Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series, 60. New York; London: Routledge, 2012. xii, 204 pp. (Figures.) US$145.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-415-66557-5.
The front page identifies Goldie Osuri as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media, Music, Communications and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University, Australia. In the epilogue, subtitled “Conversion as profanation,” she describes her personal background and the reasons for writing the book. Born into a fourth-generation Christian family in Narasapur, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, she grew up in a multi-religious environment, where Hindus, Muslims and Christians of various denominations apparently lived peacefully side by side. However: “In 2010 the state of Andhra Pradesh experienced the second-highest number of attacks against Christians in India” (159). Osuri comments: “Conversion now is a charged issue in the state and the violence encouraged by Hindutva groups is on the increase. I offer this ethnography of lived conversions to Christianity in Andhra Pradesh as a way of engaging in a counter affective biopolitics, a counter to Hindutva incitement of hatred” (159).
The chapter titles reveal the book’s theoretical orientation: 1. (Anti) conversion as exception: genealogies; 2. (Anti) conversion: transnational bio/necropolitical engagements; 3. Sovereignty and the Indian secular; 4. What’s love got to do with it? Sovereignty and conversion; and 5. Profaning religious freedom.
Much space is taken up by discussions on political philosophy and legal theory, quoting Aristotle, Kant, Spinoza, Carl Schmitt, G. Agamben, J. Derrida, M. Foucault and A.S. Mandair. The relevance of these writings to (anti)conversion in India is not always very clear. The bibliography contains some 400 titles: the only comprehensive work on Hinduism listed is Wendy Doniger’s controversial Hindus, An Alternative History (by now banned for distribution in India). P.V. Kane’s monumental History of Dharmasastra is not mentioned, though it is certainly of greater relevance to India than the writings of the extensively quoted Carl Schmitt. Nor are there any references to classical Indian writings on political theory or to the sources of traditional Indian/Hindu law.
Osuri challenges the claim of Hindutva organizations to represent the original and essential India. She is unqualifiedly hostile towards the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She repudiates Vir Savarkar, the “conceptual founder of Hindutva,” who held that “Indian national identity, must, at its foundation, be based within the political philosophy of Hindutva” and approvingly quotes Chaturvedi: “Hinduism is only a fraction, a part of Hindutva, whereas Hindutva is not a word, but a history” (2).
Osuri is aware that “(anti)conversion” during the British Raj, especially in Adivasi areas, had much to do with economics and local politics. While the British colonial government supported Christian missions in India, some native rulers passed anti-conversion laws, especially in tribal areas. Discussing the background to the 2010 disturbances in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, involving around 50,000 (mainly Christian) Adivasis and Dalits, Osuri acknowledges the complexity of the issues, but puts the blame for the violence squarely on Hindutva activists. She also hints at pro-Hindutva bias in the commuting of the death sentence for the murderers of Australian medical missionary Dr. Graham Staines and his two young sons, burned to death in 1999 in their camper by members of the Bajrang Dal.
Chapter 4, different in style and content from the rest of the book, discusses two popular Bollywood productions: Jhodaa Akbar is a historical film about the love-marriage between the Muslim Emperor Akbar and the Hindu Rajput princess Jhoda, who continued worshipping Krishna at the court of Agra. Saat Khhoon Maf tells the story of a Goanese Catholic woman, who killed her seven husbands—Hindu, Muslim and Christian—and died a Catholic nun.
Chapter 5 takes aim at the influential Hindu American Foundation, which she dubs YankeeHindutva, commenting: “Ironically, in the 21st century, transnational Hindutva attempts to align itself with US Imperial sovereignty in a post 9/11 context” (133).
I agree with Osuri’s condemnation of the attempted violent and/or deceitful Hinduization of Adivasis, of the jarring totalitarian language of some proponents of Hindutva, and of the politicizing of religion. However, I am missing an equally critical stance towards Christian missions, which came to India with the totalitarian claim of possessing the only true religion and being the only way to salvation. While Christian missions in British India were more humane than the Spanish-Portuguese conquista in the Americas, and while some Christian missionaries effectively protected Adivasis against exploitation and abuse by outsiders, the Portuguese in Goa, Diu and Daman placed before Hindus, Jews and Muslims the alternative of either being baptized or leaving their homeland. They introduced the Holy Inquisition, which from 1560 to 1812 tortured and killed thousands.
Sadly, religious conflicts are not amenable to rational solutions: the “sovereign” majority—right or wrong—will generally prevail and minorities are too often forced to accommodate themselves. “Tolerance” is a modern secular concept and neither universally practiced nor enforceable. The 1950 Constitution of India, shaped by modern Western models, is very liberal. It guarantees the free exercise of (all) religions, including their propagation. But it also allows an interpretation like that of the Niyogi Commission in 1957. The commission (which also included an Indian Christian), ruled that “conversion” (to Christianity) can be legally prohibited for reasons of public peace and national security.
Osuri’s work is a major contribution to the debate on religious freedom in general, and in India in particular. Since she is an Indian Christian, one can understand her conflation of militant Hindu organizations and Hindu political parties with all Hindu organizations. However, there are moderate proponents of Hindutva who argue that Bharat is the cradle and the home of Hinduism (however vaguely defined) and that there is a right to peaceful means to protect their own traditions from what they feel are undue outside interference. Traditional Hinduism has been largely tolerant and Hindus have lived for centuries in peace side by side with other faith communities—as Goldie Osuri’s own hometown Narasapur has shown.
Klaus K. Klostermaier
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada