The colours of freedom

Indian freedom in 1947 was an event whose significance was not simply confined to India. It was a major global event of its times with long-term consequences. It set off a chain of decolonisations in which a large number of former colonies in Asia and Africa became free. Indian independence had been achieved largely through non-violent means under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Non-violence, as Gandhi preached and practised it, emerged not just as a moral force, but also as an important political instrument in a 20th century world that had just got over the madness and barbarity of the two world wars, claiming millions of lives.

As far as India was concerned, 1947-52 was clearly an axial period in its long history. This was the period of the Indian revolution. No other period of five years in Indian history witnessed the kind of monumental changes as 1947-52 did. The Indian revolutionary experience consisted of five significant episodes that were integrally connected to each other. One, India became independent after two centuries of alien rule and thus made an important transition from being a colony to a republic. Two, nearly 565 princely states that had been created by the British were formally integrated into the Indian Union. Nearly one-third of the people and 40% of the area formally became part of India. It thus became possible to extend the democratic practice to regions that had experienced only autocracy till then. Three, independent India formally dismantled feudalism in the countryside by abolishing the system of landlordism created by the British. Thus the reigns of agriculture were taken away from a class of parasitic non-agriculturists and placed firmly into the hands of a class of agriculturists interested in the long-term development of agriculture. All remnants of formal feudalism were eliminated from Indian villages. Nearly 20 million erstwhile tenants became owners of the land they had been cultivating for decades. Four, an elected Constituent Assembly prepared a progressive, emancipatory and forward-looking Constitution under the leadership of B R Ambedkar. The people of India accepted the Constitution as their own which contained a blue-print for India’s social transformation. And fifthly, in the first general elections held in 1952, the largest held anywhere in the world, the Indian people endorsed and elected the leaders of the freedom struggle and makers of the Constitution. They delegated the power of governance to their own leaders and representatives. All these were landmark developments and augured well for the future. It appeared that all the major obstacles to a smooth social transformation had been eliminated and all the necessary preconditions created.

Jawaharlal Nehru thought in the 1950s that India was the most exciting country to live in and observe. It was a country that was trying to achieve a social transformation in a modern direction while retaining some of the positive features of its traditions. It was also trying to achieve industrialisation within a parliamentary democratic framework. These tasks were historically unprecedented and if the Indian experiment could be successful, it would serve as a model for a large number of non-European countries, trying to reach the shores of affluence without paying too much of a price for it. It made great sense for any patriotic Indian to feel very optimistic about the collective future of the Indian people. Indeed it was perfectly realistic to be optimistic. Both the leaders and their followers showed great confidence that together they would be able to weather the storm. The world outside watched India with great curiosity and appraised Indian society not on the basis of its present condition, but the promises and potentials it showed. Those were the days, indeed!

The Indian experiment
India in the 1950s was really a place to look out for, even though, on the scale of affluence, it ranked among some of the poorest countries of the world. This was largely because independent India, in its journey towards modernisation, had made some interesting and unusual choices. If successful, Indian experiment could serve as a ‘model’ for the rest of the world. Rabindranath Tagore’s pan-human universalism, Gandhi’s non-violence and Jawaharlal Nehru’s non-alignment invested the Indian experiment with aura and prestige. It became evident that India was searching for credible answers to some fundamental questions regarding human life itself. Once the answers were found, they would be available for every society and country. India in the 1950s was not simply a country. It was a huge social laboratory for all of humanity. It was for some of these reasons that India aroused admiration, curiosity and also envy in the rest of the world.

If the leaders of those times were to visit India now, they would surely feel distraught and let down. Poverty reduction has been slower than anticipated. The social fabric appears more fragile than before. Politically, the country is more turbulent and violent than before. Communalism and casteism, instead of diminishing, have become more resurgent and aggressive. All the major values championed by the freedom struggle and enshrined in the Constitution are under siege. As a nation, we are politically unstable, ideologically hysterical, socially turbulent and economically precarious. We arouse neither admiration nor envy in the world. The great Indian experiment does not appear to be working. Something very basic seems to have gone wrong. Is there an explanation for the fall from the exalted heights of the 1950s when India stood tall amongst the community of nations and claimed to offer something to the world?

Around the time of independence, it was hoped and believed that the great Indian march to modernity would be helped by four key ideas (and their accompanying institutions) which would keep the march firmly on track and prevent it from getting derailed. These ideas were seen like important vehicles which would facilitate India’s march ahead. First was the idea that State would be the major agency for carrying out the social transformation. The idea of State as the major instrument in carrying out the social transformation was particularly crucial for a society that had experienced two centuries of alien, unrepresentative State, not interested in the long-term development of the society and people. Two, a healthy and robust nationalism, practised during the days of freedom struggle, would keep the country united in spite of social disparities. Three, secularism would create social harmony and provide security to minorities and other social groups at the margins. Four, democracy would create genuine empowerment of the people cutting across differences of class and community. The leaders of independent India displayed great faith in these values and hoped that these four key ideas — statism, nationalism, secularism and democracy — would act like effective shields and neutralise all the possible ill-effects inherent in economic growth and absorb the turbulence created by it.
Things went well in the 1950s even though the pace of economic growth was slow. But since the late 1960s all the four ideas either began to slide into a steady decline or were dismantled systematically. As a result, when rapid economic growth took place since the 1990s, it created disparities, dislocations and social trauma. But all the four ideas had decayed so much that they could not be pressed into service.

Statism was the first ideas to go out of the social national orbit. The idea that the social transformation would be driven by the State ceased to inspire and motivate people since the late 1960s. The great expectations from the State were replaced by disillusionment. The imposition of Emergency during 1975-77 virtually completed the process of disillusionment with the State. State began to be seen as an adversary rather than a provider. This continues to be the dominant mood even today.

Beyond belief
If the idea of the State as a provider lost all credibility, nationalism, the other important idea, was appropriated. Genuine Indian nationalism was civic, territorial and inclusive. It claimed to represent the collective aspirations of Indian people as a whole, and not any particular segment or community. This Indian nationalism was a major social force during the course of the freedom struggle. Even after independence, it retained overwhelming consensus among Indian people. However, for a variety of reasons this consensus began to break down from 1970s onwards. Indian nationalism got discredited among the intelligentsia who began to associate Indian nationalism with State power rather than collective social aspirations. Among the common people, it got channelised along the lines of religion and ethnicity. The idea of an inclusive Indian nationalism began to be challenged both by a narrow and exclusive religious nationalism and also by multiple sub-nationalisms that had developed along regional lines. For a plural and multi-religious society like India, this was nothing short of a catastrophe.

 Very similar misfortune befell the idea of Indian secularism. Unfortunately, secularism, so essential for the maintenance of social order, got cosmopolitanised and began to be seen as an elite, western idea. The major binary that developed was between a secular elite and unsecular, religious masses. This binary robbed Indian secularism of much of the vitality it had shown during the days of the freedom struggle.

Indian democracy, the greatest insurance against authoritarianism and anarchy, met a similar fate. On the one hand, it became a hand-maiden in the hands of vested interests (that risk is always there in any democracy). At the other end of the spectrum, it became a victim of competitive populism in which people were mobilised, not on the basis of long-term goals, but by short-term appeals to passions and sentiments. Indian democracy, particularly since the mid-1980s, became a vehicle of negative identity politics, breeding casteism, communalism and regional chauvinism.

Thus, all the four major ideas — statism, nationalism, secularism and democracy — which were supposed to act as bulwarks to protect the society and the people from the ill-effects of economic growth, declined and ceased to have the palliative effect they were expected to. These ideas themselves needed to be protected and nurtured, but fell by the wayside. Some were eroded. Some got dismantled. Some were diverted into socially regressive channels.

Indian society has experienced a phase of unprecedented economic growth, particularly during the last three decades. This growth has created a mammoth social churning almost like a sagar manthan (a mythical churning of the ocean by the gods and demons in search of nectar) of Hindu mythology. This manthan, much like the original sagar manthan, has produced both the nectar of growth and the poison of social tension.

It is generally believed that any transition of such scale and magnitude cannot possibly be smooth and painless. It produces disparity, displacement and traumas of various kinds. In other words, it produces the social poison along with the nectar of affluence. This has happened to India also. It was hoped by the leaders of the freedom struggle that the ideas of statism, nationalism, secularism and democracy would provide a safety cover, which would help absorb the poison and enable the distribution of the nectar. That has unfortunately not happened. These ideas constituted a social force and were vibrant and active at a time when there was very little growth in India during the 1950s and early 1960s. By the time the phase of rapid growth came (since the 1990s), these ideas have been bruised and damaged, and their social effectivity greatly diminished.

Hence the pessimism. What Indian society desperately needs is a healthy combination of the hardware of economic growth which would create affluence, and the ideological software of statism, nationalism, secularism and democracy, which would distribute affluence and absorb the social poison produced by growth. Most unfortunately for the Indian society and people, this combination of economic hardware and the ideological software has been missing. The Nehru era possessed the ideological software but not the hardware of rapid economic growth. The last three decades have experience rapid growth, but without the much-needed ideological software.

Indian society is marching ahead rapidly and is in the process of making a transition to industrialism. Sooner or later, it would reach the shores of affluence and achieve levels that are expected of any modern industrial society. That much is reasonably certain and need not be doubted. The axial question is: during that transition, how much of the social cost would be paid by the Indian people and society? How much of the innate and intrinsic India would remain intact? This is the mother of all questions and all those who truly love India must surely ponder over it. At the heart of this question is the very idea of India articulated so eloquently by Tagore, Gandhi and Nehru. How much of this ‘Idea’ would survive in the process of India’s transformation? The leaders of the freedom struggle were aware of this dilemma and evolved a framework which would enable India to achieve modernisation, while retaining much of its essence. That was the great Indian dream. It is that dream that seems to have gone sour.

Happy Independence Day!
(The writer teaches history at the Ambedkar University Delhi)