Fareed Zakaria of CNN GPS fame makes no secret of his having — and how proud he is of — the bleeding liberal- secularist heart that beats inside his breast. In this hour-long interview with another equally if not more famous international best-selling author Malcom Gladwell, Zakaria preens in the centre of the Global Public Square.
The interview is a promo for Fareed’s latest book that is out in the market titled “The Age of Revolution” but it gives Zakaria an opportunity to indulge in a bit of self-congratulatory autobiography. https://youtu.be/SVvV9H-qtXw?si=Hay-j98fhWDki0Ya
Asked by Gladwell about it, Fareed begins recounting to his audience a cloyingly sentimental and meandering story of his successful journey in life from “very very poor”, “socialist” and “medieval India” of the 1970s (he gives here vignettes of his days in Aurangabad), about his high-schooling in a fancy English Catholic Missionary school in Mumbai and of finally ending up in Ivy League Yale University in America… and to prosperity in the happy life ever after which he now enjoys as a proud first-generation immigrant citizen of America.
Halfway through the interview, Gladwell probes Zakaria to find out how and what the celebrity-journalist turned historian feels about his Indian roots . That is when Zakaria drapes himself all in the Stars and Stripes purple cloak and says that he remains “as dazzled” by everything about America and American society as he was when he first set foot on her soil 40+ years ago. “I have always felt welcomed in this country”, he gushes with hand upon his heart.
When Fareed doesnt stop stop waxing lyrical in singing even more paeans to America, Gladwell has to rein him in and herd him back to the original question: talking about India … not America.
“How did you make the transition from that culture to this?” And “whenever you do go back to visit India , do you feel at home.. do you feel comfortable ?”.
We see Zakaria then pause in midsentence to pull in his breath and suddenly assume a mien of very earnest thoughtfulness.
Then he slowly opens up his liberal heart… and out flows probably well pre-rehearsed sweet narratives … and all in his most charming and suavely rich CNN-anchor manner … which, for for some strange reason I cannot fathom, to me at least sounded revoltingly so patronising towards all India and all Indians. Nevertheless, I am going to quote Fareed in extenso below:
“In the last 10 years it has been a very complicated story because the economic rise continues a pace and that continues to be dazzling and thrilling, but you’re also seeing the rise of Hindu nationalism”.
“And, in many ways — my father died about 15 years ago — I’m very glad he hasn’t lived to see that because in a way his whole life’s work was trying to build a secular India, an India pluralistic which tolerated and encouraged diversity. There’s no other way to put it. India has moved in a very different direction. It’s economically surging but politically becoming more intolerant, more illiberal.”
“I wonder whether when India shed its socialist skin, I sort of was the first to celebrate because there was so much corruption and dysfunction and poverty associated with it but now that it’s shedding its secular skin, I’m beginning to wonder was all of that the socialism, the secularism, the liberalism was that all basically a kind of veneer borrowed from the West?”
“India is in a way returning to perhaps a more authentic place. Perhaps, you know this is a phase. This kind of Hindu nationalism. I hope it isn’t the most authentic version of India because I always think of India and Hinduism in particular as being incredibly tolerant”
“Hinduism is one of the most extraordinary religions in the world in that almost nothing is prescribed. You can be vegetarian and be a good Hindu, you can be non-vegetarian and be a good Hindu. You can believe in one God, you can believe in 300 million. You can also not believe in God and be a Hindu.
“It’s this wonderfully absorptive religion and it doesn’t feel to me like intolerance is part of its DNA.”
“There are times at which I feel uncomfortable (in and about India), only because of this [intolerance]. Otherwise, I feel incredibly comfortable. Because I’ve been back a lot. I still speak the language. But this piece of it is very awkward. Because there’s a little bit of a kind of… um… people don’t talk about it. In polite society, when people are talking about ‘oh, the growth is great, GDP numbers look amazing’, you just don’t mention, oh there’s this small issue which is you know just left untalked about.”.
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Everthing Fareed Zakaria says above carpingly indicts India.
Zakaria at once puts India in the dock as a nation and arraigns the country for not living up to his and his departed father’s own vision and standards.
India is a disappointment to him. The country now makes him “uncomfortable” since it doesnt quite fit the description of “authenticity” as defined by himself, for himself. India is not, Fareed says, the country that his father and he as a young man (when he was still an Indian citizen) had wanted it to be — “secular“, “tolerant“, “pluralistic“, “liberal” and “inclusive“…
“Fareed’s Take” on Liberal-Secularism in India is typical and taken straight out of the copybook of America’s very own White Anglo-Saxon neo-liberal worldview. His scathing indictment of what he rues is the rise of Hindu nationalism in India today is built upon the barely 700-year old perspective of America’s history. He has nothing to say about and he simply ignores entirely the 7000-year old civilizational history of India, the country he forgets was the very cradle of four out of the six major religions of the world. All Zakaria can focus upon in India’s history is through the lens of American History. His biggest worry is the “intolerance” he sees everywhere in this country. It’s a great, heavy blanket, nay, a pall of accusation he flings across all of India, and smothers and weighs the country down with it.
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By far the most remarkably patronizing of “Fareed’s Take” is when he says “Hinduism is one of the most extraordinary religions in the world in that almost nothing is prescribed. You can be vegetarian and be a good Hindu, you can be non-vegetarian and be a good Hindu. You can believe in one God, you can believe in 300 million. You can also not believe in God and be a Hindu“!
Really?! Says who, Fareed? “Almost nothing is prescribed” in Hinduism?!
In making this extraordinarily absurd remark, Zakaria is repeating verbatim the anglophiliac, liberal-secular burra-sahib of India, our very own Shashi Tharoor who too is a passionate advocate of what is known as “anything goes Hinduism”.
What is “anything goes Hinduism” of which both Fareed Zakaria and Shashi Tharoor are so fond?
In the book, “TEN HEADS OF RAVANA” (edited by Rajiv Malhotra and Divya Reddy), the young historian and engineer, Divya Reddy explains that according to true-blue liberal-secularism in India: Hinduism is a religion with no boundaries or barriers of entry, or fundamentals, or defined rituals, or prescribed books or a specific place of worship… It is a faith that accommodates every belief and therefore there is no need to choose some and reject others. Hinduism is a faith without dogma and consequently there is no particular framework from which one can deviate…. Exactly what Zakaria means too when he says ” nothing is prescribed. “You can be vegetarian and be a good Hindu, you can be non-vegetarian and be a good Hindu. You can believe in one God, you can believe in 300 million. You can also not believe in God and be a Hindu“!
Thus both Tharoor and Zakaria are on the same page:
They believe that every way of life is the Hindu way! And from that standpoint Fareed Zakaria reaffirms Tharoor’s line of reasoning: that it is important every adherent of the Hindu faith to tolerate and accept every other religion as their own irrespective of how the other faith treats Hinduism. To counter such an interpretation, or to fail to defend it, is for Zakaria as much as it is for Tharoor, no less an act of intolerance and against the ethos of Hinduism!
This is exactly the substance of Zakaria’s reasoning too when he says “Hinduism is this wonderfully absorptive religion and it doesn’t feel to me like intolerance is part of its DNA.”
If the logic of Tharoor and Zakaria is to be accepted then the following conclusions too will have to be allowed without reservations:
- Religious conversions in India is not a threat to Hinduism
- Religious proselytization is not an anti-national activity.
- Religious conversion is a non-violent activity.
- It is perfectly acceptable for an artist, filmmaker, an actor or an author to interpret Hinduism in whichever way they deem fit.
- Hinduism is the most tolerant and inclusive faith with no boundaries and barriers of entry and needs to retain this openness despite receiving no reciprocal mutual respect.
Somewhere in his book (“Why I am a Hindu”), Tharoor writes this: “Indeed the term “the Hindu way” is in itself a fallacy as there is no one Hindu way”. Which to me is what Zakaria too echoes when he says “Hinduism is one of the most extraordinary religions in the world in that almost nothing is prescribed”.
Divya Reddy posed a zinger of a question to Tharoor which may well be thrown at Zakaria too: “If all religions were the same …. and if Hinduism is truly an “anything goes religion” … what good is it to remain a Hindu?!”
If Shashi Tharoor has the distinction of being decorated as one among the “Ten Heads of Ravana”, Fareed Zakaria deserves to be the 11th one, surely!
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We have heard enough of “Fareed’s Take” on Liberal-Secularism in India. Let me also present my own take on the same….
Liberal-Secularism in India to me means only this: The Hindu majority should never be allowed to feel good about itself in any way … not about its History, not about its religious beliefs, not about its cultural practices and arts, not about its philosophies, literature and artistic heritage …
If Hindus ever did start feeling good about themselves … then that would amount to “anti-minoritarianism” or rabid “Majoritarianism”’ .
True liberal-secularism means that Hindu majority must always be kept perennially stewing in a deep, pyschic swamp of guilt — Hindus must always be made to feel that as a community they are acting always like a “oh ever so dominant and abusive a majoritarian… a terrible bully !”. Hindus must feel guilty they are a religious majority in their own county. Hindus must feel guilty about their patriarchic, caste structured society. Hindus must feel guilty about their religion that once discriminated against women. Hindus must feel guilty about what they once upon a time did to Dalits and Adivasis… and so on and so forth endlessly.
That’s the whole logic of pseudo-liberal thinking in India today. It was of course imported into our country long ago under British colonial rule whose Divide and Rule policy ensured that the Hindu in this country always remained feeling bad both about himself and his majority status.
That’s really all there is to Liberal-Secularism Agenda in India. It is nothing else other than keep inducing amongst the Hindu majority a cankerous feeling of chronic guilt and preventing it thereby from ever feeling good about itself — no matter on account of whatever — in its very own country…
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A few days after the Malcolm Gladwell curated book-launch interview with Fareed Zakaria in far away America, another and utterly different kind of book-launch was taking place here in India. It barely got any attention in India … certainly not even half as much as the Zakaria one that got intellectuals and liberal-secularists here cheering for him.
Sarsangchalak, Mohan Bhagwath, the RSS Chief was speaking at a launch event of a book titled ‘Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’ in Nagpur, Maharashtra, last Thursday.
Addressing the event, Mr Bhagwat also touched upon the subject of Liberal-Secularism and the Hindu identity. He said this:
“Again and again someone comes (into our country) and we become slaves due to our mistakes. It needs to be addressed. This disease needs to be treated; otherwise, such things will keep happening. We need to treat some of our basic mistakes.”
He further said that India needs to organise the entire society with a common thread so we can be clear about our identity.
“Due to dis-orientation, there is lack of knowledge in our country about who we are and who is ours, about our identity and there is no clarity about it. Due to several years of slavery, there is mental suppression“.
“Hence, we need to organise the entire society with a common “sutra” which unites us all. We should know our identity clearly and tell the world as well. If we know who we are then we also know who amongst us is ours and that our identity is Hindu and we should say with pride that we are Hindus,”
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At the time of writing this piece, I am still undecided over whether I should place an order on Amazon to buy a copy of Zakaria’s “The Age of Revolution”.
Sudarshan Madabushi