The Eiffel Tower Incident and the Imperial Gaze: Why the West Still Seeks to Define Hinduism

The Spark of Controversy

A seemingly isolated incident in Paris has ignited a global conversation far beyond its immediate circumstances. Earlier this month, during a visit by monks of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) to the Eiffel Tower, female staff were reportedly replaced by male colleagues. This logistical accommodation, stemming from the monks’ strict vow of non-contact with women, became a flashpoint. In the ensuing debate, a familiar, tired question resurfaced in public discourse: Is BAPS, or groups like it, even Hindu? This query, often posed with a tone of anthropological curiosity or outright skepticism, reveals a deep-seated Western discomfort with the very nature of Hindu identity. It is a discomfort rooted in a colonial past and sustained by a neo-imperial present that insists the Global South must conform to imported frameworks of understanding.

The Core of the Debate: Construction vs. Continuity

The article meticulously lays out the two primary scholarly arguments surrounding the definition of Hinduism. On one side is the “constructionist” argument, championed by certain academics, which posits that Hinduism as a single, world religion is a 19th-century invention of British colonial administrators. Faced with the subcontinent’s bewildering (to them) diversity of beliefs and practices, the British census machinery sought to categorize the native population. Those who were not Muslim, Christian, Sikh, or Jain were lumped into the catch-all category of “Hindu.” This administrative act, the argument goes, created a unified religious identity where none existed before. Proponents like scholar Andrew Nicholson, as cited in the article, note that a motivation here is to “weaken Hindu communalism” by dismantling narratives of medieval Hindu unity.

On the other side stands the “continuity” argument. This perspective, supported by historical and philosophical evidence, argues that a self-conception of Hindu identity crystallized long before the British set foot in India. The article provides crucial evidence: the use of terms like Arya (noble, follower of Vedic tradition) contrasted with Mleccha (foreigner/barbarian) in ancient texts; the clear Hindu-Muslim distinction articulated in the vernacular poetry of figures like Kabir and Eknath during medieval times; and the political self-identification of rulers from the Vijayanagara Empire to Chhatrapati Shivaji, who established a “Hindawi” state. Philosophically, the article highlights the synthesis achieved by thinkers like the 16th-century philosopher Vijnanabhiksu, who worked to harmonize the six orthodox (astika) schools of thought—schools that, despite metaphysical differences, shared a foundation in the authority of the Vedas and core concepts like atman (soul), samsara (rebirth), and moksha (liberation). The Indian Supreme Court’s 1966 definition of Hinduism, referenced in the article, is built precisely on this philosophical unity.

Deconstructing the Colonial Construct Narrative

Let us be unequivocal: the argument that Hinduism is a colonial construct is not merely an academic thesis; it is a political weapon. It is a soft-power tool in the arsenal of neo-colonial thought, designed to achieve what hard power sometimes cannot: the severing of a people from their civilizational roots. By claiming that a unified Hindu identity is a British invention, this narrative seeks to invalidate the very foundation of Hindu cultural and political resurgence. It tells the Hindu civilization, “Your sense of self is an illusion, a gift from your masters.” This is intellectual imperialism of the highest order.

This narrative conveniently serves multiple masters. For left-wing intellectuals in the West and their echo chambers in India, it provides a scholarly-sounding reason to dismiss Hindutva or any form of Hindu civilizational assertion as “invented tradition” and thus illegitimate. For apologists of medieval Islamic conquests, it attempts to erase the recorded history of a civilizational struggle by claiming there was no coherent “Hindu” side to begin with—only a fragmented collection of sects. It is the perfect covering fire for those who wish to deny the historical experiences of a civilization.

Furthermore, this argument is steeped in breathtaking Western hypocrisy. Christianity, with its thousands of denominations, from Catholics to Baptists to Mormons—groups that have literally gone to war over doctrinal differences—is never subjected to the same scrutiny. Its unity under a common scriptural tradition (despite vastly different interpretations) is taken for granted. Islam, despite its major Sunni-Shia schism and numerous jurisprudential schools, is universally recognized as a single religion. Yet, Hinduism’s philosophical diversity, its embrace of multiple paths (margas) to the divine, is framed as a deficiency, a lack of coherence that requires external explanation. The Westphalian model of nation-states demands similarly neat, bounded, and creedal religions. Hinduism, a product of a civilizational-state mindset, refuses to fit into this box. The imperial response is not to question the box, but to insist the civilization is wrong.

Affirming Civilizational Sovereignty

The Eiffel Tower incident is a microcosm. It represents the ongoing collision between a holistic, dharma-based worldview and a reductionist, categorization-obsessed Western gaze. The question “Are they Hindu?” is itself a colonized question. It accepts the premise that an external, often hostile, framework has the authority to grant or deny membership in our own tradition.

The evidence for Hindu self-conception is overwhelming and predates colonialism by centuries. The synthesis of philosophy, the cultural self-identification against foreign mlecchas and Turushkas, the political project of Hindu rulers—all point to an organic, evolving unity. The British census did not create Hinduism; it attempted to graft its own rigid taxonomy onto a living, complex organism. The fact that they felt the need to create a category for “Hindu” proves that they encountered a phenomenon they recognized as distinct from Islam and Christianity. They gave it a name they understood, but they did not create the reality it described.

For nations like India and China, understanding the world through the lens of civilization, not just post-colonial nation-states, is vital. Our histories are millennia deep, our philosophies are sophisticated systems for understanding existence, and our identities are layered tapestries. The West’s chronic need to define, label, and thereby control the ontological reality of others is a relic of its imperial past. The resilience of the “colonial construct” theory shows this past is not past at all.

It is time to decisively reject this imperial gaze. The definition of Hinduism resides in the uninterrupted chant of the Vedas, in the philosophical debates of the darshanas, in the devotional poetry of the bhaktas, in the self-understanding of kings and commoners who for millennia knew who they were and who the “other” was. It resides in the living tradition that seamlessly includes the Swaminarayan sect, rooted in Vedanta, seeking moksha through Krishna. No Parisian controversy, no British census report, and no weaponized academic theory can define the soul of a civilization. That sovereignty belongs to us, and us alone. The continued attempt to deny it is not scholarship; it is the last gasp of a colonial mindset unwilling to confront a rising, self-aware Global South.