Caste and Religious Groupings Have Commitments That Can Never Be in Harmony with The Nation as A Whole
By M
Rajivlochan
Aug 15,
2020
AS we
commemorate another Independence Day, we notice that guile and guts are needed
to craft a country, ensure that fissiparous memories are forgotten, and create
new ones about harmonious living. Merely making sacrifices or appeasing caste
and religious groups are poor strategies to knit a people into a nation.
Indians like to recall the martyrdom of their ancestors for the independence of
the country. Hum Laye Hein Toofan Se Kashti Nikal Ke, Iss Desh Ko Rakhna
Mere Bachho Sambhal Ke was and continues to be a powerful sentiment.
However, very few remember that consolidating this Independence after the
British left, and convincing people to stay together, required tremendous guile
and guts. The wisdom of a handful like Sardar Patel, their willingness to force
the nay-sayers and refusal to kowtow to anyone who opposed India, ensured it
became a country and did not disintegrate into hundreds of small, mean, warring
territories.
Spirit of freedom: Resilience has helped the country withstand
divisiveness.
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When the
British left India in 1947, their direct rule was only over about three-fifth
of the landmass. The rest was controlled by sub-contractors put in place after
the British became the paramount power. These sub-contractors or ‘Princes’, had
a well-equipped, battle-hardened army of about 2,00,000 at the time the British
left India. While departing, the British gave these sub-contractors the
privilege of becoming independent rulers. Many, like Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur
and Dholpur, banded together to create a new country, called Matsya Ganrajya.
The prince of Hyderabad, one of the richest in the world, lording over one of
the poorest princedoms, and his wazirs, even conducted an open warfare to
assert independence. Publicly shared folk memories of those Hyderabadis who
escaped to Pakistan and whose ancestors fought against India in 1947-48 are
that at least 2,00,000 of their ancestors were killed in this fight and that
eventually they lost because Pakistan, an Islamic republic, refused to support
them militarily.
Pandit
Sunderlal Srivastava of the United Provinces was tasked by the Congress to
report on the suppression of separatism in Hyderabad. He wrote a long report
condemning the actions. Home Minister Patel shelved the report. As expected,
everyone forgot about the conflict. They now rebuilt their lives around new
opportunities that a newly independent India offered.
Over the
decades, these opportunities have been good enough to forge bonds of love,
affection and trust, over-riding the differences in region, religion and
language. Today, there is little hesitation in saying that India has withstood
the test of time, remained a united and powerful nation, capable of protecting
the residents of the country. Most importantly, the people continue to be
upbeat about the future and trust their government. This is how the country was
crafted by the makers of Constitution in 1950 when they outlawed caste
discrimination, refused to allow separate electorates, or identify a national
language. Instead, they made the individual citizen the fulcrum around which
India was to exist. Over the years, far too often than is healthy, we allowed
caste and religious groupings to overwhelm the freedom of the individual.
The
consequent partisan politics has been a great distraction that makes it
impossible to plan any long-term project internally and present a strong image
externally. This was most dramatically visible in a recent headline. After
Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of a Ram temple at Ayodhya, the Times,
London, headlined its story, ‘Modi is hailed as the Hindu king of a divided
nation’. The paper refused to acknowledge the resolution of a long-festering
problem.
So what
exactly would be the parameters of a nation that is united? Will that unity be
in the form of individuals that relate to the nation and disregard primordial
loyalties? Or will that unity have to be defined as one between groups defined
in terms of religion or caste?
We need to
notice that a recognition of caste and religious identities as being the
primary identity of a person, marks the success of the British colonial project
in India. The project was to convince the Indians that theirs was a
second-rate, decrepit culture based on mutually warring primordial identities.
That the
British preferred us to forget thousands of years of living together is
understandable. Why modern-day Indians would prefer to forget that experience
is a more complicated problem.
To the
British, India seemed like complete chaos. It was inconceivable to them that
thousands of languages and belief systems could co-exist without any one group
imposing upon the other. The English came from a system where the primordial
belief systems overpowered all else. Millions, not hundreds or thousands, were
routinely killed over their beliefs. If the Crusades, the Hundred Years’ War,
the Spanish Inquisition, are too far back in history, then please look at the
two World Wars, Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy or Stalin’s Russia. In
India, on the other hand, differences in belief were not something to fuss
about.
In the
Census Report of 1911, we learn that the Census Commissioners of Bombay region
noticed thousands who did not claim to be either this or that but showed
complicated characteristics. For instance, there were Hindus of the Panchpiriya
cult who worshipped Mohammedan saints. Or there were the Matia Kunbis of
Gujarat who called in Brahmins to perform their ceremonies but were followers
of the Pirana saint Imam Shah. The field-level Census officials classified such
people as ‘Hindu-Mohammedans’. The Census Director, learned in the science of
anthropology, strongly felt that his subordinates should have ditched the
greyness and classified them as either Hindus or Mohammedans. He noticed the
‘extremely indefinite character of the boundary line between different
religions in India’ and promised that by the next Census, all individuals would
be forced into neat primordial categories (Census of India, 1911, p. Vol I,
Part 1, p 118). The dividing line between the Hindus, Jains and Sikhs was, so
the report said, even more hazy and non-existent.
Similar
indeterminacy was noticed to exist across caste divisions. By the next Census
in 1921, the colonial officials drew stronger lines within the Indian society.
‘Divide and rule’ is how such artificially created divisions were condemned by
the leaders of the Indian National Congress.
Seven decades
after the British left, we need to take a moral decision on whether we would
continue to privilege such artificially created primordial divisions along
caste and religious lines, or reward the individual who has loyalty to the
Constitution. Caste and religious groupings have commitments that can never be
in harmony with the nation as a whole. The individual alone stands to support
the nation fully.
Original
Headline: Freedom of the individual holds the key to unity
Source: The Tribune India
URL: https://newageislam.com/current-affairs/caste-religious-groupings-commitments-that/d/122635