanis is that, if they to do with the generic faiths we involved. For the East India Company come too close to India, they would profess. Theologian and painter Jyoti itself owned ‘shares’ in at least two be fitted in the Hindu social order, Shahi once reported a survey carried temples. During important religious mostly in the lower orders of the caste out in Madras where, according to the festivals, the army band went and hierarchy’. India and Pakistan official census, one per cent of the played at these temples and the separated fifty years ago; there is people are Christian. The survey musketeers of the Company fired hardly any Hindu left in Pakistan. Why found that about 10 per cent of the volleys in the air to celebrate the then this anxiety? My Pakistani friend population identified Jesus Christ as occasion. In return, the Company was himself seemed perplexed, but their personal god or isthadevata. given a share of the donations made insisted that there was this lurking fear Such data warn us not to be taken in to the temple. It also seems that many in Pakistan that Hinduism was not by what some politicians acting as individual British residents in India, something outside, but also a vector vendors of piety and some experts on while they proclaimed their disbelief within. Living in two complementary ethnic violence tell us about the in the special spiritual skills of the worlds of legends, folk tales, rituals, geography of faiths. The Indic Brahmins and attacked them as marriage rites, music, crafts traditions civilisation has been around slightly charlatans, were at the same time and, even, some of the same longer than the Hindutva-wallahs and scared stiff by their possible magical superstitious fears, gods and demons

10 MANUSHI probably has its costs. Perhaps many Many of the most famous was making a state-ment to the Hindu of the anti-idolatrous faiths in South temples of Ayodhya... were world. Asia — they include many Hindu built with the help of land A more intense form of such sects, too — are not merely external interrelationship is the South Asian counterpoints to the sphere of gods grants and tax exemptions version of multiculturalism which does and goddesses, but also constitute, given by the Shia Nawabs of not remain a cultural artefact, but gets within that sphere, a system of internal Avadh. telescoped into the self of the checks and balances. Perhaps our individual. Kumar Suresh Singh’s new gods and goddesses also need such survey of Indian communities show checks. colonial days. By being patrons of that about 600 communities in India When another faith provides an temples, they were making a statement can be classified as having more than internal counterpoint, balancing both on their position vis-a-vis the one ‘religion’. (It is doubtful if these principle, or in-house criticism, it Ramanandis who dominated the believers see themselves as having establishes alliances within the world sacred city and the Sunnis, multiple religious identities; they inhabited by deities of other faiths; it constituting an important component define their Hinduism or Islamism or no longer remains an alien faith or of the Muslim community there. Christianity in such a way that the someone else’s faith with whom, to Likewise, when B. R. Ambedkar, the symbols of sacredness of another faith conform to contemporary Dalit leader and writer of India’s acquire specific theological, cultural sensitivities, you have to open an Constitution, decided to convert to and familial status.) Thus, there are interfaith or intercultural dialogue. The Buddhism along with a sizeable more than 100 communities that are dialogue already exists, waiting to be section of his followers, did so after both Hindu and Christian; at least 70 recognised or joined. Islam, for much deliberation. It was not the communities that are both Hindu and instance, by the very fact that it standard Therawada Buddhism, with Sikh, or Sikh and Muslim. Sant Fateh denies gods and goddesses, provides its closetful of deities that he chose, Singh, who died for the cause of in South Asia a different kind of belief but a more austere Buddhism that, by Khalistan, was a convert from Islam system that becomes accessible to a being close to Islam and Christianity and a part of his family, I am told, person who wants to defy the world would represent a sharper disjunction remain Muslim, exactly as a part of of gods and goddesses while living with Hinduism. By his conversion, he the family of Guru Nanak, the founder within it. So even the threat of of Sikhism, remains Hindu. L. K. becoming a part of the Islamic Advani, a leader of what is order and disowning the Hindu reputed to be one of the world’s pantheon, by say a low-caste, largest fundamentalist oppressed Hindu, becomes a formations, is probably the only particular way of interacting with one of his ilk to have publicly the pantheon. Islam in South Asia proclaimed that, in his personal may mean going outside the religious sensitivities, he is closer sphere of gods and goddesses, to Sikhism than to his own faith, but it may also mean renegotiating Hinduism. M. A. Jinnah, the terms and conditions with one’s founder of Pakistan, which traditional gods and goddesses. separated from India on grounds It can even mean renegotiating of religion, belonged to a Muslim terms with the social status of community that to many communities deriving from a ‘thoroughbred’ Muslims still shared structure of sacredness. looks more Hindu than many Many of the most famous Hindu communities. In all these temples of Ayodhya, the instances, I am not talking of pilgrimage centre that has become recent converts retaining traces a symbol of religious intolerance of their older faiths; I am speaking in South Asia today, were built of identities that appear to be with the help of land grants and simultaneously Hindu and tax exemptions given by the Shia A tantric painting by Ghulam Rasool Santosh, Muslim, culturally and Nawabs of Avadh in the pre- A Kashmiri Muslim Painter theologically.

No.99 (March-April 1997) 11 Shail Mayaram has worked on the towards the end of the eighteenth Meos, one of the largest Muslim century. Previously Kali — the fierce, communities living near the city of violent, dark goddess of popular Delhi in eastern Rajasthan, though imagination — had been primarily the many residents of Delhi may not have goddess of marginal groups such as even heard of them.12 The Meos trace robbers and thieves and some their ancestry from the Mahabharatic incarnations of her were associated clans and also often have with certain dangerous diseases.13 Mahabharatic names. But they are These gave her an ambivalent status. also Muslims, devout Muslims. It is Now, along with Durga, she only now, after being victims of a precipitated out as one of Bengal’s series of communal riots since the two presiding deities, benevolent days of Partition, that they have even if treacherously or violently so, begun to feel that they can no longer from the great traditional mother live in two houses, that they will have goddess of the region, Chandi. to now choose, and some of them After the great famine of 1772 have chosen to be Muslim in the sense killed off one-third of the population in which the Tabligh and the Jamaat- of Bengal and the colonial political e-Islami define Islam. Apart from their economy produced large-scale M.F. Husain’s own tradition of Islam, that is the only cultural dislocations, Kali continued other Islam available to them in instrumental use of certain gods and to be the chosen goddess of marginal contemporary India. Similarly, in the goddesses can destroy a person or a groups (becoming, for instance, the reconversion programmes being run community. The vamachari tradition personal goddess of the newly by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is old in South Asia, and there are emerging sect of thugs ravaging the clandestinely, the aim is to introduce deities who have a special countryside and pilgrimage routes), the non-Hindus into the Hindu fold relationship with deviant social but also acquired a modern as so many low-status, mimics of a groups. Years ago, while studying the connection as the chosen deity of the shallow, neo-Brahminic Hinduism, nineteenth century epidemic of sati anomic, culturally uprooted, urban, because that is the only Hinduism the in Bengal, I found out that the popular upwardly mobile upper castes in evangelists themselves know. This is public worship of Kali (sarvajanin greater Calcutta and areas heavily a modern tragedy which we have not pujd) became an important socio- influenced by the British presence, yet sensed and it affects hundreds of religious festival in Eastern India only where a new political economy and communities all over the region today: Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhsand Buddhists. I think India will be poorer if this rich, intricate tapestry of faiths gets destroyed through neglect or shrinks into six or seven standard, mutually exclusive faiths because, in the contemporary world, only such standard faiths enjoy respectability and political clout.It will simultaneously impoverish Hinduism, Islam, and the other South Asian faiths. I have said at the beginning that South Asian gods and goddesses, like their Hellenic counterparts, can sometimes be found on the wrong side of morality or law. The puranas and the upakathas are full of instances of how loyalty to and Meo singer of folk epic ‘pandon ka kada’ — Mewat’s

12 MANUSHI urban culture were ensuring the Previously Kali had been larger cosmic order. The gods and collapse of traditional social norms. primarily the goddess of goddesses are integrally related to the Durga became a more benevolent marginal groups such as anti-gods or demons. No theory of incarnation of Chandi and gradually violence, no metaphysics of evil in emerged as the most important deity robbers and thieves this part of the world is complete in Bengal. This changing cartography unless it takes into account this of gods and goddesses, who can be passions it has invoked in Europe dialectic. The fuzzy boundaries of benevolent but are also associated since medieval times and why Indians South Asian concepts of evil, the with the extra-social, the amoral and have never fathomed the anxieties that temporal and spatial limitations of the the criminal, gives an altogether the incidences of plague in their concept of paap (which distinguish it different set of insights into cultural country have aroused in some other from the more ‘’’ntense’ Judaeo- changes by profiling the anxieties, parts of the world. Christian concept of sin, which is more fears and hopes of a society that sharply defined but, paradoxically, neither a desiccated, formal study transcends space and time more of theology and structures of easily) and the tolerance of high culture yield nor can any diverse moral universes can be focus on the more formal, better read as reflecting the inextricability known deities bare. The trivial of the ideas of the good, the can often be a surer pathway to divine and the godly from that of cultural insights. the evil, the desacralised and the To give another example, in ungodly. Appropriately, the 1994, during the last episode of mother of the gods and plague in India, I discovered that, goddesses in mythic India, Aditi, while there were goddesses for is a sister of the mother of the cholera and smallpox in large demons, Diti, and in story after parts of India, there was no story there is an intricate, goddess for plague except in personalised, and ambivalent . I wondered why this relationship between gods and goddess, pilague amma, found a demons. Even Ravana, the congenial abode only in that fearsome Brahmarakshasa, the state and why she had that worst kind of , is Anglicised name, as if she was a intertwined with Rama in the newcomer to the Indian scene. Durga, 18th century cosmic order as two approaches Could it be that plague was a to the same divinity. The two pestilence that did not arouse This brings us to a central feature approaches are separated by crippling anxieties in most parts of of South Asian concepts of divinity: circumstances and accidents, and in India? Could it be a pestilence with the intimate relationship between the death this contradiction is resolved. which most Indians did not have to gods and the goddesses, on the one By dying in the hands of Rama, an psychologically struggle, except hand, and the demons, and incarnation of Vishnu, Ravana perhaps in the Western coastal towns ogres, on the other. The suras and the reaches his personal god, Vishnu.14 in contact with merchant ships coming asuras, the adityas and the daityas^ The capacity of the great Indian from West Asia and Europe — the devas and the danavas, are all thinkers, writers, and painters to Mangalore, Cochin, Calicut, Goa, dialectically interrelated; the gods and sometimes turn gods into villains and Bombay and Surat? I do not know. goddesses cannot survive or be demons into heroes, and even the Perhaps there are goddesses imagined — they are not even capacity of the less Sanskritised corresponding to Pilagueamma in complete — without their sectors to erect temples to those as southern Gujarat and in Konkan; only counterpoints among the demonic. ungodly as Duryodhana or as I have not had the privilege of their The divine pantheon — demonic as Hidimba carry a message. darshan yet. Once again, the populated by the good and the bad, Those who worship at such temples geography of popular religion gives the targets of right-handed worship do not worship at temples of evil. They one a clue as to why plague in India and those associated with left- are not part of a cabal or a secret has not triggered the imageries and handedness, vamacaar — is part of a society, nurturing secret ambitions

No.99 (March-April 1997) 13 that they feel can be fulfilled through some ritualised version of satanism, though that too is not unknown in India. Rather, the worshippers seem to have an alternative concept of divinity where Duryodhana also partakes of the divinity which, in the more gentrified, respectable versions of the Mahabharata, his more popular cousins seem to monopolise. Such permeable borders between gods and demons, between the definitions of what is sacred in everyday life and what is not, are one of the major sources of social tolerance and of the tacit awareness that the evil you exclude from yourself cannot be entirely projected outwards. For such an outwardly projectable sense of the evil remains only apparently outside at a safe distance from the self. Indeed, the godliness you define and the ungodliness you do not want to define but are still forced to acknowledge, are ordered hierarchically within, as two sets of potentialities. They equip one with culturally distinctive evil. Schweitzer felt that certain forms insiders and the outsiders, between theories of violence and oppression. of social intervention and altruism the godly and the ungodly, between Last year, a political activist, a were just not possible from within the suras and the asuras, the adityas committed and successful activist, such pagan morality.15 Maybe he was and the daityas, the devas and the was telling me how he had started life right. But that limitation also ensures danavas, are doomed in the region. as a Leftist. There was a touch of both that some other forms of violence, That may not be something to be pain and wisdom in his voice when certain borderlines that are easy to ashamed of just because Schweitzer he said to me, ‘Now, I have been in draw in other civilisations — between felt otherwise. this game for twenty years. I am the ‘monstrous’, the ‘naturally Can this interpretation be read as convinced that confrontations do not perverted’ or ‘genetically flawed’ only an instance of cultural go very far in India. We wish it went aliens and ‘us’ —are not easy to draw nationalism or camouflaged further, but the people are like that!’ in South Asia. In the long run, all ethnocentrism? ‘Why have all the But people are not like that attempts to draw such conclusive, avataras been born in India, no where accidentally. There is a cosmology to non-equivocal lines between the else?,’ A sceptic once asked me back them up. In that cosmology, the aggressively. Answers to such good and the evil are differently questions can only be as clear — or textured and interrelated. These Such permeable borders vague — as a culture insists on giving. interrelations — particularly the moral between gods and In Hinduism, there are roughly 330 ambiguity that can go with them, demons...are one of the major million gods and some of their deeply offended even a sources of social tolerance and avataras might have been born compassionate observer like Albert elsewhere in the world. At least one Schweitzer, who came to believe that of the tacit awareness that the important one, I know, was born in Hindu cosmology was inferior to its evil you exclude from yourself Nepal. A proper census of these 330 western counterparts because it did cannot be entirely projected million gods and goddesses and their not clearly separate the good and the outwards. countless incarnations is still waiting

14 MANUSHI to be done. A proper census of these 330 Ahmedabad itself was then an Less crudely, such questions are million gods and goddesses identifiably Vaishnava city, a sharp partly answered every day by things and their countless contrast to my native Calcutta. My like the city of Ayodhya in Thailand. teacher, psychoanalyst Shiv Kumar Thai Ayodhya is not only sacred, it is incarnations is still waiting to Mitra, soon pointed out to me, unlikely that the Thais will concede it be done. however, that the Vaishnava style to be a copy. Once however you overlay a clear Shakto substratum, historicise Rama, once you locate his everyday they prefer to deal with the with its usual bevy of powerful mother birthplace at a particular Ayodhya at lower-ranked Hindu deities. At one goddesses. When confronted with a particular point of time, either to plane the stratarchy distantiates serious illness or financial crisis in the territorialise his claim to a temple or to between the Brahminic and the non- family, most residents of Ahmedabad oppose it, you automatically deny the Brahminic, between the greater rushed to these goddesses. Popular sacredness of the other Ayodhya and, Sanskritic and the vernacular or local; temples in normal times were not while you may serve the purposes of at another, it brings together and necessarily the same as popular those who view Rama as a national balances the Buddhist and the Hindu temples during times of crisis. As if leader, a historical figure and a cultural On the other hand, one’s manifest the Ahmedabadis were discriminating hero, you cannot sustain his status loyalty to a deity, by itself, does not enough to recognise that the as a god who, as a god, has to exist tell much about the powers one goddesses could be not only more today. If Rama is, only then is he, imputes to the deity. Thirty-five years powerful than the gods but also be a Rama. If Rama was, he is no Rama. ago, when I went to Ahmedabad to corrective to the discrepancy between That is the paradox in which one gets join a psychoanalytic research centre the secular and sacred status of caught when one accepts the and clinic, I found most of the patients women. language of either the Hindutva- who came to the clinic to be upper Similar corrections are hawkers or the secular caste Gujarati Vaishnavas. represented by gods who are more fundamentalists. There is a question that Nagaraj raises, that of Brahminic versus non- Brahminic deities and their status relations. As Nirmal Kumar Bose pointed out years ago, South Asia has a stratarchy of gods, based on the caste system. This allows a different kind of politics of cultures, perhaps even some play in matters of spirituality. For the stratarchy seems to have a few identifiable features. First, the higher the status of a deity, the less directly helpful and relevant in everyday life he or she usually is.16 Thus, Indra, the King of gods, has a high status in the pantheon, but his potency as a god relevant to our day- to-day existence or survival is not particularly high, not at least in our times. Likewise with Brahma, the creator of the universe and the senior- most in the pantheon. The Hindu temples within the precincts of most Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka are a corollary to the same principle. The devotees see the Buddhist Kali-Gauri the biform image of the goddess holding within her the two divinity as too outer-worldly; for aspects of the Mother as darkness and light

No.99 (March-April 1997) 15 powerful as children than as Ramjanmabhumi movement adults. Krishna the king in and vote for the Hindu Mahabharata is a god all nationalists in elections, yet right, but not a god of the would not like their same stature as he is as the daughters to marry child-god Balakrishna of the someone from Ayodhya. Is Bhagavata. Exactly as the this refusal only comic folk status of the temple of superstition, or is there in Bhadrakali at Ahmedabad this obstinacy an embedded tells us something about the comment on the limits of the status of women in Gujarati spiritual and moral status of society, the status of Rama or, for that matter, gods Balakrishna is a statement and goddesses in general? on the status of childhood Do we have access to the in India.18 Likewise, Rama as complexity of such a raja has one set of discriminations and devotees; Rama as an loyalties? avatara of Vishnu has Finally, the matter of others. When doing field birth and death of gods and work at Ayodhya in 1991-92, goddesses. New gods and I was surprised to find a goddesses are regularly section of the priests there born in South Asia.19 But convinced that the they also die frequently, Ramjanmabhumi movement despite their theoretical was a Shaivite plot to take immortality. They die not of over the pilgrimage centre. illness or accidents, but of With the whole of India on forgetfulness or deliberate fire on the Ramjanmabhumi erasure. These are not issue, some priests insisted Scenes from the legend of Vishnu from a Buddhist diseases that are uniquely that what we were temple, Angkor Thom, Cambodia South Asian; they are witnessing was a political becoming epidemic the ploy not to defeat the Muslims, but of fate and his disarming by Indra, world over. Iconoclasm has killed the Vaishnavas. A few of them openly Chand Saudagar’s defiance of fewer gods than erasure or expressed their displeasure that the goddess Chandi and her jealous reconfiguration of memory. Certainly leaders of the movement, especially revenge against him and his family, evangelical Christianity, despite its the firebrand Shaivite sannyasins like are instances. best efforts, between the sixteenth and Uma Bharati and Ritambhara, talked Even today, parents in Mithila the nineteenth century could not of Ram primarily as a king, not as a reportedly refuse to allow their manage to finish off the gods and devotee of Vishnu. If there are checks daughters to marry someone from goddesses — coming from a and balances within the pantheon in Ayodhya, however eligible the Christian family, I know how much my terms of power, interpersonal prospective bridegroom (because of family lived with them, while relations, status, and morality, then it the ill-treatment which Sita was aggressively denying that they lived follows, that there are human checks subjected to by Rama and the with them. And mine is not an atypical against gods and goddesses, too. Not residents of Ayodhya). The practice Christian family. 20 My father’s Christ, only in the form of pious men, women has lasted for centuries and may in retrospect, was remarkably and children with unblemished outlast the Hindu nationalist Vaishnava. records of penance whose spiritual politicians shouting themselves U. R. Ananthamurthy may be right powers make gods tremble, but also hoarse about Ram being a national when he talks of the European in the form of heroic and epic, even if hero or affirming the unity and Christian onslaught on Hinduism in flawed and ordinary, humble folk who homogeneity of the Hindu nation. I colonial times, an onslaught that take positions against mighty gods am sure there are a few devotees of prompted Gandhi to make his on moral grounds. Kama’s defiance Rama who support the notorious remark that Christianity

16 MANUSHI was a good religion before it went to These gods and goddesses wiped out. These gods and Europe. However, official Christianity are exiting the world stage goddesses are exiting the world stage need not be the last word on silently, without any fanfare, silently, without any fanfare, lament Christianity. There are Christian sects or scholarly obituary. and denominations that have made lament or scholarly obituary. Some years ago, I studied the first systematic theological deals with because, over the last two hundred environmental activist of India, Kapil vernacular concepts of divinity. At a years, Japan’s history too has been Bhattacharjea (1904-1989), who pinch, most religions probably know reconceptualised. Such clues can be opposed the Damodar Valley how to live with each other; probably found only in Japanese popular Corporation, the multipurpose project it is the turn of some of the religious religion for it has preserved another of dams, hydel plants and irrigation to relearn how to live with each other. Japan. systems modelled on the TVA. I While gods and goddesses are It is a pity that I am not a believer arrived at the usual story — that when mainly responsible to their devotees, and that I have come to gods and the DVC was built in the 1950s and not to outsiders scrutinising them goddesses through politics, mainly 1960s, hundreds of thousands of ‘scientifically,’ even for such outsiders politics of knowledge. But for that people were uprooted, a majority of they often faithfully hold in trust, on same reason, I am all too aware that them tribals. They were given paltry behalf of the future generations, parts the world of gods and goddesses of compensations and told to go and of the selves the devotees disown and people like you and I will not die soon. settle elsewhere. And as usually would like to jettison. Gods and For our gods and goddesses, like happened during those tumultuous goddesses do get born, they live and Vivekananda’s Kali, can take care of times in a newly born nation-state die, but that birth, life and death record themselves. On the other hand, I pathetically trying to catch up with not only what they are, but also what cannot but be aware that there are the West, these displaced people we are. Historian of religion, Michio other worlds of gods and goddesses went and quietly settled down Araki, once said in a conversation that which were being systematically elsewhere, lost touch with their own the premodern Japan we culture, inherited skills, and now know, is not the Japan environmental sensitivities that encountered the West (the ecology of resettlement for the first time. Araki’s areas usually being different). argument seemed to be that Mostly belonging to the Japan only theoretically non-monetised section of the escaped colonisation, for it Indian economy, they also has always lived with fears quickly spent the money they of being colonised and that received as compensation on fear has forced it to redefine alcohol and fictitious land even its traditions. Today, deals. Soon they became like when we speak of original any other uprooted Japanese culture or state as community, migrant labourers entities bearing a particular working in small industrial relationship with modern units or landless agricultural technology and the urban- labourers.21 They were some industrial vision, we miss of the earliest members of a crucial aspects of Japan as growing community—an it was, before it saw, in its estimated 50 million Indians neighbourhood, two great uprooted by various mega- civilisations, India and projects of development over China, getting colonised. the last fifty years. This is Araki adds that clues to five times the number of what Japan was before the people displaced during the western encounter and Partition riots. People have before it retooled its self- not forgotten the ten million definition cannot be found Santhoshi Ma, a recent addition to displaced by Partition but in Japanese history the Hindu pantheon they have forgotten these 50

No.99 (March-April 1997) 17 million. A large proportion of comments and criticisms, shaped this those displaced are tribals and essay. dalits; one-third of our entire 2. Alan Roland, In Search of Self in tribal population has been India and Japan: Toward a Cross- uprooted in the last fifty years Cultural Psychology (Princeton, NJ: and 15 per cent of our tribes Princeton University Press, 1988). 22 have been fully uprooted. The 3.Surabhi Shclh, ‘Self and Reality’, gods and goddesses of these in D. L. Sheth and Ashis Nandy vanishing communities, (Eds.), The Future of Hinduism, silently and invisibly facing forthcoming. threats of extinction, are the 4. In Malaysia and Indonesia, for ones who have made me aware instance, they critically influence of a divine species who, unlike the mythic life of a majority of the Vivekananda’s Kali, require people. Under the influence of Is- something in addition to lamic revivalism, in Malaysia, there devotion. There are also the are now stray attempts to purify gods and goddesses of Malaysian Islam and demands that communities that, after the Malaysian sultans, who consti- centuries of oppression, the tute a ruling council, drop parts of communities themselves have their titles that are ‘Hindu’ and ob- begun to undervalue or forget vious remnants of prc-Islamic tradi- (so that they can redefine tions. However, the sultans seem themselves as only a culture- reluctant to do so, for a part of their less group of oppressed poor legitimacy in a predominantly Mus- operating on a clean cultural lim community is linked to their slate.231 believe that these gods ritual status. Gods and goddesses can and goddesses — as be in odd places. biographies of threatened 5. Ernest Gellner, Nations and cultures, as symbols of their Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell Uni- resilience and resistance versity Press, 1983), p. 124. against the juggernaut of mega- 6. Shamoon T. Lokhandwala, ‘In- development — deserve dian Islam: Composite Culture and something more than standard, Ram and Lakshman fight the demoness Taraka, Integration’, New Quest, March- rationalist, dismissive by 16th century Muslim painter Mushfiq April 1985, (50), pp. 87-101. ethnographies or archeologies. 7. Ramchandra Gandhi, Sita’s We owe something not only to Kitchen: A Testimony of Faith and and answers to some questions raised them and their humble devotees, but Enquiry (New Delhi: Eastern Wiley, by participants at a samskriti shivira also to our own moral selves. For no 1994). intervention in society, politics and (workshop on cultural studies) on gods and goddesses, organised by Ninasam, 8. Ashis Nandy, The Tao of Cricket: On culture becomes moral by virtue of the Games of Destiny and the Destiny of fact that we cannot, at the moment, , Karnataka, 8-15 October 1995. Subsequently, K. V. Akshara and Games (New think of any alternative to it. ˆ his associates painstakingly transcribed De1hi:Penguin,1989),ChI. the lecture and my exchanges with the 9. This part of the story is entirely missed Dr Ashis Nandy is the Director, participants for the Kannada readers. by those who read all recourse to as- Centre for the Study of Developing It is D. R. Nagaraj’s persistent interest trology as the denial of free will. For a Societies, Delhi in the lecture that has prompted me to recent example, see Peter R. deSouza, turn it into something resembling a ‘Astrology and the Indian State’, The References: proper essay. I am grateful to him, U R. Times of India, 19 July 1996. I. Keynote address at the American Acad- AnanthaMurthy and Gancsh Devi, and 10. Though I have recently found out in emy of Religion, New Orleans, 27-28 the intellectually extremely alert, lhat, in Sri Lanka, there is at least one November 1996. This was originally mostly non-academic participants in temple where Vibhishana is worshipped. an informal extempore presentation the shivira who have, through their

18 MANUSHI Of the seven immortals (Ashvathama Rama, as in some of the earlier dissent- temple, Prachin Santoshi Mala BalirVyaso Hanumanscha Vibhishanah ing premodern Ramayanas, was after Mandir. kripah Parashuramascha saptaite all not that disjunctive with the origi- 20. Probably gods have another kind of in- chiranjivinah), Ashvathama is the best nal as Dutt might have thought. I think carnation, not captured in any avatara known, and, until some decades ago, I now know why, despite being taught, theory. As we well know, many of the one could hear claims once in a while like all Bengalis, to hero worship Dutt, European Christian saints, in their that he had been seen still moving I could still enjoy my grandmother’s Latin American incarnations, bear to- around with a wound on his forehead, conventional version of Ramayana. day clear imprints of pre-Christian Az- usually at the foothills of the Himalayas. 15. Albert Schweitzer, Indian Thought and tec deities. Even the figure of Christ 1 have never been able to decipher this its Development (New York: Beacon, has been transformed into a Meso- fondness for the hills in this 1959). American one, far removed from the tragicparanic character. Despite the un- 16. This also seems to indirectly emerge standardised figure of Christ in the Eu- enviable state of the puranic immor- from Veena Das, ‘The Mythological ropean Christendom. tals, immortality has been a major fan- Film and its Framework of Meaning: 21. Ashis Nandy, ‘The Range and Limits of tasy in Indian cultural life. Indian al- An Analysis of Jai Santoshi Ma’, India Dissent: Kapil Bhattacharjea’s Critique chemy has been more concerned with International Centre Quarterly, of the DVC’, Presented at the Confer- the search for an elixir of life, less with 1981,9(1), pp. 43-56. ence on the Greening of Economics, the transmutation of base metals into Bellagio, 2-6 August 1993. To be pub- gold. 17. Appropriately enough, Sinhala chauvin- ists have begun to interpret this ex- lished in Fredcrique Apffel Marglin 11. What arouses anxiety in modem Indi- pression of mutuality as an instance of (Ed.), People Count, forthcoming. ans does not apparently do so in soci- contamination of Buddhism by Hindu- 22. Smitu Kothari estimates that of the 60 eties where the elite has not lost its ism. million aboriginal tribals in India belong- cultural self confidence. I am told that ing to some 212 tribes, 15 per cent have it has become fashionable in recent 18. Interested readers may look up Ashis been displaced by development projects. years for young Japanese couples to get Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Smitu Kothari, Theorising Culture,Nature married in picturesque European Recovery of Self Under Colonialism and Democracy in India’ (Delhi: churches. They get married there ac- (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, Lokayan, 1993), ms. cording to Christian rites and the mar- 1983); ‘Politics of Childhood’, in Tra- riages are perfectly acceptable in Ja- ditions, Tyranny and Utopia: Essays in 23. Many Dalit communities in contempo- pan, legally and socially. the Politics of Awareness (New Delhi: rary India are good examples of such Oxford University Press, 1987). deculluration. In response, some sensititve 12. Shail Mayaram, Resisting Regimes: Dalit writers have made a conscious ef- Myth. Memory and the Shaping of a 19. Veena Das gives a fascinating account fort to rediscover and defend Dalit cul- Muslim Identity (New Delhi: Oxford of the birth of a god sired by commer- tural traditions. See for instance, D. R. University Press, 1997). cial cinema. See Das, Jai Santoshi Ma. Such entry into the pantheon can even Nagaraj, ‘From Political Rage to Cultural 13. Some folk tales presume Olaichandi, be quite enduring. Only a few weeks ago, Affirmation: Notes on the Karmada Dalit for instance, to be a thinly disguised writing this paper, I chanced upon a Poet-Activist Siddalingaiah’, India Inter- incarnation of Kali, who presided over temple at Madangir, New Delhi, which national Centre Quarterly, Winter cholera. Her Islamic edition was claimed to be an ancient Santoshi Ma 1994,21 (4), pp. 15-26. Olaibihi. Often, in a village or town, if Olaibibi was seen as more potent, the Hindus also went to her and vice versa. Exactly as many Muslims in Dhaka go to the Dhakeshwari temple for specific forms of protection or blessings. Dhakeshwari, some believe, still pro- tects one from serious accidents and few among them want to take the risk of testing out the truth of that, not even in an Islamic society. 14. So Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s (1824- 1873) great act of rebellion, his epic Megnadbadh Kavya which makes a hero out of Ravana and a villain out of

No.99 (March-April 1997) 19