Presenting the Past Anxious History and Ancient Future in Hindutva India

Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 35

Mixing religiosity, historicity, and the self-interest in perpetuating the

Brahminical social order, Golwalkar paints a rather cunning picture in his

later work, Bunch of Thoughts (1966):

Ravana [the villain in the Ramayana story] was a shrewd aggressor.... He was

aware that the life-centre of our society throbbed in the forest hermitages of sages

and seers. Therefore, he concentrated his attacks on those jungle huts, on the sac-

rificial rites that were carried on there. But those spiritual heroes braved those

onslaughts and stuck to their mission of rousing and integrating the people....

Then the nation roused itself in the personality of Sri Rama. That great saviour

was moulded and guided by a Vishwamitra, a Vasishtha and an Agastya. Not

only was Sri Rama set up, but intense national consciousness of the whole of

society was kept ablaze by these sages through regular discourses, discussions

and various dharmic rites.^81

So in this Ram-country that is immersed in a good-versus-evil war, we
have the good Rambhakts led by the Brahminical orthodoxy pitched
against the evil non-Rambhakts led by all kinds of Ravanas.
The hierarchical and undemocratic Rambhakti setup sanctioned by the
religiosity and sheathed with historicity hides dissensions and heightens
the interests of the "more equal" Rambhakts. Thus the primary preoccu-
pation of Hindutva is the unitary (not all-inclusive) nation on the basis
of cultural unity that is automatically transformed into political unity by
the ancient-nation arguments. This unitary understanding is reinforced by
the consolidated highlighting of the Other and the careful and calculated
hiding of the divisions in the self. This amorphous Hindu identity irons
out diversity, absorbs Sramanic (Buddhism, Jainism) faiths, dismisses the
validity of ideological divisions of the society such as class, and insists
on conformity. Oppression of women, Dalits, and others; the pluralistic
heritage of Hinduism; the religiously rooted evils; and backwardness are
conveniently glossed over.
Nothing can be challenged in this scheme of "divine destiny." For exam-
ple, consider Golwalkar's contentions about castes: "Castes are designed
to be complementary to one another. If every one of them does its duty,
there can be no quarrels in the name of caste. It may be argued that there
is no use today for these castes. I say if caste has become effete it will auto-
matically wither away. That is the law of nature. What is important is that
we must realise that these castes are limbs of the same one society and so
have to share all their joys and sorrows." The unwavering religiosity of
the Rambhakts with a deeply conservative consciousness is all that it takes
for redemption that is mediated by the priestly orthodoxy not through
any reform but strict status-quoist program. Golwalkar argues that "all
the so called evils of caste etc., were there no less marked than today"
and yet Hindus were "a victorious, glorious nation" during the times of