New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xiii, 384 pp. (Illustrations.) US$35.00, paper. ISBN 978-0195-3955-32.
Nineteen distinguished contributors assess the threat to Indian pluralism posed by majoritarian intolerance from the Hindu right which seeks to achieve hegemony. They mainly focus on public culture: ideas and imaginings. They argue that pluralistic values have not percolated down adequately to ordinary folk who are therefore vulnerable to a narrow, Hindu chauvinist homogenization of culture and society. They discuss history, religion, politics, civil society, minorities, the media, gender, and much else.
This collection was completed as Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government took power in mid-2014 and, aided by affiliated organizations, set about recasting public culture. Subsequent events lend credence to the authors’ concerns, but they also indicate that the Hindu right faces obstacles that this book underemphasizes.
Contributors rightly worry that too little has been done, in Gurcharan Das’s words, to “combine our liberal modernity with our traditions” (209). “[M]odern, liberal Indians … may abdicate [their past] to the narrow, closed minds of the fanatical Hindu nationalists.” Rightists seek to impose a hierarchy on a “non-hierarchical pantheon” (211). They propagate a “shrunken, defensive, and inaccurate version of history” (208) and a diluted, simplified parody of India’s diverse culture.
Most contributors have a rather narrow focus, so that the overall assessment is strangely incomplete, often concentrating on “high” public culture and the concerns of the middle-class minority. What Tanika Sarkar calls the “capillaries” (285), the lowest reaches, of society are examined in only a few chapters. Sarkar stresses Hindu extremists’ very real impact at that level, but other things are also happening there which raise doubts about the right’s prospects.
The fate of India’s social and political pluralism will be determined not just at the level of “high” public culture, but—more crucially—at a more mundane level. In this society of unequalled complexity, diverse subcultures engage in multiple contestations that resist regimentation. Political and social institutions, and material realities, impede homogenization and intolerance. We get glimpses of these things here, but they deserve more attention. This society is not deeply imbued with liberal values, but pluralism and (for the most part) reasonably civilized social and political interactions are sustained by a formidable array of tangible realities which will not be easily subverted.
Consider what Hindu chauvinists’ drive for hegemony is up against. At the level of ideas and imaginings, they face a potent impediment: ironically, traditional Hinduism. A myriad of local gods and heterodoxies defy efforts by Hindu extremists to homogenize, and to impose an alien hierarchy on that “non-hierarchical” Hindu pantheon. As Wendy Doniger writes, this Hinduism “of the pluralistic, creative sort, remains in the majority” (311).
Rightists are also impeded by a strong, enduring tendency, firmly established by reliable opinion surveys, towards blessed inconstancy in Indians’ attitudes to their identities. They shift their preoccupations from one of their many identities to another, and then another, often and with great fluidity—bad news for Hindu nationalists who seek to fix their attention on their religious identity.
We must look beneath high—and high-minded—public culture. The subsoil in which India’s pluralistic socio-political order is rooted consists of things that are more mundane but more dependable: the tangible needs, realities and experiences of ordinary people, and their attendant perceptions and habits of mind, giving rise to another, less exalted public culture. This falls short of the “liberal religion and liberal spiritual culture” which Martha Nussbaum would like to see (53). But just as ordinary Indians need not be literates for pluralist democracy to survive, it is unnecessary that they be liberals.
Amrita Basu (91) quotes Charles Taylor’s argument, first, that “being citizens has to rate as an important component of who they [citizens] are,” and then for the need “to shift the balance within the identity of the modern citizen, so that being a citizen will take precedence over a host of other poles of identity.”
Plentiful evidence indicates that in India, the first of these things exists in strength. Voters have repeatedly punished ineffective or abusive governments that violated tacit understandings with citizens. Witness the post-Emergency landslide (1977) at the national level, and voters’ repeated humiliations of vile state governments.
But Taylor’s second requirement has not been fulfilled. Being citizens seldom takes precedence over “other poles of identity.” This may sound like a threat to democracy, but in practice, it is not, because of the fluidity with which they shift their preoccupations among various identities. Those shifts often occur not because ordinary people/voters are liberals, but because many governments fail to address their mundane concerns.
Winning control of governments is essential both in validating the Hindu right and in enabling its drive for hegemony. But it is a marginal force in 40 percent of India, and often fails to gain power elsewhere. When it wields executive power, it is unable to dominate key political institutions—the courts, the Election Commission, lower-level councils, etc.—which have gained great substance and backbone since 1989 and resist subjugation.
More seriously, the right is often unable to retain power, because of poor performance. At this writing in mid-2016, disappointing performances by the Modi government at the national level and by BJP governments in several states, threaten to alienate many of India’s discerning, impatient voters. To grasp this, we must understand what constitutes good “performance.” Sarkar notes that the only state where the BJP has held power for three successive terms is Gujarat, as a result of religious polarization after the 2002 pogrom. She argues that this “carries a dangerous lesson: excess and not moderation in violence may be its most effective weapon” (285). Since she wrote that, BJP governments in two other states have lasted three terms by downplaying Hindu extremism, and by concentrating on development and service delivery. Outside polarizable Gujarat, that sort of “performance” is the BJP’s best hope.
But several BJP state governments elected amid the initial Modi euphoria, and headed by hardline but inexperienced Hindu rightists, have poor records at delivery. The abundant new jobs that Modi promised have not materialized. His response is a further unrealistic promise: to double rural incomes by 2020. When that proves unfeasible, it will deepen discontent by the 2019 national election. Extreme over-centralization, with Modi making all key decisions, has weakened the BJP’s organization and increased administrative paralysis. These mundane things alienate voters.
Contradictions in the right’s attempt to change public culture add to BJP woes. They have sought to appropriate Gandhi’s legacy, but Hindu chauvinists are celebrating his assassin! Modi has striven to appropriate the legacy of the iconic Dalit (ex-untouchable) leader, B.R. Ambedkar. But cow protection vigilantes have committed atrocities in three states against Dalits for pursuing their traditional occupation, removing carcasses of dead cattle. A firestorm of protest ensued, leaving Modi struggling to revive his appeal to Dalits.
The BJP was thrashed in a state election in Bihar where Modi’s religious polarization backfired. Can it win the crucial state election in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 without support from Dalits (20.7 percent of the state population)? How will it win the national election in 2019 without votes from Dalits (16.6 percent of India’s population), in the teeth of disappointment over Modi’s unfulfilled promises and poor delivery by its national and several of its state governments? Defeats will discredit the party and its leader, and check or possibly thwart the drive for political and cultural hegemony.
James Manor
University of London, London, United Kingdom
pp. 393-395