From: balaji@nexus.yorku.ca (Balaji)
Subject: Re: Hinduism and Islam in the 21st Century
Organization: York University
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 21:40:23 GMT

akash@moonlight.berkeley.edu (Akash R. Deshpande) writes:

>>  Islam, Hinduism and the West...

>I don't think Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all that different.
>Such differences as are present are due to local or temporal natures
>and contexts of the doctrine. Islam is going through today  what
>Christianity went through in its comparable period 400-500 years ago.

This is a pernicious notion fostered by 19th century western ideas of
history-as-progress. The history of religions is not at all one of
steady progress toward liberalism. Consider this: a thousand years ago,
the christians, fundamentalists we would call them today, were burning
books and suppressing any alleged non-christian ideas by torture and
murder, if necessary. Several priceless works were lost in this period:
the 2nd volume of Aristotle's Poetics for instance. This work,
Aristotle's analysis of comedy, was banned because it taught people
that joy could come other than from God, and because laughter
encourages irreverence. The Arabs, at the same time, translated Greek
and Sanskrit works into Arabic, and preserved the memory of Greek
thought, and Indian mathematics, in the great libraries of Alexandria
and Cordoba. This was a confident, liberal, freethinking, expansionist
Islam, unthreatened by "foreign" ideas. The christian world was on the
defensive, the Arabs were in modern Austria and Spain, and portions of
France. Ultimately, the Europeans drove out the Arabs from what is now
Western Europe. During the Renaissance, the Europeans rediscovered
Greek thought in the muslim libraries which they later put to the
torch. They then rewrote history in a continuous line from Greek
civilization to themselves, leaving out the passage through Arab hands.
Or look at modern mathematics: the zero makes its way from India
through the mediaeval Islamic world to Europe, but now mathematics
appears squarely to belong to western rationalism. The point is this:
there was a time when Islam represented liberty and enlightenment, and
Christianity was fanatical fundamentalist backwardness. The claim that
Islam is 400-500 years "behind" Christianity is preposterous. There is
no linear movement of societies toward greater liberty, though the West
would like us to believe this, as it would place them at the pinnacle
of history. Also, the genealogy of ideas is a complex business: ideas
cross borders without respecting visa formalities.

Which brings me to the notion of secularism. Most people on the net,
whether supporters or opponents of the RSS/VHP/BJP, seem to be agreed
that it is a "Western" idea, foisted on us by western-educated
intellectuals and leaders (Nehru, in short), and having nothing to do
with "Indianness". The RSS/VHP/BJP claims that it will do away with
these colonial burdens from many centuries of invasion and subjugation,
and revive the dormant energies of the great civilization that existed
before. Look at this claim carefully: this notion that secularism is a
western import, and the VHP brand of hinduism actually represents
ancient India. The multiple belief systems that go under the collective
name of "hinduism" actually tell an entirely different story. Wherever
the Hindus went, what they actually did was to create a symbiotic
relationship with pre-existing worship patterns. The Harappans'
Pasupati was identified with Siva; the worship of the monkey as a
symbol of male virility, so beloved of the Bajrang Dal, long predates
Vedic society; various cults of a mother goddess became identified with
Devi. To be sure, the Hindus claimed *theological* hegemony -- they
claimed that the dravidian child-god Murugan was "really" Sankara, that
the Buddha was an avatar of Vishnu -- but *practically* that had little
effect on people's worship and social practice. To this day, in regions
of India still unscathed by the VHP brand of hinduism, many faiths
coexist in mutual harmony and appreciation. In Chidambaram, with a
large muslim population, practising muslims continue to visit the great
temple. The idol in the Velankanni temple can be Devi or the Virgin
Mary, depending on what texts you follow. Pilgrims to the Ayyappan
temple always stop to offer prayer at the Vavar mosque at the foot of
the hill, Vavar being a great muslim devotee of Ayyappan.

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.
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.

Those of you who believe in the RSS/VHP/BJP agenda that is supposedly
going to stoke the fires in Hindu bellies and reawaken the sleeping
giant that was ancient India: their ideology has a lot in common with
fascism and Khomeini's Islam, and nothing to do with ancient India at
all. And since the Ramayana is so dear to you, remember Kumbhakarna.
The sleeping giant you are waking is turning out to be a rakshasa.

Balaji
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.pakistan