Mourn idea of India, but don’t forget that the idea of people is changing too

[Ace of Spades]

Modi often likes to project himself as the unmediated implementer of the will of ‘sawa sau crore Bharat-wasi’

And he is right... hence overwhelming support from masses. His ideology resonates with the person on street.

liberals began accepting their limitations to evolve a people’s language and some intellectuals bemoaned how they may have lost the tools to understand the people.

Not limitation but a downfall of an artificial narrative that was made.

The unspoken idea is that the politicians and intellectuals do not dare question the people.

But this political portrayal of the people as unquestionable rational agents not only goes against the political traditions evolved out of the national movement but also contradicts our constitutional values.

writer is again chasing the same folly that got india where it is today. The idea of self "intellectualism" "imposed liberalism" and then use of big chewy words, "political traditions" "contradiction of constitutional values". This all goes good on paper but on ground what happened is history....

Modi is nothing but a mirror, reflection of indian society at large. And as the saying goes. "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

The idea of the people, when elevated as rational, homogeneous entity, is highly dangerous — it hides the inherent class-caste-gender contradictions and empowers the political class to justify electoral majoritarianism.

It's funny to read such self projecting, self reflection articles portraying oneself as a sole true representative; defying the will of majority and calling oneself soul of Indian fabric. No wonder such traction of RSS ideology by masses.

 

[Jackdaws]

And he is right... hence overwhelming support from masses. His ideology resonates with the person on street.



Not limitation but a downfall of an artificial narrative that was made.





writer is again chasing the same folly that got india where it is today. The idea of self "intellectualism" "imposed liberalism" and then use of big chewy words, "political traditions" "contradiction of constitutional values". This all goes good on paper but on ground what happened is history....

Modi is nothing but a mirror, reflection of indian society at large. And as the saying goes. "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."



It's funny to read such self projecting, self reflection articles portraying oneself as a sole true representative; defying the will of majority and calling oneself soul of Indian fabric. No wonder such traction of RSS ideology by masses.

It would be one thing if the rise was based on fact.

Modi is a contradiction.

He claims he is an admirer of Gandhi, yet his party gives tickets to those who praise Godse.

His PR machinery claims nationalism thru Bose and Bhagat Singh - whose political views were the exact opposite of BJP/RSS

He keeps blaming Nehru. Who died half a century ago.

He has run the economy into the ground.

He has created social tension.

He keeps harping about women rights while he abandoned his own wife.

 

[Kambojaric]

No society is immune from populist politicians who utilize the "masses" for their own nefarious purpsoes. Bhuttos are a classic example on our side of the border. However the consequences of the rise of such politicians are more profound in some countries more than others. India with its diverse religious and ethnic composition can ill afford a leader like Modi and others who follow his ideiology.

Ultimately however the blame lands with the incompetence of the mainstream politicians. Their incompetence creates the vacuum which is filled by populists. In the case of India the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty clearly outlived its welcome especially in recent decades.

 

[Ace of Spades]

It would be one thing if the rise was based on fact.

Modi is a contradiction.

He claims he is an admirer of Gandhi, yet his party gives tickets to those who praise Godse.

His PR machinery claims nationalism thru Bose and Bhagat Singh - whose political views were the exact opposite of BJP/RSS

He keeps blaming Nehru. Who died half a century ago.

He has run the economy into the ground.

He has created social tension.

He keeps harping about women rights while he abandoned his own wife.

Don't you see that's to create an aura, for "intellectuals" of india/ international consumption. His supporters despise Gandhi, and when his party gives tickets to the ones who praise Godse, they get votes. Modi is a fraud, no doubt about that. He is not short of nazi idealism however, that's what brought him to power in the first place. And overwhelmingly again. The problem i see with indian so called liberals and intellectuals is that they are opposite of what liberalism is. Imposition of fake secularism/liberalism had it's backlash. Things were on slow burner for long before they exploded and people resorted to people like modi, amit shah etc; they resonate with masses.

Congress had been too afraid to cash that sentiment, they knew it existed but it was too bad for the international image/ fake secularism of India. As it is what kept india standing despite many fault lines. But unless one recognizes the fault lines and address the core issues instead of all bollywoodish painting to utopia called indian culture, things won't go away by themselves. And now genie is out of bottle.

 

[saiyan0321]

Mourn idea of India, but don’t forget that the idea of people is changing too
Modi’s new India is a new idea of the people. And politicians and intellectuals must bow to it unquestioningly.
HILAL AHMED 26 August, 2020 8:31 am IST

File photo | BJP supporters at a rally | Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI

In all the ongoing intellectual debate on the idea of New India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is a new uncritical celebration of the ‘people’ as the ultimate authority, and as rational agents. This ‘idea of the people’ — now represented in the politics around Ayodhya bhoomi pujan and Sabarimala — is one which both politicians and public intellectuals must bow to unquestioningly.
The idea of the ‘people’ is critical to any makeover that the idea of India gets.

Modi often likes to project himself as the unmediated implementer of the will of ‘sawa sau crore Bharat-wasi’. Or when he was the chief minister, he called himself the “hanuman for 6 crore Gujaratis” in 2012 and often referred to the Gujarati asmita (pride). He mounts his politics on this imagined will, wound, pride and prejudices of the people. But there has been little political and intellectual scrutiny of how Indian politics has used ‘the people’ trope over time.

Our public debates rest on a romantic view of the people. After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s stunning 2019 Lok Sabha election victory, liberals began accepting their limitations to evolve a people’s language and some intellectuals bemoaned how they may have lost the tools to understand the people. The unspoken idea is that the politicians and intellectuals do not dare question the people. It is from here that majoritarian politics emerges. Modi’s political project of New India actually survives on this imagination of the people as real, authentic and, above all, responsive citizens.

But this political portrayal of the people as unquestionable rational agents not only goes against the political traditions evolved out of the national movement but also contradicts our constitutional values.

Also read: Modi redefined secularism with Ram Mandir as Hindu voters were fed up of Sonia-Left version
The Indian story of ‘the people’
The will of the people as a governing principle is a recent phenomenon. Major streams of the Indian national movement tried to create a balance between social reforms and an ideal imagination of an egalitarian political order. M.K. Gandhi’s constructive programmes, B.R. Ambedkar’s criticisms of the caste system and Bhagat Singh’s emphasis on class division of Indian society were deeply rooted in the tradition of social reforms of the 19th century. There was a consensus that political action would remain meaningless if society was not reformed.

The Indian Constitution was the logical outcome of this belief. It recognises the people as the real sovereign and ensures that their individual and collective rights are adequately protected. However, it does not fully endorse the will of the people and, for that matter, the majority rule. Instead, it sets out certain principles for the political class to evolve what Ambedkar called constitutional morality.

The Nehruvian state introduced a series of radical social reforms in the 1950s through legal constitutional means. The people, in this framework, were to be educated and reformed by the State to make them fully democratic and adequately modern. Indira Gandhi reinterpreted the Directive Principles of State Policy to legitimise her authoritarian rule. She even justified the Emergency (1975-77) in the name of people’s welfare.

The economic liberalisation in the 1990s, however, was a turning point. The idea of the people as an extremely rational collective began to take shape only in the 1990s around the time of economic reforms and the explosion of popular private entertainment. Two years after economic reforms, the Babri Masjid was demolished as a demonstration of avenging collective Hindu wounds.

As the economy privatised and expanded, the State redefined itself as a political regulatory entity. It was established that society and economy are autonomous self-governing spheres and the primary function of the State is to reconcile competing interests through redistributive policies. This led to a new political narrative of inclusion. A series of policy initiatives were taken to address the specific needs of different marginalised groups — Dalits, OBCs, women, Muslims, and adivasi—without evolving any comprehensive vision for social transformation.

Hindutva politics challenged this political correctness in two ways. They invoked Hindu victimhood to attract the middle-class upper-caste groups; and at the same time, they came out with the idea of authentic and responsive people — who give priority to the nation and do not believe in any other identity. The New India of Narendra Modi actually rests on this hyper-nationalist version of the people.
Also read: Secularism gave up language of religion. Ayodhya bhoomi pujan is a result of that
The people — voter/citizen/aam aadmi
There are at least three features of the people in contemporary India. In a more direct political sense, the people are defined as voters and consumers who must be wooed.

Modi’s New India is about participative democracy and responsive, proactive citizenry, one that can be enlisted in a Kennedy-style call to use toilets, build temples and statues, pay taxes, and queue up to get rid of dirty cash. For Modi, ‘New India is the era of Responsive people and responsive government’. Even as Modi appropriates the people’s will unto himself while platitudinising that the voter is always right, he/she has to accept the authority of the government to facilitate the working of the political system.

Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress’ ‘aam aadmi’ (common man) is the third feature of the people. The aam aadmi is defined as a morally sincere, gullible, vulnerable and politically weak entity. We are told that despite having a right to vote, the aam aadmi does not have adequate resources to deal with the corrupt system. He/she, therefore, is expected to abide by the ethos of nationalism to create what Arvind Kejriwal used to call swaraj. This person is also a morally committed nationalist and a responsive citizen who can be called upon to give up car travel in winter to reduce air pollution or to not pay the illegal water and electricity bills.
Also read: Not vikas, Modi’s 2019 election was built on politics of vishwas
Political use of ‘the people’
These popular portrayals of the people contribute directly to political arguments now. The reluctant responses of the political elites on the Sabarimala issue and their over-enthusiasm for bhoomi pujan in Ayodhya underline the fact that political parties do not want to go against what they view as the will of the majority.

A liberal politician like Shashi Tharoor justified standing with community beliefs and the temple in the Sabarimala row by saying he was representing his public. This line of argument also empowers the Hindutva forces to justify anti-Muslim violence as the natural reaction of the people/Hindus. In fact, a strong impression has been created that the sentiments, views and beliefs of Hindus must be respected because they are the majority or the authentic people.

The idea of the people, when elevated as rational, homogeneous entity, is highly dangerous — it hides the inherent class-caste-gender contradictions and empowers the political class to justify electoral majoritarianism.

We must learn from Ambedkar: democratic politics won’t work if we do not question the foundational structures of our society.
And now, as public intellectuals urge us to re-imagine our engagement with the people and restore what they consider the broken link, it can be a slippery slope towards imagining the people as the all-knowing and unquestionable monolith majority.

The author is Associate Professor, CSDS, New Delhi. Views are personal.

Mourn idea of India, but don’t forget that the idea of people is changing too

Modi’s new India is a new idea of the people. And politicians and intellectuals must bow to it unquestioningly.

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The thing we all need to understand is that the regions that would become Pakistan and India did not witness democratic evolution like the western nations did. They did not witness the arguments and the papers that spoke on supremacy of Kings, Gods, parliaments or the people. What they witnessed was a foreign power disposing one set of kings and becoming the central executive power and later on what they witnessed was that this new power was being forced to give something called a 'democracy' to them by a set of leaders which claimed that it would be beneficial for the people and would give them freedom.

Now the people till 1947 had not witnessed true democracy.Their experience with this power was too little to help them draft an understanding that the power given to them is a great responsibility that must be exercised with great wisdom and thinking,

Liaqat Ali was wrong on many aspects and he may have said it to legitimize the prolonged existence of the Constituent Assembly but his statement held truth within it that democracy was a system that required 80% literacy rate and it was being brought to a country with 30% literacy rate.

To combat this lack of knowledge and to make sure that people participate and understand their importance in the political sphere of the country, they were repeatedly drilled with the a single thought that the people are supreme. The concept mentioned in the article is exactly that the Idea of the people. This was repeated by everyone from dictators to pro-democrats, from right wing to left wing all unitedly expressed that the people were sovereign and it was for them that xyz politician or xyz dictator was doing all they did.

Now the concept that the people are supreme is not wrong however the difference comes when the people are not prepared nor told of their responsibility when gifted with such a power. So what happens when a populace is given the tools of supremacy but is not taught the responsibility that comes with that supremacy since the teachers were busy trying to bring them to the game to make sure that democratic form of governance. Consciously or Subconsciously they acted in a manner where a majoritarian democracy is better than no democracy. and that is what happened. The people became the form of a power however lack of responsibility and lack of control saw them manipulated and thus we saw politicians take the route of the 'People are with me' to serve their interests. Lets take the examples of Imran Khan who justified his protests as the will of the people or Nawaz Sharif and his entire Awam Ki Adalat slogan to declare that the people are supreme and they support me thus their support trumps any court decision and frankly this action of his was against the very core of the Constitution of Pakistan but he did not care because the only thing that mattered to him was for him to be stamped innocent.

The lack of responsibility in this power truly hurts when the people are themselves divided and are not able to create a united thought process because here is the thing. You and i know, we dont know what other people think but a politician makes a career out of this simple ability to state that he knows that the person, you dont know, is thinking and supporting. He goes to the legislative assembly with the same notion and he comes to us with the same notion. We take it on face value because the people themselves do not or cannot tell the rest of the populace what they feel and the only semblance of such can be seen in an election. This is why the 'mandate of the people' is so strong a weapon that entire democratic movements were harmed through dictatorial elections which were rigged to the last ballot paper but the impact of 'the people support me' is a power in itself.

We all must understand that we have powerful tools and we need to learn how to use them and use them effectively and communicate with others on how this politician claiming that he is supported by the people is not true since some dont support him and rather than berate them, their lack of support must be heard, understood and in the end agreed/disagreed with but that right to speak that opposition must always be welcomed with open arms rather than with insults and abuses or notions of treachery and treason. This is also an effective method to use our power. Responsible usage of our power is the only way to truly create a democratic society and display a loud voice of what the people of the country truly want.

 

[fatman17]

And that literacy rate is still 30%. In Pakistan if you can read the Quran, write your name you are considered literate.

The thing we all need to understand is that the regions that would become Pakistan and India did not witness democratic evolution like the western nations did. They did not witness the arguments and the papers that spoke on supremacy of Kings, Gods, parliaments or the people. What they witnessed was a foreign power disposing one set of kings and becoming the central executive power and later on what they witnessed was that this new power was being forced to give something called a 'democracy' to them by a set of leaders which claimed that it would be beneficial for the people and would give them freedom.

Now the people till 1947 had not witnessed true democracy.Their experience with this power was too little to help them draft an understanding that the power given to them is a great responsibility that must be exercised with great wisdom and thinking,

Liaqat Ali was wrong on many aspects and he may have said it to legitimize the prolonged existence of the Constituent Assembly but his statement held truth within it that democracy was a system that required 80% literacy rate and it was being brought to a country with 30% literacy rate.

To combat this lack of knowledge and to make sure that people participate and understand their importance in the political sphere of the country, they were repeatedly drilled with the a single thought that the people are supreme. The concept mentioned in the article is exactly that the Idea of the people. This was repeated by everyone from dictators to pro-democrats, from right wing to left wing all unitedly expressed that the people were sovereign and it was for them that xyz politician or xyz dictator was doing all they did.

Now the concept that the people are supreme is not wrong however the difference comes when the people are not prepared nor told of their responsibility when gifted with such a power. So what happens when a populace is given the tools of supremacy but is not taught the responsibility that comes with that supremacy since the teachers were busy trying to bring them to the game to make sure that democratic form of governance. Consciously or Subconsciously they acted in a manner where a majoritarian democracy is better than no democracy. and that is what happened. The people became the form of a power however lack of responsibility and lack of control saw them manipulated and thus we saw politicians take the route of the 'People are with me' to serve their interests. Lets take the examples of Imran Khan who justified his protests as the will of the people or Nawaz Sharif and his entire Awam Ki Adalat slogan to declare that the people are supreme and they support me thus their support trumps any court decision and frankly this action of his was against the very core of the Constitution of Pakistan but he did not care because the only thing that mattered to him was for him to be stamped innocent.

The lack of responsibility in this power truly hurts when the people are themselves divided and are not able to create a united thought process because here is the thing. You and i know, we dont know what other people think but a politician makes a career out of this simple ability to state that he knows that the person, you dont know, is thinking and supporting. He goes to the legislative assembly with the same notion and he comes to us with the same notion. We take it on face value because the people themselves do not or cannot tell the rest of the populace what they feel and the only semblance of such can be seen in an election. This is why the 'mandate of the people' is so strong a weapon that entire democratic movements were harmed through dictatorial elections which were rigged to the last ballot paper but the impact of 'the people support me' is a power in itself.

We all must understand that we have powerful tools and we need to learn how to use them and use them effectively and communicate with others on how this politician claiming that he is supported by the people is not true since some dont support him and rather than berate them, their lack of support must be heard, understood and in the end agreed/disagreed with but that right to speak that opposition must always be welcomed with open arms rather than with insults and abuses or notions of treachery and treason. This is also an effective method to use our power. Responsible usage of our power is the only way to truly create a democratic society and display a loud voice of what the people of the country truly want.

 

[saiyan0321]

And that literacy rate is still 30%. In Pakistan if you can read the Quran, write your name you are considered literate.

Sadly that is not untrue and the worst part is that ability to read is not literacy. Its ability to discern a set of characters. Literacy is understanding the meaning behind those characters. Even monkeys can press the colored button, should we consider them literate as well? True literacy in Pakistan would be very little and that is the mind which can understand the complexity of the situation and make the correct decision. What use is literacy if you use the most powerful tool for a free lunch or for a month's payment of electric bill?

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

We must learn from Ambedkar: democratic politics won’t work if we do not question the foundational structures of our society.

This was the thread because of which I joined this forum.

I think these intellectual types are basically silly. Why? Its' very easy to see why. They expect people of India to accept willingly the idea of a secular pluralistic society and be tolerant to minorities. Lets step back just to beginning. In 1950, when Republic of India was formed, it was not formed according to the wish of majority of Indians. It was one that was imposed on them.

The entire constitution was based on this weird idea that "We the people of India" are sovereign yet "we" were forced to be secular and tolerant WITHOUT taking permission from "we". Don't you see the absolute contradiction here? Actually, Pakistan was closer to the wishes of its people. It was what it said on the lid. A Islamic Republic. Simple. It was much easier to get behind this idea because it was simpler and because it was more truthful. It was the real will of Pakistanis. They were Muslims and wanted a country for their own.

Now in India, when independence was given, the domanion of Hindustan was not what it said on the tin. It was an amalgamation of a number of religions, Islam included. How will you explain this contradiction to people? Muslim get their nation but Hindus (you can include Sikhs as well) were supposed to STILL share their domanion with Muslim YET again. And to top it all, they have to accept it as their sovereign will.

That is the definition of bullshit. The only reason this bullshit persisted for so long was the divided opinion of Hindus in multiple castes and languages and creeds. It was only a matter of time before this solidified into one very basic and common desire : To seek a nation of their own. A Hindu nation. May be non-Muslim nation be more fitting and apt. As soon as the dividing regional forces became somewhat weeker, this will and the past bullshit of plural secular setup served to them, protected by the federal structure of the nation, fed to them by liberal controlled media and government education, all came undone! It had to. It was bullshit to begin with.

If I ever to meet this professor, I will tell him this : "You moron! its not the idea of people is changing. You and Nehru and Ambedkar and Gandhi got it all wrong in the first place! Perhaps because all three of them were too enamoured by the western enlightenment that they forgot that nations belong to people. People were not with them."

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

And he is right... hence overwhelming support from masses. His ideology resonates with the person on street.

Indeed it does. It was there all along. It was not given platform because of left leaning media. The moment that became weak, it became popular opinion. The popular opinion in the past was divided into many caste creeds and languages. Modi combined it into their basic demand. A Hindu nation. It is correction of deception done in 1947. It is correction of stupidity of Nehru, Gandhi and Ambedkar.

Not limitation but a downfall of an artificial narrative that was made.

A downfall of a bullshit narrative indeed! Hindus were NEVER onboard with the idea of secular nation. Heck the word secular was inserted into constitution during an emergency without ANY constitutional process.

writer is again chasing the same folly that got india where it is today. The idea of self "intellectualism" "imposed liberalism" and then use of big chewy words, "political traditions" "contradiction of constitutional values". This all goes good on paper but on ground what happened is history....

Modi is nothing but a mirror, reflection of indian society at large. And as the saying goes. "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Totally Agree!

It's funny to read such self projecting, self reflection articles portraying oneself as a sole true representative; defying the will of majority and calling oneself soul of Indian fabric. No wonder such traction of RSS ideology by masses.

These words that you read from the OP's article are voice of someone who takes his world view so strongly that they blame reality when it breaks and falsifies their worldview. Why do they expect Hindus to be saints and willing lambs at the altar of pluralism and liberalism and secularity.

 

[FCPX]

These words that you read from the OP's article are voice of someone who takes his world view so strongly that they blame reality when it breaks and falsifies their worldview. Why do they expect Hindus to be saints and willing lambs at the altar of pluralism and liberalism and secularity.

Interesting views and I would tend to agree with your overall assertions of majority of Indians now moving/having moved to a Hindu state. I am not sure if Hindu is the right word? as I am trying to figure out the correct term for a Hindu religious state nation.

So assuming everyone in India was sold a lie all these years, now the majority who are Hindu have been shown their raison D'etre, they are all/mostly all behind this concept and reject a secular and inclusive India, what do the minorities get? what do they do? since they presumably also believed in this lie and now discover otherwise.

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Interesting views and I would tend to agree with your overall assertions of majority of Indians now moving/having moved to a Hindu state. I am not sure if Hindu is the right word? as I am trying to figure out the correct term for a Hindu religious state nation.

So assuming everyone in India was sold a lie all these years, now the majority who are Hindu have been shown their raison D'etre, they are all/mostly all behind this concept and reject a secular and inclusive India, what do the minorities get? what do they do? since they presumably also believed in this lie and now discover otherwise.

Good question! They get what majority agrees to. Thats democracy. That works in Pakistan, in B'desh. That will work in India too.

There was another option. Dictatorship of seculars. Atleast dictatorship of seculars worked in China. Secularism and democracy won't work in India. One has to give up atleast one of them. Otherwise you get the mess that is in current India.

 

[Arulmozhi Varman]

This was the thread because of which I joined this forum.

I think these intellectual types are basically silly. Why? Its' very easy to see why. They expect people of India to accept willingly the idea of a secular pluralistic society and be tolerant to minorities. Lets step back just to beginning. In 1950, when Republic of India was formed, it was not formed according to the wish of majority of Indians. It was one that was imposed on them.

The entire constitution was based on this weird idea that "We the people of India" are sovereign yet "we" were forced to be secular and tolerant WITHOUT taking permission from "we". Don't you see the absolute contradiction here? Actually, Pakistan was closer to the wishes of its people. It was what it said on the lid. A Islamic Republic. Simple. It was much easier to get behind this idea because it was simpler and because it was more truthful. It was the real will of Pakistanis. They were Muslims and wanted a country for their own.

Now in India, when independence was given, the domanion of Hindustan was not what it said on the tin. It was an amalgamation of a number of religions, Islam included. How will you explain this contradiction to people? Muslim get their nation but Hindus (you can include Sikhs as well) were supposed to STILL share their domanion with Muslim YET again. And to top it all, they have to accept it as their sovereign will.

That is the definition of bullshit. The only reason this bullshit persisted for so long was the divided opinion of Hindus in multiple castes and languages and creeds. It was only a matter of time before this solidified into one very basic and common desire : To seek a nation of their own. A Hindu nation. May be non-Muslim nation be more fitting and apt. As soon as the dividing regional forces became somewhat weeker, this will and the past bullshit of plural secular setup served to them, protected by the federal structure of the nation, fed to them by liberal controlled media and government education, all came undone! It had to. It was bullshit to begin with.

If I ever to meet this professor, I will tell him this : "You moron! its not the idea of people is changing. You and Nehru and Ambedkar and Gandhi got it all wrong in the first place! Perhaps because all three of them were too enamoured by the western enlightenment that they forgot that nations belong to people. People were not with them."

Actually Nehru and Ambedkar got it right in the first place. The constitution was drafted according to the times and scenarios of that particular era. They refused to be 'barbarians' and had refused populism to draft an constitution that is all encompassing.

While I have my own contradiction with the author, that refuses to see the social works done during his first term gave him record votes among SC community in the second term and liberals won't see it. During independence times, there was a huge argument. Social independence or political independence? The so called oppressed castes including OBCs back then would have found themselves tough to call themselves'equal' back then. And the question was raised what would amount to 'Hindu law's? Muslims had Shariah law whether right or wrong is another debate. But what is codified Hindu law? How it would consider different castes? How it would accommodate dharmic co religionists? Sikhs, Buddhists and animist tribals? In short the people don't know on what they want. So the easiest way was to go socialist. After independence social independence was pursued and thus came the first reservation.

This identity being forged now is the result of fine-tuning Hindu groups approach towards all castes of Hindus in the last 70 years and they had reached households (and the church too) that govt hasn't reached. Putting today's issues on Nehru is fashionable nowadays. Even if Patel had been PM, he died in 50', and Nehru was destined to become PM anyway and our foreign policy problem would have been the same minus Kashmir.

As for today's woes too, talking of imposing an state religion is futile and idiotiness. That's the difference btw an politician and a stateman. Mandela was one. I hope Modi is one too.

 

[Ajay Ghatak]

Actually Nehru and Ambedkar got it right in the first place. The constitution was drafted according to the times and scenarios of that particular era. They refused to be 'barbarians' and had refused populism to draft an constitution that is all encompassing.

Did the people of that time agreed that they need to share their country with Muslims even though Muslims got their own country? Was there a poll on this? If given an option between a Hindu nation, ( or may be a Hindu-Sikh nation ) and a secular nation, which option would majority of India had agreed to? Was their opinion sought by the elites of that time?

 

[El Sidd]

The article and thread title don't match.

I would repeat this

 

[FCPX]

Good question! They get what majority agrees to. Thats democracy. That works in Pakistan, in B'desh. That will work in India too.

There was another option. Dictatorship of seculars. Atleast dictatorship of seculars worked in China. Secularism and democracy won't work in India. One has to give up atleast one of them. Otherwise you get the mess that is in current India.

So in a real democracy the minority would have a say and their status in the country would be equal to the majority regardless of religion and race. While in a Hindu religious theocracy state the minority status is what ever the Hindu majority decide? And I am assuming, for now, that whatever is not clear?