The Arya are using Hindu nationalism to reconstruct India in their image

Ray Harris, February 2007 Harris lives in Australia and can be contacted at: rharris6@bigpond.net.au. Ray has written about Christianity (see his essay "Christianity: The Great Lie") and Islam (see: "The Many Faces of Islam", among many others in the Reading Room), this time he addresses Hinduism. 1:00 PM

Before Islam and the British, India was a collection of waxing and waning kingdoms. Some of these kings turned to other sects. The Mauryans were Jains, Asoka was Buddhist, other kings were Shaivite, and so on. The British adopted the laws of Manu as a guide for all Hindus, thus legitimising Brahmin authority. They turned to the Aryan caste system because it resembled the British class system and the Aryans certainly understood 'class'. In many ways the Aryan ideology blended quite well with the British system and many Aryans became Anglophiles, even when they supported independence.

This is the curious thing about India – there is a retro-romantic view of the British Empire with Brahmin and particularly Kshatriya, often being more British than the British. It's an imagined Britain and it shows up in the most peculiar places, sometimes as a very formal 'posh' Anglo-Indian accent, with old English colloquialisms tossed in at odd moments. But perhaps the most surprising adaptation, especially considering the 'other' India, is a Victorian moral code. The Aryan conservative is extremely prudish. integral world