Hinduism let down by clergy

Social thinkers immersed in the debate over the distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva have not asked the most relevant question Why has the Hindu clergy the custodian of Hinduism not spoken out against the blurring of the divide between the political ideology of Hindutva and the religion of Hindus Clues for answering this question can be gathered from Dhirendra K Jharsquos Ascetic Games Sadhus Akharas and the Making of the Hindu Vote a 2019 publicationJha dates the blurring to 1964 when the Vishva Hindu Parishad was formed to take Hindutva to ordinary Hindus More significantly in 1982 the then Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Balasaheb Deoras provided religious preachers to the VHP an RSS affiliate A 100 of them were over time initiated as monks of various akharasmdashthe militant wings of Hindu monasteries They assiduously fused Hindutva with HinduismIt is a conundrum whether these 100 RSS volunteers experienced a spiritual awakening or they were infiltrated into the Hindu monastic order The timeline ldquomight be suggestive of the fact that at least a section of these RSS convertsrdquo became sanyasis with the ldquoclear objective of mustering support from within the Hindu monastic orderrdquo for Hindutva and the Ram Janmabhoomi movement writes Jha who interviewed some of themTheir activities bear out Jha Yatindra Nath Sharma worked as RSS pracharak or full time volunteer between 1980 and 1994 before becoming a monk with the name of Yatindranand Giri In June 2021 Yatindranand demanded panIndia anticonversion and population laws and a review of the Constitution His disciple Prabodhanand Giri runs Hindu Raksha Senamdasha militia groupAkhileshwaranand Giri was an RSS volunteer who had participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement Now a prominent renunciant of the Juna akhara he in 2016 headed Madhya Pradeshrsquos Cow Protection Board A former swayamsevak Avdheshanand Giri is now the abbot of the Juna akhara It is him Prime Minister Narendra Modi requested to organise a symbolic Kumbh Mela this year It is also Avdheshanand who condemned as disinformation the view that the Kumbh turned the second wave of COVID19 brutalMonks spoke to Jha of how the RSSVHP manoeuvres to install their supporters as heads of akharas which are 13 in number and sideline their critics in the Hindu ascetic order Pretenders have been encouraged to challenge shankaracharyas unwilling to play ball Genealogies have been fabricated to multiply both peethas or religious seats and shankaracharyasThe VHP plays this game because of the ambiguity over the number of peethas the 8th Century philosophersaint Adi Shankara established There is consensus over the four peethas he foundedmdashJyotish peetha BadrinathKedarnath Sringeri peetha Chikmagalur Govardhan peetha Jagannath Puri and Dwarka peetha DwarkaKeen to legitimise his peetha in Kanchipuram shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati provided one of the two vehicles in which VHP leaders toured south India to mobilise people against the conversion of Dalits to Islam in Meenakshipuram in 1982 A year later Jayendra personally participated in such a yatra He presided over the VHPrsquos dharma sansad or religious parliament in 1989 which demanded a Ram Temple in Ayodhya He withdrew from the forefront in later years his reputation was tarnished after he was arrestedmdashand later exoneratedmdashin a murder caseThe VHP subsequently claimed that Varanasirsquos Sumeru peetha was the fifth one established by Shankara Its shankaracharya Narendranand is on record asking Hindu couples to produce 10 children and for declaring the cow as the mother of the nationmdashand supporting Modirsquos demonetisation policy as wellIn 2004 the Varanasibased Kashi Vidvat Parishad anointed Dayanand Pandey as shankaracharya of the Sharada Sarvagya peetha which was dubiously claimed to be in Pakistanadministered Kashmir Pandey was an accusedmdashlater exoneratedmdashin the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast caseIn the Sanghrsquos crosshairs is Swaroopanand Saraswati who became the shankaracharya of the Dwarka peetha in 1973 and that of the Jyotish peetha in 1982 Vasudevanand Saraswati who has been presiding over the VHPrsquos dharma sansad since 1991 claimed he was the Dwarka peetharsquos head The Allahabad High Court in 2017 asked select Hindu bodies to elect Dwarkarsquos shankaracharya Swaroopanand won the reelection which has also been judicially challengedA more audacious attempt to supplant Swaroopanand was of Achyutanand Tirth who got anointed as the Jyotish peetharsquos head in 2017 His usurpation was vetoed by Shaiva monks who were then reeling under the scandal involving the bestowing of spiritual titles on the pretentious in return for money He relinquished the title of shankaracharya in 2018 To Jha he expressed his ldquounflinching loyaltyrdquo to ModiCut to 1915 the year in which Mahatma Gandhi attended Haridwarrsquos Kumbh Mela Six years later Gandhi disclosed ldquoOn the last day in Haridwar I spent the whole night thinking what I could do so that sadhushellipwould be real sadhusrdquo The Hindu clergy was vehemently opposed to Gandhirsquos social reforms Their opposition failed because as the late philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi told me Gandhi was a ldquosaint not a priestrdquo Gandhirsquos moral power overwhelmed the monksToday there ainrsquot saints in politics and saints among monks seem too petrified to speak out against Hindutva The HinduismHindutva debate cannot have an echo without talking about the dark side of the politicisation of the Hindu clergyThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper