A FRUSTRATING DIALOGUE WITH AN ACADEMICIAN ON HINDUTVA - short

[Hindu Vivek Kendra]

A FRUSTRATING DIALOGUE WITH AN ACADEMICIAN ON HINDUTVA

By Ashok Chowgule, President Mumbai Prant VHP and Director
of Hindu Vivek Kendra

In late 1996, the Oxford University Press in India brought out a
book entitled "Making India Hindu", edited by Prof David Ludden,
Associate Professor of History and South Asia Regional Studies,
University of Pennsylvania. The cover of the book says, "Today,
powerful political forces seek to make the Indian state
Hindu......Making India Hindu explores Hindu majoritarian politics
over the last century and its dramatic reformulation during the
decline of the Congress Party in the 1980s." The book attempts to
rationalise the rise of what is called Hindu fundamentalism, and to
explain it as an anti-Muslim pogrom, an assault on secularism, a
means to perpetuate the hegemony of the upper castes, etc.

Shri Dinesh Agrawal in the USA and I, as active supporters of the
RSS, thought it would be useful to present to Prof Ludden the RSS
perspective. Our first essential point was that the authors of all
the papers that were submitted were those who hold an anti-Hindutva
view point and none by a pro-Hindutvavadi. The second point was
that it was these anti-Hindutvavadis who were guiding the destiny
of the nation right up to the mid-80s.

A feature of the first round of discussions was that there were
questions galore from Prof Ludden, but no answers to the questions
raised by us. When one keeps asking questions, without considering
the answers given, one runs out of questions to be asked. And soon
the messages from Prof Ludden dried up.

We continued to send information that we thought was relevant. We
were disappointed at the lack of response from him, and felt that
he did not have any logical answers to the issues that we placed
before him. We finally heard from him after a gap of nearly six
weeks.

We had sent him the press release by the Overseas Friends of the
BJP, USA, on the victory of the Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP
alliance in the Punjab elections. Prof Ludden response was: "Has
the BJP made any more headway in attracting allies from among other
parties in the country? It seems that its inability to do so
following the Lok Sabha elections in 1996 marked a national
consensus against the BJP as a national ruling party." This showed
a clear bias on his part, particularly since we had sent him the
India Today opinion poll, which had shown that the BJP's support
had increased from 23.5% in March 96 to 28% today, and which could
translate into 240 seats in the Parliament.

Prof Ludden informed us that he has 'lost touch with the current
VHP position on some major issues'. He then asked some of his old
questions on the VHP. Out of frustration, we sent him a strong
communication, saying: "(We) must admire your singular capability
of completely ignoring our messages, your tenacity in keeping on
asking questions, and your perseverance in refusing to answer
questions. You must be a highly esteemed member of an organisation
whose sole objective is to denigrate Hinduism."

He tried to justify his asking questions by saying people expected
him to report on the VHP and the BJP. However, he did offer to
answer the questions that we had.

Prof Ludden said he did not invite a pro-Hindutvavadi because he
and his colleagues had done 'a lot of reading of tracts' produced
by Hindutva thinkers, and that they were 'inundated' with
information. Hence, there was no 'need to invite anyone to
represent the Hindutva perspective'. On this basis, there was no
need to invite anyone to represent the anti-Hindutva perspective
either, since they had an avalanche of information on the subject.

Prof Ludden said that he was not impressed with the evidence which
established that a temple was destroyed in 1528 AD on the orders of
Babar. He also contended that the dispute about the Ram
Janmabhoomi arose in the 19th century. This shows that Prof Ludden
had not studied the evidence that has been submitted by the VHP.

Prof Ludden said, "Hindutva is majoritarian....nationalism that
does not allow for the 'nation' itself to be defined in
multi-cultural terms." We sent an article written by Shri Clifford
Longley, "A very British lesson Muslims must learn" (The Times,
London, July 8, 1989), in the context of the Satanic Verses affair.
The point that Shri Longely makes is: "(T)he very presence of
Muslims in Britain can only be on terms which are acceptable to the
majority." We posed: "If this is the way the British expect
Muslims to live in the UK, why should the same not be applicable to
India? Similarly, would this not be the way the Muslims should
live in the USA?"

Prof Ludden said: "This article has no bearing on India, but only
on the regulation of threats to law and order." And our response
was: "What you are really saying is that it is legitimate for the
British to expect that Muslims must respect the sentiments of the
white people, but it is not legitimate for the Hindus to expect
that the Muslims should respect the sentiments of the Hindus."

One contributor to the book said that pro-Hindutva journalists have
'infiltrated the major national dailies in order to promote Hindu
nationalism'. Analysing the papers from Mumbai, including the
local editions of national papers, we established that we could
find no evidence of the infiltration. Prof Ludden's response was:
"If you could cite a study conducted by someone other than yourself
or a member of the RSS, it would be more convincing."

We said, "A study conducted by a member of the RSS is to be scoffed
at, but a statement from an anti-Hindutva brigade must be held
aloft for the whole world to see." Of course, Prof Ludden is not
the only person to display this bankruptcy of intellectualism where
Hindutva is concerned. In spite of our repeated requests Prof
Ludden refused to ask the contributor to give her list of the
infiltrators in the national dailies.

We had sent an interview of Shri V S Naipaul, where he described
the Ram Janmabhoomi movement as 'a new historical awakening'. Prof
Ludden was not aware of the views of Shri Naipaul, and his
anti-Hindutva colleagues dared not bring it to his notice. Prof
Ludden's response was: "I am not particularly impressed by
Naipaul's interview." His next sentence ("He has opinions
consistent with those of the VHP and the BJP.....") tells the
reason why Shri Naipaul has to be consigned to the dustbin.

Prof Ludden also said: "You can cite any number of people who
agree with the RSS. So what?.....Citing one more supporter whose
name is well known does not add weight to your legitimacy." An
appropriate response was: "You can cite any number of people who
disagree with the RSS. So what? Citing one more supporter whose
name is well known does not add weight to your legitimacy." We
could not resist adding, "Touchi, we think."

We would like to take up a couple of points that were introduced by
Prof Ludden. He thinks India would benefit by having an open
border with Bangladesh. We challenged him to advise the USA to
have the open border with Bangladesh, and once this happens we will
urge the Indian government to follow suit. Because it will not
matter since the Bangladeshis will flood the USA and leave our
country alone. But, Prof Ludden did not accept our challenge.

The other point relates to India's poverty. Prof Ludden asked,
"What does the RSS propose to do to improve the lives of the
people?" Obviously, the second essential point that we have made -
viz., that the rise of Hindutva is a post-86 phenomenon, and that
the anti-Hindutvavadis were guiding the destiny of the nation up
till then - was completely ignored. So, we had to respond: "You
might wish to ask your anti-Hindutva colleagues about the steps
they have taken to improve the lives of the people, and why they
did not institute them earlier."

When we started the dialogue, we thought that we would be dealing
with an unbiased person in search of truth. But, it became obvious
that Prof Ludden is virulently anti-Hindutva, and does not have the
ability of looking at Hindutva from a logical point of view. We
are convinced that he has an agenda of his own, and integrity is
the least of his concerns. He exhibits the sort of intellectual
fascism that is common amongst the anti-Hindutvavadis.

There is a whole group of people who pretend to be experts on the
Sangh parivar, and who have not done any substantive reading on
what the Sangh has to say about itself. When Prof Ludden next
expresses his views on the Sangh parivar, we hope he will preface
his remarks by first informing the audience that he is virulently
anti-Hindutva that he has never discussed Hindutva with its
votaries, that his information is obtained from the
anti-Hindutvavadis, and that he has not read, for example, the
manifesto of the BJP. At least the audience would be informed of
his bias and consider his views with a handful of salt.

-Hindu Vivek Kendra
h...@hindunet.org
http://www.hvk.org/hvk