Assuming that good sense will prevail may not suffice. It is for our leaders to indulge in meaningful dialogue to strengthen political unity
There are a few national endeavours that are shared, as closely, by billion plus Indian citizens, as elections. The country is almost continually discussing or organising elections in some part or the other all around the year. The print media contributes to creating these images and the electronic media takes it far afield. After both lose steam, folk statements and word of mouth take over. But the dominant influencer group across Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Kutch to Kamrup is clearly the political class. They fly, use the rail or other means of transport or depute their foot soldiers.
Over a period of time, many conglomerates of the political class got fragmented and lost their ideology to demagoguery or head count. Obviously, there are exceptions but the bulk, which constitutes the exception, is clearly receding. In the pre-Independent days, predominantly, the literate and the well-educated led populist movements.
Be it Subhash Chandra Bose, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhimrao Ambedkar — all had some social connection and education abroad. Foreign travel and education was much more of a rich man’s indulgence then than it is now. That a lot of them learnt their basic lessons in nationalism after a social snub during the sojourn abroad, is another matter.
When they came back to India — Bose after getting into the Indian Civil Service, Gandhi after his mixed experiments in South Africa, and Nehru after his lack luster performance in Harrow and Cambridge — all of them adopted different shades of nationalism. One must hasten to add that this narration of facts is not rooted in irreverence but in an attempt to push the boundaries of understanding closer to the real world and indeed, the making of the modern Indian leader. The full range and spectrum of style and intellectual anchorage was under heavy foreign shadow.
landing in India and being invited to lead the indigo struggle in Champaran saw Gandhi shedding his barrister’s apparel for the trademark dhoti and occasional kurta, which gradually gave way to chaadar. Mohammed Ali Jinnah made sure his English conditioning showed and pitched himself as the opposite of Gandhi. In-between there came a series of nationalist leaders who, though outstanding, never actually made to the grades of Jinnah, Gandhi, Nehru and others who developed their intellectual orientations abroad. In this would be a number persons, such as Rajendra Prasad, Vallabhbhai Patel, Sheikh Abdullah, Periyar Ramaswamy Naicker, among others. The scene of the narrative, however, continued to be British India.
There is no regular history available of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland even today. Being far-flung cannot be an explanation. This is equally true even for the interior lands of Nizam in the then Hyderabad State. Their chronicling was left to the tender mercies of Verrier Elwin, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and a host of other anthropologists. Subsequently, attempts were made to make the British the villains of the piece and heroes out of those in the tribal population who resisted.
The happier territories of Travancore — Cochin, Baroda, Patiala, Cooch Behar, not to overlook some principalities of Odisha — were clearly not a part of the social discourse or institutional curriculum. Even Jammu & Kashmir had its own cocoon and no ‘national leader’ bothered too much about the territories of either Gulab Singh or Hari Singh. Educated in Aligarh, Sheikh Abdullah travelled to Srinagar to begin his career as a school teacher. He tried to be on the right side of the Maharaja by wanting the audience to celebrate the birth of his son. Not getting the welcome he hoped for, he walked the way which led to the setting up of the National Conference.
To put it simply, to be recognised as a top ranking leader of India, one needed Western connect and recognition by British rulers. Some mass base helped in this direction. Gandhi was unique in attempting a first-hand familiarity of the country by travelling across the Indian railways network. Nehru never quite understood Dravidian politics or Malayalee tapestry of cultural patterns. However, supported by Gandhi, he became the ‘numero uno’.
By this token, the core task of consolidating a political nation fell to the leadership of post-50s. In this adult suffrage, elections to Parliament and Assemblies had an important role. Unfortunately, local self-Governments went by default for a long time.
Thus, it is the political class far more than any other class that holds the key to multiple dialogues and strengthening of political identity. There needs to be a serious movement to educate, orient and liberate the political class of its baggage. Simply assuming that good sense will prevail and nationalism is a part of everyone’s DNA may not suffice.
An approach of advocacy and dissemination of ideals of acknowledged heroes of ideas and action, from all periods of Indian history, all parts of India, needs to be adopted country-wide. Consolidating the Indian narrative is too serious a theme to be left to randomness of political groupings and a few articulate and mass savvy politicians.
(The writer is a well-known management consultant)