Musings

It’s a way of life

February 15, 2019 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

I remember clearly when I heard the aphorism “hinduism is not a religion, it is a way of life”. I worked in India at that time and was visiting Chicago to meet a client. I am not sure how the conversation veered towards religion. Probably, from vegetarianism or beef on the menu and my client wondering if I was a Hindu and offended. I must have stopped for a second with my mouth almost forming an answer, considering all the nuances of born as, being or not being a Hindu and how to express it in a succinct yet not misleading way. And she helpfully offered “it is a way of life”.

Since then I have been hearing it increasingly regularly. Might be because I lived in USA for the longest time after that in metros where ‘woke’ people ‘know’ these things. I am not sure how and where this idea came up. Probably, to explain that hinduism is not like other abrahmic religions – structured, built around a holy book, and practiced as a congregation. It is a motley collection of people and practices.

I was surprised when I heard it again during a heritage walk of old Delhi. The walk facilitator was talking about how the category Hindu, referring to religion, came up as a catch all phrase for non-moslem and non-christian/european people during the British times and then took root in the social psyche and census data. Someone chimed in helpfully, “yeah, I have heard, hinduism is a way of life”.

The first time I heard that term and internalized it, I thought it was helpful. To me ‘a way of life’ signified varied ways of life, not one specific god, no particular religious book that is termed the holy book like bible, no singular religious practice that can label a person as practicing or non-practicing Hindu. It acknowledged the many formal, named darshanas (philosophical schools) and many practices not codified.

Lately, I have realized that the aphorism doesn’t really mean anything. If you asked various people labelled hindus, what are the highlights of the ‘way of life’, it would be very difficult to come up with a list that everybody agrees with. Even if we come up with a theoretical list of attributes (vegetarianism being the most touted), I am pretty sure it would not match the actual lived experiences of people. So, whose way of life are we claiming is hinduism? The term is just an easy way to sidestep all the difficult conversations and realization that there is no homogeneous mass that can be termed hindu.

Musings

Navaratri vs Durga Puja

October 13, 2018December 17, 2018 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

The Navaratri vs DurgaPuja fights continue. I wrote about the meat shop closures in Gurgaon and Faridabad couple days back. That was Delhi NCR, so although ignorant, I can understand it somewhat.

Now hindutva groups are taking offence to a Bengali advertisement by Fortune foods that shows a woman planning for the 4 day feast including fish and meat. See Scrolls’s coverage here. According to Scroll the organization translated the lyrics in Hindi. From what I can see it is a completely wrong translation that adds the Navaratri ethos to a Durga Puja related video and creates a completely different story. I could not find that translation but on twitter found the @HinduJagrutiOrg congratulating themselves with followers commending them and the Hindu Ekta/unity.

Hindujagaran.org has a message about the advertisement on their site “इस विज्ञापन में महिला को आदिशक्ति दुर्गामाता के रूप में दिखाया गया था आैर उसके हाथ में शस्त्रों की जगह विविध प्रकार के खाना बनाने के चम्मच दिखाएं गए थे । इस तरह मां दुर्गादेवी का मानवीकरण कर उसका अपमान किया गया था”

So the outrage here seems to be about humanizing the goddess. The problem however is that Bengalis do consider Durga as if she is a family member coming down to her Maayaka for the four days with her family and pamper her as if she is the daughter of the house. She is the mother and the daughter and a lekurvali as we would call her in Marathi. This is my understanding from interacting with Bengalis around me. This advertisement perfectly showcases the Bengali spirit during Pujo times. You can see that in the comments from Bengali people on the youtube video. It sounds somewhat like the liberties we take with Ganesh, our favourite deity. It is done out of love and sense of closeness. How can that be insulting?

Last year Javed Habib similarly had faced outrage for ‘using’ Durga in his print advertisements that show Durga coming to his saloon with her family. Here is the Indian Express coverage. I am told that it is a tradition for Bengalis, in print media and cartoons, to showcase Durga with her family doing everyday tasks. The article at the end also shares some of the print ads that have appeared before. Habib is not insulting a Hindu goddess, he has depicted the Bengali spirit perfectly.

These episodes were pretty disturbing for me, much more than the meat shop closures. Both these advertisements were targeted at Bengali people. It wasn’t even in their North Indian backyard. The hindutva organizations in both these instances have gone looking for insult and excuse for outrage. Is this a pre-election ploy to get people riled up about things that don’t matter or do not even exist?

The people responding to the tweet are Marathi and Hindi. Marathi probably because ShivSena is part of the consortium of hindutva organizations. That scares me. I wonder about the future of my home state Maharasthra, the social activism hub of 19th century. It is unfortunate/alarming if this is what we are leaving behind for the next generation when the previous generations left us the legacy of Phule and Karve.

To improve your mood a bit after all this doomsday talk, here is one more Pujo song from Sawan Datta. Enjoy!

Gudhipadva and the Hindu New Year

April 1, 2017April 6, 2019 devayanitirthaliLeave a comment

Now that we have Whatsapp in addition to Facebook and a growing number of people back home using it, we don’t need Kaalnirnay. As any important festival or religious day dawns in India earlier than in US, we start getting whatsapp messages the previous night.

It was Gudhipadva on March 28. I received plenty of images of gudhi and wishes for the new year. What surprised me this year was the number of messages that said Hindu Navavarshachya Shubheccha. When did Gudhipadva become Hindu newyear? At best it is Marathi new year.

Gudhipadva is the first day of the first month (Chaitra) of the year, making it the new year’s day. But this calendar is not ‘The Calendar’ of India or Hindus. To start with there are regions that follow the amaant system and others that follow pournimaant system. In north India the month ends with a pournima or a full moon day while in the south it ends with amavasya i.e. no moon day. This clearly makes the first day of month 15 days apart so how can we have the same new year’s day?

Secondly, there are regions that follow a completely different calendar system other than the lunisolar calendar that we use in Kalanirnay for example. The Malyalam calendar is a solar calendar. First of each month is based on the movement of sun through the zodiac. When I started digging more I realized that there are other regions that follow a similar method. Read more details about different calendars in India here. I have not even started digging into conventions in different communities that start the year in different months or seasons.

People calling Gudhi Padva, hindu navavarsha or Hindu new year wipes out all these differences. These are not nuances. These are completely different practices.

I wondered where the ‘Hindu nava varsha’ nomenclature came from suddenly as I had not seen it before. Seems that RSS always referred to Gudhi Padva as Hindu nava varsha. I wonder if the copy paste and forward system of whatsapp made it so ubiquitous that it finally reached me. The question is whose new year is it then? Mostly Marathi upperclass hindus pretending that their practices are the practices of Hindus of all shapes and sizes.

You might think it is a small thing, it is just wording but for me it showcases homogenization of hinduism and what it means to be a Hindu. It is disturbing.