These latter qualities of the vague and empty negative concept of “Hindu”
because Hinduism is not a proper Religion like Islam or Christianity or something fairer skinned people push down the throats of dusky folk they conquered
were best suited for its political use to represent a nominal unity whereas in reality there was not only caste-based segregation but increasingly deep caste contestation. It was like claiming that American slavery was the religion of the Blacks because it kept them socially tied to the Whites in all aspects of daily life.What was the religion of the Blacks in America? It was Christianity. It is Christianity though no doubt some have converted to Islam or the Ba'hai or other faiths. Is African American Christianity- which Shyamala Harris chose as the religion for her two daughters- inferior to White Christianity? Does anybody believe that? Billy Graham was, no doubt, a great evangelist. But Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is martyr of the Church. There is a holiday named after him. Black Christianity is now the mainstream Christianity. Black Gospel Music is Gospel Music. Jesse Jackson and Obama and now Kamala Harris are proud to be Christian and Christians are proud of them. At least in this respect, there is no 'tokenism', no 'affirmative action'.
In 1993, it became obvious that scholars and teachers do not have the books readily at hand with which to address adequately the intellectual challenges posed by the recent history of communalism in India.
Rajiv Gandhi- whom people identified with Lord Ram- decided to open the birthplace of Lord Ram to year-round Hindu worship. Had he lived, he'd have built a big Temple there. The Muslims did sulk a little but they had no appetite to embrace the fate of the Sikhs. Anyway, they received sops in the shape of Shah Bano and Salman Rushdie and so forth. Anyway, the thing really was no big deal. Muslims had not worshipped at the structure since 1949. Hindu worship had been continuous (because a priest conducted rituals once a year) so, in Law, the place was Hindu though the Muslims were entitled to compensation. At any rate, this was the recent Supreme Court judgment.
With hindsight, the entire matter had nothing to do with 'communalism' and everything to do with the Law.
Since smart Americans study the Law and get rich while stupid Americans- who can't understand the Law- become Professors of the sort of shite subjects where 'affirmative action' can burgeon- but only as a fucking nuisance- it followed that some American shithead would seek to fuck up India by getting the Ford Foundation & the Dept. of Education to finance some downright racist mischief.
When the South Asia faculty and graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania resolved to address this need, we received generous help in planning from three experts in the field: Amrita Basu (Political Science, Amherst College), Sandria Freitag (History, American Historical Association), and Peter van der Veer (Anthropology, University of Amsterdam).
Basu was born and brought up in America. Like the other two, she knew shit about India.
We then acquired funds from the Ford Foundation's International Predissertation Fellowship Program for an interdisciplinary social science seminar on "The Problematics of Identities and States." We devoted the 1993-4 South Asia Regional Studies Seminar, funded by our Title VI grant from the Department of Education, to the theme, "Exploring Communalism in South Asia."
So, these guys got money from organizations which just took their word for it that they knew what they were talking about.
We designed Penn's South Asia Seminar program for 1993-4 academic year around the project of producing a reasonably priced, accessible book representing diverse disciplinary perspectives on communalism, written for a broadly defined audience of readers in the U.S. and worldwide. This volume is the result.
But what was the result of that volume and others like it? Did 'Communalism' in India decrease? Did Academia improve? No. What these stupid cunts had done was create a 'citation cartel'. They had pushed forward an Academic 'availability cascade' such that- for the next thirty years- postgrad 'scholars' (i.e. tossers who were otherwise unemployable) had to go on regurgitating madder and madder shite.
During the 1993-4 academic year, we discussed twenty-nine papers, which covered a much broader range of issues that could be coherently addressed in one volume. As we boiled down the subject matter of the seminar in discussions, issues surrounding Hindu nationalism emerged as most critical.
The British Empire in South Asia broke up along confessional lines. Sri Lanka, as Buddhist majority, had always been separate. Then, in the Thirties, Burma went its own way with a Hindu majority Princedom choosing India not Burma on religious grounds. Next, the Muslim majority areas broke off. What was left was Hindu majority areas as the 'core' of the nation. Since States had to be reorganized on linguistic and other lines, it followed that loyalty would be to the Center. But that loyalty was Hindu. Non-Hindus were separatists, if there was money on the table for any such outcome. True, Communism once looked promising. But it was casteist and soon shat the bed performance wise.
Thus, for the Academy, 'issues surrounding Hindu nationalism' turned into saying 'fuck me, the fucking Hindus are trying to rule their own country! That is so like Fascism, dude!'
What enabled this was the fact that Sonia Gandhi was seen as an Italian Catholic rather than the widow of a Hindu dude who looked like Lord Ram. But, it seems, Sonia was conflicted. She didn't really want Rahul to be P.M. Why? Crap Congress P.Ms tend to get assassinated so that the Party can win on a sympathy wave. But this means, now Rahul is old enough to either shit or get off the pot- because he will do neither- that Modi or some other capable and competent leader will run India. That's it. That's the whole story.
This volume seeks (1) to represent the current state of research on Hindu majoritarianism in anthropology, history, political science, and religious studies;
Interestingly, that 'state of research' has neither advanced nor resiled from its stupidity. What it was, it is. But what it is is stupid, paranoid, shite.
(2) to combine methods, theories, and data from these disciplines to form an interdisciplinary framework for analysis and interpretation;
but settle for just repeating stupid lies
(3) to stimulate new research and collaboration among disciplines;
there actually were a couple of 'econometric' studies which revealed amazing things like where Muslims get a bit richer they start killing all and sundry till they are killed, robbed, and chased away after which they quieten down and start getting richer till they start killing all and sundry and are killed, robbed, and chased away.
The authors of such studies tended to be Bengali Hindus. I should mention, their methodology is for crap.
(4) to provide a multivocal, informative, and coherent book for college and university teaching and for the concerned public, which presents top quality scholarship to readers with minimal background knowledge about India;
The problem was that these 'top quality scholars' had minimal background knowledge about India. Actual Indian scholars, who wanted to get the fuck out of that shithole before they started getting more background, or back passage, knowledge of India, eagerly embraced this avenue of escape. If they got their Green Cards, good luck to them. Indians wish them well.
and (5) to formulate a responsible intellectual intervention by a substantial group of scholars from India, Europe, and the U.S. into the understanding of communalism by people who influence public policy and debate.
There was, what appeared to be a quite spectacular 'intellectual intervention'. Modi was banned from the US and Europe. Then...not so much.
David Ludden, whom I quote above, is guilty of penning the following purely Orientalist screed. I translate into non-Orientalist prose, his hysterical assertions.
Ayodhya: A Window on the World
Ayodhya; a part of the world where there has been a long running property dispute with some religious overtones and wider political significance.
Holy men declared Monday, December 6, 1992, auspicious,
Only Astrologers speak of auspiciousness. Holy men speak of what is Holy or Righteous. There is no agreement that 'Holy men' or 'Astrologers' said something had to happen on a particular date in Ayodhya. However, it is a fact that there was a political agitation which capitalized on the killing by police fire of Hindus at that spot some months earlier. The destruction of the disputed structure avenged that blood letting.
What was at stake was the question of whether the Administration would shed further blood to simply protect a ruin.
and more than 300,000 people gathered that day in Ayodhya, a pilgrimage town north of Varanasi (Benaras). Most wore the saffron color of Hindu nationalism.
Saffron is the sacred color of Hindu renunciation. There is no Hindu nationalism separate from Indian nationalism quite simply because India is an overwhelmingly Hindu country from which Muslims and Buddhists split off and from which some Christians, too, would like to split off.
At mid-day, a vanguard among them broke down police barricades around a mosque called the Babri Masjid, built in 1528 by the first Mughal emperor of India, Babar.
Why? Because the police would not repeat the mistake of firing on the Hindus to protect a mere ruin.
Cheering men swarmed the domes of the old mosque
a mosque is not a mosque unless it is used for Islamic worship. Muslim prayers there had stopped in 1949. But the place had been opened to Hindu worship.
and in five hours they hammered and axed it to the ground. Video cameras hummed. Eye-witnesses took notes for news reports around the world. Hindu leaders, who had mobilized for this event since 1984, watched with satisfaction. For they and their followers believe that god Rama was born here and that Babar had destroyed Rama's temple (mandir) to build his mosque (masjid).
This is Orientalism- and cheap journalism- gone mad! How the fuck would Ludden know what 'Hindu leaders' believed? Why does the cunt think he himself will be believed by 'scholars'? Is it coz Whitey has magical powers to understand the minds of dogs and cats and Hindus? Fuck does Ludden think he is? Rudyard sodding Kipling?
The construction of the new Rama temple was begun that evening on the rubble of the Babri Masjid. Government officials looked on ineffectually. Violence triggered by the demolition killed 1,700 people and injured 5,500 over the next four months.
Yup. Muslims got stroppy. But they were killed disproportionately- save in Bangladesh where they monopolized the violence- and so they ceased to be stroppy. But this is an old story.
Supporters justify the action at Ayodhya as the liberation of a Hindu sacred space to unify the Indian nation.
No. What they said was that 'Mullah' Mulayam Singh must be taught a lesson. The blood he shed must be vindicated. Also, fuck the Courts. They will take thirty years to decide this.
In the end the Courts did take 30 years but by then the Hindus had realized this was a good thing. The Bench should decide on issues of property. Different Hindu sects may have had rival claims on the spot. The last thing the country needs is Sadhus fighting in the streets.
Critics call it violence against Muslims and Indian civil society.
Except there was no violence against Muslims save by way of retaliation. As for 'Indian civil society'- you can't beat up something which does not exist, as the Emergency had amply shown.
In this volume, we explore the mobilizations, genealogies, and interpretations
all of which were shit
that locate this one very emotional and symbolic day in the struggles that are underway to redefine India politically in the age after the Cold War.
But Indira had already seen that the Communists were crap. India resiled from that shite before even the fall of the Gang of 4. The Soviets were cool with that. They could see that Atal Behari was just as enthusiastic for the Defense Pact as his Congress predecessors and successors.
Still, it must be said, Indian Communism needn't have just curled up and died. It could have embraced Chinese style export led industrialization without pissing off the peasantry too much.
Ayodhya is a window on a world of conflict inside nationalism, which came into being in the 1980s,
Not really. Rajiv fell because of corruption. He was on his way back to power because of his charisma- or 'karishma'- as a guy who looked and sounded like Lord Ram. Sonia, Sita to Rajiv's Ram, was the 'pativrata' Regent to Rahul whom we all wanted to see on his father's throne. But Rahul refused to step up to the plate, probably for the excellent reason that, in India, assassination has habitually tempered autocracy (at least when it comes to people whose surname is Gandhi).
and also onto the global staging of national politics and cultures in the late twentieth century.
fuck is that supposed to mean?
Ayodhya symbolizes Hindu-Muslim conflict in South Asia
No. Killing, raping and ethnic cleansing symbolizes Hindu-Muslim conflict in South Asia. But it also characterizes conflict in places where there are no Hindus.
and conjures the nightmare of nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
Utterly mad! Massive ethnic cleansing on either side won't cause nuclear war. Territorial aggression may do so.
Like other communal conflicts, communalism in India is also international (Midalarsky 1992).
No it isn't. Nobody cares.
Not only in India, but also in France,
what fucking communalism in France was 'internationalized'? None at all.
(the former) Yugoslavia,
that was a military conflict of a Nationalist type, though no doubt this sub-Nationalism had a religious dimension.
Turkey,
Does this cretin mean Kurdish separatism? But that has nothing to do with religion.
Germany,
Germany? Why not add Ireland and Iceland and Canada?
the U.S.,
Very true! Communal violence and ethnic cleansing in the US has led to UN intervention. The Chinese Army has established zones of safety for Jews and Blacks in China Towns in Red States.
Sri Lanka, Russia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Iran -- anywhere that minorities face hostile majoritarianism -- minority conditions worsened in the 1980s (Gurr 1993).
But this did not change anything unless there was actual military conflict. The fact is, when Imperialism fell to Nationalism, majoritarianism triumphed. Nobody gives a shit about minorities- though they may pretend otherwise if there's a little money in it.
Since the late 1970s, nationalist movements based on the assertion that only one majority ethnic or religious group defines a nation have emerged with new cultural force and creativity --
fuck off! This happened much before the Seventies. Either an Emperor protects minorities- because it pays to do so- or Nations overthrow Emperors and tolerate minorities- if it pays to do so.
with new rituals and spectacles, including televised violence -- to revalorize old emotions and symbolic resources.
Where did this happen? India? Nope. Confessional Nationalism triumphed at the ballot box in 1946. At a later point there was some talk of Socialism but that was dead in the water by the late Seventies.
As we will see, the men who destroyed Babar's mosque
Which was not a mosque- Muslims had ceased to worship there in 1949, though- since 1937, they could only do so on Friday with a police escort. Also the place was not built by Babar.
marched to a cultural movement
which dates back to the foundation of the Hindu Mahasabha in 1915. Incidentally, Mahatma Gandhi turned up at that conclave.
whose ideas, images, media, organizations, and resources are transnational in form, scope, and influence.
Nonsense! They aren't even fully National. But, because the RSS isn't corrupt or useless, the BJP has prevailed in the North.
Ayodhya is a refraction of "ethnic cleansing" in Serbia,
Then how come no fucking ethnic cleansing- except of Hindus in Kashmir Valley- has occurred? There was no 'refraction' at all. Yugoslavia was bound to break up because Croats hated Serbs and, Bosnians, Slovenes and so forth, too, wanted to go their own way. The Balkans like being balkanized. Hindu India doesn't.
the "moral majority" in the U.S., and other movements that define nations by ethnicity and religion.
So, guys like Reagan, the Bushes, Condaleeza Rice, Mitt Romney etc. are all just as good or bad as Milosevic!
It now becomes clear that stupid American academics hated their own country and considered it the site of 'Race War'. But they couldn't say so without risking their jobs. So they pretended to be fighting Fascism in far off places. Some worthless academics from those far off places where anxious to earn a little hard currency and maybe a teaching gig and a Green Card in America. So they talked this type of tripe. Thus, a citation cartel was created. But, politically, the thing was counter-productive. Furthermore, the entire availability cascade became adversely selective intellectually speaking. There was a time when people with decent English piled on to it. Now you have illiterate cretins like Mohan and Dwiwedi bleating this nonsense. It is difficult to see how the thing could degenerate even further. The answer, I suppose, is that Rahul Baba could take it up- unless he has and nobody noticed coz the guy is hysterically unintelligible in any language.
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