~ By Ram Madhav

We are living in a world which is increasingly turning democratic. Since the end of the Cold War, an unprecedented number of countries have chosen democracy as their preferred form of government.

It is a matter of pride that in our immediate neighbourhood two new democracies have taken birth in the last one decade. Royal Kingdom of Bhutan has turned into Democratic Republic of Bhutan in 2008 with the active support of the Prince himself who has taken upon himself the new role of constitutional monarch.

Last year the much awaited eventuality has finally happened in Myanmar.

After five decades of military rule, the opposition, Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), won a landslide victory in elections that most observers declared free and relatively fair. More than 80 percent of registered voters cast their vote which is more than 32 million people. Myanmar’s democracy has taken birth. This achievement is significant because it was preceded by a peaceful struggle of five decades.

Yet it is also a fact – rather a saddening one – that some 2.6 bn people – more than one-third of the world’s population – still live under authoritarian and non-democratic regimes. It is even more saddening because a good number of those authoritarian regimes exist in our region. They pose the first major challenge to democracy.

Democracy is a result of people’s constant endeavour for liberty and fight against tyranny in whatever form. “Liberty led to democracy and not the other way around”, says Fareed Zakaria in his book ‘The Future of Freedom’.

When India secured independence after a long struggle for liberty it opted for democracy as the form of government. Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India’s freedom struggle, justified the decision saying:“Democracy was something that would give the weak the same chance as the strong”.

Democracy no doubt has many positives. A study of Albright Foundation concludes that:

• Democratic states are less likely to breed terrorists or to be state sponsors of terrorism
• Democratic states are less likely to go to war with one another or to create or tolerate humanitarian crises that produce refugee flows and demands for international action
• Democratic states are also more likely to be active participants in the global economy

But as someone commented ‘democracy is the second best available form of governance’. It is not completely flawless. Then what is the best one? Yet to be invented.

Democracy is at one level the rule by the majority; at another level it is rule of law. Singapore has been ruled by the People’s Action Party since independence, and under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew between 1959 and 1990. Singapore model is described as a “consencracy“.

Mankind’s urge for more liberty and more freedom continues. It poses major challenges to democracies all over the world. Democracy brings in absolute political equality through One Man – One Vote system. But will it suffice? What about social and economic inequalities. One of the founding figures of India’s Constitution Dr. B.R. Ambedkar warned in 1950: “On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which is Assembly has to laboriously built up.”

Historically this urge for more liberty has led to evolution of democracy into a better form of governance. But the urge continues. The second challenge thus is to manage that urge for more liberty – social, economic – in a manner that would lead to better democracy. If we fail in that it will result in anarchy.

In this context the biggest threat comes from the Left-Liberal discourse. The danger of this group hijacking the liberty discourse and leading it in the direction of destruction of democratic institutions and values is not imaginary; it is real. We in India witness it on a daily basis.

Left-Liberal discourse is essentially anarchist. Yet they camouflage their agenda in a language that is deceptive. In leading the communists to power Mao incorporated the word ‘democracy’ into party-speak to gain popular support. But what Mao actually meant in 1949 became clear when he declared that China would be ruled by a ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’. Mao’s was one of the bloodiest dictators in the world.

Liberalism and freedom are the slogans that are being used today to destroy existing democratic and state institutions. The poor and the socially disadvantaged sections are becoming the tools in this destructive agenda. Democracies become mobocracies in the process.

The Conservatives sometimes tend to swing their pendulum too much in the direction of free markets and capitalism. Fighting poverty, inequality and discrimination should also be the priority of the Conservatives. That is the second major challenge for democracies.

Columnist and author Fareed Zakaria coined the phrase – ‘Liberal Constitutionalism’ to find a meeting ground between liberty and freedom on one side and democracy and constitutionalism on the other. It is important in the interest of protecting our democratic values and institutions to be more open and accommodative to the urgings of greater liberty and freedom.

Democracies face an inherent challenge of authoritarianism by virtue of being politics based on numerical superiority. The urge to get greater numbers in order to have greater control over the government is natural. But we should strive for a government system that is less pervasive and non-intrusive. Eminent Indian political thinker and philosopher Kautilya had warned in his treatise Arthashastra against laws and punishments which are excessive as these make the king lose popular support.

In India Prime Minister Modi follows the dictum ‘Minimum Government – Maximum Governance’. In the last 24 months the Indian government has repealed more than 1100 laws that have become archaic and obsolete.

Of late, demographics is posing a new challenge to democracies. This problem is not new in our region. India has a major illegal migrant population from neighboring Bangladesh. But the present situation in Europe is making the larger world understand the challenges posed by such migrations. They effect demographics of the region leading to affecting socio-economic indicators adversely. Migrants and their refusal to integrate with the local cultural and democratic institutions and ethos pose a major challenge to democracies.

Terrorism – religious or otherwise – too is a challenge that many countries in the region face today. It is no longer any local problem. No country can claim immunity from it; nor can any community. India has been a victim of terror for last several decades. Romanticising terror using cliches like ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ is the danger the open democratic societies face. This line of argument positions violence and terror as an alternative to democracy and constitutionalism. We need to ruthlessly curb this menace unitedly.

Democracies face certain internal challenges too, like Dynastic Politics, Communal Politics, Caste and class based Politics etc.

Maintaining democracy, even for countries with long-standing democratic traditions, requires education, sustained vigilance, and active support of the masses. An Israeli philosopher had described democracy as an arrangement in which ‘Institutions don’t humiliate individuals and individuals don’t humiliate each other’.

Together we must move in that direction for our democracies to flourish.

[The article is the gist of author’s address at the International Democratic Union executive in Colombo on 25^th February, 2016. It appeared in India Foundation Journal, January-April 2016 issue.]

~ By Ram Madhav Varanasi

Prime Minister Modi spoke about corruption-free India in this year’s Independence Day address. He compared it with termites in our homes that require action at multiple levels. We have to give many injections at many places, he said. He was probably suggesting that besides government, people too have to play a role in uprooting corruption in our country.

His address last year from the ramparts of the Red Fort became famous for the call given for a Clean India – Swachh Bharat. It elicited tremendous response from all sections of the society with politicians, filmstars and corporate hunchos too hitting the streets with brooms in hand, joined by common people in large numbers.

As the Prime Minister pointed out, children of the country picked up the message of Clean India in a big way thus making it a movement of the present as well as the future. From Clean India – Swachh Bharat – to Cleanse India of Corruption, the Modi government’s journey of transforming India into a developed nation is continuing. We need to wait and see whether this endeavour to end corruption in the country too will receive a similar enthusiastic support from the people as did the Clean India campaign.

The Prime Minister himself acknowledges that it would be a difficult challenge. He narrated how pressure was mounted on him for relaxing the auction norms for FM Radio services. His lament was that in the last six decades, corruption has almost become a way of life in our country.

That people are frustrated by this was evident from the rousing response to his suggestion of doing away with the interview business for government jobs at lower levels. As he rightly pointed out, this interview business has literally become a den of corruption. Fighting corruption can’t be the responsibility of the government alone. While governments are expected to eradicate corruption from the top, the society is expected to impart values at the bottom. While we should have a system in place to punish the corrupt, we need also to have systems that create incorruptible people. That is when a comprehensive and decisive victory over corruption is possible.

The Prime Minister’s other focus was on uplifting the poor and downtrodden of our country. His government has taken a number of initiatives like Jan Dhan Yojana, pension and insurance schemes and gas subsidy etc aimed at improving the living conditions of the poor.

The Prime Minister has a unique way of doing these things. It is inclusive. Reference to Team India of 1.2 billion people is not mere lip service. It is his way of achieving things. He is probably the first Prime Minister who has involved people in a big way in achieving the goals of the government. Democracies are described as ‘By the people, for the people and of the people’. PM Modi puts this dictum into practice very ably.

The new initiative of Start Up India and Stand Up India too will follow the same pattern. It is aimed at encouraging enterprenuership of the young. India is endowed with a large pool of talented youngmen and women. There is a need for encouraging them to take up enterprenureal activity. The Prime Minister has announced that more than one lakh branches of various banks would act as catalysts to promote enterpreneurship among the youth, especially SCs, STs and women. He exhorted bank officials to extend similar support to this initiative as they did for Jan Dhan Yojana.

The Prime Minister is surely following a well-defined course. He invoked Gandhiji’s name in a different context. But Gandhiji had actually set out an agenda for independent India on the last day of his life by way of a draft resolution.

In his last public document, drafted on 29 January 1948 and handed over to Congress officials on 30 January hours before his unfortunate and untimely death, Gandhiji had said: “India has still to attain social, moral and economic independence in terms of its seven hundred thousand villages as distinguished from its cities and towns”.

Thus, while we became “politically free” on Independence Day in 1947, securing economic, social and moral independence was still to be achieved, according to him. That in his view was the real meaning of independence. In his famous poem, “Where the mind is without fear”, Rabindranath Tagore too calls essentially for social and moral reform of the country. Tagore described freedom as a heaven where there is no fear; where knowledge and reason drive the people; where narrow domestic walls don’t divide them and where creative thinking and action, not dead habit lead the people.

We are going to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhiji in 2019 followed by the 75th anniversary of our independence in 2022.

The goal set by Gandhiji for social, moral and economic upliftment of our nation should be the driving force for all of us in the next few years. From the Red Fort’s ramparts, the Prime Minister has appealed to the countrymen to share this eloquent vision of our forefathers and turn it into a reality.

Ram Madhav Varanasi is the General Secretary of Bhartiya Janata Party and the Director of India Foundation. The views expressed are his own.

(Disclaimer : This article first appeared in the New Indian Express)

~ By Khandavalli Satya Deva Prasad

The refined aspect of Bharatiya society is Sanskriti. Its language is Sanskrit. Sanskrit and Sanskriti are almost synonymous. Such is the importance of Sanskrit language. The four hundred sixty pages book The Battle for Sanskrit by Sri Rajiv Malhotra, analyzes in detail the threat posed to Sanksrit and Sanskriti by the latest round of western intervention called American Orientalism represented by scholars like Sheldon Pollock. The earlier form of western intervention was European Orientalism of 19th century. The book gives the details of various canards created by the Pollock school in the garb of lofty sounding theories and concepts.

Malhotra draws the battle lines between the outsiders represented by the American Orientalists and their Indian chelas and the insiders represented by the traditional Sanskrit scholars. The prize of the battle is control over the discourse that decides the fate of Sanskrit. He urges the traditional scholars of Sanskrit , who, till now, kept themselves aloof from the world currents that affect the future perception about Sanskrit even in India, its birth place.

The book’s content is presented in a highly organized and purposive manner.

The first chapter begins with an account of the attempts to hijack Sanskrit and Sanskriti. The writer makes an impassioned appeal to the insiders to form a home team to rescue Sanskrit from the hijackers and reclaim its true legacy.

Then, some details about the hijacker camp are given. The writer says that there are important differences between the methods employed, output turned out and the effects achieved by the old and new Orientalist schools. The American Orientalists are a small but influential, left-leaning group of scholars deploying every trick in their bag to de-link the sacred aspects of Sanskrit literature and secularize it to suit their agenda. This grand project to secularize Sanskrit includes an attack on the transcendental or paramarthika element of Sanskrit lore, attacking ritual which is in the form of yajna, sidelining the vital oral tradition, rejecting the shastras which are knowledge systems, branding Sanskrit grammar as ‘toxic’, and condemning the Ramayana as socially oppressive. The Pollock school is in no mood to consider the significance of UNESCO’s declaration of Vedic chanting as world culture heritage and the crucial importance of oral version of Veda to Indian culture. The Pollock repeatedly appeals for the revival of Sanskrit while at the same time argues for the suppression of its vital features!

Through his ‘Deep Orientalism’, Pollock seeks to prove that Sanskrit had been an inspiration to oppression in India and elsewhere. He goes to extreme lengths to blame Sanskrit for the atrocities committed by Europeans in India, for Nazism, holocaust by the Germans and what not! He cites the Ramayana as the kavya that propagates Vedic social oppression. By purveying this falsehood, he indirectly admits the truth that ancient texts like Ramayana propagate Vedic teachings. It is also proposed that Ramayana was popularized since 11th century just to demonize the Muslims! Such are the scholarly knots into which the Pollockian scholarship ties itself. Biggest of such knots is the theory that the Valmiki Ramayana was written after the advent of Buddhism. In short, Ramayana is interpreted by the American Orientalists as atrocity literature and offered to the outsiders as an excuse to intervene in Indian politics.

Then there is the theory of aestheticization of power. Through this theory Pollock supplies the much needed intellectual ballast to the Indian Left to divide and weaken the society and boost its political power in the process-‘the Indian Left is clearly working with him closely to boost their own political power. His work on Sanskrit supports them ideologically’ (p.90).

Malhotra helps the traditional scholars to gain purchase on the issues involved by formulating the issues in traditional categories. It is useful for traditional scholars to study the threat posed by Pollock’s ilk to Bharatiya Sanskriti in general and Sanskrit in particular by placing him in Charvaka category. And Pollock meets most of the Charvaka requirements like his denial of Paramarthika (sacred) spirit of Sanskrit texts, his espousal of strictly materialistic view of the world, and, above all, his condemnation of Vedas and Yajnas and Pujas as magical buffoonery. After all, the ancient charvakas declared- ‘agnihotram trayo vedah tridandam bhasma gunthanam; buddhi pourusha hinanam jeeviketi brhaspatih’- (yajna, Vedas, staff of the renunciate, and smearing of ashes are the signs of brainless nincompoops donned for livelihood, so says Brahpathi). True to his charvaka proclivities, Pollock pastes the same old charges on Sanskrit and the Veda. The ancient darshanikas accepted Charvaka thought as an alluring but a system of thought harmful to the civilized society.

Chapter seven of the Battle for Sanskrit gives a summary of Pollock’s noxious formulations about Sanskrit and Sanskriti. Then Pollock attempts to pronounce Sanskrit as dead and non-existent. While doing so, studious silence is maintained on how the West plagiarized the Shastras and tried to kill Sanskrit as if to destroy the evidence of its culpability. The neo-orientalist repeats the old canard propagated by the erstwhile colonialist-missionary-indologist combine that there is no such thing as Indian Civilization and Indian nation ad nauseam.

The tenth chapter is devoted to dissect the Pollock phenomena. The writer tells us how Pollock gathered his clout with the academia, media, Indian entrepreneurs and the Indian public. In the next and the last chapter, a way forward is suggested to those who undertake the task to reverse the damage so far explained in detail.
There are five appendices that throw light on some of the topics dealt in the text.

As usual, like Rajiv Malhotra’s other books, this one also features its schematic diagrams that focus on the vital points, copious chapter notes and long, useful bibliography.

The book published by Harper Collins Publishers in the present year belongs to the genre that reverses the gaze on the forces that attack the Bharatiya Sanskriti and society. Included in this genre are the works by such stalwarts as Sri Aurobindo, Lala Lajpatrai, Sita Ram Goel, Arun Shourie, David Frawley, Koenraad Elst among others. The book is a must read for all those who love and cherish the continued existence of Bharatiya culture and Sanskrit, the language that embodies its soul.

(This book review is carried in India Foundation Journal, January-April 2016 issue)

~ By Swadesh Singh

Ambedkar stood with the most downtrodden and deprived sections of the Indian society; the sections which had no voice in public life. The social mobilization of these sections by Ambedkar helped in the national freedom movement. As the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, Ambedkar advocated a strong nation-state.

Introduction

Over thousands of years, human civilization organized itself first in the form of family, then as religion and today we are organized as nation-state. It makes you wonder which institution would the future generations be living in? I posed this question to a well-known social scientist during a discussion on globalization. He weighed several ideas but concluded that in the present context nation-state is still the most enduring institution and likely to be the organisational unit for the coming generations too.

Today we live within this institution of nation-state. Foremost of our thoughts and actions, it serves as a centre of gravity, obvious at some time and obscure at others. It is one of the most organised, well designed institutions which has an organic relationship with mankind and where universal ideas like freedom, equality and democracy have a good chance to flourish. Western thinkers like Gellner, Anderson and Hobsbawm dealt with the idea of nation, nationalism and nationhood which developed in the region over the last 400 years after the Treaty of Westfalia in 1648.

The Bhartiya concept of Rashtra could be considered a parallel to the western term ‘Nation’ but both are also different on several counts. The primary difference between the two stems from the fact that Rashtra is more of an ethic-spiritual concept while Nation is a cultural concept.(1)

Many Indian leaders like Sri Arvindo, Gandhi, Nehru, Tilak, Tagore and Deen Dayal Upadhyay delved into the idea of Indian nation and nationalism. Their

ideas are either spiritual, meta-physical or statist. In this article we will try to trace Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar’s ideas and reflections on Nationalism. He is the most celebrated Indian leader, thinker and social philosopher of the 21^st century who contributed in the 20^th century. Large-scale celebrations marking his 125^th birth anniversary were concluded recently. Observers felt that these celebrations were more wide-spread than those in his centenary year. One of the leading mainstream magazines termed him as the greatest leader of Modern India. Over the years, ideas of Ambedkar have become stronger and more relevant to the contemporary discourse.

Ambedkar and his Narrative of Freedom

At any given point of time, several parallel narratives can coexist. However, only one grand narrative at a time can push the discourse forward. Before the Indian Independence, the grand narrative was the freedom of India while several other narratives did exist. One such narrative was prescribed by the Congress party. It emphasized on freedom from the British colonisers. It can be said that this was the dominating narrative of the time. There were also other, though weaker or marginalized in comparison. One such narrative was that of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) which saw India as a glorious nation since time immemorial land targeted reconstruction of the Indian nation by strengthening its socio-cultural institutions. It wanted to arouse the national consciousness of every common Indian. The core belief in this case was that once the society becomes strong no one could enslave it.

Another narrative of the time was given by Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar. He talked about freedom of India from social inequality and untouchability. This could be understood as a subaltern narrative about the upliftment of downtrodden, deprived and marginalised sections of the society; the section that did not have any participation in public life of colonial India. Dr. Ambedkar became the voice of these 60 million deprived section known as Scheduled Castes (the term Dalit evolved later). Without emancipation of these deprived people, Indian freedom struggle was not deemed to be complete. The Indian national struggle in the first half of the century was not merely a struggle to wrest political power from foreign rule but also a struggle to lay the foundation of a modern India by purging the society of outmoded social institutions, beliefs and attitudes. Ambedkar’s struggle constituted a part of the internal struggle, one of the divergent and sometimes conflicting currents all of which helped to secure ‘freedom’ from external and internal oppression and enslavement.

Without Ambedkar’s opposition to mainstream nationalism, the process of internal consolidation of the nation would not have been carried out sufficiently enough to strengthen and broaden the social base of Indian nationalism.(2)

Ambedkar’s idea of Nationalism

Ambedkar elaborated on the idea of Nationality and Nationalism in his book Pakistan or the Partition of India. He describes nationality as a, “consciousness of kind, awareness of the existence of that tie of kinship” and nationalism as “the desire for a separate national existence for those who are bound by this tie of kinship.” It is true that there cannot be nationalism without the feeling of nationality. But, it is important to bear in mind that the converse is not always true. The feeling of nationality may be present and yet the feeling of nationalism may be quite absent. That is to say, nationality does not in all cases produce nationalism. For nationality to flame into nationalism two conditions must exist. First, there must arise the will to live as a nation. Nationalism is the dynamic expression of that desire. Secondly, there must be a territory which nationalism could occupy and make it a state, as well as a cultural home of the nation. Without such a territory, nationalism, to use Lord Acton’s phrase, would be a soul as it were wandering in search of a body in which to begin life over again and dies out finding none.(3)

Expanding Social Base of Nationalism

Ambedkar had immense faith in the bright future and evolution of this country. Even when he spoke of attaining freedom for India, his ultimate goal was to unite the people. He said, “So far as the ultimate goal is concerned, none of us have any apprehension or doubt. Our difficulty was not about the ultimate thing but how to unite the heterogeneous mass that we are today to take a decision in common and march in a cooperative way on that road, which is bound to lead us to unity.”(4)

Ambedkar clearly spoke in a felicitation program of his 55^th birth anniversary, “I have loyalty to our people inhabiting this country. I have also loyalty to this country. I have no doubt that you have the same. All of us want this country to be free. So far as I am concerned my conduct has been guided by the

consideration that we shall place no great difficulties in the way of this country achieving its freedom.”(5)

Ambedkar was not against the idea of nationalism but against the Congress’s version which entailed freedom of India from British colonialism but not from Brahminical imperialism under which millions of Scheduled Castes had been yoked for hundreds of years. It was Ambedkar’s political challenge which compelled the Congress to appreciate the national significance of the problem of castes and to adopt measures which significantly contributed towards broadening and strengthening the social base of Indian nationalism.

Ambedkar’s Challenge to ‘Congress Nationalism’

Indian nationalism in its initial stages, by the very nature of its historical development, was an upper class (upper castes) phenomenon, reflecting the interests and aspirations of its members. Naturally when nationalists spoke in terms of national interest they certainly meant their own (class) interests. The evocation of ‘nation’ was a necessary ritual to ensure the much needed popular support for an essentially partisan cause. This sectarian approach to nationalism could be seen in the writings of none other than Pt. Nehru who later singled out as an example of a ‘left liberal’ view. He writes in his seminal work Discovery of India that mixture of religion and philosophy, history and tradition, custom and social structure, which in its wide fold included almost every aspect of the life of India, and which might be called Brahminism or (to use a later word) Hinduism, became the symbol of nationalism. It was indeed a national religion.

The sectarian character of Indian nationalism persisted even after the nascent upper castes’ movement developed into a truly mass-supported anti-imperialist national liberation movement enlisting the support of millions of people cutting across the traditional social divisions. And, it is this failure to change its basically pro-upper class/castes orientation despite a basic shift in its underlying social base that Indian national movement in due course helped the rise of new sectarian socio-political currents, running parallel to the mainstream national movement. Ambedkar’s emergence on the Indian

political scene in 1920s, commencing the advent of Dalit (the scheduled castes) politics, was simply the manifestation of the same process.(6)

Ambedkar’s Dalit politics posed no really significant threat to the overall domination of the traditional ruling class, yet it certainly exposed the hollowness of the Congress’s nationalist claim to represent the whole nation. Finally, the unwillingness of the nationalist leadership to attack the long unresolved social contradictions at the base of the Hindu social order propelled people like Ambedkar to contest the claim of the Indian National Congress to represent the scheduled castes.(7)

It was in the backdrop of this escapist attitude of the Congress brand of nationalism that an alternative subaltern nationalism was born through Ambedkar. Ambedkar took up this question from social below and elevated it to a political high by linking this social question of caste with the political question of democracy and nationalism. Such an effort to prioritize society over polity and then linking them together was unprecedented in India before Ambedkar. Gandhi can be said to have made such an effort but his approach was obscure and primitive. According to Ambedkar,

“Without social union, political unity is difficult to be achieved. If achieved, it would be as precarious as a summer sapling, liable to be uprooted by the gust of a hostile wind. With mere political unity, India may be a State. But to be a State is not to be a nation and a State, which is not a nation, has small prospects of survival in the struggle for existence.”(8)

Ambedkar’s Faith in ‘Bharat’

Ambedkar had faith in ancient Indian institutions and texts except caste. He was convinced with the spiritual aspect of Indian texts and codes but not with its ritualistic aspects which had developed in last 1200 years. He talked about Annihilation of Caste not Dharma. He understood the importance of Dharma in India and when the time of conversion came as he had declared earlier, he chose Buddhism and not any other Abrahamic religion. He also had the option of declaring him as an Atheist but his rootedness in Indian ethos compelled him to choose Buddhism.

Dr Ambedkar pointed out that historic roots of democracy in India go back to pre-Buddhist India. A study of the Buddhist Bhikshu Sanghas discloses that the Sanghas were nothing but Parliaments and knew all the rules of Parliamentary procedure known to modern times. Although these rules of Parliamentary procedure were applied by the Buddha to the meetings of the Sanghas, he must have borrowed them from the rules of the political assemblies functioning in the country in his time.

Dr Ambedkar emphasized that Hindus need not ‘borrow from foreign sources’ concepts to build a society on the principles of equality, fraternity and liberty. They “could draw for such principles on the Upanishads.” Even in Riddles in Hinduism, he points out that Hinduism has the potential to become the spiritual basis of social democracy.

Strengthening Nationalism through Constitution

Ambedkar opposed insertion of Article 370 which gives special status to the state of Jammu & Kashmir but Nehru still went ahead with it to appease Sheikh Abdullah. Ambedkar wrote to Sheikh Abdullah on Article 370, “You wish India should protect your borders, she should build roads in your area, she should supply you food grains, and Kashmir should get equal status as India. But Government of India should have only limited powers and Indian people should have no rights in Kashmir. To give consent to this proposal would be a treacherous thing against the Interest of India and I, as the Law Minister of India, will never do it.”(9)

Justice K. Ramaswamy while probing into the legal aspects of nationalism likes to call Ambedkar a true democrat, a nationalist to the core and a patriot of highest order on various grounds.(10) He was the author and principal actor to make the ‘Directive Principles’ as part of the constitutional scheme. When it was criticized that the directive principles could not be enforced in a court of law, Ambedkar answered that though they were not enforceable, the succeeding majority political party in Parliament or Legislative Assembly would be bound by them as an inbuilt part of their economic program in the governance, despite their policy in its manifesto and are bound by the Constitution. Ambedkar, in his Constitutional schema of nationalism, undertook the task of strengthening the Executive in particular and the notion of ‘Integrated Bharat’ in general.

Rising above the regional, linguistic and communal barriers in a true republican spirit, Ambedkar invented a democratic nationalism consisting of Uniform Civil Code for India. His views of Uniform Civil Code were radically different from his contemporaries including Nehru who in principles accepted Hindu Code Bill and Uniform Civil Code but in practice, failed to get the Bill passed in one go, in spite of being in Government with majority. Ambedkar on the other hand made it a point to add the word ‘fraternity’ in the Preamble to the Constitution in order to inculcate the sense of common brotherhood of all Indians, of Indians being one people; it is the principle which gives unity and solidarity to social life.

He was also critical of Muslim Personal Law and tried his best to abolish it in favour of Uniform Civil Code. Ambedkar did not agree to the fact that Muslims had any immutable and uniform laws in India up to 1935. Ambedkar emphasized that in a secular state religion should not be allowed to govern all human activities and that Personal Laws should be divorced from religion.(11)

Dr. Ambedkar in his very first speech in the Constituent Assembly on 17 December 1946 had emphasized the need to create a strong Centre in order to ensure that India’s freedom was not jeopardized as had happened in the past on account of a weak central administration. His view was hailed by the Assembly and came later to be reflected in the Emergency Provisions of the Constitution. Undoubtedly the states are sovereign in normal times but by virtue of these provisions, the Centre becomes all-powerful and assumes control over all affairs of the nation whenever a situation arises which poses a danger to the security of the state.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that Ambedkar was vehemently opposed to the unjust social stratification in India, but to say that he was against the nation is wholly wrong. He was definitely against the Congress version of Nationalism. Ambedkar says, “I know my position has not been understood properly in the country. I say that whenever there has been a conflict between my personal interests of the country as a whole, I have always placed the claims of the country above my

personal claims. I have never pursued the path of private gain… so far as the demands of the country are concerned, I have never lagged behind’.(12)

Last year, In a seminar organised in New Delhi, Dr. Krishna Gopal (Jt. General Secretary, RSS) claimed, “Besides being a champion of the untouchables, Ambedkar was, first and foremost, a nationalist, a virulent anti-Communist and had immense faith in Hinduism; he was against Brahminical structures but some of his closest friends were from upper castes, while Brahmins provided him vital help at key moments in his life; he dismissed the historical theory of the Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent. He apparently also promised “shuddhikaran” or purification for those Dalits who had converted to Islam in Hyderabad state in 1947-48.”(13)

It is evident from the above discussion that Ambedkar was neither an anti-national nor just a leader of the Scheduled Castes. He was a national leader who understood the problems of the most exploited communities and tried to bring them into the main stream. He expanded the social base of Indian nationalism which helped first to attain freedom and later to put the country on path of progress. Today, when all thought converges around inclusive politics, Ambedkar has become more relevant than ever.

Nationalism is a dynamic process of social assimilation and therefore nationalism is to receive its perfect harmony in the realization of social brotherhood of men irrespective of caste, colour and creed.  Nationalism is not antithetical to humanism or individualism. One can enjoy complete individual freedom within a nationalist framework. Everyone needs a space to think, to grow and liberate. In the present point in time, Nation is the best institution we have to fulfil this purpose. We do need a grand narrative which includes the last woman in the queue. Dr. Ambedkar did give us a grand-narrative of “equality in socio-economic life along with political equality”.

1Madhav, Ram; Raashtram: Spiritual Ethical Concept of Nationhoodhttp://www.rammadhav.in/articles/raashtram-spiritual-ethical-concept-of-nationhood/

2Gaikwad, SM; Ambedkar and Indian Nationalismin Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 10 (Mar. 7-13, 1998), pp. 515

3Ambedkar, BR;A Nation Calling for a Home in  Pakistan or Partition of India

4Bharathi, KS; The Political Thought of Ambedkar in Encyclopaedia of Eminent Thinkers p.29

5Jadhav, Narendra; I have loyalty to our people and also to this countryin Ambedkar Speaks Vol. 1, (Konark Publishers, New Delhi 2013) p. 48

6Gaikwad, SM; Ambedkar and Indian Nationalismin Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 10 (Mar. 7-13, 1998), pp. 516

7I bid, 517

8 Ambedkar, BR; Pakistan and Communal Peace in Pakistan or the Partition of India

9Jamanadas, K;Kashmir Problem From Ambedkarite Perspectivehttp://www.ambedkar.org/jamanadas/KashmirProblem1.htm

10Subhash, Dr;Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s Idea of Nationalism and His

Role in Making India a United Nationhttp://euacademic.org/UploadArticle/2393.pdf

11Tiwari, Y.K.; Ambedkar’s Vision of Uniform Civil Code, in Ambedkar and Nation-building, editors ShyamLal and K.S. Saxena

12KeerDhananjay; Dr Ambedkar’s Life and Mission, P 329

13 Mohan, Archis; RSS Claims Ambedkar was Nationalist Hindu,  Business Standard (31 December, 2014) http://www.business-standard.com/article/politics/rss-claims-ambedkar-was-nationalist-hindu-114123100053_1.html

~Prof. Makarand R. Paranjape

In 1909, Mahatma Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. Not only was this his first major book, it was also the only book of his that Gandhi himself translated into English. Written originally in Gujarati between 13 and 22 November on board the S. S. Kildonan Castle journeying from England to South Africa, it appeared in two instalments in the 11 and 19 December issues of Indian Opinion, a journal Gandhi used to bring out. In January 1910, it was published as an independent booklet by Gandhi’s own International Printing Press from Phoenix Farm, Natal, with an English version appearing two months later in March.

Hind Swaraj was an imaginary dialogue between a Reader and the Editor, the latter presumably standing for Gandhi himself. This dialogue covers a range of topics including the Congress Party and its officials, the state of India, the reasons for India’s colonization, the meaning of svaraj (self-rule), the best means to attain it, Gandhi’s vision of an ideal society, the definition and practice of satyagraha (‘truth-force’), the qualities required to be a satyagrahi, Hindu-Muslim unity, railways, lawyers and doctors, and English education in India. The book became notorious for its attack on machinery and modern, Western civilization. Yet, more than that, it contained the earliest, most comprehensive, exposition of Gandhi’s philosophy. Extremely influential politically, Hind Swaraj was soon banned in India. However, it was reissued many times during Gandhi’s life and remained close to his heart; though his own thinking changed with time, he never disowned its key tenets. It still remains one of the most important documents of India’s freedom struggle and the discourse of decolonization the world over, besides being the handbook of nonviolent revolution.

I begin with this bringing to mind of Gandhi’s book only because the Gandhian project is central to what India means to me today. I wrote about this earlier in my book Altered Destinations (2009), the orthographic depiction of the title highlighting how nation is foregrounding in “destination.” A nation, I suggested, is also a destination, a goal, an objective, an ultimate aim. Many forget what the destination of India is. They think it is economic or social advancement, freedom, democracy, justice and so on. These words, while resonant of the directive principles set forth in the Preamble of the Constitution of India, still do not express the underlying purpose for which this nation was imagined into being.

For several years, I, too, was somewhat unclear if not confused about the meaning of India. In many seminars and conferences, so much time is spent trying to understand what we mean by ‘nation’. Is India a nation? Or is it a civilization? Or is it both? A civilization-state? If India is a nation, are Pakistan and Bangladesh nations, too? If Bangladesh is a nation are the Bengalis a nation? Are the Tamils a nation? Are Hindus a nation? So are we a nation of nations? What is the difference between the Indian nation and the Indian state? Is the former an abstraction, an idea, while the latter the actual institutional apparatus? How does Indian nationalism differ from Western nationalisms? Is communalism different from nationalism or is it in itself a type of nationalism? Is Indian nationalism actually a camouflage for Hindu nationalism? Is Hindutva a form of ethnic nationalism or is it a religious ideology? How is cultural nationalism different from Hindutva? Is pan-Islamism also a type of nationalism or is it a politics of identity? Are sub-nationalisms anti-national or are they also legitimate expressions of nationalism? Of the competing Indian nationalisms, which are more authentic and how can we distinguish one from the other? Does the nation-state that is India have a stable or successful future? Will it survive in its present shape and form? Or would the splitting of India into many smaller states be desirable? Is nationalism a flawed and outdated ideology? Are all nationalisms parochial, even murderous, or are some nationalisms better than others?

These, and a bewildering array of similar, questions assail us when we focus on the issue of the Indian nation. That is why I have found it much better to focus on an indigenous word such as svaraj instead of the nation. This came to me in a flash in a seminar at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies several years ago. While several learned speakers spoke on the idea of the nation and its pitfalls, almost none bothered to think of something much more vital and immediate—svaraj. Surely, all talk of the nation is futile if it does not, in some way, lead to svaraj. Our svaraj, the country’s svaraj, the svaraj of millions, and ultimately, the svaraj of non-Indians as much as Indians—surely, all these are interconnected. While words like ‘the nation’ may confuse us, svaraj is immediate and crystal clear. It concerns our autonomy, empowerment, dignity and selfhood; not just our rights, but our responsibilities and commitments to one another and to our highest selves. How is the nation doing? This question may be confusing, but if we ask, ‘Do we have svaraj?’ the answer will be much clearer. Do all Indians have svaraj? Is our society organized to maximize the svaraj of all or does it favour the few, the rich, and the powerful? What should we do to reinstall svaraj as a principle of governance if not as a national ideal?

The idea of svaraj is very powerful and meaningful in India. Originating in the Vedas and the Upanishads, svaraj found a new, largely political expression in the late nineteenth century. Deployed for political purposes by stalwarts like Dadabhai Naoroji, Lokmanya Tilak, Sri Aurobindo, and Mahatma Gandhi, it soon became synonymous with India’s demand for independence. Etymologically, the word is a modern variation of the Sanskrit sva–rajya, a compound made up of sva + raj; sva means self and raj means to shine. Hence, the word means both the shining of the self and the self that shines. While the word raj gives us many terms associated with power including Raja, Rex and Regina, svaraj is much more than just that. We might actually say that svaraj is another word for enlightenment in addition to signifying self-rule.

It is in India that political independence was expressed in terms of enlightenment and self-illumination; it is here that temporal power was considered only the material basis for higher consciousness rather than an end in itself. For us, no political independence was conceivable without a concomitant spiritual and moral liberation. Svarajya, then, is the principle of perfection, of perfect governmentality, because illumination comes from internal order, not from oppression or rule over others. Originally, svarajya referred to the internal government of a person, the government of the limbs, of the senses, of the organs and of all the different physical and psychological constituents of the individual. When all these could be well-governed, a person could rule himself, be svarat. Hence svarajya is the state of self-mastery; the master of senses is svarat. The opposite of svarat, anyarat, means someone ruled by anya, by others. The Upanishad clearly says that those who are anyarat perish; they go to the worlds of the doomed.

Combining spiritual liberation with political independence, svaraj also suggests a host of possibilities for inner illumination and self-realization. Svaraj is thus opposed both to imperialism and to totalitarian forms of government that crush the liberty of individuals and collectives. That is why the word svaraj might be preferable to decolonization, because svaraj is not tied up with the colonizer as decolonization is. In fact, one’s own svaraj can only help and contribute to the svaraj of others. The personal and the political are neither contradictory nor discontinuous; they merge, one leading to the other, the other leading back to the one. Svaraj is always both singular and collective; we cannot be free unless all our brothers and sisters are free and they cannot be free unless we are free. Svaraj allows us to resist oppression without hatred and violent opposition. It was on these grounds that Gandhi developed the praxis of satyagraha, or insistence on truth and truth-force, to fight for the rights of the disarmed and impoverished people of India.

Originally, svarat described a person who had good government of his own body and mind, or good self-mastery. Gandhi and the others applied it to the body politic. Simply speaking, they meant that just as we do not want to be ruled by others, we must eschew ruling over others. Svaraj thus implies self-restraint, self-regulation. If we are all self-governing, the state as we know it will have very little to do. For Gandhi, an ideal society consisted of highly evolved, self-regulating individuals, who respected themselves and others. Such a society did not need policemen, law enforcers, or a huge bureaucratic apparatus because each citizen would look out for the welfare of others.

Of course, there is the question of who rules over whom, just as it is usually not clear which part of oneself is in charge of the others.  But such a question arises because of a confusion in understanding raj not as shining but as powerful.  The power, originally, was secondary, the visible manifestation of the self-illumined person.  So, svaraj is more about expression than control; when the inner being expresses itself fully—and that can happen only when the senses and other organs of action are in harmony and internal order—then its power becomes visible and evident.  For Gandhi, too, svaraj was less about ruling others or being ruled by them than about being oneself as fully and fruitfully as possible.  That is why he devoted a good deal of his text to understanding the native genius of Indian civilization. If only we could be true to that, we would both be free and responsible, that is neither ruled by others nor interested in ruling others.  In that sense, Hind Swaraj is a blueprint not only of a different destination, but of a desination, a nation that is true to its own soil and spirit rather than a borrowed or imported nation, in sum a vernacular rather than metropolitan nation.

The idea of svaraj had large-scale ramifications in many areas of Indian thought and culture. In 1928, Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, one of India’s leading philosophers, delivered a lecture called ‘svaraj in Ideas’. He raised the pertinent question of whether we had achieved autonomy in thought and ideas along with the quest for political independence. Bhattacharya was of the view that Indian intellectuals would have to work a lot harder if such an emancipation of consciousness had to be accomplished. Several years later, his essay was reprinted in a special number of the Indian Philosophical Quarterly (October–December 1984) also entitled ‘Swaraj in Ideas’. Many outstanding philosophers and thinkers debated this topic and their responses were also published in the same journal on the content and means of decolonizing the Indian mind.

Perhaps, much of my own work is about svaraj. Evidently, its significance has exercised me for over two decades. I first tried to come to terms with it in Decolonization and Development: Hind Svaraj Revisioned (New Delhi and London: Sage, 1993). That book is also fashioned as a dialogue, not between an Editor and Reader as in Gandhi’s original, but between a student and a teacher. It tries to take stock of where we were as a nation in the 1980s. I continue to use the spelling svaraj instead of swaraj not only because it is a closer transliteration, but also to suggest that we must each struggle to find our own meaning of the word, rather than simply assuming that it means what our predecessors have thought. More recently, in Altered Destinations, I continued my explorations of the meaning of svaraj. I realise that svarajis an unfinished quest; to that extent, we still seek it and will continue to do so.

In retrospect, however, the 1980s seem to have been more innocent times. The country was smaller, more circumscribed, even simpler. Today, our basic condition is much more complex, as are our problems. We have to deal not only with the scourge of terrorism, but also with the powerful forces of globalization. In the domestic sphere, the Nehruvian ideology of socialist secularism failed, but in its place no alternative as yet occupies the centre stage. On the other hand, various forces of “anti-nationalism” seem to have a field run. Young people are restive, even if some of their discontent appears “manufactured.” Several organisations and ideologies are hell-bent on dividing us on the lines of caste and religion. Much of the dissension is between Hindus themselves, giving the impression that we are in the midst of a protracted uncivil war, with competing and escalating intolerances ranged against each other in the public sphere.

Can the idea of svaraj help reorient our body politic from division to unity? Clearly, we need to extend the discussion on svaraj to today’s context, even if we don’t actually use the word overmuch. That is because it is not the word but the underlying orientation that is important. I think one way forward is to depoliticize public discourse away from party politics and the struggle for power, whether at the centre or the states. Instead, we could concentrate, broadly speaking, on the field of culture to see how ideas of autonomy, selfhood and cultural independence have been expressed, depicted and studied in India. This would bring into our ambit contentious issues such as Western appropriations or representations of our past, especially its rich cultural and literary heritage. We would have to grapple not only with the issue of Sanskrit, but also sanskriti, which is much broader and encompassing. We would have to contend with the real dangers both of desacralisation of the former and the secularization of the latter.

Understood thus, svaraj may be seen as a struggle for academic freedom and autonomy, an attempt to free ourselves from both Western and Indian forms of colonization. In this struggle, our main adversaries are not so much groups in the West, but the native elites, who continue to be selfish, slavish and seemingly incapable of independent thought. Their main concern is to belong with the dominant, to be considered on par with or a part of the dominant. But that is an unrealizable, if pious, pipe dream. Our elites continue to be seen as subservient and second-rate by the West and as disloyal by many Indians. Naturally, debates over nativism, cultural self-assertion or critiques thereof may also be viewed as a part of the continuing redefinitions of svaraj. The fight for svaraj, for certain, does not end with political independence, but must go on until every single citizen feels free of oppression and injustice. That is why svaraj is also tied up with ideas of identity and selfhood. That is why svaraj is closely implicated in questions of language, identity, and culture.  Especially in beleaguered or endangered languages, svaraj in literary texts means the preservation or assertion of cultural identities. All told, cultural svaraj can be a fertile field of inquiry and discussion.

I started this short reflection with Gandhi and I shall end with him. Indeed, I keep coming back to Gandhi, even though he is one Indian, one self-proclaimed “sanatani” Hindu, whom we love to hate or hate to love. To me, he still remains the touchstone to measure what has happened to India. Gandhi not only provides a moral centre to our efforts, but actually makes our daily life more meaningful. I am not suggesting that we follow him blindly, unquestioningly. Indeed, I believe it is of fundamental importance to dwell on his limits and limitations. Speaking for myself, even when I seem to depart from him, I am struggling to go closer to him—at least this is how I see my own journey. As far as India is concerned, a dharmic, plural, value-oriented idea of the nation is what we may derive from him.

Ultimately, when we speak of svaraj, we must also contend with the coherence[1] and continuing relevance of nationalism, at least in the Indian context. By nationalism I do not mean the view that one’s own country or culture is superior to that of others, nor an excessive patriotism amounting to chauvinism. Instead, I tend to use the word in a somewhat old-fashioned way as suggestive not just of a national spirit, but the sense of belonging, which gives us the feeling of being part of a collectivity that is bigger than our linguistic, regional, or religious identities. If we consider this sense of belonging as nationalism, then nationalism, despite its discontents, has neither broken down nor become obsolete. But if nationalism is both relevant and valuable, this does not mean that it is unitary or entirely harmonious. Indian nationalism, on the contrary, exhibits multiple tendencies and aspirations, each trying to re-fashion the nation according to its own programme. If Indian nationalism is still coherent, it still holds together and makes sense, then the methodology that we need is somewhat more plural and open-minded than any straightforward argument to such effect.

One of the underlying preoccupations of our search for svaraj will, therefore, be how to resolve the tension between civic nationalism and dharmic nationalism. Clearly, the latter ought not to be theological or exclusive, favouring one religion or community over others. Yet, it should be in tune with Indian civilizational values. The latter are what we need to re-examine. We must accept that Western values are not necessarily universal or neutral, nor are “Hindu”/Indic values, such as dharma or karma, necessarily parochial or narrow-minded. Instead, the perennial values of India, which we may call sanatana, also embody a universality. They are not special to any one community or people, even if they have been articulated most persuasively over millennia in this subcontinent. To subscribe to these values and to seek to orient our nation according to them is not automatically to endorse some sort of illiberal or ‘communal’ ideology. I have tried to show in my work that these are competing, not necessarily oppositional, universalisms. The crisis of secularism has given us, once again, the challenge to articulate such values afresh. The result is not necessarily an automatic or uncritical endorsement of ‘Hindutva’, but the exploration of new kind of nationalism that is culturally and civilizationally grounded in India, at the same time as being modern, liberal, and plural. A coherent statement of such a national ethos is still awaited.

(This article appeared in India Foundation Journal, January-April 2016 issue.)

[1] An earlier version was published as the Preface to my book, Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India (London: Anthem, 2009).

2 As opposed to what Bhikhu Parekh (1999, 295–326) termed “The Incoherence of Nationalism” in the concluding chapter of Ronald Beiner’s Theorizing Nationalism.

Works Cited

Parekh, Bhikhu. 1999.“The Incoherence of Nationalism.” Ronald Beiner, ed. Theorizing Nationalism. Albany: SUNY Press.

Paranjape, Makarand. Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India. London: Anthem, 2009; New Delhi: Anthem Paperbacks, 2010.

—–. 1993. Decolonization and Development: Hind Swaraj Revisioned. New Delhi: Sage

~ By Shubhrastha

Gateway to the seven sisters of India and an integral part of the northeast imagination of India, Assam also shares international boundaries with Bangladesh and Bhutan. Connected with the Indian mainland through a chicken-neck corridor, immediately linked with West Bengal, Assam is home to more than 50 tribes and communities. Distinguished from each other by conspicuously stark cultures, traditions, sartorial choices, cuisines, languages, consciousness and, therefore, identities, Assam is marked by cultural, national, poetic and political complexities of a unique order; which is why many scholars have described the state as the microcosm of India.

Geopolitically and culturally, Assam has to be studied as three distinct and separate, yet connected entities. The Upper Assam and Lower Assam in the Brahamputra valley and the Barak valley are identified with unique set of issues commensurate with distinctive geographical components and demographic concerns. The intricate relationships between the multiethnic, polyglottic, and different socio-cultural commitments of the tribes like the Mishing, the Bodos, the Deoris, the Rabhas, the Tiwas, the Ahoms, the Khamtis, the Sonowal Kacharis, the Phakials, the Dimasa Kacharis, the Karbis, the Koch Rajbangshis, the Barmans, the Hmars, the Kukis, the Rengma Nagas, the Zeme Nagas, the Hajongs, the Garos, the Khasis, the Jaintias, the Mechs, the Motoks and the Morans among the many other demographic groups like the Bengalis, the Marwaris, the tea plantation laborers, indigenous Muslims, Christians etc. have given a complex comity to the idea of identity for and in Assam.

On the one hand, there is a constant need to engage with the question ‘who is an Axomiya (Assamese)’ – punctuated by which the state has seen various articulations reverberating throughout the length and breadth of Assam. One the other hand, there is a thread of a quite strong regional, or in the words of scholars, ‘subnational’, sentiment running deep into the veins and sinews of Assam. Additionally, as if to legitimize and contain what Kramer and Nicolescu call the ‘historical-contemporary’ and ‘conflictive-cooperative’ relations between communities in Assam, the Indian constitution stands out as a distinct consciousness of the political reality in Assam. It is necessary, therefore, that in order to contextualize Assam as a subtext of the Indian national consciousness, one negotiates with the twin realities of conflict and identity in the state.

Conflict and Identity in Assam

The Battle of Saraighat in 1671 and the Battle of Itakhuli in 1682 alongside the other battles beginning 1615, fought between the Mughals and the Ahoms were decisive battles that are etched in the historical and national consciousness of Assam. The historical legend of Lachit Borphukan, for instance, defines the heritage of Assamese pride and identity. The legend carries on to this day and is used in explaining many of the contemporary political idioms and historical phenomena against the backdrop of indigenous pride overcoming external aggression.

The Peace Treaty of Yandaboo signed between the British General Sir Archibald Campbell and the Governor of Legaing from the Burmese side, Maha Min Hla Kyaw Htin, in 1826, ended the First Anglo-Burmese War – the most expensive war in the British Indian history and initiated the British rule in Assam. Thereby, not even two years passed, when in 1828, the first revolt against this external aggression by the British was initiated by the duo Dhananjay Borgohain and Gunadhar Konwar. Thereafter, many local leaders like Maniram Dewan, Piyoli Baruah, Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, Hem Chandra Baruah, Gunabhiram Baruah, Kanak Lata Baruah, Kushal Konwar, Kamala Miri, Bhogeshwari Phukanani among many others carried on their constant struggle for freedom, contributing a significant sacrifice in the national movement, till India achieved independence in 1947. The pride and glory of Assam’s contribution in building the Indian nation state carried on the rich legacy of the state.

In contrast, during the Sino-India war, in 1962, following the fall of Bomdila, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, as if in a gesture of fatigue and helplessness, announced, “my heart goes out to the people of Assam.” The hurt and pain it caused the people of Assam pulsates even to this day and festers the wound the episode inflicted upon the Assamese pride.

As if in continuation of the solidarity with the people of Assam against the feeling of dejection, hurt and pain by this dereliction and negligence in preserving and protecting what is the homeland of many an Assamese population, the Assam Agitation between 1979 and 1985, till this date, stands as a representation of the reason behind the inimical discontent Assam feels with respect to the rest of the country.

United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in its ideological justification, interprets the Treaty of Yandabo as an understanding between the British India and Burma that dissolved the independence of Assam. The militant and radical stream of this consciousness integral to the ULFA seeks to restore that ‘lost independence.’

If one were to put these historical frames as a backdrop for the larger picture Assam paints for the rest of the world, one might find the deconstruction of the identity of Assam interesting. Drawing from what Jacques Lacan articulates in his psychoanalytic reference to a ‘mirror stage’, borrowing heavily from Sigmund Freud, one may infer that the identity of the Assamese self has been built as a result of the conflict between its visual appearance, as it came down to the imagination via mythical legends and articulations, and one’s emotional experience, as the temporal realities and episodes of history unfolded. This conflictual relationship of the dual relationship with the ‘imagined community’, in the words of Benedict Anderson, and the circumstantial realization is what punctuates Assam’s selfhood. As if to summarize the situation of identity with respect to Assam, one can use the words of Richard D Parker who says, “The need to assert an identity is mediated by a history of conflict and aspersion.”

Ethnic Aspirations and National Politics

Pierre Bourdieu defines reality as the site where a permanent struggle to define reality takes place. He says that struggles for nationhood are ‘struggles over classification’ and articulates that political realpolitik with long term articulation of politics, therefore, must include in its notion “the struggle over representations.” This theoretical premise might help to observe Assam’s aspirational subnational consciousness in the overall context of Indian nationalism.

Benedict Anderson argues that nation states have been insufficiently imagined giving most nations a restive situation. The colonists – British, Portuguese, French – all left their colonies at the mercy of the still forming definition of nation state and nationalism. More than 545 smaller entities with unique imaginations, aspirations and goals were tactfully, politically, negotiably and/or through direct action stitched together to build a politically unified nation as it stands today.

In his book ‘India Against Itself – Assam and the Politics of Nationality’, Sanjib Baruah says, “…subnational movements, and the exacerbation of these conflicts has often been the result of political mismanagement by those acting with the authority of the state.”

In the process of consolidating the national identity and form, the many subnational questions were either buried or ignored for the time being. The many subnational undercurrents fueled by subliminal faiths, questions, concerns, aspirations, unease, temporary arrangements and suppressed articulations merely muted themselves till the time the discontent was strategically prudent and communicatively consistent. The articulations of the ULFA and the NDBF are cases in point.

However, it is prudent to see that all the regional parties or factions or groups or political constitutions in Assam, today, are but a more realistic portrayal of what the national super text provides to its subnations. In that respect, whatever the ‘Imagined Community’ of these countercurrents, the subnational political mobilization in Assam is inspired, animated and mediated by the Indian constitution, laws, public philosophy and political processes. The fact also is that the pattern of politicization and mobilization that meets some of the criteria of nationalism is not committed to the idea of a separate statehood. In fact, these subnationalisms stand in a dialogical relationship with pan-Indian politics.

The state elections in Assam this time, in April 2016, saw more than 82 per cent turn out of voters. In fact, over the last few decades, the voter turn out in Assam has been, by far, the best record in the country. If one were to seriously consider the subnational narratives of self determination, as articulated by the so called ethnic wings and factions, the consensus seem to emerge on identifying the nation over any other concern.

It is interesting to read Ernest Gellner here who opines that nationalism and subnationalisms are “the crystallization of new units…admittedly using as their raw material the cultural, historical, and other inheritances from the pre-nationalist past.” Almost similar is Antonio Gramsci’s articulation that the politics of subnationalism is absorbed in the theoretical space of civil rather than political society.

Therefore, one can believe in Robert Fossaert, when he says that civil society is not a set of institutions but as a “society in its relation with the state…in so far as it is in confrontation with the State”, a society which resists and counteracts the “simultaneous totalization unleashed by the State”, to the extent where we agree to simultaneously understand that the theoretical comprehension and exegesis of these subnational texts are dependent on and dedicated to the overarching concept of a national super text.

Margins to Mainstreaming Assam

The current government in India draws from the ideological premise of ‘India First’ and symbolically recognizes the Indian Constitution as the ‘religious text of the nation’. Assam is the prime focus area within the government’s stated and emphasized ‘Act East Policy’ because of its geo-political significance and strategic location. However, it is also true that going by the statistical and developmental analyses of the state, the past few decades have not been quite assuring.

Out of the 69 years post independence, Congress ruled Assam for more than 50 years. For the first time, Congress was ousted from Dispur when the AGP formed the government in 1985. Subsequently, AGP also ruled the state for another term from 1996 to 2001. Therefore, from 1980s onwards, politics in Assam revolved primarily around these two parties. The Communists and the vestiges of the Janata Party remained only marginal players in Assamese politics.

For the first time in 1991, BJP rose in Assam with a slim representation of 10 seats mostly in the Barak Valley – the victory attributed to ‘Ram Mandir wave’ by some political analysts. In 2001 and 2006, the BJP spread gradually in Upper Assam and the north bank of the Brahmaputra. In 2011, BJP was ousted from the Barak Valley but spread to lower and central Assam. In 2014, seven out of the 14 Loksabha seats were picked up the BJP, riding on the Modi wave.

It is interesting to observe this trajectory because in the political statements that the people of Assam have been pronouncing since 1991, the Axomiya sentiment in Assam, though, reverberates on the surface but the larger pan-India issues like poverty, unemployment and development have gradually gained primacy. It is within this super text that Assam politics has redefined and reconstructed itself.

The gradual but definite move from regional issues to national aspirations is a movement towards relying on a larger developmental agenda and coopting governance concerns for better livelihoods. With this movement of an Axamiya articulation of mere cultural mores to a more universal negotiation with common problems like poverty, malnutrition, equality, uneven development, Assam has made a definite stride towards achieving the national targets.

According to Sanjib Baruah, “Today we need a different kind of morality to accommodate a historical understanding of the nation state system and the logic of new nationalisms in some areas of the world and of subnational politics in many more or less stable ‘nation states’.” The politics of Assam, like most other politics of identity, lie in the real or imagined homelands of the articulators.

Pan-Indian political community – an Indic community – is in fact a poetic construction of a homeland – a sole repository of collective memories and dreams of all Indians. Primal, homelike, or a sacred space that transforms people into a collective with shared origins and kinship, this Indic articulation of a united, organic whole is what perhaps Hegel theorized on. Through the lens of Hegel’s idea of ‘totality’, which preserves within it each of the various stages and ideas that it has overcome or subsumed, one can look at the Indic nation state as a more organic phenomenon of coopting subnational divisions into the national Indic consciousness.

Therefore, what is unique is that while thesubnational movement in Assam, like the rest of India, was inspired by the Western concept of nationalism, it was in practice, efforts to construct a state that was, by and large, the opposite of “ethnically and linguistically homogenous entities” – cohering and making sense of the larger ideas of development, health, education among many others.

The leitmotif of identity politics has always been empowerment. In a post liberalized, postmodern Indian consciousness, Assam, like many other Indian states, is grappling with issues of conflict. Hinging on the super text of an ideology that is committed to the sole concerns of swift and all round development, the empowered national rhetoric of unity in diversity is very succinctly reflected in Assam at the cultural cusp of Shankar-Azan’s teachings.

The author is a Socio-Political consultant and freelance writer.

(This article appeared in India Foundation Journal, January-April 2016 issue.)