Book Reviews 301

Ainslie T . Embree, Utopias in Conflict . Religion and Nationalism in Modern

India, (serial : Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) . Berkeley and
L .A ., University of California Press, 1990, pp xiv + 144, US . $7 .95, ISBN 0 520
06866 1 .

Although based on six different essays the present work by the eminent U .S . American
historian of modern India consistently argues that the Indian version of secularism
inherently clashes with the different utopian yet historically effective `visions of the
good social and political order' of India's major religious traditions . Not only Muslims
and Sikhs, the Hindus, too, pursuing each a utopia of their own, are guided by their
distinctive `images of how the world ought to be' .
With the rise of modern politics since the end of the nineteenth century nationalist
leaders have demanded representative political institutions . The idea of nation under-
lying their thought and action has been fraught with ambiguity . Is the nation basically
an aggregate of individuals and hence to be shaped by the majorities of such, or is it to
be conceived of as a society composed of groups defined in religious categories, with
their own agendas for good society legitimized and sacralized by religion?
The impartial observer witnesses a clash of various utopian visions, Hindu, Muslim,
Sikh and also, among elites, of a secular society based on the liberal democratic
tradition . The process of industrialization and all that accompanies it and follows from
it will only sharpen conflict and tensions . Muslim and other minorities now, through
the workings of representative government, have become a potential political power .
The chief recent controversies between the Muslims and the `majority' show India
marked by a basic confusion between the concept of religious freedom, one of the most
cherished rights that has emerged in the long struggle of the individual against the
state, and the concept of group rights . The underlying argument here is `that the nation
is an aggregate of groups, not of individuals' . The rights of a group have also been a
dominant factor in the behaviour of the so-called Sikh extremists in the 1980s aptly
analysed in the final chapter of the work .
Embree highlights the fact that in modern India among the Hindus there are
increasingly groups that speak for the amorphous phenomenon referred to as the
`Hindu backlash' against religious minorities . The support for these groups comes
largely from the Hindu urban middle class and thus reflects the aspiration to see a clear
identification of Hinduism with the nation . A Hindu understanding of the nature and
function of religion appears to have become an essential element in Indian nationalist
ideology .
The conventional mechanism of democracy appears unable to satisfy demands that
claim to be rooted in religion . Hence, `violence is the possible and rational solution' .
Violence is legitimized . The author justifiably concludes on the sombre note that a
conflict of utopias may well be the characteristic not only of India but of the
contemporary scene at large . However, he could have balanced this outlook by
pointing to those elements within the various religious groups that advocate, on the
basis of resources within their respective tradition, a universal vision holding together
the distinct groups in reconciled tension .

CHRISTIAN W . TROLL
CSIC, Selly Oak Colleges, U.K.