Haldane, Caste And Hinduism: A Closer Look

Can a person combine an uncompromising search for both the fundamental truth underlying all existence and for making the society a more humanistic one with lesser suffering than the present?

Where would such a search lead a person?

If one has been living in the 1940s, the answer would have been obviously, Marxism.

Marxism has the promise of both answers - answering the fundamental mystery of existence through dialectical materialism and providing a solution for human suffering through the dictatorship of the proletariat which would finally usher humanity into an utopia where the state would wither away. And it places itself in the tradition of Christianity and Islam as 'the only truth'.

Where did that quest lead such a personality?

I - JBS Haldane - 'a potential Muslim not a potential Hindu'

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964), British-born Indian scientist, led a colourful life, ever-adventurous of the cerebral kind. An evolutionary biologist, physiologist, biochemist and statistician, he was a polymath. He was one of the architects of modern evolutionary theory.

In 1917, Haldane came to India. He was barely 25. His views were typically that of a British colonial, military man.

The above is a typical colonial assessment of Hinduism and not different from that of a Winston Churchill or a Beverley Nichols.

Essentializing Hinduism with caste, they admired the 'egalitarian' Islam. Churchill was at one point ready to embrace Islam or so, thought his near ones. Haldane's biographer Ronald Clark remarks similarly that Haldane 'was a potential Muslim, not a potential Hindu.' (p.50)

II- From 'a Party-Scientist' to 'Party or Science?'

In 1930s, Haldane started getting attracted to Marxism. During this period, in a rather condescending way, he was looking at the deeper philosophical aspects of Hinduism.

Though he himself could not 'see the cogency of that view' it still provided 'a fairly satisfactory emotional substitute for Theism.' He could easily see the similarity between this and the Hindu 'Brahman' but cautioned that such a philosophical religion could still worship various Gods.

He was also confusing Brahma the Puranic creator with Brahman the principle. ('The Inequality of Man and Other Essays', 1932:38, pp. 184-5)

Though in an accelerated fall towards Marxism, he admired Gandhian Satyagraha. The official Party line (both Communist Party of Great Britain and that of Soviet Union) was that salt Satyagraha was actually 'calculated to help the triumph of colonial power in India.'

In 1942, Haldane officially joined the Communist Party.

Then came the Lysenko crisis.

Under Stalin's patronage, Lysenko, a plant-breeder castigated genetics as Bourgeois science. Ideological commissars agreed. Information started leaking that the geneticists were persecuted in Stalin's USSR. Geneticists were arrested, asked to recant or jailed, tortured and executed.

Haldane was torn between his commitment to party and science. Within party circles he argued against what was happening in the USSR to the geneticists. Outside, including in an infamous BBC debate, he half-heartedly tried to justify what was happening in the USSR.

Haldane thought Vavilov had actually been freed and died working in Arctic and stated so in a BBC debate. Haldane even went to the extent of calling the brilliant scientist Vavilov as a 'plant-breeder'. Yet, the Party was not pleased with his half-hearted defence.

Finally he had to break with the party and denounce the USSR. By this time the Soviet Union had gone to the extent of characterizing genetics as Bourgeois science and even denying the existence of genes. Teaching genetics was banned.

Yet another problem surfaced. Reports of atomic espionage by politically influenced or financially favoured scientists were coming out in the West. Haldane himself was coming under increased scrutiny of British intelligence. Also questions were raised in political circles as to why a Communist scientist like Haldane had access to important researches.

Haldane could neither go to the USSR nor live a life of freedom in England.

Meanwhile he had started admiring Indian culture more and more. He was also observing keenly the developments happening in Indian society. Here are a few glimpses into the evolutionary trajectory of of his views.

Even a few years before migrating to India he believed in the historical validity of Marxism. But he was increasingly understanding the dynamic nature of Hindu Dharma.

Still categorizing Advaita as 'absolute idealism' as opposed to scientific materialism though, he considered the latter to be true:

One should note here how Haldane, within a span of two years, had gone from the possibility of Hinduism succumbing to Marxism, to criticizing the narrow worldview of 'Naturalism' which he thought his scientist friends, including those from India, had. Even his admiration for Nehru was partly because the Prime Minister practiced Yoga and mainly because he was a rationalist. This admiration would later diminish.

He seemed to have realised clearly that the principles for longevity of the civilisation lay elsewhere, and not in social stratification. With an extraordinary insight he pondered over the question of discovering these elements—- including what he called Mokshadharma— in non-human animal life

Haldane had his own misgivings about Jan Sangh as a religious orthodox party. Yet it was the Jan Sangh ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya who took forward the format put forth by Haldane.

Upadhyaya's 'Integral Humanism', while mostly ignoring jaati-varna, concentrated on Purusharthas.

He still held some inaccurate views. For example he said that Gandhi was assassinated because he opposed caste and his assassin was a 'traditionalist' though Godse had been an anti-caste activist.

Despite Haldane's 'sneaking sympathy for Brahmins' he also held a non-negative view, but not an acceptance, of 'Mr. Naicker's movement' in southern India.

But his earlier view on caste system had changed. He saw the 'caste system' as more dynamic. Surely it was discriminatory. He compared it with similar elements in British society:

With much enthusiasm he joined Indian Institute of Science.

The scientist whom Haldane mentioned was Bernhard Rensch (1900-1990). An evolutionary biologist, he started with belief in transmission of acquired characters driving evolution. Soon he was convinced of Darwinian selection and like Haldane was one of the chief architects of 'the modern synthesis' - between genetics and natural selection.

Into the 1960s, Haldane was increasingly disillusioned with the way Nehruvian State had lovely words for science but little to show for them. It combined the inefficient elements of both British and Soviet systems to become their worst caricature.

Nehru initially considered Haldane a prized catch. He even politely answered a few of his letters. Later, he ignored them.

Indian statistician Mahalanobis was originally Haldane's good friend, instrumental in bringing him to the Statistical Institute. Haldane's own inability to fit into institutions also was a factor in move away from the IIS.

Alarmed at a new caste system that Nehruvian State was creating, he compared it with the old system and wrote:

Dr. Krishna Dronamraju (1937-2020) was a brilliant geneticist. When J.B.S. Haldane came to India in 1957 he wrote to him and joined him as a PhD student. Then he became his colleague in research and was closely associated with Haldane till the latter's death in 1964.

Benefitting from his close association with Haldane the book naturally focussed on his life in India. The book Haldane: The Life and Work of J.B.S.Haldane with Special Reference to India (Aberdeen University Press, 1985) was reviewed by another scientist, a bio-chemist and virologist, N.W.Pirie in Nature magazine.

The view of both Haldane and his wife Helen Spurway with regard to evolution and Hinduism is given in another article. From his 1917 prudish aversion for the worship of so-called 'reproductive organs' by which he meant Shiv Linga, to his near religious rapture before the Shiv Linga at Kashi, the change had been phenomenal.