ABSTRACT
The notion of “militant Hinduism” might seem to the casual observer a bizarre contradiction. After all, Hinduism – as Western observers have portrayed it – has a reputation for tolerance. It is often associated in popular writings with a religious perspective that endorses paci sm. For example, in the year 2000 a group of the most in uential American scholars of Hinduism signed an impassioned public petition decrying the fact that India had test-detonated three atomic explosives at Pokhran in northwest India. They deplored the fact that the government used Hindu religious terms and imagery to portray the nuclear tests. But the imagery was not exclusively Hindu: the tests were deliberately scheduled to coincide with the Buddha’s birthday. The scholars’ petition read, in part:
We … protest the use of religious imagery to sanctify the use of nuclear weapons in India. … Hindus have used their tradition of non-violence to brilliant political effect … The present use of Hindu imagery to valorize weapons designed only for mass destruction of human life is a travesty of such a tradition of peace. The use of such terms as “Agni” [god of re], “Pthv ” [goddess of the earth], and “Shakti Peeth” [powerful location from which divine goddess energy emanates] to describe the Indian nuclear arsenal is a betrayal of what the Hindu tradition has contributed to the building of world peace.1
