Do we need a dialogue over ‘Idea of India’?

There is a lot of discussions these days amongst the literati on the theme of ‘threat to idea of India’. There is, however, much less talk about what is the ‘idea of India’. The idea of India is embodied in the preamble of the Indian Constitution. This is what every citizen of India must adhere to. This is not an idea that is historically frozen and incapable of evolution to accommodate new aspirations as the generations change and  bring new realities to fore. Such aspirations must be aligned to the spirit of the constitution. Instead, one sees a remarkable rigidity and intolerance in these debates with little evidence of sincere dialogue, empathy and understanding towards each-other’s vision.      

Historically, the idea of India, signifies a post-colonial moment encompassing the civilisational continuity of pluralism and diversity and the (modern) idea of rule of law, democracy, secularism and development. The constitutional journey of India since independence did produce a 3 D indigenous model of governance-Democracy, Diversity and Development- though the pace of economic and social development have relatively been slower compared to other civilisational geographies. In doing so, India defied the global regime of ‘homogeneity and growth’ and posed a ‘theoretical puzzle’ for western social scientists.

The current discussion on the idea of India presume that there is a threat to the democratic identity of India. This perception is based on particular narrative of European nationalism between the two World Wars. However, drawing a similar parallel and development in the Indian context simplifies the otherwise complex political realities and is, at best, misplaced. One needs to only recall how the majority of Western social scientists were thoroughly disappointed with return of democracy in India after the Emergency (1974-1976). Nonetheless, a threat to democracy always lurks behind the corner even in the countries with strong democratic tradition. This is evident from the recent incident in Washington D.C to attempt to take over the Capitol Hill, the seat of democratic governance in USA. In this context, the Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, the leader of the largest democracy in the world, conveyed the national sentiment by strongly showing his concern at the event and called for the democratic and peaceful transfer of power. Democracy thus comes at a price. The price is the eternal vigilance by all to guard democracy against any attempt to subvert it. 

 Governing a diverse society is indeed a challenging task and involves complex political and administrative process and acumen. Qualities like adaptability and nimble footed approach by the administration in handling the challenges will be necessary. For this reason, the nation-building process in India since independence did not follow aggressively the modern European path of uniformity and homogeneity, and rather eschewed such thoughts in recognition of practical necessity of governance of a complex diversity. The dominant political practices and intellectual tradition could not, however, envision India beyond a geography of plural mono religio-culturalism. This had a debilitating impact on India’s innate civilisational notion of pluralism and impacted the plural fabric of nation where every group, political force, discourse saw itself as the victim of other group, political force and discourse. Thus, there is an increasing tendency discernible with communities and sub-groups within the communities turning partisan and mutually distrustful. 

It is important to emphasise that the current debates marked by opposing viewpoints and perspectives surrounding the ‘Idea of India’ only betrays a discourse of ‘singularisation of India’. This runs contrary to the inclusive, plural spirit of the Indian Constitution and therefore, such discourses find themselves inadequate to democratically resolve the emerging challenges.

Such a state of affair is, however, not the vision enshrined in the constitution of India. As India aspires to become a global power, it cannot achieve the same without reinventing the politics of national consensus over the path of nation building process and renegotiating the common national values among the political, social and economic stakeholders. If pluralism and diversity continue to define Indian civilisation and its political management of diversity is attracting global attention, it is important that Indian political leadership must reinforce the Gandhian idea of pluralism as ‘the idea of India’, which consider every Indian as plural being in itself and hence, goes beyond the political grammar of minority and majority and politics of plural mono-culturalism. This necessitates a dialogue among all stakeholders including the youth over the idea of India within the conceptual framework and spirit of the Indian constitution.

P.C. Haldar

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