“This
book is cleverly and powerfully written. The carefully chosen quotations give
it the false appearance of a truthful book. But the impression it leaves on my
mind is that it is the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one
purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon,
or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains. If
Miss Mayo had confessed that she had come to India merely to open out and
examine the drains of India, there would perhaps be little to complain about
her compilation. But she declared her abominable and patently wrong conclusion
with a certain amount of triumph: 'the drains are India'.”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – on Katherine Mayo’s Mother India
Katherine Mayo was an
American researcher and historian. Her fame or rather infamy in India rests
with her magnum opus ‘Mother India’
in which she attacked the Hindu society and religion, alluding to the treatment
of its women, the Harijans (as known
then), the animals, the dirt and the character of its politicians. As was
expected, the British welcomed and enthusiastically propagated the book. Even
more expectedly, the book outraged Indians and over fifty books/pamphlets were
penned in response. Some of these highlighted the gross errors and inaccuracies
in the book while others sought to denounce the ‘conclusions’ of Mother India
on more polemical grounds.
Unfortunately, Ms Mayo’s work proved to be a powerful influence on the American view of India. A simple testimony to it would be the fact that Mother India is known even today and hardly any of its rebuttals elicit any recall.
Katherine Mayo was neither
the first nor the last foreigner who looked at India and the Hindu society with
suspicion and disdain. While the Indian society will remain indebted to those
who discovered and propagated the wealth of Indian thought, we, as a Nation,
cannot but ignore the immense damage the numerous ‘drain inspectors’ have
inflicted on our psyche and the way we are perceived by the ‘others’.
James Mill wrote an authoritative ‘The History of British India’ without ever visiting the country. Yet, this book, published in 1818 brought him fame as an expert on India and within a year, he was appointed to the India house. The book and his seventeen years of association with India effected a dramatic change in the way the Nation was perceived by the British and consequently, on how it was governed. No longer was the Hindu seen as a descendant of a noble and cultured race, now enslaved. It was declared "under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy.” (chapter titled General Reflections in 'Of the Hindus', The History of British India). It will not be an exaggeration to say that this highly influential work, particularly the section 'Of the Hindus' comprising ten chapters, played a huge part in cementing Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism.
Why so much of history?
Because history is repeating
itself – both as a tragedy and a farce. The banshee like wailing over
withdrawal of the book by Penguin India is turning bizarre and ‘bizarrer’. Not
only have the protestors been labelled Taliban, Penguin’s act has been linked
to the likelihood of the BJP coming to power. Some worthies have condemned it
as being grievously harmful to Hinduism while others lament on how the
protesters are not true Hindus ala their inability to live the liberal ethos of
their religion
How much merit do these arguments have when the self proclaimed liberals declare this voluntary withdrawal a ban? How can their painting of book protestors as fascists be taken seriously when these protestors have engaged in a very civil, legal and constitutional mean of registering their protest?
Yet, since even the most well
meaning may get swayed by magical wordsmithery of the Arundhati Roys and Ramachandra
Guhas of the world, it will do good to analyse the ‘real’ arguments surrounding
this controversy.
1. Prof Doniger is an academic. Academic works have to be accepted.
Do academic credentials
provide immunity from inspection and criticism? Or is it rather that a tenured academician
has a higher responsibility towards ensuring rigorous scientific enquiry before reaching
conclusions?
The criticism of ‘The Hindus...’
is based on its factual inaccuracies. Detailed chapter wise listing of these
errors has been shared by many scholars/laypersons. Yet, Prof Doniger’s
response to all criticisms has been a haughty ad hominem dismissal of the critics as Hindutva torchbearers. Even
if all the critics were communalists, how does it validate Ms Doniger’s countless errors and
inaccuracies? If we don’t have qualms in questioning and revisiting scriptures,
which millions believe to be divine revelations, how can some output of a mere
professor be above scrutiny?
2. The
Hindus…’ is fruit of laborious labour. It provides an alternative view to the
Hindu history
For a view-point to be seen as alternative, the original/mainstream must be known. What exactly is the original Hindu history as per Prof Doniger? Her book makes no reference to any such creature. It is her conclusions alone which are both the alternative and the mainstream!
The above statement may sound
rhetorical. It is not, when you consider that the learned Prof uses twentieth
and twenty first century ‘works’ to analyse Ramayana and Mahabharata.
3. Prof Doniger is being targeted because she is uncovering uncomfortable facts regarding our deities. She is being targeted for she is white.
KM Munshi’s stellar work,
Krishnavatar narrates the life story of Krishna and the Pandavas. Though a
devout Hindu (a revivalist and communalist as per the Marxist school), Munshi’s
Krishna is not God. Iravati Karve declared Ramayana to be work of fiction and
concluded that Yudhishthir was the son of Vidur through Niyoga. Recently, Amish Tripathi’s Shiva trilogy depicted a
somewhat hippie like mortal as Shiva. Numerous texts, both ancient and medieval
have commented and criticised gods over acts which are seen to have
digressed from the path of Dharma. Yet,
none of the above has been deemed offensive. It is because these alternative
viewpoints stand subordinated to the spirit of enquiry and a general respect for
the larger belief system.
Prof Diana Eck, another of the ‘white’ professors has been writing on Hinduism for long. Prof Eck too, has tried to analyse the roots of many practices of Hinduism. But, challenging her views might be, they are not offensive, if only because Prof Eck seeks reasoning and does not seem to be on a mission of invent and degenerate!
4. Hinduism
has withstood numerous challenges over the last two millennium. How can a mere
book harm it?
A three pronged answer to the above
One - The
Hindu faith survived not because people comforted each other that it is too
strong to be uprooted. It survived because across ages, great men and their
followers took it upon themselves to defend their way of life and worship. At
times, this meant taking up the role of missionary philosophers, at other
times, military warriors, at times, bhakti saints and yet at some other times,
social reformers.
Two – Works like ‘The Hindus…’ Kali’s Child or ‘Oh Terrifying Mother’ are not unique. Right from the time the missionaries identified India as the dark land, fit for an enormous harvest, many critiques of the Nation, its people, its faith, its culture have kept churning out with amazing frequency. But, even till the early twentieth century, each ‘Mother India’ had at least fifty responses. We do not have that luxury now. In fact, we don’t even need a Katherine Mayo to write another ‘Mother India’ for we have many Indians who will gladly do such hatchet jobs now.
Three –
Our perception of self is to a large extent driven by how the others perceive
us. The emerging ‘scholarship’ from the West, sired effectively by the likes of
Wendy Doniger, Sarah Caldwell, Jeffery Kripal, et al and aided even more
effectively by our own ‘useful idiots’, has successfully turned Hinduism
studies as a study of the kinky, the exotic, the bizarre and the revolting. Works
like ‘The Hindus…’ threaten the very space of practitioners for any attempt by the
latter to correct the misrepresentations are denounced as fascism. It the invented
‘alternative’ becomes the mainstream, how exactly will the displaced original
survive? If it sounds hyperbolic, just think of ‘Tantra’ in the western
context. The immediate imagery is of ‘Tantrik sex’ and not of an alternate
means of worship. How much respect will others have for Hindus if all their
awareness of the faith is underlined by such abominations as ‘the red dot is
symbolic of menstrual fluid’, ‘breaking of coconut is a proxy for human
sacrifice’, ‘the handing over of a staff as the time of the sacred thread
ceremony is symbolic of the father handing over his penis to his son’. This
list can go on and on. Do people, or at least who believe, not have both a
right and a duty to contest such portrayals of their faith?
Overall, ‘The Hindus…’ is just a ghastly work. It is a sad commentary on the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of some of our academicians that they are fighting for restitution of mischief and falsehoods.
PS
In a previous post, I had
shared my views on why Prof Wendy Doniger’s – Hindus, An Alternative History is
a bad book! In another post, I had commented on the Supreme Court upholding the
ban on RV Bhasin’s book on grounds of social peace. In yet another post, I had
expressed my anguish on the systemized muzzling of contrarian views. Hence, I
have attempted not to repeat myself in the above note.
What an excellent piece....The newspaper I read (The Hindu) dedicated more than 10 articles on the so called "Freedom of expression" when this case came to the fore....it could dedicate only 1 or 2 to the national security issues like Sindhuratna tragedy...thank you so much for posting this sir! __/\__
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words Abhinit
ReplyDelete