Religious Interactions in Modern India

Book Review: Raziuddin Aquil 

Martin Fuchs and Vasudha Dalmia, eds, Religious Interactions in Modern India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Vasudha Dalmia has also previously edited, with Munis Faruqui, a similar collection of essays on religious interactions in early modern India (16th-18th centuries), and has called it a “sister volume”. Viewed together, this is an important project for understanding political resolution and management of religious traditions, for a relatively peaceful coexistence that explains the diversity and pluralism in Indian society, historically. Attempts to disturb the balance, equilibrium or consensus by fanning communal antagonism is a deeply flawed political strategy which fails in the long run, but not before considerably damaging the social fabric. Nonetheless, sanity prevails eventually. Bloodbath in the name of religion becomes a forgettable aberration. It cannot remain the order of the day, even in the most volatile of political situations. Therefore, a serious scholarly investment in religious literatures and traditions is a commendable exercise. It shows how religious communities continually refashion themselves, even though they keep harping on their traditional practices and markers of identity.

The volume under review comprises, besides an Introduction, 13 rigorously researched and detailed chapters, which are revised versions of a 2010 conference on “Modernity, Diversity, and the Public Sphere: Negotiating Religious Identities in 18th-20th Century India”, held at the Max Weber Centre of Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt, Germany. These have been contributed by scholars working in broad areas of anthropology, history, literature, philosophy, religious studies and sociology. Together, they present a complex set of perspectives, which are possible through interdisciplinary approaches and conversations across disciplines. They, thus, offer a whole platter of erudite scholarship seriously reflecting on religious identities and interactions. This scholarship, as is increasingly the case with state of the art current research, is not only questioning the received wisdom on monolithic traditions such as Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh, but also showing amazing diversity and multiplicity within them. The relationships within as internal others, offshoots or sects and between larger communities such as Islamic and Hindu traditions are marked by a variety of experiences ranging from violent schism and discord and the felt need for peaceful coexistence. All these were guided by specific socio-political contexts, in this case of a violent British colonial regime, which tore asunder older practices and arrangements of communities on a subcontinental scale in the early modern era. Indeed, the lasting consequences of massive colonial transformations caused during the “long nineteenth century” form the core of the focus of this large volume of essays.

It began with the mess in Bengal, which ultimately consumed its best mind in the early 19th century, Raja Rammohun Roy, who was sort of convinced that the old early modern world had given way to the new colonial ideological perspective, in other words, colonial modernity. This was informed by forms of Christianity and called for reform within - in the process abandoning all things identified with Islamicate and precolonial, and, indeed, de-value them. Gita Dharampal-Frick and Milinda Benerjee locate the religious activism of Rammohun and William Wilberforce’s emphasis on British imperial civilising mission in a “nexus” between “late precolonial” India and Britain. The discussion on the muddle of modernity debate would have certainly benefited from Partha Chatterjee’s exposition of the clear distinction between early modern and colonial modern in India. Firmly established by 1830s, the colonial regime was determined to transform the colonised people forever, ensuring it through major interventions in social and cultural domains, besides looting and destroying the economy beyond redemption. As Barbara D. Metcalf shows in the next chapter, the princely state of Bhopal under the mid-nineteenth-century rule of Sikandar Begum, almost automatically embraced colonial modernity, for a matter of fact transition from the older form of Muslim statecraft to the new British model of a centralised administration, with the ruler styling herself as practicing a “Protestant-style Islam”, yet creating a fusion between tradition and modernity of sorts.

The presence of Jesuitical and Evangelical Christian missionaries and availability of print technology meant polemical debates were now possible on a bigger scale, quickly impacting a large population, as in the case of the study by Srilata Raman of a raging conflict in Shaiva Siddhanta tradition in Tamil Nadu in the 1860s. Identified as “a signature literary event of Tamil modernity”, the reformists attempted something of a “Protestantisation” of Shaivism by insisting on returning to the canonical texts and thus standardising the practices, which would adversely impact the lower caste and class with its revivalist agenda. The emphasis on need for correct practices and beliefs also affected the Jains in the nineteenth century, when the idea of a pan-India Jain community identity was developed, as shown by John E. Cort. The introduction of the British legal system and new communication technologies enabled the disputes to take new forms and called for determining what constituted a new Jain identity, with cases reaching colonial courts for mediation. One of the disputes involved Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, who ran into what was by then an overarching Jain religious identity, Jainism. Dayanand clubbed Jainism with Buddhism and linked them with ancient Charvaka materialists. He also called for their eradication as, according to him, atheistic materialism was disastrous for Indian culture.

As Vasudha Dalmia illustrates in her chapter, the consolidation of Hindu religious traditions into what emerged as Hinduism, in late nineteenth and early twentieth century, involved downplaying pluralities and differences which could only be achieved through an imagined fear of a common and external foe, mainly Muslims. The attempts to build a particular kind of modern-day, narrow and exclusionist Hinduism involved not only ambiguities but also open disputes. This was sharply criticised by Mahatma Gandhi who worked with a broader, inclusive and conciliatory Hindu framework. As quoted by Dalmia, Gandhi put it in no uncertain terms: 

“Wherever you find Arya Samajists, there is life and energy. But having the narrow outlook and a pugnacious habit, they either quarrel with people of other denominations or failing that, with one another.”

The churning created by the British colonial regime not only produced larger Hindu and Muslim identities, but like Jains, other communities of people needed to consolidate themselves with sharper boundary-markers, often using older imaginaries. Anne Murphy draws insights from the Khalsa Darbar records of Sikh religious grants and control over sacred sites to explain that the Gurdwara Reform Act of 1925 recognised the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee as the single sovereign entity. This Committee was henceforth the custodian of not only Sikh religious property, but also of the new political community of the Sikhs whose life it governed alongside the management of gurdwaras. As is well-known, this also led to a lot of exclusion. Another offshoot of medieval and early modern Bhakti movements, Dadupanthis also saw deep rifts between sadhus and householders on need for internal reforms under modern conditions. In her chapter, Monika Horstmann examines how sections of Dadupanthis were breaking away from older practices to invest in education. Connecting with Gandhian ideology, they sought to model themselves as Hindus in the service of a modern and Independent India. Dadupanthis were no longer militaristic sadhus. Their armed Naga wing was disbanded by 1938. Catherine Clementin-Ojha has delineated how the ideal of political sanyasi-hood was given a new lease of life by Swami Shraddhananda (1857-1926), through his late association with Gandhi and his speech at the 1919 session of the Indian National Congress. Thus, the idea of renunciation itself was secularised in the sense of providing moral authority on spiritual and ethical grounds for service to the people and liberating the nation.

Further, Kumkum Sangari shows Gandhi’s logic of multiple belonging, formulation of ethical universalism, and emphasis on unity in diversity - of the kind Sufi and Bhakti sants preached and which included Muslims and untouchables - were so very relevant, but he eventually fell victim to Hindu exceptionalism. By contrast, the famous example of religious coexistence in the Punjabi princely state of Malerkotla, discussed by Anna Bigelow, offers hope. Despite prolonged religious disputes over disturbance in each other’s prayers, the town escaped Partition-related violence and a large local Muslim population did not need to migrate to Pakistan. It was possible through a sagacious political regime ensuring that “communal self-regulation and communication between religious communities” will protect the town’s reputation as a crucible of peace. 

In contexts where this conundrum of excessive entanglements of religion and politics is not resolved, the difficulties created by religious decrees have a direct bearing on the meanings of modern sovereignty and governance. In such situations, even voting in electoral politics is unduly influenced by notions of communal conscience on religious grounds, as explained by David Gilmartin in his chapter. Clearly, the aggressive separation of religion and politics, or church and state, which transformed early modern Europe in terms of clear distinctions between private and public, as delineated by Michel Foucault in his profound lecture on Governmentality, did not happen in India. Rulers paid lip service to religion for legitimacy and kept pandering to pressures from religious sodality, with a mass of people ready to be unleashed as mobs. This is a problem the country is still facing with greater threat to the very idea of what the governments are expected to do, with dangers of anarchy looming large all around. Simple facts and truths are now being discarded in favour of fake news spread by social media and what is called, Whatsapp university of contemporary public domain.

With Islamic and Hindu traditions locked in a bitter struggle since at least the late nineteenth century, with accusations of forcible conversion and aggressive demands for ghar-wapsi almost shattering the public arena, does religious conversion as a political strategy actually help? The last two chapters in this volume address related concerns involving Dalit communities, untouchables, in the period of transition to post-colonial India. George Oommen analyses the struggles of the Pulayas in Kerala, who converted to Christianity through the Church Missionary Society’s evangelisation for some claim to their dignity as human beings and as liberation from the forms of slavery they had experienced in the past. This is a major concern in Kerala’s Dalit history as also shown by P. Sanal Mohan’s exhaustive research in the field. Conversion often does not help in mitigating the situation, and, therefore, such communities require political and governmental support as well. Besides internal othering by elitist upper-castes, conversion to Christianity is also a big issue for the Hindu right. Mercifully, Communist movement in Kerala provided some anchoring to the Pulaya Christians. They could also break away to establish a Church of their own, besides invoking social and historical memories in their attempt to shape a better future.

The other Dalit strategy was to embrace Buddhism for common good as explained by Martin Fuchs with reference to B.R. Ambedkar’s critical theory of relationality - attacking the religious base of a society that supports caste-based “graded inequality” and calling for a new universalism of solidarity. In Ambedkar’s considered opinion, the teachings of Buddha, or dhamma, attaches the much needed sacrality to the principles of equality, liberty, fraternity, and justice. These valued principles comprise moral universals laying ground for basic humaneness and sociability, which can help create a society with a respectful place for all; a society marked by solidarity and compassion - maitri and karuna - virtues otherwise lacking in general attitude towards the untouchables in particular. For Ambedkar, a good religion enabled protection of the weak and leading a worthy life.

The volume as a whole is a reminder of the terrible roles the mixing of religion and politics have played in the past couple of centuries. Despite claiming to be general do-gooders, religious groups have worked for hardening of community identities and pitted them all for a mess that is difficult to resolve. The saving grace is that after a certain level of violence they intervene for sanity through peace committees, comprising religious leaders, which assert that religion is against hatred and animosity. Despite obvious duplicity, there is some hope in this ambiguity. To conclude with Ambedkar’s comment on the reality of a divinely-ordained hierarchy in society: “Religion is a social force....To ignore religion is to ignore a live wire”.

(A shorter version of this review has appeared in: South Asian Studies, 36:2, 2020, pp. 218-20).