As the world remembers the horrific Islamist terrorist strikes against the United States on 9/11 twenty-five years ago, we in India also remember how, in 1893, Swami Vivekananda addressed the World’s Parliament of Religions on the same day. The two represent opposite ends of religion’s role in our lives.
While Vivekananda advocated pluralism and the end of fanaticism, the threat of religious extremism is still very much a concern in today’s world. According to verifiable figures compiled by the Fondation pour l’innovation politique (Fondapol), close to a quarter million people have been killed by Islamist terrorism and violent extremism since September 11, 2001.
Given these facts, controversy over the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) monks’ avoidance of women is rather unfortunate. It not only gives BAPS, but Hinduism itself, a bad name. Even though BAPS adherents and Swaminarayans in general are a totally peaceful sect, they do not restrict or curtail the liberty or dress of women in the manner in which many Muslim clerics, whether in India or elsewhere, do.
What exactly happened to trigger such a massive reaction? On September 6, BAPS inaugurated another grand temple at Bussy-Saint-Georges, Seine-et-Marne, near Paris. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did the honours, calling it a milestone in India-France relations. The temple is the first traditionally designed fully stone structure on the continent.
Unfortunately, the day before the inauguration, on September 5, a visit to the Eiffel Tower by a group of BAPS monks later blew up into an unseemly controversy. To facilitate the visit of about 100 monks and BAPS functionaries, the Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE), which manages the monument, asked female employees to stay away or be replaced by male staffers.
The visit was arranged from 8:00-9:00 am, just before the Tower is opened to the public at 9:15 AM. That way, the monks would likely have avoided contact with regular visitors, who, of course, would have included women. The SETE female staffers were asked to stay away. In protest, some went on strike on Monday, September 8, bringing the issue into the limelight.
BAPS issued an apology, but a large coalition of Left-liberal groups, including members of the Indian diaspora who also oppose the RSS and other Hindu organisations, swung into action, calling out BAPS. French political parties and civil authorities also jumped into the fray. In India, journalists reporting on Muslim clerics in Kerala calling women to stay at home are themselves forced to apologise; abroad, not just BAPS, but many Hindu groups are lambasted for being patriarchal, anti-women and regressive.
The double standards are too obvious to require extensive commentary.
BAPS celibacy rules have, once again, come under public scrutiny. What most people don’t realise is that BAPS is itself a breakaway sect founded in 1907 by Shastri Yagnapurushdas, or Shastriji Maharaj. The original Vadtal Diocese of the sampradaya, founded by Sahajananda Swami, or Swaminarayan himself, is run by householder or married acharyas, not celibate monks. Even the wives of the acharyas wield considerable spiritual authority.
BAPS, by contrast, strictly enforces eight-fold vows of celibacy. The segregation of BAPS monks from women is facilitated by having several men around them when they travel. These companions interact with women, shielding the monks from having to do so. Incidents such as the Paris outrage will only bring greater pressure on BAPS to reform.
Just after independence, in 1948, members of the Ahmedabad Diocese of the Swaminarayans went to court to prevent lower-caste worshippers from entering their temples. They claimed they were not Hindus but a separate religious sect. Many Hindu groups have used this ruse to preserve their traditions or resist State interference. Nearly two decades later, the courts ruled that the Swaminarayans were indeed Hindus and their temples had to be open to all communities and castes.
That is why the message delivered by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in London on that very day, September 6, acquires an added salience. At the close of his three-nation overseas centenary outreach, nothing could have been starker than the contrast between what RSS-baiters accuse it of and what the Sangh itself considers the motivating force behind its seva, or service.
“I have heard some people say that intense hatred is the basis of our work,” Bhagwat observed. “It is just the reverse.” The real basis, he insisted, “is shuddha saatvika prem—pure, selfless love”. Many have called out the Sangh for speaking in two, if not many, voices.
But what’s wrong with multivocality? Don’t all big and complex organisations, not to mention nations, practise it? Isn’t it, in fact, inevitable? Even in one single family, people voice several differing, at times even conflicting, opinions.
To expect a monochrome and monotonous consistency or singularity of purpose only from the RSS is as absurd as it is unfair. With a hundred-year record of remarkable growth and achievement behind it, it was now time for the rest of the world, including the staunchest detractors of the RSS, to wake up, so to speak and smell the coffee.
On the contentious question of the Hindu Rashtra, Bhagwat emphasised that “Hindu” was not merely a religion or mode of worship, but a civilisational disposition capable of accepting and respecting diversity. Very similar to what the Supreme Court had ruled in disposing of the Swaminarayan case in 1966.
What, then, of shuddha saatvika prem? It is an extraordinarily demanding standard for any organisation, especially one so deeply entangled in India’s political imagination. Bhagwat, in effect, raised the bar for his own followers. But he also raised it for the Sangh’s critics. After a hundred years, the RSS cannot reasonably demand immunity from scrutiny. Equally, its detractors cannot demand immunity from evidence.
Prejudice and hatred against the RSS, or any Hindu organisation for that matter, cannot be adduced as proof or evidence. Lazy or envious criticism will not do. Hindus the world over must not be apologetic or defensive when they are attacked. They must, instead, take the trouble to communicate better who they are and what they stand for to the wider world.
Makarand R Paranjape | RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE | Author and commentator
(Views are personal)
(On X @MakrandParanspe)