***Note: The following work is solely that of Elizabeth Jordan. Any attempt to copy it without permission from the author is plagiarism and not worth it since you will be caught.***

Hindu Nationalism
Written for Religions of South Asia
Sophomore Year - Fall 1998

In 1947, India was granted its independence from Great Britain and partitioned into two nations: India, which is predominantly Hindu, and Pakistan, which is predominantly Muslim. India began developing as a secular nation-state under the guidance of leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawarhal Nehru who felt that Hindu tolerance towards followers of other religious traditions (especially Islam) must be exhibited in order to form a strong India. In the past, Hindus and Muslims have coexisted in India relatively peacefully despite Muslim rule of the area during the Delhi Sultanate (ca. 1100) and the Mughal Empire (1526 - ca. 1720) (Class Notes 12/1). Recently, however, members of the Hindu majority in India have become resentful of the Muslim presence in the country and have accelerated a Hindu Nationalist movement calling for India to become a Hindu state rather than a secular one. This movement, despite some non-violent members in it, has become increasingly violent towards the Muslim majority. This violence has been most apparent to the international community in the city of Ayodhya in Northern India with the destruction of a mosque in December of 1992 (Flood 264). Leaders of this movement claim religious motivation behind their actions but I believe their primary concerns are political and social.

Despite recent violence between Hindus and Muslims in India, the two religious traditions share some common traditional practices. The most obvious example of this is the similarities between the bhakti traditions in Hinduism and Sufism in Islam. The bhakti traditions in Hinduism emphasize a personal relationship between the god and the follower and often reject "institutionalized forms of religions, such as formal temple worship... in favour of an immediate experience of the divine" (Flood 131). This tradition also developed the practice of writing akam, or love, poetry to the deities in order to exhibit the different ways in which the god could be approached by the followers. For example, poets like Mahadeviyakka wrote poetry to Shiva in which she addresses him as a lover would address her beloved, saying: "I will make Him my good husband" (Mahadeviyakka 141). This tradition allowed the followers of Hinduism to approach the deities on a more human level. Also, since the poems were written in native languages of Indians rather than Sanskrit, they made devotion an attainable goal for any person regardless of his or her education (Flood 129). After the creation of the Delhi Sultanate and Muslim rule in India, most Hindu kings were pushed to the southern region of the subcontinent (Class Notes 12/1). This concentration of Hindu leaders and scholars combined with the threat Hindus felt from the presence of Islam contributed to a greater focus on bhakti traditions (Davis 38).

In Islam, on the other hand, a mystic tradition called Sufism developed as a "spiritual reaction" to the prosperity and high standards of living in Muslim centers after the initial spread of Islam in the Middle East and North Africa (Denny 72). Some Sufis believe that the "wealth and pleasures of this world" are distractions that hinder one’s ability to submit one’s self to God and force a person to focus too much on this life as opposed to the more important life that will come after death (Denny 72). Although Sufis still follow the five pillars of Islam--the belief that "‘There is no god but God.’", the practice of praying five times a day facing Mecca, payment of the zakat (religious tax) for welfare of certain Muslims, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca (Denny 47-53)--they also developed new religious practices that focus on a direct experience of God (Denny 73). Sufis used the story of Muhammad’s ascension into heaven while he was still alive to emphasize the idea that any human being "may experience God directly and definitively in this life" (Denny 73) much as bhakti traditions in Hinduism worked to create a direct relationship between Hindu followers and gods.

In the Indian subcontinent, the Sufis also developed a poetic tradition influenced by bhakti traditions. In their poems, Sufis such as Sultan Bahu and Bulleh Shah also posited themselves in a relationship with God in which they were lovers and God their beloved (David 36; Mir 519). Both of these poets also wrote in their native language, Punjabi, in order to make their poetry more accessible to people of all classes and castes. Through the similarities between Sufism and the bhakti traditions, Sufi teachers were able to convert large numbers of Hindus to Islam and fostered the creation of Islam as "a truly indigenous Indian religion" (Davis 37).

Despite the similarities between Sufism and bhakti traditions, Islam and Hinduism are still quite different religious traditions. Islam is a monotheistic tradition more similar to Judaism and Christianity than Hinduism. In fact, the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, contains many stories from the Jewish and Christian Old Testament. Islam involves more than a religious system of beliefs. It is "a complete way of life" that governs everything from religion to politics to economics and social relations (Denny 6). The most important belief of Islam is that "‘There is no God but God." (Denny 47). Thus the gravest sin a person can commit according to Islam is the worship of anything other than God; including the self, money, or other gods or idols. This is know as shirk (Denny 44).

Hindus, on the other hand, worship many gods and goddesses like Shiva, Krishna, Ram and Durga. Thus when Muslims entered the Indian subcontinent under the direction of Mahmud and others, Hindu temples and monasteries were destroyed in an effort both to extend control and to destroy the centers of idol worship (Davis 32). This destruction of temples in the past has recently become a point of dissension between Hindus and Muslims in India especially in the city of Ayodhya. Some Hindus, mainly members of Hindu nationalist political parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), believe that in 1528 a Mughal general, Babar, destroyed Hindu temple in Ayodhya to build a mosque (Vanderveer 2). This mosque has become the focus of a Hindu nationalist attack on Muslims in India and a rally point for Hindus who wish to see India become a Hindu state since it is believed that the mosque rests on the very spot at which the god Ram was born ("In the Name of God").

Hindus and Muslims lived and worshipped together peacefully in Ayodhya under British rule. After independence, however, tensions between the two religious communities began to flare up. On the night of 22-23 December 1949, Hindu nationalists organized by K.K. Nayar placed an idol of Ram in the mosque build by Babar in 1528 (Flood 264). Although officials were aware who was responsible for placing the idol in the mosque, no one was ever prosecuted for the act. The Indian government subsequently closed the mosque to both Hindus and Muslims. The Muslim populations was told that the mosque would be reopened for prayers but it remained closed to them until 1992 when it was destroyed ("In the Name of God" and Flood 264). In 1989, the mosque was opened to Hindus so that they could worship the idol of Ram that some believed had miraculously appeared in the mosque. After the opening of the mosque to Hindus the World Hindu Organization (VHP) began a campaign collecting bricks to build a temple for Ram where the mosque currently stood. The organization collected thousands of bricks, mainly from Western countries such as the United States and Canada ("In the Name of God"). Ironically, much of the financial support of the Hindu Nationalist movement whose goal is to rid India of external or foreign influences has come from outside of India.

The BJP, along with organizations such as the World Hindu Organization (VHP), began in the late 1980s and early 1990s to demand that the mosque in Ayodhya be torn down in order to build a grand temple to Lord Ram. The justification that they provided for the destruction of the mosque was that it had been built only after the demolition of a Hindu temple that had marked the spot of Ram’s birth. The BJP and its leader, L.K. Advani, claimed that the spot was sacred to Hindus and should thus be a place only for Hindu worship ("In the Name of God"). Also, members of the BJP and other Hindu nationalists feel that Muslims are foreign to the subcontinent and the only state that should exist in the region is a Hindu one since Hindus are the indigenous people to the area (Flood 262).

Hindu nationalism as promoted by the BJP "stresses Hindutva, Hinduness" (Vanderveer 1), the idea that there is no distinction between being Hindu and being Indian; they are one in the same. Thus India must necessarily be a Hindu state since it need not concern itself with populations other than the Hindus. Even if one does not equate being Indian with being Hindu, Hindu nationalists argue that since Hindus form a majority, "India should be ruled by them" (Vanderveer 2).

Despite the religious rhetoric of the temple-mosque debate in Ayodhya and across India, it is rather clear that the destruction of the mosque has little to do with promoting Hindu worship or identity. It is most probably a political ploy by members of the upper castes to regain political and social control in India. After independence was granted, India worked to create secular institutions that would promote equal social conditions among peoples of all castes. Proponents of this ideal included such leaders as Mahatma Gandhi (Flood 259). In order to promote the social standing of people of "backwards castes" the Indian government created the Mandal Commission. This commission instituted a reservation system in which certain positions in the workforce and educational institutions were reserved for members of the "backwards castes" (Vanderveer 4). In 1990, the Indian government under Prime Minister V.P. Singh decided "to implement an earlier report of the Mandal Commission that suggested a considerable increase in the number of places reserved for the so-called backward castes" (Vanderveer 4). This decision led to protests across India and a revival of BJP efforts to make India a Hindu state.

In 1990, after the Mandal decision, L.K. Advani began a "ritual procession" in which his goal was to travel through ten states and end up in Ayodhya in order to destroy the mosque and construct a temple to Ram (Vanderveer 5). However, due to the threat of riots between Muslims and Hindus, Advani was arrested before he could reach Ayodhya. His followers, on the other hand, reached Ayodhya on October 30 and stormed the mosque but were not successful in destroying it (In the Name of God). In December of 1992, however, about 100,000 kar sevaks (volunteers) stormed the mosque in Ayodhya and demolished it (Flood 264).

It is obvious that the destruction of the mosque was politically-motivated not religiously-motivated. The BJP claimed that the mosque must be destroyed in order to build a temple. However, according to Hindu tradition and Lal Das, the priest interviewed in In the Name of God, once an icon has been placed in a building, that building becomes a temple no matter what function it had served before. Therefore, the mosque in Ayodhya had been a temple since the day the statue of Ram was placed inside it. The mosque did not need to be destroyed in order for a temple to be built; the mosque was a temple (In the Name of God). The calls for destruction of the mosque were not to protect Hindu tradition. Members of the BJP felt threatened by the presence of Muslims and backward castes because of the reservation system implemented by the Mandal Commission and the destruction of the mosque was a direct attack on the Muslim community, not a method for protecting the birthplace of Lord Ram.

Conflicts between Muslims and Hindus in India continue to this day. Despite the religious rhetoric used by some Hindu nationalists, I am not convinced that their motives are strictly spiritual. The Hindu Nationalist movement seems more like a tool used by upper-caste Hindus to secure their social and political dominance in the country. This was most obvious to me during the film In the Name of God when a leader of the nationalist movement criticized a member of the government for not supporting the nationalist movement by accusing him of being from a backward caste. I do not believe this is a struggle just between Muslims and Hindus but really a struggle along caste and class lines.

Works Cited

Class Notes. Religions of South Asia. Dr. Craddock. Fall 1998.

Davis, Richard. H. "Islam in India." Religions of India in Practice. Edited by Donald S. Lopez.

Denny, Frederick M. Islam and the Muslim Community. HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 1987.

Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1996.

In the Name of God. Film.

Mahadeviyakka. Translated by A.K. Ramanujan. Speaking of Siva. Poem Number 328.

Mir, Mustansir. "Teachings of Two Punjabi Sufi Poets." Religions of India in Practice. Edited by Donald S. Lopez.

Vanderveer, Peter. Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India.