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Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective. By

Sharada Sugirtharajah. Routledge, 2003. 164 pages.
$35.95

Article  in  Journal of the American Academy of Religion · July 2006

DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfj109

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 Book Reviews 801

Hauerwas: Theological Conditions for Justifying Inter-Abrahamic Study” Ochs

offers “a theological justification” for the kind of inter-Abrahamic studies
encouraged by Radical Traditions—a book series for Jewish–Christian–Muslim
conversation conceived and coedited by Hauerwas. With reference to the story
of Abraham, Ochs identifies justifying conditions and shows that Hauerwas has
already met them.
For essays engaging Hauerwas on the suggested themes, this collection is
excellent. “Friendship” and church–world relations are prominent themes in
excellent essays. “Imagination” is another well-developed important theme. Because
modern liberalism comes in “conservative” and “liberal” versions, Hauerwas’s
arguments against modern liberalism are easily wrongly taken to favor a “con-
servative” version. “Imagination” helps with avoiding such easy mistakes.
For essays engaging Hauerwas on themes distinguishing With the Grain of
the Universe from Hauerwas’s previous work, work Hauerwas calls “my casu-
istry” (10), this collection should be surpassed. To conceive that “the Universe”
has moral grain is to engage cosmology and metaphysics, including metaphysics
of morals. Yet, this collection offers only one such engagement—Burrell’s no
free Creator, no [creaturely] freedom. Without “Universe” as a prominent
theme, With the Grain of the Universe is not sufficiently engaged.
Nevertheless, as the editors intended, this festschrift celebrates and displays
the “joyful, frustrating, and transformative” character of friendly engagements
with Hauerwas’s work and person (7).
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj108 Theodore Walker Jr.
Advance Access publication July 12, 2006 Southern Methodist University

Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective. By Sharada Sugirtharajah.

Routledge, 2003. 164 pages. $35.95

This book is the first of its kind to bring post-colonial perspectives into a
study of Hinduism. Consequently, there are no conventional reference points
for the author to use to build her narrative. She has to figure out how to use the
conceptual apparatus of the one to study the other. In this sense, although the
book is experimental in its nature, there is nothing hesitant or tentative about
some of the conclusions she draws. How successful is the author in bringing the
two, the study of Hinduism and a post-colonial perspective, together? If some-
one is influenced by post-colonial thought, the judgment will have to be in the
positive. However, having never been enamored by this genre of thinking, I find
her framework both limiting and damaging to the study of Hinduism. Before I
identify some of my problems, a few words about the book are necessary.
Each chapter conveniently divides into two recognizable parts: one part where
the author tells her narrative and the other in which she explains in a transparent
way the basic concepts she uses in the course of that chapter. Admirably free of jar-
gon, which is definitely not one of the virtues of post-colonial writings, the author
802 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

succinctly explains the meaning and use of some of the crucial concepts of this
genre of thinking and writing in one part of each chapter. In the other, she plots
the trajectories pursued by of some of the colonial writers on Hinduism.
To the students of Hinduism, the figures talked about are relatively familiar:
William Jones, Max Müller, William Ward and John Farquhar. Each is given a
full chapter and the discussion of their ideas is rich and nuanced but, ultimately,
unsatisfactory. In the last chapter, she takes up one of the aspects that agitate all
those who study Hinduism: the practice of sati, the practice of burning widows
on the funeral pyres of their husbands.
In the introduction, the author lays out her project and her ambition: “This
volume aims to show how Hinduism came to be tailored to fit the varied herme-
neutical and ideological positions of both western and Indian interpreters, all of
whom, on their own terms, tried to homogenize a loosely knit tradition, and
invest it with a tight structure, thereby making it static; fixed and palatable” (ix,
italics mine). This theme is the leitmotiv: homogenization of a tradition which
makes it static. In the case of each of the authors she treats, she tries to demon-
strate the tropes and the strategies they use to achieve this goal without, how-
ever, really appreciating the cognitive significance of the question that is never
far away from her consciousness: Why did they want to try and homogenize a
tradition? In the case of Jones, a “part of his motive” lay in the “needs of the
colonial government” (22), but here, it is not a complete explanation (23). In the
case of Max Müller, a speculative psychology provides the answer: “his own
romantic quest for the lost origins of the European culture” (73). To William
Ward, a Christian missionary, his evangelical longings provide the answer: he
“essentializes, dramatizes and manipulates” (89) his description of Hinduism to
show the “superiority” of Protestant Christianity. Farquhar, despite his desire
for an “empathetic understanding” of Hinduism, merely wants to show that
Christianity is the fulfillment of Hinduism.
There are two ways of looking at these explanations. One is to draw atten-
tion to the varied set of “motives.” However, in doing so, one is merely trying to
hide the fact of indulging in some very bad arm-chair psychologising. There is
no way on earth that one could demonstrate or “prove” the individual psycho-
logical motives on the basis of their writings, whether they are books or personal
letters. Even if one can provide some plausibility to such a speculation, what, if
any, is the relation between a theory and the psychological motive of an author?
Unless this question can be satisfactorily answered, the answers are totally ad
hoc. And that is the second way of looking at such explanations: they are ad hoc
and do not further the cause of knowledge. One could as well say that the trav-
eler’s diarrhea inflicted Jones, which is why he could never forgive the natives.
Why would this speculation be any less acceptable than the “administrative
needs” of the British East India Company?
In fact, there are two major challenges facing any study such as this one: one
set of challenges arises from the subject matter; the other set has its origins in the
limitations of post-colonial thought. Let me begin with the last.
The first and the most obvious problem is about the usefulness of a post-
colonial perspective. What precisely is the theoretical gain of using such a per-
 Book Reviews 803

spective? Apart from simply stating that “knowledge is bound to power” or that
one uses the trope of a “child” to describe the Indian civilization to show the
“superiority” of the western culture and civilization, there are no other cognitive
advantages. The disadvantages, by contrast, are many. Each claim from a post-
colonial perspective generates so many questions that cry out for an answer that
it is simply amazing to see them done away with some cliché from the arsenal.
Consider just a random selection of questions that a few of the chapters raise. It
is indeed a fact that the British were very keen to discover the original legal texts
from the Indian traditions and codify them. But why were they so keen to do so? It
could not be because of their “administrative needs.” The Islamic colonial rule
was in place for centuries before that, and these rulers did not codify legal texts
for their “administrative needs.” Why, then, could the British not follow the
Mogul example? Or again, the Protestant evangelical need to show the “superiority”
of Protestant Christianity was nowhere equal to the Muslim belief in the superi-
ority of Islam or the latter’s drive to convert the Kaffirs. Why, then, did the West
do what the Muslims never did, namely try and understand Hinduism by “imag-
inatively constructing” it?
Consider a different kind of question that emerges from the last chapter: the
need to defend or attack the practice of burning the widows on the funeral pyres
of their husbands by referring to the scriptural sanction for this practice. If we
follow the details of this debate in colonial India, there is one staggering fact that
cries out for an explanation. The British did not ban this practice straightaway,
whatever their denominational affiliations, but sought instead to find out
whether the Indian scriptures sanctified it. I know of no single instance of any
British official condoning it; without exception, they considered it inhuman and
barbaric. Nevertheless, they first wanted to know what the Indian scriptures said
of this practice. Why? Why did they not ban it straightaway? Surely, these ques-
tions cannot be answered by table thumping and hand waving in the direction of
“colonial exigencies.”
If anything, because Sharada Sugirtharajah does not raise or answer these
questions, she runs the risk of simplifying some of her criticisms to such an
extent that they end up becoming ridiculous. Let me take an example. One of
her criticisms which is also the standard diet in post-colonial thinking is the leit-
motiv of the book. There is no one homogenized “Hinduism” but merely multi-
ple, “loosely knit Hinduisms.” One does not need any philosophical
sophistication to realize that this standard criticism is completely untenable.
There is nothing logically, linguistically, or even philosophically wrong in using
“Hinduism” in the singular even where the word refers to a multiplicity and
plurality of phenomena. On the contrary, such use is absolutely essential. As
homo Sapiens, we belong to a single species. However, by indicating that we
belong to a single species, there is no suggestion anywhere that this species is
either “monolithic” or that there is no “diversity.” To speak of “Hinduisms” in
the plural, and to deny its singular use, is an expression of philosophical, logical,
and linguistic illiteracy; it does not express any conceptual sophistication. The
very possibility of “Hinduisms” making sense depends on the guarantee that
“Hinduism” makes sense.
804 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Concomitant to this post-colonial stance, a huge explanatory problem

comes into existence. Why did generations of writers from the West fail to
appreciate the multiplicity and complexity of Hinduism, if they indeed failed in
appreciating this fact so evident to every post-colonial writer? I am aware of the
answers that float around, including the many ego-flattering ones. The problem
with them is their ad hoc nature: they merely pick up some or another random
difference between the past and the present (lack of information, “wrong” philo-
sophical presupposition, colonialism, etc) and simply postulate or allege a
“causal” relationship. To appreciate the absurdity of such “explanations” con-
sider another random collection of such differences. The earlier generations
failed in appreciating the depth and complexity of “Hinduism” because: (a)
Bush was not the president of the United States; (b) the X-Files had not yet been
screened; (c) this reviewer was not yet born; (d) the European Union did not
have 25 member states . . . . Why does one random collection “explain” and not
the other?
I consider this question the biggest challenge and a litmus test to any and all
studies into the history of Hinduism. If one is inclined to say that the earlier gen-
erations failed, the onus is on the claimant to come up with a reasoned “explana-
tion” of such a failure without appealing to ad hoc arguments. Pointing at
imperialism and colonialism and what have you is no answer unless one is able
to show what the relationship is between the one and the other. Here, the track
record of post-colonial thought has been abysmal so far. If the author of this
book was not blinded by this genre of thinking, she would have seen it as well.
The second problem that faces any and all attempts like this book is the rela-
tionship between the Christian theology and the study of Hinduism. Increas-
ingly, it is becoming accepted that the former has shaped the latter. But this
insight merely increases the complexity of the task: those who criticize the earlier
generations of thinkers in their failure and lay this failure at the doorstep of their
Christian understanding need to exhibit a superior mastery in the field of Chris-
tian theological discussions as well. It is not sufficient anymore to merely note
that Max Müller was “influenced” by Protestant thinking. One has to show (a)
not merely how and in what sense such an influence can be traced in his writings
but also (b) more importantly what is wrong with that influence. What is wrong
with the influence exerted by the Protestant theology? To simply wave one’s
hands vaguely in the direction of “ideological” influence is to say and show
nothing. The stakes merely go up: What indeed is wrong with ideological influ-
ences in the study of religion? Is one contrasting “science” with “ideology”? In
which case, how does a “scientific” study of Hinduism look like?
Although one cannot blame the author for not raising or answering these
questions in this slim volume, I would have liked to know whether she is cogni-
zant of these issues. Nothing in the book suggests that she is; by the same token,
nothing in the book suggests that she is not. I hope she takes up these issues in
her future research.
Quite apart from these challenges, the nature of the subject matter raises
other kinds of problems as well. The most obvious lacuna lies in the selection of
the authors when the book is about “Imagining Hinduism.” Quite apart from
 Book Reviews 805

the fact that these authors are well-known figures in the British study of Hindu-
ism, there is nothing else that brings them together in the confines of a single
volume. It is almost as though these authors, all on their own, came up with the
constructions they did come up with. The rest of Europe simply plays no role in
the narrative that Sharada Sugirtharajah pens. Of course, there are explanations
for this oversight; the most obvious one, perhaps, is the author’s lack of mastery
in other European languages. However, this has been the bane of most Anglo-
Saxon writings on this subject. The foundations, the frameworks, and even most
of the content for these authors were prepared in Continental Europe first; it was
in continental Europe that the work of the Asiatic Society resonated first before
it moved people in the British Isles. Even the schism in Christianity took place in
continental Europe first. If one is unable to bring the absolutely vital contribu-
tions of the continental Europeans into the picture, our understanding of the
“imaginative construction of Hinduism” will not merely be poor; it will also be
distorted and one-sided. It will be distorted because one of the hobbyhorses, the
“exigencies of the British colonial rule” which is the “favorite” song of the post-
colonials, used to explain the construction of Hinduism will bite dust. It will be
one-sided because we will have no understanding why these earlier generations
of scholars claimed what they did claim.
Correlated to the above problem is the absence of context. This is a kind of
history writing that ends up denying intelligibility to its subject matter. We have
some big names, intellectual giants of their time no doubt, floating in an intellec-
tual vacuum. They appear to have no precedents, either in the commonsense
ideas that floated around in their time or in the debates of their age. Conse-
quently, both the questions confronting these authors and the answers they pro-
vide become unintelligible. Instead of a history of ideas that is supposed to help
us understand the nature and status of the study of Hinduism, the narrative itself
becomes an opaque puzzle. What were the intellectual and cognitive problems
faced by the earlier generations of writers? Where did these problems emerge
from? Not answering these questions is to take away the crucial instrument we
need to evaluate the adequacy of their answers.
By embracing the post-colonial perspective, I think Sharada Sugirtharajah
has done a great disservice to herself. Despite being eminently readable and
thoroughly enjoyable, the book is beset with problems inherited from her fasci-
nation for post-colonial thinking. However, despite this deficiency, I consider
this book an indispensable companion to any classroom teaching of Hinduism.
It goes further than the many textbooks on Hinduism I know, and it provides a
much needed correction to their representation of Hinduism. It would have
been a very good contribution to a study of Hinduism, if the author did not
force some avoidable problems on the book. She will do better by getting off the
bandwagon of post-colonial thinking and focusing on what she seems to be
good at: provide a rich and balanced reading of the original texts and contribute
meaningfully to the much needed debate on the nature and structure of Hinduism.
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj109 S. N. Balagangadhara
Advance Access publication July 7, 2006 Ghent University

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