180 ConclusionsNegating the claim that Hindu-Muslim or Hindu-Sikh conflicts are
primordial forces that happen outside history and human agency, we
have to turn down the communal construction of identity and history.
Iqbal Ansari argues that the communal perceptions of history have got
entrenched in the collective psyche of Indians as myths and symbols and
that this "mythic-psychic-folklorish" operant of the average Indian mind
opens them up to manipulation by some politicians and bigoted religious
leaders. As he contends, the situation cannot be remedied just by present-
ing a "decommunalised scientific perspective on history."^26 The task calls
for more.
We should take a clear look at contemporary politics, make the motives
visible, and show how they are transformed. Rudolph and Rudolph argue
that politics of interest is being overtaken by cultural politics around the
world. They see the mosque demolition as young Hindu men's "renego-
tiation of political and economic power and status, or rather as a sign of
the pathology of renegotiation." These "victims of modernization," who
belong to the old, established Hindu middle classes, seek to victimize the
"pampered Muslims" and lower castes, who were their inferiors before in
status and income. These Hindus, who are accustomed to Muslim invis-
ibility and deference, respond to Muslim mobility and wealth by challeng-
ing Nehru-style secularism, which offers special protection to Muslims.
It is only after Prime Minister V. P. Singh implemented the Mandal Com-
mission report (which recommended 49 percent of federal jobs for "back-
ward" castes, untouchables, and tribals) in August 1990 that the Hindu
reactionaries precipitated the Ayodhya issue.^27 The hope lies in the politi-
cal processes that transcend the easy identity constructions such as Us ver-
sus Them and engages in constant negotiations and renegotiations among
the multiple identities. Unity and not uniformity, plurality and not purity,
should be the maxim.
Such political transactions have to be firmly rooted in the rich Indian
heritage of nonviolence. India has inherited a rich and sophisticated
philosophy of nonviolence that Mahatma Gandhi refined, adapted, and
implemented in the struggle for independence. That heritage played a
crucial role in developing a secular constitution to respect all faiths and
cultural diversity and adopting a foreign policy of nonalignment in a
world of power blocs and nuclear weapons. The spirit of nonviolence has
to be reinvented.
The reactionary attempts of the Sangh Parivar to create a unified image
of Hinduism and Hindus within the hierarchical and highly oppressive
Brahminical tradition have to be exposed. There is no such thing as a
Hindu society, because Hinduism comprises everything from animism to
Tantric exercises and mysticism, and incorporates roughly 3,000 castes and
subcastes.^28 Along with this negation of the metanarrative of Hindu iden-
tity, it has to be exposed how the political identities are crafted in benign
and malignant ways in print and electronic media, texts and textbooks,