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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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HINDU NATIONALISM : THE FIRST PHASE |
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| Kopf
makes another significant point, which is notable not only because
what he says about the Brahmos applied to most educated Hindus but
also because it highlights another attempt at synthesis which is
characteristic of Hindus. Most Brahmos, he says, viewed the Tantric
tradition in Bengal as a debased form of religious expression, and a
radical departure from the classical Hindu tradition. The idea of
differentiating the good and bad features within Saktism, and
incorporating the good into Brahmoism, probably came to Keshub after
his acquaintance with Ramakrishna. For, in the early 1860s,
Ramakrishna had already performed experiments to purify Saktism and
Tantrism. "His experiments with religious behaviour dealt
ultimately with the same problems of unity and diversity that had
plagued Brahmos."13
In terms of dates, the importance of 1857 cannot be overstated. Whether one regards it as the first war of independence, as Veer Savarkar did, or the Sepoy Mutiny, as the British did, it is not open to question that its failure meant the emasculation of the old order and leadership, Hindu as well as Muslim, and with that, the closure of the era that opened with the arrival of Mahmud Ghaznavi in the eleventh century. The banishment of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, symbolized the final eclipse of the old order just as imposition on him of the leadership of the uprising symbolized its continuing hold on the imagination of the people. It is not particularly relevant to discuss the nature of the old order, benevolent or malevolent, its character as a predominantly Muslim or a joint Hindu-Muslim enterprise in some periods and other similar questions in the case of a historical shift of this dimension. We are aware that in continuation of our pre-modern approach, most of us continue to discuss history in moral terms, but that only helps cloud our perspective, not clear it.
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| About Hindu Nationalism: The First Phase |
