SV: Rajaram unrepentent!

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Steve Farmer [SMTP:saf at SAFARMER.COM] skrev 27. september 2000 02:22:
> In the case of Rajaram, the use of "fascist" is not an empty
> swear-word. As Wittgenstein had it, the closest any word gets to
> having "objective meaning" involves its association with wider
> families of ideas. There are obvious commonalities linking the
> families of ideas expoused by European fascists in the 30s (or
> modern ones in the Balkans) and Rajaram's version of Hindutva.

It is true that there are a number of commonalities between such movements
as the RSS and other players on the Hindutva scene and European fascism and
Nazism. Christophe Jaffrelot has discussed them in his book The Hindu
Nationalist Movement in India. Jaffrelot hesitates to call the RSS a
fascist movement because it lacks certain formal characteristics of
Fascism/Nazism. (See page 61ff) Yet it is very hard to avoid noticing the
fascist flavour of such organisations as the RSS and persons like Rajaram.
Steve Farmer has given a number of such commonalities. With the term
"gulyash communism" in mind, it is tempting to call this "curry fascism".
(Gulyash is the "national" soup of Hungary and gulyash communism meant
communism with a decided Hungarian flavour.) However, regardless of what we
call things, there are some striking features of Hindutva which seem
strange to an observer of India. The weirdest and most "un-Indian" thing is
the complete lack of tolerance that the movement shows towards Indians of
so-called "non-Indian" religions. Hinduism has usually been regarded as
"orthoprax" rather than "orthodox", and there has been a great deal of
freedom in the choice of religious stance. What has happened to this
principle of freedom of religion in Hindutva? On the pages of the
Organiser, the principle is dead. Rajaram in his rhetoric against Muslims
and Christians set these members of other religions up for murder, and he
is not the only one engaged in this disgusting game. His falsification of
the past serves no noble end, it is a complete perversion of scholarship
without mitigating moral results.

>Arun Gupta wrote:

>For example, in the presidential address to the Indian History Congress of
1964, it was announced that:

>We must get to the spirit of the movement and the soul of India with an
approach that will help surmount the danger of communal, regional,
linguistic and class hatreds that beset history writing.

>History has a mission and obligation to lead humanity to a higher ideal
and
nobler future...The historian cannot shirk this responsibility by burying
his head in the false dogma of objectivity. History must not call to memory
ghastly aberrations of human nature, of dastardly crimes, of divisions and
conflicts, of degeneration and decay but of the higher values of life, of
traditions of culture and the nobler deeds of sacrifice and devotion to the
service of humanity. The facts of Indian history and the process of its
march have to be judged by the criterion of progress towards liberty,
morality and opportunities for self-expression...The reason for omission is
that such things bring in unhealthy trends which militate against the
course
of national solidarity or international peace.

This quote is interesting because it openly professes that history should
preach certain values and be instrumentalized for certain ends (as against
being strictly factual and analytical in approach). In this respect, a
comparison with the Hindu nationalist movement's manipulation of history is
relevant. It might be added that a similar approach was used after the
second world war in the treatment of German and French history. In both
countries, unpleasant facts were suppressed and a "useful" version of
history presented to the public. This has changed recently as the natural
course of life has sent a large part of the war generation to a dusty
grave. Now, the unmentionable gets mentioned. But although the quote so
usefully brought up by Arun Gupta is a clear invitation to the
falsification of history, there are at least mitigating moral
circumstances. It may be argued that some truths are better kept within
closed and responsible circles, and that all truths have their time. Yet no
matter how well the intentions, falsification remains falsification, and it
confounds the one thing for which history should be useful: learning from
historical mistakes.

May I suggest that the real problem is not simply history and reality, but
rather political rhetoric and presentation to the public? The
instrumentalisation of history as a means to legitimize claims of various
kinds or for other purposes subverts not only scholarly objectivity in the
field but effectively puts history outside the pale of bona fide academic
activities. History is not necessarily justification. E.g. pointing out
past conflicts is not necessarily a reason for continuing the very same
conflicts. At the rhetorical level, one might instead draw the opposite
conclusion. In the final analysis, the presidential address quoted by Arun
Gupta is not much better than the Hindutva views on how to use history. It
is up to historians to steer clear of political abuse while being honest
and critical about the past. If not, we inevitably get the conclusion that
Arun Gupta gives us: we have a struggle between two sets of liars.
"Benevolent" falsification of history easily paves the way for "malevolent"
falsification.

Lars Martin Fosse


Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
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