Ashis Nandy on being an Indian Christian, Julio Ribeiro's
pain and why he opposes conversion

The BJP 'can sell their mothers
for winning an election, what
to speak of Hinduism and Ram',
says the renowned social
scientist.

Ajaz Ashraf

  Renowned political
  psychologist Ashis Nandy
  speaks out against the
  attacks on the Christian
  community, to which he too
  belongs, and why the
  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's
  ghar wapsi programme will
  only increase conversions in
  India.

  Very few in the public arena
  know you are a Christian, and
  it is impossible to make out
  your religious identity from
  your name.  For a person such
  as you, how has the attack on
  the Christian community
  impacted you at a personal level?

It has saddened me. There is no doubt that it is an organised
attack. It has also been going on for a while. It is sad that
some people don't feel secure even when their community is
just 2.5% or 1.5% of the Indian population. This is a sad
comment on our political culture. The inability to accept
diversity has now become a salient factor of Indian public
life and politics.

  I have seen many Muslims who
  are not devout become acutely
  conscious of their identity
  when their faith comes under
  attack.  Do you see this
  happening with Christians in
  India?

I see this trend among Muslims in India. But I don't think it
has happened with Christians as yet. At least, it doesn't
seem so, as I haven't seen any evidence of it around me. Nor
have I come across any surveys or data which would suggest
otherwise. I would be surprised if it were to happen -- for,
on the whole, Christians are a self-confident community.
Also, don't forget that in many parts of India, Christians
are predominantly Dalits and the attacks on them might have
other kinds of political consequences. For instance, it might
further divide the Dalits.

  Have you felt personally
  threatened with the targeting
  of Christians over the last
  nine months?

No. But then you can say I have been brought up in an
atmosphere where attacks on Christians or even a campaign
against them was unthinkable. In Calcutta, where I grew up,
the Christian community is taken as part of the landscape and
played an important role in defining the culture of the city.
Bengalis, whether Hindu or Muslim, would have been shocked to
hear about these attacks on Christians.

  The RSS has portrayed
  Christians and Muslims as
  communities that don't accept
  their Hindu cultural
  heritage.  From your own
  experience during your
  growing up years, do you
  think it is possible for any
  community to be insulated
  from what is called Hindu
  influence?

I don't think it is possible. For instance, my father was a
student of Sanskrit and persuaded us to study Sanskrit. Only
my third brother, who studied in La Martiniere, didn't get to
learn Sanskrit. My father was very proud of the fact that he
knew Sanskrit. He was a good student of Sanskrit and his
teachers loved him for that.

It is indicative of things that he was invariably called by
one of his teachers Mleccha [barbarian]. In fact, whenever
another student would fail to answer a question, the Sanskrit
pandit would say, “Mleccha, you better answer that.” My
father knew the teacher used the term Mleccha not as an
insult, but as a term of endearment; he was very proud of my father.

  Are you second- or third- or
  fifth-generation Christian,
  or is it that you don't even
  know when your ancestors
  converted?

If you include my daughter, I think we are now
fourth-generation Christians.

  Considering it is impossible
  for Christians or Muslims to
  remain insulated from Hindu
  influence, why do you think
  the RSS insists the religious
  minorities describe
  themselves as Hindu?

The RSS is basically a western, colonial implant in India.
The RSS categories are all European, beginning from
Savarkar's Hindutva, which is a perfectly European concept of
the theory of state. That concept is one state, one culture,
one nationality and nationalism -- and the state the
Hindutvavadis have in mind is a modern Westphalian European
state.

To understand Savarkar's worldview, people should read his
futuristic novel, Kalapani, which is a rather silly
description of an ideal Hindutva-based state -- totally
monolithic, terribly boring national community. In this
community, according to Savarkar's imagination, everybody
speaks the same language, everybody is marrying inter-caste,
so on and so forth. Fortunately, he doesn't include the
Christians and Muslims in this community and they should be
grateful to him for that. I'd die of boredom living in a
state like that.

Earlier, most Indians would have agreed with me. But it now
seems there is a small group of young people, particularly
NRIs in India, who, because they feel guilty about ditching
India, have become very articulate in this matter. They shout
themselves hoarse about the beauties of one state, one
culture, one nation.

  How do you react to the
  much-felicitated police
  officer Julio Ribeiro saying,
  "As a Christian, suddenly I
  am a stranger in my own
  country..."?

I think it is an expression of pain. If a person such as
Ribeiro feels so pained, then there is something drastically
wrong in our culture of politics. He is, after all, one of
the icons of the Indian state. He doesn't share my critique
of the modern nation-state or development or secularism.

However unjustified he might seem in saying what he has said,
as some suggest or claim, it is a tragic comment on the
present state of governance in the country that a person such
as Ribeiro, who has been so central to our public life,
should feel that way.

  Have you experienced the kind
  of pain Ribeiro seems to have
  felt?

I don't. First of all, I have always considered these people
[who are carrying out this campaign] as a semi-literate,
somewhat stupid and marginal segment of Indian society. They
have always been there on a small scale, only they have
become more noisy now, because they feel they are in power
They forget that they have acquired this power with just 31%
of the national vote. In India, the Opposition is always in a
majority. I don't take them seriously, nor do I take their
slurs seriously. I am proud that I have never replied to
them. Never means never.

  But as a Christian, do you
  identify with your community?

Yes, I do, even though I am not a believer. I have been a
nonbeliever from my teens, much to the sorrow of my parents,
who were devout Christians. But I am a product of the Bengali
Christian family and culture. I identify with it. I don't
disown it, particularly because it is such a small community.
I do not belong to the majority community, which is 82% of
the country's population but some of them still feel and
behave like a minority. [Laughs]

  How do you look upon the
  current conversion debate?

The debate itself will lead to more divisions and perhaps to
more conversions too. This is because the debate
automatically draws a clear line between communities.

Earlier, the lines between communities were always fuzzy. I
remember the woman who worked as our domestic help for 25
long years at our home, in the Civil Lines, Delhi. It was
only when her daughter was to get married that we came to
know that she was a Christian. She was a Christian working in
a partly Christian home, and seen people coming to wish us on
Christmas, and yet she never told us that she too was a
Christian. She would dutifully accept gifts from us on Diwali
and Holi. Only when her daughter was getting married, we
asked her about the ceremony and she said, “Padre aaye ga.”

So for marriage and child-birth and death, the rituals
followed were those of Christians. This is how we have lived
in India.

  So what you are saying we
  Indians lived in a way that
  there was a blurring of line
  among communities?

Yes, there was always a blurring of the line among the
communities. Buddhists are in a huge majority in Thailand,
yet next to the palace of the king, there is a small
settlement of Brahmins whose ancestors had gone from India
many hundred years ago. Their only function is to preside
over the coronation, death, birth and marriage ceremonies of
the royal family.

Till 1947, I am told that many Muslim aristocratic families
in Punjab would have nikkah, but in addition to that, for the
sake of their friends and neighbours, as also for reasons of
prestige, would have a Brahmin perform Hindu ceremonies.

  So the conversion debate will
  make people more conscious of
  their religious identity?

Yes, and it will also lead to clearer boundaries around
communities. You can't beat Semitic faiths, particularly
Christianity, on this count. Frankly, in matter of
conversion, I agree with Gandhi's position -- he didn't
believe in conversion. Many people from the West came to
Gandhi as if he was an Eastern guru. But Gandhi made it clear
that he was no Eastern guru. He would advise them to read
their own religious texts, and find in them the values they
believed in and fight for them.

Also, some of the Semitic creeds -- Christianity, for sure --
have the concept of suffering and martyrdom. In fact, the
idea of suffering for Christ and Christian values is a very
major strand in Christianity. This is how the great Christian
saints have been defined -- that they suffered and endured
physical torture for Christ and courted martyrdom. This
concept is there among the Shias, too.

The point I am making is that the conversion debate, and the
violence accompanying it, as also the line being drawn around
communities, will push proselytisation underground. People
will not publicly or openly disown Hinduism, but do so
clandestinely. Even in Islam this tradition is there. It is
there in Judaism, too. In other words, when people belonging
to Semitic creeds feel persecuted, they will invoke their
religious tradition to adhere to their faith secretly.

  What are your reasons for
  opposing conversion?

First of all, I don't believe in hierarchy of faiths. You
can't create a hierarchy of spiritual traditions. You can't
even say your spiritual tradition is superior on the claims
that yours is more tolerant than other traditions, like many
Hindus have begun to do now. They say they have always
believed in diversity, that all religions are paths to the
same end, but also add in the same breath that they are more
tolerant than others -- and, therefore, they are better. I
think Buddhism have as much claim to tolerance as Hinduism.
This is also true of Jainism. I don't think there is any
record of Jains being intolerant of others. I am not a
believer and, therefore, I don't have to subscribe to the
idea that salvation comes through only one faith.

  But would you still have the
  right to preach and propagate
  one's religion as one of the
  fundamental rights guaranteed
  to the country's citizens?

Yes, I will, because everyone preaches anyway. Even those who
say they don't do so. Some don't convert, yes, but they don't
shout about it from the hilltop. For instance, Parsis have a
clear-cut definition who isn't a Parsi and who isn't.

  Will you like some
  restrictions to be imposed on
  conversion?

Gandhi said, God comes to the poor in the form of bread. When
a poor person takes money to convert, then, by that
definition, one can say that he comes closer to God through
conversion. This is my belief as a nonbeliever. However, as a
nonbeliever, conversion doesn't make a straw of difference to me.

I am respectful to religion. I don't believe in
secularism because I think it is an ideology, a faith, like
religion. That is a simple argument. I have offered more
serious arguments in my writings and I don't want to repeat
them here. I have written against secularism because it is
insensitive to what religions do or don't do.  It is
theoretically and philosophically flawed.

Secularism sets up a new hierarchy, where the poor man's
tolerance is not called secularism, but the modern
Westernised Indian's tolerance is labelled secularism, a term
which most Indians don't even understand.  Only 2.5% Indians
know English, and out of this probably only 1% can spell the
word secularism.  Secularism as a concept has emerged from
the European Enlightenment and invokes a secularised,
de-mystified or de-magicalised world.

India is a country of communities, so we must learn to
respect one's own community as well as those of others. This
is good enough. All those personalities in history who are
described as secular had never heard of the word secular.
Ashoka was a Buddhist and that is why he respected other
faiths. So is the case of Akbar too. He was a believer and
his tolerance of other faiths came from Islam. I respect
those principles with which ordinary people have lived over
for centuries. They didn't need to be taught to secularism.
Our intellectuals have been too idle to find out the
appropriate terms and the language used by the likes Nanak,
Kabir and Lalan and use them.

  RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's
  comment that Mother Teresa's
  motive behind her work was
  conversion was severely
  criticised.  What does this
  remark tell you about Bhagwat
  and the criticism about
  India?

Naturally, there has been criticism of the comments. There
are people in the Bharatiya Janata Party who have written on
Mother Teresa and adore her. That only shows that Bhagwat has
been bypassed by time and is basically fighting a losing
battle on the basis of deracinated Hindus and deracinated
Indians, who are not in touch with real India.

The middle-middle class and the lower-middle class Indians
who are media exposed and semi-westernised, who are neither
modern nor traditional, are trying to take us back to the
19th century.  Basically, they are trying to establish 19th
century state in the 21st century.  Even BJP leaders who have
ruled India are fully aware of this, but they cover their
awareness of this fact by verbiage.

  Yet the BJP has become
  stronger.  They are in power
  on their own.

That is because there is no opposition. The Congress has lost
credibility, it is lethargic, direction-less, and perhaps has
served its historical purpose. It consists of different types
of people who try to give it a semblance of ideology to hold
it together. The Congress is no longer what it was, its
mission is not clear, and it has become a money-making
machine.

  For months, Prime Minister
  Narendra Modi remained silent
  on the attacks on churches,
  Christians and the ghar wapsi
  programme.  Following the
  drubbing of the BJP in the
  Delhi assembly elections, he
  spoke against it.  Do you
  think he interpreted the loss
  in Delhi as a vote against
  religious extremism?

I wouldn't know. Politicians wear many masks. He might
knowingly say it even though he doesn't believe it. Or he
might have said it because he genuinely believes it. I will
have to wait to see what concrete actions are taken.

People like Sakshi Maharaj, Adityanath and other make fool of
themselves in public, saying one thing today, apologising
tomorrow, and then saying another thing the third day.  It is
neither here nor there.

  Do you think it is a wrong
  strategy of political parties
  to have allowed the BJP to
  appropriate the religious
  realm, that there is no
  Gandhi in the contemporary
  political class who could
  challenge an interpretation
  of religion that is narrow,
  exclusivist, and spawns
  hatred?

Yes, it is true. The BJP's use of Hinduism is absurd. Their
use of Hinduism is secular -- they can sell their mothers for
winning an election, what to speak of Hinduism and Ram.

--
Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour
Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in
bookstores.

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