|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Clash Within:
Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future
While it is commendable that a scholar of Nussbaum’s stature has decided to invest her energy in writing a lengthy tome about India, The Clash Within hardly charters new terrains. Many authors, including her own colleague Dipesh Chakrabarty at University of Chicago, have written extensively — and more informatively — about the rise of Hindu fundamentalism. Rather condescendingly, Nussbaum declares in the preface, "This is a book about India for an American and European audience." Such a statement presupposes an authenticity about herself as being able to ‘speak to’ a western audience having been raised, as she writes, "in her elite WASP heritage." It comes with an implication that Indians in India cannot gain from her insight or, worse, cannot fully comprehend her comparative critique of liberal democracies. Since the early 1990s, quite a few Indian and western scholars have written about the rise of religious nationalism, including excellent books by Christopher Jeffrelot, Arvind Rajagopal, Partha Chatterjee, Chetan Bhatt, Thomas Hansen, Sikata Banerjee and Yogendra Malik to name a few. This is not a lightweight list though these scholars are not household names like Nussbaum. Nussbaum, unfortunately, lumps these politically and philosophically diverse works into one footnote and barely refers to them in building her arguments. In one chapter, she examines the ideas and legacies of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Rabindranath Tagore. Primarily using second-hand exegeses, Nussbaum paints a facile picture of the three men, writing more at a level of a graduate student term paper than a scholar of international reputation. She briefly interviews BJP and RSS leaders (40 minutes in the case of Arun Shourie whom she harshly criticises) and then provides pages of what reads like psychological insights. There lies the danger of moving from ancient Greek philosophy, a scholarly area in which Nussbaum specialises, to writing about contemporary politics in India. Nussbaum asks, at the end of the book, what can be done to change the course of the virulent nationalism that has gripped India and in fostering liberal democracy. She herself has little in answers except to advocate the teaching of arts in India’s educational system. While arts and humanities have been treated as ‘second class’ in our schools, the solution Nussbaum presents is hardly adequate. Germany and Italy’s rise to fascism was also coupled with an equal zealotry for European arts. The US has some of the most expansive museums in the world (and some of the biggest patrons of arts) but it hasn’t stopped the militarisation of that nation. All this is not to say that the book has no merits. Nussbaum provides a scathing critique of Narendra Modi’s policies in Gujarat and describes how Indian voters, angered by the BJP’s pro-rich economic policies and anti-Muslim violence, voted it out of power in 2004 elections. The chapter on the Indian diaspora which pours millions of dollars into funding the Hindutva movement is particularly thought-provoking. The book is at its strongest when Nussbaum tackles issues of gender including an analysis of the Shah Bano case, a Uniform Civil Code, and the fear of emasculation among upper-caste Hindu men. The Clash Within could be worth a read for someone who is completely unfamiliar with the vast literature on Indian nationalism but for those who are looking for a more historically nuanced reading or a new interpretation, the book has little to offer.
|
Nussbaum