THE STORY OF INDIA REDISCOVERED: the foreword

India’s 1st “census” of sorts was compiled during the tenure of Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II back in the late 1700s and was more in the nature of a complicated head count than anything else. Historians have long been at loggerheads about the nature of this effort that, to say the least, was unexpected from the person who, symbolically at least, gave away our independence.

While some historians say that the idea wasn’t really his, but belonged to a more farsighted courtier; the nationalist school of history has claimed that it was a more Anglo-French initiative (British in the North & East and French in the West & South) to see what wealth lay to be taken. Although both schools have a great deal of evidence to support their respective claims, they are united on the issue of caste having not been an issue at those times; in other words no one made such a big hue and cry over it.

Now in 2011, 230 odd years down the line, the Govt. of India has agreed to include Caste in the census. That they have pushed Indian society back a good 100 years is not in doubt; neither is that fact that they’re bowing down to parties that have made caste their primary ladder to power; the important question is how do we get out of this almighty rut.

Nehru, the founder of modern India and its 1st family, not to mention its 1st PM was not only an atheist but a socialist to boot; that means he neither believed in God, nor the baseless and superfluous distinctions between men. He, doubtless, would have strongly disapproved of the doings of his party, just as he strongly disapproved of Gandhi’s acceptance of “reserved constituencies” for social and religious minorities back in 1935. The problem, then, was that Ambedkar, leader of the dalits, and Jinnah of the (then nascent) Muslim League were far more astute thinkers and negotiators than they were thought to be (by Nehru who was more of an idealist than anything else). Also they were neither impressed nor bowled over by Gandhi’s charm offensives and PR gambits; and since on both occasions Gandhi (who was never a formal member of the Congress Party) carried on these negotiations alone, disaster was bound to ensue.

The past, as they say, is history; and the world has certainly moved on since then. In 2007, for the 1st time in human history, more people around the world will live in cities than in the country side. India, as always, will be an exception to this; but even here the country side has changed. The India that Gandhi said lived in its villages is long gone, yet why does caste still play such a major role in people’s lives today and can the people do something to stop this relentless march to divisive policies.

One answer is to look to the urban middle class. Some say that when the urban, educated middle class makes up 50%-65% of the population, the politicians will have to change their rhetoric to suit these new aspirations, but that is still generation away at best. Even a progressive western education might not be enough to ward off the evils that befell our forefathers. The recent spate of caste-based honor killings in UP, Bihar and Haryana (where such things have become disturbingly common) show that even the most broad-minded of parents can be shockingly conservative (read boorish) when it comes to their daughters’ future.

The answer is to look back to India’s past, for clues to its future. The past must be re-examined in the cold light of reason and enlightenment. We must clearly examine every choice made and reflect on the roads not taken to properly gauge the course ahead.

There was once a concept called India, an idea that lived in its people; that idea must be found, its story unearthed and its message rediscovered.

RIGHT LEFT & CENTRE

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), the oldest in the country will hold elections to determine the Mayor of Calcutta.

Needless to say that it’s a hotly contested election, not least because the party in power gets to demand the rates and bribes that need be paid by illegal builders and the transport unions in order to ply their trades. By the estimate of one Bengali newspaper, approximately Rs.52 Crores was paid as bribes by Auto Rickshaw unions alone to the KMC between 2000 and 2009.

The roads to these elections, though, haven’t been without excitement. The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Indian National Congress (INC), despite some initial foreplay never got around to touching the home-base of the pre-poll alliance that many would’ve liked. In the end it came down to seat-sharing that broke up the dalliance.

The TMC, mindful that the INC at New Delhi  had gotten itself Mayawati’s support and thus didn’t “need” the TMC to prop up the UPA II Govt. decided field candidates in 115 out of the 144 wards in the CMC. Their logic was (and is) that as the more dominant out of the 2 parties in the state, it had a right to those seats. They also might have wanted the INC to see this as a show of strength as the West Bengal State Assembly elections are in 2011. The congress, for its part didn’t play ball as most of its senior members felt that they weren’t being offered a fair shot and that the terms offered were humiliating, especially since the INC had been in politics since 1887 and the TMC since the 1990s.

This of course meant that there were several “sessions” of high-powered “committees”. (Party, Working, Executive, Parliamentary, Joint-Parliamentary etc.)

It all came to naught in the end with neither party budging from its stated position.

This was good news to the dutiful folk at CPI(M) Headquarters at Alimuddin Street. The Left Front has been beleaguered of late with infighting and general dissolutionment not to mention the Maoists. Then there was the issue of them loosing several key seats including 25 to the TMC & allies in the Lok Sabha Bye-elections of 2009. There is also the matter of grooming a suitable successor to Buddhadeb Bhattacharyya and Nirupam Sen, both of whom are getting along in their years.

Whatever may be the case, the Left Front is sitting pretty at the moment as their vote-bank of transport, labor and unskilled office staff unions remains largely intact; something Mamata “didi” Bannerjee is acutely aware off. The problem lies in her decision to fight everyone on all fronts.

As far as the CMC elections go the TMC are in a good position. Even if the pre-poll alliance failed, there’s always a general joint-agreement, with the INC, to fight the Left Front to fall back upon incase the 2 parties decide to patch up after the elections, if for nothing else, just to keep the Communists out.

Whether the powers that be in each camp will allow that to happen is another matter, for politicians much like peacocks, like to strut their stuff incessantly.