A few days ago, I came across a school photo posted by a friend on social media. It’s from the mid-1980s. An immaculately dressed group of teachers stands in a semi-curved formation on a stage. There are students too, in school uniform. Each teacher is holding up a placard with a letter of the English alphabet. These are in red against a white background. Male teachers are dressed in long-sleeved “Prince Coats” that close at the neck and the women are wearing sarees in a combination of red and white. The letters spell “October”. At one end of the formation, a young teacher holds up a large red-coloured hammer and sickle poster. The group is commemorating the Bolshevik Party’s October Revolution of 1917.
The school – located in what was then a sleepy little north Indian town – was run by the Indian branch of a well-known global organisation of white-collar professionals. It would be laughable to classify it as sympathetic to Communist thought. This striking tableau – now lost to both time and current ways of thinking about the world – is best thought of as an Indian engagement with the world beyond sectional and sectarian concerns.
In post-colonial societies where electoral democracy has taken root, there are two kinds of national subjects. The first is an imagined – constitutional – subject who is a key character in recurring liberal dreams of what social, political and public life should be about. This person has multiple religious, ethnic, linguistic and caste identities. Depending on the context, the identity of the constitutional subjects varies; sometimes, Dalit, occasionally Muslim, and now and then rural.
Within post-colonial liberal thought, this is the Nehruvian subject of nobility, decency, common sense and a bulwark against chauvinism and anti-democratic tendencies. She or he (though usually implicitly imagined as a man) carries all the hopes and burdens of liberalism on his shoulders. In some contemporary versions of liberalism, the Nehruvian subject also has ancient origins, with a capacity and skill for debate and argumentation that has lasted millennia. On this point, ironically enough, liberalism and its antithesis – Hindutva – converge.
The other – actually existing – national subject is one of flesh and blood. It has a complex, dynamic and changing relationship to the world that undermines the fundamental tenets of post-colonial liberal thought. This person watches sensationalist and bigoted media reporting (and frequently subscribes to its viewpoint); loves biriyani and ghazal but detests Muslims; laughs at rape jokes in Aamir Khan’s Three Idiots; assumes that Indians from the Northeast are “foreigners”; and, when asked to comment on the importance of democracy, ranks it lowly. It also votes in elections.
This national subject (a modified one) is, actually, exactly the same as the one who finds great favour in liberal thought. The difference lies in the eyes of the observer. To take an example from an event of current significance, liberal thought believes that the voting public – imagined as the constitutional subject – will punish those politicians who have corrupted public life through electoral bonds chicanery. What is needed, the argument goes, is just better information and the truth about the bonds. Politicians, on the other hand, will largely be untroubled by the slew of revelations about who benefitted most from the bond scheme. They are astute observers of national behaviours and identities because their futures depend on it. They rest easy in the knowledge that the modified Indian is far too complex and quixotic a figure to carry out liberal biddings.
It is through the hotch-potch of everyday life that produces the actual – rather than imagined – identities of the Indian voting public that we should try to understand the story of the soon-to-be-held elections and the unfolding saga of electoral bonds. The kind of impact that the murky goings-on of the electoral bonds might have on the election fortunes of the BJP – the most significant beneficiary – can’t really be grasped through constantly imagining a Nehruvian national subject as the key driver of discussions of public importance. It is the modified national population – one that now consists of persons of all castes, religions and ethnicities – who holds the national fate in its hands.
It is important to remember, also, that the Nehruvian subject (that of the school photo) did not suddenly become the modified one. But we rarely focus on the peoples of democracy, preferring to highlight its texts (the Constitution) and structures (the judiciary) as sufficient guides to the possibilities of a democratic future. It is the modified national subject that votes, not texts and structures.
The most significant characteristic of the modified subject concerns the fact it acts entirely according to sectional concerns: Each part of the population primarily raises its voice according to clearly defined sectional interests, including religious, occupational, regional and other forms of identities. The part of the Indian population that raises issues of national interest – involving itself with other people’s problems rather than sectional concerns – is minuscule. In any case, its numbers as public voice are fast diminishing. The most significant achievement of the past few decades has been the deepening of a characteristic that has been a significant part of Indian life: Sectional concerns. No matter how justified these might be, since the Indian public sphere operates primarily along “community” lines, it is quite easy to mobilise support along these lines whereas hardly any is forthcoming for exactly the same issue that might affect another community. A particular section of the population may rightly protest the violation of its human rights but is unlikely to subscribe to “human rights” as a general principle, also protesting on behalf of others.
Electoral bonds are a national rather than a sectional issue. They are concerned with the impact of opaque political practices that affect all Indians. However, given the consolidation of the sectional, modified voting public, they are unlikely to attract much voter backlash against the party that appears to have benefitted the most.
That October Revolution photograph – from a school run by a solidly anti-Communist organisation, its teachers dressed in “national” clothing but commemorating a global event – was a brief Nehruvian moment in the history of modern India. That moment could have unfolded in any direction, producing either sectional or national subjects. For there to be effective political opposition in the face of such overwhelming odds, it is important to understand the nature of the voting public. What excites its interest? Certainly not the “misdeeds” of those who might have benefitted from the electoral bonds.
The writer is British Academy Global Professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS University of London
It is through the hotch-potch of everyday life that produces the actual identities of Indian voting public that we should try to understand the story of elections
20
8
20.03.2024
A few days ago, I came across a school photo posted by a friend on social media. It’s from the mid-1980s. An immaculately dressed group of teachers stands in a semi-curved formation on a stage. There are students too, in school uniform. Each teacher is holding up a placard with a letter of the English alphabet. These are in red against a white background. Male teachers are dressed in long-sleeved “Prince Coats” that close at the neck and the women are wearing sarees in a combination of red and white. The letters spell “October”. At one end of the formation, a young teacher holds up a large red-coloured hammer and sickle poster. The group is commemorating the Bolshevik Party’s October Revolution of 1917.
The school – located in what was then a sleepy little north Indian town – was run by the Indian branch of a well-known global organisation of white-collar professionals. It would be laughable to classify it as sympathetic to Communist thought. This striking tableau – now lost to both time and current ways of thinking about the world – is best thought of as an Indian engagement with the world beyond sectional and sectarian concerns.
In post-colonial societies where electoral democracy has taken root, there are two kinds of national subjects. The first is an imagined – constitutional – subject who is a key character in recurring liberal dreams of what social, political and public life should be about. This person has multiple religious, ethnic, linguistic and caste identities. Depending on the context, the identity of the constitutional subjects varies; sometimes, Dalit, occasionally Muslim, and now and then rural.
Within post-colonial liberal thought, this is the Nehruvian subject of nobility, decency, common sense and a........
© Indian Express
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Nikkei Editorial
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
