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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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HINDU NATIONALISM : THE FIRST PHASE |
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| Similarly,
it is a commonplace that the Indian National Congress was the
handiwork of the Westernized intelligentsia and to disregard the
point that it would have remained a body of petitioners if men such
as Lokmanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi had not brought in the people
with the help of ancient symbols and, indeed, if Swami Vivekanand
had not paved the way for them. Thus, while Tilak used external
symbols such as the Ganesh Festival, Gandhi made himself into an
icon millions of Hindus virtually worshipped. All these three
individuals can be said to have embodied in their persons the two
processes at work in Hindu society.
This brings us to the question of the Mahatma's place in the story of the rise of Hindus. It is not easy to answer this question. I, for one, am ill-equipped to make the attempt since I cannot claim to have studies carefully what the Mahatma has spoken and written. But perhaps that is also an advantage in this kind of exercise. For long I believed that faced with the interlinked problem of getting rid of British rule and reconciling Muslims to an independent India not under their own hegemony, Gandhiji subordinated the goal of Hindu self- reaffirmation to the goal of superficial Hindu-Muslim reconciliation; superficial because it sought to avoid an honest discussion of the two faiths and civilizations and recognition of the reality that one of them must be in a position to define the broad framework for independent India if the existing stalemate and conflict were not to continue indefinitely into the future.
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| About Hindu Nationalism: The First Phase |
