Gorakhanatha - a blast from the past

After I wrote “Tragedy of Mangale”, coincidentally, a person connected to the Natha cult is now in this region. The Gorakhnath Math is supposedly named after Gorakhanatha, the disciple of Machchendranatha, who spread the Natha cult in coastal region. Though as an independent movement it isn’t visible (I’ve heard there are few families part of this cult live in Tulu region), it’s supposed to have influenced Hinduism in this region(Malabar + Tulu). But what also fascinated me was how many religions and cults influenced this region in the past.

Like most of the regions in India or South India in particular, the dominant native cultural and religious trait of this region was spirit worship and fertility cults. But the literate superstitions of Hinduism, Jainism, Islam and Christianity soon dominated the illiterate superstitions of the Dravidian tribes subsequently also giving them different identities.

The most dominant religion, Hinduism, assimilated and made the spirits subordinate to their superior gods. The fertility goddesses were sometimes identified with the superior goddesses and at the same time were used to spread the patriarchal propaganda of ‘finding good husbands’. The core of Hinduism was imposition of the caste system, so it never had to confront the faceless cults of the local tribes.

Islam, which is the second biggest religion, didn’t really assimilate the local worship but turned blind eye to the spirit worship practices of the converts. Probably, the rise of fundamentalist Islam has moved the Muslims away from these traditions nowadays but in earlier times many of them used to be active participants. 

Jainism basically accommodated the spirit worship. It’s said that the “atheist” Jinaism had no issue with the worship of Yaksha-s and Yakshini-s (basically spirit worship). I don’t have much idea about this. 

The Dravidian Christianity is a very recent phenomenon in Tulu and northern Malabar region, so, I do not know much about them. But generally, Christianity frowned upon illiterate superstitions of the “pagans” and preferred their own literate superstitions.

Basically, two north Indian and two west Asian religions determine the religious identity of the people of this region. I wonder if that’s always the case with the spirit worshipping regions around the world.

I’ve read mostly about other Asian countries. It appears spirit worship in Mongolia, China and Japan lived along with Buddhism. However, in China the spirit worship tradition could become a literate superstition in the form of Taoism. Basically, Taoism includes the illiterate traditions along with philosophies. It looks like Chinese became literate and developed a philosophical tradition without any outside influence and that is reflected in their religious tradition too. 

Considering all four religions didn’t have to use force (though the caste system was imposition but the tribal chieftains/kings had typically invited the Brahmins), I wonder if there had been a literate tradition of the spirit worship whether there would have been a population with an independent identity like Taoists. Also, in spirit worship the priest/ess isn’t special or his/her position isn’t exalted. He/She’s just a medium for the spirit to communicate. This is unlike the position of the priests in literate religions. As literate followers, I wonder, how this idea of a commoner priest would have affected society in general.

Anyway, now north India’s literacy advantage is no longer there. So, any kind of overawe that the Dravidian tribes of the yesteryears felt is no longer the case. In fact, in literacy rate, the spirit worshipping and fertility cult regions of Tuluvas and Malayalis fare far better than the North. However, there are many ways to influence people. I wonder Adityanath’s chances in leaving a lasting impression here like the legendary Machchendra and Gorakha even though for entirely different reasons.

Random Thoughts - Hinduism and Hindutva

The way right-wing and liberal differences are unraveling in India, the worrying and scary part is we are probably becoming a highly divided society. Because of the right-wing rule, many of the "sensitive" topics are becoming commonplace. In those arguments, conservatives get into the 'Otto' mode.

Otto: You pompous, stuck-up, snot-nosed, English, giant, twerp, scumbag, fuck-face, dickhead, asshole.
Archie: How very interesting. You're a true vulgarian, aren't you?
Otto: You are the vulgarian, you fuck.

A simple example;
A: Some libberral fascists think that Yoga shouldn't be taught.
B: Well, fascism is about imposing and controlling things or having general intolerance about dissenting voices. So, imposing Yoga is fascism. How opposing such imposition could be termed fascism?
A: No, you are a libberral fascist.

It appears as if a right-wing strategy to employ anti right-wing terminologies purely as abusive terms against liberals without any meaning or context.

Then if you try to reason with them to show the absurdities of such usage, they get into either
- whining mode;
A: Alright, you libberrals are always right...
or,
- combative mode;
A: Alright let's see who is going to be proved right...
or,
the Otto mode.

And here emerges the scary picture.

One can argue that both right-wingers and liberals have strong beliefs. However, it's the emotional nature of the arguments for right-wingers' self-righteous beliefs that makes any argument highly incompatible leaving bad taste among all parties.

And most worryingly, this is dividing people who should be natural allies because of their social situations and standings.

Random Thoughts - Communalism in India

India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi, is seen as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler both by his admirers and detractors. I don't have any opinion on his supporters' view but I believe his opponents' views are irrational and trivialization. In my opinion, this deviates from the discussion of his actual faults. There are too many contradictions in seeing Modi as another Hitler.

1. Race superiority: 
Modi comes from a lower caste and any claim of Hindu superiority has to transcend many levels obvious contradictions. Also, Nazi Aryan supremacy stems from pseudo-science whereas Hindu supremacy is dependent upon pseudo-history.  At least, pseudo-science is falsifiable. Also, only Brahmins can be the proponents of this drivel. They have succeeded to a large extent by masking Brahmin face of cultural attributes(eg. Gurukul system) as Hindu face. But as lower castes become educated, they are able to question many of them (or at least that's my observation). However, they may still suppress these thoughts because of their hatred against the Muslims.

2. Muslim suppression: 
Will Muslims be the Jews of India? Not just Tamil Brahmins even I have my own reservations on this. There are many aspects of suppression if you go by many Muslims.
- Implementation of Uniform Civil Code(UCC)
- Banning Muslim centric parties like AIMIM and IUML
- Scrapping article 370
- Mob violence against them
The first two are steps in the right direction and the last one is the only true act of suppression. Third point is only restricted to one state thus not really a concern of majority Muslims.

It's a big surprise why male Hindutvites are hardcore supporters of UCC than Muslim women. It's more like they are jealous of Muslim male privilege. I believe that jealousy is valid. Curiously, it doesn't require Central Government ordinance to effect UCC in India. The state governments have full power to enact the law. It's unclear why BJP ruled states haven't done so until now. Since now they have  majority on their own in the central, they are probably in a good position to pass the law. This is probably the easiest one to do as opposing this would be a tall task.

Banning Muslim parties would be another step in the right direction.  Though I believe no such measures would be taken as that could be an existential question for the BJP itself.

Instead of scrapping article 370, I feel similar rights should be extended to all the states of India. I'm for turning India into an entity similar to European Union. Will it have any negative repercussions in Kashmir if the article is scrapped? I don't think so. The situation is already bad, so it can't get worse any further. Also, the two nation theory itself was absurd so any laws built upon it were equally untenable.

That leaves with the only true suppression that is instigating or turning blind eye on mob violence against the Muslims. I assume it could be the case occasionally. However, that would be a far cry from the final solution that the Nazis envisioned. Even though many Hindutvites have that kind of fantasy, they all know it's completely impractical. Thus while the leaders want to derive political mileage, the minions on the ground at the best have the desire for 'showing them their place'. This will become vicious cycle with the Muslims retaliating. Even though Muslim loss would be greater, I would think majority Hindus would soon get tired of these things and any party can't bank on this to rule or gain votes very long.

3. Military adventurism
Continuing with Hitler analogy, let's expect Modi to attack Pakistan. However, whereas for Nazis it was their birthright to rule over others, in case of India, it's just a measure for completing an unfinished job of nation building. I do think attacking Pakistan could be a noble cause. Even if that involves either annihilation of either of them or merging the region of Pakistan back to the Indian union, it should be welcomed. India didn't have its civil war like the one that the USA had. While Americans could kill identity based on slavery, Indians failed to kill religion based identity. But it will be a paradigm shift for the BJP from endorsing mob violence against unarmed minorities to sending an army against a country.

So in my opinion, the Hitler type of actions by Modi can in fact reverse Nazi like conditions in India. The real issues to be addressed are, the danger of anti-intellectualism becoming mainstream, casteist purity and pollution rules like vegetarian bigotism gaining momentum, lower castes being humiliated with goondas as their community leaders and spokespersons etc..

Random Thoughts - Hinduism and Hindutva

I keep hearing this absurd statement from many people and today I came across the same from a Muslim fundamentalist.

"We are not opposed to Hinduism but are against Hindutva".

Well, I'm against both Hinduism and Hindutva. Hinduism is nothing but a euphemism for the caste system and Hindutva is nothing but a clone of Islam or Christianity(or both). I believe both are dangerous and regressive.

However, Muslim fundamentalists hating only Hindutva makes sense as Hinduism plays into their hands.

For the same reason, I believe more than eliminating the caste system the critical requirement for a country like India is to eliminate all religious identities (and hope that the caste identities also lose their relevance in due course).