Celebrating Independence Day

 

LET US REMEMBER HOW IT ALL STARTED

 

This year the celebrated of Indian’s Independence Day on 15th of August will not be the most pleasant celebration.  We are living in difficult times.  The Manipur situation had made international headlines and even the Europeans Parliament has expressed their concern about it.  I will not be exaggerating is I say that Manipur is being used as a laboratory for implementing Hindutva Rashtra by launching violence against the minority.  Since the Muslim population in Manipur is insignificant the Christians become the soft target.    We Are in such a situation in our country that we need to bring to our mind the history of independence. The history of independence is probably most aptly narrated as the history of India’s struggle for independence. What we look for in our society what we can pass on to a younger generation about a country is this story namely the struggle for independence. The narration of the history of the struggle for independence contains in it the vision for India, the kind of nation that the founding fathers of our nation wanted to build.  We have already completed 75 years of our independence. Looking back to it, we will discover that here are many things that we will be proud of and there are many more things that we have to be aware of and protect ourselves from.

 

The history of India’s struggle for independence was also the struggle between different ideologies and different visions for the nation. There was a major struggle between theory called two nations theory, and there was another theory called one nation theory. The Two Nation theory was propagated by the Muslim league under the leadership of Mohammed Jinnah and the Hindutva people, represented by Mr. Golwalkar.  Both these conflicting movements proposed that India should be based on the religious ideas, Islamic State and Hindu nation. This theory is entailed in the idea that religion should be defining characteristic of the nation. Mohammed Jinnah propose that the religion of the state should be Islam and it is on this ground that he demanded the formation of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The Hindutva propagators wanted India to be a Hindu nation.  According to the propagators of Hindutva nation, India belongs to the Hindu people.

 

There was a third idea of India propagated by Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Nehru, Subhash Candra Bose, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and many other great leaders and members of the Indian National Congress freedom movement. These leaders believed that India should be a a secular country, democratic and socialist state.  State should be independent of any religion. Neither religion should interfere in the state affairs nor the state should give direction to the practice of religion by the people.

 

 There has been a history of struggle (communal conflicts) between the Hindus and Muslims.  This was propagated and promoted by the colonial rulers.  It was the policy of the British Raj to divide and rule. This attitude of the British saw India not from the point of view of the welfare of the people, citizens of India, but the benefit the Britishers can gain from India. The peace, harmony and well-being of the people of India was not the concerns of the colonizers.

 

Mahatma Gandhi ji, Vallabhbhai Patel, Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad mobilized people to fight against the divisive forces of communalism.  Gandhi ji and the founding fathers had understood that if we have to succeed in gaining independence and build a prosperous and peaceful nation, communalism would be the greatest evil that would make the job impossible. Apart from the two major religious groups India also had many religious groups.  Buddhist had been there from 300 BC.  Christians have been there from year 50 AD, the Sikh, Jain, and even Jews have been there for centuries.  The Adivasis have their own religion.  India comprises of people belonging to different cultures and religions.

 

Keeping in mind the diversities in the Indian people the founding fathers fought for India as a secular state. Keeping religion and state apart from each other Mahatma Gandhi ji was Hindu. He was deeply religious Hindu.

 

Four personalities on the horizon of freedom struggle:

 

Mohammad Jinnah. Mahatma Gandhi, V. D. Savarkar/ Golwalkar and M. N. Roy represented different visions and ideologies and wanted India according to their visions.

 

1.     Mohammed Jinnah came to India in 1906. He had finished his degree as barrister and returned to India. He was hard core secular, liberal nationalist, follower of Dadabhai Naoroji, who was a co-founder and president of the Indian National congress (1886-1887; 1893-1894 and 1906-1907. He was also a member of the second Communist International). Initially as a staunch secular person, he was a strong opponent of the Muslim league.  But gradually he began to change towards Muslim communal person. When there was a demand for separate electorate for the Muslims, he did not support the move.  But as time passed as the demand for the separate electorate gathered momentum, he began to support this move. In 1924 he fully supported it. He became so convinced that the rights of the Muslims could be violated by the majority Hindus that he demanded for the separate electorate for the Muslims. He had noticed the rise of Hindu Maha Sabha and demand for Hindu nation. He began to believe that the Muslim community will not be safe in India with the majorities Hindus. He had stated that in the majority Hindu state the Muslims will not enjoy any rights and hands he propounded his two-nation theory and was for separate statehood for the Muslims, the Islamic State of Pakistan. When we talk about the theory of two-nation which was propagated by Mohammed Jinnah. He claimed that the independent India would contain in itself two states based on religion, Muslim state or Islamic State of Pakistan and Hindutva state of India.

 

By the way there was also an element of the ambition of Jinnah to become a Prime Minister of India and going by the climate, Gandhiji did not support this idea.  Instead, he wanted Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, given his strong secular credentials and clarity of vision.  

 

2.     V.D. Savarkar and Mr. Golwalkar: In the light of the Islamic communalism the Hindu communal leaders advanced their communal agenda.  Madan Mohan Malviya along with others founded the Hindu Maha Sabha.  While initially it was a liberal communal movement it had gradually taken a turn into a fascist force under V. D. Savarkar. He was of the opinion that Hindus would become humiliated and dominated by the Muslims.  They believed that their principal enemies were the Muslims and only then came second d the British Colonial rule. Mr. Golwalkar the main ideologue of Hindutva codified the RSS doctrine.  In 1939 declared “we have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing our old and bitter enemies and foes (the Muslims and other minorities) to be our friends.  He demanded that the minorities must adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of glorification of Hindu race and culture. They must live fully subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment, not even citizens’ right.  Mr. Golwalkar propagated the idea of Unitary form of the state, where all governing power resides in a centralized government.  One nation, one party, one language, one religion.

 

In this context, there was clear support for the apprehension of Mohammed Jinnah.

While Mohamed Jinnah demanded separate state for the Muslims, Islamic State of Pakistan, the proponents of the Hindutva demanded that India should be a Hindutva state, leaving second class citizen ship to the man or T, Muslims and Christians. The proponents of the Hindutva ideology demanded to implement two nation theory, the nation state of Hindutva, as against the Islamic State of Pakistan.

 

3.     The socialist group led by M.N. Roy: There was another group of people under the leadership of MN Roy, who won the India to follow the socialist path of development. M.N. Roy was the member of the third international of the Communist. He had known Lenin and was educated, socialist idea and a Bolshevik leadership in Russia, their idea was opposed capitalism.  They wanted to socialize the means of production and equitable distribution of wealth among all the citizens. The moment for the socialist form of society would be led by the working class in alliance with the peasants. Communist movement was totally opposed to the role for religion in the formation and functioning of the state

 

4.     The fourth group was the leaders of the Indian national congress. The main leaders of this party were Mahatma Gandhi ji, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Muhammad Abdul Kalam, Subhas Chandra Bose:  Mahatma Gandhiji advocated the path of nonviolence satyagraha through which India should gain independence from the British rule, Indian national congress Was united in their resolve to drive out the colonial British rule from India.  Along with the anti-colonial world view, an ideological element constituted the broad socio-economic-political vision of the Indian National Movement. It was capitalist (bourgeois) independent economic development and a secular republican, democratic, civil libertarian political order, both the economic and political order based on principles of social equality.  The national movement was fully committed to Parliamentary democracy, representative form of government on the basis of popular elections, civil liberty and freedom of association respecting even the assemblies of people who want to discuss revolutionary projects. Civil liberty consisting of non-violence.

 

 

 

At the beginning all these different factions Mohammad Jinnah’s Muslim League, Hindu Maha Sabha, the Communist party were part of the congress party.  The communist party did not question the major tenets of the National movement.  The Communists did not believe in Gandhi’s Concept of Swaraj and the capitalist character of economic order. They wanted to have a socialist state led by the working class and the peasants. The Congress party did not treat the Communist party on par with the Hindu Maha Sabha and the Hindutva.  Nehru believed that the greatest danger to the country was not from the communists but the people from Hindutva group.  Nehru had the dream of building socialist, democratic and secular country.

 

The Communist party was a secular party. The Communist party wanted to abolish capitalism and establish socialism. The idea of socialization of wealth was staunchly opposed by the capitalist members of the Congress party.  The congress party believed that the path for the development of India should not be the communist path of development.  While Mahatma Gandhi ji believed development should start from the rural Gramin Swaraj. Nehru believed that industrialization is the only path that will help India to develop and abolish massive poverty that was found in almost all parts of the country.  Nehru was very much influenced by the socialist ideas of the Soviet Union. He had visited Soviet Union under Stalin and was interested to introduce socialist path of development in India.  He wanted to adopt the ‘five years plans’ for achieving the development. While believing in socialist path of development Nehru believed that the capitalist class which has emerged as a strong force in India was very much essential for the growth and development of the country. Nehru proposed a mixed economy, Private sector and Public sector.  Mixed economy means while there will be the capitalist class running their private capital. There will also be a strong role for the state which run the public sector. He had demarcated the areas where the private sector should not enter into the public sector economy. He also believed that the public sector should create foundation for the growth of private sector industry. He believed that infrastructure, roads, railways, minerals and natural resources should be in the hands of the state.

 

 

The Consensus:  When India gained independence the British handed over the power to the representatives of the people of India.  It was the achievement of the Indian National movement.  “It was the one of the best example of the creation of extremely wide movement with a common aim in which diverse political and ideological currents could co-exist and work and simultaneously continue to content for overall ideological and political hegemony.  While intense debate on all basic issues was allowed, the diversity and tension did not weaken the cohesion and striking power of the movement. On the contrary, this diversity and atmosphere of freedom and debate became a major source of its strength.”(Bhipan Chandra and his team)

 

The consensus under which India stands united was built in the constitution of India.  Every citizen, every political leader, judiciary, members of bureaucracy, military will adhere to and protect this constitution.  The parliament is guided by and is protector of the constitution.  I think the weakness of our society is that the tenets of the constitution have not sufficiently percolator down to the last citizen of the country.  This is a task of all education institutions and actors in the name of the state.