Edward
Luce South Asia Correspondent ; Financial Times (London).
Tempered in
the fire of his mind
Hindu religious leader Swami
Agnivesh has renounced both Hindu nationalism and many aspects
of religion – he has not prayed to a deity since 1968 and
doesn’t believe in evil.
Financial Times (London, England)
(1620 words)
By EDWARD LUCE
It is a
sweltering summer’s day in New Delhi and Swami Agnivesh is
taking about Hindu philosophy. The Swamiji- an honorific given
to all respected Hindu religious figures-is explaining the
importance of “detachment”, the goal of freeing oneself both
from the consequences of one’s actions and from ties of the
material world.
It is only
through “the deepest sleep”, he tells me, that we ordinary types
get a taste of the blissful detachment that we should strive for
in waking consciousness. “Of course we cannot escape all
material attachments,” says the Swamiji, his expression
lightening. “Let us eat some lunch.”
It would be easy
to slot Swami Agnivesh into a long line of real or imaginary
Hindu renunciates, from Swami Vivekananda, the great spiritual
reformer of late Victorian India, to E.M. Forster’s Godbole,
whose mystical pronouncements still caricature our sense of
Hinduism.
But Swami
Agnivesh, the 65-year-old public face of the Arya Samaj
(Gathering of the Noble) movement, which has 10m followers, is
unusual in one critical respect- he is a social activist from a
tradition that often dismisses the social as illusory. The swami
may have renounced meat, alcohol and sex- but he also denounces
injustice.
It is hard to
abandon society if you have a passion for justice. “To fight
injustice whether it is against women, lower castes, or members
of the Muslim and Christian minorities is to come closer to
God,” he says, always speaking softly. “If God is truth and
compassion, how can you not fight injustice?”
We meet at the
Swami’s ramshackle quarters in central New Delhi at the back of
a colonial bungalow once occupied by India’s ruling Congress
Party. Vegetarian lunch starting with fresh fruits – Iychees,
mangoes and papaya- followed by yellow dal (lentils), spiced
okra, mint chutney and roti (bread) is served. We eat with our
hands, There is also chilled water.
Every now and
then the meal is interrupted by the buzz of the Swami’s mobile
phone. One is a call from Iranian television asking him to
comment on the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomenei’s death.
Another is form an Indian TV station requesting an interview
about India’s new government. The Swami is everywhere in
demand.
Unlike most
swamis, and more than any other Hindu religious figure, Swami
Agnivesh is associated with the struggle against Hindu
nationalism. India’s Hindu nationalist BJP, which was
unexpectedly turned out of office in elections is May, feels the
gentle lash of Swami Agnivesh’s tongue much more keenly than
criticism from any secular or minority opponent.
So the
bespectacled Swami, always garbed in his trademark saffron robes
and turban, has good reason to feel satisfied with the recent
twist in India’s political story. But he does not betray it.
“They will continue to poison the minds of the young with their
hate and with their sectarianism,” he says of the platoons of
social groups affiliated to the defeated BJP. “We must be alert
to the dangers lurking around the corner. If the BJP comes back,
it will come back with a vengeance. I fear it will.”
I wonder whether
all followers of the Arya Samaj agree with the Swami’s militant
opposition to Hindu nationalism. The sect, founded in 1875 by
Dayananda Saraswati, a Hindu reformer, has also been associated
with the politics of Hindu revivalism. Most notably in 1921 it
differed sharply with Mahatma Gandhi’s decision to launch a
movement to restore the Ottoman Caliphate (which had been
toppled by the British).
To the disgust
of many in the Arya Samaj, Gandhi’s move was aimed at winning
over the conservative elements of Indian Islam to the freedom
struggle against the British. The Swami looks slightly perturbed
at my question. “There are some elements in the Arya Samaj that
have created difficulties over my stand against Hindu
nationalism,” he says. “But most fully agree that the Hindu
nationalists are desecrating India’s spiritual traditions.”
But the Swami’s
very public battle against the BJP and its sister groups is a
fairly recent cause in a vocation that stretches back almost
four decades. In 1968, the young Vapa Shyam Rao gave up his job
as a lecturer in business administration in Calcutta to campaign
against liquor among India’s poor. Renaming himself
Agnivesh-fire of the mind- the fledgling ascetic began to
question everything he had learned from his orthodox Brahmin
upbringing.
This culminated
in a rejection of “superstitions and polytheism and idol-worship
of popular Hinduism”, he explains. The Arya Samaj, which in some
ways resembles the protestant tradition in Christianity,
dismisses all the priestly accretions of Hinduism as it is
practised. Dayanand Saraswati was the first person to translate
the Vedas –Hinduism’s most sacred texts- into Hindi, the most
widely- spoken language in India, more than 2,000 years after
they were written. The original language, Sanskrit, is only
understood by Brahmins, the priestly caste. The parallels with
Latin and Roman Catholicism are stark. Dayananda was murdered in
1883. The Arya Samaj allege it was Brahmin Pandits or priests,
who poisoned him.
“I have not rung
a bell or lit a candle or prayed to a deity since 1968,” says
Swami Agnivesh. “Is God so weak that he will break his divine
laws to intervene in your life and change it? Is God susceptible
to flattery and to pleading and to begging?
Such questions
could easily plunge an untutored mind into a tailspin on a
sultry afternoon when the barometer is nudging 44 deg C. Air
conditioning is not something with which the Swami is
encumbered.
By now we are
picking at a steaming Jalebi- a treacly Indian sweet- that had
just been dropped off by a group of lawyers with whom the Swami
had worked on child labour cases. The Swami is also a familiar
face at the UN when he has headed committees o bonded slavery,
child labour and religious tolerance.
I ask why so
many foreigners are drawn to Indian gurus. He answers the
question with tact. “I think many westerners are drawn to
India’s deep traditions of spirituality and meditation,” he
says. “But people, especially young people, should be careful
not to get caught up in the magical or the superstitious or the
superficial. There are many gurus out there, some of them also
living in the west, who peddle nonsense to young minds. If you
want to find God then, as Gandhi said, you must start with the
lowest person on the lowest rung of the social ladder.”
Recently, the
Swami spoke on the plight of many Indian women to a group of
Christian students in Kerala. “I told them that so many women in
India are beaten by their drunken husbands, so many young
daughters are married off before puberty, so many female fetuses
are terminated in the womb-could they feel happy knowing what is
happening to their sisters? I was very pleased they concluded
that action was the answer, not prayer.”
The more one
talks to Swmai Agnivesh the more one senses he disdains religion
in general. Apart from his saffron garments, the Swami’s
quarters betray no sign of the trappings of worship, ritual or
attachment. Like many in the Hindu tradition, Swami Agnivesh
professes equal respect for all religions. Perhaps what he means
is equal disrespect, although always conveyed with the greatest
courtesy. I feel a twinge of sympathy.
But I am curious
to find out if their is anything metaphysical or supernatural
behind his philosophy. We traipse outside to wash our glutinous
hands in a basin. I feel far better nourished than I would after
eating in one of Delhi’s glistening hotel.
One by one,
Swami Agnivesh disposes of the standard tenets of most
religions. He dismisses the idea of evil- beyond what humans
voluntarily do to other humans. He does not believe in miracles,
with the greatest respect to Jesus, Mohammed and so on. He even
disapproves of funerals: “I think it is superstitious to pay
respects to a piece of dead meat which the soul has already
departed.”
Of course, the
soul. The Swami takes this as a cue to explain a theology that
seems to me as abstruse as any. The Vedic texts, according to
the Arya Samaj, are devoid both of history or geography and
could therefore only have come from God. They are neither Hindu
nor Indian but universal and superior to all other texts.
The Vedas
(estimated to be between 2,500 and 3,500 years old and to have
come from India) also contain the laws of transmigration – which
explain the journeys of the soul. As in other Hindu accounts,
the soul’s destination is partly determined by the actions of
previous lives. And moksha- ending the cycle of rebirth- is the
goal.
But unlike many
interpretations , the Swami’s account leaves little room for the
caste system or the still widespread view that one’s position on
the ladder is a consequence of deeds in earlier incarnations.
Somehow, his theology seems reassuringly abstract- even
detached- from what really motivates him. There is no trace of
fatalism.
Having consumed
another round of sweets since our ablutions, the meal no longer
feels quite so virtuous. The temperature, if anything, has
risen.
The Swami’s
theological exposition was interesting. But when I nudge the
conversation back to the mundane, his body language becomes
alert again.
“We have a lot
of long-running social battles to fight in India,” he says with
feeling. “But on top of these, Hindu nationalism is a headache
we really don’t need. I hope, for the time being, it will go
back into its box.”
Strange, I
thought, after I had taken my leave. But if the Swami had been
out to convert me, he wouldn’t have missed by much.