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An alarming portrait of India's extreme right

Reason
Regissør: Anand Patwardhan
( India)

NATIONALISM / The extreme right is progressing all over the world, but how many in the West are following and understanding the extent of the extreme right in India?




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

Anand Patwardhan's full-length documentary Reason – which won the award for best full-length documentary at the Amsterdam Film Festival last year – is an important introduction to Indian history and a warning to the rest of the world. The film gives a thorough insight into India's outer right and deals with demonstrations, hate speech and its effects, but also the people who dare to resist and advocate for such currents. Many of them end up paying their own lives for the courage they show. The film is both a thought provoking and an addictive experience, an intense journey through India's past and present
- every minute contributes to creating a disturbing portrait of what has gradually developed into one of the largest secular democracies in the world.

The illusion of an Indian "golden age"

Patwardhan weaves together more than a century of Indian history into a complicated but also clear narrative, revealing the roots of Hindu nationalism and the hatred of "the other." The effects of the Hindutva – the ideology that seeks to establish hegemony for the Hindus and their way of life – can be seen throughout the community, and the film shows the way this ideology fires up under caste prejudice and promotes anti-egalitarian principles derived from the ancient Indian religious tradition, bramanismen.

Some of the events featured in the film have appeared in international media over the years. It becomes clear that they are neither isolated nor randomly picked, and the order of magnitude and cumulative effect they have, becomes especially evident when viewed against an Indian social and political backdrop. Reason makes it clear how weakened the social glue in India is: the disappearance of activists has become a routine in the country, as has the marginalization of the Dalits (the castless) and the Muslims. In addition, there is the emergence of extreme nationalist statements, the spread of hate propaganda, the designation of "oppositional" as well as a growing unrest among students.

What the outer right plays is the illusion of a "golden age": a time before Christians and Muslims allegedly came to destroy the perfect balance of an "ideal" Hindu country. But this era has never existed.

Hindu nationalism greedily incorporates every symbol, every historical figure and superstition that can help legitimize
the ideas of nationalism.

Like any extreme ideology, Hindu nationalism greedily incorporates every symbol, every historical figure and superstition that can help legitimize the ideas of nationalism. Truth is not something one seeks, but something the leading figures claim to possess. In this way, the world is suddenly divided between those who support the truth and those who oppose it: the traitors, the outsiders who must be eliminated.

Paying with own life

In addition to this, the spiritual layer in this form of extremism opens up a whole world of paranoia and manipulation, in a country where spirituality and superstition have long strengthened each other. The result is that all kinds of mystics and magicians, who pretend to be able to make gold or who perform so-called circus strikes, are exploited to serve the ideological agenda and organizations – such as the Goa-based group Sanatan Sanstha. It was founded by a spiritual guru, who is also referred to as a doctor and hypnotist, and the group's activities are as dangerous as they are surreal.

In all this madness, the voice of reason has not disappeared, but it seems to have to fight to be heard. Names like Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi may not be international everyday customs like Mahatma Gandhi, but what they have in common is that they have all been killed by the same ideology. Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi have fought to preserve inclusion, secularism and reason in India and had to pay with life as a result. The film tells the story of each of them and is also a tribute to the people they were, and an illustration of how risky it is to stand up against ongoing extremism.

Recruitment of the powerless

The film is in itself an act of resistance. The director sees the danger of hatred, which is spreading in all walks of life and infiltrating the government, as a threat to India's genuine values. In his director's note, Patwardhan declares: “Rather than a monolithic religion, Hinduism is a dynamic blend of the cultural practices of the natives, combined with that borrowed from passing currents through the ages […]. The Sanatanic, Aryan, Vedic, Hindutva, on the other hand, is a Bramanic (originally derived from a mighty priestly caste) project of superiority, which recruits the powerless into an endless war against imaginary demons. The invocation of such a war gives the institutes absolute control and total impunity. ”Patwardhan's film therefore puts a much needed light on these mechanisms in Indian society.

While negative reactions to Western nationalism are present and heard throughout the world, similar responses to Indian Hindu nationalism are rather weak outside India. Many take it for granted that India is a Hindu nation and they do not see that Hindu nationalism and white supremacy are two sides of the same issue. The situation is very serious, yet Patwardhan chooses to let the film end in an optimistic tone that assumes that the good will inevitably prevail. But after being confronted with the reality of this more than four-hour movie, the ending seems forced. It seems more like wishful thinking than a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully reason and goodness will prevail. If the world is aware and realizes that the mysterious India everyone knows or dreams about has a dangerously dark side that should worry us all, well, maybe then a change can be a real opportunity.

Bianca-Olivia Nita
Bianca-Olivia Nita
Nita is a freelance journalist and critic for Ny Tid.

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