.gif)
Every which way you look, the curse of identity politics and victim-hood is becoming even more rampant and poisonous in 21st century India. Literacy keeps growing, as does intolerance and prejudice towards other identities. The more we are integrating with the world, the more insular we seem to be becoming. The more we see of social and economic mobility, the more we see regressive behaviour based on faith and identity rather than reason and common sense. Says Naved Hameed, General Secretary, Movement for Empowerment of Muslims, “To be honest, communalism never ended in this country, though there is no doubt that there has been a lot of talk to end communalism at various levels. The Indian society and system is totally biased against Muslims and Dalits in particular”. For all you know, there might be an organisation called Movement for Empowerment of Hindus and its General Secretary will be as candid as Hamid. The only difference will be that he will say that Hindus are discriminated against in their own country because of vote bank politics.
How did things come to such a sorry pass in India? How did secularism become an empty slogan and a term that everybody twists to score ideological points? Quite obviously, the principal blame lies with prejudiced Hindus and Muslims who seem to value faith more than national identity and pride. It is people like Akbaruddin Owaisi and Praveen Togadia who are responsible for spreading prejudice and hatred. But that is stating the obvious. The question to ask is: what caused people like Owaisi and Togadia to rise in prominence after India became an independent country?
If you ignore pop analysis of the instant kind and do some serious historical soul searching, the past does provide some clues for the fragmented identity polity of contemporary times. You could even call it counter history since some icons appear in the firing line. In India, it is very hazardous now to point fingers at icons. Libraries are burnt down if there is even academic analysis of the great Shivaji. Dalits activists throw shoes and more at people who criticise BR Ambedkar.
People take to the streets and indulge in violence if someone targets the Dravidian icon Anna. Fawning Congressmen react angrily and aggressively if there is any criticism of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The list is now becoming longer and longer. And yet the behaviour of some icons do need to be examined and some deeply held beliefs must be reexamined if we are serious about the reasons behind the rise and rise of malevolent identity politics.
The headline of this feature talks about 1951 and 1986 to be the blunder years. It is events and decisions during these two years that have played a very large role in not only encouraging identity politics, but also creating communal divides. This historical blotch is sad enough. Even more sad is the fact that the blunders were committed by leaders who were enormously popular and virtually unchallenged in their sway over popular sentiments when they took the fateful decisions. We are talking about Jawaharlal Nehru in 1951 and his grandson Rajiv Gandhi in 1986.
Readers with even rudimentary knowledge of history will know that soon after independence, a Constituent Assembly was created to create a new Constitution of India. Even as the Assembly debated and argued over the future of India, Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister coped as well as he could in leading a country ravaged by partition and communal bloodbath. History buffs will also know that Nehru, though immensely popular, was not unchallenged. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was an equally towering leader and not always in agreement with Nehru's world view and ideology. In 1950, Patel died and Nehru was, in a manner of speaking, the undisputed king. Meanwhile, the Constitution had been drafted and one of the lofty promises made in that document was to have a Uniform Civil Code for all citizens. Dr BR Ambedkar was the Union Law Minister and was aggressively pushing for that. Apprehensive that Muslims might feel insecure and think that their religious identity was being threatened, Nehru and a reluctant Ambedkar decided to first pass a modern civil code for the Hindu community. Quite obviously, right wing Hindu groups were violently opposed to the idea. It was also an open secret that India's first President Dr Rajendra Prasad was not very excited about the idea. He did write to Nehru expressing his unhappiness with the proposed civil code for Hindus.
Let's quote a few lines from India After Gandhi written by Ramchandra Guha, believed by many to be a definitive history of post Independence India: “Nehru chose not to challenge the President. In any case, the progress of the bill in the Provisional Parliament had been painfully slow...In the end, the session ended, the bill was virtually talked out and it lapsed. The man who was most hurt by this was the Law Minister Dr Ambedkar who had staked his reputation on the bill, meeting criticism and calumny with equal resolution. That Nehru had finally chosen to give in to the opposition pained him deeply. In October, 1951, he resigned from the Union Cabinet”.
Do remember, India was yet to conduct its first Lok Sabha elections that happened in 1952. As mentioned earlier, Nehru had virtually unquestioned authority as well as popularity. There are many who feel that it was only Nehru who had the stature and hold over public opinion to pass not just a civil code for Hindus, but a uniform civil code for the entire country as committed by the Constitution. Many scholars and analysts think that this one decision taken by Nehru, though hardly ever talked about, had repercussions whose effects are still being felt.
“The driving force behind Baba Saheb's insistence on passing the Hindu Code Bill was emancipation of women. But the Caste Hindus, including women, who deemed this move as an endeavour to attack the sanctity of Hinduism opposed this radical bill. In his robust defense to this Bill, Dr Ambedkar maintained that the ideals enshrined in it were derived from the Constitution of India, which is founded on liberty, equality and fraternity. Dr Ambedkar was so fed up with the opposition that he left Nehru's cabinet. He said, “It (the Hindu Code Bill) was killed and buried, unwept and unsung”. Dr Ambedkar's influence on women is still overt particularly in the Maharashtrian Buddhist women, who are not only empowered but frequently take apart the mainstream Feminist movement as the Brahmin Women Movement. “The repercussions of that failure still resonates,” says Ratnesh Katulkar who is an Ambedkarite activist and scholar at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar National Institute of Social Sciences.
Read more.....
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
| BBA Management Education |
