Page 1 of
2 BOOK
REVIEW The great
survivor India After
Gandhi by Ramachandra
Guha Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
Throughout its 60 years of independence,
speculation has been rife about how long India
would remain a single entity and a democracy.
Native and Western doomsayers have been predicting
its imminent dissolution, a descent into anarchy
or authoritarian rule without much reward.
Historian Ramachandra Guha's critical yet
affectionate epic on contemporary India assesses
why the oracles fail and how this most "unnatural
nation"
survives despite being a "laboratory of social
conflict (p 9)".
Guha begins by asking why
the unity of India could not be saved from
partition in 1947. The onset of modern electoral
politics was the main culprit because it
encouraged appeals to fear and sectional worries
about being worsted or swamped by one's historic
enemies. The Muslim League cashed in on the
"rhetoric of fear" in the Provincial Assembly
elections of 1946 so successfully that Mahatma
Gandhi's dream of a united India stood no chance.
Among the princely states that contrived
to further balkanise India by declaring themselves
as independent countries, Travancore's bid was
stoked by the British, who coveted its Thorium
deposits, "a material crucial to the coming Cold
War (p 61)". The monarchs of Jodhpur, Junagadh and
Hyderabad flirted with defection to Pakistan
through the Muslim League's enticements, but the
power of Indian
nationalism and the sagacity of Vallabhbhai Patel
and V P Menon staved off these threats. Kashmir
proved much harder to integrate due to its
proximity to Pakistan and the opportunism of its
Muslim politicians.
The framing of the
constitution of India involved hundreds of claims
and submissions from the public at large, a
testimony to "the precocious existence of a
'rights culture' among Indians" even before
democracy could be installed (p 117). The
constitution assigned the individual, rather than
the village, as the basic unity of politics and
governance. The most acrimonious debates in the
Constituent Assembly were over language.
Politicians from the south spiritedly opposed
Hindi as the official national tongue. Compromises
had to be worked out by leaving English as a
fall-back option.
Although the Constituent
Assembly initially considered affirmative action
only for the lowest Hindu castes, the exertions of
Jaipal Singh ensured that the repressed tribals
were also promised reserved seats in the
legislature and jobs in the government. Singh
tried in vain to convince the rebellious Naga
tribes that their hill areas "have always been
part of India" and that "there is no question of
secession (p 271)". The gory conflict between Naga
"hostiles" and the central government in Delhi had
serious implications for the unity of the country
and the legitimacy of its rulers.
Until
1950, the ruling Congress party suffered from
infighting not only at the district and provincial
levels, but also at the summit between prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru and deputy prime
minister Patel. The two frequently disagreed on
state control of the economy, Hindu extremism and
Cold War alignments. After Patel's death, Nehru
had milder tussles with conservatives like
Purushottamdas Tandon and the president, Rajendra
Prasad.
Nehru's extraordinary popular
appeal was vindicated in the country's first
general elections of 1952, a monumental event
supervised by the able bureaucrat, Sukumar Sen.
Internationally too, Nehru's prestige was at its
peak in the 1950s, with his rival C
Rajagopalachari remarking that he was "becoming
the biggest man in the world (p 187)".
From 1949, vigorous movements championing
language autonomy collided with the national
leadership's belief that linguistic provinces
fueled fissiparous tendencies. Petitions,
representations, street marches, fasts and
violence eventually forced Delhi to concede.
Against its will, the government of India had to
allow formation of states on the language
principle in 1956 and later. Identity-based claims
to ever newer reconfiguration of political
geography continue to this day. Guha comments
that, in hindsight, "linguistic reorganization
consolidated the unity of India" instead of
endangering it (p 208).
Nehru hoped that
the massive industrialization and socialist
planning projects of his time would heal the
schisms of caste, religion, community and region.
His programs of agrarian uplift meant to "bring
about a rural revolution by peaceful means, not by
the breaking of heads (p 224)". However, the
government was unable or unwilling to redistribute
land in favor of low-caste laborers and
sharecroppers, muting prospects of a "socialistic
pattern of society". Economist B V Krishnamurti's
critique of the neglect of primary education went
unheeded. Gandhians decried the ecological damage
of high modernist development, but they were
politically too weak to matter.
Reform of
personal laws was an acid test of India's
commitment to modernization. B R Ambedkar's Hindu
Code Bill attempted to introduce gender equity but
ran into determined orthodox objections that
stalled its passage for nearly 10 years. Among
Muslims, who adamantly resisted reform of unequal
personal laws, there was not even a small liberal
or progressive contingent. The stigma that Nehru
"dare not touch the Muslim minority" weakened his
secular credentials.
The central
government's decision in 1959 to dismiss the
first-ever democratically elected communist
government in Kerala tarnished Nehru's reputation
for ethical behavior. Corruption scandals
involving finance minister T T Krishnamachari made
the first serious dent in the halo enjoyed by
Nehru's cabinet. The 1962 Chinese invasion
"represented a massive defeat in the Indian
imagination" and undermined Nehru's colossal
status in the country and within his own party.
Parleys for a pact over Kashmir just before Nehru
died could not pass muster with his own party
members. Nonetheless, Guha tributes his promotion
of social equality and secularism. "More progress
had been made in the first seventeen years of
independence than in the previous 1700 put
together" (p 386).
As Nehru's successor,
Lal Bahadur Shastri had to grapple with disturbing
anti-Hindi riots in Tamil-speaking areas. Despite
his personal preference for Hindu as the sole
official language, Shastri was compelled to
guarantee a polyglot policy to preserve national
and party wholeness. He was decisive in war with
Pakistan in 1965, belying expectations of being a
pushover. His brief tenure at the helm gave India
"a new steeliness and sense of national unity (p
404)".
Indira Gandhi's reign started with
a precipitous decline in the Congress' performance
in the 1967 elections. New populist regional
parties shot up by focussing on policies that
could bag
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power of Indian
nationalism and the sagacity of Vallabhbhai Patel
and V P Menon staved off these threats. Kashmir
proved much harder to integrate due to its
proximity to Pakistan and the opportunism of its
Muslim politicians. 
