Meena Kandasamy on 'Rise of Hindutva in Tamil Nadu' - II

Meena Kandasamy is the emerging face of Indian literature. She is from Chennai. She is basically a teacher and teaches college students about the nuances of poetry and literature. She is an established poetess now. Besides she is a social activist, writer, blogger, peace activist and a fine human being with a heart that beats. She likes to describe herself as a woman writer who is obsessed with revolutionary Dr.Ambedkar’s message of caste annihilation. Below it we present one of her article published in Boloji.com.

Doing It Everyday – 2

Now, we shall look at a mini-exposition by the Joint Secretary, Parva Samanvaya Vibhag of the VHP, Mr. Santosh Trivedy on the topic of Festivals for National Integration which finds its place in the same website. He writes,

“Our festivals have a theme and a great continuity with our ithihasa or history. Some of them are associated with nature. Many of them have roots in scientific principles. They are all of great social and cultural significance too. The practice of religious fasts is not only of great spiritual and religious significance but also of essential principles of health and hygiene. Ours is a philosophy of life propounding the omnipresence of paramathma, the immortality of Athma, the principle cycle of births and deaths etc. Our festivals are also an expression of that philosophy. They are very much inter-linked with music, dance, painting, and other arts. Devotion to God and society has been a main theme with many of our festivals. Thus our festivals have been powerful instruments of integration and exponents [sic] of unity in diversity.

Celebration of these festivals on a large scale and with the message of our Rishi will be giving us the impetus and samskars [sic] to the society and facilitate early realization of the goal of national renaissance. This requires, a reorientation in the practice of our festivals, keeping in view the times and requirements. The objective shall have to be integration and social awareness.

So far most festivals are celebrated at the family level or at some limited sectarian or institutional level. The area has to be widened and they should be brought to mass and collective level. Leaders of various sections and communities may be invited to explain the importance and relevance of each festival to the masses. There should be mutual participation in the festivals celebrated by individual sections. For example, a guruparva celebrated in a gurdwara may be attended by all the Hindus. The Buddh and Mahavir Jayanthi and others may be celebrated collectively. Festivals observed by Harijans, Girijans shall have to be extended to all Hindus. In addition to collective celebration of festivals certain universal practices on the festive and other occasions also would be helpful in promotion of national integration. Tilak Dharana on the forehead, cow worship, hoisting of 'om' and 'Bhagava (Saffrron) flags are some of them.”

Dissecting this manifesto is no more difficult or different. Their dream projects peep out from behind gossamer curtains. Their appropriation of religious beliefs to serve political agendas dictates itself out.

First, the contention of Trivedi that festivals have a theme and a great continuity with our itihiasa or history. Look at the word ‘have’. If any festival lacks a theme or historicity that is no problem. Leave it to the saffron brigade… The Sangh Parivar can rack its combined brains and invent themes and extrapolate in order to achieve continuity in history. The search for a linear, homogeneous Hindu history is part of their project anyway. [And regarding the choice of ‘itihasa (epic) or history’, the reader can pick out the correct answer.]

We now move to the second grandiose statement: the emphasis on a scientific principle. Except for the carnage in Gujarat, whose scientific principle was traced by Modi to Newton’s Third Law, which festival of hate or love or whatever had any scientific principle? This invention of a scientific background is in order to steer clear of criticisms that arose from movements like Raja Rammohun Roy’s Brahmo Samaj and Periyar’s Self-Respect movement that criticized the superstitious, dogmatic and utterly unscientific basis and origin of festivals. Or may be, they are speaking to the colonialists, the imperialists who have more than once pooh-poohed the irrational celebrations. Think of Whitehead, Elmore and other western scholars of the pre-independence era who were rudely taken aback by the atrocious nature of some of the festivals. So we find the VHP preening itself to announce of the scientific principles.

First Science, then Health. The Greater, Larger Things. Festivals buttress scientific principles, and scientific principles buttress fasts. The quid-pro-quo of political logic. The practice of fasts is connected with ‘health and hygiene.’ Since fasting has been developed into something of a national weapon, no one will have the audacity to question this claim. We condescend to understanding the health and hygiene (?) factors. But in India with its seasonal starvation deaths and serious malnutrition in a major section of the population, fasting, like feasting, is a luxury that only a few can afford. And only very few, like the banal right-wing can make the most of it.

Having claimed that festivals are ‘powerful instruments’ (one has to emphatically agree, seeing the Hindutva experience), Trivedi moves on to talk of celebration on a large scale. When the Sangh Parivar speaks of a large scale, it sounds draconian: chills creep into my spine, and my fingers twitch instead of flying across the keyboard. We have seen what large scale has meant to them: the kar-seva in Ayodhya, the riots in Mumbai, the agitations against Mandal, the genocide in Gujarat. Terror is shape of largeness. And before you are done with dealing on their massive dreams, the next line sends another jolt: Not only large, but early. In his words: “facilitate early realization of the goal of national renaissance.” Translated into ordinary speech it is the impatience to declare the Hindu Rashtra. And towards this end, he calls for a ‘reorientation’. In the following lines, we learn that this reorienting is moving the festivals from the private sphere into the public sphere. So, religion is not religion is not religion. Religion is politics and vote-banks and mobilization and hatred and crimes.

‘Mutual participation’ is part of the project of foisting an Hindu identity on Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains. So Hindus are required to flock to gurudwaras, and likewise Buddhist and Jainist festivals can also be appropriated. This is the ahimsa of assimilation. One also needs to wonder why, in this article on ‘Festivals of National Integration’, there is no mention of the festivals of the other religious minorities—Muslims and Christians, or of Hindus taking part in them. Will that not aid national integration?

So, having given the guidelines to woo the religions of revolt, here is the procedure for integrating the Dalits and the Adivasis who have never been part of the Hindu society. So, all Hindus are advised to observe ‘Harijan-Girijan’ (forgive the arrogance of their rhyming words, almost like Humpty-Dumpty) festivals which is once again a project of mobilization and conscription. Observing subaltern festivals is an excellent entrepreneurial idea: minimum investment, maximum returns. As Lele notes in Hindutva: The Emergence of the Right, “Many of the tribal, low caste deities to which Brahminism had to adapt ended up as consorts or local incarnations of the pan-Indian patriarchal gods, thus investing these pan-Indian symbols with unprecedented power and potency for popular mobilization.”

There has to be some clarification about commonly confused words: it is the stark Hindu nationalism that is preferred to be substituted with the dreamy, grandiose project of national integration. Cow worship and om/saffron flag hoisting are meant to be universal practices. Which universe are they practiced in? Here, we are forced to read blatant instances of Hindutvaization as a step towards the ‘promotion of national integration.’ The picture that has evolved is clearly illustrative of the sinister designs behind the Hindutva celebration of fairs, festivals, and yatras. This is the reason why the Sangh Parivar is keen on filling up the calendar.

Monopoly of the calendar

“Due to Vishva Hindu Parishad and others, there began a growing confidence among Hindus. A large number of saints and seers too took up the cause and came out of their seclusion and plunged into action in the society. The Ekathmatha Yagna, the Rama Janina Bhoomi Abhiyan changed the mood of the entire Hindu society. But the speed and vigour of progress is yet to rise, to cope up with the growing challenges and activities of the disruptionists and foreign agents.

The festivals and parvas are being celebrated with interruption although there is some adverse effect because of the political atmosphere or economic disparities. Holi Dipawali, Vijyadashami, Raksha Bandhan, Sankranti and the like have a great impact in keeping the society [sic] intact and in promoting unity and integrity of the nation. The enthusiasm in pilgrimages from Kashi to Ramaswaram, to great centres like Prayag, Tirupathi, Nathadwara, Vaishnodevi, Sabarimalal etc. are on the increase. Special mention may be made of the increasing popularity of kumbhamela, in which Hindus from all over the world take part.”

So you see, they have blocked all the dates: either the VHP is coming on yatras or people are going on yatras, or they are all celebrating, here, there everywhere. Calling these festivals red-letter days would sound communist, or in a out-of-fashion sense, Freudian. Welcome, aboard to the saffron-letter days. This is the egalitarianism of the new holiness: you need to no longer look forward to sacred days that occur so rarely, no longer is Friday the traditional day for women to pray in temples. Everyone’s learning saffronized Solomon-Grandy rhymes and a new version for every week. Ritual days don’t any longer punctuate the weary life. The Sangh Parivar is doing it everyday. If the festivals are a way to expend your energies and stretch your budgets, the prescribed fasting for so many occasions shall set that straight.

Also read : Meena Kandasamy on 'Rise of Hindutva in Tamil Nadu' - I

Meena Kandasamy on "Rise of hindutva in Tamil Nadu" -I

Meena Kandasamy is the emerging face of Indian literature. She is from Chennai. She is basically a teacher and teaches college students about the nuances of poetry and literature. She is an established poetess now. Besides she is a social activist, writer, blogger, peace activist and a fine human being with a heart that beats. She likes to describe herself as a woman writer who is obsessed with revolutionary Dr.Ambedkar’s message of caste annihilation. Below it we present one of her article published in Boloji.com.

Doing It Everyday
Hindutva Consolidation and Conscription
in Tamil Nadu Through Celebrations

I hate, I despise your feasts
I take no pleasure in your solemn festivals.
When you offer me holocausts and grain offerings
I will not accept them...
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
And righteousness like an overflowing stream.
(The Book of Amos 5:21-24)

In the transformation of the Hindutva agenda that has included hard cash and hate consolidation, you don’t go in search of Gods, they come to your pavement, your doors. The city comes to a standstill, the juggernaut of the gods-and-devotees continues. The new-found religiosity is stifling and stunning and a little hard on your ears, but it is contagious. You are drawn into becoming a spectator, and not before long, the skeptic in you has put in the papers, you are part of the excited crowd, caught in the frenzy of fundamentalism that is caramel-coated with devotion. This one-after-another-after-another ensures that all days are holy days. Occasion is reduced to almost a routine. The weekend is downsized to being a jazzy, glitzy flamboyant festival. Like the kinky Osho once remarked, living becomes an eternal celebration. And, you are doing it everyday. Why worry if Hindutva is working on you 365/24/7? Arrey, nobody’s complaining yaar. Yes, but little knowledge has never been more dangerous. There is cause to complain only when we are made to realize (by none other than the Sangh Parivar) that this holding of festivals, this appropriation and hijacking of the public sphere is their program in the project of Hindu consolidation, mass conscription and ‘collectivization’.

In looking at the glamorous and much-photographed instances: say, the Vinayaka Chaturthi rituals in Tamil Nadu that occasionally result in loss of limb, or life, and waste of newsreel, we have ignored the larger, risky picture of what is happening the rest of the year. Choreographed Kumbh-melas and stage-managed rath yatras have their lesser known counterparts: itsy-bitsy Hindutva festivals that ravish daily calendars, that continue to be born everyday. Sociological analysis by Fuller, Geetha and Rajadurai , and Anandhi have studied the Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations in the state of Tamil Nadu at great length. Their independent researches has shed light on the imitation and replication of the Maharashtra example in the immersion of Ganesh idols [Fuller], of the recruitment of the subaltern sections in this event [Anandhi], and the engineering of the clashes with the minority communities [Geetha and Rajadurai]. Fuller’s engaging thesis—the most recent study on the Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations—describes of how the Sangh Parivar successfully appropriates local, traditional Hindu rituals to create a wider Hindu unity and establishes that “the primary goal for the Parivar in the utilization of such rituals is to persuade all Hindus to become conscious of belonging to a single, majority community.” Alas, Hindutva doesn’t stop with showing its might on the fourth day of the Bhadrapada. Hindutva celebrations are not once-in-a-year carnivals. Its like the local cinema screening sleazy films: there are four shows a day, and its almost always houseful. Or given the militant and deceptive posturing of the Orange Order outfits, here is a fitter illustration: Hindutva conscription is not always an imbecile Operation Shock Treatment (though that is resorted to during carnages, rapes, murders, and other cold-blooded lunacies). It is Operation Slow Poison. Every day, every week, every year. It works like tiny doses of arsenic, it percolates and mingles with your bloodstream, and before you are aware, you are dying the little deaths, someone else dictates your life. Such an assimilation is an all-year project.

In this paper, I have attempted to analyze the importance the Sangh Parivar lays on festivals as an integral part of their agenda of action, this continuous process of Hindutva conscription and consolidation through celebrations and rituals that are organized (or sometimes, hijacked); the varied attempts to appropriate the public space; the targeting of the oppressed sections and the women, its subsequent effects and the overall grave threat this seemingly innocent program poses to communal amity.

Sangh Parivar credo on festivals

The supreme ideologue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), ‘Guruji’ M.S. Golwalkar believed that the festivals were a “medium of mass-awakening” besides the one-hour shakhas. In his Bunch of Thoughts, he wrote that “the tradition of national festivals that the Sangh has evolved is a potent medium of awakening the masses to our true and integrated national life.” So there dear readers, brace yourself for the first lesson we are to learn from a bunch of thoughts: the tradition of national festivals is what the Sangh has evolved. The festivals have not arisen out of centuries-old practice (how much more can they demean our ‘golden heritage’ that even according to their claims is five-thousand years old), or age-old traditions (parampara and sanskriti: where are they?). Instead the national festivals are mass-market products evolved by the Sangh.

Festivals differ largely from their one-hour-a-day meeting sessions. While shakhas are private bouddhik sessions for members only, Hindutva celebrations are sinfully different: they are bouddhik sessions for the public. It is an indoctrination amidst bhajans, it is a seduction in the midst of festive processions. If the freedom of imagination allows one to compare the shakha to a training ground of the desi Nazis, then the festivals are their fishing grounds. Every citizen is baited with what is scrumptiously called ‘cultural nationalism.’ The RSS, the parent organization of the large, unwieldy Sangh Parivar officially recognizes and observes only six national festivals. They are: Varsha Pratipada/ Yugadi (The Hindu New Year’s Day), Hindu Samrajya Dinostav (Coronation Day of Chatrapati Shivaji), Guru Pooja, Raksha Bandhan, Vijayadashami, and Makar Sankranti.

But this isn’t the norm for other members of the Parivar. Known for its dubious deviance from its claims, this issue is no different. Doublespeak arises out of their twice-born-ness. While the RSS recognizes only six days (please note the absence of the national independence day in this list), other organs of this large, fertile family have patented all calendar days for one festival or another.

It is widely known that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) carries the religious activities of the RSS, and is in charge of the festivals and celebrations. Let me attempt an analysis of the Hindutva Agenda of mass mobilization through a reading of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s statement on ‘Fairs, Festivals and Yatras’. Here are some excerpts from its official website: www.vhp.org

“The man is a social animal. He does not like to sit idle or live alone. He even wants to share his personal feelings of joy and sorrow with others. That is why he is fond of Festivals and Yatras as these are the main source of collectivization. The celebration has become the part and parcel of the human life since long.

In India celebration of fairs and festivals has become like a ritual. They are being celebrated separately according to one's faith, religion and custom. The festivity has special. significance in Hindu society as they are considered to be the real source., of imparting sanskara on the society. They are the reflectors of the memories of our great culture and civilization. In a Hindu house every day is a festival day.

Seeing the importance of Fairs, Festivals and Yatras, the V.H.P. started managing various Fairs, Festivals and Yatras to create the feeling of oneness and unity amongst various communities of Hindu society.”

I hate to interpret the obvious, to explain what dances from words set down in black and white. But an essay requires logical coherence, and an author’s indulgence now and then, to not only scream her ideas, but also to read out from between the lines.

The first statement is the recognition that festivals and yatras are the main source of collectivization. No wonder then, that the Sangh Parivar uses these festivals and yatras as the main tools in its political program. Religion, is not the criteria now, nor is dear-old-damned-for-dead spirituality. In the game of numbers, in the question of mobilization, the saffron wing has selected its potent machinery.

The second statement that needs to be given weight, is that every day is a festival day in a Hindu house. This is almost like dressing the sacrificial lamb before leading it to a butcher. Underlining the fact that there exists an innate religiosity in the Hindu home, is a way of preparing for that religious, festive fervor to be tapped, and exploited.

Next, we are told of how and why the VHP started ‘managing’ various fairs, festivals and yatras (that we collectively call as celebrations in this paper). Seeing the importance, or so the VHP says. Seeing is learning. Seeing is replicating. The VHP’s ‘management’ of fairs, festivals and yatras is not spontaneous, or devoted, or even remotely religious—it is a mere capitalization.