How Sanatan Dharma row deepened south-north divide

Tamil Nadu never ceases to surprise and bewilder the north of the Vindhya, not the least because of the relative ease with which it contains its contradictions and gets on with life. It is home to the largest number of temples in India, more than 40,000 as per the state’s Hindu Endowment Board, and Hindu rituals are elevated to the status of festivals (its people love nothing more than one) celebrated almost daily with a folksy feel, regardless of one’s caste. The Gregorian calendar’s New Year is ushered with the peal of temple bells and the chant of prayers at midnight following which the gods are propitiated with the ceremonial ‘puja’ and ‘archana’. Beef is sold and consumed openly by Hindus even in pilgrim cities like Madurai where on a visit a few years ago, I was hard-pressed to find a vegetarian joint. The few and far between ‘military’ hotels of the past – the only places that served meat and fish in an era when Brahmanism and vegetarianism ruled – have possibly transformed into today’s paradise for carnivores. There are no nannies to watch with beady eyes on what’s ladled on plates and bowls. Tamil Nadu’s political history is signposted by EV Ramasamy Naicker Periyar’s Self-Respect Movement (1925). He is a lodestar of sorts for crusaders for backward caste and Dalit empowerment in the other parts because Periyar was opposed to caste and religion and actively championed atheism as a doctrine. Periyar earned a place among a litany of icons synonymous with social justice such as Babasaheb Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Narayana Guru and Kanshi Ram. Periyar’s ideology and political beliefs were founded on the single premise of challenging and demolishing Brahmin hegemony, which he was in no doubt was rooted in Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma. The Hindu religion, he believed, allowed Brahmins to leverage their status as an elite caste group to oppress the other castes. medium103424410 Periyar’s statues in Tamil Nadu are invariably inscribed with his most famous quote that goes, “There is no god. He who created god is a fool. He who propagates god is a scoundrel. He who worships god is a barbarian.” In places, the inscribed statue was placed strategically before a temple or a monastery as in Kanchipuram as if to mock the faith unquestioningly embraced by the upper castes.Periyar founded the Dravida Kazhagam in 1944 as anti-Brahmin, anti-Congress and anti-Aryan (an analogue for north India) but he was against contesting elections. His closest aide, CN Annadurai, split, launched the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and jumped into the electoral fray while diluting Periyar’s call for an independent Dravida Nadu.The Sanatan Dharma debateThis preface is meant to contextualise the most recent controversy preoccupying political parties after MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks on Sanatan Dharma. Last week, at an event organised in Chennai named the “Sanadhana Ozhippu Manadu” (Sanathan Abolition Conclave), Udhayanidhi, a former actor and now a minister, recalled that his grandfather and DMK patriarch M Karuninidhi’s response was to form a “Samathuva Puram” to enable people of different castes and communities to coexist in harmony. Udhayanidhi said that like Covid 19, dengue and malaria, Sanatan Dharma ought to be eradicated because it was the purveyor of social maladies such as sati and child marriage. medium nocaption103329583He counterpoised his contention against Sanatan Dharma by listing the DMK government’s welfare schemes, especially those thought up for women so that they accessed education, health and economic opportunities easily and equitably.Nobody can argue against his point on a better deal for women, but why did Sanatan Dharma crop up in Tamil Nadu where the concept is alien to most people, including the Brahmins who generally adhere to the tenets of northern Hinduism because they are convinced about their Aryan provenance? The only plausible answer is the DMK’s apprehension that the BJP’s indefatigable focus on the state – knowing well that it is dependent on a faction of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) to get a foothold and is unlikely to succeed in the near future – cannot be good news for the party, especially in a parliamentary election. Hence, the compelling need to resurrect its ideological roots embedded in Periyar’s doctrines and reiterate these as a rebuttal to the BJP’s preaching of Sanatan Dharma which, according to Devdutt Pattanaik, a writer on religion, mythology and management, is steeped in a hierarchical Hindu order based on the “chatur varnam” that positioned Brahmins on top of the caste pecking order. Pattnaik says in the 19th century, when a reformist offshoot of Hinduism called the Samaji Hindus tried to promote learning for women as well as the non-upper castes, the Sanatanis, anchored in patriarchy and the “chatur varnam”, opposed the initiative lest it upset Brahmin hegemony. Pattnaik stated that the Sanatan Dharma did not originate in the Vedas. Expectedly, Udhayanidhi’s statements rocked the north with the early rumblings heard, where else, but in Ayodhya whose clergy interestingly is split along caste identities but never brings up the fault lines publicly. Mahant Paramhans Das, chief priest of a temple, placed a reward of ₹10 crore on the DMK minister’s head and burnt Udhayanidhi’s photo. medium103424663Stalin’s scion, however, stuck to his guns as the BJP unleashed a full on campaign against him, primarily in the north. Ironically, the controversy accentuated the north-south breach, a work-in-progress under the BJP dispensation with its push for a 'One Nation, One Everything' end. Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge, son Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, endorsed Udhayanidhi’s remarks, saying, “Any religion that does not treat people with equality is as good as a disease.”If Periyar was too iconoclastic, the BJP’s Sanatanis would do well to visit Ambedkar’s long but profound, lucid and perspicacious disquisition on caste which he delivered in 1936 at the annual conference of the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal, purportedly a Hindu anti-caste reformation outfit. When the text of Ambedkar’s speech was sent to the organisers, they asked him to edit out large tracts which they considered “unbearable” – an indication of how deeply entrenched the caste order was. Ambedkar’s thesis was that the annihilation of caste required the dismantling of codified Hinduism as a pre-requisite. To quote him, “To excite the proletariat to bring about an economic revolution, Karl Marx told them, ‘You have nothing to lose except your chains’. But the artful way in which the social and religious rights are distributed among the different castes, whereby some have more and some have less, makes the slogan of Marx quite useless to excite the Hindus against the caste system....You cannot, therefore, have a general mobilisation of the Hindus (to use a military expression) for an attack on the caste system.” The BJP assiduously worked on its project to co-opt socio-political icons and among its first target was Ambedkar who is enshrined in its phalanx of heroes. In Tamil Nadu, the DMK and Udhayanidhi don’t really need to worry about the BJP’s fulminations because notice that their principal opponent, the AIADMK, has not uttered a word. medium103424999However, the DMK’s steadfast ally, the Congress, could possibly be in a bind as was manifest in a cluster of varying statements which emanated from its leaders and spokespersons. Congress general secretary KC Venugopal, believed to reflect Rahul Gandhi’s thinking, took the middle path and said, “Our view is clear. ‘Sarva Dharma Samabhava’ [respect for all religions] is the Congress’ ideology. Every political party has the freedom to tell their views.....”The origin of the uncertainty lies in the Congress’s historical support to the caste hierarchy, tellingly recounted by Ambedkar in his seminal work. He quoted WC Bonnerji, the Congress’ first president, who presiding over the party’s eighth session in 1892 virtually sounded the death knell of the Social Conference, a cell set up to think of social reforms.According to Ambedkar, Bonnerji rejected the idea that political and social reforms must go hand-in-hand. “I fail to see any connection between the two....Are we not fit (for political reform) because our widows remain unmarried and our girls are given in marriage earlier than in other countries?...because we do not send our daughters to Oxford and Cambridge?” asked Bonnerjee, a barrister qualified at England’s Middle Temple, to loud cheers.In his advocacy of social reforms, Ambedkar’s riposte to the political-minded Hindus was, “Are you fit for political power even though you do not allow a large class of your own countrymen like the untouchables to use public schools...public wells...public streets?” It’s worth asking the BJP which gets Dalit votes if it validates Ambedkar’s views considering that the Sanatanis make up its core vote base. If the Congress’ dilemma is real, no less acute is the BJP’s quandary over a debate ignited down south. There are no easy answers for the parties.Lead cartoon: Sandeep Adhwaryu