Journal of Human Values

http://jhv.sagepub.com Book Reviews : Shamita Basu, Religious Revivalism as Nation alist Discourse: Swami Vivekananda and New Hinduism in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002, 213 pp. Rs 525 (hb)
Victor A. Van Bijlert Journal of Human Values 2002; 8; 167 DOI: 10.1177/097168580200800208 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jhv.sagepub.com

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Journal of Human Values can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jhv.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jhv.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.in/about/permissions.asp

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

Shamita Basu, Religious Revivalism as Nationalist Discourse: Swami Vivekananda and New Hinduism in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002, 213 pp. Rs 525 (hb).

Balanced assessments of the socio-political impact of Swami Vivekananda are quite rare. The tendency to either uncritieally glorify or uncritically condemn Vivekananda, Hinduism, Vedanta and Hindu nationalism used to be quite strong. The present book is a welcome break from this tradition. Before publishing the results of her research, Shamita Basu had discussed her ideas on Vivekananda with many noted scholars in the fields of Indian history, political science, cultural studies and globalization studies, such as Partha

Chatterjee, Sudipta Kaviraj, Tapan Raychaudhury, Paul Brass, Peter van der Veer and Jan
Nederveen Pieterse. These names represent a wise selection of approaches to Indian historiography and social sciences ranging from postMarxist to subaltern and cultural studies. This is s fascinating because it indicates that Basus on Vivekanandas present study religious philosophy and nation building is conceived from a perspective that could be loosely called multidisciplinary and subaltern. Moreover, it carries some endorsement from the above-mentioned scholars. Her allegiance to the subaltern approach is evident from her references to Antonio Gramscis views on the role of philosophers as opinion-leaders of the masses (pp. 100, 132-33,

167, 193-94). But perhaps of crucial importance from the perspective of human values is her obvious fascination with social and political mobilization through internalized religion (pp. 188-92). Rather than shying away from the troubled issue of religion, she has tried to reveal its liberating potential, especially where it was moulded into an ideology of modernity, national unity and equality in the hands of Swami Vivekananda (pp. 143-48). What was the great achievement of Vivekananda in comparison with so many other Hindu religious reformers in the nineteenth century? There had been, after all, the Brahmos and later the orthodox Hindu modernizers, and then there was the Arya Samaj. According to Basu, Vivekananda wanted to advocate a form of Hinduism that was a far cry from the parochial version of the religion which the orthodox Hindu leaders wanted to popularize (p. 127). The Swami was propagating a form of Hinduism that would offer a common ground of spiritual unity among all the religions and sects (p. 127). He found this in Ramakrishnas Hinduism (p. 127). Furthermore, in Basus view, in India, in which every community would have its own cultural space, it would require a conception of religion whose spiritual openness would provide the cultural framework to accommodate diversities and enable a democratic nation to hold itself together (p. 129). Vivekanandas reconstruction of (Vedantic) Hinduism would be capable of claiming legitimacy for itself not as a religion but as a universal moral philosophy (p. 129).

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

168

of his efforts to create a modernversion of Vedantic Hinduism, the great izing Bengali novelist and essay writer Bankimchandra Chatterjee (writing hardly two decades before Vivekananda) did not fully succeed to produce a really universal moral philosophy out of Vedantic texts. It was Vivekananda-broad-minded, generous to all faiths and peoples, cosmopolitan and yet patriotic-who did more fully accomplish this feat. Vivekananda, in creating a great moral philosophy on the basis of Vedanta, provided a sound metaphysical ground for any ethics. In this he was ihe only one to fully succeed where other traditions and philosophers remained unconvincing. According to Vivekananda, the metaphysical principle of ethics lies in the following argument: If I injure others, I am in a deep metaphysical sense injuring myself, because the one Universal, infinite Soul inheres in all (p. 182). This realization provided the spiritual ground for ethical action, and it was argued that the universal philosophy of Advaita provided for the salvation of mankind as a whole (p. 182). This concept of the universal soul also gave a solid foundation to the idea of nationalism and national identity. Basu argues, Vivekananda claimed that the social significance of religion must be perceived in its ability to offer a comprehensive philosophy of ethical action (p. 182). In this connection Basu points to another remarkable feature of Vivekanandas philosophy. Like his predecessors starting from Rammohun Roy, Vivekananda is credited with having separated private Hindu morality from public morality (p. 185). In other words, Vivekananda evidently distinguished between these two spheres. Private morality is contained in the Vedantic ethics of the One Self. This was extended to encompass the public sphere as well, as the Supreme Self is omnipresent. Thus, the highest ideals of private morality should also govern the public sphere, that is, the sphere outside the home. The In

spite

and public is necesnationhood and prevent power abuses. The public sphere is supposed to protect the citizen against the whims of power holders. These socio-political implications of the distinction between private and public must have been clear to Vivekananda. However, he did not base his conception of private and public morality on Western liberalism alone, but on a new understanding of Vedanta. All public reforms such as womens education, widow remarriage and emancipation from the bondage of caste could be defended on the basis of the spiritual principle of moksha or liberation (p. 188). Advaita Vedanta, Basu maintains, preached the most comprehensive nationalist ideology by making nationalism the highest spiritual act (p. 188). Vivekananda bended dharma into a form of spirituality that became synonymous with renunciation and selfless action. These ideals also inspired the protagonists of the Indian freedom movement, notably the revolutionaries (p. 189). Drawing on contemporary social and cultural theory, as well as many the nineteenth century Bengali documents, printed and in manuscript form, the author presents a rich and imaginative interpretation of Vivekanandas position in Indian social and political history, and his influence on Indian philosophy. However, I will allow myself a few constructive critical remarks. In her introduction Basu summarizes her problematic as follows: modernity in India began with the Brahmo Samaj, but later on came under severe pressure from conservative Hindus. Consequently, modernity might have failed, had it not been for Vivekananda who was able to appropriate the conservative and popular and make it assume a nationalist form (p. 3). Vivekananda blended different strands of modernism (Brahmo) and conservatism (orthodox/conservative Hindus) into a new Hindu nationalist idiom. The burden of the book then is to show how Vivekananda

distinction between
sary to

private

ensure a common

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

169
~~~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~

achieved this fusion. Neither Brahmoism nor Hindu orthodoxy had achieved this fusion for they were both quite alien to the Indian ethos. In what follows this will be clarified. The role of Vivekananda will also be clarified from a perspective that the author either did not understand or was not familiar with. I contend from the outset that the dichotomy modern/conservative in the context of the Indian ethos does not tell us much about the Indian context. Not that this dichotomy is absent from the Indian context, but it does not appear to be of overwhelming significance. This dichotomy makes more sense in a journey along a Western path from Western conservatism to Western modernity. In fact both need each other: without modernity there is no progress, without conservatism modernity will lack proper direction. But the dichotomy is typically Western and it is intimately bound up with the Western Reformation, the Renaissance, Humanism and Enlightenment. In Europe modernity began with the Reformation (of Christianity!), which advocated a reorientation to the word of God as found in the Bible.3 Ultimate religious values and final answers to questions pertaining to life, death and the hereafter were supposed to be found only in the sacred scripture. Every individual was enjoined to deeply and regularly study the scripture to strengthen his or her faith. The answers to these ultimate questions were not any more believed to be given only by the institution of the Roman Catholic church. The Reformation provided a new ethics of personal responsibility, egalitarianism and parsimoniousness to the rising bourgeoisie in European republics such as Geneva and the Low Countries (present-day Netherlands and Belgium). Conservatism on the other hand meant adherence to the late medieval feudal culture exemplified in the sacralized relationship between the aristocracy, monarchy and absolute spiritual authority of the Roman Catholic church.

Thus, hardline conservatives were mostly found among the European aristocracy and gentry. Dur-

ing the Enlightenment and the ensuing revolutions this Protestant ethos of the Reformation secularized itself into what we would nowadays know as liberalism and socialism. Extreme conservatism and reaction returned in a secularized and pathological form as Fascism and Nazism. By contrast, Hinduism was never organized in an authoritative church that preached a standardized doctrine that was challenged during a Reformation. Consequently, so-called Hindu reforms could not have been much more than ethical objections to local practices that no longer were considered proper for the times. Hindu reforms were in fact more social than religious in nature, and dealt with social activity rather than beliefs concerning ultimate salvation. A very important dichotomy in Hinduism is the one between, on the one hand, life in the social world (loka, samsara); and, on the other, world renunciation (sannyasa, tyaga and, related to this, moksha). In order to gain ultimate spiritual liberation, moksha, one needs to renounce the social world, which is ever ridden with unsolvable conflict. The world is a place of impurity and death. Hinduism thus conceived derives its dynamics from the creative dialogue between these two spheres: the sphere of the social world and the sphere of renouncing the world. Ideally the social world should be regulated by the dharma, a transcendental point of reference by which we distinguish good from evil and what ought to be done from what ought not to be done. The social world cannot offer any such transcendental reference point from within its own sphere. The ultimate point of reference must come from outside : from the sphere of renunciation, which is the sphere of genuine spirituality. The diiai-nia has to come from this sphere, if only for the obvious reason that the world renouncer is socially

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

170

and politically neutral (madhyastha). He or she does not belong to any party, nor owes any allegiance to this or that worldly power holder or local magnate and patron. The more the renouncer stays away from worldly power the purer he or she is. The renouncer is the Indian ideal of the autonomous individual. The renouncer ideally has forsaken all callings of worldly desire and of ego, and consequently lives in complete freedom. Thus, only the renouncer can enunciate the true and universal dharma, which must regulate the world but in fact cannot do so fully because if it really entangled itself in the world it loses its transcendental purity.~ The Indian spiritual ethos does not put the greatest emphasis on pure intellectual brilliance and learning alone. It has to live by the holiness that emanates from the authentic renouncer. All great Indian spiritual seers and leaders of opinion (from a Buddha, Shankaracharya, Kabir and Tulsidas to a Gandhi in our times) were either renouncers or used the idiom of renunciation. All spiritual authority (Buddhism, Jainism, the Bhakti movement and much of Indian Sufism) derives from the idiom of world renunciation. Hence, also, all universalizable spiritual values have their origin in the world renouncer who proclaims and lives them. The extent to which the renouncer has realized the transcendental truth determines his or her credibility as a source of

either).
emulate

Almost all of these reformers tried to

approach

spiritual enlightenment. No doubt, Swami Vivekananda exemplified these ideals of world renunciation and neutrality to a high degree. He was not famous for being an
intellectual writer of commentaries on sacred (unlike his brilliant reformist predecessors like Rammohun or Bankim). Vivekananda spoke with authority from his direct experience of the transcendent.&dquo; In this respect Vivekananda was quite different from the average nineteenthcentury Hindu reformer (including the so-called conservatives who were no world renouncers
texts

formers foundations of Hinduism in order to have a Hindu parallel to the Christian Bible. 12 Rammohun recognized the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutra as the Hindu equivalent of the Christian New Testament. Debendranath Tagore created a new scripture, the Brahmo Dharma, out of selections from the Upanishads and the Manava Dharma Shastra. Bankim promoted the Bhagavad Gita as the most perfect Hindu scripture. Vivekananda was not engaged in such searches for a canonical foundation of Hinduism. He took his cue from what he had imbibed from his spiritual master and from his own experiences. He referred to scriptures in support of the truth of these experiences, but he did not derive his experiences from studying texts. 13 Vivekananda was more successful as a religious teacher than his predecessors, reached a much larger audience and had a more lasting influence on the future, not only because he was more intellectually gifted than his predecessors, but because he exemplified a genuine Indian religious phenomenon: the institution of the world renouncer. The relative failure of the Brahmo Samaj can also be explained by this. The Brahmos very explicitly wished to copy Christian Protestantism and hence discarded the idea of world renunciation. 14 Their influence remained confined to the select few belonging to the urbanized upper middle classes. Orthodox Hindu revivalism was a reaction to the Brahmo movement, but also did not utilize the renunciation idiom. Its social background was much the same as that of the Brahmos. That is why Brahmoism and Hindu conservatism could easily be assimilated by the world-renouncing Swami Vivekananda. World renunciation was, after all, a widely recognized religious institution. Vivekananda was the first

Western-style philological-textual Especially the rewere looking for the true scriptural
a

to Hindu reform.

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

171

nineteenth century Hindu reformer of note who

monk and a renouncer, not simply a business man, a zamindar or a district magistrate writing about religious doctrines. This fact, I submit, more than anything else, accounts for Vivekanandas success. The anti-colonial nationalist upsurge in British India that followed almost immediately upon Vivekanandas public ministry only supports this thesis. The revolutionaries in Bengal in the early twentieth century were no ordinary political operators or mere guerrilla fighters, but consciously cultivated their public image as world renouncers of sorts. The organizational model they were following was based on the saiiyasi (world renouncer) rebellion depicted in Bankims novel Anandamath. Books by Vivekananda were the staple reading of these early revolutionaries.&dquo; Their obvious message to the Indian public was that the highest values for social and political change (nationalist revolution) cannot derive from that social world itself but must be legitimized from outside, that is, from the sphere of world renunciation (which is both sacred and dangerous for it upsets the everyday social order). In this respect Swami Vivekananda had shown an age-old Indian model of salvation and ultimate freedom, not only through his words but equally so through his life. Factual renunciation is not always necessary or desirable. An important point in Vivekawas a

world but not of the world. One of the ways to be in the world but not of the world is internal renunciation while performing ones worldly duties. This is also one of the first great lessons taught in the Bhagavad Gita. Inner renunciation can also be the foundation of many spiritual disciplines, yoga. Vivekananda explained these disciplines in a modern, accessible way.&dquo; This resulted in his famous books on karmayoga (discipline of selfless action), bhaktiyoga (discipline of devotion to the divine), jnanayoga (discipline of spiritual knowledge) and rajayoga (discipline of meditation and physical posture). With these books Vivekananda reached a worldwide audience.&dquo; These remarks are made not to denigrate Basus book. She has given us a much-needed interpretation of Swami Vivekanandas religious and nationalist thought in the light of modern and postmodern social theory. She does not shun or ignore the controversial issues of religion and Hindu nationalism. The book offers much that is of value to a large audience of specialists and interested non-specialists. The book will be of special interest to social scientists, historians, philosophers, theologians and political scientists. The book suffers from one serious defect: it does not have an index. This omission, for a book of such quality, is unforgivable.
VICTOR A.
VAN

BIJLERT

nandas

internally and psychologically detach oneself from the fragmentary and

teaching

is to

BPCL

Visiting Associate Professor

MCHV IIM Calcutta

conflictual

concerns

of the world: to be in the

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1.

This is not to belittle Bankimchandra. After all, his writings provided the Indian nationalist revolution of the beginning of the twentieth century with a viable

blueprint. It was also Bhagavad Gita as the

Bankim who advocated the

supreme scriptural source of reformed Hinduism. But history shows us that

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

172
Vivekanandas impact on contemporary Indian culture was much larger and more lasting. Even though she is referring to relevant literature such as the writings of Louis Dumont and Jan Heesterman. Imitation reformations such as. for instance, the Islamic Wahhabi movement, invariably seem to fail to achieve the kind of goal that the Christian Reformation had in view, namely, emancipation from the oppressive present into a more humane future. Even the Christian Reformation is far from perfect, but it does seem to have achieved the creation of Western modernity as a mentality, not so much as a humane economic practice. For the full exposition of this fascinating problematic see Max Webers famous study, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London and New York: is not
a

valid

source

of

spiritual knowledge.

In this

2. 3.

respect ancient Indian philosophy was merciless in pursuing the Truth, probably more so than many latter-

day philosophers.
7. On this

aspect of world renunciation. see Louis Dumont, World Renunciation in Indian Religions, in

8.

9.

Routledge, 2001).
4.

This does
no

not mean

that liberalism and socialism have

5.

pathological forms. Unfortunately, they did and do. Whenever ethics and the spiritual essence has been removed from these modern socio-political utopias, they run the risk of turning deleterious. Modernity means deeply imbued ethics; pathological modernity by contrast is a technological and calculative mentality without real ethics and without any genuine unselfish spirituality. No modern politics or corporate management worth the name can afford to ignore authentic values and genuine ethics. But who is willing to listen to the warnings of history? In early Vedic times the institution of world renunciation did not exist. The ancient wisdom of the Veda is not the product of sanyasis or world renouncers, but of Vedic poet seers, rishis. These seers lived somewhat separate from the world, but were married and did not live as monks. The institution of world renunciation may have started to gain importance a few centuries before the Buddha, for in the latters times the institution was already well established. In order to distinguish true from false spirituality, the old Indian system of philosophy, called the nyaya, had evolved three criteria: a true teacher of spirituality ought to be sakshatkritadharma (one who has directly perceived the fact); he must be driven by bhutadaya (compassion with living beings); and he must have

10. 11.

and History in India (Paris, the Mouton Publishers, 1970), 45, 56. Compare the following statement from the Ashtavakra Samhita, chapter 1, verse 4: If you detach yourself from the body and rest in Consciousness, you will at once be happy, peaceful, and free from bondage (translation by Swami Nityaswarupananda, Ashtavakra Samhita [Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1998], 5). For a discussion of world renunciation and its origins in the Vedic sacrifice, along with the philosophy of the Upanishads, see J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1985), 41-44; 192-93. See the criteria mentioned in n. 6 above. A good deal of Vivekanandas writings are extempore lectures that were taken down stenographically and subsequently edited. Thus, almost in a literal sense, his texts were a sort of shruti.

Religion/Politics
Hague:

6.

yathabhutarthacikhyapayisha (the aspiration

to

communicate facts to others in accordance with the truth) (Nyaya Bhashya on Nyaya Sutra 2.1.68). The idea is that these criteria are meant to prevent incoherent nonsense, selfishness and cheating. Whenever a teacher on spiritual matters does not conform to the above criteria, his teaching can be rejected, for then it

12. The exegetical contortions performed by the founder of the Arya Samaj, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, on the Veda samhitas was probably the last fruitless endeavour in this direction. The learned Swami was unable to sqeeze the unruly Vedic suktas into a sort of Hindu Bible. Outside his direct followers no learned pandit would accept Dayanandas interpretations of the Vedas. The Swamis real source of authority was the fact that he was an initiated sanyasi. 13. Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekanandas spiritual master, used to compare the study of scriptures to squeezing out an almanac in the hope of getting some rain water out of it. All one has to do is wait for the rain to fall. Texts are only signposts on the road to liberation, not the thing itself. 14. The well-known religious teacher Bijoy Krishna Goswami (1841-99) was initially a Brahmo but later turned to Vaishnavaism. Nowadays he is still known as a teacher of Vaishnavaism. 15. This was noted by the then CID. See J.E. Armstrongs 1917 report on Revolutionary Organization, reprinted in Amiya K. Samanta, Terrorism in Bengal: A Collection of Documents (Vol. 2) (Calcutta: Government of West Bengal, 1995), 357. Also J.C. Nixon notes in his Account of the Revolutionary Organisations in

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009

173

Bengal (1917) the fact that Vivekananda was being studied by the revolutionaries (see Samanta, ibid., 527). 16. Incidentally, all the chapters of the Bhagavad Gita are called treatises on yoga in their colophons. 17. These four books were published already during Vivekanandas lifetime. They have been translated in

many Western languages and are still being reprinted. In the Netherlands a few years ago the Dutch translation of these four books on yoga has been reprinted in a

single
made

long before

volume. These translations themselves were World War II and are still selling!

Rita Agrawal, Stress in Life and at Work. New Delhi: Response Books, 2001, 284 pp. Rs 225.

stress. No

It would be useful to start with

an

extract from

the book:

Etymologically, the word stress is derived from the Latin word stringere meaning to draw tight.... This conjures up images of an individual with a noose around his neck: the noose of uneasiness and distress; the noose gradually tightening its hold, taking all in its grip, till it eventually strangulates the individual.... Stress therefore lies in the eyes of the beholder, much like the redness of the apple, the blueness of the sky or the greenness of grass. (p. 30) the situations in our life that external stimuli. These stimuli or stress provide are factors called stressors. When stress causing becomes too unpleasant it becomes distress and bum-out is not far away. At workplace or elsewhere when an individual comes closer to a situation that is perceived as a threat, the response to such threat perception may be called stress. Thus, it is seen that threat perception is exogenous. Therefore, whatever happens is inside the body. If we monitor stress we can notice three stages, namely, alarm, resistance and exhaustion, whereupon we use a fight or flight strategy. The role of stress in everyday life, therefore, needs hardly to be emphasized. Stress as well as its prevention and management is now an integral part of modern life.
It is

actually

We are indeed living in the age of anxiety and wonder the literature on stress has been ever on the increase. While most of these originate from Western countries, it is encouraging to note that Indian authors have also started writing on the subject and some of them have tried to present Indian psycho-philosophical concepts as well as Indian experiences, too. When Agrawals book came for review to us at the Management Centre for Human Values (MCHV) at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta having been taking sessions on stress management based primarily on Indian psycho-philosophical insights, with both students in management and practising managers, our expectations immediately soared. We hoped for useful inputs from the book to enrich our understanding of this complicated subject. We must admit that our hopes have not been fulfilled completely, but not at all belied either. The book has three broad sections: Section 1 has a title Understanding Stress and there are eight chapters. Section 2 comprises only three chapters, and is called Stress ofthe Work Place. Coping with Stress is the title of the third section and there are four chapters in it. Apart form these, there is a foreword by Professor V.K. Kool of Utica, State University of New York, and a preface at the beginning. There is also an epilogue, glossary, references, index and a short CV of Rita Agrawal, the author. In his short but illuminating foreword Professor Kool mentions that Dr Agrawal has presented an excellent analysis of physiological,

Downloaded from http://jhv.sagepub.com at MADURAI KAMRAJ UNIV on June 18, 2009