India: Contest between Secular and Hindu Nationalism or between Developmental and Cultural Nationalism

Quoting Rabindranath Tagore (India has never had a real sense of nationalism), Amalendu Misra argues that there are many Indian nationalisms, not one. In his article, India has never had a single dominant nationalism – and it won’t any time soon, he writes that previously there was fight between two types of nationalisms, rightwing religious (Hindutva) nationalism and leftist secular (civic) nationalism but now the situation is different:

Interestingly, contemporary India is plagued by a miasma of voices who cannot agree on a unifying national identity. Indian nationalism has become a dog’s breakfast; it feels as if every day, a new group demands that the national imagination be reorganised according to its own vision and logic.

He gives examples of martial nationalism, cyber-nationalism, Marxism, and backward” castes' reactionary nationalism, etc. He concludes:

All the while, their sophisticated pundit and politician counterparts wage their dogfights over nationalism on live TV while cloaking themselves in one ideological colour or the other, all in the name of Indian identity. This all seems to vindicate Tagore’s original claim: the nature of Indian nationalism has never been a settled matter, and it doesn’t look set to organise itself any time soon.

It seems that Misra is not distinguishing between state and popular nationalism. At the popular level, there are always numerous types of nationalisms. In all countries, different ethnic, religious, economic and linguistic groups and classes disagree on what defines their nation. When pundits and politicians are talking about Indian nationalism, they are focusing on state nationalism. What kind of nationalism is or will be propagated by the Indian state? In India today, the fight appears to be clearly between religious and secular nationalisms. Or is it not?

For Radhika Desai, focusing on only the cultural aspects of nationalism and ignoring the economic aspects, is a reductionist approach. So, for her, religious and secular nationalisms present only a partial picture of the reality. She identifies two types of nationalism, developmental and cultural. She argues that nationalisms did not decline in the third quarter of the 20th century; they underwent went a transformation, from developmental nationalism to cultural nationalism. She explains the change in an article:

As the world entered the second half of the 20th century, nation-states could be divided according to whether they attempted to restrain (under social democratic regimes), eliminate (under communist ones) or harness (under developmentalist ones) the power of capital in the interest of wider groups. Japan’s ‘miracle’ years, Nehru’s, Nasser’s and Soekarno’s devel¬opmentalism, as well as Mao’s communism, stood in sharp contrast to the market-driven, capital-friendly regimes that replaced them two or more decades later and to the colonial and fascist ones which had preceded them. 

Nehru, Nkrumah, Nasser, Soekarno & Tito at Bandung, 1961 (Source: R. Desai's article)

Developmental regimes featured distinct developmental nationalisms. In Asia, they emerged in anti-imperialist struggles. Popular mobilisations (or minimally, as in Sri Lanka, the requirements of popular legitimacy) required these nationalisms to attempt to construct political economies of development by promoting productivity and relative equality, although accomplishment varied among the resulting capitalist developmental or communist states. While the cultural politics of these nationalisms certainly featured some more or less uncritical celebration of the ‘national culture’, developmental nationalisms typically adopted a critical stance towards important aspects of the inherited culture, as for example, the critical view of caste in Indian nationalism, or the criticism of the imperial and Confucian heritage in China. In the developmental vision, national cultures were to evolve in more scientific, rational and progressive, even internationalist, directions. In short, developmental nationalisms looked forward to brighter national futures as modern egalitarian cultures and polities and as economies of generalised prosperity in a comity of nations: they typically promised a better tomorrow. 

Rather than declining in the last quarter of the 20th century, nationalisms seemed to acquire greater force, and not just in reaction to ‘globalisation’. And their nature changed. The cultural nationalisms that displaced the earlier developmental nationalisms had different names in different nations— ‘Asian values’, ‘Hindutva’, ‘Confucianism’ and ‘Nihonjinron’, for example. The cultural politics and political economy they now embodied also underwent changes and the emphasis shifted from the latter to the former. The political economy of cultural nationalisms was typically neoliberal—flagrantly unequal and not primarily concerned with increasing production or productivity so much as with the enrichment of the (expanded but still tiny) dominant middle, propertied and capitalist classes. The new nationalisms’ cultural politics—whether conceived in religious, ethnic or cultural terms— conceived culture as static, pre-given, and original although, amid the intensified commercialism and commodification of neoliberal capitalism, it was less so than ever before, and attributed to it almost magical powers of legitimation and pacification over potentially restive forsaken majorities. Thinking of cultural nationalisms as majoritarian and homogenising is easy, but also mistaken: for in the neoliberal context, cultural difference—different levels of competence in and belonging to the national culture—served to justify the economic inequalities produced by neoliberal, market-driven policies. Cultural nationalisms often took apparently multicultural and ‘tolerant’ forms as markets performed the work of privileging and marginalization more stealthily and more effectively. In contrast to the popular mobilisations on which developmental nationalisms rested, cultural nationalisms throve on the relative political disengagement and disenfranchisement which neoliberal inequalities produced. The extremist wings that cultural nationalisms had in many countries were a function of this lack of popular support. In harking back to more or less distant ‘glorious pasts’, it seemed as though what cultural nationalisms offered was not a better tomorrow, but a ‘better yesterday’. 

In a presentation on Hindutva, Desai presents the following differences between developmental nationalism, which was dominant in India in the past, to cultural nationalism (Hindutva), which is dominant now.

Indian (Developmental) Nationalism	Hindu (Cultural) Nationalism
Developmental	Neo-liberal
Secular	Communal/Religious
Material gains	(share of ) Cultural glory
Inclusive	Exclusive
Popular	Elitist
Egalitarian	Inegalitarian
Better tomorrow	Better yesterday

While Desai's exposition of change from developmental to cultural nationalisms is certainly enlightening, it is difficult to accept that egalitarianism and popularity are intrinsic characteristics of developmental nationalism. One of the reasons, developmental nationalism could not survive, or remain dominant, was that it was not egalitarian and became less and less popular. It purported to be concerned about the lower classes and promised to build an inclusive society but it was elitist and mostly enriched upper classes, politicians, and bureaucrats. Conversely, one of the main reasons for the success of cultural nationalism is that it is less elitist and probably more popular now. If Nehru is the quintessential developmental nationalist and Modi is the quintessential cultural nationalist, it is clear that Nehru was much more elitist than Modi. Neo-liberalism, an important part of cultural nationalism according to Desai, is focused on this life and future, not on the next life and past. So, it is injudicious to claim that cultural nationalism is only about the past glories. Cultural nationalists certainly harp on the past but they also promise a better tomorrow. For instance, Modi's national campaign in 2014 was probably as much focused on the future as on the past.

In conclusion, the distinction between developmental and cultural nationalism is not clear and using Desai's framework muddles our understanding of Indian nationalism. I think secular and religious nationalism is a much better way to understand the changes Indian nationalism has witnessed since independence in 1947. 

Bharat mata ki jai (Victory for/to Mother India)

Is it necessary to chant 'Bharat Mata ki Jai'? Is it a national slogan or a Hindu slogan? Are the people who refuse to say this slogan anti-India or anti-national or traitors? A new controversy is raging across India.

It all started when on March 3rd, (2016) Mohan Bhagwat, the chief (Sarsanghchalak) of the Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), spoke at an award ceremony at the RSS headquarters in Reshimbagh. During the speech, he said that the Indian youth should be taught to say `Bharat Mata Ki Jai' as some forces are telling the youth not to say nationalist slogans. This part of his speech was possibly linked to the JNU controversy, however, he did not make any direct reference to it.

Bhagwat's speech did not garner much attention until Asaduddin Owaisi referred to it in his speech in Maharastra on March 14th. Owaisi is the President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and a three-term member of the lower house of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) from Hyderabad. At a rally, he said that he would not chant the slogan even if Bhagwat put a knife to his throat as nowhere in the Constitution it is written that one should say Bharat Mata ki Jai. He said that he would say 'Jai Hind' (Victory to Hind) but not Bharat Mata ki Jai.

Two days later, on March 16, a budget debate skirmish in the Maharastra Assembly led Waris Pathan, a member of Owaisi's party and an MLA from Mumbai, to say that he would say 'Jai Hind' but not say 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' even at the cost of his life. The Maharashtra Assembly, where Hindu nationalists (BJP and Shiv Sena) are in the majority,  then unanimously suspended him for disrespecting the country. Shortly after his suspension, Pathan said to the reporters that he did not disrespect India:

I am proud of having been born in this country and god willing will be buried in the very earth here. I have not disrespected my country. And I cannot think of doing so. Jai Hind. Jai Bharat. Jai Maharashtra.

On March 17, the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamana wrote a strongly-worded editorial in which it recommended not only revoking the citizenship of those who refuse to chant the slogan but also beheading of their heads:

Owaisi has insulted Bharat Mata. Now, Muslims should come out in opposition to Owaisi and hail Bharat Mata...Bharat Mata ki jai is a matter of inspiration and devotion to the country. Considerations of caste and religion should not matter on such issues...Owaisi has said that even if someone puts a knife to his throat, he would not say 'Bharat Mata ki Jai.'...Such people's heads should be cut off.

Since then, many other people have commented on this issue. Some have supported Owaisi's stance; others have criticised him but said that there should be no compulsion. If chanting a slogan cannot make a person a patriot, not chanting will not make her a traitor. A timeline of the controversy till April 5th can be seen here.

Why such opposition to 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' while there is universal acceptance for 'Jai Hind'? Are they not convey the same emotion? Some have argued that Bharat Mata slogan is linked with Hindu nationalism from the early twentieth century. A. G. Noorani explains in an article how India as mata/goddess Kali or Durga is fundamental to Hindutva. 

This is the record on “Bharat Mata”. When the upstarts of the BJP tell us that it is “anti-national” not to proclaim it, it is because they do not bear loyalty to Indian nationalism, but to Hindu nationalism or Hindutva.

Source: Indian Feminists.com

Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury,  a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament, however, castigated the politicians of all sides for using this Indian battle cry (Bharat Mata ki Jai) for political expediency and electoral gains:

However, in the entirely different world of the Indian Army, Bharat Mata ki Jai is a traditional, multi-faith battlecry, where soldiers of all denominations place their country before their religion. Roared through many voices, Bharat Mata ki Jai has sustained the Indian soldier on many battlefields as he closed with the enemy for the final reckoning ... But now, with elections to many state Assemblies underway, the battlecry of the warrior has been misappropriated by the political demagogues and turned into street slogans by the politician. These are the enemies within the gates whom the soldier may have to deal with if and when called upon to do so.