Zachariah, 'Rethinking (the Absence of) Fascism in India, c. 1922-1945'

Sophia, 2019

This is a comment on Minds Without Fear. Keywords Review of Minds Without Fear Minds Without Fear (henceforth, Minds) is a good read. Its project in the words of its authors is the 'recovery' of Indian philosophy during a certain period in its colonial past (Bhushan and Garfield 2017, 26). Besides the invaluable first-order task of making visible, the hitherto ignored philosophical writings of Indian philosophers in English under colonial rule, Bhushan and Garfield offer a meta-narrative where these forgotten works are tied to a larger and vibrant discourse about 'Indianness'. I engage with some conceptual issues arising from such a framing rather than with the rich detail of the works retrieved. Bhushan and Garfield read the philosophers of this period as struggling to craft coherent professional identities that synthesized being 'Indian' and being 'philosophers' within interlocking binaries of colonial encounters. Thus, no matter whether it was metaphysics, epistemology, or esthetics, the philosophy of this period was quintessentially political and engaged with articulations of self-identity in step with and alongside the imagining of an emerging nation state. I focus on the oppositional pull between tradition and modernity that forms the backdrop of this endeavor and segue into broader philosophical questions about identity, the past, and the politics of memory. The 'philosopher' in colonial times, according to Bhushan and Garfield, was obsessed with getting clear on what made him 'Indian' even though they note important exceptions of scholars who positioned themselves as 'internationalists' or global citizens. But of course, being 'Indian' was rigidly framed within the interlocking dualisms of India vs. West, spiritual vs. secular, Sanskrit/Persian/vernacular vs. English, and finally, traditional vs. modern. Here the terms on the left-hand side-'India', Sophia

2018

Indo-Iranian Journal, 1999

Interventions, 2016

Lecture delivered at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, University of Oxford, 2012

Indian Historical Review, 2004

The very difficult fine art of cooking tasty and nourishing food was developed and perfected under the patronage of MUGHAL KINGS AND QUEENS. Cooking royal food is our hereditary profession. Our forefathers enjoyed the prestigious employment of the Royal kitchen. The end of the prestigious calling came with the end of Mughal dynasty during the last MUGHAL KING BAHADUR SHAH ZAFAR. Our great grandfather a Chef par Excellence was the pioneer to bring the Royal food to the common man. The above quotation is taken from the menu of the Karim's group of restaurants in Delhi. The popularity of the restaurants rests on its claim to be the authentic cuisine of the Mughal Emperors. The lines quoted beautifully capture the process of the dissemination of one aspect of Mughal court culture, in this case cuisine, among the wider masses. There is to be found a significant vibrancy when it comes to various aspects of cultural life and this can be seen in the diffusion of court culture to lower strata of society, percolating down in this case to the common man. This will be the main focus of this article. It will be argued that the contentious issue of the flowering or decadence of cultural and religious life in Eighteenth-Century Northern India needs to be resolved by laying greater emphasis on the side of the flowering of culture and religion. Such an argument would differ with the predominant argument in favour of decadence that has been put forward by eminent historians like Irfan Habib, Athar Ali, Satish Chandra, Jadunath Sarkar, ~~~ * This article could not have been written without the suggestions provided by my supervisors, Professor Muzaffar Alam and Dr K.K. Trivedi. I feel greatly obliged to them for their sound advice.and guidance on the basis of which I have formulated many of the arguments in this article.

South Asia Research, 1999

Over the past two decades, journalists, legal analysts and scholars of India have devoted much attention to the political advances of the 'pro-Hindu' Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the growth of Hindu nationalist sentiments among the nation's burgeoning urban middle class. This decade alone has reaped a harvest of more than 70 books addressing the issue of the 'secular state' in India, prompted, no doubt, by the clamour of Hindutva. Extensive print media coverage of events leading to and following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 brought the issues of secularism, national identity, and politicised religion to the forefront of public debate. The BJP's success in forming a coalition government after the general elections of 1998 revived questions about the direction of the party's Hindutva agenda and its viability as a 'secular' party. ' At some distance now from the tumult of the Babri Masjid demolition, this article offers not another critique of Hindu nationalism, but an evaluation of both Marxist and post-modernist ways of explaining its rise during the 1980s and 90s. The categories 'Marxist' and 'post-modernist' are by no means monolithic, but contain elements that may either converge or conflict with each other. The more 'traditional' Marxist perspective discussed in this article is represented in varying degrees by Bipan Chandra, Sumit Sarkar, Nasir Tyabji, Aijaz Ahmad and K Balagopal. This perspective is limited by its economic determinism which downplays the religious dimension of culture, politics and national identity. Writers who are more influenced by post-modern thought, by contrast, replace the rationalism and class dialectic of traditional Marxism with the dialectics of literature, culture (East vs West) and history-writing (Orientalist vs post-Orientalist). Partha Chatterjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Ashis Nandy create a space for the exploration of culture and religion, but do so with post-colonial distaste for the organs of statecraftthe very machinery that was supposed to have protected the Babri Masjid and the thousands of Muslims who were killed in the bloody aftermath of its destruction. 1 1 The categories 'Marxist' and 'post-modernist' do not preclude instances where selfdesignated Marxists address 'post-modernist' kinds of questions. Chatterjee and Chakrabarty, for instance, are self-described Marxists who critique rationalist South Asia Research, 19, 2, 1999 SAGE PUBLICATIONS New DelhiUhousand Oaks/London 11 Chandra, Communalism in Modern India, pp. 18-23. 12 According to Chandra, minorities during the depression years of the 1930s did not fight for issues other than those relating to the middle class at large. 'In discussions of the minorities problem, the religious, cultural or social rights of the minorities seldom came up for discussion ...The "protection" and "safeguards" demanded for religious minorities at the Center and in the provinces were invariably defined in terms of shares in public services, higher education providing training for such services and the professions and political and administrative power.' Ibid., p. 50.

Hinduism, or sanatana dharma. By the early twentieth century, sampradayik preceptors, gurus and devotees shaped the dense network of orthodox Hindu associations, the sanatana dharma sabhas, dominating urban centres in the Hindi heartland. The paper throws light on this issue by examining the Shri Bharat Dharma Mahamandala of Banaras, an association initially established in the late nineteenth century by Din Dayalu Sharma to spread sanatana dharma. After 1902, the association was given a new direction and vision by Swami Gyanananda, a Shaiva (Dasnami) guru, his ascetic disciples, lay devotees and patrons. The Mahamandala was an important early example of a sectarian association, drawing upon its monastic networks and its ascetic affiliates and identifying itself with orthodox Hinduism. However, many Sanatanis largely suffused in Vaishnava idioms of religiosity were discomforted by Shaiva monastic orders seeking to renegotiate their position and authority in a reconfigured socio-and practices. Simultaneously, the association connected its vision of a neo-Brahmanical socio-religious order dominated by sadhus and Brahmins to new forms of governance, civil society and notions of 'Hindu nation'. The Mahamandala's understanding of politics and religion placed ascetic orders at the heart of the 'Hindu social organism'. This shift in the direction of the Mahamandala marked a broader break in orthodox Hindu associational forms. Now, despite converging interests, led by gurus combining 'modern' institutional and civic forms with sectarian teachings were distinct from dharma sabhas headed by middle-class practitioners like Madan Mohan Malaviya and Din Dayalu Sharma. Sanatanis subsuming sectarian identities within universalist interpretations of orthodox Hinduism and pan-Indian notions of Hindu nationalism were discomforted by monastic orders claiming to be the leaders and representatives of orthodox Hindus. Indeed, an examination of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal is suggestive of the multiple ways in which sectarian guru-based associations forged the language and sensibility of Hindu nationalist visions.

International Journal of Hindu Studies

Debraj Bhattacharya (ed), Of Matters Modern, 2008

Economic and Political Weekly, 2016

Comparisons between the Sangh Parivar and interwar European fascisms are inescapable. The founders of the Sangh were inspired by, and emulated and adapted, those fascisms (Casolari 2000). The Parivar’s proliferating role in Indian politics also periodically suggested the comparison, whether to politicians such as Indira Gandhi in the 1970s or to intellectuals after the demolition of the Babri Mosque (Sarkar in the volume being reviewed; Ahmad 1993; Basu et al 1993). Other scholars have questioned the relevance of the comparison (Vanaik 1994; Jaffrelot1993), though not very successfully (Desai 2016). While political parties have often engaged in similar political tactics—let us confine ourselves to Sanjay Gandhi’s Youth Congress and the1984 massacre of Sikhs or the Shiv Sena’s long record of union and basti-busting—no party’s activities have so systematically elicited comparisons with fascism as those of the party of Hindutva.

Philosophy and Progress

India has one of the most heterogeneous societies in the world. It is a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. Constitutionally, it is also a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic. But in recent times, Hindu nationalism or Hindutva has been dominant in shaping Indian politics. Hindutva, a shorthand of Hindu nationalism, is actually a politico-ideological device that appears to be disassociated from the spiritual roots of Hinduism and, to many, it is very much alike to the rise of political Islam. Although Hinduism is native to the Indian subcontinent, Hindutva as a political ideology is comparatively a recent phenomenon which creates a growing concern to the land since 1920s. India experienced the rise of Hindutva as a concrete political ideology in 1923 introduced by V. D. Savarkar as it starts to achieve its popularity since 1980s. Obviously it has many reasons. Hindutva is not a monolithic concept as it is generally perceived. Rather...

The Hindu Nation: A Reconciliation with modernity, 2021

The book begins with an introduction examining ‘nationhood’ in India and then traces the political conflict to Nehruvian cultural policy after 1947. In today’s world, no religion can claim to be superior to any other. But in pursuing ‘modernity’ and inculcating the ‘scientific’ and ‘secular’ outlook, Nehruvian rationalism created an elite liberal class that was sceptical about the majority religion, but this was not extended to other religions because of a misunderstanding of ‘secularism’. In promoting Westernised education, the preserving of local knowledge was neglected and Hinduism lost respect among the educated elite born into it. The elite class became the intermediary with the West, which now dominates academic study of India. Further, prompted by the sceptical attitude of liberal Indians, Western academics and intellectuals accord Hinduism less respect than to other religions and treat it as ‘superstition’. Traditional Indians who revere Hinduism but are products of the same lop-sided system respond by attributing false value to India’s prehistory and its past. Hinduism is not a religion but a collection of practices associated with the space now called India. Author M.K. Raghavendra examines what being ‘Hindu’ means and asks whether its practices are reconcilable with global modernity and compatible with justice and egalitarianism.