Abstract
This essay unpacks how Hindu nationalism has understood the concepts of caste and race through its ideologues’ textual strategies. It is divided into three sections. The initial section uncovers how Hindu nationalism’s dialogue with the colonial framework of knowledge produced several conceptual dilemmas inconsistent with its core objectives. The second part demonstrates how to counter such dilemmas proponents Hindu nationalists indulged in myriad intellectual manoeuvres to arrive at such notions of the interrelationship between caste and race, which are complimentary to its principal agenda. The final section unravels how their intellectual strategies produced a largely conservative outlook of passive reformism.
The biological and social category of race has a chequered and contentious political history. In the European context, politicisation of race had given rise to ultra nationalist movements. However, for Hindu nationalists in India race has been a less important category for social ordering though it has consistently figured as reference point in their conceptualisation of caste. In the Hindu nationalist discourse, race reflects a point of ambivalence and tension. The perspectives of Hindu nationalists have curiously oscillated between insistence on race caste linkages to the outright debunking of the racial underpinnings of caste. In this context, it is worth mentioning that the disputable tendency to link caste with race, which can be traced back to the British colonial ethnography, has recently received a fresh leash of life with the publication of Isabel Wilkerson’s (2020) Caste: The Source of our Discontents. Wilkerson has made a compelling case in favour of an equivalence between the hierarchies of caste and race. This has sparked off a renewed debate concerning the comparability between caste and race. It is against this backdrop that the vexed negotiation of the caste-race nexus by Hindu nationalism, the ideology of India’s presently ruling political elite assumes special significance.
Hindu nationalism, whose genealogy could be traced back to the late 19th century, is a multi-faceted and evolving socio-political phenomenon. Broadly speaking, it is ‘an ideology that seeks to imagine or construct a community (i.e. a nation) on the basis of a common culture-a culture configured by a particular notion of Hinduism’ (Zavos, 2000: 5). It has framed the idea of a nation through the ‘discourses of archaic Hindu civilisation’, an ancient Hindu golden age (Bhatt, 2019: 10). The idea of an ancient Hindu golden age is one of the major cornerstones of Hindu nationalism (Jaffrelot, 1999: 11). In present times, the ideology of Hindutva, expounded by V. D Savarkar (1883–1966) in Hindutva: Who is a Hindu (Savarkar, 2018 (1923)) has emerged as the most dominant form of Hindu nationalism. In contemporary India mainstream Hindu nationalism represented by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an extremely powerful volunteer organisation having deep links with the BJP subscribe to the ideology of Hindutva.
Hindu nationalist perspective on race and caste is a product of the Hindu society’s encounter with British colonialism. For the British, caste was a key sociological category embodying the essence of the Hindu society. This was reflected in the painstaking efforts to collect caste related information through census operations (Cohn, 1987b, 242). In the 19th century, the terms caste, tribes and race were used quite flexibly and interchangeably (Fuller, 2017: 15). The indigenous word jati is used to denote caste. But it also stands for categories like race and nation (Marriott and Inden, 1977: 230). It was in this context that the colonial thinking often reflected a tendency to understand caste through the familiar western prism of race. This provoked a response from the Hindu nationalists, who produced their own conceptions about these categories through a curious mix of absorption and negation of colonial ideas.
This study seeks to unpack how Hindu nationalism has understood questions of caste and race and to unearth those considerations which shaped its perspective in this regard. It is divided into three sections that highlight the curious interconnectedness between dialogue, dilemma and discourse with regard to the construction of the Hindu nationalist outlook towards the questions of caste and race. The first part of the essay contextualises the Hindu nationalist conceptualisation of caste and race in relation to the British colonial thinking about Hindu society. This involves uncovering the process through Hindu nationalism’s dialogue with the colonial framework of knowledge produced several conceptual dilemmas inconsistent with its core objectives. The second part demonstrates how to counter such dilemmas proponents of Hindu nationalists indulged in myriad intellectual manoeuvres to arrive at such notions of the interrelationship between caste and race, which are complimentary to its principal agenda. The final section of the essay unravels how the overwhelming compulsion to complement the core agenda of Hindu nationalism produced a largely conservative discourse of passive reformism.
Initiation of a dialogue: colonialism and its intellectual traditions
Hindu nationalist conceptualisation of caste and race was shaped through a dialogue between the defenders of Hindu culture and its colonial critics. This dialogue started with the emergence of Orientalism as the most influential school of thought concerning the study of Indian society and culture in the late 18th century. Broadly speaking, Orientalism, a school of the 18th century European social thought was concerned with the study of the nature and origin of earliest civilisations of the world such as the ancient Hindu civilisation (Haldrup and Koefoed, 2009). The early British Orientalists attempted to discover the hidden history of the ancient Indian civilisation and for this purpose they started to study the ancient Sanskrit texts in a systematic manner (Cohn, 1987a: 141–143).
Orientalism and Aryan India
The study of the ancient Hindu scriptures and legal treaties convinced the Orientalists of the past glories of the Hindus. They found the Vedic Hindu civilisation to be not only one of the oldest but also highly advanced due to the high level of sophistication of the ancient Hindu knowledge systems and the impressive attributes of Sanskrit as a language of the ancient Hindus. They also portrayed the Vedic society as ‘robust, beef-eating, socially equalitarian’ governed by tribal republics instead of Oriental despotism. It was fully free from superstitions, hereditary caste system and idol worship (Kopf, 1969: 41). Thus, Orientalists such as William Jones, H.T Colebrook and Max Muller gave shape to the idea of a Vedic Aryan or Hindu golden age.
This positive picture of the ancient Hindu society was intimately connected to the controversial Aryan migration/invasion theory. In the early 19th century, the emergence of comparative philology as a discipline led to the discovery of linguistic affinities between classical languages like Sanskrit, Greek and Latin giving rise to the concept of an Indo-European or Aryan language family. For the Orientalists, the term Aryan (a derivative of the word Arya found in Rig Veda) was a signifier of all speakers of Indo-European languages. In the hands of Max Muller the linguistic category of ‘Aryan’ got transformed into a racial category, giving rise to the theory of Aryan invasion/ migration. From the interpretation of Rig Veda, which had mention of Arya speaking tribes and dasyus (whose language, Gods and customs are different from those of Arya speaking tribes), emerged the notion of an original race whose branches had migrated towards Europe and India. According to Max Muller, the civilised Aryans entered India and then embarked upon a civilising mission through peaceful colonisation assimilating the indigenous non-Aryan stub-nosed dark races, the dasyus (Bhatt, 2019: 13; Leopold, 1970: 271–172). Thus, the Orientalist version of history highlighted racial affinities between the Indians and the Europeans and also identified Hindus as the descendants of the Aryans.
Utilitarian and evangelical contestation: from Indomania to Indophobia
With the consolidation of the British rule, the Indomania of the Orientalists gave way to Indophobia which worked to provide a justification of the empire (Upadhya, 2002: 33). In the late 18th century and early 19th century, the Orientalists exercised a great deal of influence over British India’s cultural and educational policy. The Orientalist tradition patronised most famously by Governor General of Bengal, Warren Hastings (1772–1785) led to the establishment of early educational institutions and bodies such as Calcutta Madrassa (1781), Asiatic Society (1784), Sanskrit College (1794) and Fort William College (1800). All these institutions were set up to promote the study of Indian languages and scriptures. Thereafter, utilitarian and evangelical positions started to gain strength and ultimately prevailed over the Orientalists. The evangelical position was most forcefully articulated by its chief exponent Charles Grants in the Court of Directors 1 and also by William Wilberforce in British Parliament before the enactment of the Charter Act 1813, which relaxed restrictions on the entry and activities of Christian missionaries in India. The chief exponent of utilitarian position was James Mill, who exerted an enormous influence on the cultural attitudes of colonial administration through his voluminous work The History of British India (1817). Inden (1986: 417–419) has pointed out that James Mill’s History of India written as a response to Orientalist scholarship achieved the status of a hegemonic text. For Inden, any account assumes the form of a hegemonic text when it becomes totalizing through presentation of a holistic account of all aspects of a society, rather than interpretation of a particular issue or specific aspects. It transcends disciplinary boundaries evoking the interests of general population at large. Unlike Mill who produced a single and comprehensive account of India, the Orientalists had failed to produce a hegemonic text about India. Mill particularly exerted a strong influence on the thinking of Governor General William Bentick (1828–1835) under whose regime the Orientalists suffered a crushing defeat with the adoption by the British government of a clear policy in favour of promotion of western knowledge at the expense of indigenous learning. 2
Both the viewpoints, evangelical and utilitarian despite their political differences were united in their assessment of the Hindu society. According to the evangelical viewpoint, Hindus are degenerate, debased, ignorant and licentious with little sense of morality as they are governed by malevolent passions. The religion of the Hindus is an abomination filled with superstitions and meaningless rituals (Cohn, 1987a: 143–144). As Wilberforce argued in his a speech before the British Parliament on 22 July, 1813, ‘The Hindu divinities were absolute monsters of lust, injustice, wickedness and cruelty. In short, their religious system is one grand abomination’. The caste system and the despotic role of the Brahmans (Hindu priestly class) were held responsible for the degradation of the Hindus. Similarly, Mill also characterised the Hindu civilisation as barbaric and Hindu religion as false and primitive. He too blamed the Brahmans for the deplorable condition of the Hindus (Inden, 1986: 418). According to Grant since religion directs the entire society in India, the only way of improving the situation of the Hindus lies in the elimination of Hinduism and conversion of Hindus into Christianity (Cohn, 1987b: 44). The utilitarian view point represented by James Mill, however, favoured general process of modernisation through legal reforms and good governance. With the decline of the Orientalist school of thought such demeaning portrayal of Hindu society became the dominant colonial discourse paving the way for a nationalistic response from the native society. In this connection, it must be mentioned that the Orientalists also agreed with the missionaries with regard to the characterisation of the contemporary Hindu society. Both found the present state of the Hindu society to be abysmal. However, the Orientalists deeply admired what they saw as true Hindu culture and civilisation as portrayed by the ancient scriptures, and therefore, they interpreted the current status of the Hindu society as a fall from a golden age. In contrast, the evangelical missionaries felt a deep contempt for the Hindu culture and perceived Hindu culture and society as always having been corrupt, pernicious and filled with absurdities (Cohn, 1987a: 146).
Nationalist dilemmas: towards a racial theory of caste
In response to the demeaning portrayal of Hinduism, Hindu nationalists took a cue from orientalist scholarship and invoked the idea of an ancient Hindu golden age. Faced with missionary attacks they felt the pressing need of preserving the basic structure of the Hindu social order while reforming the Hindu society to accommodate the progressive western norms. The conflict between cultural preservation and modernisation was resolved through the invocation of the orientalist idea of a distant Hindu golden age which had the advantage of being indigenous as well as modern. Consequently, the orientalist idea of the golden age became one of the crucial cornerstones of Hindu nationalism (Jaffrelot, 1999: 11).
The Aryan invasion/migration theory propounded by the orientalist scholars also appealed to the Hindu nationalists in another crucial aspect. As it claimed racial kinship between the Hindus and the Europeans, it appeared useful for recovering the self-esteem of the Hindus by redressing their deeply felt sense of inferiority vis-a-vis the British. But it also created dilemmas for Hindu nationalists by producing a racial theory of caste (Guha, 2022b: 618–619). The Aryan invasion/migration theory characterises the original inhabitants of India as members of a different race, the non-Aryans and by implication non-Hindus. One version of the Aryan invasion theory which found considerable traction in the southern parts of the country equated the Aryans with the higher castes, particularly the Brahmins, and portrayed the lower castes and tribes as well as the entire South Indian population as the original inhabitants of India or the Dravidians (Ram, 1974; O’Hanlon, 1985). Thus, it created the possibility of fissures in the Hindu society by excluding the lower castes and tribes from the fold of Hinduism.
Robert Caldwell, a missionary who arrived in India in 1838 was one of the first to powerfully articulate the Aryan-Dravidian racial divide. He advocated the view that the Brahmins, the representatives of the Aryan race and the Dravidians, who inhabited the southern part of the Indian subcontinent before the entry of Aryans belong to different racial stocks. The religion, culture and language of the Dravidians were different from those of the Aryans. The Aryans subdued the Dravidians not as conquerors but as colonists. The Brahmans brought Sanskrit with them when they entered the southern region of country along with Hinduism comprising idol worship and caste. They persuaded the Dravidians to accept the Shudra status. The non-Brahman and Dravidian movements later borrowed Caldwell’s ideas in order to challenge Brahmanism (Dirks, 2018: 142–144). The main ideological architects of these movements were Jyotirao Phule and E.V Ramaswamy Naicker alias Periyar. Led by non-Brahman and Dravidian movements the lower and backward castes in South India and also in western parts of India claimed themselves to be the descendants of India’s original inhabitants or Dravidians in opposition to the Brahmans, who were portrayed as the descendants of the foreign Aryan conquerors and were accused of imposing Hindu culture including its caste system on the indigenous society (Pandian, 1993: 2284). Thus, several lower and backward castes in South India and also in western parts of India attempted to articulate a common racial identity as an alternative to their Hindu caste identity, thereby causing a break with the Hindu culture and value system (Jaffrelot, 2000).
Though Caldwell played a pioneering role in the emergence of the racial theory of caste, it was Herbert H. Risley who possibly played the most crucial role in popularising the racial theory of caste. Risley was the 1891 Census Commissioner of Bengal. Later, he became the 1901 Census Commissioner of India and the first Director of ethnography in India in 1902. In his influential four volume work on the Tribes and Castes of Bengal (Risley, 1891a), an expanded edition of the report on the 1891 census for Bengal, he articulated his racial theory of caste. For Risley, the caste distinctions are basically racial distinctions as different castes are distinguished by their contrasting physical features. The differences between high and low castes are actually distinctions between superior and inferior races. On the first page of Castes and Tribes of Bengal, Risley interprets a stone panel from Sanchi as a sculptured expression of race sentiments of the Aryans and Dravidians towards each other. The panel showcases three ‘aboriginal women’ and a troop of monkeys praying at a small shrine. In the background, there are four stately figures – two men and two women – of tall stature and regular features with folded hands apparently expressing approval of this act of worship. Risley’s interpreted this sculpture as an evidence of the friendly relations between higher and lower races despite the higher races being aware of their differences with the lower races.
Subscribing to the basic postulates of the Aryan invasion theory, Risley (1915) argues that after subjugating the original Indian races the Aryans closed their ranks to all further intermixture of blood, becoming upper castes. The caste system emerged out of the intermixture between Aryans and Dravidians, with caste status being essentially a function of the degree of intermixture- the greater the proportion Aryan ancestry in a caste group, the higher is its status. Risley found a great deal of correlation between physical features and caste status, preserved over time due to the practice of endogamy. On the basis of such correlation Risley built an equivalence between caste and race. However, for Risley, the key anthropometric criterion was not colour but shape of the nose, for measuring which he designed a nasal index. According to Risley it is indicative of the proportion of Aryan blood and varies along the caste gradient. Risley’s ideas were challenged by other colonial administrators and anthropologists like J.S Nesfield and Denzil Ibbetson who presented an occupation theory of caste, which also became quite influential (Fuller, 2016, 2017). Still, the racial theory was able to produce an influential conceptual framework which continued to shape the terms of discussion even after anthropometry had become obsolete (Sebastian, 2015: 42).
This racial theory of caste also found acceptance in mainstream sociology in colonial era as evidenced by the writings of celebrated nationalist sociologist G.S Ghurye. While Ghurye (1932) in his influential work Caste and Race in India criticised several aspects of Risley’s theory and his methodology, he accepted Risley’s overall framework and Aryan invasion/migration theory. According to Ghurye, the Aryans entered India with three exclusive classes with Brahmans being their moral guides and legislators. The Aryan invaders assimilated the indigenous population who accepted the Aryan over-lordship at the lowest level as Shudras. In Gangetic plain (modern day Uttar Pradesh and Bihar), caste has a racial origin since there is correlation between caste status and physical features. But this does not hold true for other parts of the country, where no correlation could be found between caste status and physical features. Ghurye found that beyond the Gangetic plane caste had emerged out of a derivative cultural process. Caste had spread from the Gangetic plain to all other parts of India as cultural traits rather than through large-scale migration of Aryan Brahmins (Upadhya, 2002: 39–42).
This racial theory of caste created severe dilemmas for Hindu nationalists. While affirmation of Aryan heritage created the envious prospects of laying claim to one of the most advanced ancient civilisations and also buttressed a claim in favour of racial affinities with the Europeans, it also ended up producing two specific implications incompatible with Hindu nationalist agenda. First, the Aryan theory emphasised a biracial composition of Indian population, foreign Aryans/Hindus belonging to the higher castes and original inhabitants of India belonging to the lower castes and tribes. This distinction emerged as the guiding principle of the non-Brahmin and Dravidian movements that enabled several lower and backward castes in South India to claim themselves as the descendants of India’s original inhabitants or Dravidians in opposition to the Brahmans, the foreign Aryans (Jaffrelot, 2003: 152–171). Conceptually, this implied exclusion of lower castes and tribes from the fold of Hinduism, seriously jeopardising Hindu unity. It needs to be pointed out that one of the major objectives of Hindu nationalism has always been to incorporate the lower castes and tribal population into the fold of Hinduism in order to convert the Hindus into a politically powerful and united community (Lee, 2023). This objective came under serious strains with the emergence of Dravidian ideology based on a racial theory of caste. Furthermore, the Aryan theory by claiming that the Aryans came from outside reduced them and by implication their descendants, the higher caste Hindus to the status of foreign colonisers just like the British. This by disputing the national identity of the Hindus posed a powerful challenge to the nationalist credentials of Hindu nationalism (Jaffrelot, 1995: 341).
In this backdrop, it became incumbent on the Hindu nationalists to overcome these dilemmas through intelligent textual strategies, while sticking to the claim of glorious Aryan heritage of the Hindus. The next section of the essay analyses these textual strategies though a scrutiny of the original writings of the major ideological figures of Hindu nationalism.
Textual strategies and intellectual manoeuvres: caste-race nexus in Hindu nationalist discourse
It is possible to identify two textual strategies adopted by the proponents of Hindu nationalism to address the problem of Aryan vs Dravidian divide and the resultant exclusion of the lower castes and tribal population from the Hindu fold.
Mono-racial approach: Hindus as one race
Several ideologues of Hindu nationalism have resorted to the strategy of adopting a mono-racial conception of Hindus. In other words, they have argued that all Hindus, both higher and lower castes share a common descent from the Aryan race and carry the Aryan blood in their veins. We find this strategy in the early Hindu nationalist discourse contained in the writings of Rajnarayan Bose and Swami Vivekananda. Rajnarayan Bose, known as the grandfather of Indian nationalism while claiming Aryan racial descent of the Hindus, took care to emphasise that the Aryans had brought under the Aryan category the subordinated groups too. 3 For Rajnarayan, the term Aryan includes not only the Brahmans but also other subordinate groups (Chowdhury-Sengupta, 1995: 286).
Arguing on similar lines Swami Vivekananda (2018) asserted that the ‘Aryan race, itself a mixture of two great races, Sanskrit-speaking and Tamil-speaking, applies to all Hindus alike’ (Complete works (CW), p. 293). He categorically rejected the idea that a section of the Indian population, particularly in southern parts of the country belongs to the Dravidian race:
There is a theory that there was a race of mankind in Southern India called Dravidians, entirely differing from another race in Northern India called the Aryans, and that the Southern India Brahmins are the only Aryans that came from the North, the other men of Southern India belong to an entirely different caste and race to those of Southern India Brahmins. Now I beg your pardon, Mr. Philologist, this is entirely unfounded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The whole of India is Aryan, nothing else (CW, Vivekanand, 2018: 306–307).
Vivekananda also rejected the proposition that the lower castes are non-Aryans and therefore, by implication are non- Hindus. He offered an occupational theory of caste rather than a racial theory in this regard:
The theory that the Shudra caste were all non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is equally illogical and equally irrational. It could not have been possible in those days that a few Aryans settled and lived there with a hundred thousand slaves at their command. These slaves would have eaten them up, and made ‘chutney’ of them in five minutes. The only explanation is to be found in the Mahâbhârata, which says that in the beginning of the Satya Yuga there was one caste, the Brahmins, and then by difference of occupations they went on dividing themselves into different castes, and that is the only true and rational explanation that has been given (CW, Vivekanand, 2018: 308).
However, the most sophisticated version of this line of argument can be found in Savarkar’s writings. Interestingly, Savarkar (2018 (1923): 20–24) subscribes to the Aryan migration theory. But for him, it was ‘the commingling of the blood’ of the Aryans and that of the native people the Aryans encountered, that gave rise to Vedic-Hindu civilisation. The Hindu race was born out of a fusion of blood between the Aryan and non-Aryan communities. However, it was the infusion of Aryan blood that was the key determining factor behind the emergence of the Hindu race. The Hindus constitute a race since ‘all Hindus have in their veins the blood of the mighty race’ of the Aryans (Savarkar, 2018 (1923): 87):
Some of us are Brahmans and some Namashudras or Panchamas; but Brahmans or Chandalas – we are all Hindus and own a common blood . . . . . . . . . the same ancient blood that coursed through the veins of Ram and Krishna, Buddha and Mahavir, Nanak and Chaitanya, Basava and Madhava, of Rohidas and Thiruvalluvar courses throughout Hindudom from vein to vein, pulsates from heart to heart. We feel we are a JATI, a race bound together by the dearest ties of blood and therefore it must be so” (Savarkar, 2018 [1923]: 91–92).
Savarkar preferred the word ‘Hindu’ rather than ‘Aryan’ because the latter in the hands of the British had become an instrument for propagation of a racial theory of caste:
The ancient racial distinctions of Aryans, Kolarians, Dravidians and others even if they had ever been keen, can no longer be recognised. . . . . . ..the Aryans, Kolarians, Dravidians and all those of our ancestors, whose blood we as a race inherit, is rightly called neither an Aryan, nor Kolarian, nor Dravidian – but the Hindu race. . . . . . . and classes are Hindus (Savarkar, 2018 [1923]: 117–118).
Savarkar attributed the genesis of different castes to the intermixture of blood:
“Even a cursory glance at any of our Smritis would conclusively prove that the Anuloma and Pratiloma marriage institutions were the order of the day and have given birth to the majority of the castes that obtain among us. If a Kshatriya has a son by a Shudra woman, he gives birth to the Ugra caste; again, if the Kshatriya raises an issue on a Ugra he finds a Shvapacha caste while a Brahman mother and a Shudra father beget the caste, Chandal (Savarkar, 2018 [1923]: 88).
Therefore, according to Savarkar all the communities who have traditionally inhabited India carry the blood of the ancient Aryans due to inter-community intermixture of blood. This also becomes evident in Savarkar’s characterisation of Sister Nivedita as a foreigner by race though she fulfilled other criteria of being a Hindu. However, Savarkar (2018 (1923) suggested that she could become a full Hindu by marrying a Hindu. Thus, through Sister Nivedita’s example Savarkar made explicit the connection between Aryan blood and the membership of the Hindu race.
Cultural approach: Aryan as culture
Other Hindu nationalists have adopted a different textual strategy to overcome this race-caste dilemma. They have advanced the argument that Aryan is not a racial category but a cultural one symbolising higher virtue. For instance, for Dayanand (1970 [1908]), the founder of Arya Samaj, Aryan is someone equipped with knowledge, nobleness and virtue. Furthermore, to be an Aryan, one needs to worship only one God and subscribe to the rational, Vedic religion. The lower caste Shudras, the descendants of the dasyus were culturally not racially different from the Aryans. They were ignorant and lacked virtues and hence, failed to acquire the Aryan status. Later, when the Aryan society became divided into Brahmin, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas they were relegated to the lowest status of the Shudras. Sri Sri Aurobindo 4 while exhibiting scepticism about the Aryan invasion theory was also prepared only to concede a cultural gulf between the Aryans and non-Aryans not a racial difference:
The indications in the Veda on which this theory of a recent Aryan invasion is built, are very scanty in quantity and uncertain in their significance. There is no actual mention of any such invasion. The distinction between Aryan and un-Aryan on which so much has been built seems on the mass of the evidence to indicate a cultural rather than a racial difference (CW of Aurobindo, 1998: 26).
In a similar vein, M.S Golwarkar 5 interpreted Aryan identity through cultural terms rejecting its racial overtones:
Two thousand years ago, the country had been grouped under Pancha Gowda and Pancha Dravida, the South coming under the letter name. It was not a racial but only a territorial denomination. The people in the South were always considered to be as much ‘Aryan’ as those in the North. In our country, the word ‘Aryan’ was always a sign of culture and not the name of a race (Golwalkar, 2022 [1966]: 115).
The indigeneity problematique: Aryans as original settlers
With regard to the second dilemma posed by the Aryan invasion/migration theory that reduces the Aryans and by implication the Hindus to the status of foreigners, several Hindu nationalist thinkers have attempted to marshal an array of evidences to portray the Aryans as an indigenous community. For instance, Dayanand (1970 [1908]) argues that the Aryans being the original human inhabitants of the world had migrated to Aryavarta (North India), the best country of the world, from Tibet after bitter quarrels with the dasyus. At that time the other parts of the world had remained uninhabited. Therefore, interestingly, in Dayanand’s version of history, the Aryans despite migrating from Tibet were indeed the original settlers of India.
In a similar vein, Har Bilas Sarda (1867–1955) another prominent Arya Samajist like Dayanand in his The Hindu Superiority (Sarda, 1906) rejected the theory of Aryan migration, arguing that the Aryavarta was the birthplace of the Aryans. According to him the Aryans from Aryavarta spread to other parts of the world. The Hindu Superiority contains an entire section titled ‘Hindu Colonisation’ which is further divided into 12 sub-sections on Egypt and Ethiopia, Persia, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Turkistan and Northern Asia, Germany, Scandinavia, Hyperboreans, Great Britain, Easter Asia and America. Sarda explained in detail how all these regions had once become subject to Hindu colonisation.
Vivekananda also observed that ‘there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryan ever came from anywhere outside of India’ (CW, Aurobindo, 1998: 308). Golwalkar (1939) too forcefully asserted that the ‘Hindus came into this land from nowhere, but are indigenous children of the soil always, from times immemorial and are natural masters of the country’ (p. 46). He accepted Balgangadhar Tilak’s proposition that the Aryans originally dwelled in the North Pole region before entering India. But then pulling off an intriguing intellectual manoeuvre Golwalkar (1939) used perfunctory scientific evidence to argue that
‘the North Pole is not stationary and quite long ago it was in that part of the world, which, we find, is called Bihar and Orissa at the present. . . . . . . It was not the Hindus who migrated to that land but the Arctic Zone which emigrated and left the Hindus in Hindusthan’ (pp. 44–45).
Hindutva’s caste conundrum: political resolution of the caste question
The overarching goal of Hindu nationalism has always been to unite all caste groups to build a unified Hindu community. This goal of Hindu consolidation was shaped by two interrelated factors – demographic balance between the Hindus and the Muslims and conversion of lower castes into Islam and Christianity. As a result, the project of Hindu consolidation also involved addressing the question of caste discrimination. However, the resolution of the caste question was attempted within the discursive boundaries of Hindu nationalism, exposing the limits of the Hindu nationalist brand of reformism.
The demographic project: politics of numbers
The fear of a demographic decline of the Hindus vis-à-vis the Muslim community has remained a constant theme in the Hindu nationalist discourse. The first systematic exposition of this theme can be traced back to U.N. Mukerji (1909) influential pamphlet titled Hindus: A Dying Race. Using the data of the 1901 census Mukherji argued that the Hindus would face numerical extinction in 420 years based on the present rate growth of Muslim population and the present rate of 5% decline of the Hindu population every 30 years. A Dying Race provided a major impetus to the efforts towards consolidation of the Hindus.
Alarmed by the dreadful future of the Hindu community as anticipated by U.N Mukherjee, Arya Samaj leader Swami Shraddhanand (1926), a major architect of the shuddhi (purification and reconversion) movement 6 wrote Hindu Sanghathan: Saviour of the Dying Race calling for Hindu consolidation. Hindu consolidation also became necessary due to the increasing tendency of the colonial administration to categorise the lower castes and tribal communities as non-Hindu groups. A circular by E.A. Gait, census commissioner for the 1911 census, proposed syncretic ‘Hindu-Muslim’ categories and the classification of the lower caste untouchables as non-Hindus. For Hindu nationalists, this meant a potential loss of 60 million ‘Hindus’. Such a frightening prospect led to an intensification of the shuddhi movement (Bhatt, 2019: 68). While in Punjab and United Provinces, Shuddhi activities were carried out by Arya Samaj, in Bengal Bharat Sevashram Sangha and Hindu Mahasabha became engaged in Shuddhi and other types of Hindu consolidation activities (Bandyopadhyay, 2016: 39–41).
It also became imperative for the Hindu nationalists to arrest the tendency among Dalits to overcome caste discrimination through conversion to Islam and Christianity. Consequently, social reform aimed at removing untouchability and mitigating oppressive caste practices became a political necessity. Even before the RSS came into existence, B.S Moonje (who would later act as the President of the Hindu Mahasabha from 1927 to 1937), the mentor of the RSS founder Dr. B.S Hedgewar in a report written by him on the Malabar riots of 1921–1922 had expressed resentment about the fact that the Muslims were far more united than the Hindus owing to the existence of caste system among the Hindus. He recommended inter-caste marriage to put an end to caste divisions and thus unify the Hindus by preventing the conversion of lower castes into other faiths. Savarkar also considered caste system as the greatest impediment to Hindu rashtra (state). He felt that caste system was responsible for injecting eternal conflict between the Hindus and thus weakening Hindu unity against external threat. Condemning the tendency to blindly adhere to scriptural injunctions Savarkar observed that scriptures were relevant in a particular context and therefore they should be discarded if they lose their relevance and hamper progress towards modernity in a changed social scenario (Guha, 2022a: 71–72). Savarkar during his internment at Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri established a school for lower caste children and even set up a temple where individuals belonging to all castes could worship (Purandare, 2019: 206–210).
In contemporary times too, full inclusion of the untouchables into the Hindu society forms one of the principal objectives of Hindutva politics. The RSS encourages inter-caste marriages and inter-caste dining as means to reduce social distance between various caste groups (Andersen and Damle, 2018: 170). For undermining the notions of purity/pollution and for building a sense of Hindu fraternity in the RSS camps, all the participants are required to serve food to each other. Similarly, they are also required to clean latrines and perform sweeping and other so-called defiling activities on rotational basis (Andersen and Damle, 2019: 9).
Decoding Hindu nationalist approach to caste reform
These reformist initiatives are conditioned by Hindutva’s staunch and powerful unificatory urge represented by its core agenda of Hindu consolidation. It is the political goal of Hindu consolidation that has shaped Hindutva’s vision of caste reform not the other way round. Inevitably, Hindutva’s powerful unificatory designs have imposed paralysing limitations on its reformist spirit, seriously inhibiting the possibility of a true anti-caste perspective. In the Hindu nationalist discourse caste is condemned primarily for its tendency to jeopardise the prospects of Hindu unity not for its unequal, hierarchical and inhuman aspects. Hence, anti-caste struggle embodied in the articulation of an autonomous ethnic or racial identity like the Dravidian identity has been seen as divisive politics, a handiwork of ‘unscrupulous power-seeking persons’ (Golwalkar, 2022 [1966]: 108). The considerations concerning Hindu unity have led to a tendency to play down the hierarchical aspects of caste out of the apprehension that a critique of those aspects may produce social tension fragmenting Hindu unity. This has led to culturalization of caste, where caste is seen as a system of benign cultural difference, not as a system of hierarchy (Natrajan, 2022). As a result, Hindutva discourse is marked by an absence of an in-depth analysis of social, political and economic hierarchies which have their roots in the caste system. Hence, despite being equipped with a reformist agenda, Hindutva reformism does not pose any serious challenge to the caste-based social order and does not espouse a serious critique of caste. It is primarily a political strategy of co-option of the Dalits.
As a result, Hindutva’s approach towards caste reform has followed the logic of sanskritisation with upper caste paternalism acting as its driving force. 7 Open assertion of caste hierarchy in 17th and 18th centuries through the invocation of Adhikari-bheda doctrine advocating differential rights and claims of different castes in a hierarchically differentiated structure gave way to paternalist philanthropy and sanskritizing reform in the 20th century (Sarkar, 2005). This approach is non-confrontational and is undertaken through the initiatives of the higher castes. The rising appeal of Hindutva is often attributed to its grassroots work centred on a strategy of seva (social service), which has led to the emergence of an ‘alternative welfare system’ (Kanungo, 2002: 151–152). The RSS has set up several social organisations and groups which work among the lower castes and tribes by engaging in social services such as Samajik Samrastra Manch (a group which promotes interaction of Dalits and tribals with high caste Hindus), All India Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram (an affiliate that works for the tribal development) and Seva Bharati (a confederation of social service groups working for the development of the poor and Dalits). Their approach to lower caste upliftment abides by the logic of sanskritisation. Sanskritisation by encouraging positional mobility of upwardly mobile lower caste groups within the existing caste hierarchy manages to reproduce the caste system. John Zavos (2000: 193) has rightly suggested that the idea of sangathan (Hindu unity) advocated by the RSS is based upon horizontal organisation or the non-confrontational binding together of all castes into an organic social whole (Hindu society) as opposed to vertical restructuring of the existing social order. More importantly, sanskritisation has paved the way for Hinduisation of Dalits by facilitating the absorption of upper caste values by the Dalits. While performing social service activities among the lower castes and tribal population Hindu nationalists use Hindu samskar (culture) as a vehicle of sanskritisation directed for assimilating them into a Hindu nation (Jaffrelot, 2005: 213). How seva is linked to disciplining everyday conduct on the basis of Hindu ethical values has been highlighted by Alder’s ethnography (2018) in rural Jharkhand. He has examined the making and selling of mahua flowers run by the RSS affiliated VKK (Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra) that are cooked and bottled in chutney, instead of fermenting the flower into alcohol, as is a popular practice in parts of rural Jharkhand. By encouraging the preparation of chutney instead of alcohol, the VVK sevaks equip the rural people with discipline and ethical norms which they relate to the broader universe of Hindu value system. Jaoul (2011) in his study on the lower caste Valmikis of Kanpur has explored how the reformist efforts of the RSS activists were concerned with inculcation among the Valmikis the upper caste notion of hygiene without reversal of their traditional caste roles or duties (sanitation work).
In this context, the fundamental point that needs further emphasis is that Hindu nationalism is a movement and ideology primarily concerned with the goal of Hindu unity. It has endorsed sanskritisation rather than a radical critique of caste and structural change of Hindu society when it comes to the upliftment of the lower castes. The strategy of sanskritization has served the purpose of symbolic representation of a unified Hindu community. This has enabled the Hindu nationalists even to mobilise the support of anti-Brahminical groups such as the lower caste Matua-Namasudra community in West Bengal (Guha, 2019, 2021). Therefore, in the Hindu nationalist, worldview caste divisions as well as other social divisions are unwelcome in so far as they adversely affect the goal of national unity and integration. This also, by implication means, that the community feeling generated by caste identity may not be a problem so long as it does not conflict with the unity of the Hindu nation.
Varna order: the ultimate objective of reform
The above approach also becomes evident in the endorsement of the varna system by the Hindu nationalists who consider the modern caste system to be a distortion of the varna system or the original caste system (See Golwalkar, 2022 [1966]: 108). To put it another way, the Hindu nationalists have rejected one form of caste-based social order in favour of another caste-like social order in the form of varna simply because the latter compliments the goal of a differentiated yet united Hindu society. The most vigorous defence of the varna system has come from Dayanand Saraswati. For Dayanand (1970 (1908)), the ideal society of Varna order is composed of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras is based upon merit rather than birth, where the varna of every person is assigned in view of his or her qualities. He blamed the Brahmins for the perversion of the original varna system into caste system. Golwalkar also offered a spirited defence of the varna system:
Today it (Varna-vyavastha) is being dubbed as ‘casteism’ and scoffed. . . . . . . The felling of inequality, of high and low, which has crept into the Varna system, is comparatively of recent origin. . . . . . .But in its original form, the distinctions in that social order did not imply any discrimination such as big and small, high and low, among its constituents. On the other hand, the Gita tells us that the individual who does his assigned duties in life in a spirit of selfless service only worships God through such performance (Golwalkar, 2022 [1966]: 108).
However, it is in Deendayal Upadhyay’s 8 Intergral Humanism, considered by the BJP to be the principal source of its ideology that the linkage between varna system and an organic social order is most explicit:
In our concept of four castes, they are thought of as analogous to the different limbs of Viratpurusha. It was suggested that from the head of the Virat-Purusha Brahmins were created, Kshatriyas from hands, Vaishyas from his abdomen and Shudras from legs. . . . . . . . . There cannot be any conflict in the different parts of the same body. On the contrary ‘one man’ prevails. . . . . . .. There is a complete identity of interest and identity of belonging (Upadhyaya, 1992).
In this connection, B.R Ambedkar has rightly observed that the real struggle against caste is not possible so long as the varna system is endorsed. For Ambedkar Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra are terms which are associated with notions of birth-based hierarchy, and hence, they need to fully discarded. So long as these labels continue, caste-based hierarchy will remain. He further points out that permanent labels like Brahmin and Kshatriya are not necessary to honour learned men and soldiers. European societies do not use such honorific permanent labels. Moreover, it is simply not possible to reduce numerous castes into only four varnas because of infinite diversity of human qualities and capacities (Ambedkar and Rodrigues, 2019 (2017): 278–279). Obviously, the Hindu nationalist support for the varna system points to the fact that Hindu nationalism is more concerned with Hindu consolidation and unity rather than an all-out struggle against caste. In what is considered by many as one of the most important speeches in the history of the RSS, in 1974 Balasaheb Deoras, the then chief of the RSS publicly blamed the practice of untouchability for social divisions among the Hindus and called it a sin. At the same time echoing Savarkar, Deoras argued that religious texts providing a justification of caste hierarchies must be evaluated with the goal of Hindu consolidation (Andersen and Damle, 2018: 6–7). This Hindutva drive for Hindu unity was on full display when a Dalit was made to lay the foundation stone of the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya in 1989. Therefore, in the final analysis, we can draw the conclusion that in the Hindutva discourse abolition of caste divisions is not seen as an end-in-itself but only as a means to the larger end of Hindu unity. This is where it differs from the radical Ambedkarite discourse. For Ambedkar, annihilation of caste is an end-in-itself, a goal important enough to be pursued for its own sake. But for the Hindutva movement, abolition of caste divisions is only a means to the larger end of Hindu unity.
Concluding observations
This study has undertaken a detailed analysis of different perspectives within the broader framework of Hindu nationalism relating to the relationship between caste and race. In this connection, it has shown how Hindu nationalist worldview has grown out of selective absorption and negation of the colonial frameworks of knowledge. But this complex process of selective appropriation has engendered a host of ideological dilemmas, the intellectual and political resolution of which has led to a largely conservative discourse of passive reformism.
Broadly, this essay brings forth the larger point that though Hindu nationalism is not entirely devoid of a spirit of social reform, its reformist spirit is epiphenomenal to the ultimate agenda of Hinduisation of Dalits. In other words, despite the exponents of Hindu nationalism recognising the need for caste reforms, in the Hindutva worldview caste reform has remained subordinate to the primary consideration of Hindu unity represented by the vision of building an organic social whole. As a result, the overall approach of Hindu nationalism towards social change and caste reform has remained non-confrontational, largely conservative and one of passive reform. Inevitably, the absence of an active reformist spirit has precluded any serious interrogation of the hierarchical and exploitative aspects of caste. This accounts for the absence in the discourse of Hindu nationalism of a serious and ideologically independent critique of caste, which is the precondition for a real anti-caste struggle. In short, Hindu nationalist conceptualisation of the caste question has remained limited by its political vision of Hindu unity.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author received funding from the British Academy.
