The daunting task of making freedom endure

Independence day bubbles up emotions and hopes in every Indian that few of the great festivals of India can match. There is so much packed in this idea of freedom: From removing restraints and hurdles to our self-expression to rooting out exploitation and domination. It held out the promise of enablement of each Indian, particularly those that deserved it most, to decide what is good for themselves. All these nuances were captured in that beautiful term ‘swaraj’.

As India celebrates its 75th year of independence today, it is worth recalling that its movement for freedom was unique in several respects. It was definitely directed against the British colonial rule but at the same time, it advanced a distinct imagination of Indian nationhood, called attention to its civilisational past as a resource to forge its future, invoked a radical idea of social and economic equality, asserted confidently that India’s vast diversity and plurality of beliefs can be knitted together into a creative blend while at the same time not closing its sights from a just world, breathing freedoms. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of independent India, independence was a ‘new dawn’. Clearly, there were differences in details but there was a substantial consensus.

There were early setbacks to this vision — the partition of the country, the influx of refugees and the exodus of millions, and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. There were also the highpoints: The passing of the Indian Constitution after an extended debate stretching for nearly three years, the integration of Indian states into the Union, the forging of India’s grand state architecture, the conduct of the first general elections in 1951-52, and the making of Indian federalism factoring in linguistic belonging.

But the rot crept in early: The focus on building state institutions weakened the civil initiative described by some scholars as ‘passive revolution’.

Ambedkar’s attempt to comprehensively transform the Hindu code, particularly punching the caste order, to bring it in tune with the constitutional ethic was rebuffed by assertions of orthodoxy.

There was tinkering on the land question where a comprehensive transformation was called for enabling the poor peasantry and landless labour. While there was emphasis on large-scale industry, it did not reinvigorate the sprawling small-scale industry and the household sector.

Affirmative action policies led to the creation of strata of elite within castes and communities, who in turn lorded over them. This process led to the urban sprawl and rule of the landed elite in the countryside.

Elections reinforced caste and it became the conduit for upper caste elite to dominate the state sector. India’s rich past had come alive creatively in the writings of Gandhi on the Bhagavad Gita, Ambedkar’s The Buddha and His Dhamma and Abul Kalam Azad’s Tarjuman-e-Quran, but independent India left most of it to the charge of the priest, the sadhu, and the moulavi rather than an engaged search into the meaning and purpose of life.

Drops in the ocean

The game was kept on through certain spectacles such as the sprawling science establishments, elite professional and technical institutions, and large-scale industry, combined with periodic elections. But given the scale of the challenge, they were just drops in the ocean. Amidst the gloom, the flag was kept flying by certain traditions of culture, art, music and the burgeoning of rich literature in Indian languages with little or meagre state support. Only a few crumbs were the lot of the mass of the peasantry, Dalits and Adivasis, as well as of labour and women.

The disenchantment with the track-record of independence was expressed through massive protests across India and to an extent, they continue even today. It is these movements that knitted India together in terms of shared concerns, deepened democracy, and changed political regimes.

It is in the wake of these movements that the backward classes, Dalits and Adivasis registered a degree of advance although the elite attuned to the hegemonic ways of independent India have acted as brakes to their creativity and expansiveness. Unfortunately, the regional nature of these movements did not find adequate representation from the religious minorities in India, who tended to remain all India pressure-groups under their elite, for positions and opportunities. The reinforcement of caste and the ethic of its system as well as the enhanced hold of religious leaders in the name of minority rights and religious freedoms acted as brakes on the potential of women’s movements in India.

Politics and religion

The disconnect between a looming state and the social layers that looked up to it with hope and aspirations has led to the triumph of Political Hinduism. Like Political Islam or Political Christianity of the George Bush Jr or Donald Trump variant, it has little to do with religion. There is no evidence to suggest that Political Hinduism has led to creative expressions of Hinduism such as those of the Bhakti movement or that of Swami Vivekananda.

There is not even one great book of scholarship that this strand of thought has produced: Even today, they play musical chairs around pamphlets such as Savarkar’s Hindutva, Golwalkar’s We or Our Nationhood Defined and Deendayal Upadhyay’s Integral Humanism. Political Islam has led to deep alienation of minorities from the national mainstream.

Under this dispensation, India’s economic inequality has widened, the backward classes, Dalits and Adivasis being the net losers. But the political entrepreneurship it has spawned has led to the iron grip of sections of them over their castes and communities.

The great public institutions in India today have become enervated and have begun to show signs of debility. Violence, often brute violence, is the price of dissent. The self-interest of some revolves around the fear of others. The youth in India, whose demographic dividends economists are waiting to reap, are poorly equipped, if not listless. Ignore the trumped-up slogans, there are few leaders around us who command genuine respect. In the cascading social milieu of disenchantment religious places have become the sites of succour. Clearly, the political establishment is happy with the armour that religious establishments are offering to it.

There are few signs of a creative agency that can handle the huge challenges that independent India confronts. The biggest challenge is to instill a spirit across the deep social layers in the country that each one of their members has a future, and they can trust the nation in this regard. Discretely, the biggest challenge before us is the economic and social divide and enabling those right at the bottom. It cannot be done without a massive transfer of the nation’s resources to them. It requires enabling institutions such as public schools, public health centres and decent habitats of living.

It is important to reskill people to tap our demographic dividend. The lower level bureaucracy serves none but itself, and the higher levels are pompous and cocooned. India’s ecology and environment are at its edge and call for immediate attention. And a large and deeply diverse nation such as ours needs an opportunity to define the world rather than be at its margins.

(Valerian Rodrigues is a former Professor at Mangalore University and Jawaharlal Nehru University)