Madhusree Chatterjee
New
Delhi The muzzling of creative freedom of expression in
interpreting mainstream religions like Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and
Judaism have been subject to radical reactions from affiliate groups — claiming
authority to a specific stream of thought about the polemics of the faith
concerned and its bearing on the society.
Interpretations of Hinduism and the canons of Christianity
through the Upanishad, Purana and the gospels respectively have courted
controversies over the centuries because of the inclusive and the liberal
nature of the faiths - unlike Islam which postulates with more rigidity in its
interpretations (through the Hadiths) as a monolithic structure resting on a
code of living, conduct and teachings of a "singular"
god head— the prophet. Over the ages, Islam has taught its
scholars and followers that while the Quran is the central pillar of the
religion and the "sharia "- its code of existence, the Hadith
(interpretations of the faith by Imam) meant to preach Islam to people were
mere primers — guidebooks for better understanding of the religion. The
interpretations have remained unchanged since the time of Mohammed largely
because of the sacrosanct nature of the religion that does not tolerate
"misinterpretations" or "communication glitches" .
The only time the teachings of Mohammed, the Prophet, were
alleged to have been misunderstood have been on occasions of civilian strikes
by the "jihadis", who have misused the "precept" of the
holy war or 'jihad' to push "expansionist" and terror" vendetta
together with communal issues. The "jihad" in Islam is open to debate
in the collegiums of the faith with scholars divided over "deploying"
the notion of "jihad" in insidious machinations across the globe by
minions of radical groups.
What is the Quranic commandment on the subject of extremism,
terrorism and suicide bombing?Interprets Shaykh-ul-Islam Muhammad
Tahir-ul-Qadri, a Pakistan-based Islamic scholar and peace activist (founder of
MInnaj -ul- Quran), "The killing of mankind irrespective of religion, race
and colour - unless a court of law requires a proper legal punishment or in
self-defence - taking up arms and killing people on their own are totally
prohibited under the Quran." A translation of a Quranic verse says the
"killing of a single man amounts to killing of a whole mankind".
HInduism on the other hand is a multi-pronged faith that has
been subject to "academic" , "civilian" and
"innovative" deliberations for millennia. The evolution of the faith
leaves it open to "deviant thinking" about what is
"approved" and what is "illicit" in a milieu of comparative
analysis.
The religion passed down by transmission
was documented thousands of years after the first tribe of Vedic seers
outlined a basic animistic belief system to appease the nature for
"rain, harvest, cattle, prosperity and long life of the people"
— who made their homes along the banks of the Saraswati and Sindhu rivers
in the wilderness of the north-western frontier of the country.
The faith was initially practised as a rite-based religion by
rote. The simplistic invocation tenets applied to the act of daily
"existence" as well — where all were treated on par and assigned
with specific sets of duties to keep the early Vedic village settlements
functional. It was an animated faith which grew as it passed down the
generations of practitioners assimilating from the local and more
ethnic spiritual traditions to become polemical and plural— and much later
universal in its spirit of contemporary inclusion in a globalised world.
The edifice of the Hindu religion rests on the four Vedas — the
Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda and Yajur Veda that brings to a structural
mosaic the cycle of life. It includes include spirituality, daily
rites of passage, economy, livelihoods, interpersonal relationships,
communities and the cosmic order of life. The Vedas tramsmitted in Sanskrit -
said to be complex language of the gods— were often unfathomable to the common
man for whom it laid down ways to go about life. In an attempt to make the
texts comprehensible for the commom man — at the bottom of the Vedic chain
of transmission of wisdom — scholars of Hindu theology interpreted the
essence of the faith and its "conceptual" ideology of salvation in
the Upanishad, Puranas, Brahmanas and the Bhagawata- corollary scriptures that
explained the faith with story-telling narratives and "sermons".
During the age of "bhakti" (or fervour in the later
Vedicx age), the conceptual nature totems were given physical forms as
pantheons of trinity and multiple god heads (running into thousands) — each
endowed with mythical personas and vested with divine portends. The anecdotal
feats were akin to Greek and Roman mythologies. The process of imbuing
physicality to the cosmos and nature came to be known as the Vedic Hinduism —
deriving its name from its cradle along the Sindhu river. The faith in its simplified
version opened itself to more scholarly interpretations — and in the
process more deviations, distortions, manipulations, subversions and
radicalisation. It also simultaneously became a follower-friendly faith
attracting large legions of disciples across spectra of life primarily
because of its colourful ceremonial practises, room for diversity, beauty,
aesthetics, the root piety and openness. The HIndu faith in India often
serves as a escape zone from the daily struggle for survival.
As the floodgates of "researches" into the pedagogy of
Hinduism opened further, it became a tool for "vested interest
groups" to espouse their narrow and populist agendas. A broad study of the
interpretations of the Hindu faith at the beginning of the millennium shows
signs of "repression" like an "entrenched caste system that
addressed beyond the 'varnas' of profession (caste by trade), untouchability,
denial of knowledge systems to certain groups, social heirarchy, expensive and
elaborate system of rituals and gender discrimination.
Vedic scholar Manu in his scripture (Manusmriti) sounds almost
fascist in his "reorganisation" of responsibilities for men and women
— confining the later to the tending of the home and the hearth in a
subservient social mantle. The segregation of the rights of the sexes is said
to have brought on an entirely new "seamy underbelly" of darl rites
rooted in lust, carnal appetite and greed. The deviant canons of Hindu
tantricism - black invocation rites — meted out justification of the basal
instincts of man by vetting dubious traditions like multiple partneting (many
consorts), abuse of women, once revered as "Mahishis (scholars)" in
the early Vedic age, limitations on the rights and freedom of women, wide use
of intoxicants, violence, crime and deeper socio-economic inequities — that
spill over even to this day in the nation of 1.2 billion people whose
mainstream faith HIndusim continues serves the moral bulwark oif existence and
polity in the 21st century. In India, HInduism has been has proved more engaged
as a political "ism" than as a spiritual moorning for people to fall
back as practitioners of living cultures.
American scholar of Orientalism and HIndu philosophy Wendy
Doniger's book, "The HIndus: An Alternative History" which was removed
and pulped by her publisher Penguin India last week after an Indian
educationist filed a litigation accusing Doniger's book as vulgar"
interpretation of faith, touch upon some flip sides of faith — and its
implications for those who continue to languish at the bottom of the spiritual
and cultural pyramid. It uses the present state of HInduism as a social pointer
to disparities.
Doniger's crime is her "audacity of insights" but the
scholar, who has authored several books on HInduism, does not fail to capture
the spirit of discourse of the Hindu religion — that is traditional,
conservative and modern like the same time like Christianity. "Right from
the beginning, Hindu texts and practises tell of the simultaneous existence of
polytheism and a broader belief in the ultimate oneness of the divine... To the
question is HIndusim monotheistic or polytheistic, the best answer is yes. Not
only have elements of both theologies been woven through HIndu texts for
thousands of years, but different factions have argued passionately for one
view against the other during the entire period — and the issue still raises
Hindu hackles today," argues Doniger in her new book, "On
HInduism".
Doniger says "the force of the passion of the
contention" comes from the "political issues" that have often
driven the question — particularly since the time of the British Raj and now
again in the times of the Internet. If Doniger has managed to put her finger on
the pulse of the intellectual argument over the nature and connotations of Hunduism
in an age of Hindutva — and script it in ink on paper in a re-assertion of an
old debate, then why do "hawks" of the faith bother to point their
fingers at her assertions once again. Political insecurity and resistance to
change, hazard groups of intellectuals.
The book is best "tackled" in a debate at a time, when
"every ignited mind" in the country seizes upon opportunities to turn
debates into greater public discourses.
Doniger analyses the root of the present controversy (over her
previous book that surfaced in 2011) in her new book, "In our day, when
fundamentalism raised its ugly head among the major monotheisms (Judaisim,
Christianity and Islam), HInduism in India caught it too. The movement known as
Hindutva while protesting that it is a reaction against European pressures,
actually apes protestant evangelical strategies, including its fundamentalist
agenda."
The reasons for the tirade against Doniger's book can be put to
two streams of reasons — blatant sensationalism (for purposes of publicity) or
political manipulations of intellectual discourses to subvert creative freedom
in a democracy by a handful of politically polarised vested interest bent on
espousing populist agendas for petty self gains. "The biggest challenge in
a democracy is populism - which is self-destructive. Politicians use the
flaws in themselves to appeal to the flaws in people," says theorist abd
political commentator John Ralston Saul. It leads of widespread public anger
and backlash —working to serve immediate political interest of particular
groups.
Says publisher David Davidar, "Publishers are soft targets
for radical elements to intimidate". Davidar, who heads the team at Aleph
Book Company, has published Doniger's new book, "On Hindusim". The
publishing houses admits an element of threat "but till such time, the
company is actually targetted, the firm plans to wait it out". Curbs on
literary freedom has been around for the last 25 years. "I was with the
Penguin, when Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" was banned,"
Davidar recalls. Twenty-five years ago, in 1989, Salman Rushdie was
"threatened" with a "fatwa" by the Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini of Iran for "blasphlemising" Islam in The Satanic Verses
(the writer;s own interpretation of the faith). The hardliner demanded a ban on
the book and clamoured for the writer's blood. Several death threats ensued and
conflicts over Rushdie's "daring" work escalated over the years after
the rejection of his apology by Iran. The reactions ranged from diplomatic rows
to arson and bombings. The writer hounded into hibernation — managed to protect
his "life and pen" in a triumph of free expression. The book banned
in India in 1988 still remains blacklisted officially — though the curbs have
eased after 25 years. The book is available on request to Indian readers from a
handful of vendors — often surreptitiously.
The lingering bitterness over Rushdie's alleged critique of
Islam continues to cast its shadow even today. Two years ago, the writer had to
put off a visit to the Jaipur Literature Festival (in India) after Islamic
hardline organisations protested his participation. Rushdie cancelled his visit
citing threat to his life.
In an interview later to a national television channel, the
writer said despite "a lot of personal disappointment, his overwhelming
feeling is a disappointment on behalf of India, which is a country that he
loved all his life and whose long-term commitment to secularism and liberty is
something he had praised for much of his life life." "And now I find
an India in which religious extremists can prevent free expression of ideas at
a literary festival, in which the politicians are too, let's say, in bed with
those groups to wish to oppose them for narrow electoral reasons, in which the
police forces are unable to secure venues against demonstrators even when they
know the demonstration is on its way," Rushdie said, lamenting the
"decline in public standards, and in the liberty of ordinary Indian
citizens to engage in discourse, to hear differing points of view".
Mumbai-based lyricist, script-writer, poet and social activist
Javed Akhtar warns that a "trend to ban everything against a set opinion
is becoming contagious in the country (in context of The Satanic Verses). Such
strictures against creative freedom comes out of insecurity, suggests
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, whose novel, " Lajja (Shame)"
about a HIndu family persecuted by Muslims was banned in Bangaldesh in the mid
1990s. She sought asylum in Kolkata and currently resides in New Delhi. Nasreen
like Doniger and Rushdie — dared to blur the line between the sacred and
profane with her "bold portrayal of women, spirit of feminism, gender
roles and the significanc of faith and religious conflicts in a conservative
Islamic society.
At a recent twitter post at the International Kolkata Book Fair,
she exhorted book lovers to buy her book, "NIshiddho (Forbidden) before
the West Bengal government banned it".
Scholars suggest that the insecurity over faith among
"prosletysers and those moral hadrliners striving to hold together the
conventional socio-religious mosaic together" stems from the reluctance to
embrace change - and allow people to be amenable to plurality of arguments and
viewpoints. New interpretations are often known to destroy myths.
Oxford scholar Mary Beard says "one of the points of the classics is is their
capacity to make debate. "Culture can look very different from different
perspectives. One of my favourite stories is that of Rabindranath Tagore who's
supposed to have wept at the Parthenon in Athens - not because of its
overwhelming beauty but because it seemed so barbarically ugly. That lies
behind a lot of what I mean by confronting (the name of her new book)... I
don't know about the Wendy Doniger case - but it is sad that an opportunity of
a debate has been lost," she said in an interview. Views are galore —
despite the official ban on the book and discourses around
it.
At a recent housewarming party in the new South Delhi residence
of writer-poet Vikram Seth, Penguin's inability to protect Doniger's treatise
on HIndusim dominated conversation. While a section of artists like Subodh
Gupta and Sudarshan Shetty present at the venue cited zenophobia as the cause
of the "suppression of creative and artistic intellect", a section of
intelligentsia said "it had to do with political will and market
dynamics". In a country of nearly 300 plus English users and nearly 40
percent literate population, publishers - especially multinational entities— do
not want to take chances with business despite deep pockets.
The notion of zenophobia in gagging of freedom of expression,
faith and the resulting chaos in contemporary India can be traced back to the
Ram Mandir-Babri Masjid debate between the "secular liberals" and the
"right wing hardliners" in 1991 - when communal rage took its toll on
a heritage relic whose identity was in doubt. Five years later in 1996, a
magazine accused India's most visible contemporary artist M.F Husain of
"offending religious sensibilities" by painting a Hindu deity in the
nude. After a decade of legal presecution and right wing attacks, Husain exiled
himself in Dubai in 2006 and died as a citizen of Doha in 2011.
"History is created by interpretations," says writer
Reza Aslan, whose best-selling book, "The Life and Times of Jesus of
Nazareth" was criticised widely by the western media for "distorting
the legacy of Jesus Christ" as a myth perpetuated by his followers. Aslan
remains unfazed. In the early era of Greco-Roman monarchies, bands of
"self-made prophets" roamed the Judean countryside to rally for the
freedom of the "kingdom of god"— Israel (present day) - from Roman
rule, all of whom were put to death by the Roman authority. The band of
executed "preachers" included John, the Baptist and a peasant from
Galilee, Jesus. "The cult of Jesus was cannonised by his disciples, who
composed the gospel in texts extolling the divinity of Jesus over the other
revolutionaries of time," the book says.
In the middle ages, when the Catholic Church built around the
cult of Christ and his ministry rose to take over Rome - from the ashes from
the Roman autocrats — heathen texts espousing pre-Christain paganism
were destroyed. When Hitler captured power in Germany in 1933, the first act
that his Nazi Party organised was "mass burning of books by Jewish authors
including theology" —as its manifesto of purification. History, across the
Orient and the Occident, abounds in descretions of creative and intellectual
freedom of expression.
But with the new "enlightenment" brought by deeper
inroads of literacy, free media and television in the last century, the
discourse is opening up, says writer Pankaj Mishra. "Books, arts,
religions and traumatic histories which were taken off popular intellectual
spaces are being addressed openly (especially in context of China and
Asia)," Mishra says.
"It is happening all over the world— fundamentalists are
targetting people everywhere . We should we feel the persecution. Eye for an
eye makes the world blind. The solution lies in discussion and collective
resolve," says art writer, curator and culture activist Ina Puri. "We
must not stand back and watch it happen - but do something instantly,"
Puri points out.
Nowhere has it more evident than in India — where one of the
country's most powerful progressive arts movement in contemporary times began
25 years ago after a theatre activist Safdar Hashmi was gunned down in the
Ghaziabad area in Uttar Pradesh on January 1, 1989. The Communist playwright,
theatre actor, poet and theorist who was campaigning for a more "liberal
cultural movement in India" - at the forefront of the street theatre
activism — was killed while staging a play "Hulla Bol". Hashmi became
a symbol of cultural resistance against authoritarianism — bequeathing a legacy
— the Safdat Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) in 1989. Founded by likeminded
writers and intellectuals, the organisation has been working to promote
"liberal cultural consciousness with theatre, art, publications and
related genres of cultures to address issues pertaining to the greater
multi-cultural ethos in India today.
Art historian Geeta Kapur says, " SAHMAT has worked to
build solidarity among the artists and intellectuals on questions of conscience
in current politics especially in the areas of communalism. ... attempted more
ambitiously to build a movement where an alert consciousness will anticipate
fundamentalist tendencies in our national cultural life and provide a platform
for those of us who should want to intervene in the social process…”
The war against the alleged "misinterpretation" of
HInduism by Wendy Doniger might as well be a spur for a more inclusive debate
on Hinduism — a faith that offers hearing room to all schools of thoughts,
interpretations and discourses in the true tradition of the Shaivite HInduism
that lays down destruction as the trigger for change — transformation
-Madhusree
Chatterjee
No comments:
Post a Comment