Am I a Hindu, or am I a Hindu?

(Posted on Facebook on November 3, 2014, addressing a distant FB friend)

Dear Kaushik,

Since you made your last comment on my post a few days back (a very humorous article by Shovon Choudhury), I have been pondering about responding to you. I guess it is now an unavoidable imperative for me to articulate my position on matters that you have often rambled about, on some of my posts.

Kaushik, we do not know each other personally. It seems you are known to a schoolmate of mine, whom I have physically met only once (or was it twice?) in last 31 years. How you and I became friends on FB is another matter, and need not be discussed now. But, it is safely presumable that we do not know enough about each other.

In case you had followed my last post on Ben Affleck - Bill Maher - Sam Harris issue, then you would know that I would like to describe myself as someone who is irreligious, deeply spiritual and intensely liberal. But these are just labels. Allow me to give you a glimpse of my interest in matters that you talk of at times, especially religion and Hinduism.

As a young student in a school run by Ramakrishna Mission, I was exposed to Indian philosophies at an early age. That body of knowledge came under an academic topic titled “Indian Culture”, not as “Hindu Culture” or “Hinduism”. And that is not the only reason for my avoiding referring to the Indian body of work in philosophy and epistemology as Hinduism. It is also important at this point to note that religion, spirituality, philosophy and epistemology are all closely related but distinct topics, and I have a spot of interest in the ground that these cover between them.

Anyway, I believe, the seed that was sown more than 30 years back, took its shape in various manners within all of us who were so exposed. Alike the institution that is Ramakrishna Mission today, some of my friends have hardened their stance on their Hindu identity, some have stayed true to credo of “joto mot, toto poth”, i.e. “as many ways as creeds”, while some have strayed totally away from religious discourses, but stayed philosophical and at times spiritual. For me, it has taken a shape of a search (rather random though) – a search for meaning, for reason beyond apparent rationality and lastly for a well-lit path, if there is any. And this search has taken me reasonably extensively through various texts of Indian philosophy in last decade or more. While I had exposure to Vedanta and Upanishads, thanks to what we read in school (and that included very captivating and stimulating stories), I started reading up more in recent times. I obtained a reasonable sense of the structure of the six schools of Indian philosophy, namely Vedanta, Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika and Mimamsa. I have not studied much about the two schools of syllogistic epistemology and cosmology, namely Nyaya and Vaisheshika, and the hermenuetics and exegesis based Mimamsa. Among the other three, which have more spirituality than the former three, I have studied Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra at length and few versions of it, and its lucid treatise “Raja Yoga”, by Swami Vivekananda. Between Vedanta (including Upanishads) and Yoga came Samkhya (which is a dualist but almost atheistic philosophy and enumerative epistemology). Although I have not yet been through the Samkhya Karika of Isvara Krishna or the commentaries of Gauda Pada, I have a decent insight of the Samkhya enumeration, thanks to a brilliant and detailed introduction in one of the most comprehensive treatise of Patanjali that I have come across. Also on my wish list is, Badarayan’s Brahma Sutra and Adi Sankara’s Bhasya of the same, because I want to deepen my understanding of Vedanta, when I can. I have also not covered the totally atheistic and materialistic philosophy called Charvaka, which was apparently contemporaneous with Buddhism and Jainism. I am a big fan of Adi Sankaracharya as a poet-spiritualist of monumental talent and spirit, and I am quite infamous in the family for quoting his brilliant Nirvana Shatakam or breaking into the Carnatic musical version of Bhaja Govindam (aka Moha Mudgar) at the drop of the proverbial hat. Lastly, I carry all the time in my bag, a very elegant (textually) version of Bhagavad Gita, which I think of as perhaps the best text of spiritual philosophy ever written.

Now, my dear stranger, the reason I wasted some precious time on a Sunday morning (that’s when I started writing this piece) in outlining my philosophical readings, is not to look like an immodest humbug (which I am surely looking like by now), but to let you know that in the multitude of Mumbai or for that matter, in urban India, I perhaps stand slightly on the right hand side of the normal curve, in terms of some understanding of Indian (aka Hindu) philosophy and epistemology. And, if you choose to call that Hinduism, I have absolutely no problem. Let me now enumerate my positions on various related topics:

1. My Indian (and perhaps Hindu) identity is not based on a vision of pantheistic, deistic, ritualistic, casteist and most importantly Islamophobe Hinduism
2. Pride is not my dominant behaviour, but push comes to shove, I am and would like to be a proud Indian, because of its ‘lasting’ achievements, namely:

a. The profound philosophies that India has contributed to the world and that I have mentioned above

b. The achievements Indians have attained in science, literature, art, sports, business etc. in the modern world

3. I am not proud of some imagined scientific achievements, which were mentioned in semi-fictional mythologies (extremely well written ones), which has no remnant in the present world, to lend any credibility to such imaginations. I respect Dwaipyana Vyas as an author and a spiritual giant for writing Mahabharata and Gita. And I respect him for his vivid imaginations, as much as I respect Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov for their own. But even science fiction, at the end of the day, is that only – fiction.

Now comes my position on Islam, Muslims and related matter. Firstly, an admission. My knowledge of Islam as a religion is not as strong as my knowledge and understanding of Hinduism. It is much lesser than my awareness of Buddhism and even lesser than Christianity as well. Interestingly, I find that this particular profile of awareness is shared by a large swathe of the educated urban upper middle class Hindus of the country. This, kind of reflects, how we have looked at Islam and Muslims, in spite of its and their presence in the country over a millennium. Having said that, and given my interest in these matters, I had taken some shots in reading up about the religion and its scriptures and structure of its philosophy and epistemology. I must admit that on the latter measure, I found it to be rather scant. In fact in that respect, all Abrahamic religions are rather low on epistemological content. Much of western thought today is a sum and product of Hellenic philosophy and Christian ethics. And Greeks were not Christians.

But Kaushik, I believe that your area of interest is not Islam as a religion, but how its followers behave; rather, how they have been behaving in last half a century, i.e. our life time, and how pseudo-seculars, or sickulars, like me, have pandered to that. On that, I have to state the following:

1. Wielding broad brushes about religion and political behaviour is fraught with extreme perils, biggest of which is being unfair to a vastly silent majority and of alienating communities
2. Having said that, I do believe that Islamic world and Arab world (not the same, although, there are linkages) are going through a serious crisis
3. I would also grant, to a limited extent, that prevalent Islamic theology has had mildly adverse to intensely devastating effect on certain societies, countries and geopolitics
4. If you follow my posts (which you seem to do), I do occasionally share related matters about which I am quite critical. Examples being my post on ISIS, or my post on Ben Affleck which I mentioned in this piece as well, and about Muslim PETA people being harassed for protesting against mass slaughters during Eid etc.
5. I do somewhat believe that Islam, as the newest of the major religions, has to travel a lot more and reform itself drastically.
6. But I do strongly opine that criticisms by complete outsiders like me, who have very little or no clue, either of the religion, or of the history or of the sociological underpinnings of the troubled regions, can achieve very little. All changes, in any entity, be it an individual, or society, or a body politic, can work, only if it is from within. Thus my critical posts on Islam or Islamic issues are not as prolific as on other matters. And for the same reason, I would like more discussion within Islamic societies in the world, which postures like Affleck’s, might stifle.
7. I do also believe that the minorities also have their responsibilities, like all citizens, to be unquestionably law abiding and to have appropriate expectations to be treated equally, and not extremely exceptionally. (N.B - Article 370 is not included in this, as that arises out of a political contract and is a separate matter of discussion.)
8. I am totally against any unfair and/or unlawful, explicit or implicit, mollycoddling or pandering to any interest group, including religious minorities. You would have missed my exasperation and condemnation, when Mamata Banerjee refused to meet Nancy Pelosy because some Muslim groups in Kolkata did not want her to meet Pelosy.
9. However, at the end of the day, in a civilised society or country, I believe that the onus is on the majority to assure the minority of its safety and equality. And this is not held true at times in many countries, including ours. And I resent that.

Kaushik, I will not go on forever, but would like to leave just two points:

1. My understanding of Hinduism or the Sanatana Indian Way, is different from yours or of those, whose flags you seem to be bearing now in a far country
2. And at the cost of immodesty, I would like to speculate, that my Indian or Hindu identity stands on far stronger foundation than yours to feel endangered so easily

Lastly, I won’t say that it is not personal. I am writing to you and as a response to your occasional comments. So you may certainly feel affronted. But I must add that this is also about many who share your views, and often spar with some of us, who stand on the very narrow ground in the middle. Thus it is rather a communiqué to a larger audience, and please try not feel very bad about it.

Best,