Capitalism and Hinduism

Abstract

Hindu and capitalist formations have developed in conjunction with one another on the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Yet these subjects are not often studied together or by the same scholars. What follows is a set of works that provide a broad entrée to the subject when read together and across one another. These sources are organized roughly chronologically, beginning with treatments of the economic context into which European trading companies and eventually the British Crown integrated their practices of exchange and exercise of power in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. This includes scholarship demonstrating that economic practices conducive to capitalism—or even some aspects of capitalism itself—were prevalent prior to European imperial presence in India, leading to the dominance of particular caste communities in the new economic and social configurations brought first by European trading companies in the 17th century, and then British Crown rule in 1858. It also includes treatments of how the colonial state legislated markets such that Hindus altered the way they framed their theologies, practices, and identities. While focusing predominantly on the Indian context, there are some works treating the effects of compelled migrations of Hindus to the Caribbean, Fiji, South Africa, and East Africa in the 19th century in a system of indentured servitude initiated to stem labor shortages after the abolition of slavery in Britain. Scholarship spanning the long 20th century examines ways that Hindu ideas and practices were part of the framing of the Indian nation and provided the moral foundation of constructions of the socialist and isolationist state when India gained independence in 1947. There is a significant body of literature on transformations of Hindu forms coinciding with the economic changes from the 1980s onward. While scholars are careful not to mark this as a sharp break from capitalist configurations predating it, there was a marked shift in Indian political economy and Hindu cultures when the nation began to adopt economic reforms more friendly to global markets. This happened slowly in the 1980s as elites—upper-caste Hindus in particular—became frustrated with India’s economic stagnation and policies designed to accommodate non-Hindu and lower caste groups. It then occurred more rapidly in 1991 when the nation sought an International Monetary Fund loan, and was then subject to a Structural Adjustment Program that forced it to adopt deregulation, liberalization, and privatization policies. Scholarship demonstrates that as economic relations turned outward once more, and as Hindus have continued to migrate for economic opportunities across the globe, Hindu practices have become at once more cosmopolitan and more chauvinistic. New deities are called upon and new religious sites and communities are formed in order to treat the anxieties that accompany decreased economic security. Simultaneously, a renewed national pride revives colonial tropes of an inherently spiritual India, lending strength to Hindu nationalist movements. The world over, that spirituality is read as free and freeing—separate from restrictive forms of religion—and Hindu forms deemed “spiritual” from yoga to breath work are employed in self-help and wellness programs by Hindus and non-Hindus alike. They are also oftentimes repackaged and commodified, made to serve the aims of increased worker productivity and profit.