Prof Ram Puniyani
IN a recent column (Religiosity is sick, not Secularism, Indian Express 8 December 2024), Tavleen Singh, the well-known columnist, writes about the barring of women from studying medicine in Afghanistan. She is correctly aghast at this retrograde step there by the ruling Taliban. She thinks the left liberals have an empathetic attitude toward the Taliban as not many of them condemn it. One is not sure whether this is the correct view of assessing the liberal view towards the Taliban or the ruling clerics in Iran, with similar attitudes towards women.) She is also critical of those who equate the policies and actions of Hindu nationalists as being similar to those of the Taliban.
It is true that the degree of intensity of the policies of these two, Hindu nationalism and Taliban, are very different. But, if one digs deep into the issue one can see the basic similarities in these types of politics. The Taliban policies towards women, and the attitude of many Gulf countries and Iran are similar but not the same. No two countries express their policies on ditto lines. Still one can discern the similarities at the level of principles. This phenomenon, fundamentalism in these countries has come up mainly from the decade of 1980s, with Ayatollah Khomeini gained power in Iran; he changed the social landscape drastically. While at a superficial level fundamentalism means going to the fundamentals, it is not just that. Fundamentalism is an imposition of selected parts of religious traditions on society through state power. Many a time this is done even not by the ruling dispensation; but by dominant political tendencies.
These impositions are most conservative, backward-looking and oppressive not only to women but also to other weaker sections of society. Fundamentalism always strengthens itself by creating an internal or external enemy. In most of the Gulf countries, it is women who are the main target. In places “Satan” (devil) America is so presented as the main. To this enemy, all the ills of society are attributed to. In that way the fascism which developed in Germany in particular shares this trait with fundamentalism, where Jews were labelled as the cause of Germany’s ills and were targeted to the extent of genocide, to strengthen the power of the leader, who was supreme in the state.
The traits of fundamentalism and fascism also seem to overlap. In Germany, women were dictated to be the beings whose role was in the ‘Kitchen, Church and Children’. Depending on different countries, these roles are patterned on similar lines, even in fundamentalism.
Hindu nationalists’ most overt attack is on the Muslims (and lately Christians also). We have witnessed horrific communal violence increasing in quality and quantity over the last few decades. Beginning from the ghastly tragedy of demolishing a mosque in Ayodhya and the consequent violence now questioning the existence of the mosque is proliferating like a cancer. In addition, there is cow-beef lynching becoming the order of the day. Cow vigilantes are proliferating dime a dozen. The word Jihad to target the Muslim minorities has picked up and starting from love jihad, corona jihad to now land jihad has been added to the ever-proliferating list!
No doubt compared to the targeting of Muslims the other implications of this fundamentalism get dwarfed in India, though they are very much similar. As far as women are concerned the Sati system has been prohibited, the last one being that of Roop Kanwar in the 1980s. In the Bhanwari Devi case, the upper caste rapists were released with the honourable court opining that how can the upper caste be accused of raping low caste women! That’s the reflection of the prevalence of the caste system.
If we analyse the attitude of Hindu nationalist policies, the very notion of love jihad is very much anti-women. This gives the handle to the male members of the family, to keep a watch on ‘their’ girls. The same tendency which has been opposing the love jihad is opposed to the wearing of jeans by girls. The attitude regarding violence is best reflected in the Bilkis Bano case, where those found guilty of rape and murder were honoured once they got released. Mercifully they are back in jail to serve the sentence.
A woman professor from Goa who wrote that the mangalasutra is like a chain for women was hounded badly. To cap it all at a theoretical level Manu Smriti is eulogised as the ideal to be followed.
Calling all this Hindu religiosity as she calls the present offensive of Hindu nationalists is very much off the mark. She cites the example of three Muslim boys being beaten with slippers to shout Jai Shree Ram. Here labelling all this in the category of religiosity hides the commonality of all this as having its similarity with fundamentalism. Calling Muslim fundamentalism as jihadi Islam falls too short and away from the commonalities, which is prevailing in many countries. It prevails in Egypt and many other countries as the Muslim Brotherhood. Then there is the ayatollah regime in Iran.
Hindu religiosity is practiced by millions of Hindus, who have been living with people of other religions for centuries, making India a plural, diverse country. What began as an ideology articulated by Savarkar and Golwalkar is the base on which the present actions and policies of Hindu nationalism stand. These were totally opposed to Indian nationalism which emerged as part of anti-colonial struggle. The greatest Hindu of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi, had to take three bullets in his chest for standing as a Hindu standing for plural India.
Singh is right in detesting this ‘religiosity’ but she needs to delve deep to understand this is the same pattern which ‘Jihadi Islam’ and Islamic fundamentalists followed. Here politics derives its legitimacy from religion and mauls the society under the clothing of religion. And that is precisely what is going on in India today, be it the claim over most of the mosques, or use of bulldozers or beating the Muslim children in the class a la Tripta Tyagi of locking the child in the store for bringing non-vegetarian food in the school, or beating the girls coming out from a pub in Mangalore!
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Ram Puniyani is an eminent author, activist and former professor at IIT Mumbai. The views expressed here are personal and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them.
