reflection on religious nationalism: India and Israel

INDIA

achieving independence on 15 August 1947, India began its statehood as a secular, constitutional democracy focused on redressing longstanding social inequities stemming from such cultural features as the caste system and the generally patriarchal orientation of Indian society (Sarkar, 2004). Under the dominant Congress party, affirmative action programmes and other legislation provided opportunities for advancement to lower-class individuals; these programmes are particularly active in the exceptionally caste-codified southern states where at least 49% of government positions are reserved for Dalits (‘untouchable’ low-castes) and other disadvantaged groups (Varshney, 2000).

The power of the Congress party began to decline in 1989, however, opening the doors to the political forces of Hindu nationalism, regionalism and organization among the lower castes and tribes of the country (Varshney, 2000). Heller (2000) asserts that the recent upsurge in Hindu nationalism is related to a general frustration with ineffective and corrupt government, which she interprets as evidence that democracy is only superficially functional in India despite well-entrenched institutions.

Among the many differing ways that nationalist groups envisioned an independent India, there emerged in 1925 the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an organization primarily composed of upper-caste Hindus who had generally benefited from colonial rule. The RSS dreamed of a Hindu nation where the threat of subordinate-caste emancipation could be averted through social polarization along religious lines by ‘constructing powerful enemy-images of Muslim or Christian ‘Others’, construed as representing a perpetual threat to the survival of all ‘Hindus’’ (Sarkar, 2004, p. 306). Their ultimate goal was to establish a country modeled after the Indian Golden Era that they believe existed in the ancient past until disrupted by Muslim and Christian invaders (Heller, 2000).

One of the founding fathers of the group, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, expressed sympathy for the challenges that Nazis claimed Jews presented to German society, proclaiming the Nazi response an inspiration for devout Hindus (Sundar, 2004). Rather than concerning themselves with improving standards of living for the poor, members of the RSS attempted to maintain the stratifications and hierarchies of traditional society from which they had historically benefited, laying blame for social strife on the corrupting presence of adherents to exogenous religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity (Sundar, 2004). Despite its long-standing and open aversion to democracy, in 1951 the RSS was obliged to form a political wing called the Jana Sangh in order to court the mass electorate and pursue its ends through the democratic system (Sarkar, 2004); this group was replaced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1980 (Varshney, 2000). The cultural branch of the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), was founded in 1964 to propagate RSS ideology abroad and at home through conferences, cultural events and campaigning for the highly contentious building of a Hindu temple at Ayodhya; VHP members have been implicated in the destruction of the Babri mosque that had occupied the site

ISRAEL

The nature of democracy in Israel as constructed along religio-ethnic lines is considered highly problematic among political scientists and the Israelis themselves (i.e. Ghanem, 1998; Alexander, 2000). According to Al-Haj (2005): Religious nationalism, conflict and schooling 91 Israel’s democratic character runs up against its ethno-national character. When the two principles come into conflict, the latter gains the upper hand. This situation results in a political culture that is typical of ‘ethnocratic’ regimes. Such regimes create a structural and ideological apparatus that safeguards the rights and privileges of the ‘dominant ethnos’ and excludes indigenous or rival minorities. In ethnocratic regimes, the dominant ethnos treats indigenous minorities in an oppressive way. (pp. 51–52) Such treatment has included imposition of martial law on Arab citizens of Israel from 1948 to 1966, lack of a policy comparable to the ‘Law of Return’ to facilitate the immigration of Palestinian expatriate refugees and a 1985 constitutional amendment effectively criminalizing any political party or politician opposed to the existence of the Israeli state (Shafir & Peled, 1998; Okun & Friedlander, 2005; Gordon, 2005).

Jews and Arabs live largely segregated from each other, and in cities with mixed populations there is relatively little interaction between members of the two groups (Falah, 1996). Today, Arab citizens of Israel are legally entitled to the same rights as Jewish Israelis, but face frequent discrimination and are commonly the target of political rhetoric that characterizes Arab Israelis and Palestinians as invaders on Jewish land (Yiftachel, 2002). The nature of Israeli nationalism among its Jewish population has taken numerous forms. Shafir and Peled (1998) propose a theoretical framework of three discourses to categorize Jewish nationalism: the collectivist republican discourse, which valorizes colonization of the motherland; an ethno-nationalist discourse, which explicitly links Jewish identity and the nation; and an individualist liberal discourse, which places emphasis on the civic dimensions of citizenship. They observe that as the early prevalence of republican discourse declined with the shift of politically dominant Ashkenazi Jewish business interests from the national to international arena, the ethno-nationalist and liberal discourses were left to compete for dominance over the past 15 years

how nationalism is promoted through schooling systems

In considering the Indian and Israeli cases, there appears to be a strong correlation between sociopolitical contexts in which schooling for ideological transmission occurs, and the degradation of democratic processes and practices. The subversion or circumvention of democracy can happen in order to propagate religious nationalism, as evidenced by the irregularity and secrecy characterizing the processes by which the BJP pursued the implementation of its revised history curriculum (Kamat, 2004), and the discriminatory hiring practices on the part of education ministries in both Gujarat and Israel to assure teacher conformity with the government-approved form of nationalism (Human Rights Watch, 2002; Benavot & Resh, 2003).

Israeli authorities’ withholding of Palestinian tax revenues needed to fund government employees and services (including schools, where Palestinian nationalist views are taught) in response to the recent democratic election of a Hamas parliamentary majority can be seen as the ultimate expression of this relationship (BBC, 2006). Democratic processes may also be circumvented for the express purpose of resisting the oppressive imposition of religious nationalism, as demonstrated by the Palestinian intifadas. Indeed, socially-destabilizing violence is a likely outcome of scenarios where public schools serve to amplify and spread pre-existing inter-communal tensions.

We can look to the 2002 sectarian riots in Gujarat for evidence of the potential outcomes of such schooling. Following the March riots that left an estimated 790 Muslims and 240 Hindus dead and 2500 injured (official government statistics), Human Rights Watch (2002) released a scathing condemnation of the BJP-controlled Gujarati government, accusing it of gross preventative negligence if not outright instigation and endorsement of the conflict. Witnesses of the violence described Hindu attackers descending in coordinated groups upon Muslim homes and businesses, wearing the saffron bandana and brandishing Shiva trishuls (tridents) symbolic of the

Hindutva movement. The report remarked that public school teachers in remote villages had for some years been hired by the Gujarati government on the basis of their sympathy toward the RSS agenda, and often adapted the curriculum to reflect the Hindutva ideology, including the demonization of non-Hindus. Surveys of rioteffected areas found Hindus strongly feared Muslims, an attitude that stems perhaps as much from the anti-Muslim propaganda disseminated in RSS-influenced schools as from concerns of reprisals (Human Rights Watch, 2002). Obtaining empirical information about the precise role that RSS schooling may have played in fuelling Hindu attacks on Muslims in Gujarat has been complicated by the lack of access to reliable data about the attackers as state courts have found very few individuals guilty of involvement in the riots (Chopra, 2006). Nonetheless, a report issued by the Central Advisory Board for Education under the Congress Party’s Singh administration in October 2006 accused schools promoting Hindutva ideology of stirring inter-communal violence; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has implied that pro-Hindutva schools such as the Vidya Bharati may soon be closed in response to the report’s findings (Singh, 2006).

The Singh administration had already undertaken steps to purge Hindutva ideology from public schools through a process of curricular ‘desaffronization’ begun shortly after taking office (Bukhari, 2005). Poverty appears to play a significant and multi-faceted role in the success and rapidity with which religious nationalism is propagated through schooling in developing countries. It has been suggested that popular dissatisfaction with Congress poverty reduction failures played a large part in the rise to power of the BJP in India (Keppley Mahmood, 1993). Similarly, insufficient economic development under Fatah was cited as a contributing factor to the 2006 Hamas victory in Palestinian general elections (Usher, 2006). Poverty may also contribute to a social environment conducive to the spread of religious nationalism in a more indirect fashion: limited funds for pre-service and in-service teacher training and classroom materials may exacerbate an over-reliance on textbooks and teacher-centred pedagogies as the Indian and Israeli cases demonstrate (Kumar, 1988; Benavot & Resh, 2003). In a recent study by Dyer and Choksi (2002), an interviewed Indian teacher describes the impact that teacher-centred education can have on the ability to critically analyse received information both within and beyond the classroom: We live in the classroom culture. Even after we come out of that classroom culture we never ask questions of our brains, we never ask questions of our elders, we don’t say to our parents ‘why are you telling me something like this’? We are taught this habit from school. […] We are told ‘this is there, read it, remember it and do exams’. If you get marks you are very intelligent by writing the same things that are given in the text book. Get the marks, you pass and you are very intelligent. (p. 344) The underdevelopment of critical analysis skills resulting from teacher-centred schooling is compounded by the effects of ideological schooling, which ‘withholds from students important skills of democratic citizenship such as the abilities to examine evidence, consider policy alternatives and accept responsibility for governing one’s own behavior and beliefs’ (Alexander, 2000, p. 498). In such a context, students are severely under-equipped with the tools necessary to analyse and potentially reject the religious nationalist and communitarian messages to which they are repeatedly exposed. Even the Palestinian Authority’s implementation of a student-centred curriculum specifically designed to develop citizens’ critical thinking abilities, respect for pluralism and other personal qualities to reduce the likelihood of violent conflict, may be jeopardized if education planning does not sufficiently compensate for the effects of poverty. Critical analysis, tolerance for diverse views and the identification and evaluation of alternate sources of information are all key competencies that the new Palestinian textbooks strive to develop for the purpose of cementing a peaceful, stable notion of Palestinian nationality (Moughrabi, 2001). However, the skirting of issues related to Israel and Jews in these nationalist texts could be seen to contribute to an exclusionary Palestinian citizenship discourse, and deprives Palestinian students of the opportunity to critically analyse both the Jewish narratives that have produced such a significant impact on their lives, and their own Palestinian narratives vis-a`-vis the violent tableau of the Jewish state that both groups inhabit. Omissions from the textbooks could potentially be offset if students seek out alternate sources of information as mandated by the curriculum guidelines, although the availability of print materials and internet access may be limited at best in the impoverished West Bank and Gaza Strip. The likelihood that the new curriculum will succeed in developing tolerant, anti-violent critical thinkers is all the more reduced by the fact that the large amount of material that students must master for the high school leaving exam has obliged many teachers to save time by abandoning the student-centred approach upon which the textbooks are based in favour of authoritarian, teacher-centred instructional methods (Moughrabi, 2001). Despite the ways in which religious nationalist schooling in developing countries can potentially contribute to the degradation of democracy in those nations, the very nature of the democratic structure possesses inherent features that serve to counter these negative effects.

The Indian state of Kerala has historically struggled with class conflict stemming from rigid caste hierarchies, extreme income disparities and the largest religious minority populations in India. Since independence, it has transformed itself into a state with exceptionally high literacy rates, standards of living, civic participation and voting rates 15–20% above the national average (Heller, 2000). Members of lower castes use their number to their advantage, fighting for equality through the ballot box. In India, voting is higher among the poor, the less educated and the villagers than among their more privileged peers (Varshney, 2000). Sharing many of the same goals of social justice, Indian Muslims fight hard to preserve India’s secular character and frequently form political coalitions with low caste groups to this end (Kurien, 2001). The undeniable clout of low caste and religious minority political coalitions is evidenced in mutually distasteful but expedient partnerships between the BJP and low-caste political groups in the 1998 and 1999 elections (Heller, 2000). Israel also provides an example of how the power of the vote can attenuate democratic imbalances in unexpected ways.

In an effort to maintain a Jewish majority in the face of a rapidly growing Palestinian population, the Law of Return was amended in 1970 to permit anyone with one Jewish grandparent to apply for citizenship. The unforeseen outcome of this policy was the growth of a large segment of the Israeli population that did not particularly identify with the Zionist ideology and so was not necessarily predisposed against Palestinian causes on that basis (Shafir & Peled, 1998). However, there is unresolved tension inherent in the partnership between the Arab citizens of Israel, for many of whom their minority religious status forms a defining element of their identity, and Jewish liberals, who have widely lost their patience with faith (Shafir & Peled, 1998)