From: kannan@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Kannan Subramanian)
Subject: Re: Hinduism and Islam in the 21st Century
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 22:45:06 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

In article <balaji.724196423@yorku.ca> balaji@nexus.yorku.ca (Balaji) writes:

	[ earlier remarks deleted ; those following the thread should 
	  hit control-p and go back and read them. they're certainly 
	  interesting ..]

>This form of enlightened tolerance is uniquely Indian, even uniquely
>Hindu. It has little to do with the brand of hinduism that the VHP wants
>to force on us, with dreams of exterminating people of other faiths,
>with strictly and violently enforced caste and social rigidity.

On the contrary, why must the tolerant aspects of Hinduism (unique or
otherwise) be viewed as more truly representative of what is Hindu, than 
say the baggage of caste and social rigidity that does after all come to 
us as ancient inheritance and is not anybody's modern invention? 
 
(I found myself agreeing with most of what was said above till I came upon the 
following conclusion.) 

>Fundamentalism, whether Islamic or Hindu, is a *modern* phenomenon: it
>is a reaction to the failure of western-inspired fantasies of
>"development". It is not 400-500 years of backwardness, as Akash
>Deshpande claims; it is not the recovery of ancient strength as the RSS
>claims. It is not "Indian" hindutva versus "western" secularism. No: it
>is the RSS/VHP/BJP crowd that has imported "western" ideas drawn from
>such western wonders as Nazism, Zionism, and apartheid: whereas
>secularism and tolerance in India are ideas as old as India itself.

It seems to me, you have committed the same error that you have sought to 
point out - of choosing to peer through only selected windows in history, 
and then interpreting those selected images to support your thesis (just as 
"conveniently" perhaps as those you disagree with). Let me clarify what I 
mean. 

Fundamentalism is not, IMO, a _modern_ phenomenon as you claim above. History
is replete with examples of both tolerance and intolerance (and fundamentalism,
however it may be defined) in both ancient Islamic _and_ Hindu worlds (as sure,
in the West as well). Neither is apartheid a "western wonder." Caste based 
feudal hierachies were created in the selfsame Hindu world and the 
frightfully-upper-class have "co-existed" with the untouchables for many
centuries; this form of apartheid is indeed as old as India itself. 

If your claim above is that religious fundamentalism of the RSS/VHP/BJP  
brand is inspired by Nazism, apartheid, etc, ("all of which come from the  
west" you imply), sorry, peer into our own history a little deeper. Shivaji
was as much inspired by his goddess Bhavani as Aurangzeb drew strength from 
his Islamic beliefs in their attempts at repelling each other in their quest
for empires. History records the former as a hero and the latter as a villain. 
Aurangzeb destroyed temples we are told and Shivaji killed the marauding 
Muslims. 

Rather than pass judgement today on who was "good" and who was "bad" among
our ancients, (which I think is quite irrelevant to this thread), it should 
not be difficult to recognize that it is our own historical strife along
religious divides that inspires and fuels our conflicts today and gives rise
to fundamentalism. Incidentally, fundamentalism _is_ an inevitable consequence
of a sufficiently polarized conflict along religious divides and there is 
nothing "modern" about it. It's a phenomenon as old as the hills. 

To cut a long lecture short, I'm convinced more or less that your claims above
are not really so much a "secularism-is-inherently-Indian-while-fundamentalism
and-fascism-has-its-roots-in-the-west-and-is-a-borrowed-idea" thing, and while 
at it I'm not quite sure that you have not said all of just that. 

>Balaji

-kannan


Xref: sparky soc.culture.indian:41152 soc.culture.tamil:4403