Hindu Rashtra: Think what you wish for

In a recent interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, former Hindu correspondent Hassan Suroor, who is currently a Press Fellow at Cambridge University’s Wolfson College, made a startling suggestion -- that Indian Muslims make a deal: Let India be officially declared a Hindu State, in return for equality before the law and full democratic and civil rights for minorities, on the lines of what prevails in Britain and other western democracies where the State is Christian, but government practices are secular and there is no discrimination on the basis of religion. He went on to say that India is already a de facto Hindu State, and it would be better that Muslims come to terms with it. He assumes that such an India would allow Muslims to live with dignity, rather than ill-treating them as second-class citizens.

Will India, a federation of states, hold together and thrive as a robust democracy if it becomes a formal Hindu Rashtra? Millions of immigrants, with varying facial features and build, have poured into this land over the ages from various regions of the world, melding with native populations, with their own languages, countless dialects, distinctive cultures, cuisines, religions and ethnicities. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Zorastrianism, Dalits and Adivasi tribals with their worship of totems and spirits, have all fused, lending India a unique civilisational ethos and identity. Through upheavals and invasions, conversions and proselytisation through the centuries, the Hindu religion and way of life has endured, thanks to its strong foundation -- not of one theology and one holy book, but of its multiple systems of philosophy and its ability to welcome different thoughts and ideas and gods and their worshippers into this land and even to co-opt them, remaining an amorphous religion that neither imposes nor can be imposed upon.

Therefore, is the desire, now often expressed, to crystalise the ethos of this land, the very core of its being, into a rigid religious monolith, and to write it into its Constitution, not a threat to its integrity and existence? Is it even politically prudent for the BJP, when it is known that many monarchs in earlier centuries failed in their attempts to homogenise the cultural, ethnic and religious diversity of this land? In our own time, a brutal bid to centralise power -- when Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency – did not succeed.

Of course, the legal luminaries will also tell you that even a government with an absolute majority cannot declare India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ because secularism is part of the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution and it cannot be amended.

Will turning India into a Hindu State then give full expression to Hinduism, long suppressed, as many in the BJP/RSS believe, by alien rulers and religions and, post-Independence, by the secularists? Or will those who want to take revenge on the ages and are whipping up a mass hysteria of Hindu victimhood, proclaiming themselves to be the sole guardians of Hindus, end up tearing the fabric of the country, as the liberals believe they will?

At the dawn of freedom, there were the likes of Golwalkar and Savarkar, reimagining and envisioning different versions of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’. Their visions were squarely rejected by both Gandhi and Bose and their followers with differing ideologies, who were at the forefront of the freedom struggle, a struggle that was underpinned by a much broader vision of modern India.

Not that they did not know or feel any less strongly for India’s “long supressed” soul. Indeed, in the wake of Partition, they were acutely aware of it and sought to follow in the footsteps of Ashoka and Akbar, who went from ruthless warring conquerors to pacifists promoting tolerance toward all religions as the surest basis for administering their large intractable empires. Today’s India is even larger, more diverse than the empires of either of the two great emperors, and it is a modern democracy. Which vision does Modi want to follow? Does Modi want to see himself in the footsteps of Ashoka and Akbar and leave a modern legacy uniquely his own, or does he want to attempt to leave behind the legacy of Golwalkar or Savarkar?

If Modi and the BJP were to embark on the latter path, then resistance is sure to arise both from within the Hindu fold and without. For one, most Muslims would not welcome Suroor’s idea. For, after all, they hold the secular Constitution as the best guarantor of their safety, dignity and rights. Then there are, of course, the conservatives, the fundamentalists and the political outfits purporting to represent the community who would all oppose such a move.

Suroor forgets, like many among Hindus, that India cannot be reduced to a Hindu-Muslim binary. Sikhs, Christians, tribals and Buddhists form 35-70% of the populations of Punjab, Kerala and the North-East. Can we risk alienating them? The Hindus themselves cannot easily be straitjacketed into any rigid religious code of conduct or belief system. The very origin of Hinduism is rooted in debating and questioning long-held precepts, a spiritual quest into the mysteries of the universe and of existence. It admitted everyone -- dissenters, non-believers, atheists, free thinkers, sceptics, hedonists and others, and absorbed them into the Indian consciousness. Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism issued out of the very womb of this land and have continued alongside Hinduism through the ages.

But, at present, that all-embracing generosity of spirit is absent. On the contrary, there is increasing resentment about having been wronged in the past, not only among members of the BJP/RSS, but even among Hindus outside their fold. And there’s a feeling that Hinduism has been undermined by past secular governments by appeasing the minority communities. That explains the increasing open denigration of Mahatma Gandhi and the lionisation of his assassin, the repeated exhuming of the past to demand temples where mosques stand, or seeking retribution for wrongs done to Hindus in centuries past.

This, they feel, is the path to regaining the glory and achieving the dominance of Hindus. This is dangerous and does not portend well for our society. The desire to avenge past injustices could open a Pandora’s box. What if the Dalits were to take the same path against the Hindu upper castes? Where will all this end? All of us must take a dip in the holy river of forgiveness to exorcise our past demons that haunt us.

The way to correct past injustices is for leaders of all political parties, religious denominations, the intelligentsia and the media, all of us in society, to come together and find common ground through dialogue and discourse and build a new, just and equitable society going forward.

Modi, with the mandate he commands and his stature among his followers, should take the initiative, remembering what the great Nelson Mandela once said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies”.