Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb Was an Urban-Feudal Construct
By
Abhinav Prakash Singh
Aug 06,
2020
The last
time a temple existed in Ayodhya, Krishnadevaraya was emperor in the South
ruling over the Vijayanagara empire, Nuno da Cunha was governor of Portuguese
India, Spanish conquistadors were setting foot in Texas, and Suleiman the
Magnificent was inaugurating the era of Ottoman supremacy in West Asia. With
the bhoomi pujan on August 5, the long saga of struggle of a people has come to
an end. This day falls on the first anniversary of the full constitutional
integration of Jammu and Kashmir to India, making it a symbolic date in
post-colonial India. This is the twilight of the first Republic.
Hindutva is not Hinduism. Hindutva is a Hindu political response to
political Islam and Western imperialism (PTI)
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The first
Republic was founded on the myth of a secular-socialist India supposedly born
out of the anti-colonial struggle. However, the Indian freedom movement was
always a Hindu movement. From its origin, symbolism, language, and support
base, it was the continuation of a Hindu resurgence already underway, but which
was disrupted by the British conquest. The coming together of various pagan
traditions in the Indian subcontinent under the umbrella of Hinduism is a
long-drawn-out process. But it began to consolidate as a unified political
entity in the colonial era in the form of Hindutva. The Hindutva concept is
driven by an attempt by the older pagan traditions, united by a dharmic
framework and intertwined by puranas, myths and folklore, to navigate the
modern political and intellectual landscape dominated by nations and
nation-states.
Hindutva is
not Hinduism. Hindutva is a Hindu political response to political Islam and
Western imperialism. It seeks to forge Hindus into a modern nation and create a
powerful industrial State that can put an end to centuries of persecution that
accelerated sharply over the past 100 years when the Hindu-Sikh presence was
expunged in large swaths of the Indian subcontinent.
India’s
freedom struggle was guided by the vision of Hindu nationalism and not by
constitutional patriotism. The Congress brand of nationalism was but a subset
of this broader Hindu nationalism with the Congress itself as the pre-eminent
Hindu party. The Muslim question forced the Congress to adopt a more tempered
language and symbolism later and to weave the myth of Hindu-Muslim unity. But
it failed to prevent the Partition of India. The Congress was taken over by
Left-leaning secular denialists under Jawaharlal Nehru who, instead of
confronting reality, pretended it did not exist.
After
centuries, Hindus were the dominant power. Despite self-denial, the
post-colonial State was essentially a Hindu State. The misleading
secular-communal debate blinded us to the obvious; the Republic of India is a
Hindu reformist State. It abolished the caste system, integrated and
Sanskritised the Dalits and large sections of tribals, codified Hindu social
laws, revived classical and folk art forms and replaced Urdu-Persian with Hindi
and native languages, controlled Hindu temples, introduced an element of
uniformity in temple laws and even harmonised rituals and continues to
intervene in Hindu social and religious matters with popular legitimacy. At the
same time, it has left Islam outside its ambit in the guise of minority rights
and freedom of religion. The Indian state intensified the historical process of
Hindu consolidation even as Nehruvian elites denied that India is a Hindu
polity above all.
Hindu
nationalism has never been fringe; it is Nehruvian secularism that was the
fringe. And with the fall of the old English-speaking elites, the system they
created is also collapsing along with accompanying myths like Ganga-Jamuni
tehzeeb and Hindu-Muslim unity. The fact is that Hindus and Muslims lived
together, but separately. And they share a violent and cataclysmic past with
each other, which has never been put to rest.
Ganga-Jamuni
tehzeeb was an urban-feudal construct with no serious takers outside a limited
circle. In villages, whatever unity existed was because the caste identities of
both Hindu and Muslims dominated instead of religious identities or because
Hindu converts to Islam maintained earlier customs and old social links with
Hindus like common gotra and caste. But all that evaporated quickly with the
Islamic revivalist movements such as the Tabligh and pan-Islamism from 19th
century onwards. It never takes much for Hindu-Muslim riots to erupt. There was
nothing surprising about the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protests and widespread riots. As
political communities, Hindus and Muslims have hardly ever agreed on the big
questions of the day.
What we are
witnessing today is twilight of the first Republic. The Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) is but a modern vehicle of the historical process of the rise of the
Hindu rashtra. In the north, Jammu and Kashmir is fully integrated. In the
south, Dravidianism is melting away. In the east, Bengal is turning saffron. In
the west, secular parties must ally with a local Hindutva party to survive. The
political debate has decisively shifted from the pseudo- secular paradigm to
the Hindu-pseudo Hindu one. The Ram mandir is reborn. The CAA is the law. The
National Population Register is underway. And the National Register of Citizens will happen
sooner or later. Although history is never linear, it is time to face the
truth: Hindu nationalism has always been the bedrock of the Indian State and
polity. However, as we witness the rise of a new republic, the question which
we must ask is what its shape will be? Is becoming a Hindu State India’s
destiny?
There are
no clear answers given the lack of precedent, barring a few instances such as
the Vijayanagara empire.
Even the
Hindutva movement has concerned itself with the Hindu rashtra and not Hindu
rajya.
Abhinav
Prakash Singh is an assistant professor at SRCC, Delhi University
Original
Headline: Ayodhya marks the twilight of the first Republic
Source: The Hindustan Times
URL: https://newageislam.com/current-affairs/ganga-jamuni-tehzeeb-urban-feudal/d/122556