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What it means to be an Indian

This is not a book one reads... one dips into its creamy intensity, scooping passionate bits from here and there, discovering historical episodes one didn't realize existed, gathering the gist of some arguments, taking notes for subsequent use of the material, and generally savouring it.

Part of my journey through this book was a search for "What it means to be an Indian?" Guha's answer is richly layered, starting with the tensions between divisive local forces and a unifying centralized pull; in the process, there is a tradeoff, as in all societies, between the individual good and that of the group.

Linguistic autonomy

I was particularly impressed by the chapter on the Linguistic reorganization of the states (1953), based on language lines. During British rule, the Congress had organized itself on linguistic lines (Andhra circle, Orissa PCC, etc.) but after independence, JN was worried about "disruptionist tendencies" coming to the fore. Thus, statehood was denied to linguistic groups like Andhra, Punjab, Maharashtra, Orissa, etc. It needed the fast unto death of Potti Sriramulu to bring the nation to its heel.

But this is perhaps one of those measures which in the long run, has given
Indians space to determine one's identity, and allowed India to thrive as a
heterogeneous union.  Without it we could be mired in Sri Lanka like
tensions; indeed much of the existing tension can also be related to the
challenges of an identity.  The imprisonment of Sheikh Abdullah through
some critical years of Kashmiri opinion formation (his views on Pakistan:
'an unscrupulous and savage enemy'; he disparaged it as a theocratic state)
By yielding a degree of autonomy, the group can cohere and survive, without
it one only throws up ever-increasing protests and destabilization.

If one looks at the currently troubled Naxal heartland running from Purulia
through Orissa to Telengana in MP, it coincides very neatly with the tribal
(largely Santhal) areas, which are severely disenfranchised in terms of
their livelihood in the forests, cut off from benefits available to the
educated middle class, and eventually facing a crisis of identity.

Excerpts

the [RSS] sarsanghchalak, or the head of the RSS was a lean, bearded,
science graduate named M. S. Golwalkar. Golwalkar was strongly opposed to the
idea of a secular state that would not discriminate on the basis of
religion. in the india of his conception:

    M.S. Golwalkar: the non-hindu people of hindustan must either adopt hindu
    culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the
    hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of
    the hindu race and culture... in a word they must cease to be foreigners,
    or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the hindu nation,
    claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential
    treatment -- not even citizens’ rights. [ "We, or our nation defined",
    1947, p.55-6; quoted p.19]


in october, 1952, the chief of the rashtriya swayamsevak sangh (rss),
m. s. golwalkar, wrote a rare, signed article in the english-language
press. "cut from its moorings, regeneration of a nation is not possible," he
insisted. it was therefore,

    necessary to revive the fundamental values and ideas, and to wipe out all
    signs that reminded us of our past slavery and humiliation. it is our
    first necessity to see ourselves in pristine purity. our present and
    future has to be well united with our glorious past. the broken chain has
    to be re-linked. that alone will fire the youth of free india with a new
    spirit of service and devotion to our people. there cannot be a higher
    call of national unity than to be readily prepared to sacrifice our all
    for the honour and glory of the motherland that is the highest form of
    patriotism.

how could one give shape and meaning to this very general ideal? what
specific issue would charge the youth to sacrifice all? "such a point of
honour in our national life," golwalkar believed,

    is none else but MOTHER COW, the living symbol of the Mother Earth --
    that deserves to be the sole object of devotion and worship. to stop
    forthwith any onslaught on this particular point of our national honour,
    and to foster the spirit of devotion to the motherland, [a] ban on
    cow-slaughter should find topmost priority in our programme of national
    renaissance in swaraj.

==ch2: The logic of partition: Gandhi and Nehru and Jinnah--

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: It was India’s historic destiny that many human
    races and cultures should flow to her, finding a home in her hospitable
    soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here… . Eleven hundred
    years of common history [of Islam and Hinduism] have enriched India with
    our common achievements. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our
    culture, our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable
    happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint
    endeavour… . These thousand years of our joint life [have] moulded us
    into a common nationality… .Whether we like it or not, we have now become
    an Indian nation, united and indivisible. No fantasy or artificial
    scheming to separate and divide can break this unity. (Congress
    Presidential Address, 1940, quoted ch.2, p.25)

M.A. Jinnah: the problem in India is not of an intercommunal but manifestly
    of an international character, and must be treated as such… . It is a
    dream that Hindus and Muslims can evolve a common nationality, and this
    misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits, and is
    the cause of most of our troubles, and will lead India to destruction, if
    we fail to revise our actions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to
    two different religious philosophies, social customs, and
    literature. They neither intermarry, nor interdine together, and indeed
    they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on
    conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on and of life are
    different. (Muslim League Presidential Address, 1940) [quoted ch.2 p.25]

It is true that Nehru and Gandhi made major errors of judgment in their
dealings with the Muslim League. In the 1920s, Gandhi ignored Jinnah and
tried to make common cause with the mullahs. In the 1930s, Nehru arrogantly
and, as it turned out, falsely, claimed the Muslim masses would rather follow
his socialist credo than a party based on faith. Meanwhile, the Muslims
steadily moved over from teh Congress to the League. In the 1930s, when
Jinnah was willing to make a deal, he was ignored; in the 1940s, with the
Muslims solidly behind him, he had no reason to make a deal at all.

It is also true that some of Jinnah’s political turns defy any explanation
other than personal ambition. He was once known as an ‘ambassador of
Hindu-Muslim unity’ and a practitioner of constitutional politics. Even as he
remade himself as a defender of Islam and Muslims, in his personal life he
ignored the claims of faith… . However, from the late 1930s on he began to
stoke religious passions. The process was to culminate in his calling for
Direct Action Day, the day that set off the bloody violence and
counter-violence that finally made partition inevitable. (p.26-7)

7 The biggest gamble in history

Patel vs Nehru

In late 1949, C Rajagopalachari, "an urbane
scholar with whom the PM got along very well" - was the Governor General.
Nehru wanted him to continue as India's first president.  However, Rajendra
Prasad had a stronger support among the Congress rank and file, and Patel
pushed him through.  RP took the 31 gun salute on 26 January 1950.

August 1950: Purushottamdas Tandon, a bearded, orthodox caste Hindu from
Allahabad, was Patel's candidate.  He was a "personification of political and
social anachronisms", an "anti-Muslim and pro-caste Hindu".  He was elected
handily, and Nehru wrote to CR "All my instincts tell me that I have
completely exhausted my utility both in the Congress and the Govt.

Patel reaches out for peace:
In Oct 1950, while inaugurating a women's centre at Indore on Gandhi's bday,
he said "Nehru is our leader.. Bapu appointed him as his successor and even
proclimed him as such... I am not a disloyal soldier."

Vallabhai Patel on China

In Oct 1950, a few months after the Indian ambassador to China, KM Pannikar
had met Mao and been completely bowled over by his dreamy, philosophical
appearance, China invaded and annexed Tibet.  On Nov 7, Patel wrote Nehru:

   Recent and bitter history also tells us that communism is no shield
   against imperialism and that the Communists are as good or as bad
   imperialists as any other.  Chinese amnbitions in this respect not only
   cover the Himalayan slopes on our side but also include important parts of
   Assam... Chinese irredentism and Communist imperialism are different from
   the expansionsism of the Western powers. The former has a cloak of
   ideology which makes it ten times more dangerous.  In the guise of
   ideological expansion lies concealed racial, national or historical
   claims.  169

Patel, home minister at the time, then outlined a series of steps to
strengthen security.  In view of the rebuff over Tibet, he proposed that India
oppose China's entrance to the UN.

[The last lines are amazingly prescient.]

Patel died in Dec 1950, leaving Nehru unchallenged in his authority.

First General Election, 1951

India's first general election was, among other things, an act of faith. A
newly independent country chose to move into universal adult suffrage, rather
than - as had been the case in the West - at first reserve the right to vote to
men of property, with the working class and women excluded from the franchise
until much later. India became free in August 1947, and two years later set up
an Election Commission. In March 1950 Sukumar Sen was appointed chief election
commissioner. The next month the Representation of People Act was passed in
Parliament, While proposing the Act, the prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru
expressed the hope that elections would be held as early as the Spring of
1951. 133

[CEC was Sukumar Sen, b. 1899, Presidency College, London U - gold medal in
mathematics.  Joined ICS 1921, served as judge in several districts, and then
chief secy of WB.  On deputation to EC.

176 mn voters, 85% illiterate, had to be registered, identified, and honest
election officials recruited.]


    At stake were 4,500 seats, about 500 for Parliament, the rest for the
    provincial assemblies.  224,000 polling booths were constructed, and
    equipped with 2 million steel ballot boxes, to make which 8,200 tonnes of
    steel were consumed; 16,500 clerks were appointed on a six-month
    contracts to type and collate the electoral rolls by constituency; about
    380,000 reams of paper were used for printing the rolls; 56,000 presiding
    officers were chosen to supervise the voting, these aided by another
    280,000 helpers; 224,000 policemen were put on duty to guard against
    violence and intimidation. 134

A second problem was social rather than geographical: the diffidence of many
women in northern India to give their own names, instead of which they wished
to register themselves as A’s mother or B’s wife. Sukumar Sen was outraged
with this practice, a ‘curious senseless relic of the past.’, and directed
his officials to correct the rolls by inserting the names of the women ‘in
place of mere descriptions of such voters.’ Nonetheless, some 2.8 million
women had to be struck of the list. The resulting furore over their omission
was considered by Sen to be a ‘good thing’, for it would help the prejudice
vanish before the next elections…

Where in Western democracies most voters could recognize the parties by name,
here pictorial symbols were used to make their task easier. Drawn from daily
life, these symbols were easily recognizable: a pair of bullocks for one
party, a hut for a second, an elephant for a third, and an earthenware lamp
for a fourth. A second innovation was the use of multiple ballot boxes. On a
single ballot, the (mostly illiterate) Indian elector might make a mistake;
thus each party had a ballot box with its symbol marked in each polling
station, so that voters could simply drop their paper in it. To avoid
impersonation, Indian scientists had developed a variety of indelible ink
which, applied on the voter’s finger, stayed there for a week. A total of
389,816 phials of ink were used in the election. 134

    An American woman photographer on assignment in Himachal Pradesh was
    deeply impressed by the commitment shown by the election officials. One
    official had walked for six days to attend the preparatory workshop
    organized by the district magistrate; another had ridden four days on a
    mule. They went back to their distant stations with sewn gunny sacks full
    of ballot boxes, ballots, party symbols and electoral lists. On election
    day, the photographer chose to watch proceedings at an obscure hill
    village named Bhuti. Here the polling station was a school-house, which
    had only one door. Since the rules prescribed a different entry and exit,
    a window had been converted into a door, with improvised steps on either
    side to allow the elderly and ailing to hop out after voting.  144

There were times when even Nehru had second thoughts about universal
franchise.  On 20 December 1951 he took a brief leave of absence from the
campaign to address a UNESCO symposium in Delhi. In his speech Nehru accepted
that democracy was the best form of government, or self-government, but still
wondered whether
	the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods
	of adult franchise gradually deteriorates beacuase of lack of thinking
	and the noise of propaganda .. He [the voter] reacts to sound and to
	the din, he reacts to repitition and he produces either a dictator or a
	dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the
	din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and,
	therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have
	collapsed because of the din.

This was a rare confession, based no doubt on his recent experiences on the
road. 148

   Nehru had an unusual capacity - unusual among politicians, at any rate -
to view both sides of the question. He could see the imperfections of the
process wven while being committed to it. 149

Western prognostications on Indian democracy

Ever since the 1952 elections were described as the "biggest gamble in
history", obituaries have been written for Indian democracy. It has been
said, time and again, that a poor, diverse and divided country cannot sustain
the practice of (reasonably) free and fair elections.

            The Sikhs may try to set up a separate regime... and that will
            be only a start of a general decentralisation and break-up of
            the idea that India is a country, whereas it is a subcontinent
            as varied as Europe. The Punjabi is as different from a
            Madrassi as a Scot is from an Italian. The British tried to
            consolidate it but achieved nothing permanent. No one can make
            a nation out of a continent of many nations.
                                 - General Claude Auchinleck, writing in 1948

            When Nehru goes, the government will become a military
            dictatorship - as in so many of the newly independent states, for
            the army seems to be the only highly organised centre of power.
                                             - Aldous Huxley, writing in 1961

            The great experiment of developing India within a democratic
            framework has failed. (Indians will soon vote) in the
            fourth - and surely last - general election.
                                                  - The London Times, in 1967

In those first general elections, voter turnout was less than 46 per
cent. Over the years, this has steadily increased; from the late 1960s about
three out of five eligible Indians have voted on election day. In assembly
elections, the voting percentage has tended to be even higher. When these
numbers are disaggregated, they reveal a further deepening. In the first two
general elections, less than 40 per cent of eligible women voted; by 1998,
the figure was in excess of 60 per cent. Besides, as surveys showed, they
increasingly exercised their choice independently, that is, regardless of
their husband's or father's views on the matter. Also voting in ever higher
numbers were Dalits and tribals, the oppressed and marginalised sections of
society. In North India in particular, Dalits turned out in far greater
numbers than high castes. As the political analyst Yogendra Yadav points out,
"India is perhaps the only large democracy in the world today where the
turnout of the lower orders is well above that of the most privileged
groups."

ch.9 Redrawing the map: Linguistic Reorganization

Some want to revive the tradition of Shivaji and to hoist the Bhagwa Jhanda
in Samyukta Maharashtra; others wish to extend the economic empire of the
Monbay and Ahmedabad millionaires all over Maha-Gujarat.  Provincial
prejudices, rivalries and jealousies are being revived on all sides and
everyone seems anxious to separate from, rather than unite with, the others.
The Assamese want this bit of land cut off from Bengal, the Bengalis want a
slice of Bihar, the Telugus are discontented in Orissa, the Tamilian minority
wants to cut itself off from Travancore...
   - K.A. Abbas, left-wing author, Jan 1951

[  Khwaja Ahmad Abbas[w] (1914–1987), film director, screenwriter, and
   journalist. Perhaps most famous in journalism for writing "The
   Last Page," the longest-running political column in India's history
   (1941-86).  Born in Panipat, graduated from Aligarh Muslim University
   1933. Wrote for New Delhi newspaper, the Aligarh Opinion.  Served as a
   film critic for the Bombay Chronicle 1935-1947.  His directorial debut was
   the realist Dharti Ke Lal in 1945 for the Indian People's Theatre
   Association (IPTA). He wrote the scripts for Awaara, Shri 420, Dr. Kotnis
   Ki Amar Kahani, Jagte Raho, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and Henna.

   His autobiography titled - I am not an Island: An Experiment in
   Autobiography, was published in 1977. ]

Linguistic movements: Pre-independence

Rather than deny India's linguistic diversity, the Congress sought to give
space to it. As early as 1917 the party had committed itself to the creation
of linguistic provinces in a free India.

   1917: Andhra circle formed
   1918: Sindh circle
   1920: Nagpur Congress: the linguistic principle extended and formalized in
	the creation of provincial Congress committees (PCCs) by linguistic
	zones: Karnataka Pradesh PCC, Orissa PCC, Maharashtra PCC,
	etc. Notably these did not follow the admin divisions of Brit India.
	p. 180

Linguistic reorganization was encouraged and supported by MG; on October
1947, he wrote: "I do believe that we should hurry up with the reorganization
of linguistic provinces.... There may be an illusion of rht time being that
different languages stand for different cultures, but there is also the
possibility [that with the creation] of linguistic provinces it may
disappear. ... I am not unaware that a class of people have been saying that
linguistic provinces are wrong.  In my opinion, this class delights in
creating obstacles" 181

Although Nehru in 1937 wrote:
   Our great provincial languages are not dialects or vernaculars as the
   ignorant sometimes calls them.  They are a rich inheritance, each spoken
   by many million persons each tied up inextricably with the life and
   culture and ideas of the masses as well as of the upper classes.... but by
   1947 he was having second thoughts.  The country had been divided on the
   basis of religion; would not dividing it further on the basis of lg merely
   encourage the breakup of the Union?
Speech 3 months after indep:
   "disruptionist tendencies had come to the fore... [need to ensure] the
   security and stability of India."  Perhaps he managed to persuade Gandhi
   as well, in Nov 1947, he is writing: "the reluctance to enforce linguistic
   redistribution is perhaps justifiable in the present depressing
   atmosphere.  The exclusive spirit is ever uppermost.  No one thinks of the
   whole of India."

C. Rajagopalachari: "Further fissiparous forces [had to be checked
forthwith]". 182-3

Patel: set up the Linguistic Provinces Commission:
  The first and last need of India in the present moment is that it should be
  made a nation... Everything which helps the growth of nationalism has to go
  forward and everything which throws obstacles in its way has to be
  rejected... judged by this test, in our opinion [linguistic provinces]
  cannot be supported." - paras 146-147 of Report, 1948 183

Many MPs were dismayed at this report.  Second committee formed with Nehru,
Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya (JVP committee, after their initials).  Also
reported similarly: "Language is not only a binding force but also a
separating one.... Every separatist and disruptive tendency should be
rigorously discouraged."  183

Sikh separatism

TARA SINGH: long time leader of the Akali Dal, both a religious body and a
political party.  Controlled the Sikh shrines, but also contested elections.

Tara Singh was born a Hindu in June 1885.  This fact should not surprise
since the first generation convert is often the most effective - not to say
fundamentalist - of religious leaders.  ... Came to be known as "Patthar" the
rock, for his steadfastness as a defender in college soccer.

Before 1947, Tara Singh insisted that the Sikh panth was in danger from the
Muslims and the Muslim League.  After 1947 he said it was in danger from the
Hindus and the Congress.  His rhetoric became more robust in the run-up to
the general election of 1951-2.  He inveighed against Hindu domination, and
proclaimed that "for the sake of religion, for the sake of culture, for the
sake of the Panth, and to keep high the flag of the Guru, the Sikhs have
girded their loins to achieve independence."

Tara Singh's use of the term "independence" was deliberately ambiguous.  The
Jat peasants wanted a Sikh province within India, not a sovereign nation.
They wanted to get rid of teh Hindu-dominated eastern Punjab, leaving a state
where they would be in a comfortable majority.  But by hinting at sessession
Tara Singh put pressure on the govt and simultaneously convinced his flock of
his own commmitment to the cause.

Not all Sikhs were behind TS however.  The low-caste Sikhs, who feared the
Jats, were opposed to the Akali Dal.  Some Jats had joined the Congress.  And
in a tendetious move, many Punjabi-speaking Hindus returned Hindi as their
mother tongues in the 1951 census.

But the biggest blow to TW was the general election itself.  In the Punjab
assembly, which has 126 seats, the Akalis won a mere 14. p. 185

Andhra: A state for Telugu - Potti Sriramulu's fast

On 19 October 1952, a man named Potti Sriramulu began a fast-unto-death in
Madras.  He had the blessings of Swami Sitaram (a Congress politician turned
swami who had himself gone on a hunger strike in the monsoon of 1951).

Born in 1901, Sriramalu studied sanitary engg, worked with the railways.
In 1928 his wife died along with newly born child.  Two years he resigned
and joined the salt satyagraha, and spent some times at Gandhi's Sabarmati
ashram.  ... On 1946-11-25 he started a fast-unto-deathto deman the opening
of all temples in Madras province to Untouchables, but Gandhi persuaded him
to desist, in view of other issues related to the impending independence.
At the time Gandhi comented on him: "a solid worker, though a little
eccentric."

1952
03 Dec: Nehru wrote to Rajagopalachari, Chief Minister of Madras
    province: "Some kind of fast is going on and I get frantic telegrams.  I
    am totally unmoved by this... " By this time, Sriramulu had not eaten for
    six weeks, and was gathering popular support.

12 Dec: Nehru to Rajaji, suggesting that they accept the Andhra demand,
   "Otherwise complete frustration will grow among the Andhras, and we will
   not be able to catch up with it.
	(in the first 55 days of the fast, N crisscrossed the country and
	made 112 speeches, not one of them on language. p.198)
14 Dec: Rajaji to N: "We might prevent more mischief if you summon Swami
   Sitaram to Delhi for a talk. "
15 Dec: fifty-eight days into his fast, Potti Sriramulu died.

   In the ensuing protests, damage on state property ran into millions. Several
   protesters died in police firings.

17 Dec: Nehru made a statement saying that the state of Andhra would come
   into being.
1 Oct 1953: New state of Andhra Pradesh inaugurated at Kurnool
   p. 187-9

Nehru feared the creation of Andhra would lead to other linguistic demands:
    "We have distrubed the hornet's nest and I believe most of us are likely
    to be badly stung"

Demands from Maharashtra / Punjab

	 [ p. 190]

State Reorganization Commission: Dec 1953.
S. Fazl Ali, jurist
K. M. Pannikar, historian and civil servant
H.N. Kunzru, social worker
Commissioned travelled extensively collecting data, throughout 1954-55.

Bombay Citizens Committee, with industrialist backing incl JRD Tata, wanted
to keep Bombay
outside the state of Maharashtra.  Nehru was somewhat sympathetic. Opposed by
the Samyukta Maharashtra Parishad, headed by veteran Congress leader
Shankarrao Deo.

Oct 1955: SRC submits report. 19 chapters, presenting arguments for and
against various possibilities.  S. India: four states; N. India - no separate
Sikh state.  Bombay state to remain as it was, united with Gujarat.  A
separate Marathi speaking regiou could be formed with the interior areas of
Vidarbha, but no Bombay.  Similarly demands for Andhra Pradesh to include
Madras were rejected.

Long drawn protests in Maharashtra and Bombay.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_Reorganisation_Act:
On November 1, 1956, India was divided into the following states and union
territories:

States

    * Andhra Pradesh: Andhra was renamed Andhra Pradesh, and enlarged by the
      addition of the Telangana region of erstwhile Hyderabad State.
    * Assam
    * Bihar
    * Bombay State: The state was enlarged by the addition of Saurashtra and
      Kutch, the Marathi-speaking districts of Nagpur Division of Madhya
      Pradesh, and the Marathwada region of Hyderabad. The southernmost
      districts of Bombay were transferred to Mysore State. (In 1960, the
      state was split into the modern states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.)
    * Jammu and Kashmir
    * Kerala: formed by the merger of Travancore-Cochin state with the
      Malabar District of Madras State.
    * Madhya Pradesh: Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, and Bhopal were merged
      into Madhya Pradesh, and the Marathi-speaking districts of Nagpur
      Division were transferred to Bombay State.
    * Madras State: the state was reduced to its present boundaries by the
      transfer of Malabar District to the new state of Kerala. (The state was
      renamed Tamil Nadu in 1969.)
    * Mysore State: Enlarged by the addition of Coorg state and the Kannada
      speaking districts from southern Bombay state and western Hyderabad
      state. (The state was renamed Karnataka in 1973.)
    * Orissa
    * Punjab: the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU) was merged
      into Punjab.
    * Rajasthan: Rajputana was renamed Rajasthan, and enlarged by the
      addition of Ajmer-Merwara state.
    * Uttar Pradesh
    * West Bengal

Union territories

    * Andaman and Nicobar Islands
    * Delhi
    * Himachal Pradesh
    * Lakshadweep
    * Pondicherry
    * Tripura
    * Manipur

14 Southern Challenge / ch 19 Leftward Turns

Kerala: World's first democratic victory for communists (1957)

   The communist victory in the Kerala assembly election was a spectacular
affirmation of the possibilities of a path once dismissed by Lenin as
'parliamentary cretinism.' ... With the Cold War threatening to turn hot, what
happened in Kerala was of worldwide interest. But it also posed sharp questions
for the future of Indian federalism. There had, in the past, been a handful of
provincial ministries led by opposition parties or Congress dissidents. What
New Delhi now faces was a different matter altogether; a state ruled by a party
which was underground till the day before yesterday, which still proefessed a
theoretical allegiance to armed revolution, and whose leaders and cadres were
known to have sometimes taken their orders from Moscow. 285

   In the winter of 1957/8 the Hungarian writer George Mikes travelled through
India. As a refugee from communism - by then settled comfortably in London - he
found 'the Kerala affair' most intriguing. 'What is a democratic Central
Government to do with a Communist state?' he asked. 'What would the American
administration do if California or Wisconsin suddenly - and I admit, somewhat
unexpeectedly - turned Communist? And again, how is a Communist government
itself to behaev with democratic overlords sitting on its neck?' 291

[EMS Namboodripad becomes CM, author of a respected history of Kerala;
initially admin shows exemplary efficiency and honesty.  VR Krishna Iyer is
irrigation minister.]

But the CPI faces considerable challenge in trying to re-do the education
system (mostly private, run by the Church, the Nairs, etc.), give teachers
dignity, prevent hire and fire, etc. but also attempts to change the history
books to a more communist view.  (versions of old and new text on p. 292).

MANNATH PADMANABHAN: A saintly octogenarian Nair doyen, spoke only
Malayalam.  In terms of the political theorist WH Morris-Jones, he
represented the third of three idioms of Indian politics - the modern
(constitution, courts, press, etc), - the traditional (religion, caste etc),
and the third was the "saintly" - that which was deployed by Gandhi, and to
some extent by Vinoba Bhabe.  Mannath's unimpeachable personal integrity,
lent his opposition to the education bill a saintly aura. 294

Eventually there was vigorous opposition to this move, uniting hindu
religious groups with christians.  lathi charges, firing, 20 dead. 150K
jailed, a fourth of these being women.  Group of 50K to converge on
Trivandrum on Aug 9 1959; groups started gathering 26 Jul.  Govt was
dismissed by Nehru (Cong president was Indira) after state governor pleaded w
centre to intervene.  In subseq  state elections, Congress won outright.
296  [But in 1967, CPM was to come back.  421]

MUNDHRA AFFAIR:
LIC invested (and lost) money in a Kanpur firm owned by Haridas Mundhra.
Two commissions - headed by Chagla and Vivien Bose - both found the Govt
prevaricating in its justifications. Deep dent in image of congress
ministry. 299 [Tarun Mukhopadhyay: Feroze Gandhi biography, Allied 1992]

Kashmir- Abdullah and Nehru

Whether or not Abdullah was India's man, he certainly was not Pakistan's. In
April 1948 he described that country as 'an unscrupulous and savage enemy.'
He dismissed Pakistan as a theocratic state and the Muslim League as
'pro-prince' rather than 'pro-people.' In his view, 'Indian and not Pakistani
leaders. . . had all along stood for the rights of the States' people.' When
a diplomat in Delhi asked Abdullah what he thought of the option of
independence, he answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small
and too poor. (91-92)

   On 29 April [1964] Abdullah flew into Palam airport with his principal
associates.  The party drove on to Teen Murti House, where the prime minister
was waiting to receive Abdullah. It was the first time the two men had seen
one another since Nehru's government had locked up the Sheikh in August
1953. Now, as one eyewitness wrote, 'the two embraced each other warmly. They
were meeting after 11 years, but the way they greeted each other reflected no
traces of embarrassment, let aside bitterness over what happened in the
intervening period.; The duo posed for the battery of press photographers
before going inside.

   This was the reconciliation between the leader of a nation and a man till
recently regarded as a traitor to it. It anticipated, by some thirty years,
the similarly portentous reconciliation between the South African president
and his most notorious political prisoner. But even F. W. De Klerk did not go
so far as to ask Nelson Mandela to stay with him.

(see detailed history of kashmir at http://runaissance.blogspot.com/)

West Bengal: CPM Big Brother in Ajoy Mukherjee government

[1967: Ajoy Mukherjee's Bangla Congress formes govt with support from CPM;
deputy CM: Jyoti Basu.

1963: CPI/CPM divide - one of the ideological differences was CPI, following
	Russian masters, forswore armed revolution, CPM was open to it,
	against the bourgeois-landlord alliance]

   Back in West Bengal, the coalition government had fallen apart in less
than a year. President's rule was imposed before fresh elections in early
1969 saw the CPM substantially increase its tally. It won 80 seats; making it
by far the biggest partner in a fresh alliance with the Bangla Congress and
others. Ajoy Mukherjee once more became chief minister, the CPM preferring
to keep the key Home portfolio and generally play Big Brother. ... Where Ajoy
Mukherjee and his Bangla Congress tried weakly to keep the machinery of state
in place, the CPM was not above stoking street protest and even violence to
further its aims. In factories in and around Calcutta, workers took to the
practice of gherao - the mobbing of their managers to demand better wages and
working conditions. ... 424

   Apart from capitalists worried about their profits, the prevailing
lawlessness also disturbed the chief minister of West Bengal. He saw it as the
handiwork of the CPM, whose ministerial portfolios included Land and Labour -
where the trouble raged - and Home - where it could be controlled but
wasn't. So in protest against the protests that old Gandhian Ajoy Mukherjee
decided to organize a satyagraha of his own. He toured the districts,
delivering speeches that railed against the CPM for promoting social
discord. Then, on December 1, he began a seventy-two-hour fast in a very public
place - the Curzon Park in south Calcutta. In the rich history of Indian
satyagrahas, this must surely be counted as the most bizzare: a chief minister
fasting against his own government's failure to keep the peace. 425

22: Autumn of the Matriarch: Indira Gandhi - Emergency

Indira: Democracy 'not only throws up the mediocre person but gives
strength to the most vocal howsoever they may lack knowledge or
understanding'.  (letter) 499

The congress has become moribund.  Sometimes I feel that even the
parliamentary system has become moribund. ... the 'inertia of our civil
service is incredible... we have a system of dead wood replacing dead
wood.... Sometimes I wish we had had a real revolution - like France or
Russia - at the time of independence. (to journalist)

The impatience with democratic procedure had manifested early, e.g. with the
packing of the civil service, judiciary, and Congress Party with individuals
commmitted to the PM.  With the emergency, with opposition MPs locked away,
the 38th amendment (22 Jul 75) barred judicial review of the emergency.   The 39th
amendment, introduced two weeks later, stated that the election of the PM
could not be challenged by the Supreme Court, but only by a body constituted
by Parliament.  This came just before the Court was to try her election
review petition, and the Court held there was now "no case to try".

Some months later, the Supreme Court did the PM a greater favour still.
Lawyers jailed under MISA argued for habeas corpus, but the SC ruled that
detentions without trial was legal under the new dispensation; of the
5-member bench, only Justice H.R. Khanna dissented: "detention without trial
is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty".  p.499-500

(from history of Habeas Corpus case at
http://www.pucl.org/reports/National/2001/habeascorpus.htm)

    Justice Khanna, conscious of his aloneness, ended his judgment with a
    quote: "A dissent in a Court ... is an appeal to the brooding spirit of
    the law, to the intelligence of a future day, when a later decision may
    possible correct the error into which the dissenting Judge believes the
    court to have been betrayed."

    Justice Khanna paid the price for his dissent. He was next in line to
    become Chief Justice of India. He resigned when his junior, Justice
    M.H. Beg, superseded him. That was justice Indira Gandhi style.
)

[after the Habeas Corpus case, the NYT in an editorial wrote about HR
 Khanna :
	If India ever finds its way back to freedom and democracy, that proud
	hallmark of its first 18 years, someone will surely erect a monument
	to justice H.R. Khanna of the Supreme Court.
		- http://webstore.ebc-india.com/product_info.php?products_id=450

Sikh museum: Ennobling Indira Gandhi's killers

    It was only when I entered the Museum of Sikh History, located above the
main entrance to the temple, that I was reminded that this was, within living
memory, a place where much blood had been shed. The several rooms of the museum
ran chronologically, the paintings depicting the sacrifices of the Sikhs
through the ages. Plenty of martyrs are commemorated on its walls, the last of
these being Shaheeds Satwant, Beant and Kehar Singh. Below them lies a picture
of the Akal Takht in tatters, with the explanation that this was the result of
a 'calculated move' of Indira Gandhi. The text notes the deaths of innocent
pilgrims in the army action, and then adds: 'However, the Sikhs soon had their
revenge'. What form this took is not spelt out in words, but in pictures: those
of Satwant, Beant and Kehar. ...

    To see the killers of Indira Gandhi so ennobled was unnerving. However, down
below, in the temple proper, there were plenty of contrary indications, to
the effect that the Sikhs were not thoroughly at ease with the government of
India. A marble slab was paid for by a Hindu colonel, in grateful memory of
the protection granted him and his men while serving in the holy city of
Amritsar. Another slab was more meaningful still; this had been endowed by a
Sikh colonel, on 'successful completion ' of two years of service in the
Kashmir Valley. [from a visit to the Golden Temple in Feb 05, p.631-32]

Babri Masjid

    In 1994 the VHP leader Ashok Singhal remarked that the destruction of the
Babri Masjid was 'a catalyst for the ideological polarization which is nearly
complete.' Two years later the Bharatiya Janata Party reaed the rewards in the
eleventh general election. ... the big story of the decade [1990s] was in fact
the rise of Hindu communalism, as manifested most significantly in the number
of seats wone by the BJP in successive general elections. ... 643

    ... while there have been hundreds of inter-religious riots in the history
of independent India, there have been only two pogroms: that directed at the
Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 and that directed at the Muslims in south Gujarat in
2002. ... In both cases, the pogroms were made possible by the willed breakdown
of the rule of law. The prime minister in Delhi in 1984, and the chief minister
in Gujarat in 2002, issued graceless statements that in effect justified the
killings. .. The final similarity is the most telling, as well as perhaps the
most depressing. Both parties, and leaders, reaped electoral rewards from the
violence they had legitimized and overseen.  657

    Sixty years after Independence, India remains a democracy. But the events
of the last two decades call for a new qualifying adjective. India is no longer
a constitutional democracy but a populist one. 691

Soccer in India

The form of entertainment most typical of urban-industrial society is, of
course, spectator sport.  ... The capital city of Indian soccer is Calcutta.
Here sporting rivalry has gone hand-in-hand with political compettion.
Mohun Bagan (Bengali bhadralok or upper classes), East Bengal (more plebeian
classes from the other side of the province).

From the 1930s to the early 1980s soccer was probably the most passionately
discussed topic in Calcutta, even more so than politics or religion.  The
leading clubs each had thousands of followers, whose emotional investment in
their team fully equalled that of European football fans.  However after the
1982 World Cup popular interest in the sport began to wane.  This was the
first WC telecast live in India; alerted to the gap between their own local
heroes and the great international stars, men in Calcutta began to turn away
f4rom their clubs.  The slide has continued; twenty years later, soccer ranks
a poor second to cricket amontg the sporting passions of Bengal. p. 736

ch22: Autumn of the Matriarch: Indira Gandhi - Emergency

Indira: Democracy 'not only throws up the mediocre person but gives
strength to the most vocal howsoever they may lack knowledge or
understanding'.  (letter) 499

The congress has become moribund.  Sometimes I feel that even the
parliamentary system has become moribund. ... the 'inertia of our civil
service is incredible... we have a system of dead wood replacing dead
wood.... Sometimes I wish we had had a real revolution - like France or
Russia - at the time of independence. (to journalist)

The impatience with democratic procedure had manifested early, e.g. with the
packing of the civil service, judiciary, and Congress Party with individuals
commmitted to the PM.  With the emergency, with opposition MPs locked away,
the 38th amendment (22 Jul 75) barred judicial review of the emergency.   The 39th
amendment, introduced two weeks later, stated that the election of the PM
could not be challenged by the Supreme Court, but only by a body constituted
by Parliament.  This came just before the Court was to try her election
review petition, and the Court held there was now "no case to try".

Some months later, the Supreme Court did the PM a greater favour still.
Lawyers jailed under MISA argued for habeas corpus, but the SC ruled that
detentions without trial was legal under the new dispensation; of the
5-member bench, only Justice H.R. Khanna dissented: "detention without trial
is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty".  p.499-500
From Sandipan Deb, IITians:

Rajat Gupta, ex MD McKinsey & Co: I remember a few profs. There were some you
stayed in touch with even after you had graduated. But.. most of my memories
are from outside the classroom.

Nandan Nilekani: I hardly ever went to class, and I don't remember a thing I
was taught.

JEE: 2006, nearly 3 L candidates, for 4000 seats at 7 iits

McKinsey & Co study: Shaping the Knowledge economy in India, 2001, in
"Changes required in Faculty compensation and evaluation":
  * de-link faculty salary from current govt scale and create a new category
  * introduce significant performance-linked component in compensation
  * allow direct compensation from industry without limit
  * provide a high standard of research and personal infrastructure

Student admission and JEE

The book repeatedly highlights problems with the JEE system.

Universities abroad select students by considering a large number of
factors, including academic competence, social interaction history, other
talents like music or sports, the amount of diversity they will bring to
the student body, etc.  Students who meet some of these criteria are
interviewed, typically by alumnus in their home cities, and are then
finally evaluated.  Consequently, the students have varied backgrounds and
interests, and shine in different areas.

On the other hand, IITs are constrained to look at a single measure, the JEE,
which has been corrupted by the coaching centers; consequently the student
body coming into IITs (who have often spent a year or two away from home at
the coaching center) are all similar - they have very strong examination
skills, but little other interests.

Often the students thus admitted, after years of grinding preparation, find
themselves in a completely unexpected situation where they don't know what
they are doing.  Studentsa re assigned a discipline right at admission time
(at age 16), based on JEE rank.  Many of them find their courses uninspiring,
and would rather be studying humanities.  Many students, in traditional
engineering branches, know that their courses are completely useless because
ultimately they will be hired by an IT firm.  The number of suicides at most
IITs (about 1 every year) is quite staggering.

Alternative proposals and why they won't work

An alternative Student admission proposal:
   - Let JEE sift top 10K students.
   - These students are asked to submit additional material, portfolios,
	     writeups etc.
   - Everyone is interviewed by some local alumnus groups
     - Students from weaker schools, weaker geographic areas, and whose
          parents are in a weaker social strata, can be given preference.
     - final evaluation can still be anonymous, as it has been, via a roll
          number coding.  However all these factors can be taken into
	  account.
     - after the process, students records and his evaluation comments
	  can be made available to the candidate.

Similar measures have been proposed a number of times,
Part of the reason why such a system cannot be adopted is that any degree of
subjectivity in the process is likely to be manipulated by the ministers and
their babus to get their own wards admitted.

So again, we come back to the issue of government interference.