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PLURALISM AND DEMOCRACY IN INDIA DEBATING THE HINDU RIGHT
Author: Wendy Doniger and Martha C Nussbaum (eds)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 384
Price: Rs 895
There are 20 essays in this volume devoted to addressing the central question of how India's pluralism and democracy can face the challenges posed by the growing Hindu Right. The range of the essays is wide, covering not only every possible aspect of the threat to pluralism, but also examining how different institutions of a democracy like India, particularly the media, have made this challenge more complex and even formidable.
The editors of the volume - Wendy Doniger and Martha C Nussbaum - are well-known for their academic work and authoritative views on religion and ethics. The former is, of course, better known in India for having been at the receiving end of some nasty attacks from an increasingly influential group of the Hindu Right. The attacks, including threats, throwing an egg at her in a conference in the United Kingdom and legal challenges in India forcing the withdrawal of her book on Hinduism, occurred because her critical and scholarly analysis of the Hindu religion and mythologies rejects the Hindu fanatics' narrow, bigoted and fundamentalist views of their own faith and challenges their spurious idea that only Hindus have the right to evaluate and comment on the Hindu religion.
Doniger and Nussbaum find that this exclusionary approach of the Hindu Right lies at the heart of the debate over whether pluralism and democracy are under threat in India. Few can disagree with their view that India thrives due to its diversity and, indeed, there is nothing that can be truly called Indian values. It is this diversity even among the Hindus that has helped pluralism and democracy survive and prosper in India.
Not surprisingly, Doniger and Nussbaum conclude that the experiment with democracy in India has surmounted many challenges in the past. But they are unsure whether it will continue to do so. They remind readers of the riots in Gujarat in 2002 and the fact that the state's chief minister then, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is leading the government at the Centre now. They point out that this has certainly sown seeds of doubt about India's future as a democracy and its capacity to promote and preserve pluralism. Their warning sounds ominous: "We do not feel confident about what the future holds, and the future itself, as it unfolds, will frame the historical studies contained in this volume."
These thoughts provide the framework for the arguments and analyses in the essays in this volume that explore the diversity of India, its media, its non-resident Indian or NRI community, politics and its gender movements. In his essay on the politics of history, Nobel Prize-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen may appear to be repeating himself. But even when he says the same thing all over again, he does that with such lucidity, freshness and conviction that the reader is unlikely to complain. There can be no quarrel over his idea that promoting the traditions of public dialogue and critical thinking about the past and the present without relying much on emotion or public culture should guarantee a nation's plurality and democracy. Nussbaum or Mushirul Hasan do not entirely agree with this thesis and note that a scientific and rational approach to debates is more vital.
The volume has three essays on the role of the media in preserving pluralism and democracy. Malini Parthasarathy and Antara Dev Sen observe the steady decline in the standards of journalism in the mainstream media, where news selection and display of news has become a victim of the consumerist bias of the media's promoters and even practitioners. The concerns of the people who are outside the market to which the media caters do not get the kind of attention that they deserve.
Both essays cite numerous examples and should be a reminder to all how the media's evolution has distanced itself from the original goals that it had set out to achieve - an objective mirror to portray society with both its positive and negative features, but not excluding those that do not constitute the market it serves. Commercial pressures on the media to remain viable are certainly one of the reasons for what clearly is a distortion, but the authors argue that unless the media decides to change direction, the collateral damage for democracy and pluralism could be serious. Arvind Rajagopal is less strident in his analysis, but his assessment is no different from the other two essayists.
In his easy-to-read style, Gurcharan Das cogently argues for the importance of promoting the study of the past so that the younger generations develop a critical and tolerant spirit. He notes that Indians have become defensive about their past and traditions. He has a novel argument to offer a way out of it: Let every Indian learn about his heritage - literary as well as historical - so that it is not hijacked by the fanatical and ideological Hindu Right.
Taking a different line of argument, Nabaneeta Dev Sen narrates some refreshing stories and poems that bring out the plurality of India as we see it even now. She is an optimist and it is clear that while most other essayists in the volume are critical of the attack on liberal values, she seeks comfort from the many instances where plurality and democracy thrive even in today's world that is otherwise torn apart by caste, creed and religion.
In sharp contrast, historian Tanika Sarkar argues that the Hindu right has targeted other religions by using gender dominations. Women members of groups belonging to the Hindu Right have been used in the Ayodhya movement to great effect, Sarkar argues.
Prabhat Pattnaik launches an attack on neo-liberal economic policies and holds them to be responsible for India's food crisis, though the connection between food crisis and preserving pluralism is not fully explained.
The volume, which has drawn its essays from the seminar papers read by invited experts at the University of Chicago Law School in 2005, has an abundance of experts who are known for their liberal views. There is only one essay in the entire volume - from Ved P Nanda - that can be said to represent the Hindu Right. His essay expectedly talks about what the Hindus have achieved in different fields, but he is hardly convincing in his argument that Hindu studies ought to be taught by practising Hindus. It will, of course, be a matter of debate whether the editors tried hard enough to get some better experts from the Hindu Right who enjoy higher credibility to argue its case in the debate over preserving plurality and democracy.
Nevertheless, one broad conclusion from the various essays in the volume is worth recounting. If plurality and democracy have to be preserved, it is important to nurture a healthy culture of public discourse and critical discussion of issues that have a bearing on people of all classes. A free and fair media is an important tool in ensuring that debate in society. The state, too, can help promote the culture of public discourse. Equally important, women and a vibrant NRI community could play a key role in nurturing a culture of public discourse. How effective they can be in preserving democracy and pluralism, however, only time can tell.
