Hello All,
This is my first Swadharma post, so I’ll keep it a bit short. On Saturday, we had an Intercollegiate Hindu students’ retreat at Harvard. In attendance were people from MIT, Harvard, Tufts, Wellesley, Northeastern and the New England College of Optometry. Several interesting topics relevant to modern American Hindus were discussed — one topic that particularly interested me was whether the values of Hinduism conflict with the values of liberal college campuses.
To be able to answer that question, we first need to define what a “liberal college campus” is. We all agreed that a liberal college campus is one that is accepting, has a great deal of diversity with regards to cultures, ethnicities and opinions. It is a place where individuals can be exposed to the interests and ideas of others without feeling any compulsion to accept them. It is a place where being a minority has no negative consequences, and every individual is free to pursue his/her own interests, acquire new ones and discard old ones. Defined in that broad and general way, Hinduism is perfectly in accordance with the values of a liberal campus. Within Hinduism, you can worship one God, many Gods, one of many Gods, be vegetarian or not, go to temple or not, meditate or not, and so on.
However, once we get past the generalities and start talking about specific details, the picture becomes a little murkier. First, there are the two issues that define the liberal movement in America in our time — gay marriage and abortion. Does Hinduism sanction gay marriage? Does it sanction abortion? Traditional Indian society has frowned upon both, but that might be more a cultural phenomenon than religious. I cannot think of any specific examples in the texts where they are explicitly allowed or prohibited. So Hinduism seems to be silent on both issues. Unlike the monotheistic religions, Hinduism does not provide a rigid set of rules to follow, but rather a set of principles that must inform our decisions. It provides some guidelines, but does not – and nor does it claim to – provide specific answers to every question that might arise. Thus to demand to find every answer we seek in scripture – as we are used to hearing from the followers of Abrahamic religions – does not make sense in the Hindu context, since Hinduism does not seek to be that kind of a religion.
The second and much bigger conflict with liberal values is the caste system. Core to liberalism is the idea that all people are equal, and that with equal effort under equal circumstances, all will achieve the same amount and are entitled to the same reward. Caste as it is practiced in India clearly stands in direct contradiction to this ideal. So does the existence of caste mean that Hinduism is an illiberal religion? There are 3 ways to answer this charge.
1) Caste is a social phenomenon, not a religious one: Caste is found among Jains, Sikhs, Christians and Muslims throughout the subcontinent. Some would counter this argument by saying that Hinduism is the “originator” of caste, and what is found among followers of other religions is just a leftover from a time when their ancestors were Hindu. I personally think that’s not true – Hinduism itself became infected with caste, but the origin lies in Indian society and not Hinduism.
2) Caste as originally conceived was not a discriminatory system: A passage in the Rig Veda stating that the Brahmins emerged from the mouth of the Purusha, the Kshatriyas from the arms, the Vaishyas from the thighs and the Shudras from the feet is widely cited as the “source” of caste discrimination. To me that argument sounds unconvincing, since nowhere is it implied that the feet are less important to the body than the mouth. On the other hand, it seems to suggest that the various castes are all essential for society to function as a coherent system.
3) Caste was not always so rigid: I’m not an expert at this topic, but M. S. Srinivasan’s work on “Sanskritization” whereby entire castes could move up and down the ladder by the acquisition wealth, education and the mannerisms of upper castes shows that this in fact was the case. Furthermore, caste has become more important in India since the 1990s, since belonging to the right caste can mean getting political favors and largesse. Prior to the politicization of caste, it was not quite the explosive issue it is now.
Overall, I think the question is hard to answer because Hinduism and Indian society have always been inseparable. The principles of Hinduism have mostly been interpreted through the prism of Indian society, and Indian society has been far from perfect. As I said previously, Hinduism does not provide a rigid set of rules to follow, but rather a set of principles that must inform our decisions. It provides some guidelines, but does not – and nor does it claim to - provide specific answers to every question that might arise. But a religion that gives some interpretive freedom to its followers will always stand the risk of being interpreted incorrectly. That interpretive freedom in the hands of illiberal people with their own agendas (whether it be landowners in Bihar or semi-literate villagers competing for the same resources) naturally leads the religion to be interpreted in an illiberal way. This places an especially great burden on those of us who seek to make Hinduism a positive force in the world to make informed interpretations and challenge those who seek to use our religion as a justification for their own narrow-mindedness.
Ultimately, we have to realize that our Creator might have given us scripture — but we have also been given the power to think rationally. If He had intended to provide us with all the answers in scripture, He would not have bothered with bestowing us with rationality. The key to addressing these complex issues is to use the principles provided by scripture to inform our rational thinking, and use our rational thinking to interpret scripture. In other words, use both of Gods gifts instead of entirely substituting one for the other.
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