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Pradip N. Thomas
The reports of an upsurge in inter-religious conflicts in India – that peaked in December 1998 in the state of Gujarat, and of sporadic violence against religious minorities and missionaries in the Indian states of Orissa, Bihar, Karnataka and Kerala during the first half of 1999, once again brought into sharp relief some of the tensions besetting democracy in India.1 While Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs have suffered the consequences of planned and random inter-religious, ‘communal’ violence for years, it is only recently that the Christian minority has become a target of such violence. The following article explores this scenario.
According to some newspaper reports, particularly the vernacular press in the Hindi belt, the issue of ‘conversion’ was the primary reason for the violence. Other newspapers, especially sections of the moderate English press, were of the opinion that the violence was premeditated, and orchestrated by the Hindu nationalist network, collectively known as the Sangh Parivar, with the tacit encouragement of one of its members, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Members of the Sangh Parivar include the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal, among others. The gradual but deliberate ascendance of the RSS network, from relative obscurity in the 1920s, and its marginalisation after an ex-member, Nathuram Godse, was found guilty of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, to become the power behind the throne recently, is according to some observers, very similar to the rise of National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s.2 While there are differences, the continuities between these two types of nationalisms run deep, and RSS stalwarts like D. Savarkar, M. S. Golwalkar and K. B. Hedgewar, and in particular the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, have sometimes commended Hitler and the ideology of Nazism.
The politics of religious nationalism in India has been fuelled by a variety of fears and interests - imagined, manufactured, resurrected, real – that have coalesced to form part of the national imaginary of a large section of people belonging to the majority community, i.e. the Hindus. It has also correspondingly affected the worldview of minorities, in particular Muslims and Christians in India today. The dominant ‘Hindutva’, meaning Hindu Nation version of this story, is made up of many strands supplied by certain groups of people – as for example:
1) disaffected Hindu priests and mahants,3 mainly Brahmin, whose ritual, sacral powers have been marginalised in the context of secular India.
2) Hindu nationalists and their intellectual supporters who are a) keen to restore the physical and spiritual unity, meaning the Hindu ethos, of India through righting the wrongs inflicted by countless Mughal rulers on India in the past; b) united in their efforts to counter the perceived hegemony of socialists and secularists in present-day India in education and opinion making; c) committed to resisting the expansionist zeal of adherents belonging to the Semitic religions in India and their allies abroad; d) united in deploying the symbol of a militant and virile Lord Rama in their efforts to mobilise Hindus against the enemies of the nation within, particularly non-Hindu minorities, and without, the geo-political aspirations of China and Pakistan in particular, along with the threat from the immediate West, the hard-line Taliban in Afghanistan, and in the East, the Sino-Myanmarese axis; and e) wedded to the project of institutionalising and centralising an all India version of Hinduism.
3) Hindu traders who have had to compete with their Muslim counterparts in the retail of brassware, handicrafts, textiles, and other goods.
4) The diaspora Hindu community from the USA, Europe and elsewhere and their many fears and grievances against exclusionary policies in their adopted country, and who have articulated trans-national longings and pan-Hindu desires via movements such as the World Council of Hindus.
5) High caste Hindus who are against the practice of positive discrimination in favour of the ‘scheduled castes’ and ‘Dalits’ in government, educational institutions and employment in general, perceived pandering to minority interests, and who blame Christian missions and NGOs for the empowerment of the lower castes and indigenous peoples.
6) The many Hindus living in North India, the victims of the Partition, who have not reconciled themselves to memories of the loss of family, friends and property during that violent episode in Indian history.
These strands, along with others, form a complex web of longings, fears, aspirations and counter-aspirations that has been over-simplified for popular consumption by nationalist Hindu politicians. Popular sound-bites – that India is a Hindu nation, that Indian identity is co-terminous with Hindu identity, that minorities must recognise the primacy of the Hindu state or face being alienated - are some of the popular slogans that have extensive legitimacy, particularly in the Hindi-Hindu heartland. In a context characterised by widespread economic and political insecurities, the exploitation of such primary fears through the naming of enemies, the emphasis on identity and the framing of exclusive Hindutva futures, guarantees certainty and hope to some sections of society at the expense of others.
The key beneficiary of this project has undoubtedly been the BJP-led central government in power until recently. It has assiduously built upon the failures of previous governments in the arena of minority politics, in particular the Congress, created alliances with other nationalist groups and organisations, manipulated popular religious sentiments based on an exclusive version of identity-speak and exploited religious symbolism to great effect through spectacles like the Rath Yatra,4 televised mythologies and a variety of information/communication channels. In fact, the BJP is, by a long shot, the first thoroughly modern political party in India. Its image was assiduously created and promoted by the media. It employed a wide array of spin-doctors and enjoyed extensive electronic coverage.
Against the grain: Inter-faith relationships in India
Such a selective manufacture of reality inevitably fails to account for the many lived correspondences between majorities and minorities, even in the heart of the Hindi belt, where Muslims and Hindus continue to live by side in the most unlikely places. Nandy et. al. (1997:2-3) in a study of the Ramjanmabhumi Movement that led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya nearly a decade ago allude to lived realities in this city.5 They make the point: ‘Even today, despite the bitterness of the last eight years, the flowers offered for worship in the Ayodhya temples are almost all grown by Muslims. The Muslims still weave the garlands used in the temple and produce everything necessary for dressing the icons preparatory to worship.’ They say: ‘Until some years ago, the making of the crowns of the gods was the near monopoly of Muslim master craftsmen such as Rahmat Sonar and Nannu Sonar; the thrones for the gods are even today made by the likes of Balam Mistri, a highly respected Muslim carpenter.’ Manuel (1996:122) writing of the development of Hindustani music in North India, notes its emergence in creative collaborations between Hindu and Muslim artists and patrons in colonial India.6 Even in South India, where the classical tradition of Carnatic music is dominated by the Brahmins, the discerning ear can still hear the ‘Other’ as one of ‘Us’ – like the late Sheik Moula Sahib’s nagaswaram-based rendition of the song, Mahaganapathim (Venkatasubramaniam:1998).7
A great many Christians too have contributed to an inclusive vision of India – a vision communicated through a variety of service institutions – notably in education and medical establishments. But by far the most significant witness to inter-faith life in India is what one may term the ‘daily dialogue of life’ which characterises living in many parts of India. These countless instances of intricate inter-community weavings, both formal and informal, are rarely if ever highlighted by the media. On the contrary, local media in the Hindi belt, in particular Hindi newspapers such as Aaj and Dainik Jagran have on innumerable occasions been accused of misinforming the public, misinterpreting events, adding a communal twist to reporting, and generally supporting the cause of Hindutva.8
Counter fundamentalism
It is tempting to place the entire blame for the breakdown of inter-faith relationships on the Sangh Parivar, but that would be far from the truth. Their role in the many acts of violence against minorities and the complicity of BJP-run state governments and the tacit support given by the central government to the initiators of violence cannot be denied. The prevarication shown by the BJP government and its unwillingness to condemn such violence, especially that carried out by members belonging to the Sangh Parivar, have been interpreted as an example of their inherent anti-minoritism.9
However, religious conflict in India has also been fuelled by groups from within minority religions, by Muslims and by people belonging to the Christian community who have, for instance, in their zeal to convert all ‘non’-Christians - in particular indigenous tribes and Hindus - antagonised many by their insensitivity, narrow-mindedness and disrespect for local belief systems and cultures. It can be argued that fundamentalist evangelical Christian groups, by their actions, have often contributed to undermine the development, relief, dialogue and social justice work carried out by mainstream Christian groups in India, such as the Catholics, mainline Protestants and the Orthodox over many years. Additionally, revival movements within the mainstream churches, along with positions taken by hard-line evangelical Christian communities, have contributed to a rise in inter-faith tensions. Mainstream churches, concerned over the exodus of their flock to evangelical churches, have increasingly begun to accept multi-church attendance and seem unwilling to antagonise members who entertain narrow views on inter-faith matters.
There is also a widely held feeling among the majority community that minorities have benefited from their position as a convenient vote bank for political parties, the Congress in particular, in exchange for the protection of their religious rights and institutions from state interference.10 This stands in marked contrast to the situation of the majority community, whose religious institutions, such as temples, fall under the purview of state-run boards and who therefore have had to contend with occasional state interference. Such an example of perceived bias in favour of minorities has become a matter of controversy. Minorities tend to invoke the Constitution as the basis for their right to practise religious freedom, but as contemporary events in Indonesia have borne out, the text of the Pancasila is not necessarily upheld by its implementation in real life11 – an implementation rendered difficult by the micro-politics of innumerable identity negotiations which involve the state, religious organisations, personalities and ordinary people.
In other words, the negotiations of daily life are, despite constitutional guarantees, necessarily fragile – a fact that is made even more complex in pluralist societies. It would seem that unless the concept of a multi-faith society becomes institutionalised as a practical norm, plural societies like India are bound to remain in thrall to dominant ‘interpretive’ communities and to their visions and versions of religious futures.
The South Asia correspondent for Le Figaro, François Gautier, in an article that appeared in The Hindustan Times, reprinted in Himal (March 1999) has criticised the warped, non-objective, pro-Christian bias shown by many reporters in their coverage of communal conflicts, in contrast to their reticence to highlight the plight of Hindu victims of such violence, as an example of their captivity to colonial frames of mind - a view that must have been welcomed by the then beleaguered government.12 The article also refers to ‘the aggressive methods of the Pentecost and Seventh Day Adventist missionaries’ and ‘their muscular ways of converting’ as contributing factors in the rise of inter-faith tension in parts of North India, a view also echoed by William Dalrymple (March 20,1999) in The Guardian Weekend.13
Dalrymple refers to the new-wave Pentecostalist movements spreading through India, their connections with a variety of fundamentalist Christian missions located in the Bible belt in the USA and to their overtly anti-Hindu web-sites. While Gautier’s inference that journalists in India are captive to colonial frames of mind is misplaced, given that journalists in India are recognised for their independent reporting standards – a tradition that stands vindicated in contrast with the coverage by the Western press of the war in the Balkans - his comments on insensitive Christian evangelism in India remain a fair critique.
Such robustly critical and provocative pieces of journalism stand in marked contrast to communiqués from the ecumenical Christian community in India, who have in general opted for a defensive, rather than self-critical position on the tensions in Gujarat and elsewhere.14 While it is necessary to condemn violence against any given community, it is, as far as I can see, equally important that the ecumenical community responds by opening up spaces for reconciliation and dialogue on the one hand, while simultaneously using such opportunities on the other hand, to rein in the zealots in the Christian fold. I would argue that the articulation of a merely generalist response will, given the present level of ignorance on religious issues, precipitate a general backlash against all Christians in India, who are by no means united in their understandings of mission, Christian identity and presence in a pluralist context. Lest this be interpreted as a strategy to ‘save ones own skin’, I expect the response from the church in India to be articulated from within a conscious conviction of Christian ‘rights and responsibilities leading to what one might term a covenantal approach to reconciliation.
There are, of course, obvious benefits to be gained by a movement for religious rights and responsibilities in a country like India. In addition, such responses would prepare mainstream churches to deal with potential challenges to inter-faith relationships in India such as that posed by global religious satellite broadcasting that is presently controlled primarily by Christian fundamentalist-evangelist interests. The Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation’s channel International Family Entertainment, Inc., which until very recently was part of the US tele-evangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, can without too many technical difficulties be offered for general availability in South Asia through DTH satellite broadcasts. In the event that it does become available, will it further erode inter-faith relationships in India? Local satellite channels such as Raj TV and Vijay TV already offer evangelical fare and some non-Indian satellite-based evangelical content is already available to viewers in India. Will the ecumenical community in India be in a position to take a stand on issues that arise from much of this sort of broadcasting or will they back-off from confronting the indigenous Christian Right whose allies in the USA have, for instance, used broadcasting as a key weapon in their strategy for evangelisation? It is clear that the air-waves are being used by religious communities for narrow ends in India – the satellite channels Maharishi Veda and Muslim TV Ahmediya are examples of this. In this light it would be interesting to see the outcome of the joint Catholic-Protestant Christian satellite service that is being negotiated today in India.
While fear is a legitimate human response to the prospect of an uncertain future, the cultivation of a nation-wide fear psychosis, restricts self-criticism, reinforces escapist withdrawal which, in turn, will preclude possibilities for a meaningful search for long-term solutions.
The following section will address issues related to the new media and the politics of fundamentalism and revivalism in India. It will, in particular, deal with the use of the new media by the Christian right in India, who, for all practical purposes, are an extension of their counterparts in the USA, and their use by the Hindu right. It will point to the ways in which this ‘transcendent’ agenda is pursued through an aggressive fronting of web-sites, maintained by rival supporters who are generally located outside the sub-continent, and will conclude with a section on appropriate information policies for a pluralist society.
Web wars
Instant communication has its uses and abuses. I would argue that in the cyber era, the web-site has become an extended space for inter-faith net wars fought by, among others, the religious right, for the minds and souls of people. The Internet is an unregulated domain used by all manner of people and communities in their pursuit of interactivity, identity, and association. However, its specific architectures also place limits on interactivity. While Usenet groups on the Net are based on the freedom of open access, the World Wide Web is less participatory, in the sense that those who access any given web-site do not generally have the freedom to alter a web page or determine its contents. That function is determined by web maintainers or managers.
Web pages created by organisations and associations, regardless of their ilk, attempt to present as complete a rendering of a project, association or worldview as possible, enhanced by text, images, graphics and links. While hypertext functions give users browsing, linkage and route options to any information on the world wide web, they do not correspondingly give opportunities for users directly to manipulate web texts, except in a limited, functional sense, for web-site assessment purposes and for transactions of an administrative kind.
In other words, organisational web-sites are identity statements and affirmations and, in this sense, are grounded, less transient and ephemeral than other features of the Internet. Mitra and Cohen (1999:199) refer to what they term the unique characteristics of the web text ‘…its inherent intertextuality, its lack of centre, its volume, its multimedianess, its international scope, its impermanence, and the resulting altered sense of authorship’.15 However, it would seem that its uniqueness lies not so much in its technological features per se, but in the many ways in which these features are used by people to appropriate and interact with web texts for particular ends.
Religious web-sites communicate global, transnational identities that signify particular, exclusive intent. Some of these sites afford opportunities to understand the ‘other’ and to network. But since Internet traffic is not determined by its content and is not policed except through self-regulation, it also provides limitless space for all manner of sites, including those fronted by organisations which have no desire to understand the ‘other’, and want only to impose their own worldview.16 The promise of limitless space accompanied by a widely subscribed-to freedom of access ethic has led to the world wide web hosting sites that play an active role in national and transnational, virtual inter-religious information wars, that complement real inter-religious strife in real time that can and do occasionally result in serious human consequences.
Information wars fought between rival newsgroups on the Internet were the precursors of present day web wars.17 Web wars merely extend this phenomenon, by reinforcing positions, although from within a protective space, less vulnerable to ‘flaming’ and ‘cross-postings’. Granted that net access is denied to the majority of people in India, such wars can, even if only tangentially, heighten insecurities among diasporic Indian communities, provide ammunition to ultra-nationalist politicians, lead to tensions between faiths and contribute to the breakdown of an already fragile consensus.
w.w.w.Mission.India
Even a cursory monitoring of religion-based web-sites, in this case with the Yahoo search engine, yielded 153 sites on the subject of Mission.18 This listserve included all manner of mainly Christian missions from the mainstream Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical churches. However sites belonging to evangelical organisations predominate. Most of these organisations originate from the USA, subscribe to the Lausanne Covenant on World Evangelisation, and are involved in mission work in different parts of the world, including India. India is located in what they refer to as the ‘10/40 Window’, meaning ‘the unevangelised and unreached belt between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, from West Africa to East Asia’.19 The year 2000 is obviously significant for many of these groups and organisations such as AD2000 and their Joshua Project 2000 have targeted 1700 communities globally for church-planting efforts, including 200 in North India. The North Indian Hindi-belt is also the primary location for contemporary forms of Hindu nationalist resurgence.
One of the striking features of these web-sites is the language and imagery used. Like Joshua, who sent spies to survey the land the Israelites were to inhabit, God is helping to ‘spy out the land’ that we (meaning Christians) ‘might go in and claim both it and its inhabitants for Him’.20 The Sam P. Chelladurai Outreach Mission web page describes India as ‘a land of opportunity’, ‘a free country’ that allows ‘the right to preach and propagate the Gospel’, a country where one ‘can preach, make disciples, baptize and add people to the church’.21 Dr Roger Houtsma’s World Outreach Ministries web site refers to his work in Vyara and Songadh, cities in North Western Gujarat, the state which incidentally experienced a number of religious conflicts in late 1998 – ‘India is experiencing the greatest harvest in its history. Now is the time that we must reap’.22
The Accelerating International Mission Strategies (AIMS) home page23 refers to the Caleb Declaration24 and people signing it becoming ‘part of a movement of Christians who are zealous for God’s glory and for seeing His Kingdom advanced and His name proclaimed among all nations!’ Their priority ‘Gateway Cities’ include Jaipur in Rajasthan, Patna in Bihar and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Believers are asked to pray for the sublime... ‘That the millions of pilgrims visiting the Ganges River... find the living water given by Jesus’, and the ludicrous... ‘Worship of rats produces conditions that foster pneumonic plague. Pray that the idolatry underlying this health hazard would be bound.’ And then the most zealous prayer of all... ‘Pray that the strife between Muslims and Hindus would cause disillusionment, leading them to the true Prince of Peace.’25
What is perhaps most regrettable in many of these web sites is the disrespect with which they describe Hindus, their Gods, Goddesses and practices along with a near total ignorance of the diverse spiritualities and ways to the Brahman (ultimate reality) that Hinduism signifies. In the AD2000 series sign #4 ‘Why North India’, they describe Varanasi, the seat of Hindu faith, in the following manner. ‘Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh is Hinduism’s holiest city, with thousands of temples centring on the worship of Shiva, an idol whose symbol is a phallus. Many consider this city the very seat of Satan. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges River at Varanasi washes away all sins’. In the same vein it adds that ‘A number of Christian workers took up the burden of prayer for this city and in prayer-walks boldly declared before the idols, “you are not a living god”.’26 The same fervour is exhibited in the Gospel for Asia web page that informs the world that 6 million tracts were distributed to Hindu pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela, an important Hindu festival.27 These are examples of what may be described as zealotry run riot.
The contents of these web-sites reflect the typical narrative structure of fundamentalist churches in the USA – their belief in global ‘evangelism, biblical inerrancy, pre-millennialism and separatism’ (Ammerman:1998).28 A striking feature is the call to activist foot-soldiers who have a responsibility not merely to wait for the Kingdom but to usher it in – exemplified by the subtle and not so subtle work carried out by evangelical teams in India. These web sites are also totally in character with the well-funded communication strategies employed by the religious right in the USA that employ a variety of rhetorical devices to communicate a fusion of interests between the this-worldly and the eschatological. What is evident is a strategic plan for global evangelism that may not in the end amount to much, but the separatist intent of which can be interpreted as a call to arms.
These US-based missions fund a network of national and local organisations in India which are involved in mission work.29 These include the India Missions Association, the Evangelical Fellowship of India, the North India Harvest Network, the Evangelical Church of India, New Life Assemblies of God and literally hundreds of other institutions. Communication is critical to the work of these missions and a variety of means are employed – from innumerable print ministries such as that undertaken by the Gospel Missions of India, radio ministries through Trans-World Radio, Good News Broadcasting Society, the Far East Broadcasting Association and Gospel for Asia Radio Ministries, Bible translation ministries such as the Indian Institute of Cross Cultural Communication, India Bible Translators, New Life Computers and the Friends Missionary Prayer Band, a variety of seminaries and Bible training schools which in turn churn out hundreds of evangelists and pastors. South Indian Christians, primarily from the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, form the bulk of recruits for these missionary organisations, the foot-soldiers for the Cross in North India.
Evangelism and conversion are of course integral to the Christian faith but their meanings vary widely, ranging from the absolutist positions taken by fundamentalists through the centring of the liberating message of the Gospel in the life of the world and to the risky openness of conversion subscribed to by some in the ecumenical movement - the possibility of mutual conversion in a context of dialogue. The WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, in its statement on Mission and Evangelism – Ecumenical Convictions (1997:383), states clearly that ‘Life with people of other faiths and ideologies is an encounter of commitments. Witness cannot be a one-way process, but of necessity is two-way: in it Christians become aware of some of the deepest convictions of their neighbours’.30
The ex-general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Emilio Castro, writing on evangelism in the Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (1991:399) remarks that ‘The guidelines for our (Christian) relations with other faiths remind us that it is not just a question of co-existence or pro-existence of the different religious groups. It is also an attitude of dialogue… an attitude of respect for the neighbour. Consequently, our testimony to our faith should take place in a context not only of respect but of acceptance of the other’.31 These are examples of the multiplicity of positions in organised Christianity on issues such as evangelism and conversion – a diversity that is scarcely acknowledged by the media.
The lived exploration of the Hindu-Christian meeting point by Swami Abhishiktananda,32 Murray Rogers, Bede Griffiths33 and Jules Monchanin34 are further illustrations of convictions in mission that are undoubtedly blasphemous as far as most evangelicals are concerned. However the most powerful expressions of dialogue are communicated by the daily clatter within the give and take of life experienced by various communities in India in different locales and contexts. Presumably such unconscious, daily celebrations of difference and solidarity are also grist to the fundamentalist mill.
Such processes of attenuation reviewed above are also evident in the Hindutva ideology, which attempts to reduce the complex diversity of Hindu traditions to a few select, manageable, centralised options.
The presence of such web-sites has not gone unnoticed. In fact the comprehensive and informative link site, Hindu Web Universe, refers to the work and worldview of some of these organisations.35 Given the money, resource power and media savvy of North American evangelical groups, their presence on the web is only to be expected. They have historically been adept at exploiting the technologies of mass communications for their own ends. The conviction that every new advance in communications technology is a gift from God and should be exploited for the cause of the Kingdom, is also a view that resonates in mainstream Christian circles in India, even though, perhaps fortunately, their involvement has been minimal.
w.w.w.Hindu.India
In contrast to these web sites, there are very few belonging to groups associated with the Hindutva cause. Sites include those that are maintained by the R.S.S.,36 the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh,37 the BJP,38 the Hindu Vivek Kendra,39 and the super link, Hindu Web Universe.40 What is perhaps the most striking aspect of these web sites is their organisational streamlining, their imputed representativeness of a pan-Hindu identity and the hierarchising of the organisation of an all-India Hinduism – in other words an attempt to provide a certain unity to the diverse practices and ways to God that Hinduism signifies. The BJP site gives information on its history, rationale, organisation, leadership, its politics, its stance on issues and its overall philosophy including statements by some of its key ideologues, including S. Gurumurthy and Arun Shourie. As the site of the ruling political party in India, it does put forward its credentials as a Hindu and pro-minority party. That however stands out as a difficult and problematic juxtaposition. The RSS site gives information on its founders and the Sangh Parivar’s work in education, rural development, unionising, the fine arts, appropriate technology, heritage and communications.
The dominant narrative that links many of these web sites is the legitimation of Hindu resurgence, and the need for the updating of the image and status of Hinduism in India from that of ‘wimp’ to strident and aggressive masculinity, communicated by the war-like image of Lord Rama. The project is one that effaces the received colonialist understanding of Hinduism and establishes in its place a post-colonialist understanding signified by Hindutva, the Hindu nation. It is about righting the wrongs inflicted by traitors, in the past and the present, a cleansing followed by the creation of a golden age of Hindu glory.
The words of the BJP ideologue, Mihir Meghani, exemplify this rhetoric of manifest destiny: ‘Hindus are at last free. They control their destiny now and there is no power that can control them except their own tolerant ethos. India in turn is finally free. Having ignored its history, it has now come face to face with a repressed conscience. The destruction of the structure at Ayodhya was the release of the history that Indians had not fully come to terms with. Thousands of years of anger and shame, so diligently bottled up by these same interests, was released when the first piece of the so-called Babri Masjid was torn down’.41
There is no understating the objective of these web sites. It is a fronting of imagined and real futures, towards a space and time in which the Hindus of India and the world will unite in and for the protection of the Hindu heritage. Needless to say, that space and time will, of course, not be to the advantage of people who belong to other religious traditions.
Manufacturing communalism
The reading thus far has been rather cursory. More research needs to be conducted to unravel the links between the new media, exclusivist agendas and communalism in India. An obvious question that can be posed is – So what if there are religious web wars? After all, in a country like India, those who have access to such technologies are in a minority. Such wars do not affect the majority who are moved by other considerations. Furthermore, there is little evidence in favour of a relationship between web content and changes in attitudes or behaviour. One may also argue that web wars merely amplify and feed into a pre-existing situation and that, as such, one cannot even be sure of their impact. It can further be argued that, in a given context, there are contributory non-media factors which are primarily responsible for igniting inter-religious strife. And that such factors feed into and are amplified by the communication of that strife through interpersonal means, mass media and new technologies.
While there are non-media factors that are responsible for inter-religious conflict, it would nevertheless be absurd to claim that these factors on their own are responsible for heightening the level of inter-faith tensions in India. The presence and role of the media in the creation of national public opinion in India have been demonstrated on many an occasion. In fact, the media have played a substantial role in interpreting inter-religious conflict in India. A prime example was the way in which the media in general reported the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1990. Instead of deflecting the political agenda of the Hindu Right the media gave rise to a great many dubious interpretive inflections on the reasons that led to the fall of the Babri Masjid. Among those that were given prominent media space were the ‘spontaneous’ nature of the demolition, the release of long bottled-up Hindu righteous anger, making amends for past wrongs, the assertion of Hindu identity and so on – some of which contained partial truths, but were nevertheless communicated without the benefit of any background information.
Many reports failed to comment on the jigsaw of events that preceded the storming of the Masjid – events that point to a premeditated strategy. These ranged from the unwitting influence of the tele-serials the Ramayana and the Mahabaratha shown on state television in the mid-80s, to the overt support given to religious nationalism on state television and in privately owned media, in particular through cable television, video and audio productions, the press, and the symbolism mediated through national spectacles such as the religious nationalist pilgrimages or Rath Yatras.
Aijaz Ahmad (1993:33) has drawn attention to the rise of the Hindu right and the effective manipulation of symbols in their quest for political legitimacy.42 ‘… The real ingenuity of the RSS was that it adopted at the moment of its own inception and consistently since then, the figure of Ram as the one upon whom all narrative structures converge, so that the later televising of the Ramayana and the Mahabaratha in quick succession created a sense of this mutual continuity, the story of Ram overlapping with heroic narratives of the sacred nation. …When Mr. Advani’s rathyatra got going it was seen as an extension of the epics and no one was bothered by the simultaneity of symbols taken from both.’
www. Interfaith.India
It is always difficult to project a strategic vision of inter-faith communications in a context characterised by mutual distrust and simmering violence. The Sangh Parivar has the avowed aim to Hinduise India, to de-secularise the constitution and to reinvent institutions and systems, for instance the educational system,43 in line with its own interpretative spin on the history if India and its futures. Its external aims are no less belligerent, given the recent nuclear misadventures of its political ally, the BJP.44 While educational reform is necessary (there is a good case to revamp the potted, colonialist version of history presented in primary and secondary school text books) and there is much to be gained by a global ban on nuclear weapons as against the special set of rules for the recognised five nuclear weapon states, the long-term impact of policies adopted for the pursuit of narrow, exclusivist goals and short-term electoral politics is bound to keep internal and external tensions alive. The convictions that accompany ethnic and religious identities run deep. And any call for forgiveness and reconciliation may well appear misplaced and premature in a situation where the ‘healing’ has hardly begun.
In spite of these larger constraints however, there must be ways to ease this tension through the positive communication of the wealth of India’s religious traditions. India carries the imprint of numerous religions and Indians are, in general, a religious people. Recognition of this fact is critical to any strategy aimed at restoring inter-faith amity. Ignorance of this reality needs to be recognised as a key contributory factor to the tensions – ignorance that is manipulated by fundamentalists on all sides of the divide. The average evangelist in India is woefully ignorant of Hinduism – his/her knowledge is often inadequate, couched in prejudice and determined by imported understandings that are insensitive to say the least. Unfortunately, the average Indian Christian too is often seen to share such views.
First, it would seem that at the very least, all religious communities in India need to communicate their faith responsibly, without, in that process, attacking or undermining other faiths. Secondly, in the light of the deteriorating quality of faith reporting, religious councils in India could be jointly involved in drawing up an inter-faith media charter. These councils need to make an attempt to work jointly towards the creation of an ombudsman who would have the power to take action against those who violate this charter. Further, inter-faith efforts may be encouraged made to set up a multi-faith cable television channel, along the lines of the Toronto-based inter-faith cable channel Vision TV. The objective of such a network will be to broadcast objective interpretations of faiths, religious traditions and spiritualities from and to the sub-continent. Such a service is needed to counter the present norm - the token space given to religion by state broadcasting and programmes which merely strengthen stereotypical perceptions of the religious other. At the very least such an initiative will create a shared space for imagining a different India.
Lastly, it is necessary that religious institutions take seriously the challenge posed by inter-faith dialogue. In pluralist societies like India, where the issue of religion has become emotive and divisive, these institutions need to be called to create the basis for reconciliation and understanding. Bishop Tutu first expressed the following opinion in Kigali, Rwanda, which was reproduced in the Truth Commission’s report from South Africa.45 ‘Confession, forgiveness and reconciliation in the lives of nations are not just airy-fairy religious and spiritual things, nebulous and unrealistic. They are the stuff of practical politics.’ His affirmation communicates the fact that faith is both relational and grounded in the practical business of daily living. One cannot but love one’s neighbour. Disregarding that simple, human option can, as we know too well, result in bitter consequences.
References
1. Shah, G., ‘Politics of Policing’, The Hindu, March 12, 1999. Engineer, I., ‘Conversions in Dangs’, The Hindu, January 22, 1999. ‘Australian Missionary, sons burnt alive’, The Hindu, January 24, 1999. Dasgupta, M., ‘Christians at the Receiving End’ (p.11), and Vyas, N., ‘The Ugly Face behind the Mask’(p.11), The Hindu, January 3, 1999. ‘Two Churches Torched in Surat District’ (p.1), The Hindu, December 29, 1998 (All Bangalore Editions). See also the thoughtfully written piece by Siddhartha in the Sunday Herald, April 4, 1999, p.I ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do’, which attempts to place the tragedy related to the murder of the Australian missionary in perspective and in relation to the continuing work done by his wife Gladys Staines.
2. See Basu, T. et.al., Khaki Shirts, Saffron Flags, Tracts for the Times, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1993. Vanaik, A., ‘Situating Threat of Hindu Nationalism: Problems with Fascist Paradigm’ (pp.1729-1748), Economic and Political Weekly, July 9, 1994.
3. Hindu Religious Officiants.
4. The Rath Yatra, literally ‘chariot journey’ was a highly politicised, symbolised modern day pilgrimage, in the tradition followed in the Hindu epics. It was organised by the BJP, which was then in Opposition and choreographed by the VHP and other members of the Sangh Parivar. The ex-Home Minister of the BJP L. K. Advani was at the helm of this motorised chariot pilgrimage. It started on Sept. 25, 1990 from Somnath, Gujarat –the site of a famous razing of Hindu temples by Muhammned of Ghazni in the year 1026 AD and ended on October 30, 1990 in Ayodhya coinciding with the Hindu festival ‘Debothan Ekadashi’. For more details see Davis, R. H., ‘The Iconography of Rama’s Chariot’ (pp.27-54), in Ludden, D., (ed.), Making India Hindu: Religion, Community and the Politics of Democracy in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1996. The Hindu Right were also involved in organising other events –the Ram Jyoti, another highly symbolic event – a torch was lit in Ayodhya and sent to thousands of villages in India and used to light Deepavalli (Festival of Lights) lamps. Yet another was the Ram Shila Puja – the consecration of bricks from various villages in India that was to be used in the building of the Ram temples in Ayodhya. See Panikkar, M. ‘Religious Symbols and Political Mobilisation’ (pp.63-77), Social Scientist, Vol.21, 7-8, July-August 1993.
5. Nandy, A. et.al., The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1997.
6. Manuel, P., ‘Music, the Media and Communal Relations in North India, Past and Present’ (pp.119-139), from Ludden, D., Making India Hindu..op.cit.
7. The ‘nadeswaram’ is a South Indian wind instrument. Venkatasubramaniam, K., ‘Secularism or Anti-Hinduism’, The Hindu, December 1, 1998 (Bangalore Edition).
8. See Nandy, et.al The Ramjanmabhumi Movement… Op.cit., p.33. Also see Charu and Mukul, Print Media and Communalism, 10/78 Old Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi, 1990.
9. See Vyas, N., ‘The Ugly face Behind the Mask’ op.cit.
10. See Chatterjee, P., ‘Religious Minorities and the Secular State: Reflections on an Indian Impasse’ (pp.11-39), Public Culture, 1995, 8.
11. The Pancasila, meaning the ‘five moral principles’ governing the life of the state in Indonesia, was enunciated by Sukarno on June 1, 1945 and became state philosophy. The five principles are - belief in one supreme God, humanism, nationalism, popular sovereignty, and social justice.
12. Gautier, F., ‘Western Indian Press’ (p.58), Himal, 12/3 March, 1999.
13. Dalrymple, W., ‘Baptism by Fire’ (pp.20-25), The Guardian Weekly, March 20, 1999.
14. See ‘Apex Indian Theological Body holds BJP responsible for Violence against vulnerable minorities’ (p.4), People’s Reporter, March 1-15, 1999. Akkara, A., ‘India’s Coalition Government Divided over attacks on Christians’ (pp.7-9), Ecumenical News International (ENI), No.02, February 17, 1999. Doogue, E., ‘Campaigner warns against danger of myths about India’s Christians’ (p.18), ENI, No.05, March 17, 1999. Akkara, A., ‘After new attacks on Christians India’s churches call for tougher action’(pp.18-19), ENI, No.06, March 31, 1999.
15. Mitra, A., & Cohen, E., ’Analyzing the Web: Directions and Challenges’ (pp.179-202), in Jones, S. (ed.), Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi, 1999.
16. Whine, M., ‘The Far Right on the Internet’ (pp.209-227), in Loader, B.D., (ed.), The Governance of Cyberspace: Politics, Technology and Global Restructuring, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. See also the article by Duncan Campbell ‘Web fuels growth of racist groups’ in The Guardian, July 6, 1999, p.3 – written in the aftermath of the race killings in the USA by a member belonging to the white supremacist group, the World Church of the Creator. The article refers to web use by this church particularly ‘...its notion of “leaderless resistance”, which allows leaders of groups not to be prosecuted by actions advocated on the web’.
17. Tepper, M., ‘Usenet Communities and the Cultural Politics of Information’ (pp.39-54), in Porter, D.,(ed.), Internet Culture, Routledge, New York and London, 1997.
18.http://div.yahoo.com/society_and_culture/Religion_and_Spirituality/Faiths_an…Missions.
19. http://www.ad2000.org/utercall.htm ‘The Call to North India’.
20. http://www.ad2000 op.cit
21. http://www.samindia.org/html/greetings.htm
22. http://www.wo.org/crusade.asp?sub=VY
23. http://www.aims.org/index.html
24. http://www.calebproject.org/cdecl/htm
25. http://www.aims.org/jaipur/html
26. http://www.ad2000.org/uters 4.htm
27. http://www.gfa.org/SEND/index.htm
28. Ammerman, N.C., ‘North American Protestant Fundamentalism’ (pp.55-113), in Kintz, L., and Lesage, J., (eds.), Media, Culture and the Religious Right, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London, 1998.
29. The scale of church planting in India by indigenous churches is quite extraordinary. Daniel Samuel, an independent researcher from Madras (Chennai), surveyed indigenous churches in and around Madras. He came across 167 indigenous churches. Here are some interesting facts from his survey. 86.4% of the churches surveyed were established after 1981. 75% of these churches were Tamil-based. Many were involved in saturation church planting activities. 98 of the churches were classified as free evangelical churches, 59 as pentecostal/charismatic, 1 as historical, 8 as prophetic. 46 of the churches were registered. All statistics taken from Samuel D., ‘A report on the study of churches of indigenous origins in and around the city of Chennai’, unpub. 1998. Rev. Ezra Sargunam’s (Evangelical Church of India) recently celebrated their establishment of their 1000th church. Church planting is big business in India. While Chennai has generally been free from inter-religious strife, it would be the case that church planting in places like Benares is bound to lead to a rise in inter-faith tensions.
30. ‘Mission and Evangelism – An Ecumenical Affirmation’ (pp.372-383), WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, in Kinnamon, M., and Cope, B. E. (eds.), The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices, WCC Publications, Geneva, and William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1997.
31. Castro, E., ‘Evangelism’(pp.396-400), in Lossky, N. et. al (eds.), Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, WCC Publications, Geneva and Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland, London,1991.
32. Abhishiktananda, Hindu-Christian Meeting Point: Within the Cave of the Heart, ISPCK, Delhi, 1969.
33. Griffiths, B., The Marriage of East and West, Collins, Fount Paperbacks, London, 1983.
34. Rodhe, S., Jules Monchanin: Pioneer in Christian-Hindu Dialogue, ISPCK, Delhi, 1993.
35.http://hindulinks.org/Interfaith_relations/Seeking_conversion/
36. http://www.rss.org/rss/www/mission.htm
37. http://www.hssworld.org/ac/frbanner.htm
38. http://www.bjp.org/home.html
39. http://www.hvk.org/hvk/
40. http://wwwhindulinks op.cit.
41. Meghnani,M., ‘Hindutva: The Great Nationalist Ideology’(pp.1-4), http://www.bjp.org/history/htrintro.mm.html
42. Ahmad, A., ‘Culture, Community and nation: On the ruins of Ayodhya’ (pp.17-48), Social Scientist, Vol.21, 7-8, July-August, 1993.
43. Engineer, A.A., ‘Education, the BJP and Hindutva’, The Hindu (Bangalore Edition), November 2, 1998., Omvedt, G., ‘Beyond Saffron and Secular Education’, The Hindu (Bangalore Edition), November 16, 1998.
44. Ram N., ‘What wrong did this man do’ (pp.1-15), Frontline, Vol.16, Issue 10, may 8-21, 1999, http://www.the.hindu.com/fline/f11610/16100220.htm
45. Tutu, D., quoted in the section ‘Reconciliation’, Vol. 5, Chapter 9, pp.1-56, http://www.truth.org.za/final/5chap9.htm
Pradip N. Thomas is Director of Studies and Publications at the international headquarters of the World Association for Christian Communication. He has contributed articles to journals such as Gazette, the Asian Journal of Communication, Media Asia and Media Development, the most recent one being 'Trading the Nation: Multilateral Negotiations and the Fate of Communications in India' in Gazette, Vol 61(3-4), 1999. He is co-editor along with Michael Richards and Zaharom Nain of the forthcoming book Communication and Development: The Freirean Connection, Hampton Press, NJ.
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