From the time the first salvo was fired against the BJP and the sangh parivar as a whole over violence involving Christians in some parts of the country, I have pondered over the clashes, which mark a quantum shift in the anti-Hindu rhetoric with which we are familiar. To my mind, there is more than meets the eye in the sustained calumny by church leaders against the VHP, largely but by no means solely, on account of its resistance to the conversion of tribals in backward states and its rebuttal of the propaganda that tribals are non-Hindus.
To our alienated intellectuals the incidents only prove the VHP’s “communal” credentials. Their secular consciousness is unmoved that a concerted assault is being made on India’s unique religio-civilizational ethos, and that the aggressive attempt to alter its religio-demographic profile involves more than the right of evangelists to convert people through “free choice.” They are unconcerned that the evidence shows the Hindu community as the victim of aggression rather than otherwise.
Indian intellectuals are apathetic that church leaders have a profound disdain for Hindu religion and culture, and seek “dialogue” only as a guise under which they can function unimpeded, and efface the sannatan dharma from the land of its birth. Their sense of nationalism is not even pricked when the United States takes an unnatural interest in these skirmishes in the backwaters of Hindustan. Nor are their suspicions aroused when the church’s orchestra of condemnation against the VHP is utterly disproportionate to actual incidents, and in fact, itself contributes to social tension.
For weeks now, Christian leaders in different parts of the country have been issuing statements and addressing press conferences solely to malign the sangh parivar and de-legitimize its defense of our beleaguered religion and civilization. Parivar leaders have mostly held their peace. Statements of RSS or VHP leaders reported in the press are made to in-house audiences, and at least to my knowledge, there has been no media counter-campaign in response to the church’s belligerence.
This raises the question why the church has adopted such a high profile in the cities. The answer is that it wants to recruit our liberal, secular elite on its side, to disarm the nation in the civilizational battle that is already joined. Our liberal, secular elite has been in an intellectual cum spiritual diaspora for over five decades. Believing that it shoulders the white man’s (now brown sahib’s) burden, it readily sees itself as the vanguard of a non-Hindu composite culture. Actually it is the sentinel of a shameful culture of complicity – I can think of no other country in the world where the intellectual elite does not espouse the values, concerns and aspirations of its civilization.
This brings me to the crux of the current conflict – civilization. Or rather, civilization as an entity inimical to so-called universal faiths, such as Christianity. Today, there is probably only one living civilization – the Vedic Hindu civilization. This is a truth we in India do not fully realize, even though we are fond of saying that the sannatan dharma is both a religion and a way of life.
On the other hand, there is no such thing as a western civilization, notwithstanding the West’s enormous material and military prowess and almost totalitarian dominance in international media-propaganda. The historian Arnold Toynbee defines civilization as a movement towards “some higher kind of spiritual life.” He asserts that the raison d’etre of the ancient civilizations was to give birth to “full-fledged higher religions.” Thus, Christianity rose out of the Hellenic civilization, but had Jewish and Zoroastrian roots, which in turn sprang from the Babylonic and Syriac civilizations.
This does not tell us that Christianity does not acknowledge its roots in previous civilizations, particularly the Jewish. But it does tell us that Christianity is co-terminus with the end of civilization in the Christian part of the world. As to how this religion served the search for “some higher kind of spiritual life,” unless my memory serves me ill, much of the period that saw the rise of Christianity in the Mediterranean and Europe coincided with the “Dark Ages.” The great age of modern Europe’s history – the Renaissance – saw the struggle against Church supremacy make actual headway. It also saw Europe attempt to reclaim its Graeco-Roman heritage.
The era opened by the Industrial Revolution placed Mammon above all. Hence, despite fascinating advances in knowledge, a sense of alienation dominates modern western consciousness because civilization is dead and religion has suffered a further setback. The West’s twentieth century preoccupation with existentialism, humanism, end of ideology, environment, human rights, et al, is symptomatic of the fact that despite material progress, the overriding feeling is one of loss of the moral impulse that is the driving force behind civilization.
Formally, the West is Christian, but it contains a dangerous vacuum. Large sections of society have opted out of the Church and have no religion at all; its spiritual crisis is simply unimaginable. This has created a tacit agreement between secular governments and the Church to reinvent ‘civilization.’ One would imagine that this would compel society, state and church to reach inward and fortify the internal spiritual landscape. But a spiritual impulse cannot be manufactured if it does not exist, hence a strange mutation is encouraged. While the formal political divorce of church and state continues, simultaneously a marriage of convenience is effected to create a ‘universal civilization’ spearheaded by the church.
In the absence of a moral impulse, this artificial enterprise requires an external canvas on which to project itself and provide its raison d’etre. This is the key to the Christian obsession with conversion, rather than direct inner experience of god, as the key to faith. This aspect of religion was unknown (especially on this scale) to previous civilizations. Those unable to reconcile US posturing as international moral gendarme while the saga of its naked President regales the world, may find some merit in this view.
Once we comprehend that a ‘universal’ worldview is actually a totalitarian view, a view intolerant of diversity and plurality, we can see why ideologies like Communism and Fascism spring naturally from Christian soil. We can understand why India is anathema to such a mindset.
In India, the civilization that gave birth to the Vedas (or was born out of the Vedas) has endured. As Hinduism grew into a full-fledged religion, the Vedic civilization did not perish, but remained the base note of Hindu national culture. Hinduism, like the notes of a raga, flourished on this unitary base note. That is why the Hindu belief that the sannatan dharma is both a religion and a way of life is an eternal truth.
The Hindu-Christian face-off in India has to be understood in this context. It should be understood that the Christian community per se is not being attacked or persecuted. What is being challenged is the totalitarian mindset that is determined to bring all societies and faiths under a single unitary world religion, and that refuses to recognize and respect the veracity and validity of other world views. It is this mindset that is truly “communal.” It is this mindset that cannot countenance a religion that is also a civilization reinvigorating itself.
The Pioneer, 30 March 1999