Editor’s Note
The author presents two distinct ideas about India’s roots, each championed by different political parties. One viewpoint asserts that India is a civilisational state with a history of over 5000 years, while the other argues that India is an artificial entity created by the British. The author also explores the concept of India as a non-status quo power in certain areas, and the West’s scepticism about the implications of India’s global growth. The article is split into two parts, with Part II to be published later.
Indian Enigma: Two Steps Forward One Step Back
In May 2024, India endured a very bruising electoral contest and returned to a weakened central government. The election result shows a path forward and also gives us an opportunity to map the challenges that lie ahead for the next five years. India’s challenges to national security lie more in the absence of a consensus on the very nature of the Indian state.
Shorn of the verbiage of electoral rhetoric, two themes underlined the contest. One side believes that India is a civilisational state that has existed for over 5000 years with its roots in Hindu philosophy, culture and a unique worldview. This side believes that Indian ‘pluralism’ (not secularism) results from this cultural ethos. It is also a geographic construct applicable to all residents of Bharat, that is, India.
The opposing view suggests that India is not a nation but a collection of nationalities, an artificial entity created by the British. However, India is held together by the ‘Constitution of India’ and the principle of secularism (TIME, ‘Five Year Fuse’, Monday 18 Feb 1952). In the early years of independence, Nehru was deeply concerned with protecting the rights of minorities and dispelling their sense of fear. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi, who sought to address this issue through his message of respect for all faiths in line with the Indic tradition, Nehru’s approach involved dismantling the very concept of Dharma.
Dharma is not religion, but its meaning is closer to duty or a righteous path. Jawaharlal Nehru thought he knew where India’s dragon lay and went off to slay it. “Communalism,” he declared, “is India’s greatest enemy. In the north, this communal poison has created hatred between Hindus and Sikhs. In the south, antagonism has been created between Brahmins and non-Brahmins . . . Unless we wipe out these communal parties, India will go to pieces” (Nehru Jawaharlal, Ed G. Parthasarathy, ‘Letters to the Chief Ministers Vol 2’, Publications Division, GOI). By “communalism”, he meant India’s ancient religious practices.
Nehru was no ordinary leader. He left his imprint on India and its future for decades to come. In the last few years, his politics remained central to a section of the Indian population. Nehru’s formulation that majority communalism was worse than that practised by the minority was put into practice to mean kid-glove treatment of minorities. This view was the dominant ideology of the state and society for five decades and even became part of the nation’s DNA.
In the last few years, Professor Amartya Sen has emerged as the spokesperson for this view – he calls his view ‘Integrationist’ and proponents of cultural nationalism as ‘Divisive and communal’. He wrote, “Vedas and the Ramayana are an unwelcome intrusion of Hindu beliefs into the contemporary life of secular India. I question the fractional nature of choosing so-called “Hindu classics” over other products of India’s long and diverse history. We are right to point to the counterproductive role that such partisan selection can play in the secular, multi-religious life of today’s India. Even though more than 80 per cent of Indians may be Hindu, the country has a very large Muslim population (the third largest among all the countries in the world – (larger than the entire British and French populations put together) and a great many followers of other faiths: Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, and others” (Sen, Amartya. (2007). India: Large and Small. esocialsciences.com, Working Papers).
Professor Sen is of the view that Indians should disown and forget their pre-Islam and pre-Christianity heritage because the minorities do not accept the Indian past. It has also been the view of many avowedly liberal Western scholars. As a consequence, some years ago, the government of India gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that Ram was a mythical character. This group believes that India’s pre-Christian era history is a myth, and there is no evidence to prove it.
With such diametrically opposed conception of Indian nationhood, India is in for a long period of political instability. Despite free and fair elections in 2024, the losing side is not prepared to accept the result, as shown by the lack of grace in accepting defeat. Therefore, it is expected that the next five years will see increased internal turmoil, making governance difficult and economic progress problematic, at least in some parts of the country.
The internal challenges also embrace the country’s political economy. There is a false notion that India is a status quo power. It is only a partial truth. India is indeed a ‘territorial’ status quo power in that it lays no claims to other countries’ territory. However, inherent in the goal of ‘development’, a national consensus, is that India will concentrate on growing its economic power and improving its military strength to safeguard its territory and wealth.
The industrialised West stands to lose even if India rises peacefully. There have been subtle and not-so-subtle efforts to scuttle Indian development. In the 1960s, as India’s first PM, Nehru drew up ambitious plans to build heavy industry and steel plants and make India self-sufficient. The West opposed him tooth and nail. In the current time period, Mr Modi’s attempts for rapid growth and self-sufficiency have similarly attracted malevolent attention.
Over the past three decades, a new political cleavage has emerged, pitting cultural nationalists against secularists. The former group tends to prioritize long-term and infrastructure development, while the latter is more focused on distributive justice, often at the expense of development, as a means to gain political power (Aristotle trans. Benjamin Jowett ‘Aristotle’s Politics’, Oxford University Press, 1948 – p.10 Phaleas of Chalcedon made equal wealth distribution the main feature of his scheme. This would be difficult to effect and would not meet the evils that Phaleas had in mind. His reforms would anger the rich and not satisfy the poor, and his state would be weak against foreign foes).
This alternative power shift has led to India perpetually being in the ‘about to’ take off mode but never doing so in reality. In this sense, after first PM Nehru, it is only the second time that a development-oriented government has been given three consecutive terms. The much-delayed Indian economic take-off may actually happen this time.
India has outpaced the rest of the world in digitising its economy. This has led to the efficient delivery of resources to the have-nots, eliminated corruption and leakages, and promoted overall economic efficiency. But alongside these positives, it has created vulnerability. India is today far more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It is time to take a pause and review the over-digitisation.
For India to achieve its developmental goals, it needs a peaceful international environment to channel its energy and be a force to be reckoned with in a multipolar world. But what does the multipolar world look like? (Part II of the article will follow).
Col. Anil Athale, Ph D (Retd)
