WAQUAR AHMED
Comment: India’s Development Projects,
or Hinduism, a Love Story*
* The original article commented was titled: India Abroad: International Development Projects of India’s Hindu
NGOS but was changed to eliminate the more extensive India Abroad coverage. Some of the key points made in
the Comment refer to that broader topic.
Waquar Ahmed Department of Geography,
Abstract
Martin J. Haigh’s India Abroad is ill-informed
and misleading in multiple ways. It presents a
romanticized view of ‘Indian’ culture and, what the
author calls, Hindu or Hinduism. The article repre-
sents misreading of post-colonial praxis, and in turn,
post-colonial comradery. Post-colonialism, as an intel-
lectual movement, examines the impact of colonialism
on the cultures of colonizing and colonized people.
Post-colonialists, sometimes drawing upon Marxian
traditions, have mapped exploitative and dependent
relations between the metropolitan and colonial
societies (Gregory et al. 2009, Blaut 1993). Post-
colonial theorists tend to be sensitive to the political
implications of the ways the history and cultures of
colonial societies are represented. And I bring up post-
colonial theory precisely because this post-colonial
call to sensitivity, that the author highlights by citing
Kumar (2005) has morphed into romanticization and
celebration of this category called Hindu, and in turn
India, in very problematic ways. In what follows, I
highlight how the author’s attraction to cultural rela-
tivism obfuscates social contradictions and a history
of exploitation in India.
The author has used the terms India and Hindu
interchangeably in this article. The title reads as India
Abroad. But the article only examines Hindu non-gov-
ernmental organizations (NGOs). India is not Hindu.
India is a multicultural and multi-religious society.
Volume 11, Number 3 2018
University of North Texas
According to India’s 2011 census, more than 170
million Muslims, 27 million Christians, 20 million
Sikhs, 8 million Buddhists and 4 million Jains are also
citizens of India. When scholars use India and Hindu
synonymously, they overlook millions of individuals
who identify themselves as Indians belonging to, or
following other, faiths. The cultural and religious
identity of minorities, thereby, is subsumed by an
imposed (Hindu) identity without their consent.
The use of the term Hindu, as a homogeneous
religious category, is also misleading. What Haigh
alludes to as Hindu, has historically been referred
to as Sanatan Dharma. The caste system, which for
centuries reproduced a parasitic mode of production,
is internal to Sanatan Dharma. The idea of a religious
category called Hinduism whose followers could be
classified as Hindus is a modern political invention.
Rig Veda, a key scripture for the followers of Sanatan
Dharma, postulates a theory of the creation of human
life in which Purusha (spirit) created Brahmins from
his mouth, Kshatriya from his arms, Vaishyas from his
thighs, and Shudras from his feet. Brahmins (priestly
caste), Kshatriyas (warrior caste), Vaishyas (trader
caste) and Shudras (farming or artisan caste) in India
have historically been part of religiously-sanctioned
social relations that have allowed the upper castes,
namely the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas,
to usurp and live off the wealth created by the lower
castes that have historically been India’s working class.
Within the caste system, the status of lower caste is
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assigned to the Shudras or the laboring class (farmers
and artisans) — according to the 1931 census, more
than 50% of India’s population consists of Shudras.
Despite being the numerical majority, the Shudras
have been denied the right to priesthood (even
today). Historically, Shudras in many parts of India
were even denied entry to the upper caste temples or
sanctum sanctorum (Shepherd 2005). In other words,
the lower castes in India have had their distinct local
cultures, and their own gods and goddesses that are
very different from the overarching (across South
Asia) gods and goddesses worshipped by the followers
of Sanatan Dharma.
Additionally, approximately 17% of India’s
population are historically/culturally classified as
untouchables (henceforth referred to as Dalits) and
outside the caste system altogether. Dalits too are
working class people. They were classified as untouch-
ables merely because of their inherited/hereditary
professions (that individuals were born into) that
included janitorial work, scavenging, shoe making
and weaving amongst several others. Dalits have been
denied access to Sanatan Dharma and their gods
and goddesses, temples and scriptures for centuries.
Similarly, approximately 8.5% of the India’s popula-
tion consists of tribal groups that were also considered
outside the Sanatan fold. Thus, the sudden inclusion
of Shudras, Dalits and tribal population as Hindus in
the national census was a political trickery. It was done
by the British to divide the Indian (undivided India
that included current Bangladesh and Pakistan) popu-
lation into two large blocks — Hindus and Muslims.
The British colonialists faced an existential threat in
India for the first time in the year 1857 — uniting
across religious lines, people in many parts of South
Asia confronted the British militarily. In other words,
Indians waged the first war of independence against
the British (Marx and Engels 1960) while cutting
across the Hindu-Muslim divide. In fact, the anti-
colonialists accepted a Muslim, Bahadur Shah Zafar,
as their symbolic leader with plans of installing him
as the king of free India. The British could, however,
crush the first war of Indian independences success-
fully. But more importantly, the imperial masters
realized that to continue their presence in India, they
had to divide South Asians along religious lines and
84 Human Geography
create animosity amongst them. Hence, in 1871, for
the first time, the British collated population data
based on religion. The British imperialist created this
homogenous category of Hindu that now, suddenly,
subsumed all the caste differences and erased a history
of violence and exploitation that had been perpetrated
on the lower castes for millennia, who were not even
seen fit to follow the Sanatan Dharma or even be
touched by the three upper caste groups. Subsequently,
education policies crafted by the British to ‘civilize’
the natives and produce bureaucrats for the empire
were also geared at accentuating religious differences.
British Historiography of India played a key role in
consolidating a Hindu identity based on fear and
hatred of Muslims who were represented as religious
fanatics, lustful, violent and barbaric (Siddiqi 1980).
And the only force that could protect the Hindus from
the Muslims was the British Empire.
The postcolonial state is one in which the “colonial
power inscribes itself onto the body and space of its
other and which continues as an occulted tradition
into the modern theater of neo-colonialist relations”
(Slemon 1989, 6). Nearly 200 years of British rule,
and the post-1857 focus on divide and rule, inscribed
a mutually dependent antagonist Hindu-Muslim
identity amongst the people of South Asia. Post-inde-
pendence (since 1947), the Indian upper caste elite
found it convenient to continue with the colonially
inscribed meaning and understanding of a Hindu
population that imposed a notion of homogeneity,
in a caste ridden society, where none existed. And
even as the upper caste elites of India were willing to
strategically recognize the exploited and dehumanized
Shudras and Dalits as Hindus, this recognition was
devoid of social justice or genuine assimilation and
inter-mixing. Thus, when Haigh in his article, tries to
pass off Hindu and Hinduism as uncomplicated cat-
egories, he does great dis-service to critical and radical
scholarship. His assertion that Hinduism is based
on the concept of seva or service is simply untrue,
particularly when the upper castes have historically
shunned labor or work, and accumulated wealth
based on caste relations/exploitation or parasitic mode
of production. In other words, it is only the lower and
outcastes (Shudras and Dalits) that have performed

seva or service for the caste elites that have equated
labor or work with indignity.
Haigh also romanticizes Swami Vivekananda
(a Hindu missionary that preached in the late 19th
century) and his missions, and the organization that
claims to carry forward his mission. Haigh points
out that “Swami Vivekananda introduced Hinduism
as a World Religion that sought the unity of all
people.” And Swami Vivekananda did occasionally
speak against caste discrimination — Vivekananda
belonged to the Kayastha sub-caste that were treated
by Bengali Brahmins as Shudra (Shepherd 2018). But
even Vivekananda’s praise of Hinduism could not win
him equality in a caste ridden, Brahmin dominated
society, and he never had the right to become a temple
priest as a Brahmin could. So, for Vivekananda to also
speak with conviction of Hinduism’s tolerance and
universal acceptance, when caste based domination
and discrimination is internal to Sanatan Dharma,
is bizarre. Further, Vivekananda’s idea of unity of all
people and tolerance were conditional. He believed
in, and promoted, the idea of supremacy of his
Vedantic belief over all others. Vivekananda called
Hinduism the “mother of all religion” (Vivekananda
1999, 3). According to Vivekananda, the claim of
superiority is because Hinduism (based on Vedantic
traditions) has taught and continued to teach world
tolerance. For Vivekananda, other faiths were merely
children in relation to the ‘mother of religions,’ and
also participants in an eternal seminar where the tutor
was Hinduism and the tutees were all other faiths
(Sharma 2015) — these are clearly supremacist ideas.
And for Haigh to quote and promote Vivekananda’s
ideas without putting it through the academic grind
is propaganda.
Additionally, Swami Vivekananda believed in, and
preached, a ‘pure’ version of Sanatan Dharma based
on the Vedas (ancient Hindu scripture). He believed
that his new brand of Hinduism had to be ‘cleansed’
of all tantric, puranic and bhakti1 influences and
recreated on the solid foundation of Vedanta (Sharma
2015). The reason I point this out is because Haigh
has clubbed Swami Vivekananda’s Ramakrishna order
with Ananda Margas under some universal Hindu
1
Tantric, puranic and bhakti were peripheral traditions of worship in India, popular particularly amongst the lower castes.
Volume 11, Number 3 2018
WAQUAR AHMED
tradition focused on seva or service. Ananda Margas
follow the peripheral tantric tradition — its followers
are largely from the intermediate and lower castes. And
Vivekananda sought to purge his brand of Hinduism
of tantric beliefs and practices. In other words, to club
Ananda Margs with Swami Vivekananda’s Ramkrishna
order and present them under a homogeneous Hindu
identity that are doing environmentally conscious
developmental work is problematic and wrong.
Haigh is correct in drawing our attention to
indigenous environmental movements in India
and particularly citing the Chipko movement for
its remarkable efforts in resisting environmental or
forest destruction. The role of Sarvodaya has been
remarkable in working with the poor and their envi-
ronmental concerns. But it is incorrect to categorize
such subaltern environmental movements of Dalits
or Shudras or tribal groups that were denied access
to Sanatan Dharma’s scriptures, temples, gods and
goddesses, and present them as ‘Hindu’ endeavors or
Hindu environmental movements.
Ancient Indian texts are often championed as
containing very sensitive portrayal and great reverence
for nature. However, there is no reason to believe
that Sanatan Dharma is somehow uniquely environ-
mentally conscious and friendly. In fact, some of the
‘Hindu’ scriptures advocate environmental or forest
destruction. According to Padel (1998, 895), Artha-
shastra, which is an ancient Vedic text, advocates the
clearing of forests; it also suggests ways of winning over
or defeating the tribal people who live there. Padel
further points out that in the holy epics of Hindus
(Ramayana), which historians consider important for
understanding the period which falls in the realm of
proto-history, rakshasas or demons are driven away
by Lord Rama (a Hindu God) from the forest so that
Brahmins and sages could live in peace. Tribal or
forest dwellers are thus demonized as savage rakshasas
(monsters). Such negative stereotypes of indigenous
communities are seldom deconstructed from epic texts
which are revered as sacrosanct. In fact, expanding the
area of non-tribal settlement by driving tribal people
from fertile plains into inaccessible and difficult forest
interiors are well recorded in the ‘Hindu’ epics. The
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tribal people in these epics, however, are depicted
as evil and the fact that they are driven away into
forest interiors is presented as victory of ‘good’ over
‘evil.’ Besides, the large amounts of wood, animal
fat and animals used in havanas, yagyas (fire worship
and worship of other forms) and animal sacrifice by
Brahmins and sages, in accordance with the dictates
of the Yajar Veda (one amongst the four Vedas that
are foundational scriptures in Sanatan Dharma), this
historically depleted the biotic resources present in the
habitat of indigenous people (Ahmed 2008).
funded organizations precisely because of their inter-
national connection with the ‘Hindu’ diaspora. RSS
and VHP can mobilize the diaspora precisely through
international social and developmental initiatives.
Had the author alluded to or examined India Abroad
by focusing on the role of the RSS and VHP, he would
have done great service and extended his comradeship
towards the subaltern, persecuted and marginalized
groups in India.
References

The author examines the Bhumi project and
argues that it is a pan-Hindu movement that aims to
provide an umbrella for agricultural development as
well as other sustainability-related initiatives by the
global Hindu community. What the author fails to
mention is that the Bhumi project partners like the
Hindu American Foundation2 have close ties to, or
are extensions of, Hindu supremacist groups like the
Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayam-
sevak Sangh (RSS) (and one would not be incorrect in
calling them terrorist groups) in India. Projects such
as the one examined by Haigh are fronts to mobilize
the international Hindu diaspora to generate finance
to fund terror and riots against Muslims and Chris-
tians in India. This money is also used to bribe, seduce
and bring tribal people into the Sanatan Dharma fold
(popularly referred to as Hinduize or sanskritization)
in the face of electoral politics based on animosity
against Muslims and Christians and consolidation
of a Hindu supremacist vote-bank (Mathew 2000,
Mathew and Prashad 2000, Kamat 2003). Finally, the
biggest ‘Hindu’ NGOs (financially, and in terms of
membership) operating at the international scales are
affiliates of the RSS and VHP — these are suprema-
cist groups that have terrorized Dalits, Muslims and
Christians in India. RSS and VHP are very well
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and their Marginalized Space in India." In Studies in
Indian Economy, edited by K. R. Gupta, 188-218.
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Kamat, Sangeeta. 2003. "Mapping political violence
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Social Justice 30 (3):4-16.
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A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas. New
Delhi: SAGE Publications.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1960. The First
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2
The American Hindu Foundation was also involved in the California textbook controversy over Hindu history — they wanted sixth
grade text books to be purged of portrayal of caste system in a negative light; wanted removal of reference to Indo-Aryan migration
theory; and negative (but correct) portrayal of status of women in India. Groups such as American Hindu Foundation and Hindu
supremacist groups are keen on removal of reference to Indo-Aryan migration theory because they believe that Aryans originated in
India, that they were not invaders or migrants into India. They want to promote the indigenous Aryan theory to argue that upper caste
Aryan Hindus are ‘true’ or ‘real’ Indians, unlike Muslims or Christians who came to India as invaders.

86 Human Geography

Mathew, Biju. 2000. "Byte-sized nationalism:
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Rethinking Marxism 12 (3):108-128.
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and the Orient, edited by R. H. Grove, V. Damodaran
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Idea of Hindu Nationalism. London: HarperCollins.
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WAQUAR AHMED
Shepherd, Kancha Ilaiah. 2005. Why I am not a Hindu:
A Sudra critique of Hindutva philodophy, culture and
political economy. Kolkata: Samya.
Shepherd, Kancha Ilaiah. 2018. "Swami Shashi: the
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