Archive for August, 2017
Breaking Hinduism from inside – religions as commodities in some voices of the Hindu Right.
R Jaganathan has written a piece in Swarajyamag (will-breaking-up-hinduism-into-its-parts-preserve-it-better-than-trying-to-keep-it-as-one) proposing allowing what he dubs “Hindu” “castes” to centrifugally evolve independently of any commonality of “Hinduism” and even if it leads to – towards new religions.
Let us look at the key building blocks of this thesis:
“The reason why caste has remained stubbornly invulnerable to reform – efforts have been on since the time of the Buddha – is because it has two dimensions, one good, one bad. On the one side, there is exploitation and oppression; on the other side, there is a beneficial dimension. As many people have pointed out in the past, caste is a form of social capital. This is why deras exist. And, in a first-past-the-post democracy, caste has become even more important, for it is the numbers you bring to a coalition that decide your position in the political power structure. All political parties thus seek dera support, or that of caste groups.”
Jaganathan is here starting with the first fundamental weakness of his thesis: he proclaims that there is both a “good” and “bad” side to “caste”, and the primary reason he thinks that “caste” has been persistent from Buddha’s times in spite of repeated attempts at “reform”. Even in the subsequent development of his thesis, and the solution he proposes – is “allowing” castes to “separate” if necessary from “Hinduism” which however he does not recognize as an integral whole. Apart from the confusions and contradictions implied in his alternate portrayal of Hinduism as a single entity or concept (“greater than sum total” of components or as an entity from which a caste can distinguish or exclude itself) and as something impossible or infeasible to be a “whole”, he calls to “allow” such separation – implying thereby that there exists a super-authority latent in “Hinduism” that has the power and should do so. He fails to recognize that this in turn implies that “castes” on their own have no benefit in separating, and an external authority to caste has to take the initiative to jettison the castes from implied “main”-body.
Since so far, by his own claim, castes have benefited from being “castes”, or “minorities”, and therefore persisted in remaining “castes”, his alleged “bad” side – that of exploitation, must therefore be deemed by castes to be more than compensated for by “benefits” – so much so that they had so far not had any incentive to move away from their “minority” status. Thus Jagantahan wants a divorce enforced by one party in a marriage which he himself acknowledges as being more beneficial than exploitative to the other party so that the other party has not taken initiative to file suit.
Having started with this explanation of “bad and good” Jaganathan then sets out to elaborate on what he thinks are the “bad” side to build a case for “divorce”.
“Two major forces – urbanisation and capitalism – are autonomously working to lower caste inequities. Both ensure mobility between trades and professions. But the process is slow and difficult to manage in the context of electoral democracy. The net result is thus a preference for sub-optimal solutions like increasing reservations based on caste, and a non-merit based system of job-creation that delivers poor outcomes.
Worse, the existence of caste involves a constant demonisation of all Hindu denominations, since anyone claiming to be Hindu is deemed to be favouring casteism. This leaves all Hindus stuck with guilt, again making us less than confident in our dealings with others.”
Thus Jaganathan’s fleshing out of the “bad”, adds basically the following three aspects:
(a) capitalism and urbanization driven “mobility” that reduces “caste” based inequities are hampered by electoral democracy which gives advantage to leveraging identity to extract benefits disproportionate to contribution.
(b) caste based claims of “reservation” hampers merit-based job-creation in turn negatively affecting the economy.
(c) existence of caste apportions “guilt” to and demonizing of all “Hindus” and psychologically hampers confident Hindu engagement of “others”.
For (a) Jaganathan somehow fails to catch the significance of his own observation earlier that existence of caste is not jeopardized even when Indians went out of Hinduism as in Islam or Christianity – which he points out as having failed to create spaces for groups he terms “Dalits” and “shudras”, and that these non-Hindu religions still push for “caste-based” reservations even for those converted “out” of Hinduism. Thus by his own earlier observation, electoral democracy providing advantages to being “minority” will not stop “casteism” suddenly simply because a “caste” has separated from “Hinduism”.
For (b) since Jaganathan is apparently a pro-capitalist – if non-merit based job-occupation negatively impacts the economy, then in a hopefully free-market “capitalist” economy, the market itself will build up pressures to adopt merit-based recruitment, as otherwise a capitalist venture will lose out in competition to one that is able to recruit more merit. Thus here again the answer is then not jettisoning “caste” but allowing greater freedom to the market to decide employment.
For (c), confident dealing with “others” does not seem to have been much of a problem for Swami Vivekananda – at a period when “casteism” was likely more overt and rampant. Moreover, in the current period – the bulk of Hindu population does not really have to engage with the “other” on theological or religious questions unless they are going abroad or are specifically engaged in fields where other religions and ideologies hold the sway. Even here, the lack of confidence probably comes more from a lack of knowledge of and willingness to confront the “others” with their own respective “inequities” and historical or continuing inequities and injustices such as racism, sectarianism, oppression of minorities and dissent, and social exclusion.
“It does not matter if castes become separate religions, retaining only a loose link with Hinduism; it does not matter if groups that are currently identified with Hinduism want to break away, and seek minority, non-Hindu status, as some groups within the Lingayats want to do. If the Ramakrishna Mission wants to be treated as a non-Hindu denomination, why not allow it to do so? It will not actually become less Hindu because of this nomenclature change. In fact, it could become more innovative and grow faster.
Here’s the point: As long as Hinduism remains a very loose aggregation of incompatible castes and groups, it cannot move or change very fast. It is easier for even a slow running to win if he runs alone; three-legged races are tougher to win.”
It is here that Jaganathan’s underlying thought process starts to expose the memes he is using to drive his thesis – he is converting religions or faiths into consumer products on offer in a marketplace of ideologies and belief systems. His liberal use of market terminology tells us that once he makes the equation of religions to commodities on a market, he abandons any lingering concern about the nature of religions modeled as commodities or whether religions can at all be realistically commoditized. Once Jaganathan makes the equation he forgets this possible incompatibility between religions and commodities and switches to thinking entirely in terms of inanimate commodities in a market. Thus he freely talks of “innovation” and “growing fast”, assumes there are producers of new “innovative” commodities of religions within existing caste groups who can outpace other manufacturers.
There are many problems with the religion-as-commodity-in-a-free-market model. To explore this one needs to check up as to what exactly can be the “commodity” nature if any, in a religion, and what then will compose the competing “other” manufacturers of religion and the “market” in which that competition happens.
(a) To compete, two different manufacturers of religions must be satisfying the same needs in the “buyer” of “religions”. Is there a common set of needs satisfied by all “religions” or do different religions address different needs in the same buyer or different buyers? Does Islam and “Hinduism” satisfy the same needs?
(b) what is the currency of exchange in the market of religions? for any such market must develop a unit of comparison and this is something that the buyer gives up to the seller? is it people, following, material contribution to increased manufacturing? If following or numbers is a measure of valuation – how can the author dub the current versions of Christianity or Islam as T.Rex? for they have succeeded more than Hinduism in that currency and without much innovation.
(c) what makes a buyer change his or her preference for one religion as commodity to another? does that change follow free-market rules? Historically almost every known religious innovation had to be shoved down unwilling throats by state sponsored coercion. Islam from its foundation was raiding and pillaging until it could militarily subdue northern Arabian tribes and then spread its “commodity” further into the Levant and Persia by war. Christianity did not make much of a headway until a “minority” faction found it to be useful for imperial power consolidation in Rome and even after that its spread into much of Europe had to be by military conquest. The first claimed “monotheistic” innovation by Akhenaten is assessed now to have been imposed by royal authority and violence.
The peak of this commodity-market model in author’s mind surfaces here:
In the corporate world, when companies become too unwieldy, they demerge to create faster growth for the demerging parts. Hinduism should allow its constituent units to demerge, and this will make each one stronger. A looser and voluntary federation works better for Hinduism than trying to create a large agglomeration that circumscribes the freedom of movement for each of the parts.
This comparison is interesting, for it implies that in Jaganathan’s mind he is totally switched into and focused on real world commodities and their prices and profits to corporate models. He conveniently forgets that the “demergers” are supervised by an authority external to the market – a state, ostensibly to encourage competition to the benefit of the consumer. What authority external to “Hinduism” is going to supervise this “de-trustification” of “Hinduism”? How is that authority going to determine what is of benefit to the consumer in the absence of clear-cut market mechanisms and prices? Is this authority also going to apply the same principles of “anti-trust” to non-Hindu religions too?
In Hinduism, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Hinduism is thus served best by freeing its parts from the whole so as to create new wholes that will work more coherently. Whether these mini-Hinduisms will survive or perish depends on how fast they are able to adapt to change and modernise themselves for the new age.
Some of the demerging parts will become new religions, and possibly better ones. Some will deal with caste better than others. Some castes could become religions too. And some will regress and perish. But Hinduism as a whole will be alive in spirit in vibrant new ideas.
Even politically, trying to pretend that 80 per cent of Indians are Hindus of one kind is counter-productive. It denies benefits that minorities get by being small. Small is beautiful.
Here Jaganathan drives the final logical nail into the “coffin” of his own thesis: if being “small” and “in the minority” is beneficial then that presumes the existence of a “big” and “in the majority” in contrast to which the “small” can remain “small” and the “minority” can remain a “minority”. By pushing the “small” and the “minority” out of the “majority” framework of Hinduism, Jaganathan is actually condemning them – by his own logic – to losing all the benefits of being “small” and “minor”.
This is the age of the start-up, not megaliths. Remember T-Rex did not survive evolution. It is unlikely that religions organised like T-Rexes – most of the Abrahamic religions fit this description – will survive an era of fast change.
Jagnathan forgets that in the age of startups it is a few megaliths that dominate – the Google or Apple or Microsoft or Amazon – who by their sheer size and structural incorporation of ever increasing variety of capabilities to satisfy needs in turn gobble up most other innovative startups, and these megaliths have virtually no competition because they already satisfy what at least currently are the basic consumer needs from that sector.
United States of Elite versus Donald Trump : Sunni-Saudi-Anglo-Euro-Jihadi axis towards war.
Postulate One: European consumption levels could historically be only maintained by exploiting resources and productivity outside the self-defined territory of Europe (as in Roman expansion dependent on Egyptian grain and “barbarian” slave labour and fecundity).
Postulate Two: USA is an extension of western Europe as shaped in British state form revised under imagined and reconstructed Roman Republic with perceptions and constructions of both what is “European” and what is not – based on cumulative claims of history, both regional and global.
Postulate Three: Europe prioritizes consumption of its elite over ideology.
Most of what is happening now in the USA, in its politics, its legislative bodies, its government and state institutions – all the way to its attitudes towards and handling of or engagement with Islam, Middle East, and Asia can be deduced from the three postulates.
The Roman Republic generated several interesting phenomena that is rarely put in perspective when analyzing modern-day politics of the “western” world. The contest between the Plebs and the Patricians was a contest for power and say in state affairs between the increasingly self-aware Plebs (stemming from their co-option into the armies under people like Marius the uncle of Caesar in turn driven by elite hunger for land and slaves in the ever-expanding “periphery”) and the “Patri-cians” claiming descent from leading founding fathers of the historical Roman colony in Italy and who thereby had hogged the material and monetary benefits of the state formation exercise over the centuries. The Romans went through a phase of submission to non-Roman “rule” as well as “kingship” to finally overthrow “dynastic royalty” but evolving or recasting a new form of authoritarianism legitimized by representative bodies of people – closely followed in essence in the process of formation of USA.
All these are pretty well-known in standard history lessons: what is less discussed is how Roman institutions also institutionalized politico-financial corruption together with formation of well-organized coteries that infiltrated, and manipulated the Roman state institutions for combined business, political and power benefits – running almost as “organized crime”. In fact the model of “mafia” now popularized by Hollywood, typically labeled as originating in remnants of old Roman empire in the medieval such as “Sicily” or “Naples”, had their roots in the system of Roman knights/captains put in charge of various zones/districts of historical Rome. The blurred lines between ambitions of impoverished Patricians like that of the Caesars or the still wealthy Patrician Sulla, the stinking rich Crassus, or the yuppie military genius of a country bumpkin-from-peasant-north maternal uncle of Julius – Marius : they all formed a politically-financially-incestuous vicious competition of various groups of “mafia”.
Thus it is crucial to drop the Hollywood imagery of the “Godfather” and expand it in the reality of US politics on the more historical Roman “mafia” of the Republic and transition-to-empire phase of Rome. Such an “extended” mafia can be both “criminally organized” and “patriotic” or more “transnationally minded” just like the ancient Roman “mafia”.
The current phase can be thus understood as a phase of competition between two domestic groups of “mafia” (in the extended “Roman” sense I am using) where one side has grown close to the Sunni-Saudi interests over a cold-war, and inheritance of Indian Ocean geostrategic burdens of defunct British “political” empire (as in every mature and jaded “empire”, the formal fall of empire-state leaves behind a network of transnational finance and elite of ex-colonies connected firmly to an integrated shared “interests” with the ex-empires successor). This means this side shares the political and hence even religious biases of the Saudi Sunni axis which grew up under British imperial patronage as a supposed barrier to restrict the Ottoman grasp over the “passage” to India. This in turn led to panic scramble by then Russia and Europeans powers wary of the British to try and gain access to Indian Ocean aligning a veritable rivalry between “western” (France/UK) and “eastern” (Germany/Russia) Europe to push to the Persian Gulf. However the ancient contest for supremacy between the west and east of Euphrates that had once ended the Greeks and Cyrus’s house allowing Rome to grow, and similarly exhausted Byzantines and Parthians to allow Islamic jihad to flourish in the “frontier” no-mans land between the two sides – continued in the Arab versus Iran contest, and was used by the completely emasculated remnants of Arab tribes to reassert claims against the “east” and try to repeat their 7th century success using the British and French need to secure the Gulf.
Discovery of oil has gradually shifted the balance of power within the front of Sunni-Saudi-“western” axis, and WWII drew up an extended “frontier” of two hostile “fronts” running roughly North-East – South-West from Balkans through Syria-Iraq into Persian gulf.
The “western” Anglo fear of Russian breakthroughs in this sector combined with Arab jealousy of the more pre-Islamic nationhood retaining Iran with all consequent better human capital not destroyed as much as in Saudis under mullahcracy – drove the US attempt at wooing Communist China away from USSR, in return China extracting economic entry into global capitalist flow, and an attempt to ring-fence Iran and central-Asian routes from Russia down south by encouraging Islamism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However even if this strategy largely succeeded in weakening USSR and led to its overthrow, two problems had been created for US “mafia”: the immensely financially networked with US Saudi lobby’s growing influence among the “mafia” and China’s capture of the US consumer market using its totalitarian state economy and control over Chinese labour. After US had to necessarily engage in the mop-up operations consequent to fall of USSR and Sunni-Saudi lobby’s grasping the opportunity to expand its long-held jihadi ambitions to revive Caliphate style re-conquest of the Middle East, and beyond, parts of US mafia must have realized the growing threat of China’s economy.
However during the long cold-war era, Sunni-Saudi axis had been allowed to become politically entrenched in influencing US foreign policy and thus in the US state institutions and its political class as well as in the instruments of ideological hegemony of modern states – like the media, academics of “humanities”. The faction of US mafia that realizes the supreme importance of China as a threat to their interests (by disrupting the mafia’s finger in the global – “outside of territory” economic exploitation) was the force that allowed someone like Donal Trump to come through. Looking from this perspective, it becomes clear why he had to be “promoted” – they needed an “outsider” or “outcast” or deemed “dilettante” political actor, therefore less likely to have been compromised by the existing pro-Sunni-Saudi pro-China cliques.
That the majority of US state institutions are waging a virtual but desperate war to remove “Trump” from power is simply a manifestation of the failure of the “cold-war” legacy portion of the administration and ideological establishment to grasp the drive and perhaps even realpolitik “sense/pragmatism” of the anti-China “patriotic mafia” as the need of the hour for “US” interests just as overthrow of USSR was in then US interests.
So Trump is being driven to make superficial “compromises” while he is trying to protect the underlying agenda of cutting China down to size. However the pro-Sunni-Saudi US mafia does not want China to be cut down to size as both the Saudis and the Chinese favour each other as hedges for their respective geostrategic ambitions. Saudis do not really want Pakistan to be cut down to size as Pakistan is most helpful in delegating tasks of wahabization and radicalization that serves Saudi geo-strategic ambitions while China does not want Pakistan to be harmed as Pakistan provides a corridor to Indian ocean as well as a useful jihadi counter-balance to India whose territory and population the Chinese see as an obstacle to their own imperial ambitions.
So even if Trump announces a troop increase in Afghanistan, the reality of the situation will simply help Saudi strategy for the zone. The Sunni jihadi assets were first tested on Syria – seen as a rival Shiite state, and on Iraq – but it quickly spiraled out of control revealing the extent of jihadism that Saudis have unleashed which even they can no longer fully control. Russian backing stalled overthrow of the Syrian regime, so that means the “western/European” and Saudi-Sunni jihadi assets need to be “saved” and protected by the pro-Saudi-mafia/European elite from total destruction so they can be unleashed against the real intended targets – Iran and Russia. This means there will be an attempt to carve out a “sovereign” protectorate style enclave for those dubbed “free Syrian army” on the eastern parts of Syria, thereby giving them breathing space and regrouping recouping as well as a Sunni buffer which in turn faces a Kurdi enclave on the east – thereby balancing each other and buffering each other. However the jihadis will be most effective in the greater anonymity of northern Afghanistan and even frontiers of Pakistan to be effective against Iran and Russia. Hence the bulk of the ISIS jihadis will be “helped” by “west” and Saudi-Sunni lobby to “escape” to northern Afghanistan.
US boots on the ground , in the hands of local networks of politics remaining from British imperial days – will effectively be a force that facilitates – willingly or unwillingly – the fall of the “north” to jihadis, while a “progressive” regime will gradually shrink to the south and east of the country around the big cities in the south even while under US “protection”.
The Saudi-Sunni penetration of the US state implies that Trumps “threat” to Pakistan will in effect have little impact. The Sunni-Saudi lobby has slightly different geo-political ambitions compared to what even the pro-Saudi lobby thinks it has. The Sunnis want a repeat of their seventh century jihadi performance – they want one sweep of continuous jihadi territory from Arabia through India into Indonesia in the east, and all the way to Gibraltar in North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
For myself, I see benefit in the expansion of Sunni jihad across Afghanistan and Pakistan and towards India. Jihad destroys pre-existing nationalisms – even the artificial and opportunistically foisted ones like that of Pakistan. It will also weaken the part of the modern Indian state that is ideologically and for other reasons, similar to the pro-Saudi lobby within US “mafia” and which can use state coercive resources to protect the Islamist interests against the non-Muslim majority of the country. Any genuine resistance to jihad can only come from the vast non-Muslim populations of India but only when their state power actively is no longer able to protect the Islamic infrastructure and allows new state forces to come up that can resist and roll back jihadis back to where it started – in the deserts of Saudis. Jihadis expanding in north Pakistan and Afghanistan will also finally roll-back Chinese presence and effectiveness in this zone.
So the future is bleak and bright.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
Dikgaj's Weblog 