Dharma: The Categorial Imperative

The anthology Dharma: The Categorial Imperative1 consists of a brief introduction and 18 essays which were presented in an international conference of the same title in 1997, with the purpose to provide an alternative interpretation of the concept ‘dharma’ while taking into view the influence of Western notion of religion and treating it as an epistemological (i.e., devoid of transcendence), and not as a moral, concept. Here, dharma has been understood as a category, as an intellectual exercise, for ‘viewing’ Indian reality.The fundamental question is this: what constitutes the concept of dharma in the context of our changing forms of life? I.e.,What aspects of dharma upon which Western influence are to be noted? Some aspects of the constitutive elements of dharma, as identified by the contributors of the anthology, are as follows: secularism, nationalism, modernity, and feminism.To begin with, Makrand Paranjape’s essay ‘Secularism vs. Hindu Nationalism: Integrating the Terms of the Debate’ holds that religious fundamentalism cannot be fought with theWestern notion of secularism because such a notion lacks any genuine native support. Paranjape uses the notion of sarvadharmasamabhava (equality of all religions) of Gandhi as a tool to combat Hindutva: ‘Hindutva can be defeated only when a genuine secularism works to support a genuine Hinduism’ (p. 273). But questions remain unanswered, such as why do most of the so-called secular political parties of India do not practice it, and rather, look for creating a hiatus between the concerns of population majority and minority? And why is it necessary to resist the Hindutva ideology of the population majority?Srinivas Rao’s essay ‘Philosophy, Religion, and Secularism’ has hit upon this issue of continuous disintegration of the Indian society which is basically caused by Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution which gives protection to minorities to preserve their culture and religion. Such a continuous protection has not let the minorities mingle with the mainstream of India as, on the one hand, minorities do not overlook any chance to make hue and cry about the state’s apparent infringement upon their constitutional rights, and on the other, it is the staple diet of majority fundamentalism to challenge such rights of the minorities, as the majority seem to have developed a (justifiable) feeling of their having been treated as second grade citizens that is mainly due to favours afforded to theminorities via vote-bank-politics by some political parties. As there is no end to this bickering within the Indian social fabric, Rao rightly puts: ‘the situation is hotting up as days are rolling by…’ (p. 47). For Rao, the basic cause of this state of affairs is ‘the politicization of religion’ (p. 47) which often forces him to think that ‘a fate similar to that of the Soviets might be waiting for the Indians round the corner’ (p. 22). In contrast to the above precarious aspect of ‘dharma’ in contemporary India, the glittering hope of unity comes from the language front in Prithipaul’s concept of cultural mimicry’ (p. 279) through which he points out the usage of English words in the native tongue as a catalyst to both nationalistic as well as universalistic outlook.A considerable impact of modernity and modern ways of living on the classical notion of dharma is also visible. On this issue, whereas R.S. Bhatnagar tries to arrive at his equalization between dharma and religion, on the basis of his generalization that the notion of dharma in Hindus, Jainas, Bauddhas, and Sikhs have different denotations, i.e. there are differences in their rites, rituals, festivals, etc., Godabarisha Misra shows that ‘Hinduism has an innate dynamism which gives enough scope for adopting modernism and the changing needs of modernity’ (p. 73). For Misra, the source of this dynamism of Hindu dharma is its ‘constant interaction with different modes of thinking’ as well as its method of ‘questioning.’ But Misra leaves unanswered the question of conflict between approaches of modern living and classical texts, a question which to some extent, Saranindranath Tagore prefers to reformulate as he holds that ‘Indian and European conceptions of modernity are not identical formulations’ (p. 130).This distinction between the text and context again appears in one of the two feminist essays of the anthology, i.e. ‘Stri Dharma: Wife’s Duties’ of Annapurna Devi Pandey. It distinguishes between wife as pativrata (devoted to husband) as described in Indian ethos and wife as a modern liberated soul as found in the West. Annapurna interprets the former as a subordinate to man whereas the latter as the one who treats her husband as a friend and understands her familial, professional, and personal needs. The latter ‘represent resistance to the age-old subordination of women to their men folks. They reconstruct their stri dharma (wife’s duties) in the changing socio-cultural context based on sharing, compassion and mutual commitment rather than holding a subordinate relationship to their spouse’ (p. 420). It may be argued here that the pativrata conception does not take away a female’s freedom of will in such a way that it could lose its own shine. In contrast to Annapurna, Ashima Khasnabish’s feminist essay points out the ‘problems of the East’ (423) and ‘problems of the West’ (432) and holds that the West ignores women theoretically but the East does so practically (432). She mentions Upanishads, Kamasutra and Manusmriti as different contexts, in which each has a different social attitude in the treatment of women. Unfortunately, Khasnabish commits the blunder of falsely identifying Sankhya’s conceptions of purusha (soul) as male, and prakrti (matter) as female. Dharma has been traditionally viewed as consisting of those mandatory duties and behaviors which lead to abhyudaya (worldly happiness) as well as nihshreyasa (liberation/emancipation). However, the anthology emphasizes on the epistemological, but not on the moral, appraisal of the applications of the dharma and tries to glean an alternative description of Indian socio-political and religious realities. The alternative interpretation, which the anthology claims to have achieved, has lostmuch of its relevance in recent years; therefore, it is time for another review of ever evolving and elusive contexts of dharma. (K.C. Pandey, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014, Published online: 13 November 2014)1The choice of using ‘the categorial imperative’ over the standard ‘the categorical imperative’ has not been supported with reason in the anthology, notwithstanding its mentioning of Kant.