Bigoted Modernity

In their quest to appear radical, politicians like Makkal Needhi Maiyam leader and MP Kamal Haasan and NCP (SP) legislator Jitendra Awhad have shown a disdain for Hinduism and Sanatan dharma that borders on fanaticism. At a time when India’s democracy is tested daily by cheap populism and religious sectarianism, the two men - one a fading film star in Tamil Nadu’s political circus, the other a foot soldier in Maharashtra’s ideological skirmishes - have chosen to indulge in what can only be called fashionable Hinduphobia.

Their target has long been the Sanatan Dharma itself - an ancient, evolving philosophy that has for millennia offered space for debate, introspection and pluralism. But in the eyes of Haasan and Awhad, it is a monolith of ‘tyranny’ and a convenient scapegoat for every historical wrong and contemporary grievance.

Haasan’s latest outburst came during an event hosted by the Agaram Foundation, where he declared that education was the only weapon that can break the chains of dictatorship and Sanatan. The casual conflation of Sanatan Dharma (which literally means ‘the eternal path’) with dictatorship, betrays a staggering ignorance of both religion and history. Sanatan is not a dogma but a civilizational ethos. To reduce it to a chain of oppression is not only absurd, but wantonly malicious.

It is telling that Haasan, an avowed atheist who once expressed admiration for the message of Christ, does not direct his polemics against Abrahamic faiths that admit no dissent. One wonders if he would have the courage to call the Vatican a dictatorship, or to characterise the Prophet Mohammad’s revelations as chains in need of breaking. The answer, of course, is no. Haasan knows Sanatan will not behead him for his insolence. It will merely ignore him, as it has countless charlatans before.

But what makes Haasan’s remarks particularly loathsome is the dishonesty behind them. In Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian polity, bashing Brahmins and bashing Hinduism are rites of passage. That Haasan has indulged in both is hardly surprising. What is galling is his pretence that it is done in the name of ‘progress.’ There is nothing progressive about caricaturing a complex tradition with 5,000 years of intellectual and spiritual ferment as a dictatorship.

Jitendra Awhad is a lesser figure but no less toxic. His recent declaration after the court’s acquittal of the accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast that Sanatan Dharma had ruined India is a gross insult. His claims that it denied Shivaji a coronation, defamed Sambhaji, or conspired to assassinate Phule are historical fictions of the worst kind.

Haasan and Awhad ought to realize that the Hinduism they rail against so insouciantly will never retaliate against them. That is both the strength and tragedy of Sanatan Dharma that it tolerates such detractors even when they cross the line from criticism to calumny.

Yet tolerance must not be confused with timidity. It is time Hindu society, in all its diversity, called out such venom for what it is.