" India is an unnatural nation & unlikely democracy',says Ramachandra Guha, in his interview with Arthur J.Pais (India Abroad, New York,Aug.17). Earlier in the year he had expressed similar views in his interview in the Indian Express. The interviews were conducted during the release of his book, India After Gandhi – The History of the world's largest democracy.
It is a fashion among the Anglicized Indians to deride India, especially Hindus. Remember they called India's low economic growth as Hindu rate of growth though it was the secular Congress government borrowing the Soviet model was responsible for it. They have no time to delve deep into India's history. They borrow views and perspectives on India from the British and the Orientalists.
Why he says India is an unnatural nation is not clear. Is he worried about the diversity of India ? If yes, is there any nation in this world which is not diverse ? You find diversity or even conflict in United Kingdom between England and Scotland, even Wales. How united is United States of America ? What is common between WASP and the African-Americans or the Mexicans in USA ? If diversity makes a nation unnatural, all nations are unnatural.
A nation as defined by the Concise Oxford Dictionary is " congeries of people, either of diverse races or of common descent, language, history, etc inhabiting a territory, bounded by defined limits". J.S.Mill, in 'Considerations on Representative Government' (1872) says, " A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nationality, if they are united among themselves by common sympathies, which does not exist between themselves and any others...Community of language, and community of religion vastly contribute to it.. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents, the possession of a national history and comanility of recollections, collective pride and humiliations, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents of the past." If we accept these definitions, India is a nation like all other nations. Guha believes that British created India and fostered by the founding fathers of the Indian constitution. Like all good secularists he forgets to mention the Hindu origins of India in spite of the fact that the Hindu civilization and culture had a long and continuous history in India which binds Tamilians at Kanya Kumari to Kashmiris in Jammu & Kashmir.
In 1954, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan had published a book, Fundamental Unity of India by Dr.Radha Kumud Mookerji, well-known historian and Professor of History in Mysore University and later, Lucknow University. He has enumerated all the elements that bind India together in that book. Of course all of them are of Hindu origin – Hindus invoking all the seven rivers of India ( Ganga to Kaveri )in all auspicious occasions and millions of Hindus going on pilgrimage from Haridwar to Rameshwaram. Then there is largest congregations of world during the Kumbha Mela. He also mentions the four 'maths' (religious/ spiritual centers) established by Adi Shankaracharya – Haridwar in the North, Dwaraka in the West, Puri in the East and Shrangeri in the South. Though India lacked political unity many times in the past except during the time of Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka and Akbar, it had a continuous cultural/religious unity. Dasra and Diwali are celebrated all over India in some form or the other. You will find Ramayana, Mahabharta and Gita in all Indian languages. And this cultural unity is the basis of the political unity.Annie Besant said long ago, ' India without Hinduism is a geopraphical expression".
As far as democratic system is concerned, we can give only two cheers even to USA where not all the votes were counted when it elected George Bush. As even Amartya Sen has conceded that the democratic system saved India from famine whereas it was unreported in China where it claimed many lives. Periodic elections, freedom of expression and freedom of association ( and agitation) have ensured that the cry of the poor is not a cry in the wilderness. It is a tribute to Indian democracy.
Guha has no idea that the germ of equality, liberty and fraternity and democratic rule is in the Vedic hymn – every human being is the spark of the Divine. He has no idea that another is in praise of diversity and freedom of thought & action - just like all rivers lead to the sea, all faith leads to God. That is the reason why all Indians, including the illiterate, took to democratic rule like a duck to water. These Vedic hymns have seeped down to the consciousness of all Indians, especially Hindus. These ideas and ideals have been erased from the memory of the people of other countries in the Indian Sub-continent. That is why democracy is not to be found in India's neighbourhood.
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