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It was clear, way back in 2014, that the BJP’s ‘nationalism’ would be an ugly monster, weaponised against inconvenient people and ideas. It drowned rational, constructive criticism in militant sentiment, and in mere months, it had journalists and institutions trying to out-nationalist each other, without pausing to ask why—let alone whether—they should have to. Ever since, with the eager cooperation of everyone who keeps failing to ask those questions, this Frankenstein-ed pseudo-nationalism has become a reason-proof warrant for witch-hunts, violence, oppression surveillance, and censorship. Criticism is, today, selectively cast as defamation of India, and therefore anti-national. Once, this would have been laughed off the stage. But watching your country slip on the cowpat of absurdity is only funny for about five seconds before you see that actually, it has broken its hip and gone into septic shock.
Instead of refusing to take on the perverse burden of proving a non-issue, instead of pushing back against calling critique, dissent and resistance as anti-national, other political parties are trying to get in on these malignant electoral dividends. So, with an eye firmly fixed beyond the borders of its Delhi stronghold, the Aam Aadmi Party has introduced its promised ‘deshbhakti curriculum’.
The curriculum itself is unremarkable—it’s mostly about trying to shape inclusive, compassionate, gender-sensitive, law-abiding citizens. That seems like the bare minimum training for social life, barring a dubious emphasis on obedience. Call the programme Civics, or Citizen and Constitution, or some such. Language evokes powerful ideas, so it matters. Why promise, as Chief Minister Kejriwal does, to produce ranks of ‘kattar deshbhakts’? If you don’t have the imagination to work out why this might be dangerous, that’s okay, you don’t need an imagination. If AAP is able to dream of an Olympic Games held in Delhi two decades from now, it should be able to look a few short years into the past to see the results of uncritical nationalism written in blood and ruin, every day, all around us. Why feed that monster?
It is much more interesting that the plan is, as Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said, to put understanding rather than rote learning, and wisdom rather than knowledge, at the centre of education. Great. It emphasises respect for women—super! But they’re also going to put up a rash of national flags. Wut? Everyone knows what the flag looks like. Stick a photo of it in the textbooks.
The Opposition has let the BJP determine the narrative, and scrambled to pick off what votes they can from competitive nationalism and competitive Hindu chest-bumping. If the BJP is doing a Ram temple donation drive, AAP will do a Sundar-kand ka Paath, and send the elderly off on a taxpayer-funded pilgrimage to Ayodhya. The BJP talks of Hindutva, so the Congress must make sure that everyone knows how dear Ram and Hinduism are to them. Parliament and state assemblies ring with loud religious genuflections. There’s no sorrier spectacle than a secular country behaving like the theocracy next door.
If AAP is really attempting to reclaim a benign love of country, that’s a conversation it can and should have in the public domain, by protecting the right to dissent, and to critique both government and country. Give the kids some credit, and leave them alone. Be a country they can love, rather than trying to mandate love of country. Don’t feed the monster.
If AAP doesn’t have the imagination to see how ‘kattar’ nationalist power might play out in education, it doesn’t need one—it can just look at the hot mess that is Ashoka University today. Nationalist power wants constant appeasement, and by dropping its foremost academic to appease it, Ashoka has sold its founding ideals and intellectual integrity.
How do you think that looks on India’s report card?