KOCHI: Amid an ideological battle, author Manu S Pillai steps back centuries to trace the formation of the modern Hindu identity in his new book Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making of The Modern Hindu Identity (Penguin India Allen Lane; Rs 999).
Armed with rigorous research and fascinating anecdotes, Manu — who was on the jury for the recently-held Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman by The New Indian Express Group — delves into the diverse, and often mind-boggling tradition that was and continues to be Hinduism.
As Manu says, Hinduism defies easy definition. “Some things can only be understood as composites, as dynamic, layered processes, often with contradictions,” he explains. “The quest to define — to sharply categorise and demarcate boundaries — is largely a modern preoccupation.”
His book unpacks how this fluid tradition evolved through history, particularly during India’s encounter with colonialism and missionary activity.
A push towards rigidity
Hinduism, unlike the ‘religions of the book,’ did not revolve around fixed texts. “It was and remains a web, a network of beliefs and ideas, coexisting in a common framework,” says Manu.
However, this fluidity faced pressure during encounters with foreign powers around the turn of the first millennium. “The encounter with Islamic power triggered some defensive rigidity at first,” he explains, “and we find Hindus growing more aware of their distinctness as a group.”
Colonial rule and missionary critique a few centuries later intensified this pressure. “Under foreign rule, with white men in power and evangelical groups questioning Hinduism’s validity, Hindus understandably felt pressed to reimagine their religion and stress their Hinduness,” says Manu.
This reimagining often involved co-opting the tools of the colonisers. “If their white critics insisted on texts as proof of a religion’s quality, Hindus offered texts that met these Western standards.... Acquiescence and subversion occurred in tandem.”
Negotiation, adaptation, and hierarchies
Hinduism’s evolution, however, wasn’t solely shaped by external pressures. The tradition itself was shaped by centuries of negotiation, absorption, and adaptation.
“Puranic Hinduism, as it shaped itself, was not exclusionary. It created room for diverse ideas, deities, cults, and groups. [Yet], though various ideas were accepted, some were branded ‘higher,’ others ‘lower.’ So it was tolerance, but within parameters; acceptance, but not wholesale endorsement.”
This hierarchy extended to caste, which Manu addresses head-on. While some today claim caste is a colonial invention, he counters that its roots run deep in Indian society.
“Bhakti poetry features critiques of caste, long before any white man gained power in India,” he notes. However, the British catalogued caste in ways that amplified its significance, leaving a legacy that persists.
“Caste remains a potent form of identity to this day.... Awareness of this fragility is precisely why many try to bypass caste by branding it a British ‘invention’,” he says.
Sacred geographies, shared homelands
A fascinating exploration in the book is how myths and pilgrimage networks helped create a ‘sacred geography’ binding India’s diverse regions.
“Indians of the past did not have political unity: there were different cultures, language zones, states, and so on. Yet, there was a sense of a shared homeland, which emerged through these sacred geographies,” he explains.
He describes how sacred sites in the south like Srirangam and Rameshwaram were linked to broader networks stretching from Dwarka in the west to Kashi in the north.
This awareness of a shared cultural homeland, however, should not be mistaken for political or religious nationalism.
“Later ideologues did try to interpret it that way. But that is a simplistic, unhistorical reading,” notes Manu.
A tradition of adaptation
Figures like Ram Mohan Roy and Swami Vivekananda, Manu argues, are emblematic of Hinduism’s adaptability. Their efforts to modernise Hinduism in response to colonial critiques, he says, were part of a longer tradition of adaptation.
“While orthodox schools and purist ideas did exist, for the most part, Hinduism featured a dexterity that helped it survive many challenges,” he says. “Viewed against that long arc, Hinduism’s adaptation in the modern period... is natural.”
Even Christianity’s interaction with Hinduism during the missionary period reflected this dynamic. Missionaries, initially dismissive of Hinduism, found themselves adapting to it — from wearing saffron robes to imitating Brahmin rituals and creating a fascinating interplay of mutual influence. “Just as Hinduism has many traditions in a common frame, Christianity acquired new faces in India,” observes Manu.
A fluid identity
Manu challenges the oversimplified notion of Hinduism’s history being solely defined by a Hindu-Muslim divide. “All religious systems have internal dissonances,” he says, drawing parallels to early Christianity’s lack of consensus on core ideas.
“Vaishnavas and Saivas could violently dispute one another. But when faced with Jainism, they simultaneously recognised each other as broadly on the same side,” he observes. This dynamic of shifting identities is akin to how Indians might emphasise regional identities within the country but adopt a collective ‘Indian’ identity abroad.