The truth about radicalisation in India

 

Apoorvanand writes: Why is it so difficult to talk about those who are really poisoning minds?

The claim by the Indian agencies of having busted ISI terror modules has led G S Bajpai and Ankit Kaushik to believe that “the threat of radicalisation in India is pervasive and increasing exponentially” (‘Before they cross the line’, IE, October 29). The situation, according to them, is quite serious and demands a policy response from the government. We have, however, seen multiple terror cases brought by the security agencies that have failed to stand in the courts — often after years of the accused being incarcerated under the UAPA. It is, therefore, not wrong to expect experts to examine the claims by the state agencies with scepticism. That aside, the authors’ concern should not be brushed aside. Radicalisation of minds is a reality in India.

There are different kinds of radicals in our midst: Believers in the dictatorship of the proletariat replacing multiparty democracy, or in the idea of a world ruled by Sharia or in the thought of India being a land primarily of Hindus, with others having lesser rights.

The challenge is to describe the Indian reality of radicalisation. It appears that the writers hold the belief propagated by the agencies — that the sources of radicalisation lie outside the boundaries of India, ISIS or al Qaeda being most prominent. Speaking plainly, when we look at radicalisation from this lens, we tend to focus on Muslims. Looking at a government-sanctioned research project to understand the phenomenon of radicalisation in India led by Bajpai himself, one finds that his assumption is not very different. For example, “the study will be conducted in four states like Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir.” One can only guess the religious profile of the 75 radicalised individuals to be sampled from these states.

The reason for such sampling and formulations is that only those acts are considered radical which are dramatic, have a suddenness about them, involve bombs or firearms like AK47s and involve groups acting in the name of Islam. The ISIS lure is real, but can the demonstrators terrorising Muslims offering namaz on the open ground in Gurgaon without using any weapon be seen as radicals? Are those who assembled at Jantar Mantar calling openly for the elimination of Muslims radicalised? In which category should those middle-class Hindus be placed who assembled to oppose the opening of a shop in Anand to terrorise Hindu partners into dropping their Muslim friend from the partnership? What about the groups across India terrorising Hindu-Muslim couples?

Such acts have become so numerous and routine that they no longer excite us enough to find them radical. Yet, if we agree with Bajpai, it is the extent of violence that radicalisation leads to which makes it dangerous. That is why we need to look at the sources of radicalisation and disable them. Can we describe the process and identify the sources of such radicalisation, which has turned into a violent threat in India? Can it be treated as “pervasive” and “exponential”, demanding an extraordinary response?

Recently, a video started circulating on social media platforms in which some students can be heard telling the reporter that Kashmiris were being fed better rice and had been exempt from paying income tax; that the Indian Constitution was not applicable there and the removal of Article 370 has corrected all these anomalies. They also believed that demonetisation had stopped stone-pelting. Should we laugh this away as a case of benign misinformation or see it as a stage in the process of radicalisation, which will make them justify violence against Kashmiris or even take part in it? What about the people in your families who believe that Muslims conspire to send their handsome men to lure Hindu girls? Or those who sincerely believe that the Muslim threat is driving Hindus away from many localities, like Kairana? Or, that Muslims are growing in numbers or people being converted to Christianity to outnumber Hindus? These beliefs lead people to participate in violence against Muslims and Christians or condone it. Should we treat such minds as radicalised or misguided? Yet, we know that in India, it is this mind which is the cause for daily, continuous violence.

It is not difficult to find the sources of this radicalisation. In a recent public meeting in Delhi, a journalist shared his experience with children attending an RSS shakha. When he first met them, they told him that Gandhi was their ideal but after a gap of two months, he had been replaced with Savarkar. Was it merely a harmless replacement of one ideal person by another one or also a change in the ideology, from non-violence to violence, from India for all to India primarily for Hindus? Is this radicalisation or not?

When the senior government and political leaders tell Hindus that their women are under threat because of certain people or their roads are taken by namazis, they are radicalising Hindus. In the same way Donald Trump was doing in the US. After he departed from office, the threat of radicalisation in America was assessed and defined differently. Farah Pandith writes about the way the Biden administration is trying to deal with the challenge of radicalisation: “It promises to create a better understanding of the domestic terrorism threat, using data to inform threat assessments and enhanced sharing across the inter-agency; it calls for a ramping up of so-called ‘prevention’, seeking to challenge extremism’s enduring ability to poison vulnerable minds and communities; it emphasises the central role played by law enforcement, seeking recommendations from the Department of Justice on areas to be improved and built; and it promises to tackle long-term contributors to escalating domestic extremism — not least longstanding racism and conspiracy theories demonising ‘others’. ”

What is our domestic threat? Who is poisoning vulnerable minds and communities here? Is it so difficult to talk about it?

Source: Indian Express, 8/11/21

Sachchidanand Sinha’s work is a reminder of what the Republic of India is. We must cherish it

 H

ave you heard about Sachchidanand Sinha? I bet not. If you have, I guess it’s one of his namesakes, perhaps the famous member of the Constituent Assembly, or Jayaprakash Narayan’s secretary or an academic, but not the one I am talking about. Google search won’t yield much on him except for one thoughtful profile and a bland listing of his books or their Amazon links.

You should know him. At 93, he is a bridge between two centuries, someone who brings lessons of the 20th-century ideological debates to our times. Over the last five decades, he has published more than two dozen books, about a dozen in English and more in Hindi. His oeuvre ranges from contemporary politics to aesthetics, from understanding Bihar’s underdevelopment to tracing the origins of the caste system, from critiquing the ideological foundations of the Naxalite movement to writing a manifesto for socialism for our generation. The publication of his eight-volume rachnavali (Selected Works) in Hindi last month is a good occasion to (re)read him.

If you don’t know him, it’s hardly your fault. Sachchidanand Sinha has no academic credentials, not even a bachelor’s degree. He has never worked in any academic institution. A political activist all his life — first with the Socialist Party, and then with Samata Sangathan and Samajwadi Jan Parishad — he chose reading and writing as his principal arena of political action. Just as he stayed away from big parties and ideological orthodoxies, he also stayed away from big publishers. Self-effacing to a fault, Sinha has spent the last 35 years in a modest cottage in a Bihar village. His prose is as sparse as his life: no academic jargon, no fashionable lingo, no catchphrases, no stunning one-liners, no stylised provocation. He has turned down awards. In a world where the worth of ideas is determined mainly by external markers, Sachchidanand Sinha is content to remain in oblivion.

Learning from Sachchidaji

I was plain lucky to know ‘Sachchida-ji’. I saw him around 1981 at one of the post-dinner talks at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) organised by the Samata Yuvjan Sabha (SYS), a youth organisation with Gandhian Socialist leaning that I belonged to. I don’t remember the topic, but recall how I was drawn to his intellect: clear logical reasoning, backed with solid knowledge sans any rhetorical flourish. Just like my father.

Over the next decade, I attended many study circles and camps where he educated the young cadre of Samata Sangathan on wide-ranging issues, from the most recent political events to the most abstract ideological and philosophical debates. Learning from him (as well as Kishen Pattnayak and Ashok Seksaria) was a privilege that I did nothing to deserve. I remember visiting his bare one-room tenement in Saket, New Delhi that seemed too big for his worldly possessions: a cot, a table and a kerosene stove that served as his kitchen. Sachchidaji was, and has remained, an ascetic.

His single-minded pursuit of ideas, unmindful of ideological orthodoxies and academic fashions, allows him to chart through the ideological contestations that marked the 20th century. He is not a non-aligned spectator. He has been, and continues to be, a socialist. But his socialism is not a creed tied to a sacred book or a  supreme leader. It helps that he comes from an unorthodox sub-stream of Indian socialism associated with Jayaprakash Narayan, Narendra Deva and Rammanohar Lohia. At the same time, Sachchidaji is not a ‘Lohiaite’ and has nothing but contempt for what passes for socialist politics in today’s India.

Beyond political ideologies

In his first major book, Socialism and Power, Sachchidaji continued this interrogation of the received socialist orthodoxy. While he is more deferential to Karl Marx than most of his colleagues, he critiques Marx and Marxists for their blind faith in big industry, megacities and capital-intensive technology. This was not a recipe for revolution, but for a concentration of economic and political power that resulted in the collapse of the USSR and the rise of state-capitalism in China.

His book, Poonji Ka Antim Adhyay, extends Marx’s magnum opus, Das Kapital, to its unwritten fourth volume. The political activist in him cannot leave things at a critique. His Socialism: A Manifesto for Survival offers an outline of socialism for our age. In his version — decentralised democracy, appropriate technology, non-consumerist standards of living, ecological sustainability and primacy of labour over capital — socialism does not remain just one of the ideologies from the 20th century but becomes a synthesis of all that is worth learning from that century.

His unique gaze extends beyond the limited world of political ideologies. In The Caste System: Myth and Reality, he counters the orientalist reading of scripturally sanctioned, ever-unchanging caste order. One of his first books, Internal Colony, questioned the established economic wisdom to argue that the backwardness of states like Bihar (which included Jharkhand then) draws upon the logic of capitalist development that must suck resources from ‘internal colonies’. In the hay days of Congress monopoly and defying proponents of the two-party democracy, he postulated that a coalition is the most appropriate form of power-sharing in a democracy like India. Unlike most political activists, he does not view art as an instrument of propaganda. His writings on aesthetics establish art as a means to contain human impulses for violence.

The problem is with us

In a world of ideas dominated by academic experts, Sachchidanad Sinha would be seen as an interloper, an amateur generalist. The problem lies not with him, but with us. He is among the last surviving species of a great tradition of modern Indian social and political thinkers that began in the 19th century. For the next 150 years or so, this intellectual effervescence and contestation laid the foundations of the Republic of India.

Unlike Europe, social and political thinking in India was not happening in universities or academic institutions. Our thinkers were practitioners, mostly social and political activists themselves. They asked big questions and provided bold answers. Anchored in our context, they engaged with the modern world on our own terms, mostly using Indian languages.

This tradition suffered a sudden death soon after Independence. Social and political theorising was taken over by experts in social sciences and humanities who looked up to and hoped to engage with their western counterparts. Not to put too fine a point, this transition has been a disaster for India – from our perspective to policy and politics. After the death of Rammanohar Lohia, the last great thinker in that tradition, in 1967 it is hard to name many Indian thinkers outside the academia who helped us connect with the big questions of our times. I can only think of Kishen Pattanayak, Dharampal, R. P. Saraf and, of course, Sachchidaji.

Sachchidanand Sinha reminds us of what we have lost and need to regain if we wish to reclaim our republic.

The author is a member of Swaraj India and co-founder of Jai Kisan Andolan. He tweets @_YogendraYadav. 

Source: The Print, 27/10/21

How the militant aspect of India’s freedom struggle was sidelined

 

Arjun Subramaniam writes: A recent film, Udham Singh, highlights how the role of violent acts of defiance was diminished by overplaying the impact of the non-violent movement. This only served British interests

This is not an article about the recently released film, Sardar Udham, or the power-packed and understated performance of Vicky Kaushal. The movie was a good watch, intense and engrossing as a biopic ought to be and searing in its indictment of British colonial rule. The only minor blemish is its extended and gory depiction of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The impact of the massacre would have been driven home with a shorter sequence. The biggest takeaway from the film is its indirect and oblique indictment of several contemporary Indian historical narratives that underplay the impact of revolutionaries like Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh on British colonial strategies. The film also shines a light on the failure of traditional Indian historiography to assess the countervailing impact of the more publicised non-violent freedom movement over the several violent expressions of angst amongst the Indian people, and its bearing on British rule.

Beyond a chapter or two, I do not recall having read much in school about the various violent and militant expressions against British rule beyond the rather disparaging analysis of the 1857 Revolt, which was showcased as a failure and a manifestation of a divided India. The narratives that influenced many young Indians like me were the building of the road-railway-telegraph network by the British; or the Quit India Movement, Dandi March or the several imprisonments of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi in urban prisons, and not the trials, tribulations and even torture of prisoners like Udham Singh, or those incarcerated in the Andamans. Seminal events such as the Indian Naval uprising of 1946 and other violent acts of defiance by youth across the country have been subsumed by an Anglicised pedagogical system that drew heavily from colonial archives. Making matters worse was the inability of vernacular historiography to contribute to the predominantly Oxbridge and Delhi-centric histories churned out since Independence.

The propensity of traditional Indian historians to overplay the impact of the non-violent movement, which had its roots in a hybrid value system that combined a westernised model with spiritual Indian moorings, suited the exit strategies of India’s colonial masters in several ways. First, it allowed the sun to set gently on the empire and helped the British retain significant influence in the subcontinent for decades. Second, imagine if events like the assassination of Governor Michael Dwyer; the Naval Revolt; a widespread violent uprising against the trial of the INA leaders; or the organised expression of dissent by the tens of thousands of troops of the Indian Army led by well-trained Indian officers coerced the British out of India. There has been little discussion on whether such events could have prevented the British from influencing events such as the Partition or continuing with the Great Game during and after the first India-Pakistan conflict in 1947-48.

The impact would have been huge and was anticipated by prescient British generals like Claude Auchinleck, who transmitted their fears to Whitehall soon after WWII ended. That London appreciated this possibility and sped up the transfer of power to a political dispensation that was largely trained by them and heavily influenced by Western liberal thought, is testimony to the strategic foresight of an erstwhile great power.

War and conflict as waged by states are nothing more than sophisticated and organised violence, and the apparatus that states build to wage war is largely dictated by the strategic elite. India’s emerging strategic posture and its ability to intellectualise the conduct of war as a legitimate instrument of statecraft in the post-Independence era, was, to a large extent, shaped by the intellectual DNA of a well-meaning, well-educated and unrealistically altruistic set of leaders who overestimated the impact of the non-violent freedom struggle on nation-building. Consequently, the flavour of deterrence that emerged in independent India was one of diffidence clothed in the garb of restraint and responsibility. This is not to glorify the use of violence in inter or intra-state conflict. Nor to undermine the achievements of India’s founding fathers, who laid the foundations of a vibrant democracy.

By consigning the more militant and military events that dotted India’s struggle for independence to the sidelines, the British shaped a significant part of the larger historical narrative even as they left India. It is in this context that Sardar Udham is a “must watch” for every Indian to understand “other” narratives of India’s freedom movement.

Source: Indian Express, 21/10/21

Udham Singh: The witness to Jallianwala Bagh who swore to bring an end to British rule

 On June 5, 1940 as the jury at the Central Criminal Court in Old Bailey found Udham Singh guilty of murdering General Michael O’Dwyer, the clerk turned around to Singh and asked if he had anything to say as to why the court should not give him the penalty of death according to the law. Singh responded saying that he had a statement to make. Adjusting his glasses, he produced a set of papers and began reading. “I say down with British imperialism,” he said. “You say India does not have peace. We have only slavery. Generations of so-called civilisation has brought for us everything filthy and degeneration known to the human race. All you have to do is read your own history.”

Udham Singh was 40 at that time. Having grown up in the early decades of the 20th century, he was heavily influenced by political events in Punjab such as the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 and the Ghadar Party’s uprising of 1914-16. He was a young boy of 20 when he witnessed General Dyer’s madness at Jallianwala Bagh as he fired upon a group of innocent, unarmed people. He was serving water to the people who had turned up for the procession that day on the event of Baisakhi and was himself injured. Undeterred, he had continued serving people till late in the night.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre was a turning point in his life, and he resolved to take revenge. Two decades later, he fulfilled his promise as he shot Michael O’ Dwyer at a meeting in Caxton Hall, London. O’Dwyer was the lieutenant governor of Punjab when the Jallianwala Bagh incident had happened. On being shot, he dropped dead instantly.

The assassination of Dwyer shook up both the British authorities and the nationalists in India. The news spread like wildfire throughout the world. “Perhaps no other incident in the world gained so much publicity as this one on 14th March 1940. From morning to midnight news had been broadcast in French, Spanish, Italian, English, Turkish, Rumanian and Russian,” writes historian Sikander Singh in his book ‘A great patriot and martyr Udham Singh’ (2007). Yet for all the noise he made, Singh was quick to disappear from public consciousness and lay largely forgotten in the pantheon of freedom fighters.

After the conclusion of his trial, the judge, Justice Atkinson, turned to the press and ordered, “I give a direction to the press not to report any of the statements made by the accused in the dock. You understand, members of the press?”

Two weeks later Udham Singh was hanged at Pentonville prison and for the next several decades his final statement in the court and several other facts about his life lay buried amidst secret documents accessible only to government authorities. Interestingly, even nationalist leaders in India, including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, were largely critical of his action. And as recent works by scholars on Singh’s life shows, the government of independent India too had for a long time made it rather difficult to access documents related to him.

Now, director Shoojit Sircar’s new film, ‘Sardar Udham’, starring Vicky Kaushal, brings to life this forgotten hero of India’s nationalist struggle.Udham Singh was originally named Sher Singh after his birth in 1899 at Sunam in Sangrur district of Punjab. He lost both his parents at a fairly young age and he along with his brother spent most of their childhood at an orphanage. It is at the orphanage that he and his elder brother were baptised into Sikhism and given the name Udham Singh. Throughout his childhood and adolescence years, he was deeply influenced by the teachings of Sikhism.

Tales of Udham Singh’s courage continue to be narrated in his village. A famous incident is one about him fighting a leopard that had barged into his house to attack the goats.

There is a lack of clarity about Singh’s education though. Historian Navtej Singh in his biography of Udham Singh suggests that one British record states that he was educated in Amritsar’s Khalsa College. However, Udham Singh himself is known to have said that he received no education. While some records suggest him to be an electrician, there are others that have documented him as being an engineer. “But it is certain that he could write in Urdu and English  fluently; also could write fairly well in Gurmukhi. He could speak English fluently when at ease,” writes Navtej Singh.

On April 13, 1919, on the festive occasion of Baisakhi, a large group of people assembled in Jallianwala Bagh at Amritsar to protest against the arrest of a few Congress leaders under the Rowlatt Act. Udham Singh along with his mates from the orphanage were there to distribute water among the attendees. As Dwyer fired upon the group, all his other friends from the orphanage died. The sight of his friends dying and the allround carnage had a lasting impact on the 20-year-old.

After the incident at Jallianwala Bagh, Udham Singh was filled with hatred for the British government in India. As Sikander Singh notes in his book, “when he talked of General Dyer and his actions, his eyes became bloodshot with rage.” He was a dedicated revolutionary now, determined to bring an end to the British Raj.

Deeply influenced by the activities of Bhagat Singh, he got involved in the Ghadar Party in 1924. For the next few years he travelled abroad and organised Indian revolutionaries overseas to overthrow colonial rule. After he returned to India in 1927 with a supply of ammunition on the orders of Bhagat Singh, he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. Upon his release in 1931, although he was under constant surveillance of the Punjab Police, he managed to escape to Germany and from there to London in 1934 where he worked as an engineer. All this while, Udham Singh was making plans to assassinate O’Dwyer. Reports suggest that in his personal diary he frequently referred to O’Dwyer as Dyer, possibly because he confused the two.

The assassination of General Dwyer

In 1939, as the Second World War started out, he saw in the crisis an opportunity to overthrow the Raj. He was filled with a desire to emulate the heroes of the 1914-16 Punjab rebellion and mark himself out as a national hero.

Sikander Singh in his book records that on March 12, 1940, a day before the assassination, Udham Singh had invited his friends over for a traditional Punjabi meal. He seemed jubilant and high-spirited that day, and when his friends were about to leave, he announced valiantly that the next day “London would witness a marvel” and that the British Empire would be shaken to its foundations.

Reportedly, a few days before this party Udham Singh had been to the India Office where he saw a poster announcing a joint meeting of the East India Association and the Royal Central Asian Society. The Royal Central Asian Society was an independent body formed in 1901 to promote a greater understanding of Central Asia and the surrounding regions. Over the years, it had come to cover the entire region of Asia and by 1940 was regularly meeting for fortnightly meetings in the Tudor Room at Caxton Hall. O’Dwyer was listed as one of the speakers for the meeting on March 13. When Udham Singh saw the poster, he made up his mind to attend it and stage a protest with revolver shots.

The meeting started at 3 PM and was attended by about 450 people. As the meeting ended, Udham Singh emerged from among the crowd, pulled out a revolver from his jacket pocket and fired six shots in rapid succession within five seconds. One of the shots hit O’Dwyer, who fell back soaked in blood and died soon after.

At this point no one knew who Udham Singh was. Most assumed the incident to be an IRA bomb attack. When the police arrived they searched for the Indian with the revolver who gave his name as Mohammed Singh Azad. He was then removed to another room where he was kept in the custody of Detective Sergeant Sidney Jones.

On being interrogated, Udham Singh, who was then known as Azad, said, “I did it because I had a grudge against him. He deserved it.” On being informed that he might be sentenced to death for the crime he shouted out, “I don’t care about the sentence of death. It is not worrying me. I am dying for a purpose.”

Reaction to the assassination

The BBC’s 9 pm news was the first to break the information about O’Dwyer’s assassination. Even as British bureaucrats were gripped with fear after the incident, there was much rejoicing in India. In Punjab, the incident was seen as heroic, an avenge for the insult at Jallianwala Bagh.

The following day, a German radio station reported the incident, along with stating “the Indian freedom movement has now gone over to direct action against the English oppressors of India.” “The shooting and killing of Sir Michael O’Dwyer recalls the past misdeeds of the British administrators in India.”

Newspapers of the day too carried extensive coverage of the incident and each one of them recounted the story of Jallianwala Bagh. The Daily Mirror, as cited in Sikander Singh’s book, reported, “Revenge after 20 years….Amritsar had never forgotten.”

Interestingly, the press in India was deeply mournful about the event. In the collection of documents related to Udham Singh edited by Navtej Singh and Avtar Singh Jouhl in 2002, the National Herald is cited as suggesting that the “assassination is widely regretted but earnestly hopes that it will not have far-reaching repercussions on the political future of India.” The paper that was established by Nehru further stated, “We have not been unaware of (two corrupt groups) of the feeling, particularly among younger section of Indians, regarding non-violence as an instrument of national policy and our support of early civil disobedience is because of our conviction that delay will strengthen the forces of violence.”

The Statesman, reporting on March 16, 1940, noted, “The senseless character of the crime is illustrated by the fact that the chief victim was a man of 76 years of age who retired from India nearly twenty years ago, while the occasion was a harmless gathering.”

The Tribune on the same day noted, “Anything more shocking than the outrage that took place at a meeting of the India Association in London on Wednesday night cannot be easily imagined.” It added: “Profoundly as all sections of public opinion in India will deplore the incident, no section of opinion will condemn it more strongly, more energetically or more unreservedly than the party of self-government between whom and the chief victim of the outrage there was little love lost during the period of his administration in the country.”

Flags flew at half-mast both at London and Lahore on the day following the incident and all public offices and courts were closed. In the House of Commons, the leader of the Labour Party, Clement Atlee, asked Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain: “Is it not the fact that this abominable outrage will be as keenly resented by all the people of India as by the people of this country?” The latter responded, “I am sure that that is so.”

Gandhi, on hearing of the incident, told reporters, “The news of the death of Michael O’Dwyer and the injuries to Lord Zetland, Lord Lamington and Sir Louis Dane, has caused me deep pain. I regard this act as one of insanity.” He went on to express the hope that it would not affect Indian politics and expressed his condolences with O’Dwyer’s family.

“Gandhi, whose pacifist soul was shaken to its core by the assassination of this imperialist butcher, was not to express such sympathy for the family and friends of Udham Singh after the latter’s execution in Pentoville prison,” writes the politician and editor of Lalkar newspaper Harpal Brar in his foreword to Navtej Singh’s biography of Udham Singh.

The trial of Udham Singh

In the days following the assassination, the police investigated thoroughly to find out who Udham Singh, alias Azad, was. New Scotland Yard reported, as cited in Navtej Singh’s book, “that Singh’s action was not sponsored by any organisation or association and that no other person was party to the scheme. He has given evidence of terrorist aspirations from his early days, and there is no doubt that he has for some time in the past nursed a plan to assassinate some prominent Englishman connected with Indian political affairs.”

The police were fearful that Udham Singh might use the trial in court for political purposes, posing as a martyr and encouraging Indians both in India and abroad to commit similar crimes. Consequently, it was decided to limit media publicity of the investigation and trial as much as possible.

The trial started out on June 4, 1940 in the Number 1 court of Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court. “Special precautions were taken in London to ensure that the press did not give ‘undue prominence’ to Udham Singh’s ‘heroics’,” notes Navtej Singh in his book.

The presiding judge was Mr. Atkinson. The prosecution was represented by G B McLure and C.Humphreys and Udham Singh was defended by John Hutchinson, R E Seaton and V K Krishna Menon. Navtej Singh writes that Udham Singh declined to be sworn on the Bible but made a solemn affirmation.

McLure opened the case on behalf of the prosecution. Udham Singh’s lawyers presented their defence by producing a piece of paper written by O’Dwyer to establish that they both were on friendly terms. Udham Singh was then invited to the witness box. He stated that he was against British rule in India and the way India had been forced into the war. He further explained that his original intention was to shoot into the air and shout, ‘leave India alone, mind your own business.’ However, since someone pushed him and struck his arm down, the bullet happened to hit O’Dwyer.

The following day of the trial Udham Singh repeated that he had no desire to kill anybody. But in the course of the proceeding he slowly admitted everything he had previously told to the police.

After the prosecution presented the case, Atkinson summed up by arguing that it was not necessary to prove intent of murder but that the damage was an intentional act. It was not accidental and that Udham Singh had gone to the meeting fully armed.

The jury found Udham Singh guilty of murder and then the court clerk asked him if he had anything to say with regard to why he must not be given a death penalty. It is then that Udham Singh started out his famous speech against British imperialism. He was swiftly interrupted by Atkinson who said he was not going to listen to a political speech.

After much argument between the two, Atkinson stated once again, “You are only entitled to say why the sentence of death should not be passed upon you. You are not entitled to make a political speech.”

To this Udham Singh shouted, “I do not care about the sentence of death. It means nothing at all. I do not care about dying or anything. We are suffering from the British Empire… I am standing before an English jury in an English court. You people go to India and when you come back you are given prizes and put into the House of Commons, but when we come to England we are put to death.”

Udham Singh went on that when the British come to India they call themselves “intellectuals” and “rulers” and “they order machine guns to fire on Indian students without hesitation.” “I have nothing against the public at all. I have more English friends in England than I have in India. I have nothing against the public. I have great sympathy with the workers of England, but I am against the dirty British government,” he said, as quoted in Navtej Singh’s book.

Atkinson interrupted the speech saying, “I am not to hear any more…I am going to pass sentence upon you.” Once the sentence of death was proclaimed, Udham Singh clenched his fist in the air and shouted, “Inqlab, Inqlab, Inqlab…down with British imperialism”.

Soon after, he was handcuffed and taken to Pentoville prison in North London where he was hanged to death on July 31, 1940.

Further reading:

Navtej Singh, Challenge to imperial hegemony: The life story of a great Indian patriot Udham Singh, Punjabi University, 1998

Source: Indian Express, 16/10/21

Weaponising faith: The Gyanvapi Mosque-Kashi Vishwanath dispute

 There was something incongruous about the moment when I read the news on April 8 that the district court in Varanasi had directed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a study of the Gyanvapi Mosque. This day also happened to be Kumar Gandharva’s birth anniversary. It was hard to resist playing his composition in Raga Shankara Sir Pe Dhari Ganga. There is a moment where he adds an extra “gang” before “Ganga”. The resulting “ganga/gagana”, is one of the most incandescent moments in all of Indian music — that extra Ganga literally drenching you in the full freshness and redemptive flow of the Ganga. It is always tempting to follow this exuberant rendition of Shankara, with another more meditative one — Pandit Jasraj’s Shankara. He sings “Vibhushitanaga Riputammanga”, the penultimate shloka of Panditraja Jagannatha’s Gangalahari. Reading the news of the Gyanvapi order, while these played in the background, almost felt like a defilement, a reminder that the spontaneous and erumpent spirituality of Hinduism was about to be again derailed by sordid politics.

The Gyanvapi order combined with the Supreme Court’s willingness to entertain a plea challenging the Places of Worship Act (Special Provisions), 1991 is going to open another communal front. In the case of the Gyanvapi Mosque, there is no real dispute. It is widely accepted that parts of the Vishwanath temple were destroyed and its walls may have been raised on the plinth of the temple. One also does not have to deny that many Hindus experienced and have a consciousness of Aurungzeb’s reign as being characterised by religious bigotry. Historians can debate the context and the motives of Aurangzeb’s actions, and the complexity of his rule. But minimising the significance of his actions has always been a little historically incredible and politically disingenuous. If we rest the case for secularism in contemporary India on establishing Aurangzeb’s liberal credentials, then secularism will indeed be on rickety foundations. It will also legitimise Hindutva resting its case on Aurangzeb’s credentials. Secularism will be deepened if it lets history be history, not make history the foundations of a secular ethic.

But there is no incongruity between accepting that a temple could have been demolished in the 16th century, and believing that the status quo on the shrines must be maintained. It’s hubris for me to think that Lord Shiva needs my protection. Yes, one can acknowledge a history of conflict, and believe at the same time that a new social contract has been written. In some ways, the Places of Worship Act, 1991 is a good expression of that thought. It freezes the status quo of all disputed religious properties as they were in 1947.

In the past, the destruction of religious shrines may have been the function of state power. But modern India cannot repeat the same logic. We cannot say that because political power has changed hands, so must the power to define the religious landscape. The demand that Kashi or Mathura be returned is exactly that. It is a raw assertion of majoritarian power. Now that power has passed to the majority, it must claim back or avenge wrongs committed five centuries ago. There is also a deeper logic. The purpose of reclaiming these shrines is not religiosity. Bhakti for Kashi Vishwanath has not been impinged or diminished by the existence of the Gyanvapi Mosque. The purpose of claiming it back is to claim that Hindus have power qua Hindus and they can now show Muslims their place. The purpose is not to craft a connection with Shiva or Krishna, the purpose is to permanently indict minorities. It is to use a sacred place of worship as a weaponised tool against another community.

The new spate of lawsuits will stoke communal fires. Most political parties will be caught like deer in headlights, not knowing which way to turn. The fact that they are not defending the Places of Worship Act will further send a signal that the Indian state cannot make a credible promise to minorities. It is also an indication that Hindutva in its present form can never be satiated; it is an escalation of power that constantly demands more. Yesterday was Ayodhya, tomorrow Kashi, the day after Mathura. It has been emboldened by the lack of resistance amongst Hindus and the increasing isolation of minorities. In the guise of settling a score with Aurangzeb, Hindutva wants to commit hara-kiri on the Indian Constitution, individual freedom and minorities. Alas, we will let this pass too, with a judicial seal of approval to boot.

Panditraja Jagannatha, author of Gangalahari, is a fascinating figure. He was from Andhra. He spent time with Dara Shikoh before reaching Benares. He was a phenomenal poet, aesthetician, and polemically engaged with Appaya Dikshita. The details of his biography are obscure. Legend has it that he fell in love with a Muslim princess. P K Gode’s monumental two-volume Studies in Indian Literary History, one of the most meticulous sources on Indian literary figures, argued for the plausibility of the story, based on 18th century sources. This legend was the basis of a Tamil film Lavangi (“His lover’s name”) and a Marathi play by Vidyadhar Gokhale. There are different variations of the legend.

It is said that the Gangalahari is connected to this love story. For marrying a Muslim, Jagannatha was declared an outcaste when he went to Benares. Even the Ganga receded and did not receive him. He composed the Gangalahari to appease Ganga. With each shloka, the water rose one step on the ghat to receive him. I have read dozens of Hindi introductions to the Gangalahari. It is interesting how the story changes. In some versions, Jagannatha wants to be received by the Ganga so that he can be cleansed of his sins of marrying a Muslim. This is the more recent and more communal version. But there is an older version that held sway for a long time.

In this version, the Brahmins have declared him an outcaste. But after he recites the Gangalahari, Ganga rises and receives both him and his lover in its embrace, putting a seal of approval on their union. The sin was not his love, it was making him an outcaste. What speaks to the majesty of “pinaki mahagyani”, as Kumar Gandharva called Lord Shiva, or the purifying power of Ganga more? Moving on to build an inclusive, prosperous India? Or being intoxicated by a majoritarian fantasy of revenge? Looks like we are opting for the latter, and no Ganga will rise to redeem us of this sin.

This column first appeared in the print edition on April 13, 2021 under the title ‘Ganga and Gyanvapi’. The writer is contributing editor, 

Source: Indian Express, 13/04/21

When women shape political outcomes

 There are around 35 million women voters in Bengal who will play a significant role in this election. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has been in power for the last 10 years, is aware of the power of women voters.In 1973, a woman, accompanied by her husband, approached Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi, seeking to contest an assembly election. Her confidence impressed the PM and she was given a Congress ticket for an assembly constituency in a backward district of Uttar Pradesh. At that time, the candidate did not know of the difficulties that lay ahead.

While on the campaign trail, she had to ensure that family elders were with her in the jeep. She had to return home before dusk due to family compulsions. She pressed on regardless, the only saving grace being that since she was a woman, she could enter any house and reach out to women.

On election day, the women voter turnout was considerably more than witnessed in previous assembly elections. The woman candidate did not win but the participation of women ensured that the Congress did not lose its deposit in the constituency for the first time since 1952. This was a small victory of sorts for women.

A lot has changed since then. Let us look at the results of the Bihar assembly elections last year. In this politically sensitive state, male turnout was 54.45%, whereas 59.69% of women voted. Though this was about 0.79% less than in the previous election, women played a significant role in determining the political arithmetic and, therefore, government formation.

This was, among other reasons, due to the women-oriented schemes implemented by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government since it assumed power in 2014. These include the Ujjwala scheme, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan which ensured a toilet in each house, bank accounts and free treatment during pregnancy. PM Narendra Modi’s image of being honest and hard-working contributed to women’s faith in these schemes. Women have proved to be loyal supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s in many elections so far.

However, the elections in West Bengal may prove an ordeal for the BJP. There are around 35 million women voters in Bengal who will play a significant role in this election. Chief minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee, who has been in power for the last 10 years, is aware of the power of women voters. The BJP won 18 seats in the 2019 general election. Banerjee gave 40% of the seats to women candidates. But since the Trinamool Congress (TMC) did not do well in that election, she launched a new wing of the party called the Bang Janani Vahini. Now, members of this women’s brigade go door-to-door to tell people about the CM’s policies as well as participate in street rallies.

The TMC has nine women Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Lok Sabha. They are given the freedom to express their opinions vocally. The speech of first-time MP Mahua Moitra on the Presidential address during the budget session of Parliament is a good example of this strategy. The TMC gave her precedence over a senior member such as Saugata Roy in such a crucial discussion. Banerjee has also encouraged women at the gram panchayat level. She has strived to strengthen the female vote by providing them maternity child care leave as well as by instituting schemes for them in educational institutions.

The TMC has consistently tried to prove that the BJP is anti-women by selectively cherry-picking and publicising alleged misogynistic statements by the BJP leaders. This explains why, while addressing a public meeting recently in Hooghly, the PM said, “Centre has provided water connections to over 3.6 crore households since the launch of the Jal Jiwan Mission, the number in Bengal has only gone up from two lakh to nine lakh. Out of 1-1.75 crore houses (in West Bengal), only nine lakh have a water pipeline. The way state government works, no wonder how many more years it’ll take to deliver water to the poor. This shows that TMC doing injustice to ‘Bengal Ki Beti’. Can they be forgiven?”

The BJP’s leaders are trying to prove, buttressed with data, that they have not lagged behind when it comes to development schemes for women. The aim is to convey to the public that women in the state are still insecure despite a woman CM in the saddle. It will be interesting to see what data set or which slogans will convince women voters. But as I see it, the efforts by both parties suggest empowerment of women which should not be looked at only in terms of electoral defeats or victories.

It is clear that since reservations given to women in panchayat elections, there has been an increase in political awareness among them. In 2019, Narendra Singh Tomar, then Union minister for rural development and panchayati raj, told the Lok Sabha that there were a total of 4.1 million public representatives in gram panchayats, of which 46% were women. But they still have to make a mark in the higher echelons of political power. Today, we have 78 women MPs, the highest-ever ratio of women in Parliament, but this is not enough.

It can only be hoped that the Bengal elections, like Bihar before, will strengthen political empowerment among women voters.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan

Source: Hindustan Times, 1/03/21

Rise of Hindutva has enabled a counter-revolution against Mandal’s gains

 Hindu nationalism is generally defined as an ethno-religious movement. But it may have as much to do with social factors as with identity markers, as its last phase of expansion has been primarily a reaction to Mandal. Soon after the then prime minister, V P Singh, announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, Organiser wrote of “an urgent need to build up moral and spiritual forces to counter any fallout from an expected Shudra revolution”. And when Mandal II happened, the same newspaper argued that the “Congress-led-UPA government at the Centre is bent upon destroying the last bastion of merit…”. After the BJP was defeated in 2004, and again in 2009, it became urgent to hone a strategy that would enable it to come to power and prevent the deepening of policies that went against its Hindu nationalist ideology and the interests of its base.

The brand of national-populism that Narendra Modi had initiated in Gujarat was the perfect alternative. It could transcend caste barriers in the name of an existential defence of Hindus against threatening Others (by resorting to polarisation techniques) and attract OBCs and even Dalits, not only because of the polarisation but also because of the plebeianisation of the BJP, which used to be identified with the upper castes until then. Modi himself came from a backward caste, had developed the chaiwala narrative and pretended that he had been victimised by the English-speaking establishment of Delhi — a feeling many OBCs shared. After all, many of them had started to emancipate themselves after Mandal, but they had not succeeded in joining the middle class. Modi could exploit their frustration — all the more so as he promised to apply the “Gujarat model” for creating jobs.

While the BJP already had the support of the urban, upper-caste middle class, Modi brought to the party the OBC plus vote. The percentage of OBCs who supported the party jumped from 22 per cent in 2009 to 34 per cent in 2014 and 44 per cent in 2019. These figures explain the rise to power of Modi’s BJP, and, correlatively — but paradoxically — the comeback of upper-caste politicians. In the Hindi belt, 45 per cent of the BJP MPs were upper caste in 2014 and 2019. This over-representation of the upper castes was reflected in the BJP’s ticket distribution. If one removes SC and ST candidates from the picture, 62 per cent of all general category MP candidates of the BJP in the Hindi belt were upper castes as against 37 per cent for all other parties’ combined. In the government that Modi formed in 2019, 47 per cent of the 55 ministers were from the upper castes, 13 per cent from the dominant castes (including Jats, Patels and Reddys), 20 per cent were OBCs, 11 per cent were SCs and 7 per cent from the STs (plus one Muslim and one Sikh).

Parallelly, the Modi government has transformed the reservation system. First, the erosion of the public sector has resulted in a steady decrease in the number of jobs reserved for SCs. At the same time, the number of civil service candidates shortlisted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) dropped by almost 40 per cent between 2014 and 2018, from 1,236 to 759. Second, the creation of a lateral entry in the Indian administration has diluted the quota system. Third, the introduction of a 10 per cent quota in 2019 for the economically weaker sections (EWS) has altered the standard definition of backwardness and de facto reserved such a quota to upper castes who were not that weak. (By setting an income limit of Rs 8,00,000 per annum to qualify under EWS, the government has made over 95 per cent of the upper castes eligible for this quota).

Besides, BJP leaders have started to eulogise the moral superiority of the upper caste in public. For instance, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, BJP leader from Rajasthan Om Birla, declared: “Brahmin community always works towards guiding all other communities… hence, Brahmins are held in high regard in society by the virtue of their birth.” BJP leaders have also displayed caste-based observances that reflected their belief in the notion of impurity. After Yogi Adityanath was elected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Hindu priests made elaborate arrangements for purifying rituals at the sprawling chief minister’s bungalow that had been previously occupied by Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Sangh Parivar attempted also to enforce the value system of the Hindu upper castes. While vigilante campaigns launched against “love jihad” targeted Muslims, lower castes have been collateral casualties. This is not new. Twenty years ago, when Babu Bajrangi, the Ahmedabad-based Bajrang Dal leader, “rescued” Patel girls who had eloped with Muslim or Dalit men, he made sure they would marry within their caste. Incidentally, Adityanath declared in 2014: “Muslims who want to become Hindus will be purified and we will form a new caste for them” — a clear illustration of the role of caste as a building block of society.

Similarly, “gau rakshaks” also attacked Dalits who did leather work. In 2016, in Una (Gujarat again), Dalit leather workers were accused of cow slaughter and beaten up by Hindu vigilantes while they were skinning a carcass. Vigilante groups played a similar role vis-à-vis the conversion of Hindu Dalits to another religion. The ghar wapasi movement also affected them. In 2018, for instance, Bajrang Dal activists in UP reportedly reconverted a young Dalit who had become a Muslim.

If vigilantes were doing it before, what is new is the passing of laws against conversion or the regulation of slaughterhouses. Once again, Dalits are at the receiving end. In Gujarat, those who want to convert to Buddhism need to get permission from the District Magistrate since 2003. Whether the same problem will result from the anti “love-jihad” ordinance in UP remains to be seen. But the inclinations of the state find expression not only in laws and ordinances but even in the conduct of the police. This evolution is well illustrated by the way Dalits have been singled out in the state’s action against so-called “urban Naxals”. While searching the houses of one of the accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, the police reportedly asked, “Why are there photos of Phule and Ambedkar in your house, but no photos of gods?’’ And to the accused’s daughter, they said: “Your husband is a Dalit, so he does not follow any tradition. But you are a Brahmin, so why are you not wearing any jewellery or sindoor? Why are you not dressed like a traditional wife?”.

The BJP’s rise to power may, therefore, result, not only in a post-Mandal counter-revolution that has enabled upper-caste politics and policies to stage a comeback but also in the promotion of some upper-caste orthopraxy and ethos via state vigilantism. The new dispensation exemplifies a style of control that is as much based on political power as on the enforcement of social order, something very much in tune with the RSS’s tradition.

This article first appeared in the print edition on February 10, 2021, under the title “The return of upper-caste politics”. Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s India Institute, London

Source: Indian Express, 10/02/21

What is a party symbol?

Every political party in India has a symbol, which enables voters to easily identify the party on the ballot. For example, the BJP's symbol is the lotus and the Congress's symbol is the hand. Party symbols are especially important to aid voters who cannot read. But candidates also go to great lengths to be identified with their election symbols. The Election Commission stipulates that no symbol should represent a religion or a caste. A party can submit a symbol of its choice to the EC for consideration. Else, the EC allots a symbol to the party. Though the elephant is the symbol of the BSP and the lion is the symbol of the Forward Bloc, the EC in 1991 stopped allowing parties to use animals as symbols after complaints from animal rights activists.

Source: The Hindu,9/04/2019

What is 'Bicameral legislature'?

Bicameralism is the practice of having two Houses of Parliament. At the State level, the equivalent of the Lok Sabha is the Vidhan Sabha (Legislative Assembly), and that of the Rajya Sabha is the Vidhan Parishad (Legislative Council). A so-called Upper House is considered important in the parliamentary system, as only a third of the seats are filled every two years and it therefore acts as a check against potential impetuousness of electoral majorities in the Lower House. With members mostly indirectly elected, the Upper House also ensures that individuals who might not be cut out for the rough-and-tumble of direct elections too are able to contribute to the legislative process. Under Article 169, Parliament may by law create or abolish the second chamber in a State if the Legislative Assembly of that State passes a resolution to that effect by a special majority. At present, seven Indian States have bicameral legislatures. Some argue that unlike the Rajya Sabha, the Vidhan Parishad does not serve must purpose and poses a strain on States’ finances.

Source: The Hindu, 9/04/2019

The loss of intellectual autonomy

To define one’s identity or community in terms of an exclusive religion is a vexed European notion

No person in today’s world likes to be told what to do or what to think. The young are particularly keen to have the freedom to decide which beliefs to form. Intellectual autonomy is widely considered to be an important value. This was probably not true in the past when large numbers of people were illiterate, knowledge was produced and stored by a few, and there was wider social legitimacy for submission to those with power and authority.

However, even then, poets and philosophers routinely felt that intellectual autonomy is smothered by temptations of power. Asked by his pupils on how to relate to rulers, the medieval philosopher-saint Al Ghazali said, “It would be disastrous to go to a ruler to offer unsolicited advice. It is acceptable to offer your opinion if the ruler sought you. But it is best if he goes his way and you go yours.”

Strategy of intellectual control

Since the end of the 18th century, as technologies of knowledge production became increasingly available to larger sections of society, intellectual autonomy has been threatened not only by state power, but in other invidious ways. Colonialism is a case in point. The British strategy of intellectual control was implemented by crafting a system of education rather than brute coercion. Although the best of our thinkers outmanoeuvred this system — after all our most original thinker of this period, Gandhi, was a product of this very education — it created acute anxiety among self-reflexive thinkers. For example, Sri Aurobindo lamented the “increasing impoverishment of the Indian intellect” in the face of new knowledge imposed by European contact. “Nothing is our own, nothing native to our intelligence, all is derived,” he complained. “As little have we understood the new knowledge; we have only understood what the Europeans want us to think about themselves and their modern civilisation. Our English culture — if culture it can be called — has increased tenfold the evil of our dependence instead of remedying it.”

A more catastrophic malady resulting from this “well meaning bondage” was the loss of intellectual autonomy. The watchword of Indians, he argued, has become “authority”, blind acceptance of ideas coming either from outside, from Europe, as was the case of the then English-educated Indians, or from inside, from fossilised traditions, as was the case of traditional pundits. It was as if the only choice before Indian intellectual elites was a hyper-westernised modernism or ultra-traditionalism. Some elites would have every detail of their life determined exclusively by Western ideas. Others would have them fixed only by shastra , custom and scripture. Each wanted to reform the other, which was nothing but a call to substitute the authority of “Guru Sayana with the authority of Max Mueller” or the “dogmatism of European scientists and scholars” with the “dogmatism of Brahmin Pandits”. The absence of real choice was a symptom of an undermined capacity to think on one’s own, the power of humans to accept or reject nothing without proper questioning.

Much the same conclusion was reached, a decade later, by the Indian philosopher, K.C. Bhattacharya. In ‘Swaraj in Ideas’, Bhattacharya feared that Indians might suffer from a subtler form of domination “when one’s traditional cast of ideas and sentiments is superseded without comparison or competition by a new cast representing an alien culture which possesses one like a ghost.” To be sure, when two cultures come into sustained contact with one another, there is bound to be give and take. One culture might even give to the other more than it takes from it. However, all creative assimilation involves a real conflict of ideas, and elements of an alien culture can be accepted only after “full and open-eyed struggle has been allowed to develop” between the two encountering cultures.

Two alien ideas in India today

I am afraid we have allowed two deeply problematic alien ideas to penetrate our collective consciousness without thorough questioning or proper comparison with ideas emanating from our intellectual traditions. One is the idea of religion, and the second, a particular conception of the nation. Religion, as a demarcated system of practices, beliefs and doctrines, is largely an early modern European invention and begins its existence in and through the theological disputes of the 16th and 17th centuries. Under the impact of colonialism, this category came to India and obliged Indians to think of themselves as members of one exclusive religious community, not just different from but opposed to others. It is of course true that gods and goddesses, ethical norms and prescriptions, rituals and practices did exist in some form in the past. But these were not thought to be part of one single entity called Hinduism, so that those who owed allegiance to any one of these sets of practices did not think of themselves as belonging to a single system of belief and doctrine in competition with and opposition to all others. Indeed, mobility across communities and multiple allegiances were common. As a result, most people refused to be slotted into rigid, compartmentalised entities. They were religious but did not belong to a religion. This has virtually ceased to be the case.

Second, religious belief or practice, or adherence to a doctrine, was never viewed as a condition of membership in a wider national community. One’s religious or linguistic identity made little difference to one’s belonging to the nation. Alas, now, for many inhabitants of our territory, a nation cannot but be defined in single religious or linguistic terms. An exclusivist conception of the ethnic nation — entirely against the spirit of local Indian religions or conceptions of nationhood — devised first in Spain in 1492, developed further during the European wars of religion, and perfected in the 18th or 19th century has seized the Indian mind. Thanks to narrow-minded education institutions and now the electronic media, the idea was first disseminated and then unquestioningly accepted by Indians as if it were a long-held indigenous Indian idea. In accepting this alien idea of religion and nation without proper comparison or competition with Indian ideas of faith and community, we have sacrificed intellectual autonomy and gone down the road to hell from which Europe has itself yet to recover.

To define one’s identity or community in terms of a single, exclusive religion — Hindu, Muslim or any other — is a perverse European notion, a mark of our cultural subjugation, a symptom of the loss of our intellectual autonomy. To have done so is to have uncritically abandoned our own collective genius for something ill-suited to our conditions. Can this be reversed? Is it too late to heed Sri Aurobindo’s warning or follow Gandhi’s example? Can we recover our collective intellectual autonomy?

Rajeev Bhargava is Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

Source: The Hindu, 5/03/2019