Essay | A riotous republic
A new book examines the mind of five key figures from history to understand how the Indian dream has evolved since 1947
In his book, The Idea of India (1997), Sunil Khilnani had explored the meaning of Indian identity with refreshing vigour. As he set about what India has meant to Indians, he noted the centrality of politics, and crafted his argument by drawing on the works of those who had fought for India’s freedom—in particular, the works of M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and B.R. Ambedkar.
But what unified that idea? Are the cornerstones of the republican Indian state that are taken for granted—democracy, secularism, equality and unity in diversity—words that have lost their meaning due to dilution, and if so, what was the original intent behind these words? In Midnight’s Children (1980), author Salman Rushdie said India was “a dream we had all agreed to dream". If so, how did that agreement come about? And did everyone willingly agree to dream that dream? Does that dream still mean something, given that the premises around which it was dreamt have changed? Does non-alignment matter in a unipolar world? Is it sensible to talk of “socialism" in the Constitution, even requiring political parties to swear allegiance to it, when the economy has taken a different path? And what of secularism, at a time when Hindutva is rising as an alternative vision, one that challenges the fundamentals of the vision of the founding fathers?
Sixty-five years after independence, and 63 years after the republic’s founding, these are worthwhile questions to reflect upon. A survey of leadership of all Indian political parties offers a dismal scenario. There is no politician with the intellectual strength to articulate a bold vision. From within the political system, it is difficult to think of a single coherent bright idea that can lift India to a different moral plane; an idea that doesn’t repeat the platitudes of the past. India is dynamic, its politics remains in stasis.
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