[FairfieldLife] Dangers Of Religious Environmentalism In India

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<x-tad-bigger>"Dangers Of Religious Environmentalism In </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>India"


</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger> DHARMIC ECOLOGY AND THE NEO-PAGAN INTERNATIONAL:
THE DANGERS OF RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENTALISM IN INDIA

by Meera Nanda
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<x-tad-bigger> [Paper Presented at Panel No. 15 at the 18th
European Conference on Modern South Asian
Studies, 6-9 July 2004
Panel Title: From Landscapes to Genomes:
Authoritative Knowledge in Contested Domains 8
July, Lund, Sweden ]

Paper Abstract:

The Context: Politics in India is undergoing a
process of sacralization, or religionization. The
founding principles of India's secular democracy
are being reformulated in the concepts, symbols
and rituals derived from the elements of orthodox
and neo-Hinduism. In keeping with the fabled
"inclusivism' of Hinduism, Hindu nationalists are
trying to co-opt the key modern ideals of
liberalism, secularism and humanism as being
always-already present in the eternal truths of
the Vedas. Hindutva is "modern" in rhetoric, for,
unlike the paleo-religious fundamentalists like
the Taliban, it is not turning its back to the
modern world. But Hindutva is deeply anti-modern
in reality, for, like all "respectable" religious
fundamentalist parties (e.g., Moral Majority in
the US, or the Mullahs in Iran), it seeks to
co-opt modern ideals and deny any contradiction,
any break and any secularization of the Hindu
understanding of nature and society.

The problematic: The rhetoric of "Vedic
spirituality-as-science"/ "spiritual science" is
playing a key role in the erosion of secular
public discourse in India. There is a concerted,
state-sponsored effort by Hindu ideologues to
reinterpret modern science as a mere footnote to
Hindu spiritual traditions which see the
phenomenal world of nature as an expression of
the Spirit or Brahman. Hindu nationalists and
their intellectual allies including numerous
gurus and swamis, inside and outside the
government, all claim that the most advance
research in physics, neurosciences, biology,
ecology and mathematics all confirm the holistic
worldview of the Vedas and/or are already
presaged in the Vedas. Conversely, they justify
esoteric, paranormal and pseudo-sciences like
astrology, vastu, faith-healing, telepathy, and
reincarnation memories etc. as legitimate
sciences within the holistic, non-dualistic
worldview of Vedic Hinduism. The introduction of
astrology is one prominent example of such
thinking, as is the state-sponsored "research"
and propagation of Vastu shastra, cow-urine,
scientific benefits of </x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>yagna</x-tad-bigger><x-tad-bigger>s and "Vedic"
mathematics. The question this panel asks is: how
and where "authoritative knowledge is created
about such imponderables as genes - or atoms. Who
is the God of the really small things?"
My paper will offer one possible answer to this
question: authoritative interpreters of knowledge
of material things, big and small, are none other
than the "Intellectual kshatriyas" of the Sangh
Parivar.

Complete text at:

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