[Written 3 years ago]
Nationalism,
Chauvinism and the Students’ Protest
Ish Mishra
The attack on the
students by the state and the right wing extremism, represented by RSS that
took off with Mr. Modi’s ascendance to power in the center, has intensified in
the last one year along with the ongoing of failures of the government on the
economic fronts. The ruling classes, in order to divert the popular attention
from the major contradictions and to blunt their edge, overplay some minor, mostly
artificial contradictions with sentimental appeals and divert the creative
discourse of dissent into reacting to their agenda. Nationalism is very
sensitive issue as no one would like to be termed as anti-national. Fascists
are intolerant to differing opinions and institutions of higher education with
left and Ambedkarite student activism. As has been widely known by now, the
invasion of JNU with declarations of its being hub of anti-nationalism by
government and RSS ideologues on the basis of the stage managed allegedly
anti-national sloganeering, was premeditated. Why the vicious attack and
slander campaign aginst the students of HCU and JNU, as has been rightly said
by Kanchan Ilaiah, the campuses with a difference (Indian Express, 6 April
2016)? The RSS knows that the Brahmanical values and the hierarchal sense of
devotion that forms its ideological bases, cannot flourish without
saffronization of the higher education. The campuses like JNU and HCU that
encourage and nurture a culture of debate and discourse, a culture of
questioning and dissent are unfertile for saffron growth. The eminent presence
of ideologically Left and Ambdedkarite students is the biggest hurdle. To break
this hurdle the government began to appoint RSS loyalists with redoubtable academic
credentials, mostly upper caste, at the helm of academic and research
institutions was the first step in the direction.
Next step of RSS
design of saffronization of campuses is the generation of ideological following
among the students. That is not possible in the campuses “with a difference”,
with democratic academic culture conducive to the creation and recreation of
rationality, reason and rebellion, but unconducive to the growth of the sense
of devotion and Brahmanical obscurantism. Its student brigade, ABVP cannot have
hold in campuses, where the students derive their inspiration from Bhim Rao
Ambedkar and Bhagat Singh. Therefore it decided to invade the campuses and
discredit the radical student activists, the budding intellectuals as anti-national.
By doing so, it imposed a cultural war on students. The students have taken up
the challenge. The campuses all over the country have risen in revolt. It is a
war between constitutional nationalism and jingoistic national chauvinism as
propagated by various RSS fronts. The fascist attack on HCU and JNU brought
together various left students groups’ and the followers of Ambedkar on the
same platform. Rohith Vemula’s martyrdom proved to be the turning point. JNU
students were, at the time, engaged in the protracted Occupy UGC agitation
against government policy and planning under JNUSU leadership. Rohith’s
martyrdom brought about the much awaited unity of the Jay Bhim and Lal Salam
slogans and JNU became the hub of agitation. This made the right wing extremism
desperate that invaded JNU for its “anti-nationalism”.
The difference between
modern fascism and the premodern princely despotism is that the former has
solid ideological following with a sense of unconditional devotion, armed with
Goebbelsian machinery of misinformation and rumor that goes down to common
people, who are not willing to reason, as reality. It does not appeal to the
popular reason but to the popular emotions with its own constructs of
nationalism and antinationalism; patriotism and sedition. As we know from the
historical experiences, the fascists are most scared of the ideas that question
and expose their designs. Therefore their paramilitary brigades disrupt the
opponents’ programs and discourses with the war cries of nationalism. Mussolini’s
Black Shirts and Hitler’s Storm Troopers (SA) are the glaring historical
examples. ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, is doing exactly the same. Instead
of organizing its own programs on nationalism, it has been indulging into
disrupting others’ programs, be it on nationalism, Ambedkar or Bhagat Singh,
with war cries of Bharat Mata Ki Jay. The slogan that once symbolized and
evoked a sense of belonging to a historical unity of a place and people evolved
through the anti-colonial struggles has become disruptionist ploy in the hands
ABVP to scare the opponents. Unable to counter the ideas by ideas, its leaders,
it seems, have decided upon single point program of violent disruption of
others’ right of freedom to ideas, in the name of patriotism or nationalism.
What is Nationalism?
Why are the students of the institutions of higher education in general, and
IIT Madras, Hyderabad Central University and JNU being persecuted and branded
as anti-national? It is to be noted the aforesaid institutions are ranked in
the top five in the country by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Is
the nationalism, as the mythological claim of the right wing extremism, a
legacy of some antiquity? Nationalism is not the legacy of any real or mythical
past but a historically evolved modern ideology of the modern nation state that
rose in Europe on the ruins of a regressive feudalism. As Benedict Anderson has
rightly pointed out in The Imagined Communalities, the concept of nationalism
as a new identity criterion and as a hegemonic ideology “was born in an age
when Enlightenment and revolutions were destroying the legitimacy of divinely
ordained hierarchical dynastic realm”. In pre modern days, there was no
nationalism but loyalty to the “divinely ordained” and the divinity of the
ruler’s authority was testified by the religion as its ideology. From the
beginning of the premeditated attack on JNU with aggressive slanderous
campaigns, of RSS think tank is pooling its all the intellectual resources to
link the death of a soldier on the border with JNU’s “anti-nationalism”. In
pre-modern days, the soldier of the king’s army was not moved by any patriotic
sense but as a mercenary warrior with allegiance of loyalty to his employer,
the king or the feudal lord in the same way as Indian soldier of British Indian
army owed allegiance to the colonial rulers. People do not join army for
patriotism but for a secure job.
In Europe, nationalism
emerged as an ideology of the modern nation state to validate the authority of
the national government. The God, as source of the validity of authority was
replaced by an abstract idea of “people” and religion was replaced by an
undefined notion of “nationalism” as the validating ideology. Historically
sedition and anti-nationalism have been used to silence the political dissent.
As is well known that the Sedition Law, under which the JNU students are
charged, was enacted by the colonial rulers to crush the national movement.
Nazi mayhem, persecution of political dissent under McCarthyism in 1950s in the
USA and authoritarianism of emergency days in India are just the few glaring
examples of oppression in the name of nationalism and perceived national
security.
In India, nationalism
emerged as an anti-colonial ideology. The Indian Freedom Struggle generated
many ideologies. Some sought to unite Indians as a nation of a composite
culture across the regional, social and religious diversities. Some that sought
to perpetuate such diversities and divisions to derail the nationalist march.
The colonial rulers with the memories of the popular unity of 1857’s “India’s
War of Independence”, still fresh in the mind, adopted the policy of
divide& rule and began to utilize all the possible social cleavage for the
purpose. It is to be noted that but for the treacherous colonial loyalty of
India’s princely states, like Shindhia’s of Gwalior 1857 could have proved to
be the end of colonial rule and plunder. As Gyanendra Pandey ha well documented
in his book Construction of Communalism in the Colonial North India,
communalism has been a deliberate colonial construct. The reactionary sections
of Indian society, knowingly, unknowingly became colonial tool against the
anti-colonial, inclusive nationalism by propounding ahistorical theories of
religion based nationalism – the Hindu and the Muslim nationalism. This, as is
history now, gave rise to two-nation theory leading to the cruel partition of
the country, the wounds of which continue to bleed in the form of Kashmir
issue.
Thus like nationalism,
communalism too is modern ideology born out of the womb of colonial capitalism
on the foundations of supposed religious exclusionism, communal diffidence and
hatred. The communal ideologies, promoted by imperialist forces emerged in
opposition to secular, inclusive and composite nationalism being shaped by the
various streams of anti-colonial struggles. Hindu and Islamic communalisms in
India, represented by Hindu Mahasabha and RSS and Muslim league and
Jamat-e-Islami respectedly, are not ideological cousins but twins, which not
only complement each other but also reinforce each other as both exhorted their
followers not to waste energy in fighting the British rule but preserve it for
fighting each other that they did when the end of colonial rule became
imminent. Golwalkar is categorical in condemning both the streams of freedom
struggle – the Gandhian and the revolutionary represented by Bhagat Singh and
his Comrades -- as born out of the darkness of ignorance, while RSS aims to
take the country at some undefined glory. A comparative study of communal
ideologies is beyond the scope of this article; they hold not only similar but
congruent views on most of the substantial socio-economic and political issues.
On the basis of its role in the freedom struggle, Congress assumed the power
after the partitioned independence under the leadership of Nehru. The
constitution drafted by Baba Saheb BR Ambedkar envisions a democratic, secular
India committed to social and economic justices to Indian masses. The concept
of Hindu or Muslim nationalism is violation of the spirit of the constitution
embodied in the preamble. According to the noted historian, Eric Hobsbawm,
nationalism is allegiance to the constitution. Branding the radical young
scholars of JNU and HCU as anti-national and their arrest for using their
constitutional rights of freedom to thought and expression is a contempt to the
constitution and hence anti-national. Claims of being a Hindu nationalist are
violation of the preamble of the constitution and hence an anti-national act.
The paradox is that anti-nationals are issuing certificates of nationalism.
The Brahmanical,
fascist onslaught on the campuses of the higher education beginning with the
ban on Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle(APSC) on the charge of “spreading hatred”
against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindus, does not seem to stop
so does the students’ radical resistance to it. The repression by state’s
coercive machinery is added and abetted by ABVP and other RSS fronts. Like the
Nazi Storm troopers in Germany in 1933 have taken upon themselves to violently
disrupt the opponents’ programs with Police as mute spectators. The physical
coercion, including the tortures and abuses to Hyderabad Central University
(HCU) teachers and students by the Police, is consistently accompanied by the
aggressive hate campaign of sedition against them. The Prime Minister of India,
Mr. Narendra Modi called upon the BJP workers in its national executive meeting
to make the nationalism as the main plank of political mobilization. Before
that BJP President, Amit Shah had exhorted the workers of the party and other
RSS auxiliaries to focus on JNU. Just before that, the Finance Minister of the
country had told a gathering of BJP’s youth wing, BJYM that the ABVP has won
the “ideological battle in JNU”. Subsequently, he elaborated his point by
telling the PTI that their view has been accepted by the majority, probably
through some astrological referendum. All three of them, in a clichéd pattern
continue to repeat the Goebbelsian lie about controversial slogans despite the
proven fact that the videos with Bharat Ki Barbadi (destruction of India)
slogans attributed to JNU student leaders, telecasted by the “nationalist”
channels were doctored.
Mr. Jaitley is right
in terming the ongoing tussle between, metaphorically speaking, JNU and
jingoism, as an ideological battle. But his proclamation of victory is too
hasty and doubtable as the battle is on, only the future will tell the result.
This might prove the first battle of the seemingly long drawn
ideological/intellectual civil war between the ideologies of constitutional
nationalism, as proclaimed by the students and communal jingoism, propagated by
RSS; between the forces of progress relying on reason and historical
observation and the forces of corporate-Brahmanism relying on irrational belief
and Goebbelsian propaganda.
17.04.2016
Ish Mishra
Associate Professor
Dept. of Political
Science
Hindu College
University of Delhi
Delhi 110007
Ph. 9811146846
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