Unlike many people who write with nostalgia about the love and unity and tolerance they had seen in India growing up, i have a very different picture. I did not grow up in a suburban, educated middle class context where all was hunky dory. And I did not grow up in a village filled with caste hatred and violence either.
I grew up in the 1970s and 80s in a middle-of-these-two-extremes kind of place — in airforce camps. And not in the officer’s segment either where the atmosphere was ‘posh’, educated and urban, but in the more plebian air-men’s section where the ill paid foot soldiers of the military lived. Here in those days people were mostly not educated. My mother who had completed her ‘matric’ (10th standard exam) was considered educated among the women and my father who had a correspondence BA degree which did not serve to get him a better job that he had hoped, was educated among men who had mostly joined up at age 16 or 17 after a matric or ‘intermediate’ (12th standard) in a rural school, or not even that. That is how my dad had joined up too but then he got his BA. Most didn’t. And a lot of people were from poor or slightly better than poor families in villages and the airforce camp life was their first, sometimes only exposure outside their villages.
Here I saw prejudices in action. Casteism was rampant — most of the lower caste employees were in menial jobs, and people resented any ‘SC/ST people’ making it into the airman ranks. Even among the other castes there were constant discussions on who was high and who was low,, and certain caste groups were held in contempt. The people from upper castes — Brahmins, Rajputs and Kayasthas (my family was a Kayastha family, I found out much later) boasted of their high status and talked contemptuously about those ‘lower’ , those vulnerable to these judgments tried to hide their castes, and were the butt of merciless jokes if found out. Sometimes there were confrontations too, serious, humorous or a strange and uncomfortable mix of both. And sometimes loud, angry fights broke out and then all the prejudice came out nakedly.
Muslims and Christians were a minority in the ranks and there were groups where they were spoken ill about.
And yet there wasn’t much active hate — people did share each other’s joys and sorrows, enjoyed each other’s festivals and tried out each other’s foods. Sharing food was less with Muslims though — my family made it a point to share in their festivals and invite them back. But most didn’t. And despite the camaraderie my parents too would end up making the odd barbed remark about ‘these mullas’.
Also read: Why it is difficult to appreciate the Congress and the Gandhi family (Part 1)
It was like a mix of many shades of love, hate, tolerance, intolerance, segregation, togetherness, all jumbled up together like a snarl of many colored strings all tangled up — separating them into individual components was a near impossible job.
In school where all children were in the same class, there was much less of this — we gravitated naturally to whoever we gravitated to and that was that. Caste wasn’t a consideration. But then there were vegetarian students who pretended to throw up at the sight of an egg in someone else’s tiffin, and the non-vegetarian students who retaliated by calling them ghaas-phoos (weeds) eaters. There were vegetarian upper caste teachers who mocked Bengalis or Malayalis for eating fish — in class. Or North Indian teachers who caricatured South Indians — in class too. There were upper caste teachers who skipped the lesson on Ambedkar (happened to me three different years — I read the lessons myself at home ) in social studies class, or who used the lessons about Muslim rulers conquering parts of India or the lessons about the partition to paint gory pictures of how brutal the Muslims were, in History class.
Lower caste, poor students were regularly singled out by teachers for low-grade abuse. And since it was all low grade and quite similar to what was going on in our homes and neighbourhoods, we kids did not know it was wrong in any way.
The point of this long description is that I saw an India where hate, prejudice and discrimination were woven really close into the social fabric, but did not result in active violence. If I had lived in rural areas I may have seen a worse picture.
And that is why I am not surprised that the BJP managed to foment this hatred into the monster it has become today so swiftly. The seed was always there, in large numbers, and it is quite easy to water it to life as recent years have shown.
Now, how does it connect with the Congress?
Let me show you. The question I am asking is, what does it take, politically speaking, to keep all of this hate CONTAINED? No one can make anyone give up the hate and fear in their hearts and embrace universal love.
Neutralising that level of hate and creating a genuinely harmonious social fabric is certainly not a feat to be achieved in 70 short years. It is a much more massive job in itself, and especially so with organisations like the RSS actively working to foment the hate..
But the feat that the Congress achieved in its 70 years was to:
a) Keep the hate and fear contained
b) Keep working for progress, despite it.
c) Provide space for the vulnerable sections of society to grow and acquire some power.
Do you seriously think this is an easy feat to pull off? (I did take it for granted so no blame if you do)
Today, despite the hate there is a sizeable Hindu upper class/caste intelligentsia that is speaking up against the hate and for democratic values — how did they come to exist? I will tell you how because I am one of them. It was the education system — those same flawed Kendriya Vidyalay schools, which showed me a vision of a better world, and enabled me to question the hate filled world view in my home and my neighbourhood and choose to be better.
There are young Indians today who are surprised that their parents are suddenly metamorphosing into communal supporters of the BJP since it got to power. Why did these parents not show this side of their personalities earlier? Because the entire politico-social atmosphere created by governance did not support the naked hate, and they knew they had to keep it in check. And with that governance gone now, they are free to come out of the woodwork.
THAT, dear friends, was the feat that the Congress achieved — to keep them in the woodwork and not spilling everywhere like they are now.
Worldwide, right wing forces are a sizeable presence in the power equations. The capitalist forces back them up for their own selfish gains. That shows how hard it is to combat them. Even the USA, the richest and most politically powerful country in the world, and the only other democracy to match India on many points, keeps oscillating between right wing and progressive governments. And India was relatively safe from all of this ugliness for a long long time.
How? Because the Congress successfully kept these forces CONTAINED.
And we can appreciate it only now when it is being destroyed because we grew up in it, like fish in water. We saw the flaws — we saw the safety was not perfect. We saw communal clashes happening, we saw caste injustices, and we let fly at the Congress for it. Nothing wrong with that. But did we also appreciate that with flaws, this safety net was in existence? That it was in itself a rare and precious thing to have?
I am thinking, after Gandhiji was killed by the RSS, what might it have taken for the Congress stalwarts who worked with him and loved and respected him to not persecute the RSS, like its spawn is persecuting democratic forces now? They had the power to do so. Savarkar was released by court for his part in the assassination plot for lack of evidence — which means his democratic rights were safe despite his hideous acts. How much generosity of heart and trust in democratic values does it take to do that?
Congress is often blamed for not crushing the RSS outright, even for actively nurturing it. But think — India is a country steeped in religion and caste and prejudice, and taking a political stance that is completely indifferent to those values would have eroded the Congress’s support base big time. And we would have fallen prey to these forces much earlier.
And even today, after all the damage the BJP has done to this carefully put together balance, they are not talking hate. Even today, even as Rahul Gandhi heads an all out fight against these forces of hate, he still says they are that way because of fear, not because of some inherent corruption or wickedness. What kind of commitment to values of democracy and compassion does it take to hold that attitude?
I am realising this only now — after I saw the fabric being torn down and I saw the monster emerging — that I had it better than I thought when the Congress was in power. That I was safe because of the law and order system that still worked despite its flaws. Of course I still had it better than the vulnerable segments because of my upper caste Hindu status. But to be a little mercilessly precise the vulnerable segments also had it better then, than they have now. And many groups are realising it now. Muslims and Dalits are bring persecuted now like they never were before. Despite all the flaws, despite all the social injustices that existed, it was no mean feat to achieve that. And it took the BJP’s hate monster to make me appreciate that.
Often we expect perfection from our governments — we don’t want a government as adults — we are like children who want a parent. When we have a compassionate government we kick at it like spoilt kids. And when we get a dictator — like we have now — like children we fall silent in fear.
GROW UP!
That is what I wish to say to the majority of my country’s citizens who don’t really want hate. Grow up and learn to appreciate what is of value. What you were given without raising a finger. Look at the flaws for sure, ask for improvement. But appreciate the basic goodness of what you have been given. Don’t work against it.
(Views are personal)
