[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Her:Interesting Article
Forwarded Article
Dear Sindhi netters,
Please substitute the word "Sindhi" for "Indian" in the article and check
whether the argument changes
Our Mongrel Nature
Accommodation is Mere Acquiescence
By BPR VITHAL
IN a recent essay, Sunil Khilnani has said that ``India is an
arena
of cultural encounters, often uncomfortable, between unequal
protagonists''. As schoolboys, we were taught that the Indian
subcontinent was what it was, because the Himalayas ran from
east to west cutting off the cold winds from the north. Its
geography enabled agriculture to prosper and created wealth
that
attracted every marauding nomad. It gave us a climate that was,
for part of the year, so salubrious that no one who came wanted
to leave. For the other part, the climate was so enervating
that no
one had the energy to leave. The Moguls who began with pining
for the fruits and fragrances of their native gardens came to
describe this as ``heaven on earth''.
Mule of Democrats
We were the Sirens of Asia. West Asia was restless to expand.
China rebuffed everyone from outside their own universe. We
alone remained where we were. Those who came were trapped
and stayed. Soon they did not know what they were when they
came. This loss of identity was at the heart of our poetry
and our
mysticism. Our complaint with the British was not that they
exploited us. That we always accepted. Why else would anyone
come? Our complaint was that they did not merge with us. We
were taught that the sin of Mahmud of Ghazni was not that he
sacked Somnath. His sin was that he carried this wealth to his
own native land. In contrast, Mahmud of Ghori settled down here
and so began a chapter in our history.
For Khilnani, circumstance is more relevant than origin. In
an age
of artificial fertilisation, identity comes from the womb and
not the
seed. Like the Buddhist, Khilnani objects to the search for a
string among the pearls. Om ! Mani Padme Hum. I am the
dewdrop on the lotus leaf. It is the leaf -- the crucible
India --
that gives us our individual existence. It is to this
physical concept
of India as an arena for cultural interaction, a crucible of
cultures
that Nehru was deeply attached. He wanted his ashes to be
sprinkled over this great arena. Nehru, like the
turn-of-the-century Indians, born in this arena but not heir
to it,
had to discover it first.
The Telugu poet tells us that Desamante Matti
Kadoi/Desamante Manushuloi. (The nation does not mean the
earth, the nation means the people.) In contrast, the Hindi
song
goes Jis Desh me Ganga Bahti Hai which is a physical concept.
When we sought to convert this physical concept to a living one
and said, Vande Mataram, we divided our society. Hindutva
divides us. The acceptable version is Sare Jaha Se Achcha
Hindu-Sthan Hamara. Our present problem today is that,
among those who have no objection to subscribing to this
physical concept, are those who would like to go back to its
original natural geographic contours, `Akhand Bharat'.
Khilnani wants us to celebrate the "mongrel character of
India's
people". The problem with a `mongrel' is that, like the famed
`Mule' of the American Democrats, it cannot claim either the
pride of ancestry or the hope of posterity. Mongrelisation
gives
one the skills of survival. But identity is more than
survival, it is to
do with a reason for survival. To be only a link in survival is
sufficient reason for biological evolution but not for
historical
justification.
Futile Search
The view of Indian history that contrasts with this is one
that sees
`the last millennium as a series of rude interruptions' and
hopes `to
return to an original purity'. Such a hope in the history of a
country is not as impossible as it is made out to be. There
may be
no return to any pristine original state but, as least, there
could be
the restoration of a distinctness which marked that culture
before
the interruption. In Europe, Islamic armies were within `a
couple
of days ride from Paris' in 732 on the centenary of Muhammad's
death. They were finally evicted from Granada, at the tip of
Spain, only in 1493.
In the east, those who fell to the Ottomans took a similar
period
to push them back. Islamic conquest cut Europe off from
`virtually all direct contact with other religions and
civilisations'
and turned it into Christianity's main base. It pushed the
centre of
European power from the Mediterranean to the centre of Europe.
Yet, finally Islam provided what the historian Norman Davies
has
called `the cultural bulwark' against which European identity
could be defined. Says Davies, ``Europe, let alone Charlemagne,
is inconceivable without Muhammad... Indirectly Charlemagne
was the product of Muhammed''.
Therefore, the search for an identity prior to an alien
interruption,
however long in time that interruption may be, need not in
itself be
a futile one. In India, however, such a search would indeed be
fruitless. Europe rolled back the Muslim invasion. We rolled
back
no one. We did not roll back Alexander the Great; he went back
himself. A people who could not roll back the invader cannot
roll
back their history.
Such good Democrats
To understand our mongrel nature and our famed tolerance, we
must accept the fact that we never really stopped any invader.
The invaders themselves, once they fell into this crucible,
could
not stop those who came after them. The Aryans could not stop
the Turks. The Turks yielded to the Afghans, the Afghans to the
Mongols and the Mongols to the British. The British stopped the
Japanese but that was from the British empire. In any case,
they
never really became us. This process can be poetically
described
as our ability `to transform invasion into accommodation,
rupture
into continuity, division into diversity'.
The key here is `accommodation', a euphemism for
`acquiescence'. We have `AIDS', `Accept Invasion and
Domination Syndrome'. We went out and served others well;
from Africa to the Caribbeans, to the US. We have served every
foreigner here. What we will not do is to accept the
legitimacy of
any other product of this arena to rule over us. That is what
makes us such good democrats -- this inborn contempt of the
ruler who is one of us. So, at the turn of the millennium,
there are
no other people whose history has prepared them so eminently
for globalisation in the age of the MNCs and democracy in the
period of intrusive civil liberties, enforced
transnationally. What an
idea
This article appeared in The Times of India dated 5/5/99.