Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  Neither Isolation Nor Assimilation

  As Elwin grew older, his tone grew less polemical and more even-tempered. This is manifest in this excerpt from a book of 1959, where he revisits the tribal question. That he was now a government official rather than a freelance radical may also explain the more measured style. The defence of tribal culture and tribal rights is undertaken more gently, but with no less conviction.3

  Is there not a case for the view that by and large the tribal people will probably be happier if they are left alone, or at least very largely alone, in the grandeur and freedom of their hills? They lack many of the amenities of life, but on the other hand they are free: no one interferes with them; they are able to live according to their own religion and traditions. Voltaire’s Candide, after exploring all the civilization of his contemporary world, came to the final conclusion that there was no greater happiness than in cultivating one’s own garden. Why not let them do so?

  On the other hand, it is argued, would it not be better to ‘civilize’ them as rapidly as possible? Their life is nasty, brutish and short; their art is crude, their religion a medley of superstitions; they are dirty and diseased. The early explorers and administrators tumbled over one another in their use of uncomplimentary adjectives to describe the people of NEFA.4 The Singphos are described as ‘a rude treacherous people’, the Khamptis as ‘a discontented, restless, intriguing tribe’, the Nagas as ‘a very uncivilized race with dark complexions and hideously wild and ugly visages’; the Abors are ‘as void of delicacy as they are of cleanliness’ …

  Few of us today would adopt either of these views in their entirety, certainly not if they are expressed in so crude a form. Yet the two policies have both been advocated, and followed, in India during the past fifty years.

  The British Government inclined, on the whole, to leave the tribesmen alone, partly because the task of administration, especially in the wild border areas, was difficult and unrewarding, partly from a desire to quarantine the tribes from possible political infection, and partly because a number of officers sincerely held the view that the people were better and happier as they were …

  Let us briefly consider what is wrong with the policy of isolation.

  It is exposed to at least three important criticisms. In the first place it has rarely been implemented in practice. There are some twenty million tribal people in India, and before Independence little was done for them. At the same time, they were not in actual fact left alone. As I have said, they were exploited by landlords and zamindars, robbed by moneylenders, cheated by merchants, and their culture was largely destroyed by foreign missionaries.

  Secondly, the belief in the happy care-free Noble Savage is a myth, except perhaps in the South Seas long ago. In NEFA at least the people had not enough food; they suffered from abominable diseases; they died young; they were heavily burdened with anxiety; their life was distracted by war, kidnapping, slavery and cruel punishments. They were not even free: weaker tribes had to pay tribute to the strong; rich and powerful Chiefs grew richer on the labour of hundreds of serfs; freedom of movement was severely restricted by inter-village conflict.

  And thirdly, while isolation was possible in the last century, it is impossible today. Modern industry is transforming the whole world; the humanitarian ideals of a welfare state no longer permit the neglect of any section of the population; political necessities forbid the existence of any administrative vacuum on the international frontier; tribal leaders themselves demand greater opportunities. And no one (least of all the scientist) wants to keep the tribal people as museum specimens for the benefit of science …

  In sharp contrast to the first policy is a second one of assimilation or detribalization. This has now become popular and Christian missionaries, social reformers and village uplifters are following it, sometimes on a large and enthusiastic scale. For this too there is something to be said. The Christian missionaries have produced a number of educated tribesmen who are proving of great value to the country, and not least to the NEFA administration. Assimilation into Hindu society has sometimes led to a better way of living and to economic advance.

  In general, the supporters of this policy take a rather poor view of tribal life: ‘animism’ should be replaced by the purer ideals of Christianity or Hinduism; the social organization, the ‘vices’, the ‘superstitions’ should go; tribal dress is a mark of inferiority and should be replaced by shorts and shirts, blouses and frocks. You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, and the continued existence of the tribes as tribes is regarded as of less importance than the march of civilization.

  Detribalization is a possible solution of the future of India’s tribesmen. It is simple and easy, and it sometimes works. It has, however, serious disadvantages. Its type of progress is by a break with the past, not by an evolution from it. It tends to make the tribesman ashamed of his own culture and religion and so creates that inferiority complex which is a political as well as a social danger. Although it favours a few gifted individuals, who are able to assimilate the new way of life, it generally deprives the mass of the people of their standards and values without putting anything comparable in their place. All over the world it has been noted that the break-up of tribal society leads to a loss of the tribal virtues and a rapid acquisition of the vices of civilization.

  The weakening of tribal solidarity and of the folk-legal sanctions deprives the younger generation of their moorings and sets them adrift in an unfamiliar world. All too often, the arts and crafts, the music and dancing, the former self-reliance and independence, the corporate discipline disappear. At the same time, throughout tribal India there is a tendency towards the transformation of tribes into castes, and these ‘castes’ are usually at the bottom of the social scale. In areas where free commercial penetration has been permitted, there has been much economic exploitation, inevitable among a people who but yesterday learnt the use of money and who are simple and trusting …

  Is there any way out of this dilemma? We are agreed that the people of NEFA cannot be left in their age-long isolation. We are equally agreed that we can leave no political vacuum along the frontier; that we must bring to an end the destructive practices of inter-tribal war and head-hunting and the morally repugnant practices of slavery, kidnapping of children, cruel methods of sacrificing animals and opium-addiction, none of which are fundamental to tribal culture. We wish to see that the people are well-fed, that they are healthy and enjoy a longer span of life, that fewer babies die, that they have better houses, a higher yield for their labour in the fields, improved techniques for their home-industries. We would like them to be able to move freely about their own hills and have easy access to the greater India of which at present they know little. We want to bring them into contact with the best people and the finest products of modern India.

  Above all, we hope to see as the result of our efforts a spirit of love and loyalty for India, without a trace of suspicion that Government has come into the tribal areas to colonize or exploit, a full integration of mind and heart with the great society of which the tribal people form a part, and to whose infinite variety they may make a unique contribution.

  And at the same time, we want to avoid the dangers of assimilation and detribalization which have degraded tribal communities in other parts of the world …

  This attempt to steer a middle path between the two older ways of approach is hard and delicate: it demands imagination, sincerity and constant care. The assimilation or detribalization policy, which held, as we have seen, that there is not very much to be said for tribal life; that if it disappears, it will not matter greatly; that the ‘backward’ must be brought forward and the low ‘uplifted’, is simple and straightforward; it is logical and it brings certain benefits—at a price. So did the old British policy of leaving well alone, though at a different price …

  Today we can see the tribal peoples without sentiment, but equally without prejudice. Isolation in the modern world is impossible; it
would not be desirable even if it was possible. The old controversy about zoos and museums has long been dead. We do not want to preserve tribal culture in its colour and beauty to interest the scientists or attract the tourists. To try to preserve and develop the best elements in tribal art, religion and culture is something very different from wishing to keep the people in a zoo.

  We do not want to preserve the tribesmen as museum specimens, but equally we do not want to turn them into clowns in a circus. We do not want to stop the clock of progress, but we do want to see that it keeps the right time. We do not accept the myth of the Noble Savage; but we do not want to create a class of Ignoble Serfs.

  We see now that the tribal people will be of the greatest service to India if they are able to bring their own peculiar treasures into the common life, not by becoming second-rate copies of ourselves. Their moral virtues, their self-reliance, their courage, their artistic gifts, their cheerfulness are things we need. They also need the comradeship, the technical knowledge, the wider world-view of the plains. The great problem is how to develop the synthesis, how to bring the blessings and advantages of modern medicine, agriculture and education to them, without destroying the rare and precious values of tribal life.

  We can solve this problem if we do not try to go too fast; if we allow the people a breathing-space in which to adjust themselves to the new world; if we do not overwhelm them with too many officials; if we aim at fundamentals and eliminate everything that is not vitally necessary; if we go to them in genuine love and true simplicity.

  * * *

  Part V

  A Tradition Reaffirmed

  * * *

  Introduction to Part V

  When Jawaharlal Nehru died in May 1964, he was the subject of a short but peculiarly affecting obituary penned by C. Rajagopalachari. This is what Rajaji wrote on the passing of his old colleague-turned-adversary:

  Eleven years younger than me, eleven times more important to the nation, eleven hundred times more beloved of the nation, Sri Nehru has suddenly departed from our midst and I remain alive to hear the sad news from Delhi—and bear the shock …

  The old guard-room is completely empty now … I have been fighting Sri Nehru all these ten years over what I consider faults in public policies. But I knew all along that he alone could get them corrected. No one else would dare do it, and he is gone, leaving me weaker than before in my fight. But fighting apart, a beloved friend is gone, the most civilized person among us all. Not many among us are civilized yet.

  God save our people.

  Gandhi died within months of the birth of the nation. By the time Nehru passed on, India was moderately well established. But the future looked uncertain. The defeat at the hands of the Chinese in the war of 1962 had led to a serious loss of national morale. Despite his weaknesses and mistakes, and his ill-health during his last years, Nehru towered above his contemporaries. It was hard to see who, if anyone, could replace him.

  In the event, Nehru was succeeded as prime minister by Lal Bahadur Shastri, a greatly underrated figure who has perhaps not got his due from historians (still less from the general public). Shastri set in motion reforms that would in time greatly augment agricultural productivity, and he led the nation well when it was attacked by Pakistan in 1965. However, he died soon afterwards. His successor was the then very inexperienced and vulnerable daughter of Nehru, Indira Gandhi.

  The 1960s were a time of great fear and insecurity in India. The wars with China and Pakistan had stunned a nation weaned on the Gandhian ideals of brotherhood and non-violence. Famine stalked the land. With Nehru’s passing, the forces of militant Hinduism sensed an opportunity to regroup. There were fresh insurgencies in the north-east and the rise of a Maoist movement in the heart of the country. It is against this backdrop of conflict and instability that our last maker of modern India wrote the essays which are excerpted in this part of the book.

  These essays dealt with a topic that had remained current and urgent since the late nineteenth century—namely, the present and future of Hindu–Muslim relations. The first biographer of Syed Ahmad Khan, writing when his subject was still alive, remarked that ‘had it not been for his great efforts, the Mohammedan would have been far further behind the Hindu community as regards education than it now is; and if the movement increases with the rapidity which has hitherto characterized it, the Mohammedans will soon be abreast of the Hindus’.

  The hopes were illusory. In the next century, Hindus continued to be more alert to the opportunities provided by modern education. They took in greater numbers, and in higher proportions, to the English language, to the study of science and engineering, and to professions such as medicine and law. This discrepancy was at the root of the popular movement for the creation of Pakistan. Educated Muslims across India supported Jinnah and the Muslim League in good part because they hoped that in Pakistan they would not have to face competition from Hindu lawyers, doctors, teachers, civil servants and businessmen.

  The creation of Pakistan led to a large migration of Muslim professionals to the new nation from other parts of India—from the United Provinces and Bihar especially, but also from the Bombay Presidency. The Muslims who could not or would not migrate were peasants, workers and artisans, who were poor and illiterate. Bereft of an intellectual and modern leadership (the potential members of which were now in Pakistan), they became captive to the interests of a conservative and backward-looking clergy.

  The debate on how to deal with the very large Muslim minority that remained in India was chiefly conducted between the followers of Jawaharlal Nehru and M.S. Golwalkar respectively. The former insisted that despite the provocations of Pakistan, minorities were equal citizens of the Republic of India. However, Nehru was himself too preoccupied with other matters to actively promote the modernization of Indian Muslims. The Congress was content to leave the Muslims in the hands of the clergy, so long as they guaranteed that, at election time, their flock would cast their votes in favour of the candidates of the ruling party. On the other hand, Golwalkar and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) saw Indian Muslims as second-class citizens at best and as traitors at worst. Muslims were continually being asked by the RSS to prove their loyalty to India and to the allegedly Hindu essence of the nation.

  The sole ‘Maker’ represented in Part V of this book staked out a position rather different from that of the Congress and the RSS. Born and raised as a Muslim, he was a modernizer from within the community. His ideas were powerful as well as prescient—for example, he anticipated the rise of Hindu fundamentalism following the failure of a robust and credible movement of modernism among Muslims. His arguments are relevant to Indians of all faiths, for he worked and hoped for ‘the emergence and sustained growth of … a class of modern, secular, dynamic liberals’ whose members would be unencumbered by public allegiance to any religion or community. Nor is his work of interest only to India and Indians. In a post-9/11 world, his writings can, I think, be read with profit in all countries and continents where members of different religions seek to live peaceably together and whose leaders—we may hope—wish to make belief in a personal god compatible with a collective and public commitment to democracy and modernity.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Last Modernist

  Hamid Dalwai

  Our last maker of modern India was, like his fellow Maharashtrian Tarabai Shinde, little known in his lifetime and has been largely forgotten since. Like Tarabai again, the details of his personal biography are obscure. The parallels continue—for what we do know of his life and work is largely owed to the devoted labours of his editor and translator.

  Hamid Dalwai was born in 1932 on the same Konkan coast where Gokhale and Tilak first saw the light of day. There the similarities end; whereas the other two were middle-class Brahmins, Dalwai was born in a working-class Muslim household. We know nothing of his formal education. He does not appear to have attended college. In his early teens he joined a nationalis
t youth organization, the Rashtra Seva Dal, the only Muslim in his village to do so. In his twenties Dalwai moved to Bombay and became active in socialist politics. He also began publishing short stories in Marathi.

  From the time he came to Bombay, Dalwai’s main interest, and perhaps obsession, was with changing the attitudes of Indian Muslims towards democracy and modernism. To this end, he left the Socialist Party and devoted himself full-time to social reform. In 1970 he founded the Muslim Satyashodhak Samaj, the name deliberately echoing that of the organization that Jotirao Phule had established a century before. This newer organization focused on the enhancement of the rights of Muslim women. Among its campaigns was the attempt to abolish, by law and in custom, the practice of triple talaq, whereby the husband could divorce his wife by uttering a single word three times.

  Hamid Dalwai also advocated a common civil code for all Indian citizens. More broadly, he wished to erase communal markers and distinctions in public life, in pursuance of a common citizenship for all Indians in a genuinely secular and democratic nation.

  In the 1950s Dalwai befriended Dilip Chitre, a talented Marathi writer and poet. In later years, Chitre set aside his own work to translate and publicize the work of his friend. In introducing a translation of Dalwai’s essays, published in 1970, Chitre wrote that ‘in addition to being a Yavan to Hindus, he has achieved the distinction of becoming a kafir to Muslims’. Dalwai challenged the sanctity of the Quran; in particular, he felt that it had no relevance to social or political life. This was consistent with his attitude to religion in general, which he considered a personal matter, to be negotiated between an individual and his god—or gods—with no relevance to the worlds of law, economics or social relations.