RELIGIOUS DIVISION AND SOCIAL CONFLICT:
THE EMERGENCE OF HINDU NATIONALISM IN RURAL INDIA
Peggy Froerer
Social Science Press, 1/24, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi – 100 002
Pages: 296 + xx
Price: Rs 295
Reviewed by KHAN YASIR
Villagers of Mohanpur classify diseases in two categories i.e. simple diseases and supernatural diseases. Simple diseases are treated by medicine for which a clinic facilitated by church is available at a distance of 6 km from the village (one hour walking distance). Such diseases basically include fever, cough, diarrhoea and headache, etc. It is an established practice in the village that for every ailment villagers visit the clinic and get three-day medicine. But in case of not recovering within a day or two, or falling ill again after brief recovery they say that the illness is not a simple one but a bhuti bimari caused by divine disapproval of human misconduct. Then gunias i.e. local healers would be called and they would investigate which deity is angry, why it is angry and what it wants.
Both RSS and church strongly disapprove of these healers and such practices which result in many casualties. Often medical treatment is prematurely abandoned especially in case of malaria and typhoid where fever returns after intervals, which signifies for local people that illness is not simple; had it been, it would have been cured by the medicine.
Church in Sunday sermons discards these practices. It conducts various health workshops to increase awareness regarding health matters. These efforts are not totally falling on deaf ears. Awareness, though gradually, is spreading in the area. Due to the monopoly over the health service i.e. clinic – it is considered that church’s influence is increasing with this awakening. This was too much for RSS, which installed a local ‘doctor’ – a relative of Raj – after three months training in primary healthcare. This was a challenge to church clinic – only medical authority for villages within a 15 km radius. RSS is much against what has been described as clinical-Christianity. The RSS sponsored ‘doctor’ had many advantages. Unlike nurses of the clinic, RSS ‘doctor’ was local and knew people personally; unlike them, he also visited home and was conveniently available. Soon people from other villages too started calling him. Froerer deduces the following from the whole incident:
By identifying a social need and mobilising a response to that need, Raj and other RSS activists were successfully able to endear themselves and engender respect and trust from the community as a whole. In this way, they were able to establish a platform from which more aggressive strategies could be initiated later on, and to ensure that their appeals would be taken seriously. (p. 144)
Second such strategy that RSS adopted was to extend support to those, especially angry youths, who sought to contend the corrupt local power but could not have done so without outsider-help. RSS made the most of this opportunity and threw its weight behind the disgruntled people of the village. Patel was the village headman. He was also the government-appointed Munshi for the collection of tendu leaves collected by locals. People will collect leaves and give in bundles of fifty to Munshi who was responsible for counting, colleting and handing over these bundles to the government. He was also in charge of distributing the payments of these leaves to the collector families. Predictably, he devoured a major sum of money in between. Though this was an open secret in the village, no one dared to rebel against the Patel. The condition in the village was so that “State is subordinated to Patel” (p. 165). Everybody desired a change but everybody lacked initiative. RSS took the initiative and intervened. As a national organisation was involved, though clandestinely, everyone grew confident that they could do it. Patel was removed from the position of Munshi. The concluding observation of the author is, “…part of the RSS’s broader strength lies in the fact that it performs these kinds of ‘social services’ even as it holds out the (unspoken) threat of aggression and violence”. (p. 178)
AGGRESSIVE STRATEGIES
Establishing itself through civilising gimmicks described above, RSS adopted more aggressive stances regarding the local land disputes. Land disputes were rooted in village history. Ratiya Kanwars were original settlers of the village and they (i.e. their ancestors), as a gesture of grace and for flourishing of the budding village population, allowed the Oraons to settle down on the outskirts of the village. There was no land for Oraons though they were allowed to cultivate some nominal portions by clearing the forest. Oraons naturally are hardworking people. With their hard work and toil, they cleared a lot of forest and increased their land holding to a considerable large area. This comparatively prosperous situation of the Oraons was a cause of suspicion and envy for the Hindus in general and Ratiya Kanwars in particular who thought that they possess the distinguished right to the land for they are the ‘first settlers’ of the area.
This claim was contradicted by the Oraons that they were farming on the land that they cleared with their own toil. The problem can be said of a threatened high caste versus an aspiring low caste and clash between them. This is also explained by Horowitz as ‘politics of entitlement’. Angry Ratiya Kanwars gradually started asserting claims on the lands on which they had never laboured. “Such claims” as the author says, “are being made on the basis that, as the ‘sons of the soil’ and rightful proprietors, this land ‘belongs’ to them”. Even lands cleared and cultivated by Oraons for the last three decades also came under dispute.
The author notes the point that though many Hindus are also involved in land encroaching, the encroached landholdings of Oraons came under attention of RSS. How nominal is the threat of encroached landholdings of the Oraons is explained statistically by the author who argues that despite every encroachment, Hindus, even today, have 94% lands of the area and only 6% is owned by Oraon.
Another significant point is that the Oraon community is the possessor of cash as it indulges in sale of labour in village farms and mainly outside village. They indulge in construction work. Therefore they receive cash payments, while for their daily needs Hindus rely on barter system using rice as a currency. But there are certainly occasions when cash is needed. This cash Hindus get from Oraons by selling rice or mortgaging land. This led to the creditor and lender relationship between the communities. Hindus are also jealous of this ‘overflowing cash’ of the Oraon community. When someone from the Oraon community bought a TV, it became a constant source of scorn and irritation in the Hindu basti. “While this sort of indebtedness might not be unusual, it creates a power relationship between the borrower and the lender, in favour of the latter”. (p. 210)
RSS jumped on the bandwagon of these tensions and oiled them a great deal – “…the concern that the Ratiya Kanwars have for the Oraons’ increasing wealth, land and overall economic advantages has created a sense of growing unease that has spilled out into the rest of Hindu community”. RSS played an important role in this. “The Oraon were acceptable neighbours when they were poorer than their Hindu ‘hosts’ three decades ago. Their increasing wealth and steady acquisition of land through encroachment and mortgages not only creates resentment but also threatens the power and status of the original ‘sons of the soil’” (p. 217-8). The author concludes this discussion on a theoretical note:
Through a process that Tambiah (1996) calls ‘focalisation’ and ‘transvaluation’… local tensions, which are connected to the relationship that both communities have to land, labour and access to cash, are stripped of their particulars and attached to one of the most powerful discourses of the Hindu nationalist movement: the ‘threatening other’. It is through the strategic transformation of original settler claims into ‘conflict symbols’ that a cultural allegiance between local Hindu adivasis and Hindus elsewhere in India has been successfully created. As land tensions move beyond the local, caste conflicts acquire communal elements in a process whereby religion has come to be used as a tool for economic and political gain” (p. 219).
(to be concluded)