Hinduisation of the public sphere in Indiaby Meera Nanda(in
New Humanist, March/April 2008)
"The
world today is as furiously religious as it ever was. ... Experiments
with secularized religions have generally failed; religious movements
with beliefs and practices dripping with reactionary supernaturalism
have widely succeeded."Peter Berger, Desecularization of the World
Those
looking for evidence to back Peter Berger’s conclusion can do no better
than take a closer look at the religious landscape of India, the
“crouching tiger” of 21st-century global capitalism.
India today
is teeming with millions of educated, relatively well-to-do men and
women who enthusiastically participate in global networks of science
and technology. The Indian economy is betting its fortunes on advanced
research in biotechnology and the drug industry, whose very existence
is a testament to the naturalistic and disenchanted understanding of
the natural world. And yet a vast majority of these middle-class
beneficiaries of modern science and technology continue to believe in
supernatural powers supposedly embodied in idols, “god-men” or
“god-women,” stars and planets, rivers, trees and sacred animals. By
all indications, they treat supernatural beings and powers with utmost
earnestness and reverence and go to great lengths to please them in the
hopes of achieving their desires.
According to the 2007 State of
the Nation survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies among Indians, the level of religiosity has gone up
considerably in the past five years. A mere five per cent of
respondents said that their religious belief had declined, while 30 per
cent said they had become more religious. The same poll found that
education and exposure to modern urban life seem to make Indians more,
not less, religious: “Urban educated Indians are more religious than
their rural and illiterate counterparts … religiosity has increased
more in small towns and cities than in villages.”
Another
measurable indicator of rising religiosity is the tremendous rise in
pilgrimages or religious tourism. According to a recent study by the
National Council for Applied Economic Research, “religious trips
account for more than 50 per cent of all package tours, much higher
than leisure tour packages at 28 per cent.” The most recent figures
show that in 2004, more than 23 million people visited the Lord Balaji
temple at Tirpuati, while 17.25 million trekked to the mountain shrine
of Vaishno Devi. Here I will focus on Hindus, who make up nearly 85 per
cent of India’s population. But they are not the only ones who are
becoming more religious: indicators of popular religiosity are rising
among Indian Muslims, Christians and Sikhs as well.
Today’s
generation of Indian upper and middle classes are not content with the
de-ritualised, slimmed-down, philosophised or secular-humanist version
of Hinduism that appealed to the earlier generation of elites. They are
instead looking for “jagrit” or awake gods who respond to their prayers
and who fulfill their wishes – the kind of gods that sociologists
Rodney Starke and Roger Finke, authors of Acts of Faith, describe as
“personal, caring, loving, merciful, close, accessible … all of which
can be summed up in a belief that ‘there is someone up there who
cares’.” The textual or philosophical aspects of Sanskritic Hinduism
have by no means diminished in cultural prestige: they continue to
serve as the backdrop of “Vedic sciences” (as Hindu metaphysics is sold
these days), and continue to attract a loyal following of spiritual
seekers from India and abroad. But what is changing is simply that it
is becoming fashionable to be religious and to be seen as being
religious. The new elites are shedding their earlier reticence about
openly participating in religious rituals in temples and in public
ceremonies like kathas and yagnas. If anything, the ritual dimension is
becoming more public and more ostentatious.
Not only are rituals
getting more elaborate but many village and working-class gods and
goddesses are being adopted by the middle classes, business elites and
non-resident Indians – a process of Sanskritisation that has been
called a “gentrification of gods”. Worship of local gods and goddesses
that until recently were associated with the poor, illiterate and lower
castes is finding a new home in swank new suburbs with malls and
multiplexes. The enormous growth in the popularity of the goddess
called Mariamman or Amma in the south and Devi or Mata in the rest of
the country is a case in point.
The natural question is why?
What is fuelling this middle-class devotion to “lesser” gods,
traditionally associated with the unlettered? Devotees themselves
provide a fairly cogent explanation: they see these local gods as being
far more intimately familiar with, and responsive to, the needs of
ordinary people than the “great gods” who live up there in the
celestial sphere.
Rather than retiring their gods, as
secularisation theory expected, the emerging middle classes in India
are remaking them. The local deities who were once considered guardians
of the village, and protected against scourges like smallpox, are now
being beseeched for blessings for success in an increasingly
competitive urban environment.
How to explain this phenomenon?
What motivates educated, well-to-do urban sophisticates to continue to
believe in miracles and supernatural beings? Social theory has only two
standard answers, neither of which fits the Indian data very well.
The
first answer has to do with economic well-being. As has been recently
shown with great sophistication and care by Pippa Norris and Ronald
Inglehart in their book Sacred and Secular, the level of belief in
modern, post-industrial societies bears a strong correlation with the
level of “existential insecurity”. On mapping religiosity against
income data from societies in North America, Europe and Japan, Norris
and Inglehart found that the higher the income level, the lower the
religiosity as measured by frequency of prayer: in aggregate terms, the
poor turn out to be twice as religious as the rich. The data from the
United States, for example, shows that two-thirds of the least well-off
prayed, compared with 47 per cent of the highest income group.
According to this view, religiosity does fall off and people do become
more secular in modern industrial economies, except when they are
caught on the lower rungs of the economy in those societies that do not
provide public welfare.
This explanation does not adequately
explain the Indian data. Here we have the case of rising religiosity
among the already wealthy and the upwardly mobile, whose level of
material well-being is fairly decent even by Western standards.
The
second explanation is that the growing religiosity is a defensive
reaction to modernisation and Westernisation. Pavan Varma, the author
of the much-cited The Great Indian Middle Class, treats religion as a
refuge for the alienated and lonely urbanites, uprooted from the old,
warm little communities they left behind in villages. Varma simply
assumes that the transition to modern life in the cities must be
traumatic and drive the new middle classes to seek out the consolation
of God in the company of fellow believers.
But insecurity and
anomie do not appear to be the most salient aspects of what is going
on. There is anxiety and insecurity among the newly well-to-do as they
face an increasingly competitive economy with declining job security.
But there is also a sense of expanding horizons and multiplying
opportunities. The upwardly mobile in urban India have, in the words of
researcher Maya Warrier, “done well for themselves by seizing the
educational and career opportunities that came their way. Their
experience of the unprecedented pace and scale of change had resulted
not so much in a sense of despair and alienation as in a sense of
optimism about multiple opportunities in most spheres of life.”
It
is not despair or alienation, but rather ambivalence over their
new-found wealth that seems a more plausible explanation of the growing
religiosity.
Modern gurus seem to ease this ambivalence by
giving new wealth a divine stamp of approval. “To be rich is divine” is
the message coming from modern gurus who minister to the upper crust.
Swami Dayananda, the guru of successful businessmen and women in
Chennai, for example, teaches a business-friendly version of Gita which
he sells as “a program for living” or a “plan for life”. Rather than
renounce all desire, as Lord Krishna teaches in the Bhagavad Gita,
Dayananda’s version of the Gita teaches that “desires are a
manifestation of divinity that actuate people to do things.” “Practical
moksha” does not mean renunciation of these divine gifts but only that
they be brought under control of the will. Thus, while claiming to
teach the “eternal” message of moksha which aimed at identification
with the Godhead, modern gurus dish out advice on how to succeed in
business.
Blessing the hyper-consumption of their middle-class
followers is only half the story. Modern gurus also seem to help to
take the edge off guilt by teaching how to “balance” all that
consumerism with spiritual pursuits. Gurus like Mata Amritanandamayi
teach that “Western” consumerism creates bad “karmic burden” which can
be negated, or at least “balanced”, by performing some of the rituals
and pujas she prescribes. To put it a bit flippantly, the cure for
shopping is more shopping – this time for spiritual products and the
services of gurus and priests. Surely a win-win situation for all
involved!
There is, however, another factor that is making
public expressions of religiosity fashionable, namely the rising levels
of triumphalism and nationalism among the upwardly mobile. Polling data
from a Pew Global Attitude Survey revealed that as many as 93 per cent
of Indian respondents – the highest in the world – agreed with the
statement “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to
others”. In comparison, Chinese, Japanese and even American public
opinion was far more self-critical and ambiguous over the superiority
of their cultures.
For educated Indians brought up on a steady
diet of religious, media and other cultural discourses that constantly
package Hindu signs and symbols as the essence of Indian culture, it
has become almost second nature to conflate the two. Now that India is
becoming an important player in the global market many are beginning to
ascribe the country’s success to the superiority of “Hindu values”.
This sentiment is being aggressively promoted by gurus and tele-yogis
like Swami Ramdev, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Sai Baba and a host of
others. Indeed, the public sphere is replete with these messages of
becoming more Hindu in order to become more successful in the global
race for money and power.
On the face of it, contemporary
popular Hinduism appears to be the very epitome of a dynamic and
inventive religious tradition which is changing to keep pace with the
changing time. Clearly, all the new gods, god-men/god-women, new
temples and rituals add up to an impressive inventory of creative
innovations that are allowing men and women to take their gods with
them as they step into the heady, though unsettling, world dominated by
global corporate capitalism. But there is an underside: the same
innovations in religious ritual and dogmas that are enabling the “Great
Indian Middle Class” to adjust to global capitalism are also deepening
a sense of Hindu chauvinism, and widening the chasm between Hindus and
non-Hindu minorities. The banal, everyday Hindu religiosity is
simultaneously breeding a banal, everyday kind of Hindu
ultra-nationalism. This kind of nationalism is not openly proclaimed in
fatwas, nor does it appear on the election manifestos of political
parties. Its power lies in structuring the common sense of ordinary
people.
The net result is a new kind of political and
nationalistic Hinduism which is invented out of old customs and
traditions that people are fond of and familiar with. Because it builds
upon deeply felt religiosity, it sucks in even those who are not
particularly anti-Muslim or anti-Christian. Religious festivals, temple
rituals and religious discourses become so many ways of “flagging”
India as a Hindu nation, and India’s cultural superiority as due to its
Hindu spirituality.
The best way to describe the banality of Hindu nationalism and the role of religion in it is to show how it works.
The
example comes from the recent inauguration of Shri Hari Mandir, a new
temple that opened in Porbandar in Gujarat in February 2006. The grand
sandstone temple and the priest-training school called Sandipani
Vidyaniketan attached to it are a joint venture of the Gujarat
government, the business house of the Ambanis and the charismatic guru
Rameshbhai Oza. The inauguration ceremony of this temple-gurukul
complex provides a good example of how Hindu gods end up serving as
props for Hindu nationalism and Hindu supremacy.
According to
the description provided by the organisers themselves, the temple was
inaugurated by Bharion Singh Shekhawat, the vice-president of the
country, with the infamous chief minister Narendra Modi in attendance.
Also in attendance were the widow of Dhirubhai Ambani and the rest of
the Ambani clan whose generous financial donations had built the
temple. Some 50,000 well-heeled devotees of Oza from India and abroad
crowded into the temple precincts to watch the event.
The
elected representatives of “secular” India, in their official capacity,
prayed before the temple idols – something so routine that it hardly
evokes a response from anyone any more. The prayer was followed by the
national anthem sung before the gods, followed by recital of the Vedas
by the student-priests, followed by a Gujarati folk dance. This was
followed by speeches that liberally mixed up the gods and the nation,
with quite a bit of rhetoric about the greatness of Hindu “science”
thrown in for good measure. Modi, the chief instigator of the 2002
Godhara riots between Hindus and Muslims, spoke glowingly of the
“tolerance” and “secularism” of Hinduism. He went on to recommend that
yagnas and religious recitals be held all over the country before
undertaking any new construction because Hinduism is “inherently
ecological”. Next came Mrs Ambani, who urged mixing spirituality with
industry. The vice-president, in his turn, spoke of how modern and
scientific Hindu traditions were, comparing the gods’ weapons with
modern missiles and their vehicles with modern-day helicopters.
The
theme of the superiority of ancient Hindu science was taken up a week
later when the president of India, Abdus Kalam, came down to the
temple-ashram complex to inaugurate its “science museum”, which
highlights ancient Hindu discoveries in astronomy/astrology, medicine
(ayurveda), architecture (vastu) and such. Without ever questioning
what validity the Earth-at-the-centre astronomy/astrology of Aryabhatta
has in the modern world, the nuclear physicist president went on to
claim not only the greatness of antiquity but also the continued
relevance of the ancients for “enriching” modern astronomy. The
ancients were smoothly turned into the guiding lights of modern science
– regardless of the fact that their cosmology has been falsified by it.
This
is representative of how India’s state-temple-industrial complex works:
the gods become the backdrop, and the traditional puja the medium, for
asserting the Hindu-ness of India and the greatness of both. Worship of
the gods becomes indistinguishable from the worship of Hindu culture
and the Indian nation. Devotees come to listen to hymns sung to gods,
but end up worshipping a political ideology – and cannot tell the
difference. The cult of nation, furthermore, is simultaneously turned
into a cult of “reason” and “science”, without the critical and
empirical spirit of science.
Once the beloved and popular gods
become identified with the land and its culture, Hindu nationalism
becomes an everyday affair. No one has to pass fatwas and there is no
need to launch a militant battle against the West. Hindu nationalists
have no use for such crude tools. They would rather turn the worship of
gods into the worship of the nation and they would rather beat the West
by appropriating the West’s strengths in empirical sciences for their
own gods. The tragedy is that the religiosity of ordinary believers
provides the building blocks for this banal, but far from benign, Hindu
nationalism.
Economic globalisation and neo-liberal reforms have
created the material and ideological conditions in which a popular and
ritualistic Hindu religiosity is growing. Popular religiosity, in turn,
is being directed into a mass ideology of Hindu supremacy and Hindu
nationalism.
This trend is a symptom of a deeper, more
fundamental malaise, namely the failure of secularism. For all its
professions of secularism, the Indian state has not developed a stance
of either equal indifference to or equal respect for all the many
religions of India. It has instead treated the religion of the majority
as the civic religion of the Indian nation itself. The result is a deep
and widespread Hinduisation of the public sphere, which is only growing
under the conditions of globalisation.
This is adapted from Meera Nanda’s forthcoming book God and Globalization in India (Navayana Publishers, New Delhi)