A Response To 'The Economist's' Attack On Modi

An article by author and public intellectual Ramachandra Guha, in The Economist last month, may portend the kind of attacks Prime Minister Narendra Modi could face in 2022.

Guha begins his piece thus:

Note how Guha presents bhakti—a Hindu spiritual tradition—as a social deficiency that hurts democracy, to his Western audience. What Guha hides from his Western readers is that the warning of Dr. Ambedkar against ‘hero worship’ (which he wrongly associates with bhakti), was actually a criticism of what he considered as the blind adoration which the people of India then had for recently deceased Gandhi and the then Prime Minister Nehru.

Let us look at the words of Dr. Ambedkar himself:

Now let us remember that this speech was made in 1949 – two years after Indian Independence and barely a year after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

When one reads the above passage it is easy to understand what and whom Dr Ambedkar was referring to.

In fact, Dr. Ambedkar had gone on to say that the evil act of assassination of the Mahatma had actually made the people free of bondage from supermen; and had made them stand on their own and think for themselves.

Life long, Dr. Ambedkar had shown disdain for the adoration that the masses showed for Gandhi. In his famous talk on Ranade, he had criticised it in a veiled manner. True enough, the Gandhi cult in India always presented him as a Hindu God – morphing him into popular postures or placing him in tableaux related to the deities.

However, what is known as the bhakti movement itself had a persistent positive effect on the social emancipation processes in India. Far from making herds out of the masses, bhakti has been the vital core of social emancipation.

If one has the capacity to look at Dr. Ambedkar’s words and values integrally, one would find that his was not a Protestant-inspired secular worldview of the West. Despite his harshest criticism of Hinduism, he recognised the importance of religion and the virtues in the religious culture of India and wanted them to be preserved. Unlike Nehru, he was pained by the indifference to religion.

In 1935, Dr. Ambedkar had declared that he was born a Hindu but would not die as one. Even so, in 1938, talking to the workers at the Manmad Railway workers conference, he observed:

He was born in Kabir-panth, the spiritual community of the bhakti saint, Kabir.

Dr. Ambedkar also held the view that the Vedanta of Shankara, through the bifurcation of paramarthika and vyavakarika, halted the spread of equality to the vyavakarika sphere: It was only Ramanuja who courageously and consistently advocated the cause of equality.

It should be remembered that for all his disdain for bhakti – particularly as found in the Chockamela tradition, Dr. Ambedkar had deep emotional and psycho-spiritual roots in Ramananda-Kabir bhakti tradition, which associates itself with the Vedantic tradition of Sri Ramanuja, which in turn traces itself to the bhakti tradition of the Alwars.

Even Gandhi, someone who Dr Ambedkar always opposed, worked to take the freedom movement to the masses on his part. He inspired Hindus to fight untouchability and take up freedom struggle at a mass scale. In the final analysis, the Hindu way of the depiction of Gandhi only strengthened democracy.

Comparatively, most dictators who committed mass murders in the twentieth century did it in the name of 'secular' ideologies-from national socialism of Hitler to Marxism of Pol Pot (though the anti-semitism of Hitler had Christian roots).

But such a depiction of positive, deeper dimensions of Indian spirituality and culture does not suit the agenda of our writer.

Of his own modern trinity, as described in the piece, of Gandhi-Nehru-Ambedkar, Guha is uncomfortable with Gandhi's Hindu Dharma and Ambedkar's nationalism. The most comfortable he is, is with Nehru.

It is Nehru's India, whose loss he laments. But what was actually Nehru's India?

In Guha's worldview, Nehru was a paragon of democracy. In his deeds, Nehru was a cultist, perhaps unconscious, who initiated the abuse of India's democratic institutions.

It is a matter of record how Nehru humiliated Maniben, the daughter of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, with Dr. Verghese Kurien as witness. At the same time, he allowed his own daughter, Indira Gandhi, to become a powerful Working Committee member of the Indian National Congress in 1955. In the same year, after his return from the Soviet Union, Nehru allowed the President of India to violate protocol and invite him at the airport. Then again, Nehru allowed himself to be persuaded to accept the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, for which his name was proposed by the President, violating the procedure. In 1959 again, Nehru persuaded himself to be silent when his daughter was ‘elected’ to become the president of the Congress party.

The only person who could criticise Nehru without serious consequences was Nehru himself. A sad fact that is twisted to be shown as proof that Nehru was a champion of democracy.

Nehru did not hesitate to throw Dharampal, the veteran Gandhian and historian, into the Tihar prison when the latter criticised the former severely.

The government under Nehru also brought the first amendment to the Constitution, restricting freedom of speech. This was when Organiser was critical of the Centre regarding the plight of Bengali Hindus. The magazine criticised the Nehru-Liaqat bonhomie and Nehru was furious. This bonhomie would indeed become the foundation for the 1971 genocide of Bangla Hindus.

The fact remains that India survives as a democracy not because of Nehru's legacy but despite it. Nehru's daughter, Indira Feroz Gandhi, in full dictatorial flourish, was not an exception but a continuation of Nehruvian traits.

Today, one can see the same assumption of the ‘divine right to rule India’ in Rahul Gandhi, when he threateningly brushes aside any journalist daring to ask him questions.

With diminishing adoration from the nation with each passing generation, the dynasty always uses what it thinks is the legacy of Nehru to boost its public image. Intellectuals like Guha, while not directly promoting the dynasty, and even at times criticising the current dynast, promote the Nehru cult.

Coming to Narendra Modi, he has shown democratic resilience in facing the most abusive criticism hurled against him, even as he is making systemic changes.

For example the Padma awards of India are today completely democratized bringing into the awareness of the nation the extraordinary contributions ordinary citizens have made for culture, humanism and environmental protection. Earlier the award selection was not this transparent and was cumbersome.

Simultaneously, Modi also faces tough challenges.

China is a threatening competitor. Along with that, he has to contend with forces which work overtime and threaten to stop developmental projects. Yet, Modi walks the unenviable path of not compromising on democratic values of India, even as he pushes for achieving developmental goals as much and as fast as possible.

Guha also laments the Central Vista project in New Delhi, when the need for the project is proven by the inability of the present buildings to host the current and future needs of the administration housed in them.

Overall, the criticism of Modi by Ramachandra Guha reveals how colonialism and dynastic politics have similar themes in their narrative. Both see India as having a civilisational deficiency and both present themselves as the saviours of the idolatrous heathens.

And they both cannot stand a heathen democracy - which is what an India that has elected Modi represents.