Civilization: Democracy, Indian Tradition and Nehru - A response to Ashutosh Varshney

Recently, Shri. Narendra Modi became the first Prime Minister - if not the first prominent politician -  to  claim that democracy is integral to our nation and is in our blood. That he said this in the Parliament of India, as the Prime Minister, further as part of a Speech thanking the President of India's Thanking address in the Budget Session - makes it now an integral part of nation's history. That he said in response to the opposition leader Shri. Mallikarjun Kharge who claimed Shri. Nehru as the giver democracy to India - positions Shri. Modi's response as an essential correction to the long standing misrepresentation of India's past by Nehruvians, if not Shri. Nehru himself. From here on, a new history must begin.

Naturally, there was pandemonium in the well trenched liberal academic sections of India. All ideologically affiliated magazines and news papers carried editorials and retorts from expected quarters. As part of it, Shri. Ashutosh Varshney wrote a seemingly well argued, certainly well toned article (Link Here) in his regular column in the Indian express. The purpose of this post is to dissect his proposition and demonstrate why Shri. Modi's claim holds good.

To put it in a nutshell, Varshney makes his argument by identifying critical elements of modern democracy as listed below

• Contestation (Freedom to stand for elections)
• Participation (Universal Adult Franchise) three points
• Freedom of Speech
• Freedom of Religious Practice
• Freedom of Association

His criticism them can be summarized through the following points.

1. He concedes that some democratic practices did exist in India's past - in states like Lichchavis and Buddhist regions. He sadly misses to refer to Uttiramerur - we shall come to this example later.
2. But he disagrees if any of those democratic practices were universal at all. He claims that they were all restricted democratic practices. Interestingly, he quotes a lot of European realities in a greater detail than India. Ofcourse, he refers to the so called Caste System in India. Net-net the criticism is that Universal participation was unathaema. While he does not explicitly say what he alludes to is that they were not sufficiently democracy and hence the potential of life that could be achieved through modern democracy were not achieved by those organizations. Nevertheless, he does not sufficiently investigate to those democracies of the past explicitly or in its effectiveness.
3. His fundamental claim is that Nehru departed from these old prejudices. He grudgingly admits that others did make important contributions but Nehru and Ambedkar led the transition. Hence, Nehru needs to be accorded the heralded status of creating the modern democratic society of India and unleashed its true potential.
4. Nehru led the first three elections without which democracy would not have rooted itself deeply into the system. 

Hence, Shri. Modi's claim does not hold good and a differentiated credit to Nehru for the same is well deserving.

Now, let us investigate into each of these claims.

1. Firstly, if you look at the history of India, particularly in the regions ruled by Hindu Kings, there is ample evidence that Freedom of Speech existed although an explicit reference to such a Principle cannot be found in texts as in a modern book. However, such a reference was absent because culturally it was such a valued reality that they have not needed to explicitly state that. Further, no Smriti (including the much maligned Manusmriti) speaks of any punishment that can be considered as a violation of Freedom of Expression. All epics and other works have innumerable references which can be considered as a violation of FoE. This much Varshney cannot deny. Hence, it is safe to conclude that FoE was part of the Culture without it being a Principle of Law that needed to be stated explicitly. 

2. As much can be said about Freedom of Religious Practice as well. In most of the Hindu Kingdoms any religious persecution is almost minimal. There have been exceptions but they have been just that - exceptions. This is primarily the reason why communal riots are almost unheard in the Pre-British era. The British Merchants, Administrators, Missionaries have not recorded any instance of such persecution. During the Sultanate period, even during extreme times of forced religious conversion, the example of Hindu-Muslim riots engineered by the Kingdoms is almost non-existent. No Smriti speaks of punishment for any crime that can be considered as religious persecution. Hence, it can be summarized as existing in the culture of the  land without the need of an explicit Law statement - atleast in the Hindu Kingdoms of India.

3. Freedom of Association certainly was limited in India however not without dynamism. They were not as static as made out by the modernists. The fundamental unit of society was a community. There is no evidence of people being unhappy with the association of their communities. If anything conflict and unhappiness has been between communities. There has been persecution within communities but individuals have fought within their communities. Further, associations/communities could move dynamically in the social space of relationships. For eg., Mahars had a higher status during Peshwas than during British.

  While the social situation can be described as different from that of the modern era, that does not necessarily make it undemocratic. When most of life was confined to a community, democratic temper and space was sufficient if it existed within the community. We need to make apple to apple comparisons. What needs to be investigated is the extent of democracy that existed within a community and the negotiating power that communities had with other communities and what role the Kingdoms played in this. Did communities have democratic power to deal with other communities without collapsing into disadvantage?

4.  Contestation and Participation needs to be dissected in two different dimensions.

• Firstly, it needs to be investigated if any democratic practice of India's past is comparable to a modern democratic practice. If yes, atleast at a thought level, there is a clear demonstration that our ancients had intellectually realized advanced organizations and collectively implemented them - which brings them on parity with us in the 20/21st century era. Here, the practice in the temple town of Uttiramerur deserves attention. The contestation and participation process is well documentation on the temple walls of Uttiramerur and they belong to the 10th century Chola period. The description, sophistication and the design is not only comparable to that of modern practices but at places goes beyond the design of today. Its quite remarkable and undeniable. While ancient Indians have not shown a great interest to document such things in good measure, for a change here the entire process is inscribed on the temple wall - which the modern scholars are forced to accept. The critical point to be appreciated is  - such a practice and design cannot evolve in isolation. It should have minimally been in practice across Chola Kingdom if not the entire subcontinental region. Further, such practices must have been followed in the future centuries as well. What is more important is such examples can be found scattered across the country and across centuries - which certainly gives credence to claims of democratic tradition and practices in India.
• Why dont we find such evidences uniformly across the country and at all times? Indians have not been known for documentation - firstly. Secondly, the modern Indian historians have been notorious in their ignoring of such practices. Even for curiosity's stake a political  scientist such as Varshney does not show a genuine curiosity in the stone inscription of Uttiramerur. If they dig they will find more. 

       Hence, while we cannot establish uniform, universal practice of democracy  like in 20th Century, there is enough evidence which must force academic agencies of India to dig further in that direction.

5. More importantly, the design of Indian society of the past must be appreciated. Today, a modern democracy with complex electoral practices and institutions is required for two reasons

• we have reduced communities to individuals
• we have converted a communitarian society into an amorphous society with tremendous potential for movement and change. 

   To manage such a society that cannot crystallize into communities you need such institutions. However, a communitarian society such as ancient India probably did not need such complex institutions and documented democracy to manage and realize its essence within communities. As established by Dharampal, the village communities were nothing short of the smallest democratic societies without the complex processes. The way they chose their choosing their leader and negotiated a shared community life - until the British turned it upside down - cannot be so easily dismissed. Political Scientists tend to overestimat the importance of democratic process because they have only seen an amorphous society of large scale. They havent seen highly connected communities where people know about each other in a higher degree. If you ask me to elect who should represent me in my apartment you need very simple democracy. However, if you ask me to elect somebody who represents me in the whole of my City then you need a complex democracy.

   You cannot fault a society for creating an efficient society where it dissolved the democratic process into democratic spirit, and not opting for a social organization that would force it to need complex democratic processes. Net-net you cant compare democratic practises of a community society that had less of a scale problem with its modern counterparts.

Now, coming to Shri. Modi's statement - fundamentally Nehru's efforts were successful because of a long standing democratic spirit in India. This spirit was the result of centuries of democratic practices of a different nature for a different organization of the society. The reason where elsewhere democracy was collapsing into dictatorship but held itself in India is because of this tradition and cultural sensitivity/readiness. People could make a seamless transition because our ancestors have transferred an outlook needed to sustain the modern democratic practices. Ofcourse, Nehru must be credited for what he did. He has played an undeniable role however, that cannot be overstated. The problem with Nehruvians is that they seem to believe history started in 1947 in India is concerned and all that is good must be attributed to Nehru. However, the fundamental reality is that the culture and tradition of India is far bigger than Shri. Nehru and whatever his contributions are worth for. The political excess of the right wing to deny credit to Nehru comes from this excessive overplaying of Shri. Nehru's role.  Partly Nehru himself and mostly the Nehruvians have played a big part in this overstating of his role and deny India's past its due. Hence, when people like Varshney complain of Nehru being wronged with we have no other option but to say "Those living in Glass Houses should not throw stones at others".

Historians, Academicians and Political Scientists like Varshney must make a genuine investigation of social/cultural/organizational practices in India which have created democratic spirit in us and helped us transition into the democracy that we are living in today. Instead, they do two easy things

1. Go back to the same old criticism of Caste system of India
2. Misrepresent right-wing criticism, convert it  into convenient forms that can be criticised and then apply standard modern frameworks, parameters etc., to criticise. 

Shri. Modi spoke of democratic tradition in India. He never said India had exactly the same kind of democracy as we have it today. However, we did have such practices and that is the reason why democracy is sustaining today. Hence, Nehru cannot be solely or hugely credited for its sustenance in India. Even his contribution as a giver of post-1947 democracy must be duly shared by the Constituent Assembly, the Draft Committee, Dr. Ambedkar, Patel and even Sir. BN Rau who wrote the first draft which then was reviewed and updated over 4 years. In summary, the tradition of India carries a far greater credit in front of which Shri. Nehru is nothing but a pygmy.