Lounge
Hinduism is something of a conglomerate: Manu S. Pillai
Summary
Manu S. Pillai discusses the making of his new book, an exhaustive look at the evolution of a composite Hindu identity through the lens of history
Manu S. Pillai’s new book, Gods, Guns and Missionaries, traces “The Making of Modern Hindu Identity" (as its subtitle says) through history, especially the trauma of colonial invasion and missionary activity that have left an indelible mark on modern India’s polity. Although the topic has been well-trodden by eminent historians, Pillai’s rigorous research, combined with his talent for mining little-known anecdotes and razor-sharp insights, makes the work recognisably his. Most pertinently, it returns to scriptural sources to debunk many of the pernicious misconceptions that have ailed religious and caste-based politics in independent India, more so in the last decade.
Some of these notions—such as the Hindu-Muslim divide being an immutable religious truth rather than a self-serving narrative abetted by the British—have become entrenched in the popular consciousness through repeated iterations. These misguided agendas have escalated communal tension and spawned moves to rewrite history, distorting facts to create fictions that serve the interests of the majority community.
One of the fundamental questions that Pillai grapples with is “Who is a Hindu?" The answer, as he shows, varied widely and wildly, depending on regional contexts, the person who was asking this question, and the point in history it was being asked. Caste identities, such as those of Brahmin’s, were equally nebulous to outsiders who came to rule India, frequently causing confusions and creating systems of control that skewed power dynamics in society—a legacy India bears to this day.
“One reason why people argue Hinduism was ‘invented’ in the 19th century is because before this time, it did not have one name or identifiable core," as Pillai says in an email interview to Lounge. “When people say there is no one Hinduism but many, the same could be said of Christianity."
As opposing forces collided and synthesised, they laid the ground for India’s nationalist movement and, in turn, the advent of a move to define a fixed Hindu identity, characterised by the militant Hindutva, which has become the defining logic of India’s political ascendancy in the last decade.
Pillai spoke to Lounge on the making of his book, its resonance with the present, the responsibility of historians and how to resist the malicious reach of the “WhatsApp University". Edited excerpts:
You mention you’ve been working on this book for over a decade. In this time, India’s political landscape has changed significantly. How have these shifts influenced your work?
I first attempted a study of the modern Hindu identity in 2011, as a master’s student. Of course, I was very young then, and it was 2019 before I felt confident enough to outline a book on the theme. The following year, I wrote four chapters, but then suspended the project; there was still much to study, and some of my own prior notions had to be revisited and, in certain cases, discarded. So there has been considerable personal evolution in the making of this book. I still feel a degree of self-doubt, because the topic is so layered and complex. But then again, self-doubt can be a healthy thing.
Certainly the shifts in India’s political equilibrium affected me, in that the questions I explore have an immediate, contemporary salience. In many ways, the project reflects my own quest for answers: how much of the current assertion of identity is an attempt at cultural “recovery" from the long arc of colonialism? Even under subjugation, how did “natives" assert their own agency, even when facing unfavourable political and psychological terms? Can this help us understand today any better?
In many ways, the project reflects my own quest for answers. That said, I did not want the present and its concerns to overshadow my study. The book ends with the birth of Hindutva, but does not venture into its subsequent political ascendancy. Better accounts already exist on that aspect. This is purely an inquiry into how Hinduism adapted in its encounter with colonialism and Christianity, acquiring its present appearance.
You survey a vast body of eclectic sources to trace the hardening of the concept of Hinduism, from pre-colonial times to its present-day iteration as Hindutva. What were some of the inflection points in this process?
Hinduism, as I see it, took form as an overarching religious and cultural framework in the Puranic period. The Puranas reflect a desire to marry the local with the pan-Indian, though neither with any streamlined consistency nor a desire to bracket it under an all-encompassing term. Yet something was underway. The encounter with Islam—and Islamic power—leads to some hardening of this framework. But here again, it was more an impulse towards unity, not its actualisation. Into the modern period, however, that impulse grew more concrete, not least because technology like printing, better communication, etc., infused new value into broad-based identities. But, as I show in the book, the presence of the Other in the form of European rule and the missionary was critical to producing a sharper political alertness among Hindus. Remarkably, Hindu thinkers appropriated many of the strategies and concepts weaponised by their rivals. To an extent, the Puranas reflect this too—as the Puranic system co-opted all kinds of cults, it too had absorbed diverse attributes. This dexterity is why Hinduism at different times seems to wear different faces. I do not believe, as some have argued, that Hinduism is a recent “invention". What I argue is that modernity led to the re-invention of something older. Communities, after all, form and re-form themselves in response to historical dynamics. This is true of other religious identities as well, including Christianity.
“Indian civilization…is built on stories," you write, “and if it met anything unfamiliar, it simply absorbed it and told yet more stories." How should historians grapple with the ethical, moral and empirical complications arising out of this view of the past?
Historians are trained to manage this, not least because in India we have a culture of orality and storytelling. For instance, in Kerala, there is a legend of a medieval king who witnesses the splitting of the moon by the Prophet Muhammad. He divides his kingdom among his governors, converts to Islam, and sails to Mecca. It is a story, but even as a story, reflects historical dynamics. On the one hand it creates narrative space for Islam in the region—an opening of the door for a faith that arrived on merchants’ boats. The conversion of a king grants this new faith prestige; a prestige that cements the important role Muslim traders played in Kerala’s political economy. Some believe the king in the tale was real, others reject the claim. But even as pure fiction, the story offers material for analysis. Very real historical processes are encapsulated and condensed into the tale. This kind of storytelling still occurs—our various ideological camps imagine the past and find meaning in the present with their own forms of mythmaking. Future historians will study these narratives just as we examine historical processes that preceded our time.
The pre-colonial Hindu identity, you write, was defined against multiple parameters, not just “viewed in contrast to Muslims". What have been some of the cultural costs of this flattening of identity in modern India?
The word “flattening" captures the cost, in that Hinduism’s inner diversity can get bulldozed by the push for regimentation. An excessive fear of outside forces, which certainly has historical triggers, risks crushing Hinduism’s internal vitality. Hinduism is not a one-fount religion, but something of a conglomerate, with many threads woven into a living, breathing, shape-shifting fabric. Too much emphasis on securing its outer borders against the Other can blind us to its inner richness. While political assertion entails a degree of homogenisation, against the arc of Hinduism’s evolution, such homogenisation would stunt the religion’s dynamism. I suspect its full implications will become clearer only with time.
You write about Hinduism’s reciprocal impact on a section of Jesuits in early modern India. Are there intellectual common grounds between the experience of these foreigners with those of orientalists, like William Jones, who devoted their lives to Indology?
In many ways, Catholic missionaries of the early modern period were the first orientalists. Although when they arrived, they branded Hindu gods “monsters" and saw only barbarism everywhere, they were forced to revisit these biases. Their resultant studies on Hinduism—its cultural practices, temple customs, philosophical ideas, sectarian identities—make for fascinating reading, and there is much of intellectual value there. Yet, just as the later British orientalists for all their enthusiasm were never divorced from the colonial mission of conquest, missionary scholarship was an extension of the project of religious conversion. Some, of course, did begin to question their preconceptions after an encounter with Hinduism, and Christianity itself became here a mixed commodity, unrecognisable to purists. Things often feed off each other, mutating in ways nobody expects. A “negative" element in history can, thanks to the intervention of creative figures, become a “positive" force. Hindu thinkers were able to turn orientalist scholarship as well as missionary efforts to their advantage, despite unfavourable terms set by colonial rule.
Also read: 'Gods, Guns and Missionaries' excerpt: When Jesuits met devils and monsters in India
You have a fascinating section on “Hindu law". Could you talk about its origins, anomalies and legacies?
The British in the early period were uncertain of their power, and keen to stay in Indians’ good books. We see white men sponsoring Hindu ceremonies, endowing temples, and escorting gods. Brahmins sang praises of British officials and blessed the East India Company’s flag. In this era, many Englishmen wished to rule Hindus according to their own traditions. Except, instead of observing the dynamic legal reality on the ground, they took a textualist approach to “tradition", as something to be “revived" from Sanskrit books. The British wished to “restore" archaic laws to Hindus. Though Hindus were governed for most part by evolving local custom, caste regulations and so on, not only was undue reliance placed on old shastras, these were also interpreted in strange ways. Ultimately the British acknowledged the mess this created, but it was too late. Meanwhile, Hindus ended up adjusting, even manipulating this new-fangled approach for their own purposes.
Significantly, the British enshrined two legal master categories of people as Hindus and Muslims. Coupled with colonial censuses later, we see here the birth of the notion of the majority versus the minority. Again, this is not to say the British “invented" the Hindu-Muslim divide; but they reified it in a still-enduring fashion.
Comparing Dayananda Saraswati and Rammohun Roy as reformists, why do you think the Arya Samaj has robustly outshined the Brahmo religion?
There were people in the late 19th century who thought Roy’s Brahmo Samaj would thrive, while the Arya Samaj would wilt. What occurred was the opposite. This was because by the 1880s, Arya Samaj was no longer operating in the realm of ideas around reformed Hinduism alone. They were also working to mobilise Hindus on the ground. Causes such as cow protection appealed to a wide segment of Hindu society and offered a politically attractive anchor in a way that intellectual and philosophical programmes alone could not. Indeed, scholars have shown how in the years that followed, the Arya Samaj’s project of Vedic revivalism took something of a back seat, with energy diverted into rousing Hindus against missionaries, in reconverting people, and so on. The Brahmo religion, however, did not become a mass phenomenon.
Can you talk about the historical roots of caste in shaping Hindutva?
Caste remains Hindutva’s greatest fragility. Even before Hindutva was articulated by V.D. Savarkar in its lasting avatar, it was clear to Hindu nationalists such as B.G. Tilak that caste was a massive obstacle to Hindu political self-assertion. This tension between the overarching Hindu identity (framed against the Muslim and Christian Other) and caste (where groups within Hindu society engage in intra-Hindu Othering) continues. Even a Hindu nationalist government today must get the caste arithmetic right to win elections; Hindutva by itself cannot yet transcend caste. Figures like Savarkar tried hard, indeed even defined Hindutva theoretically in a way that rises above caste, but for Hindu nationalism the battle continues. You can have a Hindu identity, but caste offers another equally potent point of assertion.
William Dalrymple recently said India’s academic historians had distanced their discipline from public discourse, which partly accounts for the rise of “WhatsApp University". As a writer who straddles popular history and academic research, where do you stand on this?
I do not see a hard line between popular and academic history. There are academics who write popular history. And there are popular historians producing original research; the claim that they only rehash academic scholarship in an entertaining style is flawed. My own first book had me spend six years in the archives, deal with untouched material, spotlight a marginalised female historical figure, puncture court histories, and add to our understanding of colonialism, gender—years before I obtained a PhD. The classroom is no longer the only avenue for educating people to engage critically with history; there is wider, interested public. This also has costs. If academics face challenges within a state-controlled university system, as a popular historian my very first book invited, in my 20s, a ₹5 crore “defamation" notice.
William’s words—or perhaps the way they were relayed in print—sound simplistic. WhatsApp history is not a natural phenomenon as much as a deliberate machine. I think his point is that academic research for many years remained in an ivory tower. Yes, as some have argued, this is because academics work within a different framework. Yet it is also true that sections of academia do show contempt for popular engagement. Historians are human and prone to jealousies and territoriality. T.C.A Raghavan’s History Men offers interesting proof of this. In this instance, William may have erred with an oversimplification of the issue. But I have no doubt that heaps of kids have opted to study history because they were captivated by his books in their formative years. I certainly was, as an adolescent whose only other option was a dreary textbook. If I ventured on to a path that culminated in a doctorate, and now my fifth book, it is because at the beginning there was a Dalrymple and his White Mughals.
Somak Ghoshal is a writer based in Delhi.
