Source: TW
Intro
Every so often, this topic arises again: what is the relationship between the Hindu Diaspora and India, and if there needs to be one? My understanding of Vishal’s view is that while there is a current relationship, there doesn’t need to be one, and because Hindus aren’t an ethnic group like Jews or Chinese, the patterns and frameworks that apply to them don’t apply to Hindus. As I have previously argued and also debated/discussed with @vjgtweets and @ShawnBinda last year, I don’t agree with Vishal’s view.
Religion?
His argument that Hindus aren’t a community, a religion, or a people group is both ahistorical and unmoored from on-the-ground reality. It comes from his fundamental misunderstanding of Dharma, that which binds and holds together. Hindus are a community; we almost across the board all agree we are, and we define our community based on what both binds us and what separates us from others. We have festivals, practices, and ideas that bind us together. Just because it doesn’t look like some other communities doesn’t mean it is not one.
Hindus are a religion; if he means that we hold a single set of doctrines or dogmas like the Abrahamic religions, then he would be right insofar as we understand religion to be akin to Abrahamic religions. The like the Abrahamics is doing the heavy lifting here as does his arguments aren’t a community like the Jews, the like the Jews part is doing heavily lifting. We aren’t like the Jews; we are much wider in our scope. A lake isn’t like an ocean, but it is still a body of water in a basin, whereas their details differ. Hindus have a theology, philosophy, practices, texts, epistemology, ethics, and so on. The argument that Hinduism isn’t a religion is dead on arrival.
Universal heritage?
Vishal wants to, with good intentions, try to understand Hinduism as a universal heritage. Which may be true, and I do think it is, but not the way that Vishal does; the universality of the heritage isn’t in its abstraction to some free-floating principles or ideas, but in a fundamental understanding of reality and how it is understood and engaged with. Hindu ideas, concepts, and culture have parallels across the world with other religions, but Hindus take their view to be the most complete; the Devas are not mere abstractions they are real, in what way may be up to discussion, but not the fact that they are.
Other communities
Not a single community, group, people, or religion is unmoored from its roots and origins. America isn’t some free-floating, non-tethered nation; it is Anglo-Saxon in its origins, its legal structure, its language, cultural heritage, and so on. Most American-born Hindus grow up in an Indian household; they grow up speaking or knowing their Indian native tongue, and they grow up with some level of religious engagement, culture, and such. All of which is very Indian in nature. We all hold multiple identities and connections at the same time. Acculturation and alienation go together; we acculturate to the outside community and yet maintain some level of alienation because of our internal, non-public world.
First generation failure
The first generation didn’t fail to pass things on; they just didn’t understand what life would be like for us caught in two worlds. They didn’t understand that, given the dominant Christian-based world we have to defend our beliefs in some theological way. Not their failure, just changing world and conditions. You think, as I recall, that the temple culture isn’t important or relevant for the 2nd generation, which I think Shawn and I disagreed with. The rituals matter; these practices matter.
The 2nd generation is right now trying to figure out how they matter and also how to engage in philosophical and theological conversations with those outside the fold. Just because the die has been cast doesn’t mean that there isn’t another round of die casting; it’s not a done deal.
Future
Finally, no community charts its own path without confronting and engaging in ideological or cultural constraints; they chart their own path with those constraints and decides which ones make sense now and which ones can be ignored for now or tabled for later.
The deracination is real from the 1st gen perspective, and it’s a fair position; it is also fair that the 2nd generation says it’s not our fault; it’s the world you brought us to and into. It is dialogue and dialectic.
Hindus, of all stripes and types and races, are fundamentally tied to India, whether they recognize it or not. The sacred geography is always brought with us; India doesn’t leave us, it just reforms itself with us. Beyond these RSS points, at the heart of this discussion, the various mathas, temples, and traditional organizations in and from India cannot be abandoned; they are vital for the diaspora to incorporate and engage with.
Here is the conversation I think is worth people watching and responding to: https://youtube.com/live/mqqqL29JMn8?feature=share
vishal’s opinion
You say that my argument “precludes the RSS (and its affiliates) from having any legitimate role in diaspora discourse before the conversation has even commenced.”
I’m not sure what you. mean here by “legitimate role.” These orgs are free to propagate their ideas in the diaspora, as they have been doing so for decades. Their lack of relevance is in fact evidence of their clumsiness, and reflects their total ignorance about the socio-political dynamics of American society. Which is why I think orgs rooted in American society have nothing to gain by affiliating with them.
Next, regarding civilizational continuity. Here I think you elide the actual core point by simply assuming that civilizational continuity requires that the diaspora retain a connection to India. You carelessly through out comparisons to the Jews, Chinese, and Armenians, but never ask yourself whether these comparisons actually work. Are Hindus an ethnic community like the Armenians, Han Chinese, or Jews? No. Are they a “religious” community? I’ve argued this isn’t the case either, since “Hinduism” is not a religion. Do Hindus have a historical sense of “peoplehood” that is even close to comparable with that of the Jews? Also no.I agree that Hindus share a civilizational heritage, but I see this heritage as universal in character, and don’t believe continuity requires preserving ties to a particular nation, culture, etc.
On the cause of detachment, here too you misdiagnose the situation. American-born Hindus are alienated from India because, well, they are American. Acculturation is natural and inevitable. Since you brought up the comparison with the Jewish community, it is notable that the history of Jewish denominationalism in America is inextricably linked with this process of acculturation. The emergence of Conservative Judaism, e.g., was a direct response to the alienation of the children of Eastern European immigrants from the orthodox congregations established by their parents. By placing the blame on “longstanding embarrassment” by the second generation, you are shifting the blame, rather than introspecting about the failures of the first gen mode of transmission. I’m not saying this about you personally, but my sense is that is that a lot of first gen immigrants are triggered by this reality, because they are paranoid about losing touch with their roots. Well, I hate to break it to them, but the die has been cast in that regard.
On your final point, what favorable outcomes are you talking about? From my vantage point, all I see is abject failure. For the diaspora to chart its own course, it must be free of ideological and cultural constraints imposed on it by organizations that are fundamentally Indian in their orientation. The second gen has been decades being lectured about their “deracination” and the importance of “culture.” To what end? Dialogue is only possible when each party approaches it on their own terms. Articulating those terms for ourselves requires that the diaspora put these orgs at a healthy distance.