JOIN USSociologist-turned-historian Ramachandra Guha, who earned great reputation as one of the finest interpreters of contemporary Indian history with his book, India after Gandhi (2007), further enhances his credentials as a compelling intellectual writer with his latest collection of essays, Democrats and Dissenters.
Though Guha’s focus remains India and its turbulent post-Independence politics, right up to the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi, in three separate essays he provides fascinating comparisons and contrasts with three of our neighbours — China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In the second part, dealing with ‘ideologies and intellectuals’, Guha offers the readers a break from politics, giving heart-warming accounts of the lives and works of intellectuals like Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, Dharmanand Kosambi, Andre Beteille and Dharma Kumar.
Guha stands apart from many other modern writers because he is not afraid to call a spade a spade. Not given to being an ivory-tower scholar, he has often warmed the cockles of the Congress party followers by publicly criticising some of the policy decisions and appointments of the Modi government. But, his searing comments in the opening chapter of the book, titled The Long Life and Lingering Death of the Indian National Congress, would send every Congress leader running for cover.
He chronicles the historic role played by the Congress during freedom movement in uniting the country and bringing people of different religions and languages on a single political platform and subsequently, setting up fine democratic institutions upon coming to power. Recalling the services of stalwarts like Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and Rajagopalachari in shaping modern India, Guha says, “The post-Independence Congress sought to unite Indians in pursuit of the common goals of economic development, secularism and equal rights for all citizens...”
The chapter on Jayaprakash Narayan vs Jawaharlal Nehru finely illustrates the major nationwide debates among political leaders and thinkers that took place on politics and social policies in the first decades of independent India, and how they contributed to the strengthening of democratic systems. The writer regretfully notes that “the decline of the tradition of political argument is on daily display (now) in our Parliament and legislatures.”
It is well known that the Congress party’s slide began after Indira Gandhi became prime minister, and Guha, while not condoning her actions, offers an interesting insight into the circumstances that may have played a part in her feeling insecure and taking self-serving decisions. But there was no denying that she laid the foundation for ruination of the Congress by imposing dynastic rule, which culminated in the utterly unqualified Sonia Gandhi “becoming for a full ten years the most powerful person in the world’s largest democracy.”
Pointing to the inadequacies of Rahul Gandhi and his impending coronation, he says, “Restricting the leadership of an all-India party to a single family, a single gene pool, means closing off other sources of better or more dynamic leadership.”
Guha makes an interesting compilation of eight threats to the freedom of expression in contemporary India, among them being the retention of archaic colonial laws that are widely used and abused, the imperfections of the judicial system, the rise of identity politics and the danger of the media’s over-dependence on government and commercial advertisements. Turning to some absolutely shocking appointments by the present NDA government to institutions like the Indian Council of Historical Research, the Film and Television Institute of India and the Censor Board, Guha says it displays BJP’s “absolute contempt for scholarship, literature and arts,” and the party cannot be expected to work for the freedom of expression.
The essays on China and Sri Lanka move away from the beaten path. The author uses his visit to China, not to make a comparison of economic growth, but to offer the stark contrast between India’s pluralism and China’s obsession with a single ethnicity and a single language. He says the more sensitive Chinese scholars working away from Beijing are taking serious note of the protests in Xinjiang and Tibet and are beginning to see the dangers of imposition of a single culture on all citizens. As for Sri Lanka, the author tries to draw parallels between the long-festering Tamil issue in Lanka and the Kashmiri insurgency in India, and suggests that “dignified autonomy” is the only solution in both cases.
The chapter on the tribal tragedies in independent India effectively sums up how the political leadership, including Nehru, forgot the commitment made to the tribal communities at the time of Independence to restore their rights and provide them a life of dignity and honour. Guha argues that the Dalits, who had suffered as much as the tribals, were able to effectively channel their grievances through political empowerment. The Adavasis, on the other hand, being dispersed in a few isolated hilly districts and forests, have been left out without a political voice.
Each one of the profiles of towering intellectuals featured in this book makes for an interesting reading, but nothing is more fascinating than that of Darmanand Kosambi, eminent Buddhist scholar. His son D D Kosambi became more famous as a historian, but Dharmanand’s passion and dedication to his work, and his contributions to Buddhist studies, make him a truly inspiring personality.
Democrats and Dissenters
Ramachandra Guha
Penguin
2016, pp 317, Rs 699