There was a controversy recently when Rahul Gandhi met and raised questions with a Christian pastor on the nature of Christ and God. We can ignore the past anti-Hindu statements of the pastor as representing a fringe phenomenon hardly representative of mainstream Christian thought. Assuming Rahul as an innocent genuine seeker, on a broader perspective, the questions and answers reflect the entire problem of understanding religions and traditions in India. Christianity (also Islam and Judaism) as a religion has a specific concept of ‘one real and true God’ and ‘many false gods’ (commonly existing in pagan traditions). Accordingly, a belief in Jesus as a true God is a fundamental doctrine of Christian thought.
Balagangadhara Rao (Ghent University, Belgium) shows that the branches of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism) are not religions in the definitional sense as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism but are traditions. Traditions typically consist of many devas and devis; they also typically deify nature and the feminine quite unlike the religions. One of the major problems in the intellectual understanding across centuries has been to translate the devas and devis as ‘gods’ in the Christian theological sense. In such a framework, the devas and devis become false and the only way one can attain salvation is to reject the false and turn to the one true God. Thus, the framework of Christian and Islamic theology has to see the devas, devis, shaktis, and other such entities as simply false.
So dominant has been this framework that even Hindu intellectuals fighting against conversions accept this theological framework of ‘multiple gods’ existing in Indian traditions. In a traditional world, which is mainly about paths to moksha, all devas and devis are equally true for the person on that path. This includes Jesus or Allah too and hence a typical Hindu has no qualms in accepting both as equally valid for their believers. There is an incomprehension for a Hindu when someone claims an exclusive status for a single God or a single messenger. That is simply not how traditions function.
The superimposition of Christian theological frameworks to understand Indian traditions is the basis for long-standing confusion and ‘religious’ friction. There cannot be a solution unless there is a radical revision of our understanding. Very briefly, there are traditions in India and not religions. Traditions say, ‘I am true but you are not false’; religions say, ‘I am true and you are false.’ The Indian solution to pluralism and multiculturalism was to ‘traditionalise the religions’ where the latter lost focus on proselytisation and made attempts at genuine cultural syncretism at various levels as is true of a traditional world. This involved accepting ‘gods’ of other traditions and cultures too. Christian evangelists and Islamic madrasas fight against this syncretism precisely.
Instead of continuing this process, we have been converting in reverse, by exclusively relying on western descriptions of India, our traditions into proper religions (by way of specific doctrines, books, temples, and so on). This process is paradoxically increasing the intolerance and the so-called ‘Hindu fundamentalism’ with the passage of time. The present understanding of Indian culture is going to only increase the strife in the future. Secularism was a solution for Christendom at a specific time of European history; making it a solution for India after first making our traditions into religions is a sure recipe to disaster.
RANDOM MUSINGS 