Caste, Authenticity, and the Oriental Spirit

One of the issues that repeatedly came up in the public discourse in the last four years is that of claiming an ‘authentic’ past. Authenticity is one of the central features of populism on the basis of which a core constituency is built. In this case, it is about an authentic Hindu who lays claim to a grand past. Prime Minister Modi announced at a science conclave that Indian civilization had the knowledge of plastic surgery in ancient times, and the imagery of Lord Ganesh is a clear example of this.²⁵ Similarly, he began the practice of gifting the Bhagvat Gita to foreign dignitaries, though at other occasions, he claimed that the Constitution of India alone is his Bhagvat Gita that everyone else needs to follow.²⁶ On the sidelines, RSS repeatedly claimed that the knowledge in the Vedas, Upanishads, and other ancient texts need to be appropriated in order to make a better meaning of life in modern times.²⁷ The problem that remains is not the claim itself but the realization that many of these texts had reference to the Varna Ashrama Dharma and directly or indirectly justified a segregated caste order. The most controversial of these texts is that of Manusmriti that codified caste and gendered practices. Ambedkar had publicly burnt a copy of the Manusmriti as a symbol of protest against Hinduism, which is otherwise considered as one of the early legal texts that codified the ancient way of life. In fact, a statue of Manu was installed outside the High Court in Rajasthan.²⁸

Manusmriti and Ancient Past

The problem for the RSS is a long-standing one. It struggles with the question of how to create an authentic past with reference to such texts when they have references to the caste system and are rejected by the Dalit-Bahujan. While on the other hand, rejection of ancient knowledge at times also symbolizes Eurocentrism and a bias to Western Enlightenment that refuses to acknowledge a different view of social and cultural life that stands in contrast or in opposition to its own legal-rational order. Secular-progressives in India did not sufficiently engage with this question, though much before them, Gandhi had attempted to do so by reinterpreting the ancient texts to contemporary imperatives. For instance, he argued that Bhagvat Gita was a text about peace and non-violence and war was a kind of symbolism that should not be read literally. Through this, he attempted to address the sensibilities of caste and justifications of violence within the limits of Hinduism and without questioning the way of life it presents.²⁹

The other pertinent question that is relevant and will perhaps become more significant in times to come is whether or not ancient texts represented knowledge systems outside of Brahminic Hinduism and that it is only one variant or one possible interpretation, among many others. There needs to be more pronounced attempts both at the level of the episteme and also in a more direct political manner on how to renegotiate with ancient India. One such text in the recent past was Hegel’s India: A Reinterpretation, with Texts. This was an important book at a significant time. It makes some incisive points on how the Anglophone world has refused to, and continues to ignore, the contributions of ‘far-reaching philosophical systems’ that arose outside the so-called Western traditions. Hegel was one such philosopher, who, the authors of the book, argue suffered from the vices of his era, including that of racism, orientalism, chauvinism, religious bias, the pride of cultural superiority, and anti-semitism. The authors, intriguingly, go a step further and argue that Hegel dismissed ‘Indian thought with acerbic contempt’ because ‘that which was most impressive to Hegel about Indian philosophy also posed a grave threat to him’.³⁰ It reminded him of the painful fact that a substantial part of his cutting-edge philosophy ‘culminated in no more than those precious insights already enjoyed by distant philosophers centuries before’.³¹ Hegel made great efforts to distinguish the construct of the Brahman—as the Absolute—from his own ‘philosophy of the emergence of the Absolute’. Three decades of postcolonial theory in India and elsewhere seems to have fructified in not only laying a claim to the rich traditions of Indian philosophy but also in mustering the courage to expose the possible lack of magnanimity of Western philosophers in acknowledging some of the contributions to the philosophical systems that could have preceded their own understanding and elaborations.

Authenticity and the Problem of Retrieval

However, the more intractable problem could be one of what I would refer to as the ‘problem of retrieval’. If we continue to teach Greek philosophers, in spite of many of them lending active or tacit support to the system of slavery, or teach and read J.S.Mill as a philosopher of liberty, in spite of his racist attitude to those beyond the Western shores, what prevented us from retrieving the rich philosophical systems within what is being referred to as Indian philosophy. Why did Indian philosophy and systems of knowledge come to be undermined or equated to Brahminic Hinduism? In fact, the authors point out that, ‘for Hegel, (that) the oriental empire was yet to develop its rational objectivity of self-conscious substantiality, freedom, as also the condition of stable, organized law. Again, this presentation reduces the plurality of Indian history, religions, regimes, and politics to those captured in the mainstream of Brahminic Hinduism, which is a partial and misleading presentation of India’³² (p.77). The objective spirit for Hegel is, in essence, the evolution of the principle of subjectivity and self-conscious freedom, which the oriental spirit could not attain as caste divisions reduced the potential to achieve civic and legal regulations. If the plurality that the authors refer to signifies philosophical systems untouched by Brahminic Hinduism, there is a need to both pursue and retrieve those systems and also find a possible explanation for why it did not happen, and Hegel perhaps is not alone in this. The book could certainly have been more enriching in addressing the ‘problem of retrieval’, keeping Hegel as the reference point. In a sense, the book under review makes an important beginning in this direction.

There could be various entry points in framing Hegel’s engagement with Indian philosophy. The authors point out that ‘for decades, philosophers and historians from Karl Popper to Walter Kaufmann have suggested that “the Nazis got their racism from Hegel” or that Hegel contributes to “the formula for modern racism”. There is likely much truth in these views as well’.³³ Hegel made dogmatic judgments not merely about India but also about Africa in claiming that, ‘Africa has no history and is therefore irrelevant to his comprehensive philosophy of world history’.³⁴ Hegel’s critique of the oriental spirit having a static nature, emerged not merely from his racist prejudice but also his understanding of history being one with telos. In contrast, Ernesto Laclau points out that ‘history cannot be conceived therefore as an infinite advance towards an ultimate aim. History is rather a discontinuous succession of hegemonic formations that cannot be ordered by a script transcending their contingent historicity’.³⁵ Eurocentrism and racism are closely linked to Hegelian teleology but I am not sure if we have made complete sense of this interface. Would making a fuller sense of this interface between an episteme, founded on the ideas of teleological history and universality as a pure ‘uncontaminated instance’ and the proposition regarding a stagnant oriental spirit allow us to reframe Hegelian philosophy in any meaningful sense? The authors, however, make a steadfast claim that ‘Indian thought really haunted Hegel somehow. In this reinterpretation, we argue that it represented a sort of nagging twin that he badly needed to shake off throughout the development of his philosophy.’³⁶

The authors in their reinterpretation point out that Hegel distinguished his own philosophy from that of Indian philosophy around two definitive points. First, around the motif of freedom as against the omnipresent role of caste in all of Indian history, politics, art, religion and philosophy, and the second is the idea of insufficient mediation—dialectical and progressive—as against the stasis of Indian thought. The subject-object relation holds the key to understanding the Hegelian approach to social and historical processes. For Hegel, the actions of the subject, in the ultimate analysis, have to be located, sutured to the objective conditions in which he/she lives in. Instead of understanding human action as a product of unrelated sources, as the authors lucidly explain, ‘for Hegel, what is essential is that all of these are manifold expressions of the character of a community of people, of their Spirit. That is, the linkages between these different (even ostensibly opposed) aspects of human life taken as a whole are, for Hegel, the key to understanding the whole, which the Phenomenology claims to fathom’.³⁷ Thus, Hegel concludes that in a hierarchized society like India, where Brahmins dominate the rest through scriptural sanction, the philosophy they produced must be contaminated, stagnant, and undialectical. The process of history is to finally achieve complete self-knowledge, or in other words, complete social transparency of the historical processes. It is in this that the subject finally enjoys the essence of freedom.

The authors again explain this fairly abstract point in rather a lucid language that the goal of the political, then, is ‘coterminous with the end of history’. In contrast, ‘the Orientals’ Hegel argues, ‘have not attained the knowledge that Spirit—Man as such—is free; and because they do not know this, they are not free... The German nations, under the influence of Christianity, were the first to attain the consciousness, that man, as a man, is free: that it is the freedom of spirit which constitutes its essence’.³⁸ The authors, in their reinterpretation, in effect, make two points in opposition to that of Hegel. Firstly, that Hegel’s own ideas and philosophy are much closer to Indian thought than what Hegel actually acknowledged, and that these ideas in Indian thought emerged much earlier. Secondly, that all of the Indian philosophy cannot be reduced to Brahminic Hinduism, and that merely from the sociological fact that Brahmins dominated and denied the same freedom to others, cannot possibly be the ground to be dismissive of Indian philosophy, because philosophy can gain a certain autonomy from social dynamics.

Hindu Unity and Ancient Purity

This book was undoubtedly an important contribution in many senses. This is an important attempt at demystifying the hegemony of ‘Western Philosophy’ but this in no way should obstruct and provide justification for not initiating internal self-reflection that Hegel would have referred to as dialectical progress. In other words, even as we criticize the orientalism of the Western philosophy, attempts to lay a claim to both an alternative reading as well as foregrounding non-Brahmanic traditions within Hinduism, there needs to be a concerted attempt to disown and reject the discriminatory practices within the ancient mode and knowledge systems. This, however, is problematic for the Right-wing politics that wishes to reinstate the ancient as the authentic, by extension arguing for the superiority of the Hindu way of life over other religions and civilizations. For instance, Ram Madhav, RSS ideologue and currently general secretary of the BJP at an event began his speech by quoting the American writer and historian Will Durant. ‘He (Durant) has said, “India was the motherland of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages. India was the mother of our philosophy, of much of our mathematics, of the ideals embodied in Christianity… of self-government and democracy. In many ways, Mother India is the mother of us all”’.³⁹ In other words, claims to authenticity clash with both modern diversity and the need for critical self-reflection. Right-wing populists, in contemporary times in India, have been struggling to negotiate with these contrasting pulls. The ancient Hindu way of life is an important mode of creating an authentic unity among Hindus. It is attempting a unity in the present and a purity of the past. Mostly, these attempts by the RSS have remained aborted. In order to circumvent the problem, RSS appears to have taken recourse to distorting many aspects of history. For instance, one such method has been to argue that practices such as untouchability came to India with ‘Muslim invasions’, and those enslaved Hindus later began to be treated as untouchables.⁴⁰ They have also claimed that texts such as the Manusmriti have been distorted by the communists in order to delegitimize Hinduism. This, they believe, will help them lay a claim to an authentic past and also accommodate the discriminatory aspects within Hinduism and the ancient way of life.⁴¹

Authenticity is an important tool for populism as it gives a sense of completeness. The frailties created by modern conflicts for mobility can be recast around a non-disruptive unity. Populism then lays a claim to legitimacy for ruling in the name of this authentic core, and also in creating an ‘other’ who lies outside of this authentic core. This overlooks the complexity and plural readings of history, including on issues such as beef and violence prevalent in the ancient way of life. In India, Brahmanic Hinduism remains to be negotiated in order to claim other traditions within Hinduism. Right-wing populism does not wish to critically distance from such traditions as that disallows them to lay claims to an authentic past and a unified present. It continues to run into problems with the anti-Brahmin political and intellectual articulations. This further makes it problematic for the Right-wing populists to spread to other parts of India such as the South, which have had strong anti-Brahmin movements claiming a Dravidian identity. For instance, in Tamil Nadu, they have a problem with figures such as Periyar who was both a staunch atheist and led anti-Brahmin movements. Brahminism remains one of the contentious issues in creating an authentic core and an idealized past.