The Right sort of civilisation

Pavan Varma, a retired Indian Foreign Service officer who dabbled in politics for a few years, made a name for himself after writing a perceptive commentary on Ghalib, the Urdu poet, and a thoughtful analysis of Tulsidas, the 16th century Bhakti poet who wrote in Avadhi to popularise Ram in north India. Both books received wide acclaim from the cognoscenti and the layperson. There were no traces of controversy either. But his latest book — The Great Hindu Civilisation — treads on a far more sensitive issue and his treatment of its central theme is potentially controversial. And Mr Varma has not been astute about avoiding the pitfalls of controversy.

The subject of Hindu civilisation has acquired in India a new political idiom, especially in recent years after the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar have championed the cause of Hindutva in a manner that is patently divisive. The subject that Mr Varma has chosen for the book is relevant. But reading at least the first few chapters of this book will make you wonder if the author, apart from extolling the greatness of Hindu civilisation, is also offering an intellectual endorsement of the Hindu Right’s well-publicised concern over how it believes Hindutva has been neglected.

In recent years, a sense of hurt over such apparent neglect of Hindu beliefs and icons has been used by the Hindu Right to help India’s majority community acquire a minority complex. The fact, however, is that the theory on the neglect of Hindu civilisation has many holes and is politically inspired. Nor can there be any justification of the Hindu Right’s response to such perceived neglect, which is supported by many in the ruling establishment. But the author appears to be unmindful of this and betrays an approach that is very similar to that of the Hindu Right. That impression, however, gets modified to some extent as you move on to the latter half of the book.

In the first chapter, for instance, the author starts with an unconcealed display of angst over why the Indian elites have chosen to ignore and forget the great Hindu tradition, its culture and literature. Among those he blames for this neglect and even distortion of the role of Hindu civilisation and its glorious past are Amartya Sen, Romila Thapar and Wendy Doniger. Even Jawaharlal Nehru is not spared. He uses selective quotations from their works to expound his thesis, but his arguments are often simplistic and are likely to be challenged.

The title of the book sets the tone for Mr Varma’s thesis. He argues that Hindu civilisation was not only great, but also rich because of its antiquity, audacity of thought and achievements both in the spiritual and secular realms. Hindu civilisation had its blemishes, but his regret is Hindus themselves show little curiosity about the richness of this legacy and why it has remained resilient for centuries. What he does not explain is that not worshipping or extolling the virtues of one’s past is not a failing that defines only the Hindus and making amends on this score is not the only way to secure the future of Hindu civilisation.

The theme of how Hindus are oblivious to their own rich past is dwelt on at greater length in the second chapter, where Mr Varma narrates the many Hindu texts that demonstrated Hindu civilisation’s capacity for divergent thinking, grappling with a wide range of issues including metaphysics, philosophy, religion, creativity, aesthetics, sociology, ethics, science, political theory, foreign policy, war-planning, economics, commerce and the conduct of human life itself.  

In the next two chapters, Mr Varma deals with the challenges arising out of the advent of Islam or the Turkic invasion and British colonisation, which according to him, left a lasting impact on Hindu civilisation. While Hinduism’s response to the Islamic invasion for several hundred years was the Bhakti movement, the British Raj for over 200 years had a deleterious impact on the Hindu mind by simply colonising it.

The author argues that just as the Bhakti movement renewed and preserved Hinduism, unlike what happened in Indonesia, the British rule deprived the Hindus of self-esteem and the pride in recognising the greatness of Hindu civilisation. It is perhaps this lack of self-esteem that contributed to the Hindu elite’s reluctance to celebrate the greatness of its own civilisation, Mr Varma argues.

In the last chapter, the author underlines the need for the “real Hindu renaissance”, which can take place when Hindus undertake reforms within Hinduism and “make the effort to rediscover their religion and civilisation”

What will such an initiative achieve? The author argues that such knowledge will help the Hindus resurrect their society and “allow them to build along with all the other great faiths that have a home in this ancient land, a modern India that is democratic, but also rooted in the great wisdoms of its past”. This of course is a utopian vision. A more charitable assessment would be that the author is attempting to reimagine the Hindu Right’s dream of a great Hindu civilisation to make the idea more acceptable to the vast number of moderate Hindus.