Ram Swarup

Ram Swarup (Hindi: राम स्वरूप ; (1920-10-12)12 October 1920 – (1998-12-26)26 December 1998), born Ram Swarup Agarwal, was an Indian author and one of the most important thought leaders of the Hindu revivalist movement.[1]

Ram Swarup
Born(1920-10-12)12 October 1920
Sonipat, Haryana,India
Died26 December 1998(1998-12-26) (aged 77)
Occupation
  • Historian
  • Writer
  • publisher
Alma materUniversity of Delhi
PeriodLate 20th century
GenreHistory, Politics, Comparative Religion
SubjectHinduism, Dharmic traditions, British Imperialism

Life

Ram Swarup was born in 1920 to a banker father in Sonipat, now a part of the state of Haryana in the Garg gotra of the merchant Agrawal caste. He graduated with a degree in economics from Delhi University in 1941. He started the Changer's Club in 1944, members of which included Lakshmi Chand Jain, Raj Krishna, Girilal Jain and Sita Ram Goel. In 1948–49, he worked for Mahatma Gandhi's disciple Mira Behn (Madeleine Slade).[2]

Swarup wrote a book on the Communist party that was published under an assumed name. In 1949, he founded the Society for the Defence of Freedom in Asia. The Society published books, reviewed in the West, that criticised both the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet-mouthpiece Izvestia as well as Pravda, another mouthpiece for that same foreign power's Communist Party.[3] The Society for the Defence of Freedom in Asia ceased operations in 1955. His early book Gandhism and Communism from around this time had some influence among American policymakers and members of Congress.[4] Swarup also wrote for mainstream Indian weeklies and dailies, like the Telegraph, The Times of India, Indian Express, Observer of Business and Politics, Hindustan Times and Hinduism Today.

In 1982, Swarup founded the Hindutva publishing house Voice of India,[5] which has published works by Harsh Narain, A. K. Chatterjee, K.S. Lal, Koenraad Elst, Rajendra Singh, Sant R.S. Nirala and Shrikant Talageri, among others.[6]

Views

Hinduism

Ram Swarup upheld the polytheistic interpretation of the Vedas by rejecting the concept of one God,[7] and states that, "only some form of polytheism alone can do justice to this variety and richness."[8]

Swarup was influenced by Sri Aurobindo, whom he held to be the greatest exponent of the Vedic vision in our times.[9]

Ram Swarup was "most responsible for reviving and re-popularizing" the Hindu 'critique' of Christian missionary practices in the 1980s, according to Chad Bauman. He insisted that monotheistic religions like Christianity "nurtured among their adherents a lack of respect for other religions".[10] In the 1980s, he and Goel were involved in a "vigorous debate" with the Christian Ashram movement represented by Bede Griffiths.[11] Swarup has been named one of the most important thought leaders of the Hindu revivalist movement.[1]

European paganism

Swarup also had an interest in European Neopaganism, and corresponded with Prudence Jones (chairperson of Pagan Federation) and the Pagan author Guðrún Kristín Magnúsdóttir.[12] Under the influence of Ram Swarup, other Hindu revivalists also took an interest in European paganism.[13]

Christopher Gérard (editor of Antaios, Society for Polytheistic Studies) said: "Ram Swarup was the perfect link between Hindu Renaissance and renascent Paganism in the West and elsewhere."[14]

Swarup has also advocated a "Pagan renaissance" in Europe, saying

Europe became sick because it tore apart from its own heritage, it had to deny its very roots. If Europe is to be healed spiritually, it must recover its spiritual past—at least, it should not hold it in such dishonor...

He argued that the European Pagans "should compile a directory of Pagan temples destroyed, Pagan groves and sacred spots desecrated. European Pagans should also revive some of these sites as their places of pilgrimage."[15]

Bibliography
  • Indictment, Changer's Club
  • Mahatma Gandhi and His Assassin, 1948. Changer's Club
  • Let us Fight the Communist Menace (1949)
  • Russian Imperialism: How to Stop It (1950);
  • Communism and Peasantry: Implications of Collectivist Agriculture for Asian Countries (1950,1954)
  • Gandhism and Communism (1954)
  • Foundations of Maoism (1956). with a foreword by Kodandera M. Cariappa
  • Gandhian Economics (1977)
  • The Hindu View of Education (1971) Online (PDF)
  • The Word as Revelation: Names of Gods (1980), (1982, revised 1992) Online
  • Understanding Islam through Hadis (1983 in the US by Arvind Ghosh, Houston; Indian reprint by Voice of India, 1984); The Hindi translation was banned in 1990, and the English original was banned in 1991 in India. Online , other source
  • Buddhism vis-à-vis Hinduism (1958, revised 1984).
  • Hinduism vis-à-vis Christianity and Islam (1982, revised 1992)
  • Woman in Islam (1994);
  • Hindu View of Christianity and Islam (1993, contains also as an appendix Swarup's foreword to D. S. Margoliouth's Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (1985, original in 1905) and to William Muir's The Life of Mahomet (1992, original in 1894) Online
  • Ramakrishna Mission: Search for a New Identity (1986) Online
  • Cultural Alienation and Some Problems Hinduism Faces (1987)
  • Hindu-Sikh Relationship (1985) Online (PDF)
  • Hindu-Buddhist Rejoinder to Pope John-Paul II on Eastern Religions and Yoga (1995)
  • Hinduism and monotheistic religions. (2015). ISBN 9788185990842
  • On Hinduism: Reviews and reflections. New Delhi: Voice of India. Online ISBN 9788185990620 (2000).
Writings as a contributor
Writings in other languages
  • Hindu Dharma, Isaiat aur Islam (1985, Hindi: "Hindu Dharma, Christianity and Islam");
  • Foi et intolérance: Un regard hindou sur le christianisme et l'Islam (2000). Paris: Le Labyrinthe.

References
  1. Adelheid Herrmann-Pfandt: Hindutva zwischen „Dekolonisierung“ und Nationalismus. Zur westlichen Mitwirkung an der Entwicklung neuen hinduistischen Selbstbewußtseins in Indien In: Manfred Hutter (Hrsg.): Religionswissenschaft im Kontext der Asienwissenschaften. 99 Jahre religionswissenschaftliche Lehre und Forschung in Bonn. Lit, Münster 2009, S. 233–248. p. 240
  2. VOI (24 September 2016). "Ram Swarup: Outline of a biography – Koenraad Elst". Voice of India. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
  3. Sita Ram Goel Genesis and Growth of Nehruism (1993)
  4. "Ram Swarup A Fearless Intellectual by V. Sundaram". boloji.com. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
  5. "Letter by Goel to Hinduism Today, July 1998. Letters". Hinduism Today. 1 July 1998. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  6. Goel, Sita Ram, "How I became a Hindu", Chapter 9
  7. Goel, Sita Ram (1987). Defence of Hindu Society. New Delhi, India: Voice of India. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2011. "In the Vedic approach, there is no single God. This is bad enough. But the Hindus do not have even a supreme God, a fuhrer-God who presides over a multiplicity of Gods." – Ram Swarup
  8. Goel, Sita Ram (1987). Defence of Hindu Society. New Delhi, India: Voice of India. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 23 August 2011.
  9. Goel:How I became a Hindu. ch.8
  10. Pentecostals, Proselytization, and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India by Chad M. Bauman, Oxford University Press, 2015
  11. Theology in the Public Sphere Sebastian C. H. Kim
  12. Koenraad Elst. Who is a Hindu, 2001
  13. Adelheid Herrmann-Pfandt: Hindutva zwischen „Dekolonisierung“ und Nationalismus. Zur westlichen Mitwirkung an der Entwicklung neuen hinduistischen Selbstbewußtseins in Indien In: Manfred Hutter (Hrsg.): Religionswissenschaft im Kontext der Asienwissenschaften. 99 Jahre religionswissenschaftliche Lehre und Forschung in Bonn. Lit, Münster 2009, S. 233–248.
  14. "The Voice of India". Hinduism Today. 1 April 1999. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  15. Hinduism Today. July 1999. Antaios 1996 (Interview with Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel)"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 30 October 2006. Retrieved 7 January 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

Further reading
  • Adelheid Herrmann-Pfandt: Hindutva zwischen „Dekolonisierung“ und Nationalismus. Zur westlichen Mitwirkung an der Entwicklung neuen hinduistischen Selbstbewußtseins in Indien In: Manfred Hutter (Hrsg.): Religionswissenschaft im Kontext der Asienwissenschaften. 99 Jahre religionswissenschaftliche Lehre und Forschung in Bonn. Lit, Münster 2009, S. 233–248.
  • Review by Jiri Kolaja. Communism and Peasantry. by Ram Swarup. The American Journal of Sociology > Vol. 61, No. 6 (May, 1956), pp. 642–643
  • Review by G. L. Arnold, Communism and Peasantry: Implications of Collectivist Agriculture for Asian Countries by Ram Swarup, The British Journal of Sociology > Vol. 6, No. 4 (Dec., 1955), pp. 384–385
  • Review by Maurice Meisner, Foundations of Maoism by Ram Swarup The China Quarterly > No. 33 (Jan., 1968), pp. 127–130
  • Review by Geoffrey Shillinglaw, Foundations of Maoism. by Ram Swarup, International Affairs > Vol. 43, No. 4 (Oct., 1967), pp. 798–799
  • POPE JOHN PAUL II ON EASTERN RELIGIONS AND YOGA : A HINDU- BUDDHIST REJOINDER by Ram Swarup, Review by: Mangala R. Chinchore Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 77, No. 1/4 (1996), pp. 336–337
  • R Swarup, A Critique of India's Foreign Policy, published in Mother India, 21 February 1951.
  • R Swarup,Plea for a Fourth Force, published in The Statesman of 18 November 1951.
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