India’s ‘Favourite Dhun’

Rushdie’s novel re-writes the nationalism of India far from being pluralistic in nature. Critiquing the all India inclusion narrative through both the feminist ‘Bharat – Mata’ ideology as well as the religious diversity when he allows for Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Portuguese and the British to function in the historical re-creation of India. In doing so, first, he re-defines the religious outlook of nationalist India as being strictly mono-religious, in that, remarkably Hindu at its roots making Mother India problematic.  From the pursuance of the Indian savior Gandhi who promoted his favourite dhun:

Raghpati Raghava Raja Ram

Patitha pavana Sita Ram

Ishwara Allah tera naam,

Sabko Sanmati de Bhagwaan

Making Gandhi’s religious tolerance seem false, he says, “I had seen India’s beauty in that crowd with its Soda water and cucumber but with that God stuff, I got scared. In the city we are for secular India, in the village we are for Ram. And they say Ishwar and Allah is your name, but they don’t mean it – They mean Ram… In the end, I’m afraid the villagers will march on the cities and people like us will have to lock our doors and there will come a Battering Ram’. Religious fanaticism is described first through the un-apologetic, loud, fear- instilling Ram and Sita mythology which Rushdie believes conquered secularism out of the sub continent. In the first passage of Chapter 7, he brings up the “Chinese tiles that promote godless views: Pushy ladies, skirts-not-saris, Spanish shenanigans, Moorish crowns… Can this really be India? Bharat – Mata, Hindustan- Hamara, is this the place?” What does it mean to be part of the multi-cultural India? Rushdie raises questions about the multiplicity of Indian identities in ‘The Moor’s Last Sigh’ and finds the whole history and ideology of an inclusive India problematic. Rushdie includes poetry, chants, Urdu-Hindi versions of the English language to show the fear of religious extremism contrasting it to the safety pledge granted to Vasco as he says ‘ Don’t worry about me, I’m Portuguese’.