The Multinational Character of India
The Indian subcontinent was never under a centralised rule till the British established their colonial administration. The major empires of history could never extend their rule throughout the subcontinent and were always faced with the task of forcibly keeping the diverse regions under their rule. During the long periods when all centralised rule broke down, and in regions which had never come under such rule, hundreds of kingdoms existed warring with one another. Despite widespread influence of a common heritage, a common religious value system among the majority of the population, and the long sway of Sanskrit as the literary language, distinct communities with their own languages and culture had started emerging by the 9th and 10th centuries. This trend was intensified through the Bhakti movements. These communities, though split up into numerous petty kingdoms, represented the initial stages of nationalities in their process of development into modern nations. Some of them were fairly advanced by the 15th century.
This organic process was totally disrupted and distorted by colonial invasions and finally through the establishment of the British Raj. The British built up centralised state machinery and established an all-India economy to facilitate their plunder. Railways and communications systems were established as part of this. For the first time in its history the sub-continent came under a powerful centralised state and a common economic system bound up scattered communities. The normal process of different communities merging and developing into stable nations was forcibly disrupted through these measures. Arbitrary administrative provinces established by the British and its bolstering up of petty kingdoms serving its interests consolidated this distortion.
British rule destroyed the economic base of emerging local capitalism and simultaneously gave rise to a comprador bourgeois class closely tied up with the coloniser’s all-India economy. An intelligentsia brought up under the colonial education system also emerged. Political and economic integration enforced by the British and the unity which developed among the different people in their struggles against the common enemy provided the conditions for the development of a concept of India as a nation. The English educated intelligentsia became the main vehicle of Indian nationalism associated with this concept. But in spite of all such factors which worked in favour of a process of integration and the strengthening of Indian nationalism, the consciousness of the people based on real nationalities was never displaced. Side by side with the development of Indian nationalism, the ideology of the anti-British movement led by the Congress, nationalist thinking based on real nationalities also developed. There was a flowering of national cultures during this period and an increasing trend towards unification among people of the same nationality.
Backstabbing by the Congress
The Congress itself was forced to recognise the importance of national aspirations of the different peoples. In 1920, it accepted the demand to reorganise the arbitrary provinces created by the British and establish linguistic provinces. In accordance with this, the organisational structure was changed and the Congress declared its aim to be a federal India with provincial autonomy. It also declared that no people would be forced to join this federation. It is significant to note that these positions were adopted at a time when the Congress was trying to broaden its base and gain mass support for its struggle against the British Raj. These positions were purely opportunist steps. Hence together with them the Congress always stressed the need for a unified India and declared its opposition to any unit seceding from India. In the name of replacing English, a foreign language, it actively promoted Hindi, equally foreign to most of the advanced nationalities. In 1947, when it was faced with the choice between a weak federation avoiding partition and a strong unitary state with partition, it accepted the British proposal to divide Punjab and Bengal. This reflected the interests of the big bourgeoisie dominating the Congress. Thus through partition the present India with arbitrary boundaries imposed by imperialism came into being.
Once it came into power the Congress dropped its programme of forming linguistic States and establishing a federation. The Congress leaders clearly understood that linguistic reorganisation of the arbitrary provinces inherited from British India would provide better opportunities for the development of different nationalities and their growing up as a challenge to the domination over the all-India market by the ruling classes and imperialism. But the rulers were forced to change their position in the face of people’s struggles in different parts of the country and linguistic States were formed. These struggles once again demonstrated the vitality of the national consciousness of the people based on real nationalities.
Since 1947, the ruling classes have consciously tried to strengthen integration, both materially and ideologically. All the Five-Year Plans and specific administrative and other policies have the common feature of continuously limiting the role of the States and making them increasingly dependent on the Centre. It is significant to note that both the imperialist and social imperialist blocs have played an important role in the formulation and implementation of such policies. Neo-colonial economic integration, increased intermingling of peoples of different nationalities due to economic necessitie,s and increased dependence on the centre – all such factors sustain the material grounds for the continued existence of the concept of India as a nation. The ruling classes have consciously propagated chauvinism and expansionism—particularly in periods of war with neighbouring countries—as a means to sustain this reactionary concept. In recent years the ruling classes have pressed into service Hindu revivalism to buttress it.
Yet all such efforts have totally failed to eliminate the national identity of different peoples. Since 1947 itself the history of the peoples of the North-East is a continuous history of armed and other struggles against national oppression. The attempt to impose Hindi and denigrate the role of national languages was given a firm rebuff in the South. The very policies aimed at strengthening integration have only led to the intensification of the national question. The deepening penetration of imperialism in the present phase of neo-colonialism has led to an all-round exacerbation of the national question. Opposition to the continuous usurpation of State powers by the Centre has led to the growth of regional parties successfully challenging the al-India hegemony enjoyed by the Congress for a long time. A movement led by the newly emerged rural bourgeoisie against the hegemony of the ruling classes was rapidly transformed into a militant secessionist movement in Punjab. Thus despite the efforts of the ruling classes to eliminate national identities and foster an Indian identity the nationa question has come to occupy the central position in India.
Brief Review of Communist Positions on the National Question
As early as 1925 Stalin had noted that there is no such thing as an Indian nation. In the late forties a leading Soviet theoretician Dyakov wrote: “The presence of a powerful national liberation movement in which all peoples of India have participated ... further strengthens this illusory concept of a national unity of all the people of India.” Picking up the cue the CPI took a stand on the national question in its First Congress held in 1943. The right of self-determination and secession of the different nations was accepted and the future India was envisaged as a voluntary federation of different People’s Democracies. Though there were some efforts to study the particularities of the national question scientifically, on the whole this position remained superficial.
The CPI failed to recognise the necessity of taking specific national formations as units of concrete analysis to formulate programmatic positions. As a result, its programme based on analysing India as a single national formation always remained abstract. The CPI leadership never made an analysis of the complex interrelationship between religion, caste and the national question in the different national formations. Hence it failed to put forward an independent position vis-a-vis the Congress and Muslim League and generally tailed one or the other. When the CPI, and later the CPI (M), degenerated into outright revisionism even formal adherence to the right of self-determination was removed from their programmes.
The right of self-determination and secession was restored in the party programme when the CPI (ML) was formed. In one of his speeches com Charu Mazumdar stressed the importance of this position by pointing it out as one of the distinguishing features of the new programme. Earlier, in his Eight Documents, CM had sharply attacked the reactionary slogan of national integration and had upheld the role of the various national movements in India. Yet the CPI (ML) also failed to achieve a breakthrough on this question despite its correct evaluation of the stage of revolution as New Democratic. The party failed to recognise and rectify the methodological error committed by the CPI and CPI (M) and it continued to take India as the unit of analysis for formulating the programme. Moreover, the strategic role of the national question was not appreciated and the slogan of right of self-determination and right to secession was put forward as a means to gain the trust of the oppressed nationalities and defeat the divide-and-rule policy of the ruling classes. Com Charu Mazumdar also committed the serious error of counterposing the national struggle and the class struggle and took the position that the proletariat should not lead the national struggle. This was a negation of Mao Tse-tung’s teaching that the national struggle is a specific form of class struggle in the context of imperialist oppression. Even though the CPI (ML) had put forward the New Democratic revolution as its programme, these positions prevented it from developing the anti-imperialist anti-feudal struggle based on the real nationalities oppressed by imperialism by rallying the peoples under the banner of National Democratic revolution led by the proletariat.
Particularities of the National Question in India
The absence of a dominant nation is a specific characteristic of the national question in India. On the one hand, this acts in favour of strengthening the illusion of an Indian nation and covering up the national question since the ruling classes are drawn from more or less all the nationalities and since national oppression is mediated through the Central state machinery. On the other hand, the absence of a dominant nation which could act as a firm foundation of the state is the most important weakness of the ruling classes. In the long run this aspect is more significant. The national question is a noose around the necks of the ruling classes. Due to this particular situation the ruling classes face the necessity of maintaining a political system which accommodates the interests of the local bourgeoisie to some extent through a consensus established under their hegemony. At the same time, the intensification of the national question forces them to go for even more centralisation and push even the local bourgeoisie to take to the path of struggle.
Extreme unevenness in the stages of development of different nationalities is another important characteristic of the national question. Hence it is manifested in diverse forms and gets intensified due to different reasons also. In some nationalities neo-colonial transformation has led to the emergence of a rural bourgeoisie and other sections of the bourgeoisie also. But the economic control enforced through the all-India market structure by the ruling classes and imperialism prevents the further growth of this class. This contradiction has given rise to powerful movements against the Centre in recent times and it is a reflection of the national question. While this trend is developing along with neo-colonial transformation, there are also other nations which are extremely backward in comparison. Here this forced backwardness, amounting to internal colonialism, becomes the main manifestation of the national question.
The tribals, comprising 14% of the total population, generally have not yet developed into distinct nationalities. Yet ethnic differences distinguish them from other people and this gives them a common identity. The necessity for unity in their struggle against the common enemy increasingly breaks down barriers among tribes inhabiting the same region and forces a common identity among them. Thus the further development of the struggle strengthens the process of their transformation into nationalities.
The national question also gets manifested in the form of religious movements. Though the objective basis for this is the disruption of the organic process of national development by imperialism, the pro-Hindu communalist stand of the ruling classes and the existence of minority religions are important factors in giving rise to such movements. Contradictions generated by the impact of comprador cultural values and the aggressive thrust of Hindu revivalism promoted by the ruling classes provide a fertile ground for the rise of fundamentalist movements among minority religions. The obscurantist shell of such movements should not blind us from recognising their essential nature. Fundamentalism is a backlash to the impact of dehumanising alien neo-colonial cultural distortions and represents a distorted reflection of national sentiments.
This is particularly true in the case where a religion is closely related to the historical evolution of a nationality (e.g. Sikh fundamentalism). Fundamentalism is incapable of resolving the national question since its religious outlook prevents it from a scientific understanding of the question. Moreover in a heterogeneous society, it weakens the development of the national struggle in the long run by alienating the masses in other religions and pushing them over to the camp of the enemy. Apart from this, the call to return to values of a bygone feudal age creates a basic weakness in fundamentalist positions since it cannot give a positive response to new objective needs and develop a new value system. This basic lacuna is increasingly covered up by bigger doses of rigidity and intolerance which easily transforms into the worst type of despotism or fascism. Fundamentalism can only be overcome by taking up the national question and developing a vibrant revolutionary national culture and new values. In fact, the failure of the Marxist-Leninists in this regard is an important factor conducive to the growth of fundamentalism. In some respects the objective basis for the growth of Hindu revivalism is similar to that of Sikh or Islamic fundamentalism. But its ready identification with the concept of a Hindu/Indian nation and hence its role as a ruling class ideology which buttresses ‘national integration’ of India and its inherent casteism, gives it a distinct nature different from that of the latter.
The caste system is an important factor impinging on the national question. Caste divisions weaken national identity and often give an opportunity for the ruling classes to disrupt national movements by utilising caste contradictions. Hence the struggle against casteism, mainly against upper caste casteism, mainly basing themselves on the oppressed castes is of crucial importance for the revolutionary resolution of the national question. On the other hand, a proper struggle against the caste system can only be carried out by taking it up in the wider context of the National Democratic revolution.
The Proletarian Stand on the National Question
In the present era of imperialism and proletarian revolution the national question becomes part of the world proletarian revolution since it can only be resolved through the anti-imperialist struggle. In the nations oppressed by imperialism, the national liberation struggle is an essential part of any revolutionary transformation. The national bourgeoisie is incapable of taking up this task, due to its inherent weakness. Moreover, in the present phase of neo-colonialism, national independence can only be safeguarded by effecting a total break with the imperialist system, continuing the revolution and building up a self-reliant socialist economy. In other words, national liberation and safeguarding national independence can only be achieved by adopting a consistent internationalist standpoint. Hence only the proletariat can give leadership. Since the National Democratic revolution delivers a powerful blow at the very foundation of imperialism, the proletariat has a direct interest in taking up this task and developing the struggle thus preparing the ground for the socialist revolution. The proletariat is internationalist in outlook. But unless it takes up this task, raises the banner of National Democratic revolution, rouses the anti-imperialist patriotism and national consciousness among the people, and leads them in struggle, its internationalism will remain an empty phrase. As Mao Tse-tung pointed out, in a nation oppressed by imperialism patriotism is applied internationalism.
As pointed out earlier, absence of any dominant nationality represented as the Indian nationality and the existence of many distinct and emerging nationalities are the characteristics of Indian society. These different national formations are to be taken up as socio-economic units, both for making concrete study through a historical materialist analysis and for chalking out concrete programmes for revolution. The New Democratic revolution in India can only be completed as an ensemble of different New Democratic revolutions of the various national formations. Yet all these different national formations have had a continued existence for a long period under a single centralised state, giving rise to a single polity at the all-India level. This makes the nature of the New Democratic revolution in India further complex and necessitates the united struggle of the peoples of all these nationalities against their common enemies under the unified leadership of an all-India party.
In the ideological field the proletariat has the important task of struggling against Indian nationalism, the ideology of the ruling classes. Indian nationalism is a legitimisation of neo-colonial domination in India and serves the interests of internal national oppression and external expansionism. But this ideology cannot be defeated by appealing to internationalism in the abstract. It has to be countered by demolishing the illusion of an Indian nation in theory and practice. This calls for rousing the national consciousness of the peoples of the different nations in India and leading their New Democratic revolutions. Since one of the most important aspects of national oppression faced by these nationalities is the forcible integration under a single state, the right of self-determination and secession becomes an essential component of these New Democratic revolutions.
Upholding the right of self-determination does not mean support of every national struggle. This support has to be extended by evaluating whether a particular movement weakens imperialism, that is, by evaluating it from the standpoint of the interest of the world revolution. In the present period the world revolution proceeds through the snapping of the weak links of imperialism country by country. The main component of world revolution today is the struggle of the oppressed nations and here the national question is of central importance. Hence the interests of proletarian revolution have to be understood in this light.
In the present situation various imperialist powers try to utilise national movements in oppressed countries as pawns in their contention. This has led to a tendency to denigrate the role of national movements and consider them as the offshoot of inter-imperialist contention, unless they adopt a consistent position opposed to imperialism or are led by the proletariat as a New Democratic revolution. This tendency is based on an erroneous, idealist understanding of the Marxist-Leninist criterion. Even in cases where the class nature of the leading forces prevents the national struggle from breaking the imperialist chains, the struggle basically reflects the contradiction between imperialism and the nation. Marxist-Leninists should recognise this objective factor and extend support to the people’s struggle for national liberation even while they criticize and point out their limitations.
Lenin had clearly stated that the right of self-determination is nothing other than the right of secession, i.e., the right of a people t separate and form an independent nation. At the same time, he had also pointed out that upholding this right does not mean advocating secession. He stated that the proletariat in the oppressed nation should stand for ‘voluntary union’ as a means to oppose narrow nationalism and uphold internationalism. Apart from this, Marxists have generally favoured the formation of large countries since this would be conducive for the breaking down of national barriers.
In a neo-colonial country like India the present boundary is a totally arbitrary creation of imperialism and it represents the distortion and suppression of the organic process of national development of different peoples. Hence the demand for secession has to be evaluated in this concrete historical condition. Utilising Lenin’s position without such a concrete evaluation is nothing but the denial of his basic position on the question of self-determination. Lenin pointed out: “In the same way as mankind can arrive at the abolition of classes only through a transition period of the dictatorship of the oppressed classes, it can arrive at the inevitable integration of nations only through a transition period of the complete emancipation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their freedom to secede.”
In a multi-national country like India emancipation from national oppression becomes meaningful only when it is related to the real nations being oppressed by imperialism and the ruling classes. In order to develop the national liberation struggles of these nations, it is essential to destroy their false identification with an Indian nation and consciously build up awareness within them as peoples whose national development has been prevented through forcible integration in India.
In the neo-colonial phase, imperialist domination and exploitation are covered up and mediated through the internal ruling classes. Thus in India the direct national oppressor is the all-India ruling classes. Hence quite often movements led by the national bourgeoisie/petty bourgeois classes are limited to the demand for secession as a means to achieve national emancipation. Secession by itself does not resolve the national question and hence secession and the formation of a nation state cannot be an end in itself for the proletariat. But even though a secessionist movement has this serious limitation which prevents it from developing into a national liberation movement directed against the imperialist system, objectively it still has a progressive role. This is because such movements are related to a real aspect of the national question, i.e., the oppression by the all-India bourgeoisie. Hence secession from the imposed multinational India state is a partial solution of the national question. Taking this into account the proletariat should resolutely support the demand for secession, while exposing the limitations of secession as a solution and striving to transform such movements into National Democratic revolutions directed against the imperialist system and the ruling classes.
Since there is no dominant nation in India the centralised all-India state structure serving the interests of the ruling classes and imperialism is itself the medium through which national oppression is manifested. Hence the smashing of their state power has to be extended to the smashing of this centralised structure itself. The proletariat cannot take it over since it has been built up with the specific purpose of national oppression through forcible integration. This gives the right to secede an added importance in the Indian context. Any tendency which treats the present boundaries of India as inviolable in the name of ‘voluntary union’ of the people should be resolutely opposed since it weakens the national liberation struggle. The true unity of the people leading to a possible voluntary union of independent nations can only be achieved through the breaking up of the present imposed integration. Hence this ‘voluntary union’ cannot be a precondition for launching the National Democratic revolution. On the contrary it can only develop when the different peoples take up the task of liberating their nations and struggle against the common enemies.
[Position Paper of Central Reorganisation Committee, CPI (ML), published in Massline, April 1986]