Guruji: A drashta—XXXII
S. Gurumurthy
There is implied consensus among Guruji, Nehru and Huntington on the role of culture in a nation’s life. Guruji expounds the inclusive Hindu culture which accommodates all faiths and diversities of lifestyle as the basic national culture. Nehru conceives of a mix of the diverse cultural streams as the composite, but nameless, national culture. Huntington advocates the reinstatement of the American concept of all cultures melting together to conform to the Anglo Protestant culture. Where do these three thinkers agree and disagree? Guruji’s exposition of the basic or core element of the national culture of India as Hindu culture which does not exclude any, and includes all, faiths and cultures looks similar, but, qualitatively different from the Huntington’s core culture or Nehru’s composite culture. An analysis of this interesting dialogue among them will bring out the internal contradiction in the ideas of Huntington and Nehru and also how there is a critical difference between their ideas and Gurujis. The dialogue will also show how Guruji was ahead of time in conceptualising cultural plurality transcending religious exclusivity.
No forefathers, only founding fathers
Samuel Huntington’s efforts to capture the American identity appear extremely difficult and tricky. To Huntington, Anglo Protestantism apart, there seems to be no central theme for the American nation to identify with and exist. Huntington implies that mere index of freedom or statistics of economic prosperity or military might or intellectual prowess individually could not define the identity of America. Neither could the US constitution founded on social contract. It needs a higher bond that relates the people to people and the people to the country and the country to its past. Patriotism is not just slogan. It is the common spirit of the people who identify the nation with the land and its origins. Here America has an acute deficit. Unlike India, the forefathers of America were, not the present, but the native, Americans who, dispossessed of their homeland mainly by the Anglo-Protestant settlers, now live in exiled areas reserved for them.(1) Huntington’s dilemma – which is equally the dilemma of the US – is very real. The European discoverer of America, Columbus, began the decimation of the native Americans. So Huntington’s travel back could not recall him. It had to force stop its journey back with the founding of American Constitution [18th century] as the origin of today’s America. So, the Anglo-Protestant settlers of America – who dispossessed the forefathers of the native Americans – became the founding fathers of American Republic.
Now compare India with America and Guruji and Huntington. By their divisive Aryan invasion theory and the like European colonialists of India had psychologically distanced Indians from their forefathers. Guruji led a movement to reconnect them to their forefathers as the origin, and recalled their culture as the common identity, of all Indians for which he was subject to calumny. Had he just written a book and not challenged the establishment in the field, he would not have been so treated. But Huntington had to work exactly the other way round, to write a book – substitute the Anglo-Protestants as the origin and the founding fathers of America, in the absence of a living sense of forefathers for America. Thus while Guruji’s traced India’s Hindu identity to its ancient forefathers, Huntington had to trace the American origin and identity to Anglo-Protestant settlers as founding fathers. By tracing national culture to ancestry that predated current religious differences, Guruji formulated the concept of cultural diversity transcending religious exclusivity. Huntington could not do something similar in the absence of sense of ancestry for today’s America.
Composite culture, melting pot culture and Hindu culture
Even though Nehru’s vision of composite culture seems to be the Indian edition of the American bowl of salads theory, Guruji sees no fundamental conflict between his idea of Hindu culture and Pandit Nehru’s vision of a composite culture if the basic Hindu culture as its main pillar of the composite culture is recognised. Guruji’s view on basic culture approximates to Huntington’s view of core culture but with a difference. While answering the question whether the development of Hindu culture will not hinder the development of a composite culture, Guruji said: “It need not. Firstly, a composite culture, if any, cannot grow on weak and deficient constituents. Secondly, the basic culture of the country, while absorbing elements of other cultures, retains its identity and name.” (2) So Guruji does not reject, but, redefines and improves, the composite culture concept of Nehru as, after all, the Hindu culture’s accommodative spirit can only make even the composite culture, however ill-defined, work. The difference between Guruji and Nehru is that, in Nehru’s view, the composite culture is nameless and without historic identity, but, according to Guruji it has basic Hindu name and identity. It needs no seer to say that a nameless culture is as good as a nameless person.
But the case is different with Huntington view of American identity. Huntington’s Anglo-Protestant cultural identity, which is the product of Melting Pot theory, is White Anglo Saxon Protestant [WASP] in character according to Huntington himself. So it has explicit religious link. Cultures are linked to, and certainly not, divorced from religion. The most critical element of a culture is in fact faith. A UNESCO document titled “culture and religion for a sustainable future” under the programme “Teaching and learning for a sustainable future” says: “Our cultural values, which often include particular religious beliefs, shape our way of living and acting in the world.” It adds: “Religion is a major influence in the world today. ………Religious beliefs have a strong influence on the culture of a community. Indeed, for many people around the world, religious beliefs are central to their culture and provide the moral codes by which they live.”
(3) If religion strongly influences culture it means that religion and culture are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, unless different faiths mutually respect each other, cultures linked to them cannot accommodate one another. Hindu religion, which considers all faiths as valid for their respective followers, therefore conceptually and consciously promotes mutual respect among faiths. Result. The product of Hindu religion, the basic culture of Bharat, is accommodative of other cultures. This virtue is unique to Hinduism and other Indian-born religions but it is not shared by most non-Indian born religions. And particularly the Monotheistic faiths, which claim exclusive validity, reject other faiths and, therefore, the cultures they had spawned are unable to accommodate other cultures. Even though Huntington was perhaps compelled to evade this core point for fear of opening the Pandoras Box of conflict of theologies, he implicitly endorsed the theological superiority of Christianity by claiming superiority for Anglo-Protestant culture. And Nehru was perhaps persuaded to close his eyes to this critical aspect out of political compulsions. When Huntington viewed Anglo Protestant culture as the core culture he had to side step the fact that the Anglo Protestant faith, which claims Christianity to be the only true faith, could not and therefore would not treat other religions as equal which is condition precedent for unity in diversity. Likewise when Nehru saw composite culture as a physical mix of cultures, he had to sidestep the fact that Islamic and Christian faiths respectively claim to be the only true faith and therefore they could not, unless they accept the view that all faiths are respectable and acceptable. Consequently the cultures linked to them could not also respect and accommodate other cultures. If any faith claimed exclusive superiority as the true faith, its culture cannot be integral to the concept of unity in diversity. So, even if exclusive faiths profess unity in diversity there is a contradiction between their profession and belief. This leads us to the conflict between the contemporary paradigm of religious and culture plurality – the new name for unity in diversity – which is Hinduism’s gift to the world on the one hand and the exclusive faiths which deny validity to other faiths, on the other. So there exists un-resolved, subterranean conflict and even clash, between religious pluralism and religious exclusivism.
Exclusive faiths and cultures vs unity in diversity
This subtle distinction that pluralism or unity in diversity implies that no culture or faith can claim exclusive validity. If a faith claims sole validity its culture cannot accept pluralism. This has been beautifully yet profoundly brought out in an essay titled “Reacting to religious diversity conflicts involving religious exclusivism” thus: Exclusivism and religious pluralism are two opposing ways of looking at world religions in relation to one’s own faith.Most people in North America and the rest of the world probably take an exclusivist position: They believe that their religion, and only theirs, is complete. ……They view the Gods of other religions as false. Some may even view other faith groups or denominations within their own religion to be false. Harold Coward commented: “Many religions exhibit an inner tendency to claim to be the true religion, to offer the true revelation as the true way of salvation or release. It appears to be self-contradictory for such a religion to accept any expression of ultimate reality other than its own” It is probably difficult for them to recognise much merit in other religions…….Exclusivism, the belief that one’s religion is true and that all others are false, can develop into hatred of other faith groups and their members. Religious exclusivism is often a major cause of much of the world’s civil unrest civil wars and mass crimes against humanity and genocide.”
Religious exclusivism which is a product of a faith claiming to be true faith is the cause of cultural exclusivism that denies cultural pluralism. This is where the global discourse centered on exclusive faiths and cultures is unable to resolve the inherent contradiction between theologies of exclusive faiths and the paradigm of plurality of faiths and cultures. The contradiction cannot be resolved so long as global discourse doesn’t have Hindu India’s perspective. But unfortunately the contraction at the global levels exists in the Indian discourse also but without being debated, unlike in the West where is it is openly debated. Result, the world is denied of Hindu India’s perspective.
References:
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation
[2] http://www.golwalkarguruji.org/shri-guruji/interviews/shri-gurujis-interviews/our-cultural-characteristics
[3]http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_c/mod10.html?panel=1#top
[4] http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_plur4.htm
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