By Jaspal Singh for Twocircles.net
News reports from India have been full of demonstrations, counter-demonstrations about the JNU events and there have been plenty of debates and discussions over the question of what qualifies as sedition, and who is an anti-national.
Questions have also been raised about certain media houses stoking the fire with false news. A producer from Zee News resigned, condemning his employers of inciting passions and misrepresenting facts on the February 9 events at JNU. He has accused the owners of the media house of supporting the ruling party and distorting facts, which were then used by the Delhi Police to arrest JNUSU president Kanahya Kumar and slap charges of sedition.
All this has given rise to a very healthy debate on fundamental issues, which have been presented to us as articles of faith never to be questioned. However, they need to be: one of the participants in one such debate on a TV channel pointed out that India is much older than the Indian state, while nationalism as an ideology only emerged in last couple of hundred years. So what is national and what is anti national is very problematic in countries like India which has many nations, nationalities, languages and people. One nation, one language, one religion cannot work here. The ruling elite have been trying to impose a mono culture on the diverse peoples of India.
An ideologue of RSS, who was participating in a debate, stated that in India, nationalism is different from the west. To substantiate his claim, he quoted from Valmiki Ramayana: “Janani Janambhoomischa Svaragadapi Garyasi (mother and motherland are more glorious than heaven).
He did not bother to explain how one line in a poetic composition can become a line of demarcation. Who decided so? What is meant by Janambhoomi? For example, Punjabis consider their Janambhoomi as Punjab, not Bharat or some abstract nation. Similarly, Bengalis refer to their Janambhoomi as ‘Sonar Bangla’. Other nations and nationalities too have have different ideas. However, the colonial state has no respect for these Janambhoomis: they all are branded anti national as they do not submit to colonial notions of European nation state.
On the question of nationalism, I am reminded of a statement by Wali Khan. He said that he had been a Pakistani for last sixty years, Muslim for a thousand years and a Pathan for five thousand years. But, like the current situation in India, the ruling dispensation in Pakistan too accused him of being anti-national, even though was stating a historical fact.
The pressure of the ruling elite and their colonial state to impose the mono culture is because this tiny minority wants to have unfettered control of all the natural and human resources of this area. Anybody who opposes this is branded anti national. They want their writ run unopposed in every nook and crony. Off course it is meeting with a vast resistance.
There is also debate about constitution and unity and territorial integrity as the hallmark of what is “national”. This constitution is only 60 years or so old. So before the constitution, were there no nationalists? No nations? Moreover, this constitution is 100% colonial. All constitutional experts agree that it is a constitution of continuity, which is a colonial continuity. So, constitution as a basis for nationalism is rather problematic. Similarly, unity and territorial integrity is also a bit problematic. In the last 100 years, the territory of India has gone through many changes. So, this cannot be a hallmark of a nationalist or nationalism. Like the constitution, the present territory is also a creation of the British. It is ironic to consider them as hallmarks of nationalism. India is much bigger and greater than both of these.
Many people have raised the point that nationalism is the last refuge of scoundrels and given many examples of how nationalist passions are incited to victimise a definite set of people or divert the majority of people.
I think that it is good that such debates are taking place in a public domain. There is great need of such debates and discussions. The JNU row has brought some very fundamental problems to the fore: they have remained under a rug for far too long.
(The author is a philosopher based in Cambridge, Massachusetts)