National Integration

Before and After Independence

Nationalism is a comparatively new concept, which has its origin in the Nation-States idea of Europe, more of them coming into existence after the First World War. It has now spread all over the world and forms the basis for the composition of the United Nations.

At this stage in the political evolution of the world, the nation-state as a unit has come to stay – and nationalism is, therefore, understandable – as an expression of loyalty to one’s country or nation. Not that one should not have other loyalties like that to the region, to the district, the village, family and so on. But these are like concentric circles, where the smaller unit exists within the larger one–without one ever coming into conflict with the other.

Nationalism is not a natural instinct, like hunger, thirst, love and fear, but an acquired sentiment – but not on that account unimportant for social cohesion, purposeful action and collective progress. Indian nationalism is comparatively recent in its origin. Its clearest institutional expression was in the rise and growth of the Indian National Congress, during the last hundred years.

Mahatma Gandhi to Indira Gandhi

Just as Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru dominated the course of Indian affairs for almost a generation during the period before Indian Independence, Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi did so for over a generation in the era after Independence. All the three of them had a vital role to play in aiding the process of national integration.

Gandhi’s leadership of the Congress, which was the main party, fighting for political Independence, lasted from 1920 to 1946, when the Interim Government was formed under the leader­ship of Nehru, who was India’s first Prime Minister from 1947 till his death in 1964. Indira Gandhi took over as Prime Minister (after Lal Bahadur Shastri’s death) early in 1966 and continued so till her assassination on 31 October 1984, with a gap of about three years or so during the Janata interregnum. Mrs. Gandhi did play an important part in the political life of free India, even during her father’s lifetime, when she was President of the Congress Party in 1958-59.

National integration was always uppermost in the minds of the three nation-builders, though differences in approach and emphasis were inevitable, in keeping with the changing pattern of Indian politics and the emergence of new challenges from time to time. The responses had to be correspondingly different, resulting in a shift in priorities, necessitated by the exigencies of a complex situation.

The problem before Gandhi was one of creating, or streng­thening national consciousness, without which the Congress would not have had the momentum for the freedom struggle. He tackled it in his own way by his repeated emphasis on two main points: 1. Harijan Uplift, by the removal of untouchability and other disabilities, based on social discrimination, with a view to making the Hindu society healthier and stronger, and so fitter, for the freedom struggle; and 2. Communal Harmony, by which he particularly meant a closer understanding between the two major communities, viz., Hindus and Muslims, by the elimination of all the irritants between them, real and imagined. He often went out of his way to accommodate all the aspirations of the Muslims and redress their grievances against the Hindus, so far as it lay witin his power or influence.

How he identified himself completely with the Khilafat Movement in 1920-21 to earn the goodwill of Muslim activists, or fundamentalists, as they might be called nowadays, under the leadership of te Ali Brothers is well-known. How they, along with their co-religionist followers, cooled off towards the freedom struggle of the Congress under Gandhi is also equally well-known. What is not that well-known is the main reason for the collapse of the Khilafat Movement, which was unconnected with the machinations of British Imperialism, whose “Divide and Rule” policy was allegedly responsible for all our ills–political, social, cultural, etc.

The Khilafat Movement had to collapse, for the simple reason that its bottom fell off and this happened because Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, who came to power in Turkey, after the First World War had no use for the Caliph, the spiritual and secular head of the Islamic establishment. Before the break of dawn one day, he ordered his men to put the young Caliph in a closed horse carriage and drove him out of the Turkish border from Istambul into Yugoslavia. Needless to add that he was divested of all his secular powers.

Any way, Hindu-Muslim unity of the Gandhian dream, which was at the root of communal harmony, was not the same again; thereafter, especially after the emergence of Jinnah in his new Avatar (manifestation) as “Quaid-e-Azam” (very different from the “Muslim Gokhale” and “Messenger of Hindu-Muslim unity” as he was earlier called), with his call for carving out a new homeland. Jinnah knew where it hurt Congress and Gandhi most.

It is worth remembering that the old Gandhi, who never said  “die” in politics, died in the upheavals of 1946-47, well before he was killed by Godse in January 1948. “Division of India over my dead body,” declared Gandhi. Division of India came first, and his dead body followed, a little later. It was a sad example of the futility of good intentions and noble impulses. It is an irony of fate that both these categories lie scattered on the path to hell in politics. Gandhi might have been a latter ­day apostle of peace on earth and goodwill among men–but in the attempt to achieve his immediate objectives, he was a magnificent failure. It was a measure of our failure as well.

Let us forget him now, in this context at least, and turn to Nehru, his great disciple. Of whom the master, said, “And I know this, that when I am gone, he will speak my language.”

Problems Before Nehru

May be, he would. And in the event, he did. But the problems faced by Nehru were very different. For one thing, the British rulers were no longer there, to serve as the alibi for all our ills and failures, including disunity. For another, the factors for unity and disunity were also different; it was not the Hindu-Muslim problem that demanded attention any longer, not to the same extent, at any rate. They were in the shape of regional parochialism and linguistic fanaticism, accentuated by economic imbalance and rationalised by the need for a cultural identity, which in turn was reinforced by emotive symbols drawn from a plausible, though partly dubious, sub-national or quasi-national mythology.

Luckily for Nehru, the socio-political-cultural malaise, posing a threat to national integration, was in its incipient stage; in his time. Moreover, the momentum towards this feeling of unity, originating from the pre-Independence days, had not quite spent itself out. Added to this was the imposing stature of Nehru himself, gigantic, larger than life, which served as a guarantee against the fissiparous tendencies to be encouraged by local-level politicians in his own party. Few of them had the guts to follow their own parochial inclinations, counter to the guidelines laid down by the national leadership.

In this connection, when the limelight of public attention is on Nehru, the hero as a patriot and politician, the work of his colleague, Sardar Patel, the first Home Minister of Free India, is likely to be ignored or at least overshadowed.

A Bismarckian type of character, Sardar Patel did more for the unity of India in general and the integration of the States in particular than any other Indian, dead or alive. It was lucky for Nehru to have had him as his right-hand man.

Lessons of History

When we begin to think of Nehru’s contribution to national integration, we can hardly afford to forget the fact that he had thought deeply about its antecedents and implications. Nor did he do so by instinct, intuition or inner voice, as his master, the Mahatma did, but by a process of ratiocination, drawing his own lessons from the study of history, of India in particular and of the world in general. In a broad and general way, as a gentleman historian, as distinct from a professional, he evolved his own theories, as could be seen in his “Discovery of India”.

One of them was related to the continuity of Indian culture. He saw in it a synthesis of varied cultures, representing the principle of “Unity in Diversity”. He symbolised it in his own life, drawing upon the best elements of the different cultures – Indian and European, Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist and Christian, not to speak of the agnostic. Some of his best friends were Muslim, and he had no reservations at all in his response to the minorities–religious, cultural, linguistic, etc.

He had in him the intellectual makings of a citizen of the world, who was by force of circumstances, tied down to national limits. His lofty idealism shone through his famous “Tryst with Destiny” address on the eve of Indian Independence.

His dreams, he said, are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for anyone of them to imagine that it can live apart.

Linguistic States and Regional Pulls

After the heady euphoria of new-found freedom had subsided, Nehru had soon to deal with the growing demand for linguistic States. For the origin of which concept, the Congress had itself to thank. It was projected as early as 1915 as a legitimate aspira­tion for asserting varieties of sub-national identity; and also to embarrass the British bureaucracy. It was one of the main points recurring in the Congress election manifesto. The Mahatma, in his own way, added fuel to the fire of regional feelings, un­willingly though, by his sustained campaign against the English language and English education (though the only language he could handle with a high degree of facility and precision was English), which were a cementing force among the educated classes. In the modern period, English served the same purpose as a medium of communication for the educated elite as Persian did in the Muhammadan or middle period and as Sanskrit did in the ancient or Hindu period, and as Latin did in medieval Europe.

The demand for linguistic States and even for ethno-centric “Stans” and “Khands” began to grow strident. Nehru’s frequent re-statement of the imperatives of national integration and the interests of administrative convenience could not quite stem this tide. This was so in the case of Andhra, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, among other States. His well-meant proposals for reclassi­fication of linguistic States into broader zones (Pradesh) and treating metropolitan, cosmopolitan cities as centrally-administer­ed units didn’t find favour with regional politicians with a vested interest in the cry for division into smaller and smaller States, not for administrative convenience or other general advantage, but for personal and party self-aggrandisement. When the demagogues took over, populist slogans replaced rational arguments and the reign of reason and commonsense, such as it was, came to an end.

As one deeply committed to the ideal of national integration, Nehru realised the value of English as link language, along with Hindi, but he could not always hold his own, against the Hindi fanatics on the one hand and the regional language fanatics on the other. His assurance, on the continuance of English, as long as the non-Hindi people wanted it, remains a sortof half-way house, in the absence of its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, along with Sanskrit and other languages spoken, by much fewer people than English.

Language-formulas

The three-language formula in schools, proposed by Nehru, covering the Regional language, National language (Hindi) and International language (English) was meant as an effective instru­ment for exposing the youth to the influence of the forces of national integration. But in the hands of hardened political operators of the parochial brand, especially of the north, this formula, otherwise unexceptionable, is perverted beyond recognition so as to be indistinguishable from a blatant one-language formula Similar is the so-called two-language formula elsewhere, high­-sounding professions notwithstanding.

Luckily for us, higher education now happens to be a con­current subject, and it has not been possible to obliterate the wholesome effect of Nehru’s efforts at strengthening the forces of national integration.

In following up the concept of a secular State to its logical conclusion by enforcing a common civil code, Nehru did not show adequate courage of conviction or firmness of action. The result was that the religious minorities, especially Muslims, manage to enjoy advantages and immunities unavailable to the majority community, which was always a drummer boy for Nehru.

After all is said and done, it must, however, be recognised that Nehru did have a national vision that helped to create a national ethos, which, by and large, holds till today in one form or the other.

Indira Gandhi’s Realpolitik

From Pandit Nehru to Indira Gandhi, it could be seen as a change from the romance of high idealism to the hard reality of realpolitik. This could be an attempt at oversimplification. But it is not without a solid element of truth. She had to do what any political leader in her position was expected to do.

Centrifugal forces began to assert themselves under the initi­ative of a new generation of politicians, not long after Indira Gandhi’s rise to power, as could be seen in the outcome of the general elections in 1967. Apart from political instability in some States, there were threats of separatism from others. There were serious challenges from the DMK hardliners at one end and the Akali Extremists at the other.

While Indira Gandhi’s commitment to the ideal of national integration was genuine, the scope for implementing it in all its pristine, philosophic purity was getting more and more limited. She had, therefore, to draw heavily on her wits and utilise her talent for accommodation and manipulation. In the process, she had at times had to compromise the true interests of national integration at the altar of political expediency, in the sheer struggle for survival. When she regained her political strength, she, of course, got her personal elanas well. Speaking of “Indianness”, which defies exact definition, she said to a Convention of Academicians in 1976 that “it is something that holds us together and which has held this country together for thousands of years.” She was, however, always aware of the dangers to this concept from narrowness of feelings–whether it be communalism or casteism or any other.

Concept of Unity

“The concept of unity is not new,” she observed. “The other day we had the Prime Minister of Nepal with us and I found that he had made four journeys to all the dhams(sacred homes)–east, west, north and south–and at each place, whether it is Pashupatinath in Kathmandu or the temple of Kanyakumari, they had certain regulations. In Pashupatinath, they always had priests from Mysore, now Karnataka. In some other places in Badrinath, I think they have priests from Kerala, and so on. Now all this was thought out with this idea of keeping people moving from one place to another and not feeling that anybody who is an Indian is an alien, but we have gone beyond that. We, in India, have taken people from outside our shores and made them Indians.”

But, what about Indians being made to feel like foreigners or at least second-class citizens in some of the more parochial states?

That she talked less eloquently, but acted more firmly than her father was in keeping with her pragmatic character. To the Khalistan extremists, who challenged the power of the Centre and posed a threat to the integrity of India, she gave a long rope, not knowing that they would be ready for the worst, even to hang themselves with it. “The Operation Blue Star”, the action in the Golden Temple, was a measure of her own preparedness to pay any price for protecting the cause of national integration. In the event, in her death, mourned all over the world, she had served the cause more effectively than she ever did or could in her life.

Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is heir to a rich, but difficult, legacy. His hands are now strengthened to act more boldly than his mother, who tended to hesitate and temporise in her last days and her grandfather who would afford to philosophise when the time was for action and more action to complete the process of national integration.