Delusional Politics

by Hardeep Singh Puri

  Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and charged with sedition. Upon being produced in court, he was questioned by the magistrate about his caste or profession, as was the practice under the law back then. Gandhi replied: ‘A farmer and a weaver.’ Quite astounded by the reaction, the magistrate asked Gandhi the question again, only to get the same reply. 35

  While Gandhi may have been born a bania, his work in Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad consisted of spinning cloth, experimenting with crop and livestock rearing. Gandhi, by transcending the caste he was born into and adopting practices of what were perceived to be of ‘others’, had a great impact on the social conscious of India. This ‘awakening’ that he helped achieve was critical to the nationalist movement. 36

  Gandhi was an acute realist. He had the correct feel of the pulse of the population in an economy ravaged by colonialism and characterized by lack of education, malnutrition and poverty. His was a carefully thought-through and deliberate determination that a struggle anchored in and through peaceful social mobilization would help shape the contours of a peaceful post-colonial independent India. In this, he was largely right.

  This is not to suggest that there were no other contributing factors that convinced the British to leave India. Chief among these was the open resistance by Indians employed in the British Armed Forces during World War II. The architect behind this revolt was the former president of the Indian National Congress, and the founder of the Indian National Army (INA), Subhas Chandra Bose.

  Post the fall of Singapore to Japan in 1942, nearly 50,000 Indian officers, 37 who had earlier pledged their loyalty to the Raj, openly revolted against their imperial masters. Bose’s commanding personality and organizational skills reverberated among Indian soldiers, and his war cry, ‘Dilli Chalo’, became their rallying slogan. While initially the British were sceptical of the potential of this defiance, they would later admit, ‘There was substantial popular support from the public in India for the INA.’ 38

  Gandhi’s role, however, had no parallels. It was his ability to link the liberals in the party and the elitist Congress lawyers to a mass movement that evolved into a broad-based coalition that was essentially responsible for India’s freedom. It is not liberal democratic politics that won India its independence. In all fairness, the liberal political leaders had produced an effective critique of the British imperialism, which resonated well with the nationalists. Several of them wrote brilliant analyses of British rule but none were able to galvanize the masses like Gandhi to overthrow the Raj and lead India on the path to independence and self-government. As one of India’s top historians Irfan Habib, himself a Marxist, recalls in a recent piece in an Indian weekly. 39

  By the end of the century, Indian nationalists had produced brilliant critiques of British rule. Dadabhai Naoroji, the ‘Grand Old Man’ of Indian nationalism, published his Poverty and UnBritish Rule in India (1901), a collection of his writings of over some 30 years. R.C. Dutt brought out his two volumes of the Economic History of British Rule in India (1901 and 1903), and G. Subramaniya Iyer his Economic Aspects of British Rule (1903), all devastatingly critical of British rule, of the tribute Britain exacted, its heavy taxation, and its forcible capture of the Indian market. But they could counterpoise no large vision of a liberated India. It almost seemed that what was desired was an improved or reformed British rule with larger Indian collaboration.

  In spite of the deep introspection and several fasts that he undertook, he was not successful in preventing the exacerbation of social and communal tensions and the deepening of fault lines. In many respects, the highly divisive policies followed by the colonial power and its manipulation by a section of leaders within the freedom movement led ultimately to a bloody partitioning of the Indian subcontinent which, in many ways, was Gandhi’s greatest regret and, with the benefit of hindsight, his one remarkable failure.

  The story of partition itself fits the title of this book.

  The three actors of this story were Her Majesty’s Government (HMG), Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the leadership of the Indian National Congress.

  The flailing British Empire post World War II was in search of partners who would abide by HMG’s geo-political interests. The Indian subcontinent was crucial as it was the location for the centuries-long ‘Great Game’ between Britain and Russia (USSR in 1947). HMG wanted to ensure that post 1947 it had enough leverage in the region to counter any Soviet influence in Afghanistan, and by extension India and the rest of South Asia.

  However, HMG sensed its influence disappearing when Jawaharlal Nehru, the interim prime minister of India, announced that India was going to be a sovereign republic post independence.

  Jinnah, the whisky-drinking lawyer too wanted a larger role in shaping post-independence India. Any objective account written on him illustrates clearly his aversion to extremism, and his desire for an adequate Muslim voice in India and not partition. However, given his diminishing role within the Congress upon Gandhi’s arrival in India, he began perpetrating the partition theory.

  HMG and Jinnah found in each other the perfect partners to achieve their respective short-term gains. Jinnah conceded the strategic and security autonomy of a to-be-formed Muslim nation to HMG, in return for the title of Quaid-e-azam in Pakistan.

  Leaders of the Indian National Congress, largely due to their naivety, and in some parts due to their impatience, were unable to see through the final play in this game of chess. The more power HMG devolved to India’s interim government in 1946 (with Nehru as the interim prime minister), the more it strengthened the demands for partition.

  ‘As I have said for some months, Pakistan is likely to come from ‘Congresstan’ [acceptance of office by Congress party],’ 40 remarked N.P.A. Smith, director of the Intelligence Bureau, perfectly summing up the final days of the British Raj in India.

  Cyril Radcliffe, a London-based barrister, was flown to Delhi and given forty days to produce the strange political geography of an India flanked by an eastern and western wing called Pakistan. His arbitrary and ham-handed cartography succeeded in sowing the seeds for confusion and political violence in Bengal, Punjab and Kashmir. Just before his death, in 1977, he told a journalist: ‘I suspect they’d shoot me out of hand—both sides.’ He had good reason to believe so. The job he finished in three weeks resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being slaughtered, millions being mutilated or raped and tens of millions being forced out of their homes and livelihood.

  The post-partition trajectory of the two nations too falls under the delusional category. It was predicted that a Muslim-only nation had more chances of remaining united, secure and prosperous, as opposed to a multicultural, multilingual and multi-ethnic country.

  How wrong were they? Two countries, born from the womb of the same mother turned out to be radically different from each other.

  From repeated coups d’état to the creation of Bangladesh, from being in perpetual civil unrest to being the epicentre of global terror, Pakistan today stands an isolated nation. India on the other hand is a success story of how a post-colonial economy, the world’s largest democracy, stands at the cusp of becoming a great power on the international stage.

  It is apt that I conclude this section by calling out the delusions of the dominant narrative that persists today about our erstwhile colonizers.

  First, if the British Raj was indeed as rapacious as it is made out to be, how is it that we have so easily forgiven our colonial masters? Second, and more important, the manner in which the subcontinent was partitioned opens the colonial power to the charge of mass atrocity crimes and to crimes against humanity.

  Gandhian Economics—Rise of the Conservative Right

  Seventy-one years later, India and the freedom so acquired stand at a crossroads. Which direction will India now take? Will it take shape broadly respecting the Mahatma’s wishes when it celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary as a nation a few years from now? Or will the India story continue to remain the custodian of its ‘elites�
�, who, in an Orwellian way, have dominated the country’s narrative for much of the last seven decades.

  In 1991, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who was appointed the prime minister after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, proceeded to thrust India into a globalizing world through wide-ranging economic reforms, lowering of tariffs, removal of non-tariff barriers and adoption of outward-oriented economic postures. He did all this, he claimed, within the framework of Nehruvian socialism.

  Changes and reforms carried out over decades notwithstanding, most of the domestic consumption subsidies and other support systems put in place during the long years of Congress rule have remained in place during the four years of the Modi government, as they did during the Vajpayee years (1998–2004). Many of the economic policies followed by the Vajpayee and now Modi governments for poverty reduction and elimination are traceable, for purposes of inspiration, back to those followed by Indira Gandhi (1966–77 and 1980–84). There are, however, significant differences. I stress this for a particular reason. Rahul Gandhi’s efforts to project the view that the Modi government represents the rich, the ‘suit, boot ki sarkar’, therefore, finds no traction.

  I have never been persuaded that there is too much of an intellectual divide between the Congress and the BJP on the core economic issues facing the country. What has, therefore, changed now?

  Ram Madhav, the national general secretary of the BJP, put it most eloquently in one of his columns:

  For the first time in 70 years, the high constitutional positions are all held today by individuals subscribing to a non-congress ideology.

  This time around, the president, vice president and prime minister are all from the same ideological fraternity that is broadly not necessarily correctly, described as the Conservative Right.

  We have a new scenario where the ruling party would champion the cause of the ‘humble’ citizens and the Opposition that of the ‘affluent’. But it will be a mistake to assume that the new difference is such a narrow one. It goes much deeper. It symbolizes a more profound and fundamental transition of ideas and ideals.

  Many eminent leaders, from Swami Vivekananda to Annie Besant to Mahatma Gandhi, viewed India in ideas that a westerner would perceive as conservative right. Swami Vivekananda described India in beautiful terms as ‘Dharma Praana Bharata (Dharma is the soul force of Bharat)’. Gandhi always spoke in his discourses and dissertations about Ram Rajya. They were not theological ideas promoting a theocratic polity in the country. They represent the genius of India, which is rooted in its religio-social institutions like state, family, caste, guru and festival. There is even an economic idea centred round work, sharing, happiness and charity. 41

  These are the very ideals that are now being implemented by Prime Minister Modi.

  In an economy such as India, which confronts massive developmental challenges, where vast sections of the population still live in poverty, government support is essential for the livelihood of millions. This kind of support can take one of several forms, including that of consumption subsidies. And it is imperative, in fact it is the duty of a democratically elected government, to support and sustain the lives of these citizens by providing them with the basics for sustenance.

  However, no country and most certainly no developing country, can afford to grant subsidies on an indefinite basis. Such support must necessarily be focused on the most-needy and be circumscribed by limitations of need. In other words, digressive subsidies, which provide support in a time-bound manner and ensure citizens are not entirely dependent on such mechanisms, must be the way forward.

  The approach and method adopted in providing this support is what distinguishes PM Modi from the Congress party.

  The Modi-led government too has continued with the practice of providing various forms of government support to Indian citizens. The difference between what is being done now from earlier periods centres on certain critical questions: What constitutes government support? For what purpose should this support be extended? How should it be provided? Who is the ultimately beneficiary of such policies?

  Modi views these as a tool for empowering those at the very bottom of the pyramid.

  He has empowered a vast section of the society by providing government support through direct cash transfers, rather than treating them as recipients of government largesse, which is ostensibly how the international community views overseas development assistance. And this has also brought about a change in the mindset of honest tax payers, who now feel their money is actually being used for the benefit of the nation as opposed to capturing votes for a political party, or, worse, for rent-seeking among public servants.

  Schemes such as ‘Give it Up’—which encourage citizens who do not need cooking gas subsidy to voluntarily forgo the government benefit—have yielded enormous savings for the exchequer, for they have limited government support to only those who need it the most. It has also brought about a behavioural change by creating a citizen-led movement for efficient public policy.

  Ultimately, it is the view of the Modi government that government support and subsidies are tools for empowerment, and once more and more people achieve higher standards of living, the quantum of such support would automatically reduce. This is a completely different and new approach as it is anchored in digressive subsidies, and it seeks to change the view of government support—one from handouts and entitlements to one of growth and empowerment.

  Unfortunately, at the dawn of our independence, conflict arose between the ideas that had their roots in this country’s age-old wisdom and those that were transmitted by the colonizers from the West. Jawaharlal Nehru represented the colonizers’ view, steeped in the ‘white-man’s guilt’, while Gandhi became the voice of native wisdom. The conflict reached a flashpoint a couple of years before independence when a sharp exchange of letters took place between the two tall leaders of the freedom movement.

  ‘The first thing I want to write about is the difference in outlook between us,’ 42 wrote Gandhi in a sharply worded letter to Nehru on 5 October 1945. He reiterated in that letter his belief that village life in India should get more focus as ‘crores of people will never be able to live at peace with one another in towns and palaces’. 43

  Nehru replied from Allahabad four days later on 9 October. His retort was also strident. ‘I do not understand why a village should necessarily embody truth and non-violence. A village, normally speaking, is backward, intellectually and culturally, and no progress can be made from a backward environment. Narrow-minded people are much more likely to be untruthful and violent, 44 he wrote.

  If the difference (in our outlook) is so fundamental, then the public should also be made aware of it, pleaded Gandhi. Nehru knew the pitfalls of letting people of the country know that he and Gandhi had fundamental differences in their outlook about the direction of the nation. He requested Gandhi not to insist upon making the differences public at this juncture and let them be resolved by the people after independence. 45

  On the seventy-first anniversary of India’s independence, it is useful to recall the above. These facts are a pointer to deeper issues that remain unresolved. They raise questions about the nature of the Indian state that is evolving. More importantly, these issues have not been frontally addressed.

  For most of the seventy years that it was in power, the ruling party nursed a large constituency of liberal, left-wing ‘do-gooders’, some with intellectual pretensions, others with well-deserved reputations. They were not against the state per se. Perhaps they wanted and continue to want a weak or helpless state that would on the one hand allow individual expression and freedom to flourish, and on the other would institutionalize an entitlement culture where government benefits would be handed to all and sundry. What is even more alarming is that they appear to want the state, already handicapped by limited capability, to be challenged. This is precisely the kind of thinking that was anchored in Western political thought before terrorism hit them full force. The battle for human rights, or so it wa
s thought, was one between a helpless individual and a strong, all powerful state that stifled, undermined and deprived the human being. The rise of the non-state actor, including the non-state military actor, was outside the comprehension of such thinking. Reality has a way of driving home a comprehensive wake-up call, a reality check, which makes this an existential issue, one of survival.

  The Secularism Debate—Hypocrisy within Our Midst

  Is secularism under threat in India? If yes, since when and from where is that threat emanating?

  Those on the left of the political spectrum, who have thus far dominated the political discourse in India, paint the secular discussion as the majority i.e. Hindu, versus minority, i.e. Muslim.

  They argue that since a majority of the Indians believe in the Hindu faith, those who practise Islam are under constant threat. They would like the nation to believe the Hindus of the country are out to get the Muslims—whether this is a colonial hangover is best answered by a distinguished sociologist, but in my view, this is pure delusional politics, which uses victimization for votes. Before calling out the hypocrisy of this discourse, it is important to address the issue of lynching of those belonging to the Muslim faith or a lower caste. At one stage, there seemed to have been an increase in the number of such cases.

  Even one case of lynching should be roundly condemned and be regarded as one too many. There has to be zero tolerance for such and other acts of bestiality and criminality. That the miscreants drew inspiration and, in some cases, even encouragement from a ‘saffronized’ authority now in power has been alleged but not conclusively proved. But to focus on just this one aspect of a crime so heinous only helps draw political mileage and doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.

  The explanation, the real, underlying cause, can be found in the enabling environment characterized by the complete absence of any sense of accountability and a culture of impunity prevalent in large parts of the Hindi heartland, in the very cow belt that has been allowed to go unpunished for seven decades under various governments headed either by the Congress party, or the plethora of parties that call themselves ‘secular and socialist’.