Why
Wendy Doniger’s Book Offends Hindus
Written
by Dr. Seshadri Kumar
16 February, 2014
Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are
the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean
the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated
otherwise in the article.
*********************************
I have already written a blog
article on this controversy. The
focus of my earlier article was that the reactions by left-leaning liberals in
India and overseas to Penguin's withdrawal of their book were overblown and
ridiculous. The fact is that India's
laws are intolerant and allow any religious group to put pressure on any book
to be withdrawn because it "offends" them. Penguin's withdrawal is not symptomatic of
India becoming any more intolerant than any other country.
When you write a book on religion that is
unconventional, some group will be offended - the real question is whether your
country's laws contain adequate protection for free speech to protect you from
such groups. India's laws do not. That a small group of Hindus was able to
pressurize Penguin to pulp Doniger's book is not proof that India is
intolerant; it is proof that free speech in India is conditional. The remedy to that is to abolish section 295A
of the IPC.
The
Ignorance of Hindus About Hinduism
But there is a second point to address here, and that is the
question of why, actually, Doniger's book even offends Hindus. As a person who has had a lifelong interest
in Hindu epics, I have a fair idea of the reasons. The first reason is that most Hindus know
little about their epics. Most Indians
have never read the Ramayana or the Mahabharata in full; for most of them, the
knowledge of these epics comes purely from Ramanand Sagar's and BR Chopra's
teleserials. The fact is that the actual
books are HUGE. I can testify to this
personally - several years back I bought the full English translation of the
Mahabharata in four huge volumes by Kisari Mohan Ganguli, and I have not yet
found time to finish all four volumes.
Second, if one does read these epics in full, one finds all
kinds of interesting information - information that is often shocking and not
told to children by their parents and grandparents when growing up. There are fairly stark sexual episodes that
are mentioned in a matter-of-fact way in the Mahabharata that would make most
conservative Indians turn a deep shade of red, despite their brown skin. These are not stories you can tell your
kids. But it is a fact that our epics
contain these R-rated or X-rated portions.
The
Sanitizing of Hinduism
In modern days, there has been a clear attempt by rightwing
Hindu groups to avoid any mention of these R-rated portions of the epics - to present
Hindu epics as clean, wholesome, and without contradictions. Modern TV presentations of the Ramayana and
Mahabharata take generous liberties with the epics, to the extent that they
even falsify what is in the epic.
For example, Rama in the Ramayana, although an avatar of the
God Vishnu, sees himself, and is portrayed in the epic, largely as a human,
albeit an exceptional one. The times
that he realizes in the epic, or is made to realize his divinity, are
rare. This is unlike Krishna in the
Mahabharata who, in general, is more conscious of his divinity than Rama in the
Ramayana, though, again, not all the time.
Given this backdrop, consider this scene that I saw in one
TV representation of the Ramayana a couple of years ago. This was the scene where Rama breaks Janaka’s
bow of Shiva and claims Sita as his wife.
The original poem by Valmiki, the entire unabdridged English translation
of which is available online (due to Ralph Griffith), simply details, in lovely
poetry, the sequence
of events as Rama lifts the bow and breaks it, and as others watch this feat in
awe. But the TV serial went much
further than this. It showed Rama
walking towards the bow, and as he did, all the assembled kings saw him in the
form of Vishnu, with his four arms, holding the conch, the discus, the mace,
and the lotus, and realized that this was Vishnu, and bowed to him. The TV serial makers want to hammer the idea
that Rama was divine all along, and have deliberately added things that the
epic does not contain. The “TV Rama”
often makes statements that the Rama of the real epic would never make – for
example, often stating himself that he is divine – whereas, in fact, those who
have read the original know that Rama mostly describes himself as a human
being, and has to be reminded by the Gods (as they do so when he subjects Sita
to the Agni-pariksha or the trial by fire) that he is divine and should act
accordingly.
This may seem like a subtle point, but it is very important
nonetheless, because it dehumanizes Rama – and by dehumanizing Rama, robs him
of much of his achievement. The
dehumanization makes it hard for us to understand, for example, why he would do
such a thing as ask his wife, who had already proved her fidelity through the
trial by fire in Lanka, to leave the Ayodhya palace again because a washerman
said insulting things about her.
Indians
have a right to know their epics the way they were written, with both the good
and bad parts. It is wrong for someone
to print lies about our epics; it is equally wrong for a TV channel to show an
epic with lies in it simply because they think and decide it is more “appropriate”
for us to watch.
To a large extent, Doniger's attempt is to present a more
balanced version of Hinduism - to say that what are present in the Vedas, the
Upanishads, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are much more complex than the
"Cliff’s Notes" abridged versions that are presented on Indian TV and
in abridged texts.
How
Doniger Offends Hindus
Since the controversy, many twitterati have given links
where Doniger’s book could be downloaded electronically, and I did download a
copy so I could find out what the fuss is all about. What I discovered was a book that tried to
present many different angles on the epics, the Vedas, and the Upanishads – not
complete translations of them, but select passages that bring out things that
might surprise the average Hindu about his religion.
That brings me to the main topic of my post – why Doniger’s
book offends Hindus. There are two
reasons for this. The first is that, as
I said, Indians are ignorant of what is in their epics. As Doniger recounts in the book, one person
threw an egg at her once when she was giving a lecture. She found out that he was offended that
Doniger had stated that Sita accused Lakshmana of having sexual designs on
her.
Offense was taken here in ignorance, because the listener
was clearly unaware that Sita did, indeed, accuse
Lakshmana in the Ramayana of wanting her for himself when Rama had gone after
the golden deer and had not returned and, when pressed by Sita to go look
for Rama, Lakshmana refused, saying that nothing would happen to Rama and that
his orders were to guard Sita. In fact, Sita's unfair accusations about Lakshmana are critical to the story, for they are the reason he disobeys his brother's command not to leave Sita alone - he is so horrified that Sita would level such charges against him that he leaves to look for Rama, unable to bear any more such accusations.
Part of the reason this person took offense was that he was
unaware of what the great epic actually contained; part of it must also
certainly be that he was only exposed to highly sanitized versions of the epics
where any mention of sexuality is censored out. The remedy to avoid this kind of misunderstanding, clearly, is for Indians to educate themselves better about their own epics.
The other reason why Hindus are offended by what Doniger and
people like her (other professors of Hinduism) is that often, they bring
western interpretations to Hindu epics.
This is treading into extremely dangerous territory, because while
presenting parts of epics that people are normally unaware of might shock some
people, these are still part of the original epic and all the professor has
done is shine light on hitherto poorly-known facts; interpretation, on the other hand, is
adding new material that is not contained in the epics; and no two people need
agree on any interpretation.
A prime example of such interpretation that has annoyed many
Hindus is when Doniger refers to an Oedipus complex when referring to Ganesha’s
relationship with his father Shiva. Now
clearly this is a foreign concept, coming from the Greek myth of Oedipus, who
desired his mother sexually and killed his father since he viewed him as a
competitor for his mother’s affections. Doniger
interpreted the story of Shiva killing Ganesha as a reversal of the Oedipus
myth – the father killing the son instead of the son killing the father as they
compete for the same woman. For a
staunch Hindu, trying to project the relationship between the highly-revered
God Ganesha, his mother, the goddess Parvati, and his father, the most powerful
God of Hinduism, Shiva, in incestuous terms, is an unbearable sacrilege.
A
Christian Parallel: The Last Temptation of Christ
To understand how serious such an aspersion is, consider the
parallel in Christianity. In 1988,
Martin Scorcese brought to film Nikos Kazantzakis’ 1960 masterwork, “The Last
Temptation of Christ,” in which Jesus is presented as a human being with the
weaknesses that all human beings have, but rises above them. The story talks about Jesus on the cross
being tempted by Satan, exploring the temptation that is offered to him of a
happy domestic life with Mary Magdalene in what seems like a dream, and then
rejecting it to die on the cross.
The movie caused a commotion in the western world, with many
countries banning the film, including
Turkey, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines, and Singapore. In one savage expression of intolerance for
free speech, the Saint Michel theatre in Paris was attacked by Molotov
cocktails, which severely burned 4 people, injured 9 others, and forced the
closure of the theatre. There was also a
huge campaign against the film in the United States, which severely affected
the commercial success of the film, as many theatres were forced to stop
screening the film.
If so much anger can erupt simply for saying, in a
relatively permissive western society, that Jesus, a human manifestation of divinity, with all
the allowances that a human may be permitted, may have had a consummated marriage with Mary
Magdalene in what was, essentially, a dream, how much more anger can one expect
from the (fairly conservative) followers of a religion who have been told that
their Gods (not even a human son of God, but the Gods themselves) are in an
incestuous relationship?
Throwing
Out the Baby with the Bathwater
Wendy Doniger’s fatal mistake, and that of her students and
academic followers who imitate her ways, was to show extreme insensitivity in
dealing with the sentiments of Hindus about their religion while choosing to
“interpret” it. That this kind of
insensitivity came from someone who has spent her lifetime studying this
religion and interacting with Indians has made several people suspect that the insensitivity was deliberate
and mischievous, which has caused them to intensify their attacks against
Doniger. I do not know enough about
this, as I have not read enough of her works, so at this point I will give her
the benefit of the doubt and assume she did not know how offensive her interpretations
might have been to Hindus at large.
All of this is rather sad for, as I am discovering, the vast
majority of her book is rather interesting and reflects a high level of
scholarship. Very few of us have
actually delved into the Vedas, the Puranas, the Upanishads, and the two major
epics in such detail as Doniger has, and the insights she presents from a
lifetime of study are quite interesting and revealing, and helpful in constructing a unified synthesis of Hinduism from these diverse sources. But then, I am the kind of person who is capable of ignoring things that I consider as far-fetched or unnecessary and pick out what I like in a book; others may not be so easygoing.
A Need
for Cultural Sensitivity – and Open-Mindedness
So Hindus, in their rage, are throwing out the baby with the
bathwater; but in fairness, if Doniger had only shown a little sensitivity, none
of this need have happened. Accounts
from people who have read the book corroborate this – that they started reading
it, encountered these offensive sections at the very beginning – the reference
to the Oedipus complex occurs fairly early on, for instance – and then get so
offended that they completely disregard the rest of the book, regardless of its merits.
Some may accuse me of endorsing self-censorship, but that
would be an immature response, and an impractical one at that. As I said in my previous
article, the right to free speech in India is not an absolute one, and if
one can make a reasonable case that what someone has written hurts the
sentiments of followers of a religion, it may be all the ammunition needed to
ban the book or put pressure on the publisher, as in this case. Until such time as section 295A of the IPC is
removed, such abundant caution as I suggest here has to be exercised. Merely informing Hindus of what their epics
contain, and helping them understand the details of their ancient and
complicated religion, on the other hand, cannot in any court be deemed to be
deliberately offensive. Had Doniger
stuck to just that, she would have been hailed unanimously as a person who
helped Hindus understand their religion better, instead of being accused as a
Hindu-baiter. It is even possible that instances like the Oedipus complex are very few and far apart in the book; most of what I saw as I flipped through the pages was highly revealing and interesting.
Hindu society, for its part, needs to educate itself better
about its own epics and scriptures, and realize there is more to them than the
flashy, packaged versions of the epics that they see on prime-time TV. Reading the work of important academics
(whether Indian or otherwise) provides Indians with the necessary perspective
to appreciate their own religion in the completeness that is essential to
prevent prejudice and closed-mindedness.
