“The true founders of Indian democracy”

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Who are the True Founding Fathers and Mothers of Indian Democracy?

India’s founding fathers and mothers contributed in multiple ways to the establishment of democracy in the country. Some of those mentioned by the prime minister on 15 August did not make such contributions. Here is a more representative list.

KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

PALLIKONDA MANIKANTA

SEPTEMBER 05, 2022

After the celebration of 75 years of Indian independence, there has been a lot of discussion about who the founding fathers of our democratic system are. The ruling Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)/Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combination, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed the nation from the Red Fort on 15 August 2022, have initiated a new discussion on this crucial question.

Modi was earlier heard saying on various occasions, (both in India and abroad) that India was “the mother of democracy”. His speech this year from the Red Fort was quite well crafted and meant to glorify the outlook of the “Modi Shining” era, which he indirectly referred to as “Amrit Kaal”. He went a step further and laid emphasis on today’s aspirational society, which is key to understanding the body politic of Hindutva’s vision.

Apart from M.K. Gandhi, B. R. Ambedkar, and Vallabhbhai Patel, the RSS-BJP combine has been lately invoking the names of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Subhas Chandra Bose. Jawaharlal Nehru was, and still is, their nemesis and he therefore merits only cursory mention. It is worth quoting what Modi said on 15 August 2022,

All the countrymen are deeply indebted to pujya (revered) Bapu, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Veer Savarkar, who devoted all their life on the path of duty towards the nation. The path of obligation has been their sole life path… Today is an opportunity to pay homage to countless such great men like Dr. Rajendra Prasadji, Nehruji, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Deendayal Upadhyay, Jai Prakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Nanaji Deshmukh, Subramania Bharati who fought the war of independence and built the country after independence (emphasis added)

We leave it to readers to decode what has been emphasised in the above quote. Modi is one who always likes to have an audience that suits him. He enjoys reading the crowd to gain legitimacy and that is how the script evolves. In other words, what you see is what the RSS/BJP combine wants you to see. This defines a new kaal (time) called “Amrit Kaal” (in Vedic astrology, the perfect time to start a new venture). Since they are in power now, Kali Yuga (a demonic age) has become Amrit Yuga (an age of immortality).

For a long period, the Congress regime prominently mentioned only Gandhi and Nehru. Now, the RSS-BJP combine is reinventing the language and grammar of political democracy.

In understanding the founding fathers of Indian democracy, each political party has its agenda and outlook. For a long period, the Congress regime prominently mentioned only Gandhi and Nehru. Now, the RSS-BJP combine is reinventing the language and grammar of political democracy. Yet, ironically, the founding mothers of Indian democracy are overlooked by everyone.

Even after 75 years of freedom, we are still grappling with fundamental questions to do with the founding of our democracy and who can be deservedly listed as our founding fathers and mothers. In our view, they are those who contributed in multiple ways to setting up the democratic system we have now. They played a critical role in the freedom struggle and evolved their philosophy in the Constituent Assembly. They were involved in drafting our Constitution and represented various sections of Indian society.

We list eight names—six men and two women—who could be called the main pillars of the present democratic set-up. They are Gandhi (1869-1948), B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956), Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (1887-1964), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958), Jaipal Singh Munda (1903-1970), and Dakshayani Velayudhan (1912-1978).

Quite accidently, they came from diverse castes and religions. In terms of caste, Gandhi was a Bania, Ambedkar a Dalit, Nehru a Brahmin, Vallabhbhai Patel a Shudra, Kaur a Christian and Sikh, Azad a Muslim, Jaipal Singh a tribal, and Velayudhan a Dalit from South India. Except Gandhi, all of them were members of the Constituent Assembly; five of them served in the first cabinet and set up the structures that were needed for democratic institutions to grow. Also, barring Ambedkar, all of them were Congress leaders in the fight for freedom.

Ambedkar played the double role of trying to free India from casteism and colonialism from the 1930s onwards, working from his own platforms. Amrit Kaur and Velayudhan played a critical role in the Constituent Assembly, representing the interests of women and children of all castes, religions, and communities.

We believe that the founding fathers and mothers are different in some ways from all the participants in the freedom struggle. The freedom fighters were numerous and came from different political backgrounds. Many fought for freedom and died for it. Many gave away their property and lived an unmarried life with the single goal of freeing India from the British. Rajkumari Kaur was one such remarkable female freedom fighter, and there were many such women and men in the years leading up to 1947.

It is important to think and rethink the roles these eight freedom fighters and thinkers played in shaping Indian democracy. They all deserve laurels whether one agrees with their ideology or not. Petty politics should not undermine our regard for those who gave us a democratic system that has survived many odds and challenges.

In India, only Nehru became the Prime Minister from among the founding figures and continued in the post for 17 years. In our view, he should have done exactly what George Washington did—resign after two terms…

American democracy acknowledges seven figures as founding fathers—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. There was no leading woman politician at that time. Of the seven, four became presidents and stabilised the democratic system in the early years of America’s existence as a unified country.

In India, only Nehru became the Prime Minister from among the founding figures and continued in the post for 17 years. In our view, he should have done exactly what George Washington did—resign after two terms to ensure that no dynasty got hold of the power structure of the nation. Nelson Mandela resigned after his first five-year term.

Nehru’s long innings in power created a coterie of writers and thinkers who paid little heed to the roles of Ambedkar, Vallabhbhai Patel, Amrit Kaur, Jaipal Singh, Velayudhan, and Maulana Azad in the freedom struggle. All Nehruvian scholars not only ignored Ambedkar, but also considered him unworthy of being on a list of freedom fighters. This led to a backlash from Dalit, Adivasi, and Other Backward Class (OBC) intellectuals and many others. The intellectuals also diminished the role of Vallabhbhai Patel. Ironically, the BJP is now using these two figures to undermine Nehru.

Gandhi remains a constant symbol for all parties. For a long time, his murder by Nathuram Godse created a sense of unease whenever the RSS/BJP approved of him. From Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s days as prime minister, the ruling party has been ritually paying tributes to him at Rajghat. For a long time, the communists respected Gandhi, while completely ignoring the other founders, particularly Ambedkar, who could have come to their rescue in a crisis like the present one.

All the political parties conveniently ignore Amrit Kaur, Jaipal Singh, and Velayudhan, who had perhaps been among the most active members of the freedom movement and the Constituent Assembly. Amrit Kaur was the only female Cabinet minister in the Nehru government for 10 years with the important health portfolio. Maulana Azad, of course, got minority treatment throughout.

Each one of them had their own … personalities, but they were also accommodative of opposing views … For example, Gandhi and Ambedkar had opposing views about various aspects of Indian life, institutions, practices, and culture, but they worked together for the common cause of democracy.

We feel that each one of these eight figures were equally important in instituting our present democratic structures and sustaining them with a constitutional democracy, which was supported by a well-written constitution and a dignified national flag. Though each one of them had their own grounding, all of them were experts in modern constitutionalism, the principles of democracy, and the moral and ethical bases of the institutions that had to be built by Indians. They were all well educated, both in India and England (except Azad, who was self-educated in English, and Velayudhan, who was educated in Kerala), and deeply committed to national freedom and advancement.

Each one of them had their own philosophical and ethical personalities, but they were also accommodative of opposing views and principles. For example, Gandhi and Ambedkar had opposing views about various aspects of Indian life, institutions, practices, and culture, but they worked together for the common cause of democracy. Ambedkar became the chairman of the committee drafting the Constitution of India from the Constituent Assembly debates to build a sustainable democratic system for all Indians. The way he cooperated with Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, and other Congress leaders in the Constituent Assembly and also in the Cabinet showed what goals he had set for himself.

Whether we agree with the non-violent or violent character of it, the freedom struggle reached its goal under Gandhi’s broad leadership. His idea of gram swaraj and national swaraj dwelt broadly within the framework of democracy. He stood for the abolition of untouchability, if not the varna system.

We briefly outline the careers of the eight founders we selected which will illustrate why we have chosen them.

1) Gandhi played a key role in making the nationalist movement a mass movement. Whether we agree with the non-violent or violent character of it, the freedom struggle reached its goal under his broad leadership. His idea of gram swaraj (village self-rule) and national swaraj dwelt broadly within the framework of democracy. He stood for the abolition of untouchability, if not the varna (social stratification based on caste) system. Gandhi played a key role in stopping communal riots after Partition and formed the drafting committee of the Constitution under Ambedkar, while making Nehru the first Prime Minister and Vallabhbhai Patel the Deputy Prime Minister. He knew what the democratic set-up would be once the Constitution was adopted.

2) Ambedkar began working to free Indians from colonial rule and caste oppression from 1927 onwards. He played several roles that aided in making India a constitutional democracy. He was the only political thinker who drew democratic lessons from Buddhism and put in place a workable Constitution for the nation. As the first Law Minister, he was responsible for making sure the Indian legal system was on track. Through his work and writings during the colonial period, he left a strong imprint on India on the idea of equality, both in theory and practice. He guided the Constituent Assembly debates to a democratic synthesis. He laid down the foundation to curb authoritarianism and wrote several books that aimed to transform India into a civil and egalitarian society.

Amrut Kaur was the only woman cabinet member in 1947 and played a pivotal role in shaping health institutions in India till 1964. She was unmarried and donated all her property to health and educational institutions.

3) Nehru began his activism in 1920 with a kisan (farmer) march in Uttar Pradesh and remained active in the anti-colonial movement despite being jailed nine times. As a Congress leader, strategist, thinker, writer, and our first prime minister for 17 years, he was the central pillar of our democratic system. He played a critical and decisive role in working out a constitutional framework with a strong respect for fundamental rights and putting it into practice in a brutally casteist and class-divided society. He was responsible for stabilising democracy in India while it failed to take root in many neighbouring countries even during his lifetime.

4) Vallabhbhai Patel began his anti-British campaign in 1918 with the Kheda farmers’ agitation. He gave up a prosperous legal practice when he joined the Congress in 1917 and became a mass leader second only to Gandhi after the Bardoli movement. He mobilised people and money to fight the British, and became first Shudra Congress president in 1931. As Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, he played a key role in bringing the princely states into the Indian Union. He also played a critical role in promoting a consensus in the Constituent Assembly. Though he did not write much, he was the most influential of the administrators who worked to put the young Indian nation state on its feet.

Jaipal Munda was the most enlightened Adivasi member of the Constituent Assembly and advocated drafting of constitutional provisions for tribal liberation from internal caste-class exploitation.

5) Rajkumari Amrut Kaur came from a royal family, but she gave up everything and joined the freedom struggle after her higher education in Oxford University in 1918. She had grown up as a Christian woman and saw the liberation of all women from bondage and the freedom of Indians from British rule as her primary goal. Though she was a part of many Gandhian movements, she developed her independent views on women’s rights, education, and health. She was a founder-member of the All India Women’s Conference in 1927. She played a significant role in the Constituent Assembly in formulating equal rights for women of all religions, castes, and tribes. She was the only woman Cabinet member in 1947 and played a pivotal role in shaping health institutions in India till 1964. She was unmarried and donated all her property to health and educational institutions. She combined in herself an indomitable nationalism with an international vision of a democratic and developing India.

6) Abul Kalam Azad was a staunch Muslim nationalist who was with the Congress and became the party’s youngest president at 35 in 1923. When Mohammed Ali Jinnah planned to form a separate Muslim nation, Azad’s preference was for a united India. He was a scholar, politician, writer, thinker, journalist, and educationalist, who had never studied in England. He played a critical role in keeping many Muslim regions and people in India during Partition. As a learned member of the Constituent Assembly, Azad played a significant role in drafting the Constitution. During the freedom struggle, he established educational institutions for Muslims to bring them into the modern era. As the first Education Minister of India, he established many new institutions of higher learning and the University Grants Commission. His scholarly writings helped many in the Muslim community realise the importance of building a democratic system with adult franchise.

Dakshayani Velayudhan was … the first Scheduled Caste woman graduate in India, and a member of the Cochin Legislative Council and one of the nine female members of the Constituent Assembly that had 389 representatives.

7) Jaipal Singh Munda was the son of tribal farmer in Jharkhand, an Oxford-educated intellectual, a world-famous hockey player, a teacher, a tribal rights leader, and a freedom fighter. He established the Adivasi Mahasabha in 1939 and worked for the liberation of India from the British and also Adivasis from internal oppression and exploitation. He was the most enlightened Adivasi member of the Constituent Assembly and advocated drafting constitutional provisions for tribal liberation from internal caste-class exploitation. He worked hard to keep the Nagas and other rebelling tribals within the Indian Union and at the same time popularised the idea of Adivasis forming their own states to promote their development.

8) Dakshayani Velayudhan was from a Dalit Pulaya family from Ernakulam in Kerala. She was among the first women from her community to wear an upper cloth, the first Scheduled Caste woman graduate in India, and a member of the Cochin Legislative Council (1945) and one of the nine female members of the Constituent Assembly that had 389 representatives. From 1946 to 1952, she served as the first and only Scheduled Caste member of the Constituent Assembly and the Provisional Parliament of India. She emphasised equality in all spheres and believed that a “moral” aspect of human life and the principles of the Constitution were fundamental requisites to annihilate caste inequalities. She was an intellectual politician, who, as the editor of Common Man, a magazine published from Madras, educated many of the depressed classes on their rights. A close associate of Gandhi she worked till her death in 1978 to establish a healthy democracy and its supporting institutions in India.

Ideologically, we do not agree with some of the founders, but we recognise their role in ushering in democracy to this country. They too dreamt of India turning into an aspirational society but respected its diversity. It is therefore necessary to remember that aspirations cannot simply be met through rhetoric or charisma. These thinkers delved deeply to craft a healthy grammar of politics without being carried away by the aura of the freedom movement. In this Amrit Kaal, the regressive approach towards nationalism has to be shunned to enable democracy to progress, excel, and, more importantly, protect its own future.

All of them were experts in modern constitutionalism, the principles of democracy, and moral and ethical basis of the institutions that had to be built by Indians.

Why only these eight? Why are freedom fighters such as Bose and Savarkar not on the list? We are of the opinion that a founding father or mother should have played the following roles: (1) they dedicated themselves to participation in the anti-colonial struggles; (2) they had a clear idea of establishing a democratic political system with a written constitution and a commitment to human equality—both among the sexes and within them—with no acknowledgement of caste or hierarchy; and (3) they played a concrete role in the pre- and post-1947 process of introducing democracy and the institutions it needed to India.

Apart from participating in the freedom struggle with militant approaches of their own, Bose and Savarkar had no vision of democracy, equality, and the constitutionalism that had to be set in motion in post-colonial India. Neither in their writings nor speeches are such formulations available.

The other names that Modi mentioned do not qualify because they played varied roles in colonial struggles and post-colonial politics with their own ideology. They could be respected if we agree with their ideologies. But they certainly cannot be counted as among the founding fathers of India’s constitutional democracy.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a socio-political theorist, social activist, and author. His latest book is The Shudras – Vision for New Path, co-edited with Karthik Raja. He is currently the Vice President of Amrutha Sathaiah Kolluri Educational Society (ASKES), Tellapur, Telangana.

Pallikonda Manikanta is a Phule-Ambedkarite researcher and activist from Telangana, who teaches political science. He is currently associated with ASKES, and writes on anti-caste thought and politics, the politics of Hindu nationalism, and the political culture of Telangana.

This article was last updated on September 06, 2022

https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/who-are-true-founding-fathers-and-mothers-indian-democracy

There are many moments in Ilaiah’s memoir, ‘From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual’, that speak to anyone looking to sustain a life of reading and writing.

Vijeta Kumar

Apr 19, 2019, 10:54 PM EDT

A young Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd once came across a book on Isaiah Berlin in the Osmania University library and picked it up because he thought the name was Ilaiah Berlin. He was surprised because he had never found names that sounded like his on the covers of books. In class, he was constantly made to feel like he was not as respectable as the other students because of his name. But that was going to change now.

“I looked at the name once again. I felt as if I were Isaiah, not Ilaiah.”

I like to imagine that this is the moment Kancha Ilaiah became a writer. When Gabriel Garcia Marquez read the first line of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, he almost fell off the bed because he had no idea writers were allowed to write like that (“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin”). Marquez says he became a writer that day—that first line was like a permission for him to start writing.

For Dalit and Bahujan people who have never thought of themselves as writers, a permission like that can rescue them in ways that aren’t easy to understand.

“That day in my notebook, I wrote my name in full in the form that Isaiah’s name figured: Ilaiah Kancha, not just Ilaiah K. It sounded new. I jumped up and down amidst the book racks—a worthless name like mine is very much like that of a world-famous historian and philosopher.”

There are many such moments in Kancha Ilaiah’s memoir, From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual, that are powerful to anyone looking to sustain a life of reading and writing.

If finding Isaiah’s name released Ilaiah in some form, his mother was released from something similar when she decided that she was willing to risk Saraswathi’s wrath by sending both her sons to school.

′Getting free from Saraswathi’, easily the most exciting chapter in the book, narrates the story of how Ilaiah and his brother went to school despite their grandmother’s persistent warnings that Saraswathi, who didn’t like children of lower-castes going to school, would kill them. In hindsight, there is truth to this superstition because we very well know who killed Rohith Vemula.

“Saraswathi teaches the children of Bapanollu and Komatollu but she becomes a devil when it comes to our children. She will not allow our children to read and write. She will kill them. That is how my elder son died,” said Ilaiah’s mother.

Even so, there was nothing in the school that could hold his attention the way forests and fields did. “In the field-world, one does not focus one’s eyes on just one thing.” And that’s why, for some time in school, he could only stare at walls.

Staring at walls is possibly a situation that is as much an imposition of caste today as it was back then.

At a talk about Mahatma Phule recently in Bangalore, anti-caste activist Gowri recollected that as a science student, she had no idea how to follow what the teacher said in her “high-speed English”.

“I still don’t know what this Kinetic theory of gas means. I didn’t know how to ask and when I finally formed a question and asked, my classmates looked at me like I was crazy. After that I just shut up.”’

That is one kind of staring at a wall. Here is another:

A couple of months ago, I met a Dalit boy studying political science at a college in Bangalore who wanted to know how to ‘be’ in the classroom. He said that during lectures, all his attention is usually focused on forming a question for the lecturer, and framing it properly in English. Eventually, when he does ask it, he is so relieved and overwhelmed by the effort that he spends the rest of the time recovering from it. In the end, he hasn’t listened to the answer.

These are real problems for Dalit and Bahujan students on campuses today—this knowledge of how to just ‘be’ in spaces. After a point, there are things that even the most sympathetic teacher cannot give them—things like cultural capital, the courage to say ‘I don’t care what my classmates think of me’, and a way of simply surviving in an English-speaking classroom.

“These are real problems for Dalit and Bahujan students on campuses today—this knowledge of how to just ‘be’ in spaces”

Another serious problem, just as relevant today, is the disconnect they feel between what they have heard and watched while growing up and what is taught inside the classroom.

While learning the alphabet, Ilaiah was very puzzled when the teacher said ‘Rruu for Rrushi’. This was accompanied by a picture of a saint with “fully grown knotted hair on his head with a beard and legs folded under him”.

Ilaiah had never seen a saint before and found it bizarre that he had to remember a letter in honour of someone he had never seen. He was just as lost when poems and lessons on Krishna were taught. Culturally, there was no connection between what was being done in class and where he came from.

For Ilaiah, a way out of this came when he fell in love with the English language. This allowed him to break free of all kinds of Saraswathis, and he was able to begin enjoying school.

https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/kancha-ilaiah-shepherd-book-review-memoir-autobiography_in_5cb9ce21e4b032e7ceb78e15

By asking the rural masses to educate their children in regional languages, Amit Shah wants to put them in their classic place of language disadvantage, writes Kancha Ilaiah.

VOICES OPINION THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 2022 – 10:54

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

Until not so long ago, Union Home Minister Amit Shah used to be an ardent proponent of the ‘one nation, one language’ theory, choosing to repeatedly promote Hindi as that ‘one language’. Once the south Indian states made their opposition to such a proposal clear, with even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat stating that all languages are Indian and equally preferable, he has now shifted gears. Thus, Shah, who is by all indications the PM candidate of the RSS/BJP combine after Modi, is now of the opinion that the promotion of regional languages is essential to unlock the full potential of Indian talent.

On August 19, while speaking on the occasion of the second anniversary of the launch of National Education Policy 2020 (NEP) in Delhi, the Union Home Minister said that law, medicine and engineering should all be taught in Indian languages. Research and development can only be done when one thinks in their own language, and this is one of the reasons that India is lagging in the research field, he argued in the presence of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

It is a known fact that after Karnataka, the RSS/BJP combine is hoping to come to power in Telangana. And with his new theory, Shah is aiming to become an acceptable leader in south India too. Featured Videos from TNM

In the south, however, the consciousness of English medium education has expanded more deeply than what it was earlier. In every village here, there is a hunger to acquire a place in global employment markets. The rural mass has also realised that English education is the key for national and international mobility. Regional language-based higher education, meanwhile, would not allow them to go beyond their linguistic state. At the same time, the upper and middle classes have already moved out of regional language education, and private English medium education is the source of their new power, authority and wealth. They will not step back into regional language education.

This realisation was what forced the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments to shift to English medium school education in the government sector. Assuming that the BJP comes to power in Telangana, will the medium shift back to Telugu in government schools?

That is exactly what Amit Shah means, and it will be the most backward step for the village masses of Telangana. In fact, government schools’ potential return to Telugu medium will have a worse negative impact on the people than even the stopping of the Rythu Bandhu and Dalit Bandhu welfare schemes. 

Amit Shah, who himself educated his son Jay Shah in a world class English medium school, also knows that all his corporate friends are opening English medium private schools of global standards for the rich. It is not for them that his regional language education agenda will be implemented. Instead, he wants to put the rural masses in their classic place of language disadvantage, by asking them to educate their children in regional languages.

English medium school education, along with quality infrastructure and teaching staff, is an investment for quality nation building with a globally integrated approach. The RSS/BJP combine is against the educational equality provided through English medium school education. They stand for Sanskrit and Hindi ideologically, while using English surreptitiously. But the masses, as we have seen in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, are for educational equality with global connectivity. Amit Shah’s idea for regional language education in research, medicine, engineering and so on will prove to be disastrous for those who would be part of that system. He is playing a deceptive game.

Though the TRS government has to do much more on the field to improve the school education system in the state, its first step towards introducing English medium in all government schools was an ideological and egalitarian education programme. Unfortunately, the TRS leaders are not informing the state’s people that the BJP’s educational policy is against the English medium programme they have introduced in government schools, accompanied by mirror-image two-language books and improved teaching skills.

Look at the way Delhi’s AAP government has pushed the RSS/BJP to a defensive corner with their campaign about their school education system. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal turned it into a global campaign of credibility. In fact, the recent New York Times report on Delhi school education has become a weapon in the AAP’s armoury to fight the BJP’s threats of arresting Manish Sisodia, the Delhi Education Minister.

In Telangana, though the TRS introduced English medium in government schools from this academic year, they do not think of it as a major ideological welfare issue that can be used to fight the anti-English Amit Shah in particular, and RSS/BJP forces in general. Neither the father (CM K Chandrasekhar Rao) nor the son (KT Rama Rao) has spoken anywhere about this programme of theirs, because their blinkered understanding of English medium school education does not let them see it as a vote mobiliser. 

In the south, only the YSR Congress Party, particularly Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, has understood the potential of English medium education in village government schools. While all states in south India have a percentage of English medium government schools, it is only Andhra Pradesh under Jagan Mohan Reddy that has made the push to convert all government schools to English medium. A year ago, Jagan had also announced the compulsory introduction of the English medium at all undergraduate colleges in the state. The TDP is in a mess in the state because of this English education, coupled with the Amma Vodi programme. Nobody can dare treat good English medium school education for all children as ‘freebies’. No court, no legislative body can condemn the expenditure on school education as a ‘freebie’.

In Andhra Pradesh, English medium school education is going to be a huge vote mobiliser in the 2024 elections. The defeat of both TDP and BJP is already a done deal here, mostly because of the school education battle that Jagan Mohan Reddy is fighting on a daily basis. The masses have seen its light on the faces of their children by now. It is that battle by Andhra Pradesh that also made it easy for the TRS government to introduce the same in Telangana without any opposition. But it has not yet tapped its potential in the voting booth.

If Telangana pulls off a proper campaign on its school education system, every mother will go to the polling booth to defeat her child’s enemy. Every rural mother is a better nationalist than Amit Shah.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. He has been campaigning for English-medium education in government schools across the country for the last 30 years. 

Views expressed are the author’s own.

https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/why-amit-shah-s-push-regional-language-based-higher-education-deceptive-game-167181

Only a few other movements in the last 75 years of Independent India have held the national flag as dear as Dalits, Shudras, Adivasis did. It’s a new landmark.

An elderly woman at a protest site with the Indian national flag or the Tiranga | Pexels

On the occasion of India’s diamond jubilee celebration, there is a significant discussion about the importance of our national flag. The Bharatiya Janata Party has showcased the ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign along with the photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on its Twitter account. The Congress has showcased the national flag with the first PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s photo next to it. The Communists, as usual, have remained indifferent to the national flag debate as they love their own red flag more.

The Congress and the BJP have their own party flags to hoist high and keep on their persons. And if necessary, on the top of their own ghar (home) to declare their political identities. However, it is important to look at the national flag from the point of view of India’s productive communities who, in caste terms, constitute the Shudras, the Dalits, and the Adivasis.

Quite interestingly, the 2019 protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act exclusively used the Tricolour and the Constitution. Even the recent nationwide protests against former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s remarks on Prophet Muhammad saw the national flag being used. While the 2020-2021 farmers’ movement did see the Khalistani and various associations’ flags making their way into the protests, the Indian flag flew high.

Only a few other movements in the last 75 years of Independent India have held the national flag as dear to themselves as these protestors did. These movements were a new landmark in the nationalist ownership of the Tricolour. Now, it is more genuine and authentic.

‘Saffron’ divide

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for a long time, opposed the current Indian flag with the Ashoka Chakra at its centre. M. S. Golwalkar, the second sarsanghchalak of the RSS, in his book Bunch of Thoughts, said: “Our leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It is just a case of drifting and imitating. How did this flag come into being? During the French Revolution, the French put up three stripes on their flag to express the triple ideas of ‘equality’, ‘fraternity’ and ‘liberty’. The American Revolution, inspired by similar principles, took it up with some changes. Three stripes, therefore, held a sort of fascination for our freedom fighters also. So, it was taken up by the Congress.”

The RSS guru was opposed to the idea of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as they would dismantle the caste and varna-dharma structures that it upholds. The RSS saw the reddish saffron (different from the RSS saffron) in the Tricolour as Communist and the green as Islamic. The Communists, since the early days, have no respect for any other flag except the red flag, which symbolises the proletarian revolution. They have written hundreds of songs on the red flag, as it is the global representative of the working class.

Having approved the three colours—deep saffron, white and green—for the national flag, B.R. Ambedkar, in the Constituent Assembly debates, asked for the Ashoka Chakra to be placed at the centre of the flag instead of the charkha (spinning wheel) that many, including M.K. Gandhi, proposed. Ambedkar, by then, was inclined towards Buddhism.

The national flag was finally adopted in its current form on 22 July 1947 and hoisted at midnight on 15 August. If the BJP were around and in power then, the Tricolour with Ashoka Chakra would not have been the Indian national flag. It would have been a simple saffron flag, maybe with the swastika on it. We do not know what would have happened to India in such troubled Partition times. And we don’t know what it would have meant to the vast masses of Shudras, Dalits, or Adivasis either in such a Dvija-dominated Hindu/Hindutva environment.

Ambedkar chose the blue colour for the flag of the party floated by his Scheduled Castes Federation of India in 1942. It is now the flag colour of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Owning the Tricolour—in a new way

The new meaning of the national flag comes from the 2020-2021 farmers’ struggle against the farm laws. The Shudras, Dalits, and Adivasis have no other flag to depend so much on as the national flag because it was only after the Tricolour was hoisted at midnight on 15 August 1947 that the victims of the varna system entered a new phase of life. This flag meant liberty, equality, and fraternity — the ideals that Ambedkar also repeatedly upheld while drafting the Constitution. From Golwalkar’s statement above, we can understand how much they hated these ideals that are the lifeblood of the Shudras, Dalits, and Adivasis today.

The deep saffron colour on the top of the Indian national flag indicates the revolution of the masses. The white represents peace that was needed to put an end to caste oppression, exploitation, untouchability, and violence. The green does not mean Islam, as the RSS intellectuals thought, but the greenery of crops, positive, eco-friendly life, food for people and cattle, and so on.

It means what the contemporary world is aiming for right now — environmentalism. Farmers are its human personification in India.

Protect the lifeblood

In modern Indian history, the most authentic representative of farmers was Jyotirao Phule. All his writings focused on the problems of farmers whom he called Shudras and Ati-Shudras. His book Gulamgiri (1873) was the first to reflect the liberty, equality and fraternity aspirations of the productive masses. Ambedkar, as I said, approved the flag by inserting the Ashoka Chakra. The farmers owned it as a part of their national self in their struggle to protect the agrarian economy.

The Constitution, the national flag, and democratic institutions should be protected and continued – they are India’s lifeblood. The freedom fighters, with their diverse views and aspirations, created a ‘modern India’ with its current democratic structures, constitutional ideology, and national symbols. The Constitution is the living embodiment of all that India stands for. The national flag is an expression of the people’s spirit.

While hoisting the flag on every house in villages, towns and buildings, we must keep the spirit of the freedom struggle alive and constantly commemorate the sacrifices of the freedom fighters.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His most known books are Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Shudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy, and Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

https://theprint.in/opinion/anti-caa-to-farmer-protests-indias-productive-masses-are-giving-real-meaning-to-tiranga/1080951/

A British Lesson in Tolerance for ‘Hindu’ India

Rishi Sunak’s candidature for prime minister shows us how truly unenlightened the ‘world’s largest democracy’ is.

Britain’s Rishi Sunak meets Tory members at Fontwell Park Racecourse as part of his campaign to be leader of the Conservative Party and the next prime minister, in Fontwell, Britain, July 30, 2022. Photo: Joe Sene/Pool via Reuters

Rishi Sunak, a British politician of Indian origin, is in the running to be prime minister of the United Kingdom, representing the Conservative Party. After Kamala Harris’s attempt to be the Democratic Party’s candidate for American president, he is the most recent offspring of Indian-origin settlers in the West to try to reach the political pinnacle.

Britain was once the colonial master of India. From an Indian point of view, the British prime minister is the historical political head of an empire of exploitation – and also, let us remember, an empire of reform. But for British colonial rule, and the rights-oriented struggle for freedom against it, India would not have become a democratic, constitutional republic in 1947, however loudly we claim that the roots of our democracy lie in our ancient structures, whether Hindu or Buddhist.

All major aspects of our freedom struggle and colonial life were linked to the British political system. Particularly from the beginning of the 20th century, agitating Indians considered the British prime minister the symbol of colonial rule, the man to revile or to appeal to.

Given this historical context, that a man of Indian origin stands a realistic chance of becoming the British prime minister shows how the world is changing. At a time when India is experiencing a form of Hindu-nationalist apartheid, Christian Britain is engaged with a prime ministerial candidate who has stated that his religion is Hinduism. As member of parliament (and later chancellor of the exchequer) he took his oath with the Bhagavad Gita.

Now the same Hindu Sunak wants to go to 10 Downing Street. Sunak’s wife, Akshata, is the daughter of Hindu Indian billionaires. Sunak’s wealth is, quite rightly, a point of public debate, since economic and social class have long been features of British politics. But his religion is resolutely not seen as relevant. This certainly points to a notable new level of multicultural tolerance among the British electorate and the political class. In this respect, I suspect Britain is certainly more secular and multicultural than America. If Kamala Harris had presented herself publicly as a Hindu, I suspect she may not have made it to the winning Democratic ticket.

Anglican Christianity is Britain’s state religion. Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Church of England. Yet Rishi Sunak’s desire to be prime minister is not seen as anomalous on grounds of religion.

Back in India, what do the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party think about this Indian-origin Hindu being accepted as a possible prime minister of Britain? After all, they have marginalised India’s Muslims and Christians with a shameless agenda of religious majoritarianism. There isn’t a single Muslim on the treasury benches of either house of parliament, nor is there one in the Indian cabinet. (Under Boris Johnson, Britain had more Muslims in its cabinet than India!)

The RSS/BJP forces constantly boast of Hinduism being the “vishwa guru”. RSS literature is full of attacks on British and also Christian civilisational history, both as crusaders and colonial expansionists. They claim that Hinduism is the most tolerant religion in the world, notwithstanding the caste hierarchy and atrocities on Dalits. And in their historical narrative, even native Indian Muslims and Christians are treated as enemies.

In Britain today, Hindus are a small minority – around 1.6% of the population – and comprise very recent migrants and their descendants. Yet “minority-ism” does not seem to play a major role in Britain’s democratic competition. In the India of the RSS/BJP – or even of the Congress in days gone by – a Muslim or a Christian would not have been accepted as prime ministerial candidate. So much for the tolerance of Hinduism.

Britain bestrode a Christian colonial empire. Yet that Britain now allows Sunak to compete for the top job. No British opposition leader or even his party’s own competitors for prime minister have raised the question of his religion. His wealth, yes. His attitude toward the working class, yes. And his wife’s tax avoidance, yes. All very good questions in a democracy. (These questions, by the way, are rarely asked in India.)

I am agnostic on the outcome of Sunak’s bid. But I do know this: Britain, the mother of parliamentary democracy, is teaching India an important lesson in tolerance and equality. But India, alas, is no longer a country that is allowed to learn.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. He is the author of Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Shudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy, and of Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution.

https://m-thewire-in.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/m.thewire.in/article/politics/rishi-sunak-british-prime-ministerial-candidate-hindu-india/amp?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16593430359121&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fthewire.in%2Fpolitics%2Frishi-sunak-british-prime-ministerial-candidate-hindu-india

Without the Mandal struggle, the RSS-BJP, known as the Brahmin-Bania network, would not have chosen her as the presidential candidate. The Congress and the Left, frozen in Brahmanism as they are, have given the RSS-BJP a historical advantage, writes Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

BY KANCHA ILAIAH SHEPHERD

Droupadi Murmu, a Santali Tribal woman leader, getting elected as the 15th President of India is a milestone in the history of post-Mandal struggle, particularly for Adivasi emancipation from classical oppression. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will gain enormous mileage with her as president. Without the Mandal struggle, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP, known as the Brahmin-Bania network, would not have chosen her as the presidential candidate. The Congress and the Left, frozen in Brahmanism as they are, have given the RSS-BJP a historical advantage.  

By nominating a rich Kayastha leader from Bihar, from where the first president Rajendra Prasad (also a Kayastha) served two terms as the first president of independent India, the opposition parties led by the Congress committed a serious blunder. It appears that the Congress has not yet understood the changing political environment. Ever since prime-minister-to-be Narendra Modi declared that he was an Other Backward Class (OBC), caste calculations in India changed. And once he became prime minister, a Dalit, Ram Nath Kovind, was made president and a Shudra (Kamma), Venkaiah Naidu, was made vice-president. During the entire Congress-led United Progressive Alliance rule, the top ruling clique was mainly drawn from the Dwija castes (Brahmin, Bania, Kayashta, Khatri and Kshatriya) and also from Muslim feudal elite. Even the Pasmanda Muslims did not get any prominent role. Among Muslims, the BJP is luring Shias and Pasmandas. While the Left, by not studying the Indian caste system and adopting a suitable method of organizing, is disappearing from the national political scene, the Congress is getting more and more weakened. 

Quite unexpectedly the RSS-BJP seems to have done a thorough study of the caste system and the Congress still seems to play the same old game. In addition, the Congress and all regional parties are under attack as dynasty parties.

Culturally, the RSS-BJP announcing as their presidential candidate a Tribal woman, with a normally unacceptable name Droupadi, which no Dwija or Shudra/OBC family was willing to give to their girl child in the known modern history, will send a strong reform signal. Draupadi Pandava was treated as an abnormal, rather immoral, woman with five husbands and given her assertive autonomous role, unlike Sita in Ramayana or other women in Mahabharata. She was not considered to be an acceptable Hindu Nari. Her life and role represented a matrilineal social condition which still has some social base among the Indian tribes. It appears that this Santhal woman was named Droupadi in defiance of the fact that independent women like the Draupadi of Mahabharata are not acceptable.

In keeping with her name, Droupadi Murmu rose with confidence and chose a political career. Now she will proudly be the first Adivasi, that too a woman, president. Having opposed the RSS-BJP’s ideology and politics all my life, I can say that this is the most progressive reformative step they have taken. The Congress left many such reform measures that have serious socio-political implications to the RSS-BJP, a right-wing network that has been even more staunchly against reform all these years. Now, they are putting down roots with such steps.

Having come to power with an anti-Muslim agenda, the RSS-BJP forces need to take some Shudra/OBC/Dalit castes and Adivasis with them to win elections and they are seriously repositioning themselves in the sociopolitical realm. This does not mean that they are opposed to the brahmanical spiritual system, which built the fourfold varna order.    

From Draupadi of Mahabharata to Droupadi Murmu of 2022 the Hindutva forces have traversed the unusual terrain of cultural gimmick and change. The Hindu Dharma, to which the RSS-BJP claim ownership, treated tribals as Vanvasis (forest dwellers) without even allowing them to have the vision of a self-respecting citizen. They were deeply suspected to be the ultimate Christian force. But they are more than seven percent of the vote base, so they need to be engaged with some share in power. Draupadi Murmu as president thus plays a long-term beneficial role.

Those who condescendingly viewed the mythological Draupadi will now have to respect Droupadi Murmu as the first citizen of the nation and commander of our armed forces. No other woman with that name in the annals of India has been known for her role in public life. We have many Sitas, many Savitris and so on but not many Draupadis.  

Finishing touches being given to painting of President-elect Droupadi Murmu

Nowhere in RSS literature has Draupadi Pandava been shown as an adorable heroine. Only recently Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit, the vice-chancellor of Jawaharalal Nehru University, projected Draupadi Pandava and Sita as first feminists. However, I do not think any woman intellectual associated with the RSS-BJP, leave alone their men, agrees with that view. When she described Pandava Draupadi as an autonomous, powerful woman – who opposed her chief husband Dharma Raja (Yudhisthira) staking her in Judam – and Sita as a first single mother, she went into a new propositional narrative. This kind of narrative was not proposed by feminist scholars either. The character of Draupadi in Mahabharat was that of a powerful independent woman who did not accept the patriarchal authority of her five husbands in particular and men in general. As patriarchy held sway in the post-epic times, Indian men promoted only those women whose life showed total obedience to men conditioned by Manu’s code. In this patriarchal cultural heritage the name Draupadi disappeared from our lives. Droupadi Murmu has brought it back, giving us a feeling of cultural regeneration.       

Shantishree’s narrative gains respectability with Draupadi Murmu becoming the president of India. I am sure Draupadi Murmu will outshine Pratibha Patil, the first woman president, a Maratha who did not leave behind any significant imprint of hers in Rastrapathi Bhavan and on the nation’s psyche. She did not do anything memorable for the women’s cause. K.R. Narayanan and A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, for example, left their indelible imprint in the Rashtrapati Bhavan and in the national discourse on certain issues like caste, youth education and so on. Pratibha Patil could have done so, at least around women’s issues, if only she chose to play the role of the first woman president.

Draupadi Murmu’s presence in the Rastrapathi Bhavan itself will be a morale booster to Adivasi communities of India. The RSS-BJP will try to use that as political capital and win elections in parliament as well as in the states with large Adivasi populations. But that itself will not leave a memorable history for her as a woman president. She has to show transformative vision and ideas based on her long journey from a tribal village in Odisha to the Rastrapathi Bhavan. Apart from the tribals, the women of India expect from Draupadi Murmu some initiatives that will have a positive impact in their lives.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd कांचा इलैया शेपर्ड

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, author and activist. He has been a professor of Political Science at Osmania University, Hyderabad and director of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. He is the author of ‘Why I Am Not a Hindu’, ‘Buffalo Nationalism’ and ‘Post-Hindu India’ 

https://www.forwardpress.in/2022/07/from-draupadi-pandava-to-droupadi-murmu/

by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

 How labour and God shaped the world

As I went late to school in life, perhaps after eight years I was born, in mid 1960 (my school record birth day is 5 October, 1952),  for quite some time I was with cattle and agrarian operations in my early juvenile days even after going to school in my village. Throughout the day I used to go with my father for shepherding or go to the agrarian fields with my mother. I used to observe what people spoke about their pains and pleasures in life. When there were heavy rains threatening the life of humans and cattle or when there was drought which delayed the planting of rice or jawar that also threatened their survival, they would speak in spiritual philosophical terms.

Whether it were shepherds in the meadows or farming men and women in the fields would say ‘God decides about everything, we depend only on God now ” (In Telugu language Annitiki Devude Dikku), generally looking upwards into the sky. They would never mention any name for God. God was God for them. God and human hope were deeply entangled with philosophical speculation.

I used to look up into the sky to find out that God, and wanted to see how God looks. Though God lies up there in the skies was the message that I got from all working people no image could be seen there. Neither  image nor words to listen from God would come from the sky. The only sounds that were heard from the sky were that of thunder ( Urumu) in the rainy season. And also sudden sharp thunder light (merupu) would come and disappear. Otherwise what were normally seen everyday in the sky were Sun, Moon and Stars. I used to wonder, where was God in the sky; what was God’s message? No clarity in my mind. If you ask somebody there would not come any proper reply– “God is God” they would say.

I was also surprised when people say that everything–good, bad–depends on God, why work so hard? Why not depend on God for food and water? Of course, for a long time I did not understand the role of air in human life because it is not a material like food and water. But among the grown up people, though they were not educated and read any books, there was the idea of an invisible shapeless God deep in their psyche. But at the same time they also knew that without working by deploying their own physical labour food, water and other material resources do not come. Thus God and labour are so closely intertwined that they would think that they cannot survive without either of them. That relationship was established at a deeper philosophical level.

Here I am talking about the Indian masses, who are generally believed to worship multi-idols, the world over. Actually that is not their foundational spiritual belief. Productive labour of the historical masses and divine labour of creational God have deep historical psychological relationship. Idol worship is an aberration and a negative spiritual ideology that a group of superstitious forces like Brahmins constructed as a spiritual culture now called Hindu culture. However, all forms of idol worship will disappear in an historical progressive process. Labouring masses will  respect only the creational God, but not destructional idol gods anywhere in the world.

Higher level of the economy of people will sustain only when the idea of God’s creation labour and people’s productive labour synchronize. The idle, but more organized religious groups like the Brahminic priests or lazy monks and Jesuits who do not engage with the theology of labour did cause enormous economic hardships to the productive masses historically.

They forced people to build temples, Viharas, and Masjids without linking them to the education of production knowledge and expanding knowledge of linguistics and science education. They all hung around the pure idea of heaven, Moksha or so called sorrow free life (like Buddhism). Only Christian churches combined literary education with an idea of sin free life. But they too did not focus much on God’s creation labour and human production labour and their inter connectivity.

In my view no human by birth is a sinner. Even in later life the productive forces (like Dalits and Shudras of India or the working classes of other countries) are not sinners. Those who eat without producing anything are sinners. Those who treat production as pollution but eat the labour power of producers are the gravest sinners in the world. Reforming such sinners is a major task of the universal spiritual systems.

At a philosophical level the ancient food production forces appeal, if not pray in a structured manner, to the abstract God, without thinking about any image of God in routine life. Indian life is full of evidence of such non-idol God worship. There is no name to that God. At the same time they strongly believe that their labour is as important as God is. This is a classical idea that work and God make their life holistic and realistic. It is a universal philosophical notion. This combination of working on the land and praying to God is universal. The idea of worshipping shapeless and formless ‘One God’ among educated and illiterate masses got strengthened after Jesus got crucified and later resurrected, in many parts of the world. But all civilization builders much earlier than that were aware of the idea of God in the same mode that Jesus propagated in tandem with labour as life.

As I said earlier the Harappan, Jericho, Athenian civilization builders even before the Bible as a spiritual book written around the idea of creational God knew the idea of abstract One God and they seriously trusted their labour power was received from the power of creational God.

This notion strongly exists even among the tribal masses the world over. The tribal idea of worshipping nature is not akin to idol worshipping. It is a continuation of the Harappan or pre-Harappan Indians, Mesepotomian and pre-Mesopotonian Middle Eastern people and Athenian and pre-Athenian Europeans. From tribalism to the post capitalist development of the world the human consciousness is shaped by God who is a crationist and human who is a by product of that creational process, has no shape and other name, but just God, as the illiterate working masses in the productive agrarian fields or the shepherds who were developing the animal economy believed.

In a textual mode only in the Bible Cain and Abel the first children of Adam and Eve, perhaps as twins (though Cain was said to to be the first born), started both agriculture and animal aconommy simultaneously. However, the history of evolutionary economics shows that domestication of animals was done much earlier than domestication of grain and fruit plants. That could be the reason, perhaps, for God preferring animal food to grain food (what is now known as pure vegetarianism) when offered by Cain and Abel. However, it is not very certain which started first and which later because Adam and Eve the first humans were known as only fruit eaters.

The present world is shaped with a philosophical inbuilt structural human consciousness that creational God and productive human labour need to be engaged with. The role of idol gods, worshiped by some humans for a long time has not given any constructive ideas to humanity for survival and well being, except fear and superstition. However, the world is likely to overcome idol worship sooner or later as it has no spiritual philosophical basis.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a socio-spiritual reformer and author in a caste ridden India. His books Why I am Not a Hindu, Post-Hindu India, Buffalo Nationalism, The Shudras–Vision For a New Path, Untouchable God, God As Political Philosopher–Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism are meant to carry on the reform

Read Human as Christian- Part 1

https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/human-as-christian-2/

The Congress Party’s ideological steps remind us of a famous saying of Lenin “ One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward’ not in a tactical sense of retreating and advancing with a progressive strategy in a given unfavourable political environment, but retreating in a more consistent manner with blindfolded vision. The present crisis is much bigger for the party than that it faced in the 1970s, with the JP movement, emergency and formation of the Janata Party that overthrew the party.

The rise of the Bharatiya Janatha Party under the leadership of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in 2014 created a most difficult and unfavourable political environment that the grand old party with a huge history of experience of conducting movements and running administration for decades.

It appears that the top leadership does not have the political stamina and capabilities to face the unexpected turn of events one after the other. Most of its old top leaders, Sonia Gandhi, Man Mohan Singh and P.Chidambaram and so on have no experience of mass mobilization in their life time or conducting any agitations. But they controlled power for ten years during the UPA period. Man Mohan Singh and Chidambaram were in power during P.V.Narsimha Rao period also. But they had no grass root experience and never involved in the mass mobilization. The present BJP, on the other hand, have many who worked at the ground level, of course, with negative ideology of the Sangh system.

The Congress got largest number of seats, though less than 50 per cent. in 2004 and 2009 because of weak BJP under Vajpayee and L.K Advani because they also did not think of addressing the caste question. Under their control over the BJP structures, the opinion was that discussion on caste was negative and harmful. Now that understanding changed in the BJP structures, to a large extent.

The BJP used the caste card more skillfully than the Congress in 2014 elections and continues to do so. It won two elections with full majority very easily. The Other Backward Classes (OBCs) are roped in as the backbone of the BJP vote power. But their communal agenda, that constantly puts the Muslims and Christians in spot, is creating negative environment, which is likely to create major crisis in the deeply globalized economy. The response of the Muslim and Christian world to the recent Masjid-Mandir issues has a potential to disrupt the economy and the society. But the Congress is still in its blindfolded anti-OBC agenda. Hence it is likely to lose 2024 election as well.

The anxiety of the nation as to what will happen in 2024 could be seen everywhere. But that anxiety does not seem to bother the Congress intellectual leaders who ruled India through Rajya Sabha for several decades.

In this background the Congress held a Chintan Shibir at Udaipur. It created some hope with some new declarations. Of which the social justice, one family one post and two term limit to Rajya Sabha nomination were very significant.

But within few days the ten nominations for the Rajya Sabha have shown that all the three declarations were violated. Of the ten seats seven were given to Dwija (top upper ) castes. The list is here under:

1. P Chidambaram – Shettiar, Dwija

2. Jairam Ramesh – Brahmin, Dwija

3. Rajeev Shukla – Brahmin, Dwija

4. Pramod Tiwari – Brahmin, Dwija

5. Ajay Maken – Khatri, Dwija

6. Vivek Tankha – Kayastha, Dwija

7. Ranjeet Ranjan – Khatri, Dwija

8. Imran Pratapgarhi – Muslim

9. Randeep Surjewala – Jat, upper Shudra

10. Mukul Wasnik – Dalit

Even if we consider Ranjeet Ranjan as an OBC as she is Pappu Yadav’s wife, six are given to the Dwijas. However, no OBC in the country considers her to be their representative.

Look at the way two of its intellectual senior most leaders, P.Chidambaram and Jayaram Ramesh, violated two declarations of Udaipur–one family one post and two term- Rajya Sabha nomination. Jayaram Ramesh is an all time Rajya Sabha ruler and the party’s known intellectual face, without showing any understanding of the history of caste system. He also does not seems to be interested in checkmating the BJP. He againt became a Rajya Sabha law maker.

Chidambaram is a leader who seems to think that without he being in the house the Indian parliament would not be able make laws, deliberate ideas on economy. But Modi said in many election campaigns that ‘hard work not Harvard’ should rule India. The Shudra/OBCs who represent the agrarian hard work seem to believe Modi and do not read the unending columns of Chidambram in English media. The direction is clear. Many OBC youth understand the meaning of hard work vs Harvard now. Chidambaram’s son is already an MP and has not shown any new wisdom in the parliament, worse facing money laundering cases time and again.

Why did they accept this renomination if they are really serious about the party’s future? These two leaders have the ability to get anything in such a weakened party structure. Could not they have promoted two young leaders from grass roots by sidestepping? They do not recognize caste as a institutional reality. But the BJP recognizes and the people are responding. Greater education seems to make leaders more blind to social reality. Their writings are a living testimony for their caste blind intellectualism, which will never help to revive the party.

Chidambaram has taken many decisions when he was Home and Fiance Minister that the BJP uses to their advantage today. Chidambaram declared that the Telangana state will be granted when K.Chandrasekhar Rao was in hunger strike, which has gone in his favour. The Congress lost power once for all in Telangana, it appears. He changed the FCRA ( 2010) policy. Now the BJP is using it for its advantage by destroying many small employed livelihoods.

After Modi claimed that he was an OBC chaiwala and mobilized OBCs and also labour, those who were not habitual voters of the Bharatiya Janata Party voted for the party both in 2014 and also 2019. In 2024 that looks to be the future.

Even this has not woken up the Congress intellectual Rajya Sabha rulers and law makers. They do not even seem to understand that the BJP, which was known as Brahmin-Bania party, is now turned into multi-caste party by promoting more and more Shudra/ OBCs/Dalits into the power positions. The Congress never made an OBC as the Vice-Chancellor of JNU. Now the BJP made a first woman-OBC vice-chancellor of JNU. Does not that work in their favour by influencing young Shudra/OBC stsudents? The BJP’s present cabinet and Rajya Sabha list also shows the new caste composition.

The two national parties must compete for promoting new social forces into the process of system running. But the Congress is refusing to compete. What diversity does this Rajya Sabha list present? What secularism the Congress leaders preach when they do not understand the productive castes that constitute 52 per cent get just one seat out of 10 (Surjewala, a Jat) even after 75 years of Independence?

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a Political Theorist, Social Activist and Author. His books God As Political Philosopher, The Shudras–Vision For a New Path are well known.

https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/is-the-congress-on-suicide-course/