One of the most thought-provoking Op-Eds I’ve read in a long , long time !
The history lessons that I was always made to learn back when I was in school and university spoke glowingly about 2 magnificent achievements of the Indian National Congress Party soon after Independence :
1. The “reunification 500 of Princely States” (the credit for this was attributed to Vallabhai Patel, the Bismarck of India); and
2. The “forging of a new Constitution for a sovereign democratic republic of India ” (the credit for this went to Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr Ambedkar… the George Washington and Thomas Jefferson of India).
The first of the above two lessons above imparted was used to convince me that but for what Patel accomplished, the Balkanisation of India would’ve ensued soon after Independence , and the new nation state of India would’ve have been a mutilated, deformed still-born baby.
And from the second great lesson above in history taught me to believe that without the brand new Constitution of India that M/s Nehru, Ambedkar & Co. in its wisdom and foresight gave unto the republic’s people , Independent India would simply have returned to being what Winston Churchill had once said about them: “They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
The author, M. Nageswara Rao’s main thesis in his Op-Ed challenges both of the above 2 history lessons on which three or four generations of Indians like me, born after 1947, have been constantly fed and on which diet we’ve grown and, in fact, as a result have become wholly rooted in the historical consciousness and cultural self-identity that we all possess today. A totally different and bold alternative theoretical framework and perspective with which to understand our history is being offered in this superbly written Op-Ed.
The thesis of this article however, and alas, comes 75 years too late in the life of our nation today …. Too much water has flown under the bridge … We can look back and, through hindsight, mourn over the tragic course that the river of India’s past history might have taken. But we can never hope to go back in time to possibly re-dredge, redirect and redress it .
Reading this Op-Ed left me feeling only rather wistful and pensive about “what might have been” in the history of my country . About “what it is today” and about “where tomorrow it might lead” our peoples… that however leaves me only brooding with feelings of deep foreboding. All thus bring to my mind two verses from one of my favourite works of poetry , The Rubbaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
“Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!”
https://epaper.thehansindia.com/Home/ShareArticle?OrgId=134d60bc10e
QUOTE : The merger of the Princely States was compounded by the undemocratic framing of India’s Constitution. The Constituent Assembly, constituted by the colonial British, tasked with drafting it, represented hardly 15% of Indians, heavily skewed toward Congress loyalists and deracinated elites. There was no national debate about the type of constitution India needed—whether it should reflect its civilisational heritage or mimic Western models. Instead, the Congress imposed a paraphrased version of the Government of India Act, 1935, infused with special rights and privileges for minorities that effectively weaponised it against Hindus. UNQUOTE
Sudarshan Madabushi