A Gandhian Maneuver in Kashmir
M.J. Akbar
Opinion Editorials, January 2004, www.aljazeerah.info
NEW DELHI, 1 February 2004 — What keeps a political party together? One of three things: Ideology, the prospect of power, or the absence of any alternative. Ideally, ideology should be the binding cement, but ideology is a diminishing commodity. This is not necessarily a reason for lament. Most of the ideologies that gave birth to contemporary political parties were shaped in the heat of 19th century conflicts and perceptions.
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The formation of Indian parties owes more to India’s critical problem, the management of social conflict, than to economics. The Congress and BJP represented different approaches to the Hindu-Muslim equation in India, a fire whose origins lie in the ashes of 1857. The consequences of India’s “Rising” and Britain’s “Mutiny” are too complex for the scope of a column, but the competition for jobs and influence under the new dispensation, as well as imagined wrongs and threats in a different world, was skillfully exploited by the British to turn a rift into a schism, a schism into a divide, and eventually a divide into partition. The freedom movement was obviously larger than any political party, and differences were kept under control by implicit consent — except for one, from which Pakistan emerged.
Mahatma Gandhi offered an economic policy to the Congress, but the “modernizers” led by Jawaharlal Nehru jettisoned it. The substantive part of Gandhian economics was agitational, a means to provide alternative production to Lancashire cotton mills. Its ascetic elements were too tortured for the common man, and even for the Congressman. But its political force was brilliant. However, India’s industrialization could not be achieved through a chain of cottage industries. With Nehru the debate veered around to the degree of socialism that Congress could absorb, or India stomach. Nehru was much more careful about state intervention in the economy than commonly supposed. He used the state to support (through infrastructure and heavy industry investment) and protect (through import regulations) Indian industry. The state did not compete with the private sector. He built steel mills, but he never thought of privatizing Tata’s enterprise. Much of the intrusive socialism that deadened progress came under Indira Gandhi, when pro-Soviet leftists became a dominant part of government. When programmed-enterprise lost out to free enterprise in the eighties, the Congress had to undo its own legacy to release the country from stagnation.
Parties that milked social conflict for support and votes have never had much time for a structured economic policy. This was as true of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh/Bharatiya Janata Party, as it was of the Muslim League in Pakistan. It applies equally to parties propelled by caste fuel, like Mulayam Singh’s Socialist Party, Laloo Yadav’s RJD or Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. They are organizations of beneficiaries, rather than parties of wealth creation. This absence does not matter much when you are either a regional force (since states in India do not really have independent economic policies) or in opposition. The BJP’s manifesto would for years be stuffed with good intentions, but there was never a clue to show how it would reach them. They knew they were opposed to the left, and its economic ideas, but not much more than that.
Paradoxically, this became a great advantage when the BJP came to power. Unlike P.V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee had no historical baggage to unload. Dissent from his own ranks was marginal and born out of confusion that owed, curiously, to Gandhi. For Gandhi, swadeshi was expedient, a weapon to make the Indian independent of British goods before he became independent of British rule. In theory, swadeshi can become an ideal in any country, Germany or France, Japan or America. Every consumer would ideally like to buy goods made in his own country. This is elementary nationalism. But to do that you have to make all that you need, which is impossible; and make high quality products, which is difficult. So you trade, cooperate, improve and compete. Vajpayee, unlike Rao, could let the market do the talking with a free political conscience, and in a free market world it brought dividends. Gandhi provided a social philosophy for the freedom movement, which became a basic tenet of the Congress faith. This was equality for every Indian, across religion and caste, in a state that would ensure justice for all. It was a view inspired not by a rigorous intellect, but by an overflowing heart and a deep conviction in the humanism of religion. Gandhi’s own deeply-held faith was Hinduism. The forefathers of the Hindutva movement felt cheated by Gandhi because he could never be accused of being anti-Hindu, when he preached that the subcontinent’s future lay in Hindu-Muslim unity. It was entirely appropriate that Gandhi was assassinated when fasting to protest an injustice done by the government of India to Pakistan. His death was his finest hour.
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In the week of his 55th death anniversary, Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf, whether both fully appreciate the nuance or not, have agreed upon a wondrous Gandhian maneuver in Kashmir. This weekend Muslims are honoring the momentous sacrifice that the great prophet of Islam, Judaism and Christianity, Abraham, made for the love of Allah. During this Eid, Kashmiris on both sides of the divide will be permitted by the armed forces to meet on the banks of the Neelum River in Kupwara. How Gandhi would have delighted in this little triumph of human contact over an institutional freeze! This is possible only because violence has ceased at the military level and eased on the civilian side. This is the beginning of hope and the start of a dream, that one day political barriers will melt sufficiently to make space for hearts. This is the human face of peace, and we must never underestimate its strength in shaping events. Strength is normally measured by the violence quotient. In 1947 Gandhi prevented communal violence in Calcutta during Partition while the rest of the north and east was in flames by his moral power. H.S. Suhrawardy was his ally as his magic captured what had become India’s most poisonous city. In 2004, for a brief moment, which just might last, Musharraf, a professional soldier, and Vajpayee, a BJP leader, have become Gandhians.
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Gandhi wrote a great deal, but Gandhism was never a formal creed. It lived on the strength of a limited number of distilled ideas. The transition from a freedom movement to a free state has not made those essential ideas irrelevant. Experience has reinforced their worth. By itself, Gandhism is not sufficient to meet the needs of constantly evolving societies. Some of its stranger demands — like sexual abstinence, or compulsory prohibition (which in Gandhi’s state, Gujarat, has become a license for mafia fortunes), or one-dimensional dress — have withered with time, thankfully so. It makes sense not to confuse Gandhism with Gandhi. But our constantly evolving societies will only progress if two fundamental principles of Gandhi become the mantra of our times: Hindu-Muslim unity is the bedrock for stability and prosperity. And the law of humanity demands peace between people, not violence.