Remembering stories of loyalty and disloyalty
As Jaffrelot and others have argued, Hindutva actors use an historical argument to differentiate between the Hindu majority and minorities, but this is not the case for a differential relationship between minorities which is established by the requirements of the present and by a remembered story. That is, history establishes the relationship between the majority and minorities but it is not used to differentiate minorities into a hierarchy. Rather for Hindutva, it is the memory of the relationship; it is the rermembered past that differentiates between minorities. Memory is malleable to the requirements of the present; it is a mythical organisation of the past. Contemporary relationships are projected back in time rather than understanding the present in terms of an evolving past. Parsis and Muslims are differentiated by comparing two stories, a Parsi story of coexistence and a Muslim story of invasion, a Parsi story of acculturation and loyalty with a Muslim story of forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam and disloyalty. It is a comparison of mythical pasts as if they were historical pasts.
Comparing mythical stories denies the unique historical relationship each community has had with Hindus. Muslims ruled much of South Asia in the centuries before being deposed by the British. Muslims developed a set of strategies for coexisting with Hindus that was premised upon Muslim control of the polity. Parsis have not ruled anywhere since their 655CE defeat in Iran that precipitated their flight to India. In India they have always been a tiny community who have had to negotiate with the ruling community and polity. They have had to supplicate themselves before Hindu, Muslim and British rulers in order to negotiate their elite status. Their position is premised upon deft negotiations with another community who are politically and militarily more powerful. Parsis have developed a highly successful set of strategies for these negotiations in which the questioning of their loyalty is not a denial but an expression of their agency.
These strategies are encapsulated in a multivalent Parsi story that remembers the munificence of the political elite. Hindutva actors draw upon that remembered story and rework it for their own benefit. The remembering of a story of Parsi loyalty and Muslim disloyalty has its own historical development. The story by Golwalkar that began this article is a revision of a Parsi story that was first written in a 1599CE poem known as the Qesse-ye Sanjan, or the Story of Sanjan. For a translation of the poem into English see Williams (2009). Over many centuries Parsis have narrated various versions of a story that describes a first encounter with Hindus that trade’s asylum for a profession of loyalty, commonality and acculturation. All versions of the story recount an exodus from Iran due to religious persecution and an arrival by boat in a Gujarati village. The dominant contemporary Parsi version of the story is the 'Sugar in the Milk'. It narrates a meeting between a Hindu king and Parsis in which the king presents the Parsis with a glass full of milk to symbolise that the land has no room for them. A Parsi stirs sugar into the milk to symbolise that they will mix in and sweeten the society without displacing the milk. It is most commonly narrated orally but also appears in scholarly narratives, historical novels and films, children's books, paintings, poems and websites (Kamerkar and Dhunjisha 2002, 27; Nanavutty 1980, 40–1; Sidhwa 1991, 46–9; Khan and Metha 1998; Shroff and Mehta 2011; J. Patel, n.d.; Joshi 2003; Cama 2014).
Parsis and Hindus use the encounter and the conditions of asylum to negotiate, guide and elucidate the contemporary similarities and differences between the two communities. The pact for asylum explains to contemporary Parsis their syncretic fusion of Zoroastrian, Iranian and Hindu practices. Axelrod (1980) and Williams (2009) read the story as a myth that guides the Parsis. The past is invoked to guide a mutually beneficial relationship in the present. It is a morality tale, a myth where the meaning changes depending upon the context and requirements of the present. Whereas Parsis invoke a mythical past to negotiate their survival, Golwalkar, Savarkar and Modi have a different moral purpose. They use the past in order to bring about a Hindutva vision of India as a hierarchically plural Hindu nation.
From the Qesse-ye Sanjan until today the questioning of Parsi loyalty is pluralistic in its inclusiveness of the community. Questioning loyalty is rhetorical as Parsis can never profess anything but loyalty. In the Qesse-ye Sanjan a Parsi priest affirms their loyalty to the Hindu King saying 'We are all friendly to the land of Hend (India), we’ll slash your enemies in all directions.' (Williams 2009, 87 Verse 163) Later in the poem, Parsis join forces with Hindus against an invasion by Muslims. During colonial rule Parsis professed loyalty to the British. In the first work of modern Parsi history that was produced in the year following the 1857 rebellion against British rule the author wrote, 'Throughout the rebellion in the East the Parsees have maintained an unshaken loyalty to the British.' (Karaka 1858, x) In 2011, Modi prodded the Parsis to return to Iran, to which a Parsi replied, 'We don't want to go to Iran. We like India. We want to be here. It is our country.' (Mehta 2011) Although the loyalty of the Parsis shifts, they are publicly understood to be loyal. It is not that Parsis are loyal, rather it is the public remembering of loyalty in the form of a story.
The demand that a community profess loyalty and acculturate is not necessarily exclusionary when it is and has always been answered in the affirmative and is a story that expresses that community’s agency. For Parsis, the question of loyalty enables difference; it negotiates the meeting points and distinctness of Parsis and Hindus. The question of loyalty is not asked of people whose ancestors have assimilated and become Hindus, because they are no longer a distinct people. The Parsis were not the first Iranian Zoroastrians to migrate to India. Pre-Parsi migrants from Iran became a Hindu caste and ceased to be identifiably Zoroastrian or Iranian. They are known as Maga Brahmins (Kamerkar and Dhunjisha 2002, 8). It is only scholars who have uncovered the Maga Brahmins’ Iranian ancestry. Their loyalty is not questioned because they are Hindus. If Parsis had ceased to be Zoroastrian and distinct from Hindus, there would be no Indian Zoroastrians. The question of their loyalty is not only symptomatic of their difference but also constitutive. It enables them to be simultaneously Parsi, Zoroastrian and Indian.
Whereas the story about Parsis remembers them as loyal, the story about Muslims remembers them as disloyal. For Muslims the rhetorical question of their loyalty to post-colonial India is answered with denial because of a remembered story of disloyalty. Their loyalty has previously been denied. Muslims are imagined as repeatedly invading Hindu India and destroying temples (Thapar, 2005). The final chapter in their disloyalty to India is their role Partition. Pandey (1999) argues that the contemporary question of Muslim loyalty is tied to the existence of Pakistan and the idea of Muslim and Hindu nations. With the 1947 partition of British India into Pakistan and India, the question of the loyalty of Muslims who remained in India and largely supported the creation of Pakistan comes into question. A Muslim in India is forever responsible for the actions of his ancestors, who may or may not have been members of the Muslim League's campaign for Pakistan. The individual becomes responsible for the actions of their co-religionists. The charge of loyalty to Pakistan and disloyalty to India is one that Indian Muslims can never adequately counter. For Muslims the question of loyalty can only be answered with a denial of Islam, a denial of loyalty, or at best equivocal support.
The story of Muslim disloyalty denies their historical experience in India. They have not always been imagined as disloyal. In the period where Muslims were the sovereigns there was no question of their loyalty or disloyalty. British colonial power was primarily supplanting Muslim rule across much of North India and following their conquest they sought a profession of loyalty. It is with the 1857 uprising against British rule by Hindus and Muslims that Muslims are first imagined as disloyal. This uprising was opposed by the Parsis. For the British, the Parsis were loyal and Muslims were disloyal and it is this colonial era imagination of both that Savarkar drew upon.
To be continued ...
Brilliant. Even if I say so myself.
I am reading as I go along, and posting.
Cheers, Doc
This was me leading you to what I was saying.
Not the bit about self introspection etc. Hindus have a proven track record of being liberal, open minded, and having the ability to recognise wrongs and righting them free of doctrine and hardened stances.
Cheers, Doc
As Jaffrelot and others have argued, Hindutva actors use an historical argument to differentiate between the Hindu majority and minorities, but this is not the case for a differential relationship between minorities which is established by the requirements of the present and by a remembered story. That is, history establishes the relationship between the majority and minorities but it is not used to differentiate minorities into a hierarchy. Rather for Hindutva, it is the memory of the relationship; it is the rermembered past that differentiates between minorities. Memory is malleable to the requirements of the present; it is a mythical organisation of the past. Contemporary relationships are projected back in time rather than understanding the present in terms of an evolving past. Parsis and Muslims are differentiated by comparing two stories, a Parsi story of coexistence and a Muslim story of invasion, a Parsi story of acculturation and loyalty with a Muslim story of forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam and disloyalty. It is a comparison of mythical pasts as if they were historical pasts.
Comparing mythical stories denies the unique historical relationship each community has had with Hindus. Muslims ruled much of South Asia in the centuries before being deposed by the British. Muslims developed a set of strategies for coexisting with Hindus that was premised upon Muslim control of the polity. Parsis have not ruled anywhere since their 655CE defeat in Iran that precipitated their flight to India. In India they have always been a tiny community who have had to negotiate with the ruling community and polity. They have had to supplicate themselves before Hindu, Muslim and British rulers in order to negotiate their elite status. Their position is premised upon deft negotiations with another community who are politically and militarily more powerful. Parsis have developed a highly successful set of strategies for these negotiations in which the questioning of their loyalty is not a denial but an expression of their agency.
These strategies are encapsulated in a multivalent Parsi story that remembers the munificence of the political elite. Hindutva actors draw upon that remembered story and rework it for their own benefit. The remembering of a story of Parsi loyalty and Muslim disloyalty has its own historical development. The story by Golwalkar that began this article is a revision of a Parsi story that was first written in a 1599CE poem known as the Qesse-ye Sanjan, or the Story of Sanjan. For a translation of the poem into English see Williams (2009). Over many centuries Parsis have narrated various versions of a story that describes a first encounter with Hindus that trade’s asylum for a profession of loyalty, commonality and acculturation. All versions of the story recount an exodus from Iran due to religious persecution and an arrival by boat in a Gujarati village. The dominant contemporary Parsi version of the story is the 'Sugar in the Milk'. It narrates a meeting between a Hindu king and Parsis in which the king presents the Parsis with a glass full of milk to symbolise that the land has no room for them. A Parsi stirs sugar into the milk to symbolise that they will mix in and sweeten the society without displacing the milk. It is most commonly narrated orally but also appears in scholarly narratives, historical novels and films, children's books, paintings, poems and websites (Kamerkar and Dhunjisha 2002, 27; Nanavutty 1980, 40–1; Sidhwa 1991, 46–9; Khan and Metha 1998; Shroff and Mehta 2011; J. Patel, n.d.; Joshi 2003; Cama 2014).
Parsis and Hindus use the encounter and the conditions of asylum to negotiate, guide and elucidate the contemporary similarities and differences between the two communities. The pact for asylum explains to contemporary Parsis their syncretic fusion of Zoroastrian, Iranian and Hindu practices. Axelrod (1980) and Williams (2009) read the story as a myth that guides the Parsis. The past is invoked to guide a mutually beneficial relationship in the present. It is a morality tale, a myth where the meaning changes depending upon the context and requirements of the present. Whereas Parsis invoke a mythical past to negotiate their survival, Golwalkar, Savarkar and Modi have a different moral purpose. They use the past in order to bring about a Hindutva vision of India as a hierarchically plural Hindu nation.
From the Qesse-ye Sanjan until today the questioning of Parsi loyalty is pluralistic in its inclusiveness of the community. Questioning loyalty is rhetorical as Parsis can never profess anything but loyalty. In the Qesse-ye Sanjan a Parsi priest affirms their loyalty to the Hindu King saying 'We are all friendly to the land of Hend (India), we’ll slash your enemies in all directions.' (Williams 2009, 87 Verse 163) Later in the poem, Parsis join forces with Hindus against an invasion by Muslims. During colonial rule Parsis professed loyalty to the British. In the first work of modern Parsi history that was produced in the year following the 1857 rebellion against British rule the author wrote, 'Throughout the rebellion in the East the Parsees have maintained an unshaken loyalty to the British.' (Karaka 1858, x) In 2011, Modi prodded the Parsis to return to Iran, to which a Parsi replied, 'We don't want to go to Iran. We like India. We want to be here. It is our country.' (Mehta 2011) Although the loyalty of the Parsis shifts, they are publicly understood to be loyal. It is not that Parsis are loyal, rather it is the public remembering of loyalty in the form of a story.
The demand that a community profess loyalty and acculturate is not necessarily exclusionary when it is and has always been answered in the affirmative and is a story that expresses that community’s agency. For Parsis, the question of loyalty enables difference; it negotiates the meeting points and distinctness of Parsis and Hindus. The question of loyalty is not asked of people whose ancestors have assimilated and become Hindus, because they are no longer a distinct people. The Parsis were not the first Iranian Zoroastrians to migrate to India. Pre-Parsi migrants from Iran became a Hindu caste and ceased to be identifiably Zoroastrian or Iranian. They are known as Maga Brahmins (Kamerkar and Dhunjisha 2002, 8). It is only scholars who have uncovered the Maga Brahmins’ Iranian ancestry. Their loyalty is not questioned because they are Hindus. If Parsis had ceased to be Zoroastrian and distinct from Hindus, there would be no Indian Zoroastrians. The question of their loyalty is not only symptomatic of their difference but also constitutive. It enables them to be simultaneously Parsi, Zoroastrian and Indian.
Whereas the story about Parsis remembers them as loyal, the story about Muslims remembers them as disloyal. For Muslims the rhetorical question of their loyalty to post-colonial India is answered with denial because of a remembered story of disloyalty. Their loyalty has previously been denied. Muslims are imagined as repeatedly invading Hindu India and destroying temples (Thapar, 2005). The final chapter in their disloyalty to India is their role Partition. Pandey (1999) argues that the contemporary question of Muslim loyalty is tied to the existence of Pakistan and the idea of Muslim and Hindu nations. With the 1947 partition of British India into Pakistan and India, the question of the loyalty of Muslims who remained in India and largely supported the creation of Pakistan comes into question. A Muslim in India is forever responsible for the actions of his ancestors, who may or may not have been members of the Muslim League's campaign for Pakistan. The individual becomes responsible for the actions of their co-religionists. The charge of loyalty to Pakistan and disloyalty to India is one that Indian Muslims can never adequately counter. For Muslims the question of loyalty can only be answered with a denial of Islam, a denial of loyalty, or at best equivocal support.
The story of Muslim disloyalty denies their historical experience in India. They have not always been imagined as disloyal. In the period where Muslims were the sovereigns there was no question of their loyalty or disloyalty. British colonial power was primarily supplanting Muslim rule across much of North India and following their conquest they sought a profession of loyalty. It is with the 1857 uprising against British rule by Hindus and Muslims that Muslims are first imagined as disloyal. This uprising was opposed by the Parsis. For the British, the Parsis were loyal and Muslims were disloyal and it is this colonial era imagination of both that Savarkar drew upon.
To be continued ...
Brilliant. Even if I say so myself.
I am reading as I go along, and posting.
Cheers, Doc
This was me leading you to what I was saying.
Not the bit about self introspection etc. Hindus have a proven track record of being liberal, open minded, and having the ability to recognise wrongs and righting them free of doctrine and hardened stances.
Cheers, Doc
