On Monday 04 May 2009 8:59:06 am Bharat Shetty wrote: > > At independence Hindus decided "OK - so you > > folks have no caste - your religion unites you right? So we Hindus will > > handle caste matters and you look after your affairs" (This has a bearing > > on the "rise" of Hindutva - which I will post in a separate message if > > anyone is interested) > > I'm interested. Please do post more on this. >
Well a lot is being said about "the rise of Hindutva" and the "increase in intolerance" and the "New, severe, form of Hinduism raising its head in India". Anyone who has observed the changes in India over that last 30 to 40 years will be able to pinpoint what is going on. As I stated earlier (and in the article I linked) India after independence specifically targeted Hindus for reform and a whole lot of reforms were put in place - regarding issues that would have been impossible to meddle with among Muslims. All those reforms had the single minded aim of unifying the diverse peoples of India and reducing their differences. Everything the Indian state could do to Hindus to reduce their social splintering was done - reducing the impact and importance of caste, community and language. Anyone who remembers the 1950s and 1960s will recall the degree to which it made a difference being a "Punjabi" or a "Madrasi" , or Brahmin and Shudra compared to what it is today. Much is written about the caste issue and the North India south India issue. Even Naipaul has a hilarious passage about this in one of his early India books. On the other hand next to nothing is written about the overall effect of reducing the effect splintering of Hindus into caste, region and color. Hindus are gradually being made into a relatively uniform homogeneous mass in response to the very criticsim Hindus faced about their own social fissiparous tendencies. And when you have an increasing percentage of Hindus seeing eye to eye, minus the divisons of caste and region, you see a Hindu virwpoint that begins to appear like "The menacing rise of Hindutva" Many of the questions being raised by "Hindutva" are a direct consequence of the coming together of Hindus due to decades old policies of Hindu social reform and pro-active upliftment of the much advertised Hindu downtrodden. On the question of Muslims, the reformed Hindus are asking why no effort was made to impose any reform on Muslims in India unlike the reforms that Hindus endured. Particular sore points are the fact that the govenment of India controls Hindu temple funds and might spend those funds on vote bank sops. As a Hindu growing up in India I can quote several instances as a child of being made aware of the feeling that there was something wrong about being Hindu. I will not go into detail about that now - but I bring that up to point out how Hindus are now behaving like the worm that has turned and there is little you can do to tell them that they are wrong, at least in some areas. For example, the economic growth rate of 3-4% was called the Hindu growth rate. Whilst there was no protest at this cliche from Hindus at that time, the same Hindus are taking credit for India's improving economy now. After all if poor performance can be blamed on the majority Hindus of India, there is absolutely nothing wrong in the majority later taking credit for a good performance. One of the less recognised aspects of Hindutva is that there is nothing "resurgent" about it. It was always there covered over by colonised mindsets and a Hindu community divided over various issues and under constant criticism from "culturally superior" people for having such divisions. Hindus have responded to those criticisms and what do you get? Hindutva of course. shiv
