Preternaturally Talented Pillai Teeters

 

In Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu Pillai takes on the monumental task of encapsulating the complex, ever – evolving mishmash of endless odds and ends that went into the making of the modern Hindu identity. Covering an unwieldy chunk of history from the time a few Jesuit monks were entertained by Akbar to the fledgling days of Hindutva under Savarkar, he casts a densely woven net that seeks to capture the past, present and likely future of Hinduism.

Exhaustively researched, with a notes section that is as lengthy as the book itself, Pillai highlights the role played by the Brahmin elites and the flexibility they evinced in remoulding religious tradition with a surpassing lack of scruples to serve the self or a Kshatriyan/Muslim/British overlord. Moving on, the reader gets a closer look at the myopic view of foreigners which veered between a romanticized version of Hinduism as a repository of spiritual treasures beyond measure or extreme notions of heathens who worshipped devilish deities, sacrificed babies and burnt women.

Hinduism, already reeling from persecution and proselytization struggled to survive the onslaught of foreign rule and rabid missionary zeal with its trademark reinvention and assimilation. But there was trouble within in the form of social evils like casteism or relatively harmless regional or individual approaches to the Hindu way of life, that defied the convenient idea of a monolithic religion that went strictly by the holy book. According to Pillai, Hindu scriptures like the Puranas acquired their fluid form not to meet present day scholarly strictures but to serve a higher purpose to ‘universalize what was provincial’. However, in attempting to carve out the Hindu identity from within the exacting framework of scholarship, he stumbles.   

Interestingly enough, despite stressing that ‘…while Puranic culture grew into a vast ocean, it is important to remember that the Brahmanical stream, no matter how big and forceful, still [represented] only one amongst numerous others flowing into it,’ he himself sticks largely to research material that is Brahmanical or Western or influenced by one or the other. Thus, authorial intent, notwithstanding, he is hamstrung by the same limitations.

This is made evident by Pillai’s omissions particularly in the chapter on Indian Luthers. He dwells at length on the lasting legacy of Hindu reformers like Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, Dayananda Saraswati as well as Jotirao Phule, Savitribai, B.G. Tilak and Savarkar. Among others, he fails to mention the Devadasis, that exploited and empowered class of danseuses and the work of activists like Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy to ban the practise. Or the counter efforts of Rukmini Devi, Bangalore Nagarathnammal to restore their art to respectability, the repercussions of which are still felt. Periyar and Ambedkar barely get a mention.

It is an author’s prerogative to decide what is included in his book, but these choices are revealing, especially since it was the likes of Tilak and Savarkar, who laid the foundation for a more aggressive and exclusionary brand of Hinduism that is at odds with a pluralistic faith which has a history of being mostly accommodating and inclusive with a tolerant viewpoint that many a path can be taken to achieve oneness with the divine. As Pillai points out, Savarkar did not curry favour with the Hindu majority in his day, who were more swayed by the moderate Congress party. Why suggest that Savarkar’s views reign supreme today when the ground reality indicates that not much has changed with caste still holding sway and individual/regional idiosyncrasies ensuring that Hinduism retains its perennial shape – shifting qualities?

Many a British scholar or Catholic missionary was flummoxed by the vast gulf between scriptural guidelines and lived reality for most Hindus. This was probably because the average Hindu had little time or inclination to wade through the formidable ocean of the Vedas, Upanishads and weighty religious tomes in indecipherable Sanskrit and were content to smear ash on the forehead, mutter a mantra force – fed them by their mothers and drop in at a temple once in a while armed with flowers or coconuts and carry on with the business of living. This defines the vast majority of Hindus, then and now and one wonders if they give two hoots about the extremist views of Hindutvas or even Ram/Rakshasa rajya as there is little to choose between the two.

Admittedly, Manu Pillai is a brilliant historian capable of navigating the unforgiving terrain of Hindu history and lore with an uncanny ability to lay bare its complexities, but he still ends up presenting a limited view of Hindu identity seen through a prism of Brahmanical and Western documentation which in addition to academic heft has the inherent biases of the former and white liberal agenda of the latter which displays a prejudiced view of brown people that is as problematic as Right Wing WhatsApp University nonsense.

This book review was originally published in TNIE Magazine