INDIA: A “PRISON HOUSE OF NATIONS” OR A NATION?
T.G. Jacob
“Prison house of nations” was the expression used by Lenina to characterize Tsarist Russia. The empire building dynasties from the time of the Mauryas attempted to create empires in the subcontinent. A few of them, from the North as well as the South, succeeded in carving out empires of significant sizes, but none of them could succeed in forcibly uniting entire South Asia under one emperor, nor could they consolidate the empires for long stretches of time. This was as true of the Mauryan Empire as about the Mughal emperors. It was not one single riverine civilization that thrived in the subcontinent but several riverine civilizations. Pre-Indus Valley collectives also existed, and for thousands of years forced migration as well as voluntary ones looking for better opportunities for sustenance were an ongoing process leading to the rise of a variety of regional social formations. In this process inter-tribal warfare, subjugation of some and domination by some others was considered the natural order of things resulting in suppressed groups of peoples and suppressor groups of peoples. The vastness of the terrain gave scope for the existence of thousands of tribes at different stages of economic, political and social organisation. The pan Indian empires could never obliterate this great diversity, which still remains albeit in changed forms.
A very crucial means to enforce the unity of any vast terrain is to develop easier means of communication for which the history of the Roman Empire probably provides the best illustration. Means of communication like highways were meant not just for the movement of conquering armies, but also for integration through trade and other similar activities. In the Indian subcontinent too such infrastructure building was a priority for the empire builders. Pre- existing and new trade routes were made serviceable over large parts of the subcontinent. The rebuilding of an ancient trade route from Peshawar to Calcutta, which later became known as the Grand Trunk Road, by Sher Shah Suri is a more modern illustration. One of the central means of economic and political consolidation taken up by the British colonialists was the establishment of an extensive network of railways and ports linking the raw materials supply areas with manufacturing hubs and local and international trade centres. This infrastructural development played an important role in forging the presently existing political structure of India. At the same time it did not prevent the break-up into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which certainly means that such infrastructural cohesiveness is no guarantee against the structural disintegration of ‘unity.’ Additionally, we should note that while Europe as a continent is far more integrated than India the development of nation States happened there in an inexorable fashion, but even there the process is yet to be completed. It is also important to remember that the collapse of the Soviet Union happened mainly due to internal compulsions rooted in ethnicity and nationality. The same tendencies are day-by-day becoming well defined in China too.
Colonial India was a combination of British India and a large number of Princely States under the suzerainty of a centralised colonial administration. In the vast areas under direct colonial administration an important tool employed by the colonialists to maintain ‘unity’ was to create provinces composed of peoples belonging to different linguistic and social formations. Thus the Madras Presidency had the Tamil land, Malabar, and large parts of the lands of Telugu and Kannada speaking peoples. Likewise, the Bombay Presidency contained Gujarati, Kannada, Kodagu and Telugu speaking areas, apart from the Marathi speaking areas. The Bengal Presidency contained large parts of Orissa, Bihar, and the North-East. The same administrative means were employed in entire British India to maintain the political unity of the domain.
The brittleness of this enforced unity was exposed during the freedom struggle itself. When the freedom movement started assuming a pan Indian nature in the first quarter of the 20th century, serious discussions came up within the Indian National Congress (INC) about the political structure in a post-British future. In the 1930s this was resolved by organising the Congress Party on a linguistic basis, and not according to the truncated provincial boundaries as demarcated by the British. At the 1942 Delhi Session of the INC it was also resolved that post-colonial India would be a federation composed of States based on linguistic homogeneity. The latter was a promise, while the former was immediately implemented. Identity politics based on languages and culture had already emerged as a knotty and urgent problem during the freedom struggle itself. In other words, political freedom had clearly become conditional to the recognition of diversity, a fact only grudgingly accepted by the Hindu right-wing section of the Congress. The communists were yet to make their mark in the freedom struggle.
The colonial strategy of ruling over the different peoples in the subcontinent was heavily dependent on the vicious principle of ‘divide and rule.’ They knew pretty well that it would be impossible to keep the ‘jewel’ in their pouch unless its great diversity was exploited to their own advantage. More than four hundred years of Muslim domination provided sufficient ground for the implementation of such a vicious strategy. The explosive reaction to the partition of Bengal and the Khilafat movement, a united anti-British movement by the Hindus and Muslims,[1] distinctly showed the colonialists that ‘divide and rule’ was not after all so very easy, and they stepped up their efforts to divide the two main communities in the subcontinent. The First World War had clearly pointed out the vulnerability of all shades of European imperialism, a lesson not entirely lost on the colonial peoples. The whirlwind was gathering and gaining strength by the 1920s. At the same time, the Muslim League was already formed in 1905 at Dhaka mainly under the leadership of liberal/enlightened feudal elements as a counterweight to the Congress, which was heavily loaded in favour of the dominant caste Hindu right-wing elements. The communalisation of Indian politics had started in earnest during the first quarter of the last century itself, and the British played no small role in this process. As later history showed all too clearly, disastrous consequences followed from this division.
In March 1940, the All-India Muslim League adopted the Pakistan Resolution raising the demand for the division of the country into India and Pakistan. This resolution was based on a region-specific religious majority/minority principle: the areas where the Muslims formed a numerical majority—as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India—should be grouped to constitute independent States. While negotiating with Mountbatten later, Jinnah wanted that the entire Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, Bengal and a major portion of Assam with a corridor linking the western and eastern parts should be carved out as a separate country under the name of Pakistan [Collins and Lapierre: 63]. The rights of the minorities were to be protected.
The division was conceived as a Hindu majority Hindustan and a Muslim majority Pakistan. Shortly after the passing of this resolution by the Muslim League there also came up the demand for Sikhistan from the Akali leadership in Punjab, who argued that the British took over Punjab from the Sikhs, and on their departure the area should be handed back to them. The national question in the subcontinent was being expressed on truncated lines and religion was being used as the criterion. Political freedom for India had become inevitable by the end of the Second World War due to internal and external factors and this turn was irreversible. The departure of the conservatives in Britain and the coming to power of the Labour government, the changed balance of power at the global level, and the militant turn the freedom struggle was taking, all together had made the continuation of the colonial regime impossible. In fact, it was a decisive historical conjunctural situation that came into existence in India during and at the end of the Second World War. Internally, the whole situation was directly and indirectly linked to the national question, manifestations of which may be whimsical and tainted with narrow selfishness, but the core issue was real with deep historical roots.
How did the self-proclaimed ‘vanguard’ of the people respond to this historically defined conjuncture? To begin with, the CPI leadership was sublimely ignorant of the question up to the adoption of the Pakistan Resolution by the Muslim League in 1940. This conclusion is not something invented by critics of the communist movement; it is a self-criticism. G. Adhikari, the foremost theoretician-leader of the CPI in those days, candidly admitted this much [Jacob (ed.): 49] But it would be naive to think that this admission resulted in any serious investigation into the national question. No such thing happened; only a series of resolutions were adopted by the CPI leadership. However, all that these resolutions prove is that the understanding of the CPI on this all-important question was flimsy and shallow and based on unstudied, wrong premises. Up to 1940 the CPI wholeheartedly believed that India is one nation; after 1940, when events overtook it while it watched helplessly from the sidelines, there was a panic reaction to join the bandwagon. Their ‘infallible’ historical and dialectical materialism and method did not help at all. All they could subsequently do to salvage the situation was to hide the records by not publishing the relevant party documents, a typical ostrich-like reaction.
When the CPI leadership was compelled to change its position from “India as one nation” to “India as multi-national” the Leninist theory on self-determination was formally resorted to substantiate this change in position. This theory is inclusive of the right to secede too. Based on this formulation the CPI identified seventeen distinct nationalities all of which must have the right to self-determination including the right to secede [Adhikari: 1943]. This position was seemingly correct according to the Leninist theory of self-determination. The real question is whether it was a mechanical application of the Leninist theory, or a creative one relying on a correct understanding of the class forces prevalent in the all-India freedom struggle. After it started advocating the theory of self-determination of the different nationalities the leadership did embark on separate studies of different nationalities: studies on Punjab, Bengal, AP and Kerala were conducted. Even while such studies were embarked upon, the irreconcilable contradiction in the position of the CPI was all too obvious, and this contradiction was the result of adopting a mechanical materialist approach to the whole question.
The two key documents of the CPI on the national question are the resolution, “On Pakistan and National Unity,” and the report by G. Adhikari on the same question before the enlarged plenum of the CC of the CPI in 1942. The title of the main document is curious. It is not the unity of nationalities that is the theme but national unity. It is very clear from the title itself that even while paying lip service to self-determination of nationalities in India the CPI considered India as a single nation, and what was required was the unity of this single nation, which was facing problems of communal divisions. According to the CPI, this unity which was under threat could be brought about only by exercising the right to self-determination and, more importantly, by bringing about the unity of the leading national political forces, the Congress and the Muslim League. The CPI recognised the Congress and the Muslim League as the principal all-India level political forces and hence thought that only the unity of these two national forces could bring about real national unity. Instead of consciously chalking out struggles based on the different national formations it took the position that what was required was the unity of the national forces and the class interests behind them. The class nature of the leaderships of Muslim League and Congress went for a toss in the whole exercise. So much for a concrete analysis of the concrete situation!
It was this shallow, hollow understanding of the national question in India which produced a pile of documents during the period 1942-47. The Communist Party of India and later the CPI(M) blacked out these documents together with the documents relating to the Second World War. Moreover, after 1951, when the CPI entered parliamentary politics for the ostensible objective of strengthening the forces for revolution, it had to necessarily denounce the idea of multi-nationality India, which it did without any qualms. The cadres were fed the curious logic that the earlier demand for self-determination only created the unwelcome result of the creation of Pakistan and horrendous communal riots, and hence the ideas of multi-nationality India and self-determination itself were wrong. When they jumped to the conclusion of seventeen well developed nationalities in India they had not studied the national question in India. The historically evolved linguistic, territorial and production basis of actually existing different formations were not studied. Their concept of national formations in the subcontinent and the demand for national self-determination included communal and religious criteria. When Pakistan became a concrete entity on the basis of a communal division the CPI remained silent on the historically determined national formations both in India and Pakistan. Because of this inherent, glaring contradiction in their position, jumping to the opposite conclusion was not at all a problem.
Within a period of less than a decade the CPI did a see-through magical act and emerged as one of the staunchest upholders of ‘national integrity.’ The earlier position, taken under compulsion, was based on a distorted analysis and the later position, also taken under compulsions of electoral political agenda, was also based on an equally distorted analysis. The position(s) on the nationality question provide a classic illustration of opportunism relying completely on mechanical materialism totally devoid of anything like dialectical materialism. During the earlier period the CPI got left out of the political process and in the later period they became unprincipled enemies of all nationality-based struggles. Here again the theorisation was originally provided from outside India by the leader of the British communist party, Rajani Palme Dutt.
An interesting exception was the approach of Manipuri communists towards the nationality question. Up to 1949 Manipur was an independent kingdom under a political system of constitutional monarchy. The Maharaja of Manipur had convened an Interim Council which had drafted the Manipur State Constitution Act of 1947 and Manipur had become the first region in the subcontinent to hold an independent election based on adult franchise in 1948. When the merger of Manipur to India was in the air a number of people’s organisations constituted a united front and agitated for responsible government and non merger with India. Subsequently, the merger agreement could be signed only by holding the king under house arrest in Shillong in 1949. Needless to say, this agreement had nothing much to do with the people of Manipur. In 1948 itself Delhi had started an underhand conspiracy to form a Purbanchal State comprising of Manipur, Tripura, Cachar and the Lushai Hills, which was strongly opposed by the people. In 1950 Manipur was graded as a Part C State,[2] and in 1956, when States were reorganised, it was converted into a Union Territory.
The strongest opposition to these manipulations came from Hijam Irabot, a communist peasant leader, who was also an elected representative. In 1948, he launched a radical movement with the aim of establishing an independent peasant republic under the aegis of the Manipur Communist Party with the Red Guards Council as the military wing. From 1950-51 military attacks against the Manipur state machinery and Indian administration started. While all this was going on the CPI leadership, which did not denounce the forced merger of Manipur, was keen to keep the Manipur Communist Party as a district unit of the Assam State unit of the CPI. It is significant to note that one of the two factions of the Congress Party here as well as the Socialist Party were challenging the disputed annexation of Manipur by a foreign power. The Manipur Communist Party with its military wing was ruthlessly eliminated by the government forces and Irabot died in Burma. The CPI was a silent spectator.
When the first CPI State ministry in Kerala was unceremoniously dismissed due to the pressures of local politics and economics, it was presented as an issue of fascist high- handedness against an elected pro-people government, and for the first time in India the question of Centre-State relations entered the scene in the realm of active politics. Much before this incident there was a widespread agitation in the country for the linguistic reorganisation of States. The Congress Party had committed itself to the linguistic organisation of States before 1947 and, accordingly, had organised the Congress committees on a linguistic basis. But post-1947, when the Congress became the ruling political party, this commitment was brushed aside and a new argument that the linguistic organisation of States will lead to tendencies of fission was advanced by the Congress leadership. Of course, linguistic States are an expression of the nationality question, which had become latent for a little time due to the turmoil of Partition. Both Nehru and Sardar Patel unequivocally stood for big States under a strong Central government, i.e., they were for the continuation of the essential colonial political and administrative structure. The opposition to this was spontaneous to a considerable degree, and forceful; any political party that stood away from the peoples’ movements or opposed them, was sure to get isolated from the masses of the regions concerned. Moreover, any sustained official suppression of such a movement was certainly bound to result in more violent and possibly better articulated forms of nationality-based struggles for national self-determination. Reading this clear possibility of the disintegration of the newly constituted India the Nehru government buckled under and constituted the States Reorganisation Commission in 1953. Within two years its report came out and was accepted resulting in the formation of States based on distinctly developed languages. At the same time, the rights of the several prominent indigenous tribal languages and peoples were callously and deliberately ignored.
The CPI, though it did not initiate or plan the struggle for linguistic reorganisation of States at its Central leadership level, got involved in these regional struggles and was active wherever it could be, particularly in Kerala, West Bengal and AP. But it stopped far short of developing these struggles into ones for national self-determination, though it was clear that the Central government went in for the linguistic reorganisation of States as an escape valve out of fear of the powerful peoples’ movements wrecking the nascent centralised state structure and ushering in a genuine federal structure, if not independent sovereign nation states. Both the CPI and the Congress knew this potential, and the formation of linguistic States under a centralised state structure was a pre-emptive measure to dilute the national aspirations of the different peoples of the country. It was a fairly successful measure in the short run, at least in the major part of the country. But even in the short run it was certainly not an unqualified success because the fight for secession soon erupted in the North-East. Kashmir was already truncated with a significant part becoming ‘Azad Kashmir’/‘occupied Kashmir’ in the wake of the limited war fought between India and Pakistan over this territory immediately after independence. Kashmir continues to be a disputed territory between the two countries and four wars have already been fought over this once independent kingdom. The question went to the United Nations, which mandated a plebiscite to determine the status of Kashmir. Predictably, no plebiscite was ever conducted and along with the Hindu right wing the official Left is also against any such move. Today, the Indian part of Kashmir is nothing short of an occupied territory and anyone asking for plebiscite is considered ‘anti-national’ meriting detention without trial or simple annihilation. The armed forces occupying Kashmir are vested with ‘special powers,’ another term for arbitrariness and non-accountability.
An important case in point is the North-East as a whole. Prior to British occupation there were several kingdoms in the region based on distinct ethnic and territorial identities. The British colonialists fought very hard for absolute control over this territory, but never succeeded completely and had to settle for limited tribal autonomy in several regions here. The forest wealth and oil deposits were precious to them and they resorted to several means to bring the region under control. One of the important means they employed was proselytising in which they succeeded to a great extent. The North-East currently has a significant Christian population. Even then the tribal identities could not be erased. The whole region is populated predominantly by numerous tribes with their own languages and dialects. The colonialists could not pacify this region fully and their inheritors also could not do much better. In fact, the nationality question in the North-East flared up even more violently after the British left India. Nagaland/Nagalim was the pioneer in demanding independence from Delhi on the basis of a distinctly separate identity with historical validity. Soon the demand for secession spread to the whole region with Assam joining in due to its own geo-political reasons linked to large-scale in migrations before and after 1947 that were often state-sponsored from outside. Currently, all the Seven Sisters are in a state of turmoil with dozens of guerrilla groups fighting the Indian state and sometimes each other too. In the State of Manipur alone it is estimated that more than sixty underground groups currently operate. The legitimacy of adding Sikkim to India through a ‘plebiscite’ remains shrouded in doubts.
The North-East is a region under occupation with degrees of variation in the intensity of occupation of the different States. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act giving unlimited power to the armed forces sans any accountability has been in force for a long time in States like Manipur. The armed forces deployed in this region are invariably from outside the region and know nothing about the region they are occupying and the peoples they are lording over. Civil and democratic rights are there only to be freely violated with impunity. Atrocities on the common people and extrajudicial execution of suspected militants are galore. The Nehru government resorted to aerial bombing in the hills of Nagaland to exterminate the guerrillas. The North-East borders Myanmar, Bangladesh and Tibet. Large areas are disputed territory between India and China (after the annexation of Tibet) and there is a heavy military build-up on both sides, particularly in the long border areas of Arunachal Pradesh. The borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh are porous with large swathes of ‘no man’s land’ between the former and India. The jungles are still dense and inhospitable. It is considered a punishment transfer when any Central government employee is transferred there. A parallel tax system exists in many of the States. The ‘dikhus’ or foreigners can survive and conduct their professions or businesses only if they regularly pay taxes to the guerrillas. When anyone from outside is introduced, the first invariable question is, “Oh! You are from India?” Geographically, it is a crazy situation because the land link of the North-East with the rest of India is only a 22 km broad ‘chicken neck,’ while the border with other countries is more than 3000 kms!
In both Kashmir and the North-East the resources expended on maintaining ‘internal security’ are stupendous, with no balance between costs and benefits. Hundreds of thousands of armed forces and their auxiliaries are fully deployed to maintain ‘internal security.’ When Kashmir became part of India it was the panic reaction of the Dogra king to the invasion by Pathan tribes that facilitated the entry of the Indian Army. Even then it was on the explicit understanding that a plebiscite will be conducted at the earliest to determine the status of Kashmir—whether it should form part of India or Pakistan, or be an independent country. This proposed plebiscite also obtained the endorsement of the United Nations. Instead of this promised plebiscite what happened was that part of it was occupied by Pakistan, a part went to China due to its transfer by Pakistan, and the rest was steadily inundated by the Indian Army. The occupation by all these countries is incompatible with accepted international protocols.
The part of Kashmir that is presently with India faces many serious internal problems of communal nature with the small section of Kashmiri Brahmins becoming displaced people and areas like Ladakh becoming communally polarised. These are regressive developments that happened after 1947 complicating the original issue of Kashmiri nationality. Three distinct regions—Jammu, the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh—are now communally polarised distorting the historically defined Kashmiri nation. And this is happening within an already truncated Kashmir. The military occupation of the Indian part of Kashmir, particularly of the Valley, is clearly sought to be made into an international issue like Kosovo or Palestine. The promised plebiscite is increasingly receding as an actual possibility because the Kashmiri people know full well that any such thing would only be a farce with the military voting for the people. The military and police voting for the people has happened many times in the country. It has happened in Punjab and it has happened in J&K itself.
The CPI, which at one point of time had demanded the right to self-determination of seventeen well-developed nationalities and seventeen Constituent Assemblies to decide on their political status, lacked the political will and understanding to press this apparently correct position. Moreover, its position allowed enough scope for opportunistic shifting of positions to float on changed situations. Accordingly, after 1951-52, the position shifted to the opposite pole and it became one of the staunchest proponents of the concept of India as a single nation and projected any demand for self-determination as an imperialist conspiracy to Balkanize the country in its own interests. In this respect there is no difference at all between the rabid Hindu right wing, the Congress and the social democrats. All three blocs competitively clamour about the “threat to national security and integrity” thus providing a blanket justification to the genocidal policies being implemented to preserve this integrity.
The explosion of the myth of federalism that was manifested through the dismissal of the elected CPI ministry of Kerala way back in the late 1950s did not teach them anything worthwhile. The nationality question for them became pitifully reduced to begging for more financial resources by the States. Maintaining this vast country, its tremendous resources and peoples as a single market is primarily in the interests of big businesses and their imperialist bosses. The geographical division of labour that perpetuates and increases unevenness and distortions is greatly advantageous to these conglomerates and the political slogan of national integrity is actually their slogan. In States like West Bengal, where they had been enjoying limited political power for decades, their increasingly strident advocacy of the cause of big capital is not at all strange. It is to be read along with their fanatic denunciation of the right of self-determination of the different peoples of the country.
Imperialist machinations in the era of neo-colonialism are flexible enough to accommodate contradictory political positions in the world as a whole. Where the ground situations are in flux due to severe objective contradictions and future political directions are unpredictable, it can be nightmarish for the interests of global capital. Then occupation becomes an option. The process of corporate hegemonisation of resources is so much based on greed that military despotisms can be oiled and maintained, and when circumstances change so that they become counter-productive to the interests of the very same capital blocs ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ can be used to destroy the erstwhile running dogs and institute mechanisms for even greater loot. If there is a serious nationality-based political problem in a ‘desirable’ chunk of the earth, the imperialists are sure to get involved because they want to ensure the continuity of plunder. But this has nothing to do with the actual genesis and objectivity of the issue itself. It is a question of utilizing a given situation by materially powerful global interests. And in this macabre play slogans in one place can be radically different from slogans in another place, even the neighbouring place. It could be ‘democracy,’ ‘despotism,’ ‘oligarchy,’ or ‘puppets’ according to the needs of imperialist capital. The crisis of capital is so compelling that ‘legitimacy’ even as a fig leaf is no longer considered necessary or desirable by the hawks. Shameless contradictions in positions are not expected to be taken as expositions of bankruptcy, but as the arrogant might of owners and manipulators of capital. At the same time, ignorance and arrogance are also highly complementary.
The language question did not disappear with the linguistic reorganisation of States. It did not lead to the obliteration of the aspirations of different regional/sub-national groups of people speaking the same language. The attempts to impose Hindi as the ‘national’ language under the argument of majoritarianism met with tough resistance, particularly from the Tamil land. The anti-Hindi movement here, a clear manifestation of Tamil nationalism, resulted in large-scale violence in all parts of the State and catapulted Dravidian politics into ruling regional political parties. The Dravidian movement or non/anti-Brahmin movement that came up in the 1930s itself laid the basis for the formation of regional/national political formations, which was precipitated by the arbitrary attempts to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking peoples. The programme to impose Hindi on all people was the integrationist programme of the Congress Party (also the Hindu right wing), which had to accept the linguistic reorganisation of States due to popular pressure. As was shown by the reaction of the Tamil people, this proved to be no easy task. A single official language steamrollering itself over all the other languages is considered as essential to maintain ‘unity and integrity.’ Politically, rashtra bhasha (national language) is a highly emotive issue for the Hindu right wing.
When Pakistan was hewn out of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 the viability of this new country formed on the basis of religion was open to question. Within no time the eastern part of the new country, East Bengal/East Pakistan, came under the economic and political domination of West Pakistan with the West Punjab component as the leading factor. East Bengal fast became an appendage of West Pakistan; and Bengali nationalism came to the forefront when attempts to decimate the Bengali language as a means to integrate East Pakistan as an appendage to the dominant classes in the Western part were commenced. A common religion could not hold the two halves together and linguistic bonds proved stronger than religious commonality. Of course, apart from the language question there were other important factors like attempts at economic domination. But it was the loyalty to the Bengali language and the national culture in general that played the most determining precipitating role in the birth of Bangladesh as a politically independent unit in South Asia.
The Indian intervention was basically one of exploiting the internal contradictions of Pakistan in its own sectarian expansionist interests, which is not the same thing as saying that the Indian intervention created Bangladesh. The Indian intervention, which enjoyed the backing of the Soviet Union in the wake of the signing of the Indo-Soviet Treaty on mutual strategic cooperation, was faithfully supported by both the CPI and the CPI(M). However, the Indian Army behaved no better than the Pakistan Army, and the backlash against the expansionist dreams of the Indian state and ruling class was swift after the formation of the new country. Nothing much could be done about this backlash by New Delhi. It was difficult to sell the theme of ‘liberator’ inside Bangladesh.
When linguistic States were formed in India they were very carefully crafted. One of the distinguishing features of the new political, administrative structure was the splitting of significant Adivasi regions into many linguistic States. Some of them were split up and incorporated into as many as five linguistic States. This was no doubt a plan to destroy/dilute the homogeneity of the Adivasi communities and homelands. Sardar Patel in particular was very clear on this point. The Adivasi tradition of fighting for the defence of their homelands and cultural identities had become clearly manifest through their violent uprisings against the colonial government. As there was no substantial difference in the perspective of the post-colonial government towards the Adivasis and the resources of their land, the move to split them among different linguistic formations was conceived as a very convenient, powerful tool to further weaken and disperse them. This move, by forcing them to learn alien languages and thus be subjected to alien cultures, was aimed at killing their own languages and cultures. Even then, linguistic reorganisation of States could not nullify the different sub-regional identities, whether Adivasi or non-Adivasi. That is why demands for newer and smaller States have not ceased to come up in the wake of linguistic reorganisation.
Under popular pressure several new States have had to be carved out. The North-East became eight States. Here the formation of different States was not so much based on popular demands as on the political expediency of control mechanisms suitable for and catering to smaller regions. Big States like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh were whittled down and new States formed out of them. This is an ongoing process. Demands for a separate Vidarbha, Gorkhaland and Telangana are very much on the live agenda. This is a trend that is bound to get escalated. This trend is called regionalism, parochialism, sub-nationalism, which points out the possibility of every linguistic formation becoming a federation of several distinct regions. Uneven development within a linguistic formation is a ground level concrete reality, and people are increasingly recognising that only by taking things into their own hands can the situation be improved and distortions mitigated. The emergence of a large number of regional political parties, also an increasing trend, is nothing but a legally acceptable political manifestation of gross ‘developmental’ unevenness prevalent all over this country of subcontinental dimensions apart from ethnic and cultural factors.
Thus, currently, the national question in India is being manifested at various levels. And these various levels, both qualitative and quantitative, are themselves historically determined. At the same time, the unified market structure, under the hegemony of the all-India and international commercial and financial interests, has also gone from strength to strength and in its turn is creating and intensifying newer and newer contradictions, which are threatening the given political structure itself.
The national question in today’s India is constitutional as well as extra-constitutional. Under the conditions of the opening up of every sector and region of the economy to the neo-liberal global economic regime, it is fast gaining a definable economic content. The extra- constitutional illustrations of national struggle are best seen in what is going on in Jammu and Kashmir and the whole of the North-East, which are occupied territories covered by the fig leaf of parliamentary democracy. In these regions, even non-violent forms of resistance are in essence outside the ambience of the Constitution, or they go outside that ambience very fast. Examples are the peaceful protests of the mothers of the disappeared in Kashmir and the epic hunger strike of Irom Sharmila in Manipur. The struggles for separate statehoods are going on in AP and West Bengal with many others waiting in the wings. The emergence of regional political parties representing regional interests is an all-India phenomenon, which is acting as pressure releasing valves for the regional and national interests and aspirations. Pedantically speaking, researchers and academics call this phenomenon as sub-national interests. But such a classification is valid only in so far as the country as a whole is historically categorised as a single nation. The anti-foreigners’ movement in Assam and its resultant guerrilla offsprings, or the Khalistan movement in Punjab, or what is going on in Kashmir and the North-East belong to the category of armed struggles aimed at self-determination including secession. It may be that they are ideologically not mature enough to win the struggles. But the fact remains that they are all national struggles aimed at breaking the existing political, administrative and economic set-up. That is the contemporary political essence of national struggles in India. Calling them sub-national or parochial is only missing the actual point.
The official or mainstream Left political forces in India are the diehard proponents of an integrated political structure, which means an integrated economy and market structure. As mentioned earlier, even when they were raising the question of different constituent assemblies to decide the future of different national formations they considered India as a single nation. The shift from that highly contradictory position to one of taking up guns against separatists, as in Punjab, is actually not a serious shift but only a logical extension of the basic position that India is a single nation. Their position is that with the reorganisation of States on a linguistic basis there is no further scope for new States, even though these political parties themselves are regional/national and not ‘national’ in the terminology of the Central state, and the central trade unions under them are only a few among many central trade unions. The working class as a whole is ‘national’ and hence the socialist revolution has necessarily to be ‘national’ in form and content. It is another matter that only less than 3 per cent of the total working population in the country enjoys any sort of collective bargaining power and the vast majority is unorganised with no form of economic or job security.
From the early 1940s to the late 1960s the CPI and CPI(M) jumped from one position to another in a back and forth fashion and finally settled down to the position of totally negating the Leninist position of self-determination. At its Second Congress in 1948 a framework for a federal set-up was adopted, but the leadership was in the dark on how such a federal framework could be achieved, which could be possible only on the basis of recognising the right to self-determination including the right to secede. While the CPI leadership was groping in the dark the dominant ruling class was steadily moving towards instituting a unitary framework relying on a highly centralised state structure contrary to the pre-1947 promises of the Indian National Congress. The creation of Pakistan aided them in this process because they could point it out as a negative outcome. Nor, surprisingly, did the CPI protest even when the all-India bourgeoisie and the rightists in Indian politics pushed through a unitary Constitution denying basic rights to the diverse peoples of India on 26 January, 1950. Not only were there no protests from their side, they aided this process by withdrawing the Telangana armed struggle and jumped onto the bandwagon of parliamentary politics lock, stock and barrel.
Verbal support to self-determination continued for some time, but for all practical purposes self-determination was thrown out of the political agenda. When the split occurred, the CPI(M) leadership successfully neutralised the demands of the cadres to uphold the right to self- determination, but hypocritically criticised the parent party leadership for abandoning the earlier position on the multi-nationality character of India. That this was only a deception practised on the cadres and sympathisers, as in the case of many other positions, became obvious in the post-split years. In 1972, their ninth congress categorically rejected the position of self-determination and the positions of the CPI and CPI(M) on this vital question merged into one. Cultural autonomy within a centralised political system was the only allowance made by the CPI(M) to the theory of national self-determination with the right to secede. From there they have further moved to the position that any struggle for national self-determination is only an imperialist conspiracy to be opposed by all means. This is the present position of the official left political parties.
When the split in the CPI(M) took place and the CPI(M-L) was formed, the perspective on the nationality question did not undergo any significant qualitative changes. The CPI(M-L) programme declared support to the nationality struggles, but at the same time saw them as distinct from class struggle. Nationality struggles were characterized as struggles of the petty bourgeoisie waged in its own class interests and as such they were not regarded as being compatible with the struggles waged by the communists, which are in the interests of the working class and peasantry. In effect, this amounted to counter-posing class struggle to nationality struggles. Further, the support to nationality struggles was subject to the condition of them attaining a certain level of militancy. Initiating and developing nationality struggles did not belong to the agenda of the communists, according to the programme of the CPI(M-L). The second edition of the Maoist movement, which is currently going on, has adopted essentially the same position. The theoretical perspective of national liberation struggle as the task of the working class in its role as the vanguard and the conception of the class character of the whole country as semi-feudal and semi-colonial blinker the Maoists’ approach to the nationality question, just as the single stage working class led socialist revolution concept of their predecessors had done in an earlier period. The New Democratic Revolution is conceived of as an all-India revolution, not as revolutions taking place in the different national formations. Such a point of view is a necessary corollary to its understanding of the Indian state and the class forces it represents. This is the reason why the Maoists, though they declare support for nationality-based struggles, are not in a position to effectively intervene in them. Under the given theoretical framework the maximum they can do and are doing is to enter into temporary tactical collaboration with the forces highlighting the nationality question in different parts of the country and South Asia in general, and this collaboration is largely confined to technical/logistical matters like arms supplies and such like.
Integrating the nationality- and class-based struggles—the two major streams of anti-state struggles going on—is not as yet on the agenda of the Maoists. It is certainly true that the class backing of the political forces raising the nationality question is predominantly petty bourgeois in nature and the class backing of the Maoists is predominantly peasant in nature. At the same time, there is significant overlapping of classes because of the role of petty bourgeois radicals in the Maoist movement of yesteryears and now. The Maoist leadership is a mixture of tribal/peasant elements and petty bourgeois radicals. Of course, the Maoists have an active programme of declassing the leadership and cadres, but this has not always been an unqualified success. Class-wise the petty bourgeoisie is very much part of the united front, one of the four ‘magic weapons’ of the New Democratic Revolution, according to Mao and the leadership of the Indian Maoists. In the earlier phase the theory and practice of the united front was a fiasco and there are indications that the present phase will not be radically different. Struggles based on the nationality question are an ever intensifying trend in India and this objective reality is being given a go-by by the Maoists under the cover of theoretical dogmatism/‘purity.’ Apart from missing out on a developing contradiction this also amounts to leaving the field entirely in the hands of the petty bourgeoisie, greatly increasing the scope for distortions and opportunism gaining dominance in such important struggles.
Notes
[1] The Khilafat movement was a pan Islamic movement that arose in the post-First World War scenario with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the destruction of the imperial power of the Sultan of Turkey. It upheld the idea of Islamic unity under the leadership of the Turkish Caliphate and rejected terms imposing limitations on Turkish sovereignty. The movement lost its raison d’être when the Turks under the moderate nationalist leadership of Kemal Atatürk abolished the caliphate and established the secular Turkish republic in 1923-24.
[2] Under the 1950 Constitution Part C States included the former chief commissioners' provinces and some princely states. Part C States were governed by a chief commissioner appointed by the President of India. In the case of Manipur this meant a continuation of the British annexationist policy towards the country.
References
G. Adhikari (ed.): Pakistan and National Unity – the Communist Solution. Mumbai: People’s Publishing House, 1943.
Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre: Mountbatten and the Partition of India. Delhi: Vikas, 1983.
T.G. Jacob (ed.): National Question in India: CPI Documents 1942-47, Odyssey, 1988. (Introduction by K. Venu).
Karam Manimohan Singh: Hijam Irabot Singh and Political Movements in Manipur. Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1989.
(Excerpted from: LEFT TO RIGHT: DECLINE OF COMMUNISM IN INDIA by T.G. Jacob, published by Empower India Press, New Delhi, 2012).