In defence of the pluralistic and multi-cultural character of India

I challenge the article on Vande Mataram on freeindia.org By Shumon Sengupta 18 July, 2006 Countercurrents.org

It is worth noting that Freeindia.org is a right wing nationalist forum. Not that I have any problems with that – in fact I find them useful because the more I read about their arguments, the more I am convinced of my own! It is important to understand the underlying agenda of this part of our political spectrum - their agenda is to create a so called Hindu India.

To give it to Freeindia, the article is epistemologically more or less defendable. They have largely stuck to historical facts (as established by reputed historians). What is however not defendable are some of the basic premises of the article, which are essentially repugnant to the pluralistic and multi-cultural character of a country like India.

Please note that Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was a nationalist (apart from being a towering figure of Bengali literature) and also a Hindu revivalist. The same can be said with other eminent personalities mentioned in the article - such as Pandit. V.D. Paluskar (I have a very old recording of his on CD and he is amazing) and Rishi Auribindo. Bamkim Chandra’s picture of India was essentially “Hindu India”, with other religious groups on the fringes.

I therefore reject this tunneled vision of India – a vision that is narrowly defined primarily on “Hindu” terms and with “Hindu idioms”. To me India is a large and hugely diverse country (and I emphasize not a Hindu country as Freeindia would like to believe) with “many distinct pursuits, vastly different convictions, widely divergent customs and a feast of viewpoints” and I am proud of this.

As a Bengali (with a fairly good understanding of the language), I can well appreciate the lyrical beauty, divine serenity, depth and intensity of Vande Mataram as well as the amazing visual imagery that the song portrays. It is indeed a picture of some parts of southern and Bengal (as well as Bangladesh) that I have personally experienced – a picture of mother nature at her generous, glorious and beautiful best.