Table Of ContentCONTESTING SYMBOLS
AND STEREOTYPES
Essays on Indian History and Culture
Edited by
D.N. Jha
AAKAR
CONTESTING SYMBOLS AND STEREOTYPES
Essays on Indian History and Culture
Edited by D.N. Jha
© D.N. Jha 2013
© Authors of their respective essays
ISBN 978-93-5002-261-0
First Published, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, without prior permission
of the Publisher.
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IN MEMORIAM
Nirmala Chaturvedi
Hem Chaturvedi
Bina Rao
Vijay Nath
Contents
Preface vii
SECTION I
Stereotypes and History
1. Stereotyping Hindu Identity 3
D.N. Jha
2. Eternal India and Timeless Hinduism 20
D.N. Jha
3. Of Conflict, Conversion, and Cow 51
D.N. Jha
SECTION II
Questioning the Symbols
4. Trident Stridency 89
KM. Shrimali
5. The Swastika: Insignia with an Identity Crisis 101
Mahima Singh
SECTION III
Diversity of Epic Traditions
6. Historical Evolution of the Rama Legend 123
Suvira Jaiswal
7. Ramayana in the Counterculture: Folk Retellings by
Women, Sudras and the Tribal People 134
Nabaneeta Dev Sen
vi Contesting Symbols and Stereotypes
8. The Plurality of the Sanskrit Mahabharata and
of the Mahabharata Story 146
James Hegarty
SECTION IV
Nudity and Sexuality: Divine and Human
9. The Nude Goddess or "Shameless Woman" in Western
Asia, India, and South-Eastern Asia 189
H.D. Sankalia
10. Erotic Nudity, Barren Sexuality and Ferocious
Goddesses 208
Jae-Eun Shin
11. Homosexuality in Ancient Indian Literature 226
Shalini Shah
About the Contributors 244
Preface
The construction of Hindu religious identity began in the
nineteenth century, and, has continued unabated ever since.
Accompanied by the demonization of minorities, especially
Muslims, and the creation and propagation of absurd ideas
about Hinduism, the Hindu identity has become increasingly
aggressive in its manifestations in recent years. Its ideologues
have been trying to redefine the boundaries of Hinduism by
creating stereotypes which have no basis in historical
evidence. They project Rama as the supreme god, who, in
the words of L.K. Advani, is "the unique symbol of our
oneness", deny the diversity of religious beliefs and practices
negating even the plurality of epic traditions, appropriate
and even invent cultural symbols of questionable Hindu
association, burn books that do not endorse their view,
vandalize the art they consider blashphemous and agitate
against films that go against their irrational notions of cultural
purity. The essays in the present anthology argue against
their distorted view of Indian history and culture on the basis
of empirical historical evidence.
I am thankful to the contributors who cooperated with
me by sending in their articles in time but, have, hopefully
forgiven me for the inordinate delay in the publication of
the book. I must place on record my gratitude to Antara Dev
Sen for permission to reproduce Nabaneeta Dev Sen's paper
on the Ramayana from the Little Magazine and to the editor.
viii Contesting Symbols and Stereotypes
Frontline, for reprinting K.M. Shrimali's paper on trisula.
I have received help from several friends and well wishers
in the preparation of the book. Professor Amar Farooqui read
portions of it and offered valuable comments. Professor Niraj
K. Jha helped me obtain many references from Princeton
University Library and Ms Toshie Awaya was kind enough
to send the PDFs and the xerox copies of many articles from
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Dr Jyotsna Arora, Ms
Malavika Gulati and Ms Noorshabina Aziz of the library of
the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, were
always helpful in accessing the internet resources for me.
Ajeet, Amol, Mihir and Shankar rendered much needed
bibliographical assistance and Praveen Kumar (Pintoo) drove
me even at odd hours so as to enable me to honour my
commitments. Mr K.K. Saxena of Aakar Books took pains to
publish this anthology expedetiously. My wife, Rajrani, as
usual stood by me in moments of stress. I am grateful to all
of them.
5 October 2013 D.N. Jha
S ectio n I
STEREOTYPES AND HISTORY
Stereotyping Hindu Identity
D.N. Jha
The formation of a religious Hindu identity has been a matter
of much debate among scholars interested in the construction
of Hinduism and there has been no consensus on the issue so
far. But in spite of. the divergent approaches to the problem, it
is difficult to deny that the beginning of the census operations
in 1872, the application of categories of "Hindus" and
"Muhammadans" to classify and divide the people of the
Indian colony on religious lines and to keep these religious
groups constantly at loggerheads played a crucial role in
creating the notion of a Hindu identity as distinct from Muslim
or Christian. An equally, if not more, important factor in the
initial phase of Hinduism's construction was the acceptance and
dissemination of the term "Hindu" by religious thinkers and
reformists of the nineteenth century. Ram Mohan Roy (1772-
1833), who founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828, vindicated
Hinduism against the expansion of Christianity, even though
he was in favour of certain Western reformist ideas like the
abolition of sati. The religion based on the Vedas and
Upanisads, he argued, was monotheistic and egalitarian, and
it was only in course of time that decline set in and retrograde
practices like polytheism, the caste system and the suppression
of women crept into it. The notion of the Vedic age as a "golden
age" was thus "embodied in the doctrine of the Brahmo Samaj"1
and it anticipated the ideas qf subsequent religious reformers.
4 Contesting Symbols and Stereotypes
Like him Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), who founded the
reformist organisation, Arya Samaj, in 1875, also harked back
to the Vedic "golden age" in drydvarta where the first men were
born and where Sanskrit, the mother of all tongues, was
spoken.2 He "maintained that the Aryas of the Vedas were the
autochthonous people of Bharat."3 Unlike Roy, however, he
treated the Vedas as a divine revelation and accorded them the
status of a fixed and clearly demarcated canon—a status which
the Bible and Quran enjoyed in Christianity and Islam
respectively. This gave a "specifity and distinction" to the Arya
Samajist ideology in relation to Hinduism, which, according
to it, was a degraded form of Vedic religion—a reason why
the followers of Dayananda preferred to register themselves
as "Aryas" and not Hindus in the 1891 Punjab census.4 Thus,
apparently Dayananda would not initially appear to be a
proponent of Hindu nationalism, but judging from his
activities, he was certainly a forerunner of the later Hindu
chauvinism and xenophobia. For example, he fully shared the
militant Hinduism's concern for cow-protection, and founded
the Gorakhsini Sabha in 1881. So strong was his commitment
to the movement for cow-protection that despite his sharp
ideological antagonism with tire adherents of the anti-reformist
and orthodox brahamanical religious practices called the
Sanatanists, the Arya Samajists felt no uneasiness of conscience
in collaborating with them over the issue. The idea of protecting
the cow thus gained popularity among a wide cross-section of
the people, galvanized and unified them as Hindus5 and
strengthened their separate identity as against that of the
Muslims who were stereotyped as kine killers and beef eaters.
Similarly, Dayananda's ardour and enthusiasm for the
purification/reconversion (suddhi) of those who or whose
ancestors had converted to Islam and Christianity,6 clearly
recognized their followers as enemies. Although his missionary
activity was initially opposed by the orthodox Sanatanists who
projected Hinduism as a non-proselytizing religion,7 it soon
received their endorsement, notably from persons like Madan
Mohan Malaviya, in the early twentieth century, and thus
tended to reinforce the idea of Hindu identity.
