But this predictably controversial Hindutva vision existed largely on the fringes of society. While the inclusive nationalism of Gandhi, Nehru and assorted political leaders came from direct experience of fighting for freedom, from a personal interaction with the people, Hindutva was constructed by thinkers who were not active participants in the struggle against imperialism and therefore could fabricate theories divorced from the lived experience and reality of the masses. In actual fact, most Hindus hardly saw themselves as a fixed, united group who could transform that identity into a rock-solid sense of nationalism. Even the question of who exactly a Hindu was, in practical terms, remained frustratingly unresolved. In 1871, for example, a ‘committee of native gentlemen’ defined as Hindu all those who believed in caste. But caste appeared among Muslims and Christians also. In the 1891 census, then, the Hindu was defined by exclusion, as ‘the large residuum that is not Sikh, or Jain, or Buddhist, or professedly Animistic, or included in one of the foreign religions, such as Islam, Mazdaism, Christianity, or Hebraism’. Sir M. Monier-Williams felt that the notion of a pan-Indian Hindu identity was ‘wholly arbitrary and confessedly unsatisfactory’ for the simple reason that in practice, Hinduism was amorphous. Some, such as a census commissioner in princely Travancore, argued that Hindus were those who accepted the faith of the brahmins, which, however, ran into trouble when one considers the words of J.W. Massie, who as early as 1840 pointed out that to consider the brahmin as representative of all Hindus was as bewildering a statement as saying that the Italians represented all Europeans—there was too much diversity for simplistic statements to be true.
The issue of diversity and nationalism and whether they complement or oppose each other, then, as stated earlier, boils down quite simply to which vision of the nation is embraced. The constitution India adopted in 1950 enshrines the former idea, creating a space for Indians to love the country without having to surrender any other equally legitimate identity—to repeat a cliché, one can be simultaneously a proud Santhal or Kashmiri, a devout Muslim or Parsi, a determined atheist or rationalist, a straight majority or a gay minority, and yet love one’s country. One can assert proudly a patriotism that rises over and above other feelings, without clashing with individual and group identities. In this vision of the nation, nationalism is not a zero-sum game; it can coexist with a variety of other valid sentiments. It draws wisdom from the past, but is oriented towards a progressive future. As Nehru saw it, it was predicated on a national philosophy featuring the seven goals of unity, parliamentary democracy, scientific temper, non-alignment, socialism, industrialisation and secularism. Some of these values may change with time, as Indians evolve as a people, but the nation is not threatened if a group voices sharp concerns, or if raucous debate and disagreement take place routinely, so long as they occur within established institutions and in keeping with certain ground rules by which everybody agrees to play. Indeed, it creates checks and balances that prevents any one group from dominating the rest; any one region from engulfing others; and one version of a religion from enforcing its principles on even the last rationalist who denies god, or believes in a different definition of the same religion. The principle was that everyone could continue to embrace their differences while staying wedded to the national consensus that is India.
The other vision of nationalism, meanwhile, has mutated into a one-size-fits-all variant, which is at odds with the history and tradition of the country, and denies consensus as the guiding principle of the Indian nation. ‘Such identity,’ the historian Romila Thapar notes, ‘tends to iron out diversity and insists on conformity’—in other words, pluralism is weakness. Leaving aside the treatment it proposes for religious minorities, this means radical changes even for Hindus themselves, as a tradition that has been described as a fascinating ‘mosaic of distinct cults, deities, sects and ideas’ (including contradictory ideas) is regimented to address various anxieties. This is a nationalism that follows one definition, one form, one loyalty, and one narrow ideology. Naturally, this calls for a new structure and a new vocabulary of Hindu identity, featuring certain sacred books but not others; fewer gods, at the cost of others; and a standardisation of practice that sometimes goes against India’s own manifest heritage in its quest to service an overarching, synthetic cultural identity. So, for instance, all Hindus must avoid eating beef (though several castes happily did in the past) and should avoid meat in general (though a number of brahmin communities too were not vegetarian). Nationalism must have a fixed language—Sanskrit is ideal but in the interim, Hindi will do—a language that to large numbers of Indians is hardly less alien than English, with which the country has made its peace. And then dress codes, social behaviour and much else must also fall in line, creating more a sharp machine to nurse narrow-minded insecurities than an organic people who live, breathe, prosper and preserve their diverse traditions and personalities.
One-size-fits-all rules, however, have a tendency to backfire in India. And decades and generations of officially promoting diversity means that attempting to reverse the flow and manufacture a narrow brand of nationalism will provoke challenges, if not long-term disaster—where, for instance, Hindi nationalism was force-fed from Delhi, the powers in Karnataka responded in 2018 with a Kannada-oriented sub-nationalism that even flew its own flag. If the idea is to create an ‘us or them’ with the ‘majority’ on one side, and the minority as the enemy within, the instigators of this scheme will discover too many ‘thems’ sown into the fabric of the majority itself. The historical lesson is clear—there was a reason why in 1947 India prevented nationalism from distorting into a rigid political beast and envisioned it as a more malleable reflection of the land’s multiple realities. To re-engineer this mature, long-standing policy in black and white today will only prove calamitous, showing that far from making India great again, what one will end up doing is breaking India.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
PART I
THE ITALIAN BRAHMIN OF MADURAI
Ines G. Zupanov, Disputed Mission: Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century India (1999) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press)
Kyoko Matsukawa, European Images of India before the Rise of Orientalism in the Late Eighteenth Century (Thesis submitted to the London School of Economics, London, 2000)
C.C. Lorance, ‘Cultural Relevance and Doctrinal Soundness: The Mission of Roberto de Nobili’ in Missiology , Vol. 33, No. 4 (2005), pp. 415–424
Eileen Burke-Sullivan and Kevin F. Burke, The Ignatian Tradition , (2009) (The Liturgical Press)
Julius Richter, Sydney H. Moore (trans.), A History of Missions in India (1908) (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company)
Unknown, ‘Robert De Nobili’, The Irish Monthly , Vol. 9, No. 102 (1881), pp. 643–662
A MARATHA PRINCE’S MORALITY PLAY
Translation of the Sati Dana Suramu taken from Velcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman (eds.), Classical Telugu Poetry: An Anthology (2002) (Berkeley: University of California Press)
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Penumbral Visions: Making Polities in Early Modern South India (2001) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press)
K.R. Subramanian, The Maratha Rajas of Tanjore (1928) (K.R. Subramanian: Madras)
A MUSLIM DEITY IN A HINDU TEMPLE
Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images (1997) (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
K.R. Sundararajan and Bithika Mukerji (eds.), Hindu Spirituality: Postclassical and Modern , Vol. 2 (2003) (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers)
T.S. Parthasarathy, The Koyil Olugu: History of The Srirangam Temple (1954) (Tirupati: Tirumalai Tirupati Devasthanams)
THE TALE OF TWO SHAKUNTALAS
M.B. Emeneau, ‘Kalidasa’s Sakuntala and the Mahabharata’ in Journal of the American Oriental Society , Vol. 82, No. 1 (1962), pp. 41–44
P.P. Sharma, ‘Kalidasa’s Shakuntala: Some Sidelights’ in Indian Literature , Vol. 22, No. 3 (1979), pp. 75–85
Mirella Schino
and Leo Sykes, ‘Shakuntala among the Olive Trees’ in Asian Theatre Journal , Vol. 13, No. 1 (1996), pp. 92–111
Wendy Doniger, ‘Rings of Rejection and Recognition in Ancient India’ in Journal of Indian Philosophy , Vol. 26, No. 5 (1998), pp. 435–453
Romila Thapar, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories (2002) (London: Anthem Press)
A DALIT AT THE TEMPLE DOOR
Hirozhi Fukazawa, ‘State and Caste System in the Eighteenth Century Maratha Kingdom’ in the Hitotsubhasi Journal of Economics , Vol. 9, No. 1 (1968), pp. 32–44
Jayant Lele (ed.), Tradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements (1981) (Leiden: E.J. Brill)
Eleanor Zelliot and Rohini Mokashi-Punekar (eds.), Untouchable Saints: An Indian Phenomenon (2005) (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors)
Patton Burchett, ‘Bhakti Rhetoric in the Hagiography of ‘Untouchable’ Saints: Discerning Bhakti’s Ambivalence on Caste and Brahminhood’ in International Journal of Hindu Studies , Vol. 13, No. 2 (2009), pp. 115–141
Philip Constable, ‘Early Dalit Literature and Culture in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Western India’ in Modern Asian Studies , Vol. 31, No. 2 (1997), pp. 317–338
Justin E. Abbott and N.R. Godbole (trans.), Stories of Indian Saints: Translation of Mahipati’s Marathi Bhaktavijaya (1999) (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers)
THE WORLD OF SHIVAJI MAHARAJ
Manu S. Pillai, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018) (New Delhi: Juggernaut Books)
James Laine with S.S. Bahulkar, The Epic of Shivaji: Kavindra Paramananda’s Sivabharata (2001) (New Delhi: Orient Longman)
James Laine, ‘The Dharma of Islam and the Din of Hinduism’ in International Journal of Hindu Studies , Vol. 3, No. 3 (1999), pp. 299–318
Jadunath Sarkar, Shivaji and His Times (1952) (Calcutta: M.C. Sarkar & Sons Pvt. Ltd.)
George Michell and Sugandha Johar, ‘The Maratha Complex at Ellore’ in South Asian Studies , Vol. 28, No. 1 (2012), pp. 69–88
A.R. Kulkarni, The Marathas (2008) (Pune: Diamond Publications)
G.S. Sardesai, New History of the Marathas , Vol. 1 (1946) (Bombay: Phoenix Publications)
Stewart Gordon, The New Cambridge History of India: The Marathas, 1600-1818 (1993) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Gijs Kruijtzer, Xenophobia in Seventeenth-Century India (2009) (Leiden: Leiden University Press)
BASAVA, WOMEN AND THE LINGAYAT TRADITION
P.B. Desai, Basavesvara and His Times (1968) (Dharwar: Kannada Research Institute)
S.A. Palekar, Basaveshwara’s Political Philosophy (2006) (New Delhi: Serials Publications Pvt. Ltd.)
K. Ishwaran, Speaking of Basava: Lingayat Religion and Culture in South Asia (1992) (Boulder: Westview Press)
S.A. Palekar, Concept of Equality and Ideal Society: Basaveshwara’s Model (1997) (New Delhi: Rawat Publications)
Sheldon Pollock, Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia (2003) (Berkeley: University of California Press)
William McCormack, ‘Lingayats as a Sect’ in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , Vol. 93, No. 1 (1963), pp. 59–71
Julia Leslie, ‘Understanding Basava: History, Hagiography and a Modern Kannada Drama’ in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Vol. 61, No. 2 (1998), pp. 228–261
Vijaya Ramaswamy, ‘Rebels-Conformists? Women Saints in Medieval South India’ in Anthropos , Vol. 87, No. 1/3 (1992), pp. 133–146
Vijaya Ramaswamy, ‘Mystics or Housewives? Women in Virasaivism’ in India International Centre Quarterly , Vol. 23, No. 3/4 (1996), pp. 190–203
H.S. Shivaprakash, ‘Journeying to Kalyana’ in India International Centre Quarterly , Vol. 30, No. 3/4 (2004), pp. 215–223
H.S. Shivaprakash, ‘Vachanas of Akkamahadevi’ in India International Centre Quarterly , Vol. 30, No. 3/4 (2003–04), pp. 32–37
C.N. Venugopal, ‘Factor of Anti-Pollution in the Ideology of Lingayat Movement’ in Sociological Bulletin , Vol. 26, No. 2 (1977), pp. 227–241
‘JODHABAI’: MORE THAN AKBAR’S WIFE
Ellison B. Findly, ‘The Capture of Maryam-uz-Zamani’s Ship: Mughal Women and European Traders’ in the Journal of the American Oriental Society , Vol. 108, No. 2 (1988), pp. 227–238
Ellison Banks Findly, Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India (1993) (New York: Oxford University Press)
Soma Mukherjee, Royal Mughal Ladies and Their Contributions (2001) (New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House)
Abraham Eraly, Emperors of the Peacock Throne: The Saga of the Great Moghuls (2014) (New Delhi: Penguin Random House)
A WEAVER AND HIS MESSAGE
Charlotte Vaudeville, Kabir: Volume One (1974) (London: Oxford University Press)
V.K. Sethu, Kabir: The Weaver of God’s Name (1984) (Amritsar: Radha Soami Satsang Beas)
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra (trans.), Songs of Kabir (2011) (New York: New York Review of Books)
William J. Dwyer, Bhakti in Kabir (1981) (Patna: Associated Book Agency)
David Lorenzen, Kabir Legends and Ananta-Das’s Kabir Parichai (1991) (New York: SUNY Press)
Ahmad Shah (trans.), The Bijak of Kabir (1917) (Hamirpur: Ahmad Shah)
Shraddha Upadhyay, ‘Seeking Femininity in Kabir’s Poetry’ at https://feminisminindia.com/2018/07/11/seeking-femininity-kabir-poetry/ ;
https://karmabhumi.org/kabir-women/ , accessed on 27 April 2019
A CITY FOR A COURTESAN?
Manu S. Pillai, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018) (New Delhi: Juggernaut Books)
WHAT IF VIJAYANAGAR HAD SURVIVED?
Manu S. Pillai, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018) (New Delhi: Juggernaut Books)
SULTANS AND RAJAHS: TEXTS AND TRADITION
Phillip B. Wagoner, Tidings of the King: A Translation and Ethnohistorical Analysis of the Rayavacakamu (1993) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press)
Manu S. Pillai, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018) (New Delhi: Juggernaut Books)
Lidia Sudyka, Vijayanagara: A Forgotten Empire of Poetesses: Part 1: The Voice of Gangadevi (2013) (Krakow: Ksiegarnia Akademicka
DARA SHUKOH: POET AMONG WARRIORS
Abraham Eraly, The Mughal World: Life in India’s Last Golden Age (2007) (New Delhi: Penguin Books)
Abraham Eraly, Emperors of the Peacock Throne: The Saga of the Great Moghuls (2014) (New Delhi: Penguin Random House)
Rakshat Puri and Kuldip Akhtar, ‘Sarmad: The Naked Faqir’ in India International Centre Quarterly , Vol. 20, No. 3 (1993), pp. 65–78
Rakshat Puri, ‘The Mystic Prince’ in India International Centre Quarterly , Vol. 21, No. 4 (1994), pp. 149–152
Tasadduq Husain, ‘The Spiritual Journey of Dara Shukoh’ in Social Scientist , Vol. 30, No. 7/8 (2002), pp. 54–66
Francois Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire (translated by Irving Brock) (1826) (London: William Pickering)
John Phillips (trans.), Tavernier’s Travels in India (1905) (Calcutta: N. Roy)
THE LOST BEGUM OF AHMEDNAGAR
Manu S. Pillai, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018) (New Delhi: Juggernaut Books)
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Courtly Encounters: Translating Courtliness and Violence in Early Modern Eurasia (2012) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)
J.D.B. Gribble, A History of the Deccan , Vol. I (1896) (London: Luzac & Co.)
H.K. Sherwani and P.M. Joshi (eds.), History of the Medieval Deccan (1973) (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh)
THE STORY OF THE KAMASUTRA
A.N.D. Haksar (trans.), The Kamasutra (2012) (London: Penguin Books)
Jyoti Puri, ‘Concerning Kamasutras: Challenging Narratives of History and Sexuality’ in Signs , Vol. 27, No. 3 (2002), pp. 603–639
Shailaja Sharma, ‘Kamasutra’ in Counterpoints , Vol. 169 (2002), pp. 103–107
Wendy Doniger, ‘On the Kamasutra’ in Daedalus , Vol. 131, No. 2 (2002), pp. 126�
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Wendy Doniger, ‘The ‘Kamasutra’: It Isn’t All About Sex’ in The Kenyon Review , Vol. 25, No. 1 (2003), pp. 18–37
SULTANS AND PADSHAHS: FOREIGNNESS IN INDIANNESS
Manu S. Pillai, Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (2018) (New Delhi: Juggernaut Books)
Surendranath Sen, Siva Chhatrapati: Being a Translation of Sabhasad Bakhar with Extracts from Chitnis and Sivadigvijaya, with Notes (1920) (Calcutta: University of Calcutta)
A.R. Kulkarni, Explorations in Deccan History (2006) (Delhi: Pragati and the Indian Council of Historical Research
Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other? Sanskrit Sources and the Muslims (1998) (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors)
Appendix to Epigraphia Indica , Vol. XIX to XXIII (1983) (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India)
Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700–1960 (2007) (New York: Columbia University Press)
Sumit Guha, ‘Transitions and Translations: Regional Power and Vernacular Identity in the Dakhan, 1500–1800’ in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East , Vol. 24, No. 2 (2004), pp. 23–31
MEENAKSHI: FIRST A WARRIOR
Elisabeth Benard and Beverly Moon (eds.), Goddesses Who Rule (2000) (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
Vijaya Ramaswamy, Re-searching Indian Women (2003) (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors)
THE WOMAN WHO HAD NO REASON FOR SHAME
A.K. Ramanujan, Velcheru Narayana Rao, and David Shulam (eds.), When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others (1994) (Berkeley: University of California Press)
Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamilnadu (1992) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press)
Susie J. Tharu and K. Lalita (eds.), Women Writing in India: Vol. 1: 600 BC to the early twentieth century (1991) (New York: The Feminist Press)
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