Dalit Movement and Bahujan Samaj Party

Indian social system is influenced by Dharamshahstras, which call for the Chaturvarnashram system created by Brahmins and Kshhatriyas. Any social movements defines opposition classes or groups, generally exploiter and exploited but dalit movement is based against the classical notion of “purity and pollution” and the notion of purity and pollution comes from the individual’s birth in a family i.e., totally ascriptive in nature. Dalit movements challenge it as Periyar challenged the Brahminical hegemony in cultural, social, religious and political spheres. challenging the Brahminical notion of hierarchy was the first step in Dalit movements through Temple Entry Movement, social justice movement etc. These movements talked for the enforcement of freedom, justice, liberty in the place of ritualistic traditional system where humans are deprived of basic rights to live decent life. Therefore, these movements were giving the model for alternate society based on ‘modern’ and rational values and end the oppressive social order and establish a new social order based on libertarian values.

The movement for the emancipation of Dalits in india in the early phase of modern India was started by social reformers like Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and others but the reach of these movements were very meager and these movements vaporized very rapidly. Generally, dalit movements can be arranged in two paradigms; first Ambedkar era Movement and Post Ambedkar era movement. Ambedkar tried to bring the ‘dalit’ question at the centre stage of freedom movements. The communal award of 1932 and subsequent revision in it after Mahatma Gandhi’s fast paved the way for more fruitful political actions. The main impetus in Dalit Movement came after the independence when democratic processes took the centre stage of Indian polity and group action became more prominent strategy to achieve the goal.

The Bahujan Samaj Party under the leadership of Kanshiram has brought the most significant change in the psyche of dalit masses by providing umbrella identity, futuristic visions, myths, social ideology and political strategy to become one of the most significant player in the game of power politics in contemporary India (Kumar, 2002, Page 168-69). The politics of Kanshiram had deep philosophical imprints of previous dalit movements and he understood dalits as a community which is racially subjugated, economically exploited, culturally marginalised and politically untouchable in the realms of power. Therefore, his strategy was to capture power from elites to emancipate dalits as Jaffrelot(2006) has put in his work. As a torchbearer in Ambedkarite social struggle in the political arena of contemporary india, he gave the idea of revolution on the basis of social engineering. He coined the term “bahujan” and made it one of the most imaginative political categories. Bahujan identity is the political alliance between the politically deprived castes of Indian history under the leadership of most deprived caste group i.e. “dalits”. It profess through the meta narrative of “guru-killi” that it is the master key to end all the exploitation and made “dalitness” the core value of the party.

The victory in subsequent elections in UP have shown the reach of the idea of Bahujan among the deprived communities of modern India and it also showed that they are second to none of any political outfits. The victory had a revolutionary spirit to change the political power game in the other parts of the country. But, this movement after some time turned into petite-bourgeois politics and these were the results of the limitations inherent in most of the dalit movements. The BSP was successful in providing leadership to multi-caste, multi-religious political alliance but lacked in providing social milieu for dalits in the state. The political socialisation of dalits had limited impact on their social conditions. A critical examination of Dalit movements shows that most of these movement’s are antagonistic to each other and that is one of the reason why the strategy was not able to convert itself to any potential outputs.The politics of caste is carried out with the baggages of the paste and if we create a imaginative category where multiple caste groups are its members then the problem starts with the unequal baggage of the history with different caste groups and give birth to conflict among them. The notion of purity and pollution has added hierarchy in the society in such a way that the quality and quantity of exploitation is different for different caste groups depending on their social position spatially and temporally.

Therefore, BSP was able to provide political leadership by displacing political elites but it could not transform its movement in the direction of transformation of social status of dalits. The capturing of power in politics in India requires alliances from other caste group based parties, which are, generally, against the whole ethos of dalit movements. Such alliances, under the power, does not remain under one caste group and but remains under many additional power blocks with a capacity to bargain. Thus, Political power face strong challenge from the “civil society” in the transformation to ideal socio-political order.Political socialisation is the first step to gain inputs from society about the needs of the people. Political, social, and economic domains are interconnected public paradigm and through political socialisation, the state can understand the needs and aspirations of the society. These needs should be evaluated on rational basis to provide social justice to every individual of the society.

These political alliances in Mayawati reign destroyed the basic question of dalit emancipation and subalternity of the dalit movement. In order to regain power in the state, She gave a new imaginative community of “sarvjan” where antagonistic castes came under one umbrella and the “dalitness” of the movement lost its imperative. The political culture in the state of UP, ridden by a conservative, orthodox and regressive social practices, converted leaders to ‘new’ political elites. Brahminism is not only the attribute of certain castes; in contemporary India, it also became the attribute of certain class. The neo-buddhist movement, therefore, wanted to create a secular, alternative community identity so that the antagonistic trends in Dalit movements can be discarded and annihilation of caste becomes possible.

BOOK REVIEW: KHATTAR KAKAK TARANG BY HARIMOHAN JHA

Maithili is the language of Mithila, a cultural region of two historical dynasties in the North-Eastern part of India but no longer a distinct political entity. According to Grierson, it lies to the north of the Ganges, to the east of the Gandak river, to the west of the Kosi river, and to the south of the Himalayas (thus falling primarily in the Indian state of Bihar but including some territory in Nepal).

Harimohan Jha, known as renaissance man of Mithila, wrote the book “Khattar kakak tarang” in 1948 and discusses about many things from food behaviour to dharmashastra to veda to philosophy to character of various gods to various cultural idioms of mithilanachal. His view are also very diverse as feminism, scientific temper, rationality, class and caste etc are prevalent in his writings. In the preface, Harimohan Jha describes the protagonist of the book khttar kaka as being named neo-charvak by the local people.  Khattar kaka sees everything with a doubt and applies inquiry to find the logic behind it. He calls it 'tarkvaad'. He is highly versed in Vedas, Upnishads, Dharmashastra, Jyotish, Ayurved, Mahakavyas and other sanskritic texts.  He does not believe in rebirth, salvation, dharma, god etc. Despite the thing that writer introduces him as neo-charvak, he is different from the ideal notion of charvak. He does not believe in the transcendental notion of karma but he tells people to do right work to achieve right end. He rejects the dogmatic beliefs in pooja, yagna, abstract indoctrination of daily life and establishing god and getting divine approval to make text infallible. For him, nothing is infallible and every knowledge is temporary. Any trustworthy new knowledge has the capacity to replace old knowledge. The conception of abstract absolute is problematic for him. 

He also believes in the classification of knowledges and seperate boundaries for different forms of knowledge. He shows clearly in the chapter of Ayurveda that how a scientific domain had been invaded by poetry of sringar rasa and this lead to destruction of scientific notion of Aayurveda. Aayurveda, which started on scientific base turned into false, superstitious and contradictory text. Aayurveda writes if any women during her menstrual cycle takes the roots of lakshmana with milk, mixed by umnarried girl in pushya nakshatra then she will certainly get pregnant. So, he asks what is the cause of pregnancy- the roots of lakshmana or pushya nakshatra or the hands of unmarried girl or all three. He also cites other verses which give references to get son. So he says that this has turned into superstition and it is no longer science so it declined.

He also attacks the ideal characters of religion like Ram, Pandavs, devtas/gods and says us to judge the ideal connotation attached with them. In the chapter Ramayan he attacks the Maryada Purushottam notion. Being a Maithil, he is also attached to Sita, the Mithilaputri. He finds the story of Ramayan as the story of betrayal, anti-women and irrational behaviour of father-son duo. why sita was sent out of the ayodha after  passing the agnipariksha? Was it a kshatriya dharma? Was cutting nose of surpnakha was kshatriya dharma? He also says that the name given to Yudhistar, dharmaraja, is not right as he and the other pandavs are the main cause for Mahabharata. He also talks about the cross-cousin marriage in Mahabharta.

The feminist notion exists in most of the chapters of this book. Khattar Kaka talks against dowry system, polygamy, biasness with women in different rituals and their role in the mythical stories. He finds Ram god because Sita is his wife. He criticises the behaviour of Dushyant towards munikanya, pandavs toward draupadi's disrobement etc. He also criticises vedas and upnishads for indecent depiction of women.

He cogently attacks the prevalent notion of cultural superiority of ancient culture, superstition and dogmatic beliefs in the Mithila region. He finds the history as the history of Raja and Brahman and describes them “bhogi raja and krodhi brahman” and both were greedy. People go for satyadev's puja, Durgapuja, yagna etc to get purusharth but he finds most of the text used in these pujas as the story of biased   gods and says that mere repeating this will not help. If one has to achieve some material benefits then he will have to do some work in that direction. He draws parallel in western culture and says that if these notions of lagna, nakshatra and jyotish are true then how western countries have developed so much without knowing all these things. The development in western world is the result of rationalisation of thoughts and working in the direction of better scientific development. He critics the hypocrisy and arrogance rampant in cultural texts.

Further, he says that various school of Indian philosophies are not logical to accept. Vedantic philosophy says that every thing is false but brahman. So one should be disattatched to materialistic things in the world. Materialistic things provide temporary happiness and temporary happiness should be renunciated. Khattar kaka asks what is absolute in this world? Everything we eat, we collect transforms into some other thing.  So we should give up food, medicines etc. Sankhya philosophy says that every thing exists prior to its essence. So it means that every women has child before getting pregnant. These philosophies are nothing but the representation of kamshastra in darshanshastra. Like kamashastra there are 84 aasans in yoga. 

However, he says that modern mental outlook of western society is rational and provides way for emancipation of humanity from the conservatism but he is also skeptical about the entry of modernity in some cultural spheres of society which is destroying the inherent good practices of society like community feeling, care for elderly etc. The knowledge that modernity produces is useful for development in public and private sphere but one should filter it according to his or her society. He is polemical against the present day government and their policies. He cautions us that accepting aid from western world have capability to destroy our uniqueness. He also criticizes the socialistic pattern of governance and says that communal farming or land redistribution will have free rider problem. Today, he is cultivating something because he knows that he will receive the benefit of handwork. If  the benefit will go to everyone then he might not work. The scientific development in agriculture, medicine, transportation system etc can be imported but when we start importing political system like democracy and economic system like socialism then the problem starts.  The atomistic society and individualism is the cause for the all contemporary problems like inflation, corruption etc. Democracy gives every one equal right to choose their leader but this also creates a situation where 99 wise will have less value than the value of 100 unwise. The coming of Freudian analysis in modern thought is similar to portions of Vedas, Upanishads, Ayurveda and other poetic creations where sexual verses hegemonises the other rational verses. In our society there should be meeting of occidental and oriental but the proportion should be devised by us.

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Harimohan Jha in this book tries to find out the logic behind the cultural, moral and social reality in Mithila region and formalises a system where knowledge should be first judged and then accepted in one's daily life. He proposes a form of epistemology in addition to logic which is based on laukik perception(ordinary perception through sense organs), moving from nirvikalp perception to savikalp perception(indeterminae to determinate perception), laukik sabda (which can be questioned and overruled by some other trustworthy knowledge, when it becomes available). One of the main idea in his work is “Ideal language analysis” so that picture of the world can be construed by means of expressing atomic facts in the form of atomic propositions, and linking them using logical operators.

If someone is giving water to a plant then he also sees the result so it's laukik perception, which can create knowledge based on evidence but if someone is doing yagna for rain then there is no pramana. Therfore, this knowledge is not true and it should not be followed. If we see clouds in the sky then we can not say that there is going to be rain i.e. nirvikalp perception but if certain kind of cloud always gives rain then it's savikalp perception. So, to acquire knowledge one should move from nirvikalp perception to savikalp perception. One should understand that winter in the region is caused due to southward movement of sun.

He is not opposed to Dharma when it stands for pure Righteousness. However, he has problem with the idea of Dharma as defined by Brahmanism. What Brahmanism loyalist call Dharma is nothing but Adharma, pure and simple. The hallmarks of Brahmanism are Varna Dharma and Jati Dharma. How can a Dharma consider some people as inherently inferior to others and condemn them to a life of servitude? The doctrine of the Gunas of Prakriti and Law of Karma, the very foundation of Brahmanism and Varna Dharma, were evil inventions of Brahmins to maintain their class superiority over everyone else, and to rule them for personal profit and security. By brainwashing people about these dogmas (BG: 3:5, 27, 33; 18: 40-45; 59-60), they practically enslaved them psychologically. 

He believes that each object in nature has its own inherent quality. For example, fire is hot; water flows; air blows, etc. This is distinct from Brahmanism’s theory of the Gunas. Now, where is the proof that three Gunas of Prakriti exist in reality? This is nothing but a figment of imagination. There is no proof to the fact that certain groups of people share a specific Guna. If the doctrine of the Gunas were true, how come so many “lower class people” allegedly of Tamasic Guna are more “Sattvic” than many “high class” Brahmins of Sattvic Guna? If the Gunas determine the quality of all actions, how come so many “lower class” people perform such great and honorable deeds?

Old Brahmanism claimed that one is born again in another body after one dies. They called this cycle of birth, death and rebirth Samsara. They claimed that one’s enjoyment or suffering in this life was determined by their deeds in their previous lives. Where is the proof for all this nonsense? We believe that the body is made up of four base elements: earth, fire, water and air, and consciousness arises from these elements no different than alcohol arising from a mixture of grain, hops and yeast. When we die consciousness also dies with it, and these elements go back to their original forms.

To profit from this concept of Samsara, Brahmins conceived a place out there in the sky, which they called heaven. They brainwashed people into believing that if they followed Brahmanic dictates faithfully and performed expensive and elaborate sacrifices to please gods, they would go to heaven after death. If they did not follow Brahmanic dictates, they would suffer dishonor here on earth and go to hell hereafter. This was a classic reward-punishment tactic to control people and profit from it. So the hoax of Law of Karma not only served the purpose of keeping the other people subjugated, but also was a source of income to Brahmins. Brahmanism primarily operated from inside this Samsara box.

The reformist zeal is prevalent in most of the writings of Harimohan Jha like kanyadan, duragman etc. In this book also he does philosophical enquiry to social conditions of Mithila. He finds that due to complicity of modern knowledge and modern regimes of power we became the consumer of “universal modernity” and so institutions of the modern knowledges located in a space somewhat set apart from the field of universal discourse, a space where discourse would be modern yet 'national'.

Nationalism and Marxism (List Vs Marx)

Karl Marx and Engles postulates a nation-less society based upon pan-human communalism. The various divisions in the society like politics, religion, ethnicity etc prevent man from realising his species being, wherein his true fulfillment lies. The real destiny of man is to be free of the constraints imposed by these divisions and also by any social roles and at the same time some ‘hidden hand’ will automatically incorporate him in a harmonious universal community.  However, they did not elaborated about this hidden hand. Class is the key to understand the mechanics of human alienation and human liberation.(Why? obvious reasons). So it is both noxious and historically relevant.

The other category which suffers from the double indignity of being both noxious and unimportant is proletariat and it will liberate mankind from the class endowed society altogether.

The single most crucial and disastrous error in Marxist system is the supposition that communist societies will not need any political organization but will in some unexplained way will be self adjusting.( Again Hidden hand). If power relations, as distinct from class relations, will disappear from society then there is no need for codification of laws. As in the Kingdom of God, there are no laws.

Why Marx choose class instead of nation? this is the question that Szporluk asks.

1. Proletariat as a class can liberate humanity as it is universal but how a nation can liberate other nations?
2. Interethnic and inter-polity conflict are present in the conventional historiography of mankind. Such a claim could not present any novelty in the Marxian theory so he presented theory of latent conflict.
3. After Industrial Revolution, conflicts were not exclusively ethnic or political and the transformation was in the structure of class and not in the ethnicity. Class relations and their changes were more plausible candidates for the dramatis personae of current history at least. Also Hegelian concept of ‘single key to history’ helped Maex to extrapolate class theory to show homogeneity in the causes for conflicts in all hitherto society.

List is credited by Szporluk with at least two distinct perceptions:-

1. Between each individual and entire humanity…. stands the nation i.e. nation is eternal and legitimate subdivision of mankind.   In contrast to Marxian class, List gave the category of nation.
2. the diffusion of the benefits of industrialism confers a special importance on ethnic groups.

and further he says that 1 is the necessary premise for the existence of 2 but Gellner finds Szporluk misguided as 1 is neither true in itself nor a valid premise for 2 as nationalism, for Gellner, is a modern phenomenon emerging from industrialism.

However, both Marx and List rejected the optimistic liberalism coming from Laissez faire doctrine stating unrestrained competition is beneficial to everyone. (Same marxian theory that every one is not starting from same level of economic freedom). Therefore, they went on to say that these contradictions are inherent in the development of Capitalism and there is a need to protect late developers and here List gave the importance to state for having the role of equalizer and List confronted with the marxian theory of revolution as the only means to achieve egalitarian society. List says that communist manifesto is also anti-nationalist manifesto. For Marx, List was only idealising the illusions propounded by early theories propounded in the defense of “Napoleonic Continental System”.

Szporluk finds that relation between nationalism and industrialization was formulated correctly by List. Marx says that the workers are neither french, german …..nor any other national and List’s theory was intended to develop its own ‘national road to capitalism’ for German bourgeoisie and it was common ground for both theories( role of capitalism for revolution). However, Marxian theories does not talk about revolutions in backward economies and also in 1840s Marxian theories excluded Russia from the world historical processes. So as Yuri Semenov argued that the historical processes of change is not related to individual nations rather it is related to global order but Gellner said that the historical changes are ingenious and may not be faithful to the spirit and intention of the Marxism of the founding fathers.

Therefore, List theory is different from Marxian theory in the sense that list was a nationalist but not a romantic and he was original in wishing neither to keep industrialism out nor to submit to it, but to take it on to by making it national i.e. national capitalism. so the idea is:-

1. the use of political institutions to protect and promote industrialisation,
2. the requirement that these political institutions be ethnic ones.

Without 1, political development is not possible in backward areas and ethnic political institutions are necessary for him as he has seen multi-ethnic and territorially discontinuous Ottoman empire’s decline due to non-cooperation between different groups.

For Marx, also the agents of diffusion are both political and ethnic but the ethnicity involved the educationally transmitted, literate shared culture of the modern industrial state and not the Gemeinschaft transmitted, pre-Gutenberg communism of old.

So, basically List rejects the notion of class in the Marx’s writings and instead of class he asserts ‘nation’ as a category for human liberation and human emancipation. Therefore, his goal is not communism  rather national capitalism as he foresees the development of capitalism and the role of state for the redistribution of effects of industrialism. He is also giving emphasis on ethnic identities which will dissolve any chance of conflicts in the political institutions.

Modern Nation and Nationalism

In Spain, Franco started Spanish league to deviate people’s attention from the autocratic polity of the state and he made it sure to have five matches in a week. In the last Cricket world Cup, all Indian offices were closed for the semifinal match between India and Pakistan. The modern nation-state tries to enforce a consciousness of “we-ness” among the people living in a demarcated territory. The passion attached to these events creates a shared consciousness which is beyond the reach of any traditional identity. These forms of consciousness can be very easily attached to a nation state. So, nation becomes the supra-consciousness among the people and all other consciousness sometimes merged into it or accommodated within it. But, despite having this kind of consciousness, why the same nation again engaged into different forms of violent action and why the professed “civil religion” disappears? is it a temporary consciousness or contested space? is the notion of nationalism is universal or exclusive?

The wave of modernization created new set of Baconian identities in different parts of the world. These ideas were further spread by colonizers in 19th Century in Asia and Africa. So, the creation of the concept of nation and nationalism in east and west have been different as in the west it was the product of rationalisation while in east it came through colonial mentors and response to these colonial powers. The process of enlightenment started a process of scientific development in western world, which finally gave rise to Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolution created a system in which new urban centres, cities, new forms of laws based on “rule of law” doctrine created a new ‘mass’ which had a new kind of consciousness. The technological, institutional and ideological modernity coming from enlightenment process created a new discourse in European society which talked about the notion of nationalism which at that time meant that men united by a common tradition, a common language, and common economic interests should not be politically separated. This feeling appeared most strongly among those nations which were still without a nation-state.

Education was one of the main cause for the success of French Revolution. Education created a society which were sharing similar demands in ‘public’ domain and called for a revolution to have liberty, equality, secular polity etc. to create a judicious society. The nationalism, in initial decades, was primarily a political principle which holds that “the state and culture should be congruent( Gellner, 1983)”. Gellner focused on the ‘universalisation’ process through technological and productive base which made modern society homogeneous, technically skillful, literate, and occupationally mobile. so, he was concerned about the equality of status rather than equality of class. For him, equality of class was not able to maintain in mobile circumstances. Therefore, his pattern of analysis was rooted in Industrialism rather in capitalism. Capitalism was a sub-set of industrialism. Modern values called for universalisation of education, which in-turn established universal communication system in industrial societies. Now, family was not the main place for socialisation rather most of the socialization were coming from outside the domain of family. He calls it “exo-socialization” and it also helped in the creation of ‘universal’ categories. So, basically homogenization was coming from exo-socialisation and for this homogenization, education was the prime mover.

The primary importance given to education was somehow problematic as education was one of the causes for the change in the consciousness but education was not the sole cause for this transformation. Language of the education was one of the barrier for the creation of common consciousness. Most of the education process was carried out in vernacular languages or dialects of the different parts of Europe. But, the availability of books in vernacular languages/dialects were very meagre. The modern mental outlook provided people with the ‘ideas of simultaneity’ in the ‘age of mechanical reproduction’(Benjamin, 1935). The ideas of simultaneity started many popular movements in the arena of arts like Cubism, a very famous art movement, has also roots in this idea. Picaso, in his famous painting was searching for the fourth dimension and Einstein looked for temporal dimension in the space. Walter Benjamin in his 1935 book “The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction” says that “the very definition of art is flexible, varying in response to the historic conditions of its production, distribution, and reception.” So, in the age of mechanical reproduction, Print capitalism started in Europe in Latin language but it saturated within 150 years. Then, the revolutionary thrust of capitalism came in vernacularisation of print capitalism. Benedict Anderson(1991) in his work “Imagined communities” tried to present a historiography of development of print capitalism and the rise of the consciousness of nation and nationalism. The vernacularisation of print capitalism was given further impetus by three extraneous factors- change in the character of latin, the impact of reformation, and slow, geographically uneven spread of particular vernaculars as instruments of administrative centralisation by certain well-positioned would be absolutist monarchs.

Capitalism created a system where certain vernaculars mechanically reproduced print-languages capable of dissemination through the market. These languages laid the basis for national consciousness in three distinct ways:-

1. the creation of unified field of exchange and communication below latin and above the spoken vernaculars,
2. a new fixity to language was provided through print capitalism, which build the “image of antiquity” central to the subjective idea of the nation, and
3. languages of power was created and some languages were elevated to a new politico-cultural eminence like King’s English, High German etc.

Anderson takes a departure from Gellner’s concept of nationalism and established that print capitalism gave birth to ‘linguistic nationalism’ which provided ‘national imagined consciousness.” However, this notion of imagined consciousness was criticized by Partha Chatterjee in his book The nation and its fragments: Colonial and postcolonial histories. Chatterjee says that if print capitalism provided the national consciousness then how this national consciousness was not of colonizers?

These nation states spread their ideologies in other countries through the process of colonization. Colonization always had very centralised polity to control the masses. When Mughal gave Diwani rights to East India Company after defeat in Battle of Buxar(1764), then the ‘governmentality’ in the country changed. British started reforming many of the systems in the arena of law, bureaucracy, education, religious affairs etc. The import of enlightenment text in the country, for the education of the subjects of British, created a new consciousness among the masses for the ideals of French Revolution. The social reform programmes started in India in the first half of 18th Century. These reforms had the main aim to create a society based on rational consciousness and universalization. However, there are different connotation that these reforms were the product of national consciousness or not. But, partha Chatterjee in his book The black hole of empire: History of a global practice of power says that Indian nationalism started before the formation of Indian national Congress(1885) and it can be seen in the reform movements famously known as “Bengal renaissance”.

The time frame of first wave of nationalism in India is, however, debated but it is now accepted by most of the writers that Indian nationalism, that confronted British imperialism and celebrated its victory in the formation of Indian nation state was the product of colonial history. However, ‘nationalist historian’ have the view that the sense of unity of India was embedded in the civilisation which gradually emerged to create the modern India. This view was criticized by Prasenjit Duara(1995) critics these views as “teleological model of enlightenment history” which provides false sense of “contested and contingent nation” as unity. The emergence of indian nationalism is discussed between two different ends of the spectrum. At one end, Chatterjee says it was different but a “derivative discourse” from the west and on the other hand counter-modernist like Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi say that it is rooted in our civilisation. C. A. Bayley (1998) recently searched for the ‘pre-history of nationalism’ and finds that it is built on ‘pre-existing sense of territoriality, a traditional patriotism rationalised by indigenous ideas of public morality and ethical government”.

Different theories of Indian nationalism shows various influences and various contradictions in the process. so, one dimensional view of Indian Nationalism will not be able to provide the answer in virtual chaos. Indian mass first erupted against British rule in a mass based movement in 1905 after the announcement of division of Bengal in the name of Swadeshi Movement. This movement, for the first time, saw the participation of women in public sphere. Rabindranath Tagore in his book “Ghar Bhaire” talked about the two domains of Indian household. He explains the different dilemma of Indians in the wake of movement. The notion of mother nation becomes so universal for some that they see the existence of mother goddess in colonizer’s nation too. Ashish Nandi explains different dimensions of nationalism emerging out of the freedom struggle. The by-product of Baconian rationalist model is one of the main concerns for later years. The destruction of harmony between different groups of people and emergence of modern form of violence. In the travelogue Prasye, Tagore had commented on the modern form of sanitized violence increasingly available in modern society.

This form of nationalism gave birth to two factions in Indian society; one was representing the views of Muslims and other were representing the views of ‘India’ as a single unit. But, Many right wing Hindu groups also came in existence in the second decades of 20th century. The idea of nation on the basis of religion came into existence. These ideas were based on early nationalism when nation used to mean congregation of single ethnic groups. The responsivist and reactionary policies of different parties created a consciousness based on religion. Valentine Chirol(1921) finds out that the politicization of Indian mass developed along traditional line rather along class and nation. The Marxist school developed various theories of emergence of Indian nationalism. The clear contrast in the leadership pattern of different parties shows “Bourgeois nationalist consciousness”. Most of the leaders of freedom struggle were from high caste people. Therefore, Sumit Sarkar(1983) finds two levels of anti-imperialist struggles; one elite and other populist. The complex interaction between these two produced continuity through change that created the dominant theme of the period.

Partha Chatterjee has given the different stages of development of nationalism in India. These stages are “moment of departure”, when the nationalist consciousness was formulated through the hegemonizing influence of “post-enlightenment rationalist thought”, “moment of manoeuvre”, when the masses were mobilised in its support and “moment of arrival”, when it became a “discourse of order” and “rationalisation of power”. Further, he differentiates between the two domains of the action of intelligentsia in his 1993 book “The Nation and Its Fragments”; the first domain is material and the other is spiritual. In the inner spiritual domain, they tried to fashion a modern rational culture that is not western and it was where there nationalism was sovereign. he further tells us to study these two domains in their “mutually conditioned historicities”. However, Gyan Praksh(1991) has made partial revision of Partha chatterjee and says that there was no fundamental opposition between these two spheres and the outer dimension was the inner dimension’s existence at another abstract level.

This nationalism was not one way process. British were also trying to reshape the nationalist question for their self serving goals. The cultural-symbolic authority asserted by British through the proclamation of 1858 is one of such example. Bernard Cohn in his essay “Representing Authority in Victorian India” has shown how the cultural symbolic authority was placed on Indian masses and Indian rules through the creation of new awards and new mode of functioning. Partha Chatterjee call it the rise of ‘new nawab’. This reshaping process gave birth to hinduized version of nationalism. Concepts such as modern nation-state were important but now they were shaped through the language that was Hindu in its redefined sense( Nandy, 1995). Gyanendra Pandey(2006) has written about the changing historiography of nationalism in India from secular to exclusive military nationalism. Finally, it gave rise to “Two-nation Theory” and culminated into the partition of the subcontinent.

After the independence of India, she choose secular polity and ‘socialistic’ form of economic system to cater the needs of large masses. The construction of different kinds of reality among the different people of different places resurfaced contradiction in the modern concept of nation state. Various new movement for new nation-state started in Punjab and North-Eastern areas on the basis of religion and ethnicity. However, modernity provided different forms of weapon to modern nation-state to counter these demands and restore the order in the society for a period. These contradictions did not emerge after independence; these were inherent in the freedom struggle itself. The realigning of masses on the basis of traditional identity created different ‘India’ in one India. The demand for separate statehood based on regional consciousness and other criteria shows these contradictions. Ania Loomba(1998) rightly pointed out that in a plural society, nationalism will be a contested ideology and India is the prime example of a plural society. Post-colonial litterateurs, also, show the contradictions in the consciousness of a tribal and an elite. Ranjit Guha calls the historiography of Indian nationalism as “blinkered historiography” as it neglects the contribution made by the people “on their own and independent of elite nationalism”.