By
Randeep
Wadehra
As India enters its sixty-seventh
year of independence it confronts several conundrums and challenges. The most
persistent and intractable have been corruption, poverty and, largely,
illiteracy. However, thanks to the recent polarization trend, courtesy the Modi
factor, a new challenge confronts us all, viz., our identity as Indians. For
the first time in independent India’s history, secular credentials are
confronted with an intimidating challenge in the persona of Narendra Damodardas
Modi. For far too long we have been complacent about our national identity. We
had taken the Gandhian-Nehruvian legacy of secularism for granted,
notwithstanding the scores of communal riots that annually pockmark the
nation’s fair face (only a few of these attract the national media’s attention;
most others are dismissed as local incidents with no national level
implications). Since the constitution guarantees equality and freedom for all, and
since it treats all religions as equals on the principle of vasudha aiv
kutumbakam (the earth is our family) and since there are stringent laws
aimed at protecting the weak and the vulnerable, we had become unworried about
the ground realities. Our leaders have been proudly pointing out as to how in a
Hindu majority country the Hindu Right wing can never come to power on its own.
All this is true. In fact, for more than four decades after independence, the
Bharatiya Jan Sangh and its later avatar the Bharatiya Janata Party were
repeatedly rejected by an overwhelming majority of voters. However, today, the
dynamic of Indian polity is undergoing a transformation that raises several
questions vis-à-vis its emerging profile, impelling us to revisit the concept
of nationalism.
Our secular philosophy and
pluralistic approach to nation building process was a vital offshoot of the
struggle for independence. Just look at the mindboggling vertical and
horizontal stratifications of the subcontinent. No one specific stratum could
have won freedom on its own from the British. It needed a concerted effort from
the entire populace across the subcontinent. No matter what assorted detractors
might say, it was the Indian National Congress – mentored by Gandhiji – that took
up the challenge of uniting the disparate groups and subgroups, no matter what
their size or situation was. This, in turn, created a political culture that
was at once pluralistic and cohesive; let us not forget that no other country
has hosted such diversity in political ideologies as India does. Differences
and clashes of ideas were prevailed upon through consensus – a culture that
endures until today.
After the independence, it is
fascinating to observe the process of national integration that continued
inexorably to overwhelm various fissiparous elements. The language issue, which
created the north-south divide, died with the passage of time as the common
citizen – the entity most under-estimated for its reservoir of commonsense –
decided to focus on existentially far more important issues. Today, you hardly
hear such bigoted exhortations like “If you are Indian then speak in Hindi” and
the violent reaction from southern states. Gradually, this sort of language-based
jingoism became irrelevant to the larger national discourse of development.
Now, people demand education, employment, healthcare, housing, roads, electricity
and every other such positive that will improve the quality of their lives,
although attempts are being made to resurrect discredited nationalistic
shibboleths.
Indian nationalism, albeit
inspired by various western ideas and movements, remains essentially different
from the western version. Nationalism’s European template emerged through
historical processes wherein the nation-state came to be regarded as paramount
for the realization of social, economic, and cultural aspirations of a people.
Like Europe, in India too, people’s loyalty used to be to the king and his
dynasty rather than the country. But there nationalism was the result of the
disintegration of the European continent’s cultural unity. Conversely, in
India, the process involved integration of diverse sub-cultural streams into a viable
whole. Europe’s feudalism based social order was replaced with a more
egalitarian one, whereas we had to contend with both feudalism and colonialism.
Moreover, the protestant movement in Christianity led to reconfiguration of
national identities in Europe. In fact, the French Revolution brought about a
seismic change in the very concept of nationalism. It replaced the loyalty to
the king with loyalty to the geographically defined fatherland or motherland.
With the obliteration of regional divisions, France became a uniform and united
national territory with common laws and institutions. Further, the revolutions
of 1848 in central Europe generated new consciousness towards national
identity. This was underscored with the unification of German and Italian
nation-states. Similarly, Poles, Czechs and Hungarians as well as the Christian
peoples, living in the Balkan Peninsula under the rule of the Turkish sultan,
woke up to this new concept that largely shaped nationalist aspirations of
various peoples that led to the formation of nation-states independent of the
empires. This process strengthened with the advent of World War I, when a
number of new nation-states arose in central and eastern Europe. The war had another
unexpected fallout, viz., the rise of nationalism in Asia and Africa. Japan was
the first Far Eastern country to become a modern nation. In the 1920s the
Turks, under their national leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, defeated the western
allies and modernized Turkey on nationalist lines. In India, it was the
indigenous version of secularism – that instead of rejecting religion preferred
to give all religions equal status, that too constitutionally – which defined
the country’s nationalism.
Even as Europe was reshaping into
modern nation-states, Mahatma Gandhi profoundly motivated the Indian people’s
aspirations for national independence. However, unlike Turkey, and smaller
European nations with homogenous populations, India had to contend with a far
more daunting challenge that involved uniting diverse regional, linguistic and
ethnic groups. But our leaders had one powerful factor working for them: the
invisible but powerful cultural thread that united these groups. The process of
consolidating the nation was reflected in the way the Indian National Congress
evolved during the struggle for independence. The party became a platform for
disparate ideologies, and represented different regions, religions as well as
diverse socio-economic groupings. This plurality was reflected in the letter
and spirit of free India’s constitution. Alas, today attempts are being made to
overlay this wonderfully vibrant template with a potentially oppressive
supremacist philosophy. India is a democracy that can do without age-old
antipathies and antagonisms that have no relevance to the aspirations of
today’s youth. Let us remain unique with our concept of unity in diversity that
works despite attempts by bigots and mischief-makers.
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