(by: Harjot Oberot, Delhi, Oxford University) Continuation
Harjot Oberoi’s book is a class example of what may be termed the “heteronomy” approach to the study of religious reform in ‘colonial India. This approach seeks to explain how the rising middle class, empowered by its position in modern capitalism, Used religious reform to gain cultural hegemony by gaining. Control over sacred centers and by defining a uniform, un differential religious discourse with discrete boundaries, Oberon! describes how the additional social order based on kinship in pre-colonial Punjab was destroyed and replaced by a standard, highly uniform Sikh tradition, while allegiances based on kinship were replaced by religious solidarity in colonial Panjab. The following section considers why the hegemony” approach provides only a ones historical crocess of identity formation.
The fundamental weakness of the distinctions between ‘popular’ and dichotomy between “plural’ and ‘uniform’ implicit in Oberoi’s ‘book, in order to show, how this represents a series of linked political and intellectual difficulties which characterize the entire book, which the author may or may not be aware, The nineteenth century view that Indian civilization was characterized by a tolerant spiriniality Was promoted and emphasized by the great German philosophers and linguists and by the sees nationalists This interpretation of early Indian society as essentially “plural it” and ‘tolerant’ promotes a specific view of religion as a universal characteristic of one create Indian spirituality, Different religions are then seen as manifestations of this universal Indian spirituality, This unifying essence. That marks the spirit of India is, however, equated with Hinduism and is regarded as a central feature of Hindu religion. This pervasive understanding of Hindu tolerance as a determining feature of Indian civilization is nothing but illusory. Its significance lies in its purpose as a hermeneutic device the social and political circumstances of 19th and 20th century. It was precisely Mahatma Gandhi’s inclusivist Hindu tolerance that alienated the Muslim League. This inclusivist tendency is in tum reflected in modem Hindu nationalism. which incorporates Indians of different faiths Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs into Hinduism, This is presented as the ‘tolerance’ that characterizes Hinduism. Yet religious differences are not tolerated. Oberoi’s discussion on the transmutation of the ‘Sikh tradition is mediated by this classic orientalist reading of Indian religion which has. historically served the purpose of majoritarian communalism. Oberoi adopts this view to defend the polytheistic, “pluralistic atinude, a sort of inbuilt tolerance” {p.255}, that characterized what he refers to as the Sanatan Sikh paradigm. Sikhism has historically ‘evolved as an ‘exclusive’ religion. The Sikh gurus established rules of conduct, prescribed rules of membership, preached and adherence to specific dogmas and purged the heterodox in the Sikh tradition. This explains why the 1880s Sikh refer movement, by its very nature was ‘exclusive,’ as opposed to the *heterodox” and. reformist Hindu Arya Samaj movement of the 1880s, which sought to incorporate other religions. It was precisely this logic of Hindu inclusive tolerance that induced a section of the Sahajdhari Sikh leadership to declare that they were Hindus, and to support a resolution at a large public meeting to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee at Lahore in 1897 the Sikhs were part of the Hindu community (p.395]. This explains why the 1880s Sikh reform movement was opposed to the ‘inclusivity” tendencies of the Hindu movement. Therefore, the historical interpretation of Sikh, history is more than an academic discussion of the nature of a religious world view, momentous political issues involving the rights of minorities are obscured by the! assertion that Indian religion was uniquely tolerant and willing to absorb other systems into itself.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 14, 1995
