Parallax View: Why are we so horrified by Hindu terror?

Okay, time to face facts. The term Hindu terror may suffer from the same problems as the phrase Muslim terror

– that terror has no religion. But it is no longer possible to deny that some of the terror attacks that have occurred over the last few years have been perpetrated by

Hindus. Nor can we dispute that not only were the terrorists Hindus but they acted in the name of their version of Hinduism. They were seeking revenge on behalf of Hindus and were out to specifically kill Muslims.

 

   I make no judgements about the individual guilt of such people as Aseemanand, Pragya and the rest. A judicial process is underway and the courts will decide whether they are innocent or guilty as charged. But equally, there seems to be compelling evidence that these plots involved Hindus and that this evidence is at least as compelling as the case against the many Muslims who have been charged in other terror attacks.

 

   So, here’s my question: why are we so horrified?

 

   When I say ‘we’, I exclude non-Hindus or even the hard secularists who have always taken the line that there is as much Hindu terrorism as there is Islamic terrorism. When I say ‘we’, I mean people of my bent of mind: Hindus (or, in my case, Jains) with a broadly secular outlook, who bear no animus towards any other community, who are horrified by all forms of communalism and who are deeply committed to the idea of India.

 

   Rightly or wrongly, I believe that the majority of India’s Hindus fall into the same category as me.

 

   My first reaction when the reports of Hindu terror surfaced was one of disbelief. My second reaction was the cynical thought that perhaps the police were framing the Hindus they had arrested. This is not as unbelievable as it may sound. Immediately after the Samjhauta Express was bombed, the police declared that they knew the identities of the Pakistan-based terrorists who had carried out the attack. We even asked Pakistan for help in apprehending the perpetrators. Now, the police are claiming, with equal confidence, that Hindu organizations planned the bombings. So, a frame-up is not exactly out of the question.

 

   My third reaction was that, even if those arrested had not been framed, they constituted a tiny fringe element with no links to any mainstream group. All religions have lunatics at their edges. Why should Hinduism be any different? In this respect, at least, I may have been too optimistic. It is nobody’s case that the terrorists are representative of the RSS. But equally, these are not fringe figures. These are people with strong links to the Sangh Parivar, people whose causes have been openly supported by important BJP leaders.

 

   And yet, I continue to be horrified and disbelieving.

 

   The roots of my disbelief lie not in the facts of the case or in any special sympathy for Aseemanand, Pragya and the rest. They lie in my conviction – shared, I suspect, by most Hindus – that Hinduism is not a violent religion. Oh yes, it can be a deeply unjust religion (the caste system, for instance) but it is not one that drives people to violence in its name. The concept of holy war is integral to Islam and more people have died in the name of Christianity through the ages than the total population of today’s Europe.

 

   These religions are significantly different from Hinduism – an organised clergy, an obligation to proselytise, and contempt for non-believers who do not know the true path to God. Hinduism is a live-and-let-live kind of faith. Hindus don’t convert other people. They don’t bother too much about other people’s religions or care whether the rest of the world manages to get to heaven. And rarely, do Hindus organise themselves to fight religious or other invasions. If they did, then India would not have been colonised or even, invaded, so often in our history.

 

"Hinduism has had its religious nutters from the days of Nathuram Godse. But no matter how much blood they have spilled, very little of it has splashed on the average Hindu or changed his essential tolerant, non-violent nature."

   The notion, therefore, that Swamis and Sadhus can discuss plastic explosives and the planting of bombs in areas where they can cause the highest number of civilian casualties strikes most of us as bizarre or even surreal. That’s not how Hindu holy men operate. That is not our faith. That is not our tradition. And that is not our way.

 

   Thinking back now – after the revelations of the last fortnight – I am beginning to wonder if perhaps we have been too optimistic. Yes, Hinduism is a peaceful religion. But ever since the 20th century, it has contained some violent elements. As much as we mourn Gandhiji, we rarely refer to the fact that his assassination was the result of a conspiracy by Hindu religious fanatics. Some of those involved in the conspiracy were followers of Veer Savarkar and though Savarkar was later acquitted of any involvement in the assassination, we cannot take the line that he was a fringe figure (the BJP government insisted on hanging his picture in Parliament) or that his followers represented some obscure lunatic tradition.

 

   Unfortunately, there has always been a violent tradition at the heart of a certain kind of Hindu right wing.

 

   Scholars will tell you that political Hinduism began emerging in the 1920s. In many ways, it was a reflection of political Islam. Because Muslims were quite happy to organise themselves politically on the basis of religion, some Hindus felt that it was time to create a counter. That kind of religious political organisation was alien to Hindu tradition through the centuries – and therefore, it did not accurately reflect the Hindu tradition in many respects, including non-violence.

 

   In the 1980s, when the Ayodhya movement was sweeping north India, I asked Dr Karan Singh, a great Hindu scholar, what he made of this kind of religious revivalism. Dr Singh argued that it did not have its roots in any Hindu tradition, that its ethos was overwhelmingly masculine and macho (how often did the Ram movement refer to Sita?) and that it represented a Semitization of Hinduism.

 

   I have no reason to disagree with Dr Singh. Over the last 100 years we have seen the emergence of a sort of competitive communalism. As Muslims begin to organise themselves on the basis of religion, some Hindus feel obliged to mirror that example. The terrorism and the violence are consequences of this sort of political Hinduism. And as terrorism that is sanctioned by some Islamic leaders grows some self-appointed Hindu religious leaders feel obliged to follow suit.

 

   And yet, despite my sense of horror and disbelief, I am not unduly pessimistic. The real danger with terrorism in the name of Islam is not that the terrorists kill a few people but that they become heroes afterwards. As tragic as Salman Taseer’s assassination was, the bigger tragedy is that the man who killed him is being lionised by so many educated Pakistanis.

 

   In the case of the Hindus accused of terror, there is no sense of that happening. Most of us are just shocked and horrified. Even those sympathetic to the Hindus arrested on terror charges only claim that they have been framed or that confessions have been secured through coercion. Nobody of any consequence says, “If Aseemanand really suggested planting bombs to kill Muslims in Malegaon, then he is a true Hindu hero.”

 

   Ultimately, it is the sense of disbelief felt by ordinary Hindus that makes me optimistic about the future of Indian secularism. Even those of us who are reluctantly coming around to the view that there are Hindu terrorists, believe that such people are a disgrace to the Hindu tradition of tolerance and non-violence. As far as we are concerned, they have no business calling themselves Swamis, Sadhus and Sadhvis.

 

   That’s what gives me hope. Hinduism has had its religious nutters from the days of Nathuram Godse. But no matter how much blood they have spilled, very little of it has splashed on the average Hindu or changed his essential tolerant, non-violent nature.