HVK Archives: Evolving national idiom
Evolving national idiom - Indian Express
M. G. S. Narayanan
()
28 June 1996
Title : Meaning of the verdict
Evolving national idiom
Author : M. G. S. Narayanan
Publication : Indian Express
Date : June 28, 1996
CERTAIN interesting but complicated facts are emerging in
the wake of the Election '96. In spite of confusing
party politics and conflicting affiliations, these
developments are full of significance when they are
viewed against the background of Indian history in the
long term perspective.'
We have to remember that it is possible to have even a
relatively dispassionate view of great events and
movements only at a distance of time. Half a century
after independence we are in a position to look back at
the freedom struggle and read a meaning different from
what appeared at the time.
In the history of the century-old Indian national
movement which followed closely on the heels of the
nebulous cultural revival and social reform movements, of
the 19th century, and crystallised in the shape of the
Indian National Congress in 1885, the first important
phase of the struggle was over with the grant of
independence in 1947. The second phase of political
control by the Congress over the Government of India
started then, and although seriously challenged and
shaken by the post-Emergency developments, it survived
till the other day. The curtain finally fell on the
Congress monopoly of power at the Centre with the last
election.
This election has brought other forces and movements to
the centre stage. They have been struggling for
expression for some time, and could materialise on the
national stage only after the unwept and unsung
displacement of the Congress party from the Delhi
throne. Half a century of independence in India witnessed
the celebration of nationalist power and the fragile
marginal attempts to ensure economic and social justice.
However, in the long-term perspective both the century-
old Congress-led national movement and the youthful
Communist-led social movement could be seen as the
byproducts of Westernisation. As Westernisation
synchronised historically with colonialism in India,
these turn out in fact to be the projection of a colonial
culture. Such a statement is bound to appear shocking,
and the first impulse would be to revolt. Nevertheless
the plain facts of history have to be respected. The
leaders and makers of these movements were Western-
educated politicians and intellectuals enamoured of the
progress of Europe and the ideas projected on the
European stage.
The deep, blind and uncompromising resentment of India's
rustic millions against Western hegemony had found
expression to some extent in Gandhian ideas and Patel's
attitudes. In Jawaharlal's ambivalent policy this trend
gave way to his romantic affair with the West which made
him the champion of the Western type of nationalism and
socialism. Nothing was left to doubt regarding life
Western origins and affiliations of these movements in
Nehru's case. Both were anti-colonial in politics but
pro-colonial through and through in culture, and as such
they left the core of the orthodox Hindu community
unmoved.
The pre-colonial medieval native spirit full of suspicion
and fear about everything foreign, everything Western,
survived in the Hindu revivalist movement inspired by
vigorous and crude chauvinism. This was despised by the
majority of educated citizens in the beginning,
especially on account of its extreme religious orthodoxy
and anti-Muslim postures. Those who admired the West
were allergic to its presence to such a degree that they
closed their eyes and ignored its presence. However, it
kept on growing steadily, and acquired a foothold in
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh etc.,
mostly in centres where the old native states which
escaped liquidation by the Mughal empire or the British
empire had flourished. It has now started encroaching
upon Uttar Pradesh, the sacred land of the national
movement, also.
English-speaking, liberal minded, modernist Western
nationalism was replaced by this brand of Hindu
chauvinism gradually in the rural areas. his tendency was
strengthened not only by the aggressively hostile
propaganda of theocratic Pakistan and the unimaginative
servitude to the claims and threats of Muslim vote banks
by a weakened Congress leadership, but also by the innate
hatred of the orthodox Hindus for Western ways. They saw
these reflected in the life pattern of the Congress
elite in India. With every passing decade the new rich,
powerful, educated, Congress cadres got alienated from
the illiterate but proud and shrewd rustic masses,
especially in North India.
In Bengal and South India this alienation was
effectively exploited in the beginning by the Communist
movement which absorbed a good number of kisans and
other lower middle-class people.
More recently, the collapse of world communism has dealt
a deadly blow to its Indian counterpart, but it is only
weakened, not extinguished.
If there is any unequivocal signal from the people in
this election it is about the rejection of Congress rule.
The people's verdict about the BJP is not so clear on
national scale. From a comparative point of view the BJP
emerged as the largest single party in Parliament, but
evidently this did not give it a ticket to govern the
country.
Still it will not be wise to underestimate the BJP's
prospects for the morrow, because it represents, in
however crude a form, the essentially medieval
precolonial native spirit which is likely to assert
itself against the pro-Western and pro-Islamic forces.
Now that the other type of nationalist forces got
discredited by their arrogant power complex, it may still
get a chance to govern the country in the near future.
In a totally different sense, the regional parties and
factions, all of which sprang up from self-respect
movements protesting against the Unitarians imperialist
domination of the Centre, also represent a truly native
ethos. As in the case of Hindu chauvinism, the question
that we are confronted with is not whether this is good
or bad, or progressive or regressive, but whether these
forces are in line with the mentality of the Indian
masses. That will determine whether they are going to win
or lose in the long run, given the continuation of the
historical trend without some new international
development upsetting the schedule.
Since the Gupta period India has been mostly a collection
of regional states, often endowed with linguistic
cohesion, except for the period of the Mughal rule and
British rule organised by newcomers from outside.
The long and short of my argument here is that the
indigenous reaction against Western or colonial trends
has been moving upwards, and that the climax of this move
might, in all probability, favour two political trends
which have already manifested themselves in the Election
'96. One of them is the support for Hindutva, which has
taken giant strides in spite of all the transparent
shortcomings in its political and economic vision about
the future. The other is definitely the trend of
regionalism which has also been decried by all the
Westernised nationalists in shrill voice.
These two may appear as contradictory on the surface, and
it is not easy to see how further developments in their
character and course direction will affect India's
destiny, but the recent election has proved, and events
in the immediate future are likely to prove more vividly,
that these represent the growing trends on the eve of the
21 st Century in India. Capitalism and market economy are
certainly triumphant, as everywhere else in the world,
but these do permit a national idiom whether it is in
Europe or in Japan, and this national idiom is being
prepared for India by the two emergent forces mentioned
above.
The writer is former Secretary-General of the Indian
Council for Historical Research.
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