We, they and the idea of India by Santosh Kumar Singh, The Tribune (Perspective), December 25, 2005
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051225/edit.htm#1 NOBEL Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, in his book The Argumentative Indian, has underlined the significance of India's heterodox past and pluralist present and the critical role played by our rich and long tradition of dialogue and discussion in the making of today's India. Echoes of his concerns on nation building were displayed in ample measure in a recent national orientation course for university and college teachers organised by Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The notion of nation, especially in India's context, has been a vexatious theme. Any attempt to pigeonhole the concept has been like opening a Pandora's box. On the one hand, some sections argue that nation is a finished product and that there is nothing processual about it. On the other, some other sections contest this monolithic viewpoint as fascist, undemocratic, unilateral and imposing. This discontentment was, for instance, most visible in the responses from the participants from the North-Eastern states. If democracy is about governance by discussion and dialogue, as James Buchanan, the founder of the contemporary discipline of public choice theory would argue, our excessive dependence on military deployment as an agent of nation building all these years in these areas belies this ideal of democratic nation building. Hence, there are merits in these voices of disagreement. Luckily, this has been increasingly accepted by the think tanks on our defense strategies and analyses. These resentments, however, were expectedly quite baffling to some participants. As one of them would voice her concern, "see if they cannot feel like an Indian despite Indian state pumping in so much money in these states, then little can be done". What is critical here is that this statement is not an individual or an isolated remark. Sadly one comes across such bizarre understanding about national integrity even in most enlightened quarters. Making of a nation involves not just territory but people as well. While military and money power can win a territory, it takes sustained, empathetic and mostly prolonged dialogic engagement with the "other" to win their hearts. Just ask President George Bush and he will vouch for it. As the course progressed and the cobwebs of mistrust and misgivings got gradually dismantled, there were quite a few revelations which augur well for the process of nation building in India. It would be worthwhile here to recount some of them. First, as one Mizo participant revealed, it was only after the Kargil conflict with Pakistan that a strong sense of affiliation and allegiance to the Indian state emerged in these states as the coffins carrying bodies of martyrs started coming to these hill states from the battlefront. Identification to a common enemy brought forth the sense of unity with the rest of the country which was unprecedented in this part of the world. This observation took everyone by surprise. The new generation for the first time felt overwhelmingly Indian, as the participant would passionately argue. This suggests an urgent need to undertake more field level studies in such areas beyond the cosy confines of New Delhi-based research enclaves with their antiquated research tools and standardised obsolete categories to fully grasp these micro-level processes and trends. Secondly, the process of more than a decade-long intense globalisation, its agencies and concomitant cosmopolitanism and, most important, its whole flavour of "celebrating local with global aspirations" has created an aura of secular neutrality around the Indian state which has considerably undermined the Hindi-Hindu- Hindustani line of argument which has been obnoxiously referred to and celebrated as "mainstream culture" all these years. Globalisation, at least in perception, seems to have toned down the Hindi hegemony and its accompanying arrogance. There is growing realisation that the Indian state is no more a monopoly of the inhabitants of the Gangetic plain. Thirdly, this image of Indian state as a modern, non-partisan entity coupled with its emergence as a formidable global economic power sends good vibes to its disgruntled constituents. This is particularly significant given the simultaneous paradigm shift in the understanding of geopolitical considerations of nation states all over the world. The thrust is now more on consolidation rather on expansion of territory. China is a prime example of this trend. This trend towards centripetality and consolidation discourages the fissiparous centrifugal proclivity in the border areas thereby creating a more congenial environment for consensus building in a changed scenario. Against this background, it is quite evident that the need of the hour is to take these consensus-friendly vibes more seriously and work on it. Sadly, we invoke our Track II gestures only when it comes to our engagement with Pakistan. We should realise that there is greater need for "people-to-people" contact within the country, especially involving people from areas which remain "misunderstood" by an overwhelmingly large number of people in the country for lack of any platform for dialogue and interaction. To begin with, for instance, the University Grants Commission can play a major role in this context by organising workshops involving faculties from the universities and colleges across the country on the theme, say, the "Idea of India". This will, in turn, inform the classrooms spread across the country and finally reach the multitude of young students. Its impact will be far deeper and more cementing than any macho-military exercise. A young teacher from the University of Mizoram wrote this as her farewell note as the course came to an end: I am a curiosity, an "ethnic" specimen. Politics, history, anthropology your impressive learning, All unable to answer the fundamental question What does an Indian look like? An Indian look like me, and Indian is me. What a pleasant volte-face this was. Nation-making, therefore, as an analyst would comment, is a continuous process of plebiscite and negotiations. Like assimilation, it is never complete in practice. Respect diversity. Unity will follow automatically. -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
