But at the time of EVR’s visit to Germany, the nudist movement had the support of the Nazis for racist reasons. (See for example: ‘Naked Nazis: Book Reveals Extent of Third Reich Body Worship’, Spiegel, 16-Jun-2011) Incidentally, EVR’s magazine had published a pro-Nazi editorial asking the Brahmins to learn from the fate of Jews in Germany. It will not be surprising if the Sheldon Pollock School of Indology starts talking about the “deep Jain” roots to Nazi body culture.



A commendable move by Haryana govt

In Haryana’s case, the BJP has done well to bring an Indic minority religious leader, whose religion does not believe in a “God”, to lecture the assembly. Earlier, the BJP government took a commendable step to modernise the highly patriarchal caste-ridden Haryana society by raising the state cash reward for inter-caste marriage from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1,00,000. The media silence that followed this bold move was deafening. The same old media initially smelled blood when it saw a naked seer addressing the legislative assembly in Haryana. They thought they had found a chance to label the BJP as “obscurantist” and “anti-secular.” However, much to the shock of the old media, the media environment has been democratised. In the decentralised and democratic media milieu, the retaliation came quick, and it snowballed so much so that a person close to power centres of AAP had to quit politics due to his offensive statement against the naked seer. What the old media, in their rootless ignorance, considered as an offensive visual image became the symbol of an India that shows it can break free of the Victorian moral stranglehold.



Here one needs to look at MF Husain’s much debated “nude” pictures of Hindu Divinity. The real offence is not in nudity itself. It was in making nudity a means of negative portrayal, as has been explained by Indologist Dr Koenraad Elst. Of course, there can be no denying the fact that Victorian morality was also part of at least some of the protests against the painter. And that is the reason why the Haryana legislative assembly event becomes even more important.

By making the nude seer speak at the Legislative Assembly, the BJP has given a strong statement that Victorian colonial values cannot rule over our psyche. This is an open-call to make the inherent strength of vibrant pluralism in Indian society to come to fore in modern times. The journey perhaps has just begun. Time has come for Hindus to say that nudity is no offence and that their body veneration culture is more democratic and humane than that of the West. The pot belly of Ganesha is as beautiful and adorable as the six-packs of warrior Gods, and the hag-like women Divinities are as beautiful as the hour-glass shaped Goddesses. But would that not make the Wendy Donigers of the world jobless?