Most systematic study of India by Indians was lost in library fires and university demolitions. What we have is the systematic study of India by its European conquerors. Thus, ab initio, European-origin concepts, categories, axioms, intentions, and methods are tainted by conquest.
Unlike Abrahamic religions, the Hindu “religion” is not prescriptive; it is descriptive and advisory. Hindu books are in verse that requires a guru to decode them. Western writers have not spent the time required to study with such gurus. The very, very few who have done so, such as David Frawley and Michel Danino, have ended up falling in love with Hindu Dharma.
The Western scholarly tradition is gated by peers who review new work, and they rely on reputation. So if later Europeans — or Indians — came up with more valid and deeper versions of Hinduism, they would be rejected. Indeed, many have been rejected and denied publication. Therefore, the European study of India is doomed to stay in the same old self-validating-and-reinforcing ecosystem.
Taking these factors together, viz. (a) conqueror’s mindset, (b) difficulty of access and expert guidance, (c)self-sufficient validation, the best one can do is to call the Western work on India a corpus designed, built, and used for Western purposes, with limited relevance outside the West, and only incidental correlation with the ground reality.
The student who is serious about deciphering India must listen to all versions and all voices, carefully and critically examine them, and apply personal judgment to learn the truth. If you turn into Gandhi’s three monkeys as soon as someone yells “Hindutva!”, you are doomed.
An example of (4): the US Commission on International Religious Freedom says that Muslims are threatened in India with the genocidal (in its opinion) “Hindutva” creed, lumping India with Iran and North Korea. However, the 2021 Pew Research survey on religion and caste found that Muslims were very happy to live in India and felt free to practice their religion as they wanted to. There are similar revelations on caste. Yet the standard Western academics and so forth have taken zero interest in Pew’s objective data.
But why are Abrahamic religions prescriptive? Because they were “invented” to help unify a community that felt threatened. For example, Islam was invented to unify Arabs against military threats from non-Arabs. Just as a military has prescriptive regulations for its cadets, Islam has prescriptive regulations for Muslims. Just as a military punishes deserters, so does Islam. Just as a military is male-dominated, so is Islam. In fact, the founder of Islam was a military commander. Islam is also monotheistic because a military or a nation cannot have two flags.
Hinduism was developed at a time when people in India faced no such external threats–thanks to the natural protection of its borders by the ocean and the mountains. It had no such military goals. It was a spiritual path for individuals (who may have previously worshipped natural forces, such as the sun). It was a path for individuals to achieve inner happiness (‘ananda’) and liberation. But since each individual must discover and follow his own path at his own pace, there could be no one-size-fits-all prescription. Instead, a guru provided personal guidance during that journey.
This very fundamental difference between Abrahamic religions and Indic religions makes it necessary to stop using the same word (religion) to describe them. However, the confusion will persist as long as we keep using the same word or label. Our thoughts (and debates) are seriously constrained by the labels we use. Moreover, the use of the same label enables the Western scholars to view/judge Indic religions in the framework of Abrahamic religions.
Firstly, please note that the author has used religion for Hinduism in quotation marks. He is clearly suggesting that it is a misnomer foisted by others on us for their convenience. Secondly, using the socio-political circumstances to justify the exclusive nature of the Abrahamic faiths is a bit specious. When was the Jewish faith formed? Was it also under socio-political duress at its formation? How about Sikhism? Surely, you would agree that it was founded under the worst of socio-political circumstances. Yet they did not make it so prescriptive.
I am sorry, but your argument just does not hold water.
Vijay, I agree that “religion” is a misnomer for the Indian/Hindu system of spirituality, but it must be used to qualify for the privilges and exemptions accorded religions in Western democracies (in which I include India). In other contexts we should, and often do, use the term Dharma.
I too don’t agree that prescription is dictated by the external environment. It is automatic as soon as you claim that you are chanelling the word of God. The real mystery is why these nomadic desert people needed such a vehement, vindictive, angry, male-chauvinist God. See for example
https://www.npr.org/2010/03/18/124494788/is-the-bible-more-violent-than-the-quran
Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion, says, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”