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Briefing

The Struggle for National Identity
By Ashutosh Varshney

Imagine two Indians, Vaidya and Bhatt, each representing a contrasting view of India's national identity. Vaidya's view is taken from Mahatma Gandhi, unquestionably the father of Indian independence. This view is known as "composite nationalism," or what we today would call multiculturalism. In contrast, Bhatt's view focuses on the primacy of Hindus in India and demands that all non-Hindu groups should play a secondary role in national life. They "can stay as a younger brother," is how Bhatt puts it. This view is called "Hindu nationalism."

Roughly 82 percent of India is Hindu and the remaining 18 percent, numbering between 190 and 200 million people, belong to a variety of faiths: Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Judaism, etc. At nearly 12.8 percent, and numbering about 130 million, Muslims are the largest minority. Finally, at two percent, and numbering approximately 20 million, Christians are the third largest Indian minority. Hindu nationalism has historically been hostile to these last two religious communities in India.

Gandhian composite nationalism drove India's freedom movement and is the foundation of modern India's constitution. Hindu nationalism, a minor force during India's freedom movement, as well as for four decades after independence, has become a powerful force since the late 1980s. Though it has not been able to defeat the multicultural view of India completely, it has certainly been in ascendance. Hindu nationalists are part of a ruling coalition in the federal government in Delhi. Of the major states in India, only in the state of Gujarat have they been able to run the government entirely on their own in recent times.

What are the basic sources of difference between India's founding principles and Hindu nationalists? According to composite nationalism, being a good Muslim is perfectly consistent with being a good Indian. Religion (and language) do not define India; India is multicultural and pluralist. Pluralism is embodied in India's laws (such as protection of minority rights and educational institutions) and in political institutions (such as India's federal system, which -- among other things -- allows Indian states to determine for themselves which of the country's many languages it will use for official business).

The Hindu nationalists argue that emotions and loyalty make a nation, not laws and institutions. Laws, they say, can always be politically manipulated. One should explicitly ground politics in Hinduism, not in laws and institutions.

But who is a Hindu? Savarkar, the ideological father of Hindu nationalism, gave a definition in Hindutva: "A Hindu means a person who regards this land...from the Indus to the seas as his fatherland (pitribhumi) as well as his holy land (punyabhumi)." The definition is thus territorial (land between the Indus and the seas), genealogical ("fatherland") and religious ("holy land"). Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists can be part of this definition for they meet all three criteria. All of these religions were born in India. Christians, Jews, Parsis and Muslims can meet only two, for India is not their holy land.

How can such "non-Hindu" groups be part of India? By cultural (not political) assimilation, say the Hindu nationalists. Parsis and Jews, they argue, are already assimilated, becoming part of the nation's mainstream. This leaves us with the Christians and Muslims. "They," wrote Savarkar, "cannot be recognized as Hindus. For though Hindustan (India) to them is the fatherland as to any other Hindu, yet it is not to them a holy land too. Their holy land is far off in Arabia or Palestine.... Their love is divided."

This forms the basis for Hindu nationalism's adversarial relationship with India's Christians and Muslims. Of the two, ultimately, Muslims have been designated as the principal adversary of Hindu nationalism -- partly because of their numbers, and partly because a Muslim homeland in the form of Pakistan, after all, did partition India in 1947.

According to the Hindu nationalist ideology, to become part of the Indian nation, Muslims must: accept the centrality of Hinduism to Indian civilization; remorsefully accept that Muslim rulers of India between the years 1000 and 1757 destroyed pillars of Hindu civilization, especially Hindu Temples; not claim special privileges such as maintenance of religious personal laws (These are special laws that govern minorities in such non-criminal matters as marriage, divorce and inheritance.); and not demand special state grants for their educational institutions.

In India, scholars have repeatedly told us, Islam developed two broad forms: syncretistic, and exclusivist. The former has a doctrine adapted to local culture, while the latter attempts to exclude all ideas that were not part of original Islamic doctrine. In India, syncretistic Islam integrated into the pre-existing Indian culture long ago. Syncretistic Islam has produced some of the pillars of Indian culture, music, poetry and literature. Indian Muslims of various hues have also fought wars against Pakistan.

The political and ideological battle of the Hindu nationalists should be against Islamic fundamentalism and Muslim separatism, not against everybody who professes faith in Islam. By generating an anti-Muslim discourse, the Hindu nationalists risk embittering all of the country's 120 to 130 million Muslims permanently, including those with syncretistic attitudes toward the majority Hindu culture.

The battle between Bhatt and Vaidya is a battle for the essence, peace and dignity of India. Hindu nationalists have still to convince a majority, or plurality, of Indian voters -- including Hindu voters -- that they should shed their multicultural moorings. On the basis of electoral statistics, scholars of Indian politics continue to believe that the odds of a multicultural India disappearing are very low. India's democracy, in short, is the best bulwark against the spread of Hindu nationalism as an ideology.

Ashutosh Varshney is the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he is also a professor of political science. This essay draws from the author's latest book, "Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India." His writing has also appeared in the THE FINANCIAL TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST and NEWSWEEK.