Inaugural Address of prof. MGS Narayanan
UGC National Seminar,
15 March, 2010
Beyond the Margins: Reflections on Identity and New Social Movements
Professor M.G.S Narayanan
This is an age when tremendous changes of different types are taking place not only in India, but everywhere. The European world, West Asia, the two Americas, Africa, Australia – all these are changing fast in different ways. It is mind boggling, complex and confusing.
We have been trying to imitate the West for some time. We have even been seeing our own history through Western eyes. The attempt to follow other societies blindly is unhealthy. In the period of the national movement this awareness began to spread slowly, but even today we have not come fully out of the colonial mindset. It is a very difficult process: the effort to gain intellectual freedom is much more difficult than the effort to secure political freedom. The worst part of colonial slavery is that the dominant power destroys our self respect and creates a feeling of inferiority, prompting us to imitate the master. Then the subject people forget their tradition and identity and tend to follow their master blindly. This has happened to India also with the result that a lot of people who fought for political independence did not possess an independent vision of the future. They simply followed Macaulay’s dream of making Indians think and behave like Englishmen in every respect except their complexion. However, Mahatma Gandhi, whom we had the wisdom to recognize as the father of our nation, did some bold thinking in spite of his thorough Western training, went back to the roots of our culture, and outlined an alternative program.
This does not mean that we followed his ways, or that of great Acharyas in the past. Even Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, very close to Gandhiji, was largely Westernised, and was carried away by the idea of progress in the Western sense – big dams and factories, and European model of industrialization, with all its good and bad consequences. Nevertheless Gandhiji’s life and sacrifice helped to keep that flame of idealism alive, and still acts as a corrective influence. The spirit of Gandhiji works miracles in South Africa and America, and wherever racial discrimination and oppression continued n public life.
The Japanese example of identification with one’s tormentor comes to mind on this occasion. We know that the Japanese people are full of patriotism and traditionalism bordering on fanaticism. At the same time they were so much impressed by the technological superiority of their enemy who could produce and use the atomic bomb against them that at the end of the second world war they started making an all out effort to excel in modern technology at the expense of everything else. They succeeded within two or three decades. The extent to which they adopted the American way of life can be understood from the American style of their popular dressing style. While I was in Japan, working as a visiting research professor in the university in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, I used to ask my Japanese colleagues why they adopted the American dress code. They answered that they did not imitate the American style, but it was the Japanese style! They had identified themselves with that style so much that they forgot the fact that it was an imported style.
In India also the English-educated Indians tried to follow the English ways in dress and customs and condemned Indian traditional culture until Gandhiji came on the scene with his revolutionary Hindu traditional doctrines.
It is true that while the English destroyed our self-respect and attachment to Indian culture, they also made us aware of certain shortcomings in our traditional way of life. Our educational system did not provide for the scientific study and interpretation of the past or history though historical records were prepared and maintained scrupulously. We converted facts into myths and used them for poetry and literature. Another crucial defect was the inequality built into the caste system and given a religious and philosophical sanctity. This gave the Brahmin priesthood an undue authority which could not be challenged because it was divinely ordained. In fact this condition made the great majority of people slaves in their own country, and prevented their participation in resisting foreign invasions. The great majority of low caste people would naturally hope that they aspire for better treatment under a foreign rule. It is this psychology that produced a large number of successful foreign invasions and occupations in the history of India. We have learnt much in these matters from the West through their scholars and missionaries. The disciplines of archaeology, epigraphy and numismatics which help us today to understand the past with greater clarity are almost entirely the western contribution to Indian and World culture.
Historical writing in medieval India – there was not much of it in the modern sense in ancient India – has always been done by poets, religious leaders etc. to promote the interests of the ruling groups - castes and classes. We cannot claim that the idea of including the story of those who were left out of history, those who were treated as outcastes in society and history,was generated in India. Such notions were also first developed in Europe and America, and then we also took it up later.
There were always people who were relegated to the bottom of society. They too have desires, problems, dilemmas and even small victories. They formed the great majority. Their life and viewpoint also has to be recorded in history. It is from such a feeling that the concept of Subaltern History was developed.
The working class was subjected to great exploitation when the Industrial Revolution started in Europe in the 18th century in England, Germany and France. The old order was transformed; the authority of the landlord was challenged. Large numbers of people flocked to the new industrial cities in search of employment when life became miserable in the rural areas due to the Enclosure Movement. Villages were deserted. It is in that period that poets like Oliver Goldsmith and novelists like Charles Dickens appeared. Dickens exposed the misery of the lower classes. Historians who were mostly describing the life of kings and lords also began to pay attention to the peasants and workers in due course.
The writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels exerted great influence in the 19th century. Though the rulers and their policies were supposed to shape history, these thinkers argued that it was the process by which men produced useful commodities from raw materials provided by Nature that created the pattern of social life. Thus the producers - the agricultural peasants and industrial workers - were brought to the centre stage in history. Human labor is responsible for production. Since labor creates value through production, the laborer is entitled to the revenue. However, these thinkers underestimated the role of intellectual labor involved in modern process of production. Factors like capital, venue, machinery, planning, selection of material and market, skilled workers, expert supervision and risk-taking and even good luck are necessary for success in production. Many other outside factors like the political atmosphere, trade currents, legal network and even climate influence production.
The socialist-communist thinkers exaggerated the contribution of the working class. They defined wealth as the result of exploitation and advocated hatred against the capitalist class. They justified violent revolution to overthrow the capitalist system, little recognizing the force of the natural law that revolutions generate counter-revolutions, perpetuating the realm of inequality and injustice. It was easier to organize them and pamper their ego. Finally the collapse of the Soviet Union at the hands of the Russian people proved the Biblical truth that those who take the sword shall perish with the sword. In spite of such disasters our left leaders continue the same traditional mind-set and refuse to accept the lessons of history.
In this context we find another new phenomenon in Kerala, the emphasis on religious identity in place of class identity. This is also an imported concept, mostly propagated by the Islamic fundamentalist groups. This national seminar is to discuss a theme related to the concept – “Beyond the Margins: Reflections on Identity and new Social Movements”. Though claiming to be a new social movement, it is actually the projection of a medieval idea in disguise, the idea that man’s real identity is neither class identity nor national identity, but religious identity. In the days of the freedom struggle, the leaders often banked upon national identity, and tried to submerge religious identity. Even at that time religious identity had been attempting to surface in the name of minority, demanding a separate state. This led to the partition of India.
While the old religious identity question raised by some Muslim and Hindu leaders was based on Indian situation, the new Islamic theorists draw inspiration from a kind of Pan Islamism closely related to fundamentalism. Indian nationalism promoted unity in variety while the present day theorists emphasize the exclusiveness of Muslims in faith, customs food and dress habits and the entire way of life. They seek to distance themselves from the Hindu society and nationalist tradition. In the recent elections of Kerala they created an opportunistic alliance with the Marxist party and fought against the moderate Muslim candidates. This shows that there is contradiction between profession and practice and a secret agenda somewhere because the Marxist ideology is opposed to all forms of spiritualism including that of Islam.
Muslim society in India, especially North India, felt that since the British East India Company replaced the Mughal Empire, they were pushed into the background. After the Great Rebellion of 1857 under the last Mughal Emperor, Muslims became suspects in the eyes of the British, and hence desperate. Unlike the Hindus they refused to opt for modern (English) education, and turned their face against Western (Christian) culture. They were gradually impoverished, and remained illiterate. They did not participate in the national movement organized by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of A.O. Hume on a large scale in spite of the reforms of Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan. They also feared that independence would bring back Hindu Brahmanical domination.
The Congress remained a petitioning body with annual conferences, mild resolutions and the British National Anthem till the beginning of the twentieth century. It goes to the credit of the British that they promoted and tolerated reforms in Hindu society, and reconstructed India’s past with the help of archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics and classical studies in Sanskrit and Tamil languages. However, educated Indians remained a keyhole audience in the debates on Indian History. In course of time a nationalist school of history developed in India. A Marxist school of historical writing also developed by the middle of the 20th century. By the close of the century different concepts like that of subaltern history gained popularity. It became clear that gender problems had not received much attention from any of these groups.
Another new group has started emphasizing the Identity problems of religious communities. This is popular among Muslim scholars who form part of the Marxist camp and are close to Islamic fundamentalists. Writers like K.E.N. Kunhahmad claim to be Marxist and go with the extremists among Muslims in electoral politics. They condemn festivals like Onam commonly celebrated by all communities in Kerala, describing them as Brahmanical and Savarna in character. They want Muslims to distance themselves from these common festivals to maintain and uphold their identity. In effect this approach is giving a boost to fundamentalist and separatist trends, and subverting the process of emotional integration within the nation. It is bound to help the anti-national destructive trends and promote a Hindu counter offensive. This kind of identity politics turns out to be an attempt to revive the communal spirit under the garb of progress. As such it is reactionary and regressive, and hypocritical, going against the secular democratic spirit of the constitution. In the place of religious identity catering to fanatical and unreasonable faith, we have to recognize and encourage identities based on region, occupation, language etc. in order to achieve social justice and balance, to develop a healthy national life.
The Advocates of Muslim identity politics are apparently confusing, innocently or consciously, between the essence and the superficial features of religion, thereby endangering the growth of a multi-cultural, multi- cultural secular society in India. On the other hand what is needed is a concerted move to increase the areas of common interest and mutual co-operation so that all communities will enjoy higher prosperity and welfare. This is urgently required to stem the tide of fundamentalism and terrorism already manifested in military training and bomb making in different parts of Kerala. If an urgent campaign is not mounted for spreading awareness about this danger of aggressive, narrow minded, sectarian, hate propaganda associated with identity politics in Muslim circles, it will infect other communities also and destroy the fabric of secularism and communal harmony in the state. If the poison is allowed to other states it bound to affect adversely the process of national integration and make it impossible to counter the threat of terrorism which has assumed alarming proportions on a global scale.
The present unhealthy trend of growth related to identity politics goes to prove the old allegation that in India intellectuals, and historians particular, tend to welcome as new and exciting concepts which Western writers developed, elaborated, criticized and rejected. That is why some writers are inclined to treat old separatist or communal arguments as new social movements under the cover of identity politics. Certainly we have to recognize the presence of different marginalized sections in society. These are not confined to the Muslims, but there are other minority groups like the Christians, and scheduled castes, Dalits and Adivasis. There are not only religious groups but also marginalized regional and occupational groups like tribes in the North East, Central and Eastern parts of India, various groups of native traditional craftsmen like weavers and metal workers, and the neglected and exploited groups of fishermen and domestic servants, and large sections of women – wives and housewives – who are suppressed and exploited. These are not to be taught to stand aloof and hate others, but to be empowered socially and politically through education and economic support, and brought into the mainstream of national life and culture. A vigorous search should be instituted, not for separate identity, but for common nationality. Otherwise we will be going back in history with the slogan of progress, travelling backwards to the past, to the middle ages.
oIIIo
mgsnarayanan@gmail.com
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