The Hindutva Resurgence

April 16, 2004

by V.P. Bhatia

With the collapse of Nehruvian secularism more and more Hindus are identifying themselves with the BJP-led Indian state.

EVEN when the lamp of life burns very low due to a month long bout of asthmatic attacks, one must ply one's missionary trade. For, as Tagore says in Gitanjali: Thy Lord is ever wakeful and working even with the toiler in the fields. Even he has bound himself to work. In any case, one has miles to go before one sleeps-yeh preet karm ki reet nahin, Rab jaagat hai tu sowat hai.

The recent elections have proved, above all, one thing. Even without any overt talk of Hindutva, more and more Hindus are identifying with the BJP-led state. Even under the veneer of endless talk of development, more and more Hindus are saying good-bye to Nehruvian secularism. The secularists are worried that the Hindutva card has not really gone into oblivion or hibernation as the main headline in the Statesman of November 8 declares. They would very much like to snatch this all-important issue from the BJP. Just now they are satisfied that they have been able to drive it underground, as the sheet anchor of all that BJP stands for-A resurgent India based on genuine secularism is in the making.

Patel-Nehru Clash Over Hyderabad

This reminds me of an eminent commentator who says that most of the Hindus never identified themselves with the Indian state after Partition-cum-Independence. The reason was the anti-Hindu Nehruvian secularism, a telling example of which may be taken from Sardar Patel's lesser known biography by Chandra Shekhar Shastri as follows:

"The Hyderabad issue was becoming hotter and hotter even after the Standstill Agreements in November 1947. The Nizam wanted to extract more and more concessions from the Government of India. He wanted an arrangement in which he should get maximum autonomy and give more than 50 per cent representation to Muslims who formed only 15 per cent population of the state. To pressurise the GoI, he had actively encouraged and armed a private Muslim force of mullas of Razakars under a fanatical character named Qasim Rizvi. Rizvi was openly threatening the decimation of all Hindu population if the Indian military entered Hyderabad state. Atrocities on Hindus became common. Not only that. Raids on trains and territory of neighbouring states of Bombay, C.P. and Madras were organised which really alarmed those States and the GOI was vehemently criticised for its weak policy.

"At such a time, a meeting of the Indian Cabinet's Defence Committee was held to sanction immediate action. But Pt. Nehru wanted the problem to be solved peacefully. He believed the Nizam's version more than that of his own agencies that the reports of atrocities on Hindus of the state were exaggerated. This led to a verbal clash between Patel and Nehru.

"Nehru even smelt communalism in Patel's stand. At this Patel wrote out his resignation from the Cabinet and left the meeting. Next day, Rajagopalachari, who had taken over as Governor-General after Mountbatten, went to Patel's house and brought him back to the Cabinet.

"However, another incident occurred the next day which forced Nehru to change his stand. Now the Canadian High Commissioner complained to Nehru that Christian women were being attacked in Hyderabad state. As a result, the same Nehru who had not cared for attacks on Hindu women at once ordered military action for which September 13, 1948 was fixed by Patel. However, now the Army Chief Gen. Roy Bucher raised an objection that 13th was unlucky day, so it should be on September 14. At this Patel said, make it September 12 on which date the Indian Army entered Hyderabad from two sides. 800 Razakars were killed in the first two days. Nizam's 50,000 soldiers surrendered on the 5th day.

"This was just one example of Nehru's anti-Hindu secularism which stands totally discredited today, providing ballast for the Hindutva forces.

* * *

A few weeks ago, I referred in this column to a bizarre view of most Islamists and some secularists that India's communal problem lingers on because the Moghuls did not do enough to convert all Hindus to Islam which they were in a position to do because for all intents and purposes theirs was a military state. The result of their lapse was that while in the North-Western India, Muslims were in heavy majority, in the Gangetic plane, the Muslims were no more than 15 to 20 per cent, which speaks of their liberal treatment of Hindus.

However, an eminent historian, Prof B.R. Nanda, a former Director of Nehru Museum and Library, has exploded this myth of liberal Mughal rule, including that of Akbar in his book Gandhi-Islamism, Imperialism and Nationalism in the following way:

"Muslim rulers may not have been paragons of religious balance and political wisdom. However, they could not but recognise the political realities in a country where the majority of the people were non-Muslim and even the small but growing Muslim population consisted mostly of converts. The ruling elites in medieval India. (mostly foreigners from Iran, Central Asia, etc., were small in number, and not infrequently were riddled with tribal and factional dissensions. In theory the Muslim state in India, as elsewhere was subject to the Sharia, the sacred law... But no Muslim ruler in India could afford to set up theocracy. The state was Islamic in the sense that the ruler was a Muslim and the ruling elite was composed of Muslims. It was impossible to exclude non-Muslims from the administration. There just were not enough Muslims to run the machinery of the state or to man the army. This may explain the curious phenomenon of the presence of Hindu soldiers and even a Hindu general in the army of Mahmud Ghazni. Thus, there was in Indian condition an unresolvable contradiction between militant piety and exercise of state power by Muslims. Well might the orthodox Ulema proclaim the doctrines among the faithful and jihad against unbelievers but it has no a practical policy for a ruler anxious for stability.

"The state in India was not religious. Nor was it secular. It was controlled by an elite of foreign origin, commanding secular military power. The elite was usually riven by class and social conflicts. Its attitude towards non-Muslims varied. Very few of its members thought of religious tolerance as a value of state policy, but the contact of the state with the people was peripheral. Sometimes religion was a mere cloak to cover vested interests of the king or his clan. They usually so interpreted Islamic doctrines as to give wide latitude to the sultans, whose subjects had in any case little say in the affairs of the state. The highest appointments naturally went to relatives of the king but he had often to go out of his clan to find the manpower to collect the revenue and to man the army. The revenue and finance departments under the Mughals were almost wholly run by the two enterprising Hindu castes, the Kayasthas and the Khatris. The Hindus, not totally excluded from the service of the state were however largely confined to the lower ranks, the higher echelons being the virtual monopoly of Muslims, especially those who could prove themselves or their foreign origin. Under the Mughals the ranks in the mansabdari system were a fair index of the status and emoluments of those in the imperial service; the mansabdars were not only public servants but also the richest class in their empire and a closed aristocracy. The Mughal ruling class, particularly its highest members, the amora (nobility), about 500 individuals, disposed of well over half of the revenue of the empire and at least a quarter of its output."

Akbar's Islamic Limitations

[According to an Indian economist the late Prof Dharma Kumar, the Mughal loot of India was greater than that of the British.]

"It is significant that even then there were not more than 8 Hindus among 34 mansabdars enjoying the rank of 100 and above and that almost all the Hindu mansabdars were Rajputs. The proportion of mansabdars rose slightly in the reigns of Jahangir and Shahjahan. An account of the leading Mughal nobles in the Masirul mmra, an 18th century work estimates that of the 735 eminent nobles, 159 were Hindus. Aurangzeb would not have liked his dependence on Rajput mansabdars, but he could not dispense with them. His attitude to them in the award of ranks and promotions was, however, less liberal than that of Akbar. But even under Akbar the Rajputs had formed a small privileged group and could secure by and large only the lower grades of the Imperial Service."

"Meanwhile the structure of the administration and politics was changing in response to the realities of the situation. The central fact was that a small minority, whose ancestors had come to India, ruled a population most of which was alien to it in race and religion. It was neither prudent nor practicable to ignore the sentiments of the vast mass of the Hindu population and especially of its martial clans, such as the Rajputs. Akbar made a conscious effort to redress the balance between the privileged Muslim minority and the teeming Hindu population. We must not however overrate either Akbar's aims or his achievements. He did not establish a secular state. He could hardly have done so in the 11th century; the identification between Muslim orthodoxy and Muslim power was such that they were likely to stand and fall together.

"It would therefore be unfair to lay all the blame at Aurangzeb's door. The maladroit fact remains that even in the radiant days of Akbar, long before Aurangzeb set the clock back, Hinduism and Islam, as religious and social systems they engendered, failed to develop links of intimate interaction; at last they reached a state of tolerance and co-existence.

"More than a hundred years ago W.W. Hunter admitted that Mussalmans monopolised all the offices of the state. The Hindus accepted with thanks such crumbs as the former conquerors dropped from their table."

No wonder, as Nirad Chaudhuri says, the moment the fear of Muslim military power was lifted, the Hindu society broke completely with the Muslim society.

April 16, 2004

Nehru himself had attitude problems, that runs deep in the family.

Congress or BJP, bring to power that can administer the country based on Hindu Dharma.

Ganeshprasad · April 16, 2004

Jai Ganesh

When our leaders stop playing politics and follow the Dharma in the footstep of Raja Ram, it will be great.

Jai Shree Krishna

The world disappears in him. He is the peaceful, the good, the one without a second.

maadhav · April 19, 2004

very good article!

Thanks!

<< No wonder, as Nirad Chaudhuri says, the moment the fear of Muslim military power was lifted, the Hindu society broke completely with the Muslim society. >>

and there is nothing wrong about it.

there is nothing like "a well adjusted slave,"

or a dog you can keep on kicking for ever.