The Hindus: An Alternative History

Book Review

History is a myth whose meaning depends on from whose point of view you look at it. India has been witnessing an unprecedented rewriting of its history ever since Narendra Modi became its Prime Minister. Erstwhile heroes are turning villains and vice-versa.

History belongs to those who wield the power. But we are not living in the days of landlords and vassals anymore. Anyone can make her views available to the whole world today without any difficulty making use of the various media available. Hence history is no more a potent tool in the hands of the power-wielders and their brokers.

Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, is an example of how history can be seen from yet another angle. Doniger is an American Indologist who is turning 80. She is a scholar of Sanskrit and Hinduism. She has written many books on Hinduism, its sacred books and gods apart from translating the Rig Veda, The Laws of Manu, and the Kamasutra into English from Sanskrit. Her alternative history of Hinduism, however, irked certain Indians so much that the publisher had to withdraw the book from the market.

The fit of pique experienced by a section of Indians is understandable, however. Doniger’s humour is blasphemous, for one thing. Her irreverence stabs the devotee right between the ribs, for another. In other words, the book is not boring enough to be academic history. Again, the book looks at Indian history – not just Hinduism – through the eyes of the marginalised people like the women who were objects of men’s sensual pleasure, the backward classes, and even animals.

Doniger’s statements such as “Big breasts are as useful to courtesans as to goddesses” or her suggestion that the people of the great Indus Valley Civilization “had no religion at all” and that they were “more like protoatheists than protoyogis” are not likely to excite contemporary votaries of Hinduism whose religious-nationalist-cultural sentiments are reportedly very fragile. She also highlights the internal contradictions in many ancient scriptures and acclaimed texts like The Laws of Manu and Artha-Shastra. She shows how Hinduism was not at all as nonviolent as it has pretended to be. “Hinduism was violent,” she says, “not only in its sensuality but in its reaction against that sensuality – violent, that is, both in its addictions and in the measures it took to curb those addictions.” It was also violent in many of its religious sacrifices and rituals. The Hindu kings were as violent as, if not more than, their counterparts elsewhere.

One of the essential questions the author raises is who made all those rules in the sacred scriptures? Who made Sanskrit the language of the gods and the gods’ men? [Men, because women had nothing much to do with gods.] One of the easiest ways of making your life secure and comfortable is to make knowledge a private property of a select group of people. Isn’t that what the Brahmins did in those early days?

As Kautilya wrote in his classical book, “You cannot fool all the people all the time; but it is not necessary.” [Doniger says that Kautilya makes Machiavelli look like Mother Teresa.”] You need to fool only a substantial proportion of the population. Doniger points out that even the ravaging Alexander could not understand the cunning of the Brahmins who succeeded in instigating a rebellion among his troupes. “In India, it seems, he (Alexander) wasn’t all that Great,” chuckles Doniger.

Doniger can rectify some of our misconceptions about the arrival of Christianity and Islam in India. Islam did not come with the invaders and Christianity did not accompany the British, for the first time. Traders brought these religions long before the invaders or the missionaries did. The Arabs had trade relationships with the Indus valleys right from 650 CE. Christianity was present in Kerala centuries before any British missionary arrived in India.

In fact, the East India Company was against the missionaries. The Company was purely commercial and they did not wish to ruin the trade by mixing religion with it. It is only in the first half of the 19^th century that the British missionaries became active in India. When Queen Victoria took over absolute power over India following the 1857 Rebellion, she curtailed missionary activity.

The Mughals were also not as wicked as our present-day nationalists project them. Some of them like Akbar were tolerant and even supportive of Hindus, Shah Jahan was a mixed bag, and Aurangzeb was the worst. Doniger shows Jahangir punishing one of his officials for converting the son of a defeated Hindu raja. Conversion was not a Mughal pastime. They considered Islam their own heritage and did not want to bring anybody and everybody into it. Even Aurangzeb did not convert more than 200 Hindus, according to available evidence.

People did convert from one religion to another. Hindus became Muslims and vice-versa, especially for intermarriages. Some did it for personal benefits such as money or positions. A few did it out of genuine convictions. Doniger says that Shah Jahan established a special department to forestall conversions.

Both Hinduism and Islam influenced each other – the arts, literature, music, and so on. Doniger quotes Amitav Ghosh: “It is a simple fact that contemporary Hinduism as a living practice would not be what it is if it were not for the devotional practices initiated under Mughal rule.”

The last chapter of the book takes a look at the Hindus in America, Doniger’s own country. “Hindus, and various forms of Hinduism, came to America and colonized it,” as Doniger puts it. In 2004, there were as many as 1.5 million Hindus in America. They make positive contributions to the country’s culture too. A lot of godmen, god-women, and other such people have set up their institutions in America. Hinduism is flourishing in America. “If you are a Hindu in America, it is now possible for you to make an offering on the banks of the Ganges without leaving Atlanta or wherever you are; you pay someone else in India to do it for you,” says Doniger. There are websites offering those and more services.

Even Kamasutra is doing brisk business in America today. There is a wristwatch, for instance, that displays a different position from the Kamasutra every hour. There is “Kama Sutra Pleasure Box” and “Kama Sutra Weekend Kit” and all sorts of things related to sexual delights. A pocket-size edition of the book is also a hit in the American market.

 

Wendy Doniger

Doniger’s wit, scholarliness and narrative style make the book unputdownable. This is how history should be written, I think. It makes history interesting. It makes history readable, even enjoyable. Do understand that Doniger is not belittling the religion. Far from that, she has as much respect for it as any other academician has. The style does matter, however. The style makes the difference.