Idea of India: R.I. P.

The Idea of India: R. I. P.

A lot of anti-Modi anti-Bharat venom is spewed in last 10 years. However, what happened in last few weeks before the inauguration of the Ram Mandir on 22nd January, 2024, and soon after, was beyond comparison. Part of the attacks in last 10 years were sponsored, funded and even scripted by foreign agencies. What happened around inauguration of the Ram Mandir was probably “spontaneous outflow”. Soon it turned from serious to hilarious. Let us start with USA. Post 9/11 Islamophobia is still hounding the masses in USA but the print media in US bled for the “illegally razed” Babri Mosque. Not surprisingly, the authors (Biswajeet Banerjee and Vineeta Deepak) are PIOs. Similarly, the lady who wept in front of BBC World camera was Indian. Pakistan govt. too is worried about Indian Democracy. The spokesperson for Pakistan MEA is a Baloch. Right across her office window, Baloch women are protesting for last 15-30 days! But the military-dominated Pakistan government is worried about neighbor’s democracy. Closer home, Indian Muslim journalists were warning Mr. Modi that 22 Jan is not the right ‘muhurat’ and the puja he is going to perform is not in line with Hindu scriptures! Ramchandra Guha is suddenly worried about the fate of Hindus in Pakistan! Murder of democracy, majoritarianism and blow to constitutional values were the oft-used coins. “Electoral kingdom” was a new phrase. Now critics are afraid of Hindu Rashtra. Greater the fear, more complex and sophisticated was the language. Bhanu Prasad Mehta’s recent article is a classic example. Forget old vernacular idiots like me, even youngsters with English-medium education found his article incomprehensible. Some of the protesters were either too much scared to spell out or were short of words to tell what they are protesting against; instead, they protested against the fire-crackers and ‘budget’ of saffron flags! Protests turned into mourning sessions. Hilarious!

But one thing that was common in all this criticism – and for once, closer to truth—that the Idea of India is dead.

Genesis of the Idea of India

Let us understand the genesis of this Idea of India. When Nehru assumed the office of Prime Minister, the population of India was divided multifold in religions, castes, language, sects etc. I feel, Nehru saw this not only as an administrative difficulty but as an evil character of his ‘subject’.? He had a brilliant solution for this problem. If all people regardless of caste and religion and sex, were educated in English, wore same European style trousers and jackets, ate European food with European cutlery, sitting on table, and drank Coca-Cola, then there will be no differentiator for castes and sects. In urban India, Nehru was fairly successful on this account. Of course, there was a bigger scheme --dams, IITs, Musical concerts for Integrating India, encouragement to inter-caste and interfaith marriages [charity began at home.], cosmopolitan housing colonies of public sector companies and Railways and so on. The Railway colonies even had Ball room for dance and the idea of Hindus celebrating 31st December originated from these Ball room dances.

Nehru was very much in favour of treating all religions equally. Whether he was in favour of giving equal rights to all citizens; I have doubts. Given a chance, he would have preferred an aristocracy! [Although he had to choose his cabinet from elected members of INC, his relatives, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and Karan Singh, son of Hari Singh all got plum posts.]? There was an effort to bring in Uniform Civil Code to regulate birth, marriage, divorce and inheritance, etc. There was strong resistance to this idea from Muslims and finally only a Hindu code bill was passed.

What is the “Idea of India”?

As I understand, the Idea of India has a secular state at its center. Since the supporters of the idea had British lifestyle as role model, this was a welcome idea. Since the supporters had little or no faith in Hindu rituals or Sharia, ganga-jamni tehjib was a natural way of life. Not just Hindu-Muslim unity, the Idea of India emphasized on plurality. And finally, it expected (only) Hindus to be tolerant. Nehru’s economic policies—modern industrialization and socialism-- were also integral part of the Idea of India.

In principle, it sounds a very good idea. Picture perfect of Hindu-Muslim unity, of plurality, of tolerance! Professors and judges argue in favour of it. Problem was in its manifestation. In practice and policies, secular state was translated as religion-less (nidharmi) rather than religion-neutral (sarv-dharm-sam-bhav). Ganga-jamni tehjib asked for suppressing the Hindu symbols (like tilak on forehead). Not just symbols! “Muslims have first right over the nation’s resources”, said a Prime minister of the so-called secular state. In the garb of plurality, Abrahamic religions were given free hand to convert. Hindus were expected to be not just tolerant, but docile.

There was a glass ceiling between elite ruling class and proletariat—both social and economic barriers. Therefore, it was imperative that Indians grow at a “Hindu rate of growth”; it was essential to retain the order. Planning commission and License Raj became tools to contain economy rather than facilitate it.

On ground, the Idea of India turned out to be very much different from what was portrayed in legislature, in conferences and colleges.

?Who are these supporters of Idea? Where do they come from?

?????? In urban India, Nehru was fairly successful in this mission of creating native sahibs. South Delhi, south Mumbai, central Calcutta were, and are still hooked to this idea. These were/are superrich, influential people, businessmen and govt. officers, upper caste Hindus or Ashraf Muslims, with British lifestyle as their role model. In a country with 67% population below poverty line, these people formed an exclusive club. Their children had schooling in convent schools or Doon school or Panchgani etc. and then joined colleges named Christian college, Presidency, St. Stephens, Xaviers, Lady Irwin or Fergusson.? Two-three such generations flourished.? They read history of India from “The discovery of India” and later learnt about Ramayana from ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ and knew Bhim and Ganesha as cartoon caricature. When Amartya Sen wanted to mention Queen of Jhansi in his book, he referred to a publication by University of Honolulu! These people sincerely believe that India as a nation was created by Britishers by assimilation of lands of warring princes and nawabs.

Add to it, the tenets of modern history, which asked for paper evidence for everything.? With that single stroke, all that existed and anybody who existed before the invention of paper became folklore. (Hence the claim that Ram was a fictional figure!)? Bharatiyas were further handicapped because a huge library of theirs was burnt down by Bakhtiar Khilji. Now we had to depend on Akbarnama or Grant duff to learn about our own history! When anthropological (fossil) evidences were found, Europeans quickly distorted those to infer an “Aryan invasion theory”. Both the White Supremacy theory and Aryan invasion theory were complimentary to the idea of an elitist Indian government ruling the Bharatiya masses.

Those who excelled in such education became IAS/IFS officers or higher court judges. Some of them became academicians. Central universities became sanctuaries for them, studying for 10-12 years as Ph. D. students and then settling in as faculty till the age of 65. Those who couldn’t reach such heights, were accommodated by the government machinery as agents in the corridors of power. Some openly declared themselves as liaison officer or commission agent, others came in as lawyers, journalists and in later years as NGOs. Knowingly or unknowingly, the lawyers, academicians, journalists & NGOs formed an orchestra, playing the tune of the idea of India on their respective instruments.

As Gandhi family slowly lost their grip over government, this ‘orchestra’ took over. “Whoever runs the government, we control the system” goes the saying. They took upon themselves the responsibility of protecting the idea of India. Judiciary actively protected the idea.

?The idea collapsed!

?What hurts this orchestra most is that the idea collapsed right in front of their watchful eyes.? New order evolved, sometimes in incremental steps, sometimes as a jolt, and they couldn’t stop it.?

The glass ceiling disappeared.

With general spread of education and reservation for SCs in government jobs, socially and economically deprived persons could enter bureaucracy. Each generation born after the Independence was more confident than before.

Persons with humble background excelled in every sphere of life.

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Elites could neither boast about their lineage, nor could they claim any privilege based on birth. Those who were arrogant about their lineage, like Vijay Mallya and Mani Shankar Iyer, were sent to exile.

Two spheres, where the dynasts still hold some influence, are higher judiciary and certain political parties. That is also going to end soon.

OBC politics is here: The JayPrakash movement of 1970 was a shock to the ruling dispensation. The Janata Party experiment failed, the ‘sampurna kranti’ envisaged by JP fizzled out and Mrs. Indira Gandhi regained power. However, OBC leadership emerged during the movement. OBCs asserted their role in politics. ?VP Singh supported their demand. The OBC politics has become a permanent feature of Indian polity, for last 40 years and shall remain relevant for some time to come.

U-turn on Nehruvian economic policies: The Narasimha Rao government, and the then FM Dr. Manmohan Singh implemented economic policies which were totally against the Nehruvian economics. And it worked! India’s GDP grew at 7-10%. The neo-rich invaded the turfs which were reserved for ‘khandani raees’.

Hindu-Muslim unity was jeopardized: First Hindu-Muslim riot, as per police records, took place in 1893. Prabhat films made a movie on Hindu-Muslim strife in 1941. MK Gandhi himself had to rush to douse riots in Bengal. While Delhi, Lucknow, Calcutta showed ganga-jamnni-tehjib, fault lines existed, always, nationwide and deep.

Subsequently, the relations became more strained. Some of the reasons were internal, some external. Muslim appeasement by Congress governments is definitely a problem. Bigger problem is that the Indian Muslims are not able to assess or understand present situation; they are made to believe that the clock can be reversed to 1650 AD. Pakistan’s policies did affect relations with Indian Muslims. Globally, Muslims attained a militant terrorist image and that shadow fell upon Indian Muslims as well.

Bharat, formerly known as India.

Although our constitution starts wit the phrase, “India, that is Bharat”, every attempt was done to remove the name Bharat from government documents. Then a narrative was built to look down upon Bharat by contrasting it with India. It was during the G20 summit, that Mr. Modi used the term Bharat on an international forum first. soon thereafter, Modi government started using the name Bharat regularly, to replace the name India. “India, that is Bharat” has now become “Bharat, that is India” and soon the name India will remain in the text books of western countries only.

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