Rajaram's bull/hindutva

[Bharat Gupt]

continued from previous post...

Gandhi reaffirmed the caste order, Nehruvian socialism used it to patronise the lower
caste for votes and never encouraged caste-eliminative movements as the Congress was
ostensibly observing the British policy of non-interference in religious matters.
The Indian  Marxists  asserted that varna/caste was class in India and hence the caste
struggle was class struggle. Savarna(Brahmin,khatri,bania) vs a-savarna+
Muslims,Buddhists, Christians, is the real caste/class struggle, they said.

But this did not work, as asavar.nas needed hierarchy to look down upon somebody
as much as does the upper castes. See Bihar and Tamilnadu-Karnataka conflicts.
Either ALL of it goes or all of it stays.

The rise of Hindutva came exactly at this point in social history as it offered
an identity to divert from caste conflict. It is not promoting a caste dissolution
but hoping to downplay and subsume it under bigger Hindu identity as varna is
economically outdated in urban  society. Hence its emphasis on technocratisation
, even globalisation. It has disjointed Brahmavaada, from Brahmins and is promotive
of middle castes acquiring it, a repeated phenomenon in history, which Indological
studies have not payed much attention to. Sociologists like MN Srinivas have done better
to show mobility within varna-vyavasthaa.  No surprise that for VHP, Vivekananda's
Advaita is pushed more than Shankara's and Aurobindo's yoga more than Patanjali's as
practised in older sects. Under BJP, Universities are planning to teach courses for
priestly duties (purohitatva) without caste or gender restrictions.

Caste Brahmins and banias are at the lowest priority for the BJP. The middle and lower
caste and tribals are being offered more cultural and political power. The BJP offers
the road to share it with upper castes which Congress was once doing but cant anymore
as its Dynastic Socialism has crumbled. Hindutva, within the country, fills the vacuum
created by the fall of socialism and it also loudly promises to combat the Islamic and
Evengelical aggressions. For some time, it can also cash upon the downfall of Marxism
which in India had opposed everything religious and artisitc as opium of the masses.
Remember India was never "enlightened" or "secularised" or even "Romanticised" as was
Europe to receive Marxism.


Indology must get involved with the redefining of old terms in present day Indian
society, native and diasporian. It does not have to produce songs or stinkers but only
record the change as a presennt day growth which is much more than the growth of what
the BBC & CNN keep calling "the Hindu right wing party".

A course on Dayanada, Gandhi, Ravi Shankar, Sai Baba,  Krishnamurti and Indian films
can also be indology along with Vedic chariots.

Bharat Gupt