What this blog post is about
Amartya Sen published his award winning book, “The Argumentative Indian” in 2005. The Argumentative Indian brought together a selection of writings from Sen that outline the need to understand contemporary India in the light of its long argumentative tradition. However, his focus was to argue that for the success of India’s democracy, the defense of its secular politics, the removal of inequalities related to class, caste, gender and community, and the pursuit of sub-continental peace.
What he did not write about is how the taming of the Indian started way before he was even born. This blog isn’t so much about clinical history as about for the centuries how the Indian has been successfully corralled by successive periods of limiting individual freedoms, a little (and sometimes larger) at a time. And is still very much on.
The Mogul Empire
The Mughal Empire ruled parts of Afghanistan and most of the Indian Subcontinent between 1526 and 1857. Under Akbar the Great, the empire grew considerably, and continued to expand until the end of Aurangzeb‘s rule. Jahangir, the son of Akbar, ruled the empire between 1605 and 1627. When Shah Jahan, Jehangir’s son, became emperor in October 1627, the empire was large and wealthy enough to be considered one of the greatest empires in the world at that time.
Religious zealousness resulted in the destruction of temples and of Hindu images and in the imposition of harsh taxes. The positive aspect of their legacy still contributes to interfaith harmony in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but the negative aspect fuels inter-community (communitarian) hatred and even violence. Lessons can be learned from the Mughal legacy on how to govern multi-racial, multi-religious societies.
Fence #1 was built. Separation and oppression of Hindus. Promoting Muslim interests.
The British Empire
Between 1860 and 1920, the British formulated the caste system into their system of governance, granting administrative jobs and senior appointments only to Christians and people belonging to certain castes. Social unrest during the 1920s led to a change in this policy. From then on, the colonial administration began a policy of positive discrimination by reserving a certain percentage of government jobs for the lower castes. In 1948, negative discrimination on the basis of caste was banned by law and further enshrined in the Indian constitution; however, the system continues to be practiced in parts of India.
Fence #2 was built. Divide Hindus by Caste and create a legal system of discrimination. Ensuring disunity and political blocks to manipulate.
Summing up this stage:
Old political strategy was based on creating political blocks (a universal strategy), with little or no real benefit to the constituents.
In India: Muslim & Christian appeasement plus dividing Hindus on caste lines to maintain power. Trusting the Argumentative Indian to remain disunited.
Post Independence India
The Nehru-Gandhi era: This ruling clan that had fortuitously inherited the reins of power kept the model in place to ensure their hold on power for the better part of 65 years.
This old strategy was tried and tested. It worked to keep out political opposition with a creative spin of promises that were never delivered.
But the world changed in the mean time. Principally, the advent of the internet and 24/7 DTH electronic media. The massive rise of social media only democratized information and hence political power.
Hindus could see their palpable exploitation, despite the fractious nature of the caste divide. The ‘Mandal’ solution only exasperated the outrage, while only fleetingly increasing political clout. Overall, they saw how the appeasement of Muslims and Christians was being perpetuated under the pretense of ‘minority empowerment’.
Yet, Muslims remained poor and illiterate by the standards of a fast modernizing world. And they too saw how they were being ghettoized and exploited for votes while not ascending socially or economically.
The radicals in the Muslim community rose in spreading this as exploitation, but resulted in creating more hate than progress of the community! In fact, the Mullahs began to wield increasing power over the community as well as in the political arena. The Congress was inevitably endorsed with fatwahs just as did a section of the Christian Clergy.
This simply made Hindus even more outraged by the marginalization at the hands of the minorities. It made the situation ripe for the new form of control to emerge.
The Hindutva era
Enter the Modi-Shah political leadership. They easily executed a ‘lateral arabesque’ (Peter’s Principle) to sideline the Vajpayee-Advani seen as softer and milder Hindutva by an increasingly frustrated Hindu majority. This I have touched in my blog here.
Fence #3 was built. Either Hindus unite behind the BJP’s Hindutva or perish. Hindutva was the new Indian mantra, covered by the fig leaf of ‘Ram Rajya’.
The Argumentative Indian never went anywhere! In fact, arguments boomed thanks to social media. And social media received a huge boost by the Modi-Shah BJP (MJP for short) which used it to great success to by-pass the left controlled media.
Having unleashed the power of a ‘Majoritarian Rule’ idea that captured the Hindu masses, the fall out was better ‘awareness’ of actual political action. Schemes and doles came under increased scrutiny.
The “controlling” of the masses became imperative as always. Applied with a degree of bias, it meant silencing the influencers. The ‘new’ laws brought about under the guise of protecting a free internet, combined with extensive defunct laws relating to sedition became the levers of control of dissent. Arrests galore became commonplace.
When you ride a tiger, you dare not alight!
The Chinese Curse (Corona Virus) exploded on the face of an inept political class and a CYA (cover your ass) bureaucracy intent on ensuring an unaffected retirement, stood exposed.
When it comes to physical individual survival, ideology is thrown out of the window, fast! Even the right wing media found it impossible to give the colossal failure any positive spin. The foreign media, always seen as against Modi, has had a field day. Even the German Chancellor called out Modi’s leadership!
Fence #4 was built. Indians had better keep quiet, as criticism could result in arrest, harassment and imprisonment under guise of Internal Security.
The Argumentative Indian has been corralled.
This blog post was inspired by a WhatsApp forward I read on “Catching Wild Pigs”. A simple yet incredibly powerful short story. The jigsaw pieces in my mind fell into place!
I’m on Twitter @jsvasan
Tailpiece: What’s the way out? That’s for a future blog post. :-))