The Naturalization Of India

The elections are over. As the din and bustle settle give way to dull
routine, certain facts become apparent. This election had delivered a death
blow to the "dynasty." The country had chosen the new Government on the basis
of performance. Vicious and false propaganda, measuring up to the levels that
Goebbels set up and practiced in the second world war, had been ignored.

To me, as an Indian from a non-Hindi region, the most significant fact in
this election is the way in which the events were covered by the electronic
media. The proceedings were entirely in Hindi with occasional intrusions of
English. This is the first such election coverage. It was natural. there were
no affectations, no postures of patriotism. There was a relaxed and easy
atmosphere. The Hindi spoken was the "street" one and not that of the
scholars. Even the psephologist who first assumed that he should speak in
English under the assumption that as a specialist should use that language,
reverted to Hindi in which he came out quite fluent.

This process of transformation, which I prefer to call the naturalization of
India, has been obvious to any perceptive observer. A whole generation has
come up which has had no exposure to the British rule and to whom it is just
a part of history. The majority of this group speaks in the vernacular with
an occasional English word, in current fashion, thrown in. It reads only
vernacular magazines and looks into the English language ones for "girly"
pictures. However insipid it may look, this generation provides the motive
force for contemporary India.

Hindi is the de facto language of the market place. The correspondence is
still in English but other wise it is Hindi all the way. Tamil merchants
doing business or the Tamil truck drivers and "cleaners" accompanying them
are fluent in Hindi.

It is equally true the other way round. I met a salesman/buyer from UP who
was fluent in all the southern languages. This development is the best
illustration of the consensual Hindu ethos. It has been achieved by allowing
evolutionary forces, "market forces" in the current lingo, to play their part
and keeping emotions out. What a contrast it is to 1966 when language riots
erupted in Tamil Nadu bringing the Dravidian parties to power which they had
held without interruption since then!

The anti-Hindi sentiments were centered in Bengal and Tamil Nadu for entirely
different reasons. Bengali was a developed language in which the first Indian
novels were written. It was a Bengali poet who was given international
recognition by the award of the Nobel Prize. In pre-partition India Bengalis
were not numerically inferior to the Hindi speaking people.

The Tamil resentment was due to entirely different reasons. Missionaries
played a part. So too did the Chettiars returning with loads of wealth from
Burma. They found the lowly and poor Brahmins in the South were receiving all
the honors while they themselves were ignored despite their wealth. They
started the Justice Party with the collusion and active encouragement of the
British. Anti-Brahminism became a political movement.

The Brahmins were demonized as the torch bearers of North Indian or Sanskrit
culture. Tamil was built up as an independent language and history and
prehistory were distorted to suit this newly "invented" identity. Vijaya
Nagar was conveniently forgotten as was the Maratha regime. Shivaji was
honored as an individual and not as part of a pan Indian/Hindu drive for self
discovery. Indus valley became the acme of "Dravidian" achievement. This
rabid movement wisely adjusted to grass roots reality when it was confronted
with the logistical incongruities of its absurd denouements. So we have the
leader of the foremost "Dravidian" party, the DMK, becoming the role model
for political sanity. The tribute is again to the Hindu ethos which allowed
for debate and compromise.

The second significant result in this election is the demise of the vote bank
politics. This is the first election conducted, as the columnist Saeed Naqvi
noted, on totally secular lines. In Andhra Pradesh the Muslim leaders of the
Ittihad Muslimeen had advised its followers to vote on communal lines. Their
leader Owaisi did indeed benefit from the vote bank. But in the rest of state
the voting was on non-communal lines. The Telugu Desam (TDP) - BJP alliance
came out very creditably. Whilst TDP is still making the usual "noises" of
secularism, the atmosphere had been cleared for honest thinking.

It was the Congress that practiced the vicious brand of "secularism". Salman
Khurshid was appointed as the head of the state unit. He "apologized" for the
destruction of the disputed Ayodhya structure. This policy coupled with the
ineptness of the state BJP government paid some dividends and the Party
increased its tally from zero to about nine seats. Otherwise the Mula Singh
brand of "secularism" held its ground. In fact Mula Singh has come back with
increased numbers. The most disabled sections of the Hindu community voted
against the policies of the state government. The OBC (other backward
communities) - MBC (most backward communities) clashes took its toll in UP.
The Chief Minister was a OBC member and failed to demonstrate his neutrality
vis-a-vis the MBCs.

The Muslims had realized that their real interests, as opposed to the
interests of its Mullahs, lie in joining the national mainstream. Articles by
Shahin Sultan and Saeed Naqvi on the Congress brand of exploitative
secularism illustrate the changes taking place in the Muslim psyche.

On the Hindu side also there has been a change. No longer are issues of
Muslim communalism pushed under the carpet under the pretext of Muslim
"sensitivity." Arun Shourie and M. V. Kamath have been in the vanguard of the
trend calling upon the Muslims to face the facts of history constructively.
Pandering to the so-called "minority" sentiments may become a thing of the
past.

A third significant development was the rejection of the corrupt elements
such as Jaya Lalitha and Laloo Yadhav. An element of moral judgement has
crept into the political calculus. Sonia Gandhi did not understand this and
naturally so. Her technique was manipulative and her alliance with the
corrupt elements was responsible for her party's comprehensive defeat.

It was mainly due to Sonia Gandhi's unprincipled drive for power and the
unholy alliances she formed, that the Congress lost heavily in areas in which
it had won only recently. These areas are Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and
Rajasthan. It was a rout for the party in these states.

She has called for introspection. If she is honest she should quit the
leadership of the party and pave way for its reunification. But she is
unlikely to do any rethinking and the Congress would fast regress towards extinction.



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