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Facing Fundamentalism
in the Wake of the Gujarat Genocide

By Garda Ghista
(PNA) - Abstract:  In February 2002, the Hindu fundamentalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other Hindu fundamentalist religious organizations organized and carried out a genocidal ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the state of Gujarat, in western India.  Between 2,000 and 5,000 Muslims were slaughtered, and more than 150,000 were rendered homeless and destitute.  To this date, the victims have seen no justice – particularly economic justice – and the perpetrators continue to boast of Gujarat as a laboratory for their plans for the rest of India.  Many Hindus as part of their daily puja/prayers now worship the Gujarat Chief Minister, who patronized the genocide, as a god.  In the face of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and Christian fundamentalism in the US, the Gujarat genocide looms large in a scenario of global fundamentalist wars.  How are we to face this juggernaut of religious fascism, presently manifest in all major world religions?

In His last discourse on this earth, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar asked of humanity the following questions: How can this problem be solved? How can we check these belligerent parties from implementing their outdated ideas, which may cause the physical disintegration of the country? What should be done? What should be our short term and the long-term policy? The approach should be both physical and psychic. Will simply economic theory do or is something more required? Education is a long-term program. What should be done immediately in the physical and psychic realms?

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Dohekahen vajud ek hai, arbah sabon mein ek
Ved kateb ek batavahon, par pavai ne koi vivek

Both (Hindus and Muslims) accept that reality is one and that there is one soul in everybody.
Vedas and Koran teach the same thing but nobody understands the real meaning.¹

Nearly four centuries ago, the author of this wisdom, Sant (Saint) Prannath, was born in Jamnagar in Gujarat. As a merchant he traveled extensively throughout the Islamic world and discussed Islam with scholars wherever he went. In addition, he came in contact with Christians and various other sects. This cosmopolitan background, when combined with meditation under the guidance of his guru, led to the development of a powerful devotional movement.  Love for Lord Krishna and reverence for the Koran led him to proclaim a new mission in Indian society.

Jo kateb so veda batsai/ ya mein antar nahin bha/
Yek dhani sahib sab kairi/ duji mani citta jin fair/
Hindu turak din dai gaye/ tin mil kai dai panth calaye
Senca sanch jagat me hoi/ ek arth mil hahat na ko/
Ab main veda kateb miaun/ tinke arth ek tahraun
Meti virodh jagat jas leun/ ek raha pargat kar deun²

“Whatever is in the Koran, so is taught by the Vedas.
There is no difference between the two.
Hindus and Muslims adhere to two religions and they founded two sects.
There is a tug of war in the world, no one emphasizes the unity.
By a comparative study of the Vedas and the Koran, I would establish their inherent unity.
Thus I seek to remove antagonism and point out the common path.”

Taking a firm determination to unite all Hindus and Muslims, Prannath traveled across North India, creating a dialogue between Hindus and Muslims wherever he went.³ When faced with the rise of the fundamentalist regime of the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, with the backing of even  fundamentalist Sufis, he had the courage to boldly condemn it from a universal standpoint saying:

Kufra ne kaden apno, aur dekhen sab kufran/
Apna angan na dekhin, kahen ham musaslman/⁴

They do not get rid of their own kufra [infidelism],
Instead brand all others infidels.
They do not look within themselves
And yet assert they are Muslims.

Jo dukh debe kinko, so nahi musalman/
Nabi en musalman ka, nam dharya meherban//

He who persecutes others is not a Muslim.
The prophet said a Muslim is one who bestows kindness.

Thus in contrast to Hindu writers of his time, Prannath rejected Islamic fundamentalism for betraying Islam. Mahatma Gandhi throughout his life failed to combat Hindu and Muslim communalism, just as Gandhian organizations failed to combat BJP fascism in Gujarat from 1998-2002. Only a few weeks before his murder by an RSS fanatic, Gandhi had the courage to say:

"It would spell the ruin of both the Hindu religion and the majority community if the latter, in the intoxication of power, entertains the belief that it can crush the minority community and establish a purely Hindu Rashtra."⁵

Prannath did not stop at mere talk. He inspired a guerilla warrior, Chattrasal, to fight against this fundamentalism and establish a kingdom based on tolerance. If Prannath were alive today, he would similarly fight against Hindu nationalism. While the BJP may be temporarily out of power, its agenda under the extremist leader, Advani, remains unchanged since Golwalkar forty years ago said:

"The foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language and must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture….or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment  --  not even citizen’s rights."⁶

What then can we conclude from the present pathological state of Indian civilization? First, the problem is essentially a problem of the Indian collective psychology. Paul R Brass has articulated the nature of this social disease as follows:

"A hegemonic discourse exists in Indian society, which I call the communal discourse, which provides a framework for explaining riotous violence. That framework allows Indian citizens, particularly its dominant castes and classes, to accept the persistence of such violence in their society without seeing it as a fundamental flaw in their democracy,.…their ideals.…Blame displacement makes it possible to acknowledge the existence of.…riotous communal violence and pogroms by attributing violent practices to others or to natural human propensities that must be accepted by any realistic person as a part of life."⁷

This collective psychosis is especially prevalent in the lower middle class of India. As per Sarkar’s analysis of Indian nationalism, when the rhetoric of negative sentiments like the anti-British and anti-Western sentiment of the Indian left collapsed, a gaping void in the Indian body politic was exposed from which has emerged the BJP.  How can we respond to their hatred? Karen Armstrong reminds us:

"It is important to recognize that these [fundamentalist] theologies and ideologies are rooted in fear. The desire to define doctrines, erect barriers, establish borders, and segregate the faithful in a sacred enclave where the law is stringently observed, springs from that terror of extinction which has made all fundamentalists, at one time or another, believe that the secularists were about to wipe them out."⁸

Thus, it is this insatiable fear that is the root of Hindu fundamentalism and, like Islamic fundamentalism, creates an atmosphere of perpetual crisis. Furthermore:

"In the rhetoric of crisis is often embedded a justification and apologetic for extreme measures: fundamentalists seek to replace existing structures with a comprehensive system emanating from religious principles and embracing law, polity, society, economy, and culture."⁹

Fundamentalism as an emotional movement cannot be combated by intellectual affirmations of the unity of all religions. Sarkar goes beyond Prannath and other syncretists and exposes the universal claims of religions saying:

"All these religions preach universal fraternity, and yet this universal fraternity is kept within the confines of their own community. Humanity gasps for breath at such preposterous claims of universal fraternity. Carried away by the grandiose slogan of their respective religions, the followers of these religions have at different times whipped up a frenzy of communal hatred and indulged in orgies of genocide. Had their founders seen such sights they would have hidden their faces in utter shame..…Directly or indirectly religion encourages communalism. ‘Communalism’ means a group psychology based on religion."¹⁰

Sarkar further notes that by associating themselves with mystical or God-centered ideas, many religions have survived, but that the fundamental purpose of religion is to "secure the interests of a special, privileged class."¹¹

Combating fundamentalism for Sarkar means combating religious dogma.¹²  In the context of India, the BJP education system fills Hindus with the superiority complex that they are the greatest civilization the world has known, and introduces religious mythology as part of history. This superiority complex must be combated by demonstrating the past and present crimes of Hinduism in a rational, accepting manner, in addition to talking about its positive aspects. As we have seen, this means embracing all of human history in all its complexity. Already this has begun as a movement among educators in India.

The next weapon of the BJP is the inculcation of an inferiority complex amongst Hindus. In their mythologization of the past, Indians are described as passive victims of Islamic and British invasions. This creates an inferiority complex and a corresponding rapist machismo amongst Hindus today. A study of Hindu activists shows:

"… that most of them are poorly educated young people who generally lack fluency in the English language, who are unemployed or who regard their job as unsatisfactory; in fact frustration is their common denominator. Their addiction to films stems largely from the need to forget what they perceive as their miserable condition and acquire a positive identity by associating themselves with, and emulating fictional characters. Some of them … long to be the hero of a Bombay film in which violence [and rape] leads to justice. They are keen to fight Muslims in order to assert themselves, to prove their strength."¹³

Essentially, then, we see that communalism is inevitable in a situation of the degradation of the human spirit by economic exploitation, compounded by the throttling of rationality by religious dogma. Sarkar notes that in the absence of social education, communalism is inevitable in party democracies.¹⁴ Such a pervasive inferiority complex, however, cannot be fought by just an anti-exploitation movement as in the case of the Indian left. What is needed is the universal outlook of spiritual practice and the universal mystical love (bhakti) freed from the bondage of religious dogma. This is what Sarkar calls Neo-Humanism, which he explains as follows:

"To realize the all-pervasive Supreme Entity the static darkness has got to be dispelled from one’s mind -- there is no other way. Those who grope in the darkness of staticity are bound to differentiate between various objects and will certainly be goaded to worship various finite entities [idols, Kaaba, Ayodhya, Mecca]. When one develops real love for the Supreme through unflinching sincerity and intense spiritual practice, the bondages of inertness gradually loosen and finally snap open. Those who take the finite to be the infinite, and ascribe Brahmahood (divinity) to finite objects, ultimately degenerate into inert matter. They are psychologically unable to transcend the bondages of lineage, caste, community and state. They may deliver noble-sounding speeches, but in reality they look upon this world through the glasses of meanness. To fulfill their selfish group interests they utilize their intellectual power and physical energy for internecine feuds and battles, mutual slandering and jealousy, and thereby vitiate the atmosphere of the entire universe."¹⁵

Thus for Sarkar, merely emphasizing the few mystical and universal ideas in religion is powerless to remove the victim psychology of the religious communities. What is needed is to follow Krishna’s advice to Arjuna in the Giita (II.45). Krishna notes that the Vedas are partly demonic, partly crude or materialistic and partly sentient or pure. Krsna advises Arjuna following the Upanishadic seers to reject the Vedic rituals (karmkhanda) as well as what Sarkar calls the racism and materialism of the Vedas. Essentially this means accepting the sublime Upanishadic philosophy and completely rejecting the rituals and doctrine of Aryan supremacy. This approach is needed for all religious scriptures. Rather than merely quoting the positive or sentient portions of the scriptures, we must combat the demonic (racist, casteist, and communal) and superstitious, materialistic portions. The passages in the Bible, Koran, and the Vedas/Puranas that support genocide or ethnic cleansing of unbelievers need to be condemned unequivocally.

However, Krsna further advises Arjuna in the same passage to transcend all these types of scriptures. For this to come to pass, what is needed is genuine universal spiritual practices and universal mystical love. India is unique in that nearly every one of its languages contains a rich yogic/Tantric literature as well as a deeply devotional literature. This is the unique greatness of India. These movements, however, were never able to shake off the shackles of religious dogma. Regular spiritual practice is the only way to empower human beings that suffer from a host of inferiority complexes brought about by economic and religious exploitation. A combination of spiritual practice with the Upanishadic philosophy of bliss, and the devotional activism of neo-humanism will surely lead to peace among all peoples.

The last weapon of fundamentalism is the propagation of inferiority, fear and terror among the religious, and social minorities. The BJP actively engages in not merely the ghettoization and terrorization of Muslims, but it creates a societal discourse in which Muslims, Dalits and tribals feel doomed to discrimination. It is this destruction of hope that is the key objective of BJP activism. Michael Moore has astutely labeled the ideology of Bush fundamentalism as ‘hatriotism.’ Hatriotism perfectly describes the ideology of the BJP. They do not promote love of the Hindu scriptures, rather they promote hatred of Islam and all Muslims. Just as in Pakistan an ideology of anti-Hindu hatred became the very life and soul of Pakistani nationalism, so the BJP are endeavoring to make hatred of Muslims the very life and soul of Indian nationalism. Instead of creating positive patriots, they are creating hatriots. This negative nationalism or fascism, Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar warned nearly half a century ago would lead to the balkanization of India.  Examples of this hatriotism can be found in the jubilant reaction of certain Hindus to the Gujarat genocide. Many of these Hindus wrote fan mail to Chief Minister Narendra Modi on his website. One of them reads as follows:

"Dear modi ji, you are like a god to us. Thank you for saving Hindus. But you are not doing enough. We will not be satisfied until you send your sena out to Muslim countries like Pakistan, Afghanistasn to rape Muslim women, kill and burn Muslims. Thank you rakesh kumar trivedi raktri74@hotmail.com."¹⁶

Essentially what is needed in India is a grassroots civil rights struggle that demands practical social equality before the law. This requires help from the Central government as well as a mobilization of progressive Indian society members. Countless organizations sent out investigators to explore the genocide in Gujarat and report their results. This was a wonderful beginning. What is also needed is for volunteers from progressive regions of India to work for given periods in backward states that are completely corrupted by communalism and casteism. This is what young American university students did in the sixties to help herald the civil rights revolution in America.

We need a powerful spiritual and devotional energy to serve as the elan vital of this movement. Sarkar emphasizes that exploitation can only flourish when people have not developed a collective consciousness through socio-economic struggle while deepening one’s realization of oneness with the Supreme Subjectivity. Sarkar calls us forth into this struggle, saying:

"In fact, the ignorance of Brahmava’da (experience of omnipresence of Supreme Consciousness arising from spiritual practice) and dharma (righteousness) has done enormous harm to the human race. In the modern civilized society the same thing should not be allowed to be repeated. By accepting the all-pervasive and all-permeating Supreme Entity as the primordial factor for the crude, subtle and causal world; by realizing the Supreme Subjectivity as the nucleus of the experiencer, the experienced and the experience; and by keeping the Supreme Cognition fixed before the mind, human life should be completely restructured. All feelings of differentiation — his god or her god, the Hindu’s Hari or the Muslim’s Allah — should be abandoned, and that Supreme Entity be accepted from the core of one’s heart. That Supreme, Imperishable Entity is the final desideratum, the culminating point of all entities. We must not bother the least who addresses Him as Hari or who addresses Him as Allah."¹⁷