I met with Sathiya Moorthy, the director of the Observer Research Foundation, a public policy think-tank in Chennai, to interview him for my independent research on Hindu nationalism and Indian foreign policy. Sathiya and his wife, Lakshmi, had a lot to say about the BJP, politics, security and defense, and a whole range of other issues. Lakshmi was particularly critical of Prime Minister Modi and the BJP, but her criticism was interestingly met with strong statements about India’s cultural identity. Prideful, she spoke of “India’s spirit” and “India’s soul” which, she explained, came from “cultural unity.” I was taken aback by her impassioned claims about India having cultural unity after hearing her speak so fervently about the growing communal tension and violence around the country. “Cultural unity comes from Hinduism,” she explained, “Muslims and Christians were Hindus first.” Her words were full of meaning, withholding heavy nationalist sentiments, and I interpreted them as such. Although she was seemingly against the BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda, Lakshmi herself, seemed like a Hindu nationalist, taking pride in the fact that all Indians were once upon a time Hindu.
T.M. Krishna (one of Tamil Nadu’s most talented Carnatic musicians) on the other hand, during his lecture on Carnatic music theory, offered a completely different viewpoint on India’s cultural identity. According to Krishna, there is a need “philosophically” for Carnatic (South Indian) musicians to connect their music to the Vedas, to show that it is “purer” than Hindustani (North Indian) music, which has been influenced by Islamic/Mughal rule. Music, like culture, I gathered, does not “traverse boundaries” or unify India, rather, it divides the country into separate histories, and thus separate cultural identities. Lakshmi, too, spoke of the invasion of the Mughals in the North, but used this history as a justification for why India has unity, because in its ancient past, all Indians were Hindu. What “modern” Indian history suggests, according to Lakshmi, is that foreign invasions and foreign influences have divided the country, yes, but at a fundamental level, India has one unified culture, with one unified past. In contrast, a common perception among Tamil intellectuals, as Krishna pointed out, is that Mughal influence “polluted” what was once pure Hinduism, therefore, the Islamic influence divided the North and South along historic and cultural lines.
What Lakshmi and Krishna’s comments and justifications for cultural unity, or lack there of, reveal is the important role public memory plays in creating the identities of cities and their inhabitants. How are the histories of Delhi and Chennai (and more broadly Tamil Nadu) remembered by the public? What instills the need for someone like Lakshmi to make a compelling argument (to a foreigner, such as myself) that India has cultural unity, despite its communal tensions? And why is it so important to distinguish or compare religious practices in the North versus the South? What memories of the past are alive today that allow for such differences between places like Delhi and Tamil Nadu, and what memories construct similar narratives and cultural identities? According to Sunil, people in Delhi do not have a sense of history. Tamil people, on the other hand, according to Chalapathy, have a very strong sense of history. These bold statements have informed and have strongly influenced my observations and interactions in Chennai. And I’m looking forward to how Varanasi will compare with respect to public memory and one’s sense of cultural unity, especially because Varanasi is the epicenter of Hinduism (or so I gather..).