Guha's 'India after Gandhi' - Ideas of India

'...Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic'. B. R. Ambedkar.

This quote probably explains why we did not have an unwritten constitution like the Brits. Indian constitution is said to be 'probably' the longest in the world. It was a monumental task. The proceedings of the constituent assembly was printed in eleven bulky volumes - some of which exceed 1000 pages...


The final shape of the constitution is ascribed to three important congressmen, Nehru, Patel and Rajendra Prasad with Ambedkar, the most crucial member of the assembly and two formidable minds: K.M.Munshi and Alladi Krishnaswami Aiyar. The seventh mentioned is B.N.Rau, constitutional adviser to the governament of India, assisted by S.N. Mukherjee, whose 'ability to put the most intricate proposals in the simplest and clearest legal form can be rarely equalled'.


The process of distilling the desires and ambitions for an 'India' with so many independent and conflicting views is again fascinating. It is clear that the urban literate, brilliant and legal minds finally held sway. Ambedkar is quoted here 'these village republics have been the ruination of India'. One probably can dwell on the 'Gandhian constitution' today to see how it could have given us a better constitution. He writes that K. Hanumanthaiya complained that he wanted 'the music of Veena and Sitar' and not 'the music of an English band'. I wonder what he was really upset about as he was after all a lawyer and capable of dealing with all the finer points of law.

I recall asking my father about how illiterate villagers were dealt with by the courts. I remember him telling me that courts were allowed to use 'Devara Sathya' while examining a witness. (Basically it was a psychological tool and a beleif that a villager would not lie in the courts after taking an oath in the name of the god he believed in.)

I liked the three warnings Ambedkar about the future. 'We must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha'. The second warning concerned 'the unthinking submission to charismatic authority'. And he urged Indians not to be content with what he called the 'mere political democracy'.

Obviously very sensible and knowing the way of Indians very optimistic! I remember the highways lined with Ambedkar's statue as I was travelling in Tamil Nadu (I think!).

Guha's India after Gandhi --Refugees and the Republic.

'The refugees who came to India after Independence numbered close to 8 million. These people were resettled with time, cash, effort and, not least, idealism. There was indeed much heroism and grandeur in the building of new India. There were also errors and mistakes, loose ends that remained unties. There was pain and suffering in the extinguishing of the princely order, and there was pain and suffering in the resettlement of the refugees. Yet both tasks were, in the end, accomplished.'

'Notably, the actors in this complicated and tortuous process were all Indian. This, at least on the British side, was completely unanticipated.... Admittedly, the rulers had left behind a set of functioning institutions.'

We read about how, the Punjabi refugees settled in the land vacated by the Muslims who had moved across the border. They were allotted land, but not equal to what they had lost. The land they had left behind was more fertile, but they worked hard and coped well. Many who were not farmers moved to Delhi and made a life for themselves. Sindhis were settled in Bombay, Pune and Ahmadabad. Being businessmen and resourceful started business activities again and thus creating competition between the locals and them. Refugees from east Bengal settled in Calcutta. (Was surprised to learn that there were expectations, by the West Bengal government, of refugees going back after things settled. I remember that the Sindhis who chose to move to Bangalore appeared well to do and there were grumbles that they were the cause for the increased rentals.)

It is inspiring to read about how Nehru held firm and worked hard to face the threats to his new Government by the activities of RSS and communists. An interesting fact mentioned was that Nehru, Golwalker and Ranade were all Brahmins. At the same time the plight of the women held captive and their unwillingness to go back home after being rescued, for fear of not being accepted, brings us back to reality with a bang.

Guha's 'India after Gandhi' --A valley bloody and beautiful. (one that gave the most trouble of all.)

'This particular apple stayed perilously placed on the rim of the basket; never in it, but never out of it either.'

Nehru, a Kashmiri, loved Kashmir for its beauty and could not envisage an India without Kashmir being a part of it. Its location was another reason, 'gave the state a strategic importance quite out of proportion to its population. And providentially, Shiekh Abdullah, son of a merchant had emerged as the leader of Kashmir and was 'greatly loved by the people of Kashmir' and when Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah met 'they hit it of instantly' and both had a commitment to 'Hindu-Muslim harmony and to socialism.'

An ideal situation, but there appeared a worm in the apple. Hari Singh a typcial Raja of the times, totally isolated from his people had different ideas. 'The idea of independence had taken a strong hold over the maharaja.' ' The maharaja had an ambition to make Kashmir 'the Switzerland of the east -a state completely neutral.' In fact, a solution I think, people who stand on the Shankaracharya hill and gaze at the tranquil Dal lake, could well appreciate.

The conflict of 1947-8 have been chronicled well and every shade of opinion and action has been well considered. The book promises to return to Kashmir at regular intervals. Two things held my attention. One was the attached map of Kashmir showing the cease-fire line and the area under the Chinese administration and the other a letter Nehru wrote to the maharaja, 'it is of the most vital importance that Kashmir should remain within the Indian Union.....But however much we may want this, it cannot be done ultimately except through the good will of the mass of the population. Even if military forces held Kashmir for a while, a later consequence might be for a strong reaction against this. Essentially, therefore, this is a problem of psychological approach to the mass of people and of making them feel they will be benefited by being in the Indian Union. If the average Muslim feels that he has no safe or secure place in the Union, then obviously he will look elsewhere. Our basic policy must keep this in view, or else we fail.'

I recall, when I visited Kashmir in the early eighties, the shop owners would term rest of India in one word 'Hind'. They did not ask me if I was a 'Kannad' as a guy from Delhi would classify me! Not really serious as many from the north still think me as a 'Tamil', for them anyone from the south is a Tamil. But things have changed, especially after Bangalore became famous as an IT city. I also remember talking to a 'Tamil' Muslim army officer, whom I knew in Pune. He was posted in Kashmir and he said that living in a Muslim majority state was different. He felt that he belonged! He was talking about his experience culturally and not politically.

Guha's 'India after Gandhi' --Apples in the basket.

It is fascinating to see the map in this chapter that shows both British India and the Princely states. We can see that half of India was not under direct British rule. There were 500+ princely states. (It would be interesting to read the names of these independent pieces of territory.) Anyway barring a few most of them were 'generally viewed as feckless and dissolute, over-fond of race horses and other men's wives and holidays in Europe'.


We all know how hard Patel worked towards unifying the country. Interesting to note his Secretary V.P.Menon, smart, alert and ferociously intelligent, was not from ICS but one who rose from the ranks. The role of Mountbatten in persuading 'the princes that the British would no longer protect or patronize them, and that Independence for them was a mirage', is acknowledged 'as the most significant of all his acts in India'.

In a mere two years, over 500 chiefdoms had been dissolved into fourteen administrative units. 'A stupendous achievement' says the author, 'it had been brought about by wisdom, foresight, and hard work and not a little intrigue.' 'As it turned out only three states gave trouble before august, and three more after that date.'

The stories of these six states well illustrates how the game of politics is played and how negotiations go back and forth, and specially how the role of the main players becomes so important. Importantly, how the fundamental logic of division on which the partition was agreed(!) upon is conveniently forgotten.

Of the six he mentions five do get solved, the accession of Hyderabad is achieved by sending a contingent of Indian troops causing some more bloodshed. 'Those killed in the fighting included forty-two Indian soldiers and two thousand-odd Razakars'. It would now be nightmarish to even think of other possibilities predicted, other than one Nation, that is now India.

I remember I used to be a part of the 'Prabhat Pheri' that Rashtriya Seva Dal held early mornings to pressurise the Maharaja of Mysore to accede. The older kids would be stopped by the police and taken away in vans and lorries out of Bangalore limits and left there to fend for themselves. These kids would walk back and be treated as heroes. We, the younger ones, were disappointed, no end, to be denied this ride in the van. The police would just shoo us away telling us to go home.

About the dissolute princes, this story about the Nizam is typical. My mother, a young woman, visiting Hyderabad went shopping in the main bazaar of the city. While there, she heard a commotion and someone warning that the Nizam was on his way. The women who were in the bazaar immediately ran into shops and hid behind doors and curtains, and my mother was luckily dragged into one of the shops just in time. The fear and the tension she felt was palpable even after years when she told us the story.

Guha's 'Inida after Gandhi' --The logic of division.

The author ends 'Freedom and Parricide' with an observation that 'Gandhi could not reconcile, in life, Hindu with Muslim, but he did reconcile, through his death, Jawaharlal Nehru with Vallabhbhai Patel. It was a of rather considerable consequence for the new and very fragile nation' .

Obviously the reasons for Division of the country would have divided opinions and opposite views. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's Congress Presidential Address, 1940, quoted by the author '..These thousand years of our joint life have moulded us into a common nationality', stikes a chord in us. Similarly, M.A. Jinnah's address around the same time as Muslim League president, in some ways could easily appeal to many...'They never intermarry, not interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different'.

In fact, it would be appear 'true' even now to many, not just Hindus and Muslims but to many other divisions we have in India. I remember as a kid my father, an advocate, had a number of Muslim clients. (I think they saw that religion was not on his mind at all.) They would come home sometimes and my mother invariably would offer them tea in a porcelain cup which was kept seperate and was never used by us! I do not know if they noticed or if they minded, but I did not appreciate it! I was reminded of it, years later when a friend of ours working in Africa, said that when their servants noticed that they were given seperate cups/ plates, they were really upset and left! We do indeed have many such practices that are continued without a thought about their effects on others .

Anyway getting back to the book, I quote the autor, 'The short-sightedness of Congress, Jinnah's ambition, Britain's amorality and cynicism.. .. all might have played a part'. He dwells on many more reasons that managed to separate the two religions during this crucial period. Elections being one of them. (Now it is perpetuation of caste politics, some sort of divide and win.)

In any case the notion of one Nation, it seems was not deep enough to create a strong resistance to partition, which was hastened through once the writing was seen on the wall. This hurry and probably the lack of experience and a lack 'humaneness' which was evident must have caused so much of loss of life.

The concluding paragraph has me looking forward to his assessment as I read on. He states 'While the debates continue to rage about the causes of Partition, somewhat less attention has been paid to its consequences. These were considerable indeed - as this book will demonstrate. The division of India was to cast a long shadow over demography, economics, culture, religion, law, international relations, and party politics'.

Picking up the pieces -- Freedom and Parricide. Guha's 'India after Gandhi'

His prologue ends with a question 'why is there an 'India' at all? We use a similar turn of phrase sometimes, when we are upset about something 'Indian'. An expression one would use for an unwanted child. This is how I felt after I read the chapter 'Freedom and Parricide'. I had to look up the dictionary to get the exact meaning. 'Killing a parent or a relative'.

Picking up pieces is a neat English expression, while we probably are still at it, we are reminded again that the country started with picking up about a million dead bodies. We also get to know the frenetic pace at which events unfolded, largely uncontrollable.

We learn the significance of Jan 26, the day Indian National Congress held country wide demonstration for Purna Swaraj in the year 1930. When freedom came to India, I went with our neighbours to Madras. I remember the festivities and the excitement but not really much in detail, I was nine years old. I recall that later two streets which were predominantly Muslim got empty and the mosque near by was eerily quiet. I and a friend entered the mosque out of curiosity and the lone person who was there, spoke nicely to us but very seriously advised that it was not a good idea to visit the mosque at these times.

The story of the time, mostly about Gandhi desperately trying to bring peace back into the regions he kept visiting on foot many times, for a 77 year old is utterly amazing. Nehru trying to reduce the damage through administrative measures and holding fast to the concept of India as a democratic secular state, in spite of the partition and the horrific events that followed is also remarkable. I don't think the enormity of crimes committed against innocent people (relatives!) is really understood by those who are not victims.

The issues are so complex, the benefit of hindsight is not very likely to help. Irrespective of who all are to be blamed for this catastrophe, our real focus should be to try and understand what makes so many of us so evil. What triggers this mass madness! I do not know if there is any information about the casualties, how many from villages were affected or was it all in towns and cities?

My Reading of Ramachandra Guha's India after Gandhi..Prologue

The title of the prologue 'Unnatural Nation' disturbs me as I suppose it was meant to. Exasperating, yes we all agree, but to concur that it is unnatural is not easy. Guha says: 'Because they are so many, and so various, the people of India are also divided. It appears to have been always so'. Would one term the Amazonian rain forest as unnatural, because of its variety, I assume not. But, then he quotes Mirza Ghalib 'Why has not the dooms day come? ... Who holds the reins of the Final Catastrophe'. (Chirag-i-Dair. 1827).

I learn that after the 1857 mutiny the British took a firmer control through the famed Indian Civil Service and improved infrastructure. He also refers to, most of us would have heard mentioned, the various pronouncements made to oppose the call of Independence. 'There was no Indian nation or country in the past; nor would there be on in the future'. 'The Indians could not govern themselves'. 'to abandon India to the rule of the Brahmins would be an act of cruel and wicked negligence'. 'India will fall back into the barbarism and privations of the Middle ages'. (These quotes are all with a cross reference in the book.) He also mentions that many Indians also shared this view and a few still want to break away from India.

The doomsayers continued even after 1947. 'That India could sustain democratic institution seems, on the face of it, highly improbable'. Luckily there is at least one sympathetic quotation (1969). ' Yet there is a resilience about India which seems an assurance of survival. There is something which can only be described as an Indian spirit.

He thus deduces, 'The heart hoped that India would survive, but the head worried that it wouldn't. The place was too complicated, too confusing - a nation, one might say, that was unnatural'.

He also speaks of the Rajpath in Delhi, used as a street for protests by people from all over India with issues, hoping to get the attention of the Indian government and seeking solutions! And about this book, 'However, like the book that I once intended to write- based on a year spent walking up and down Rajpath - this too is a story, above all, of social conflicts, of how these arise, how they are expressed, and how their resolution is sought'.

(I really liked his idea of a story of Rajpath. I had thought of writing about walking in different cities in different countries and had made some notes as well!)

As a historian, he looks at conflict as running along many axes, caste, language, religion and class as the four pre-eminent ones and a fifth, that of gender. He avers that: 'At no other time or place in human history have social conflicts been so richly diverse, so vigorously articulated, so eloquently manifest in art and in literature, or addressed with such directness by the political system or the media.

He then analyses the history of independent India by creating what he terms as 'conflict maps' and infers that much more than 50 per cent of India was comfortably at peace with itself even at its 'dangerous decades'. He states that more than stories of India's economic success, the real success lies not in the domain of economics but in that of politics.

A statistical analysis 'the odds against democracy were extremely high' prompts him to say: 'The forces that divide India are many.This book pays due attention to them. But there are also forces that have kept India together, they have helped transcend or contain the cleavages of class and culture, that- so far, at least- have nullified those many predictions that India would not stay united and not stay democratic'.

He has dwelt on the available literature or lack of it, which interests a contemporary historian. Also on the challenges of a contemporary historian. 'The reader is also a citizen, a critical citizen, with individual political and ideological preferences'. Another challenge is 'the historian also is a citizen' and also 'the closer one gets to the present, the more judgemental one tends to become'.

(The frame work of his book is very clear and is very thought-provoking for a concerned citizen and a layman like me. As I continue to read his book, I hope that we will come to grasp the 'Mantra' that he has detected, which seems to be holding us together! He calls them 'moderating influences'.

I remember trying to coax my father to write about his times. He was 39 when India became independent and saw 48 years as a citizen of India. While he was not in the forefront he did meet many of the notable participants. I wish he had written!)