Liberalism and the Politics of Religion: Shuddhi Debates of the 1920s

As conventionally understood, the Shuddhi Movement of the 1920s brought together Arya Samaj and Hindu Nationalist leaders in an expanded campaign of conversion; by working to make the Muslim Malkana Rajputs of north India into Hindus, it embittered Hindu-Muslim relations and divided the nationalist movement. Mohandas Gandhi’s condemnation of the shuddhi practices of the Arya Samaj as intolerant religious proselytizing is therefore hailed as a victory of Indian secularism over sectarian politics and communal hatred.  By documenting that members of the lowest castes – those deemed “untouchable” – continued to pursue shuddhi as an important component of their initiatives against caste inequality well into this decade, this paper points to two limits of conventional analyses: their focus on the intentions of caste Hindus within the Arya Samaj; and their focus on the problem of religious conflict. 

Because social hierarchy in colonial India was structured in part by forms of Vedic performance, the Arya Samaj pursuit of universal access to the Vedas through shuddhi was embedded in the ritual-politics of caste assertion and anti-caste radicalism.  Pointing to the spectrum of caste politics that shuddhi could be made to serve, this paper brings to the fore voices inside and outside Arya Samaj circles that spoke of shuddhi in the register of untouchability.  It demonstrates that one political achievement of the Gandhian response was to describe shuddhi exclusively in terms of religion, in effect deflecting attention from the place of shuddhi in the struggle for caste justice.  The paper suggests that, no less than developments in the politics of representation of the 1930s, the intersection of the ritual-politics of caste with the liberal norms of religious right and religious civility during the 1920s underscores the inextricable connection between caste and secularism in colonial India.