Title: Lefts hidden
agenda exposed
Author: Meenakshi Jain
Publication: The Weekend
Observer
Date: April 1, 2000
THE fraternity of leftist
historians is understandably incensed at the public exposure of its duplicitous
handling of the Towards Freedom project. Several decades of unchallenged
academic dominance have rendered it unaccustomed to dissent, much less
to a frontal assault on its invention of historical events. That the Hindu
community, which it has been busy whittling down in its heavily slanted
tomes, should actually have succeeded in putting a halt to its activities
must make its discomfiture doubly difficult to endure.
While the focus has naturally
been on deliberate Marxist attempts to fudge evidence in a bid to create
a larger than life role for leftist political organizations, trade union
movements and peasant revolts in the freedom struggle, to the detriment
of other key players, it needs to be reiterated that this is not the entire
story of leftist manipulation. A pernicious hidden agenda has been in operation,
not just in leftist rendition of the independence struggle, but in its
treatment of the entire gamut of Indian history.
Briefly put, leftist
historiography has systematically worked for the dissolution of the Hindu
community and the dislodgment of Hinduism from its pivotal position in
the land of its origin. In the name of scientific study, an entire left
controlled academic industry has fractured the Hindu phalanx at every conceivable
joint possible, in the hope that a day would dawn when there would be no
Hindu constituency left. Brahmins, for instance, have been portrayed as
opposed to and distinct from Kshatriyas, the latter from Vaishyas, who
in turn are said to share nothing in common with Shudras, not to mention
the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. These formations, in turn, have been further
split into numerous exclusive and fractious units. In the process, the
essential cohesiveness and mutual inter-dependence of the Hindu community
has been negated and denied. It has been a conscious and consistent endeavour
to create a new people.
Given the strong anti-Hindu
animus of Marxist historiography, it was both logical and inevitable that
this scholarship would come under attack when the Hindu community was sufficiently
advanced on the road to recovery. Hindus have come centre- stage and attained
a degree of political consolidation unimaginable a few decades ago, while
the economy is attracting favourable international response. Arth and rajniti
reasonably under control, the community is in a position to take on its
intellectual detractors.
Myths of Aryan/ Dravidian,
Brahmin/ Non-Brahmin, Forward/ Backward, Caste Hindu/ Scheduled Caste,
Hindu/ Tribal and sundry such divides which had dissipated Hindu energies
for long, have exhausted their divisive potentialities and historical respectability,
and are being swept aside by assertive integrationist forces. Simultaneously,
a growing corpus of non-leftist works has rent gaping holes in the main
body of Marxist treatises.
While these are undoubtedly
major gains, they are yet a build-up to the main battle, whose outcome
will have a profound bearing on Indian polity. Marxist scholarship, it
can no longer be denied, has perverted every debate within the country
to the detriment of the Hindus. What is proving particularly pernicious
in the present context of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and Vatican-backed
proselytisation, is that it has set the terms, indeed even determined the
discourse on nationality. Overruling the fact that this discourse is naturally
conducted within the parameters of culture and religion, Marxists have
made concerted efforts to de-link India from its ancient ethos and make
the national identity culturally and spiritually neutral. The end result
has been to disarm and emasculate Hindus and thwart their just aspirations.
The illegitimacy of the
leftist endeavour can be gauged from the fact that the vital link between
Hindu tradition and India was readily conceded even by that very group
which sought to make a formal break with Hindu society. Though deeply disenchanted
with Hinduism for permitting the horror of untouchability, the Dalit leader,
Dr Ambedkar, was hard put to find an exit route for his community. His
dilemma, as a recent study puts it, was not in leaving "the Hindu fold,
but the fold of Indianness with which Hinduism was so obstinately identified".
It was an acknowledgement
of this reality that led Ambedkar to reject Christianity, Islam and Marxism
as viable alternative centres of identity for his breathren. He repeatedly
referred to the former as 'foreign' religions which would further 'de-nationalise'
an already alienated people. Transnational alliances, he insisted, could
not be the route to Dalit empowerment.
Ambedkar was equally
dismissive of class solutions to the problem of Harijan identity. The aim
of Communist philosophy, he said, seemed to be "to fatten pigs as though
men are no better than pigs. Man must grow materially as well as spiritually."
Ambedkar's great fear, the above mentioned study says, was that a secular
and materialist response would annihilate Dalit consciousness of their
past, besides inducing 'cultural paralysis' that would prevent them from
claiming an identify for themselves.
Far-fetched though it
may seem to those unfamiliar with the nuances of leftist scholarship, it
is precisely such a 'cultural paralysis' that it strove to induce on the
larger Hindu community. By sweeping aside crucial issues of culture and
civilization, it aimed to produce a soporific effect and blunt Hindu responses
on matters of grave concern to them. The freedom movement, which was part
of a larger effort to revive and re-connect Hindus with their ancient civilizational
heritage, was divested of its cultural underpinnings and misrepresented
as a mere politico-economic struggle. What is worse, it demeaned the stalwarts
who conducted that grand struggle by depicting it as a collectivity of
countless small subaltern tussles, without any grand plan or strategy.
But, as Ambedkar's responses reveal, cultural and civilizational issues
were the heart of the matter. That was why he was determined to retain
the Indian cultural heritage for his followers, even while breaking ties
with Hinduism, as evident in his stand on the temple entry movement. He
fought bitterly for the right of Harijans to access Hindu sacred structures
because he knew temples were a cultural symbol representing the essence
of India.
With hindsight, it can
be argued, that it was Ambedkar's resolve not to forsake Indian culture
that played a major role in the eventual integration of Dalits into Hindu
society, and finally made them impervious to evangelical blandishments.
By de-linking Hinduism and India, leftist scholarship sought to retard
this very process. But despite their stout resistance, the issue of the
cultural content of Indian nationalism has finally came to the surface,
as in evident in the current contests over the manner in which history
should be documented, written and taught, the school curriculums, and post-graduate
syllabus revisions. Indeed, this is precisely that makes their desperation
so very palpable.
(The author is a reader,
Delhi University)
