On Hindu Identity

April 10, 2016 / HinduEyes / 1 Comment

While we are laying the foundation for this blog’s investigation into the nature of ethical Hindu engagement in the world, it is important to inquire into the very identity that we call “Hindu”.

Today, “Hindu” appears to be an increasingly strong part of who we consider ourselves to be. But what does it mean to be “Hindu”? How do we categorize “Hindu”? Which part of my identity is “Hindu”, and which part of my identity is anything else? Is there such a thing as a “pure” Hindu?

Our identity as Hindu is made up of a combination of many currents of ongoing dialogue and debate that condition our beliefs about who we are. In this post, let us try to bring to light a few of those currents so that we may make a more informed judgement about the particular combination of conditionings that is “me”.

First, there is the traditional current, the one that is and has been defined by the various scholars and paṇḍitas who were and are supposed to be responsible for creating, guarding, and evolving the tradition. This current has been discussed to a satisfactory degree of detail for our purposes in the previous post. For now, we can say that the Hindu identity based on this current is, as we concluded in the last post, a navigation between the quadruple-layered hierarchy of textual sources,¹Śrutis (Vedas), Smṛtis, Purāṇas, and Itihāsas. the six darśanas,²Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Yoga, Sāṅkhya, Mīmāṁsā, and Vedānta. or a synthetic combination thereof, the practice that is geared towards realizing the aims of these darśanas, and various cultural elements that are difficult to homogenize but can be located to specific regions or time periods or political trends.

Second, there is the supposedly “original” use of the term Hindu, an identity marker given to people by the ancient Greeks and Persians based on their geographical location beyond the Sindhu River. That is, anyone living south of the Sindhu (Indus) River was called a Hindu. This is a commonly known current. But usage of the word “Hindu” in this context creeps in here and there to help certain Hindu supremacist groups establish the “Hindu-ness” of everyone living in India, which deemphasizes the Indianness of other religions (mixing the geographic and the religious identity), however natively Indian these religious expressions may be. To put it more simply, this means that occasionally, Hindu religious and political leaders use the term “Hindu” to indicate Indians in general in order to deemphasize the religious independence of religious groups in India that don’t identify as Hindu, by saying that “they are Hindu anyway, whatever their religious affiliation”, which inherently seeks to subsume other religions into the Hindu (religious) identity. This mixing of geographic and religious identity (the first and second currents) is dangerous, because it helps to further Hindu supremacist politics, which at best alienates people of other religions living in India, and at worst antagonizes them. As Hindus, we should not support that. Not to mention that the political use of this Hindu identity marker alienates the tens of millions of Hindus who are not Indian.

Third, there is the current of response to western critique. This may, in some ways, be even more important than the first two currents when it comes to understanding Hindu identity in the 21st Century. Let us explore this one a little further.

In the 19th Century, when British Orientalists, or people who were responsible for studying “the Orient” during the British Raj, came to study India, they, through their colonial lens, criticized Hindus as being unscientific, ahistorical, ungodly, and effeminate, among other things. Those who criticized Indians included Christian missionaries, like James Kennedy, who voiced these criticisms to contrast “Hindooism” with Christianity. The idea was:

• Christianity is scientific, and Hinduism is not: Christianity is based on “actual” principles, but Hinduism is just a bunch of hymns to false gods and superstitions.
• Christianity is historical, and Hinduism is not: Jesus was actually there in history, whereas Hindu gods like Rama and Krishna were not.
• Christianity is godly, and Hinduism is not: the Bible is the word of God, whereas the Hindu scriptures are created by man.
• Christianity is masculine, and Hinduism is effeminate: the “effeminate Hindoo” is always buried in books, is inactive, is docile, etc.

Having created a set of values (being scientific, historical, etc.), the colonialists unleashed this paradigm upon Hindus in their school system, which was set up by the British to destroy the strong indigenous gurukula³Gurukula means “family of the guru”. This style of education includes several years spent living at the home of the teacher, as a family member, and learning under direct supervision of the teacher. system already in place. Hindus grew up learning this paradigm — and their own inadequacy at being able to follow the values described therein — through school, and in turn, many Hindus felt the need to respond. Their responses, then, became attempts to validate Hinduism through the lens of this dominant paradigm, in order to show that it was not only adequate, but superior.

When responding, they used a mirror image of the western language they had learned: the language of science, historicity, godliness, and masculinity.

Abhik Roy chronicles well the British criticism of Hindus (particularly in Bengal) as effeminate and the response to this criticism by Swami Vivekananda calling for the reclamation of “Hindu masculinity”. In his article, he quotes Thomas Babington Macaulay on Bengalis to show the kind of criticism Hindus faced: “Whatever the Bengali does he does languidly. His favourite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from bodily exertion; and though voluble in dispute, and singularly pertinacious in the war of chicane he seldom engages in personal conflict, and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. There never perhaps existed a people so thoroughly fitted by habit for a foreign yoke.”

We find that Swami Vivekananda, in his portraits, stands with his arms crossed over a promoted chest, his chin up, and his pose regal. This was in accordance with his desire to portray a particular masculinity and to disprove the claims about the “effeminate Hindoo”. He is also well known for having used the language of science and godliness in his writings.

These types of responses could only be expected, for under the pressure of colonialism, which colonized race would not want to rebel? Which slaves would not want to defeat the master at his own game? They said, “You think you are scientific? We are more scientific than you could ever be. All of Vedānta is pure science. The Vedas are like lab notebooks that you can follow to achieve a particular result. You think you are historical? We are more historical than you could ever be. Rama, Krishna, etc. were historical. Do not think otherwise. You think you are godly? The Vedas are true revelation, received in the seat of deep meditation. We are the true religion.”

Even today, we try to define ourselves as scientific, historical, etc. We attempt to validate ourselves through western values by showing just how scientific we are, just how historical we are, just how godly we are, just how masculine we are. Do we not find that even now our identity as “Hindu” is linked up, in some way, with these ideas?

What does this mean? What is the consequence of such a response? Even if we think we have “won”, by showing our superiority in following the values listed above, are we not still slaves to the very categories defined by the west? Though we may have defeated the west at their game, we are still only playing their game, on their field.

Ancient Hinduism, then, becomes imagined as a mirror of the modern west.

Every time we say we are scientific, or try to prove that our deities are historical, or try to show how masculine we are, know that we are slaves to a paradigm that is not our own. Know that we are still psychologically enslaved by the west. Long after the British physically left India, we find that we are still internally colonized by them.

Whereas being Hindu was never about being masculine or effeminate, being historical or ahistorical, being scientific or unscientific, still we hang on to these categories to define ourselves. In the end, the winner is still the colonial master who created the categories, even if we can show ourselves to be better at those things than the western opponent. And now, we know ourselves through these categories, having forsaken the categories that may have been more natively “Hindu”.

What happened to Hindu categories? Can we be free of this psychological colonization by the west? Can we define ourselves on our own terms, with our own values? We will attempt, throughout the course of this blog, to start rethinking what it means to be “Hindu”. We will also comment on each of the values listed above separately, and the dangers of trying to validate ourselves through them.

So we end this post with some questions about Hindu identity: Exactly what is it that makes us Hindu? Is it a particular practice? A particular nationality? Dress? Food? Art? A particularly loud proclamation of our Hinduness? And if we don’t do those things, are we less Hindu? Are we not Hindu?

We may find that these questions lead us to conclude that perhaps there is no uniquely Hindu identity. Yet, somehow there is a particular mode of behavior, both religious and cultural, that is identifiably Hindu. What defines it?

Is the urge to define it, too, a product of western colonialism?