India After Gandhi is an account of the events that took place in independent India after Gandhi’s assassination. It is a lengthy read but worth reading. Every page had some detail that I did not know about. The author had pieced together the various chapters beautifully. By the end, you would understand the thought process behind the formation of states, languages, reservations, the rights of women, and so on. It is a fascinating account that I recommend you to read.
‘Caste’ is a Portuguese word. It is a combination of two words: jati and varna. Jati is the group one is born into. Varna is the place that the group occupies in the levels mandated by Hindu scripture.
15 August 1947, as India’s Independence Day, was selected by the Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, as it was the second anniversary of the Japanese surrender to the Allied Forces in the Second World War.
‘At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom,’ said Nehru.
“No event of any importance in India is complete without a goof-up.” That is so true. Goof-ups are all around us. Someone would forget to connect something at the last minute, or someone would forget to take into account a particular thing.
People generally list three reasons behind the India-Pakistan partition. The first blames the Congress leadership for underestimating Jinnah and the Muslims. The second blames Jinnah for pursuing his goal of a separate country regardless of human consequences. The third holds the British responsible, claiming that they promoted a divide between Hindus and Muslims to perpetuate their rule.
Ambedkar quoted John Stuart Mill, who cautioned citizens not ‘to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or to trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions.’ I think Ambedkar made perfect sense. Obviously, he was brilliant and wise; that’s why he commanded the respect of the masses, but his foresight is incredible. The quote resonates with me a lot. Of course, like most people, I would want a sensible leader who would steer India to progress but not at the cost of our liberties. I would definitely not want someone who subverts the public institutions as my leader.
I have not voted in an election yet. Thinking back about 70 years ago, it seems incredible how they conducted the elections. I mean, we empowered everyone the moment we got Independence. That is awesome. The highest turnout, 80.5 percent, was recorded in the parliamentary constituency of Kottayam, in present-day Kerala; the lowest, 18.0, was in Shahdol in what is now Madhya Pradesh.
When Independence finally came, Gandhi thought that the states of the new nation should be defined based on language. Owing to the various differences people had, it made sense to define states based on language. Nelson Mandela once said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
In 1948 a Select Committee formed by the Constituent Assembly sought to review the draft of a new Hindu Code. Despite its name, it was applied to Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and other sects of Hinduism. The codification had a dual purpose: first, to elevate the rights and status of Hindu women; second, to do away with the disparities and divisions of caste.
Sixty (male) members of the Delhi Bar issued a statement objecting to the codification of Hindu law on the grounds that ‘the mass of the Hindus believe in the Divine Origin of their personal laws.’
Around 1952, one MP said that if the orthodox had their ways, they would start amending the constitution to such a degree that new fundamental rights would be added. The first of them will be that all Hindu women will have the wonderful and glorious right of burning themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The second fundamental right would be that the cow will be declared a divine being, . . . and all Indians, including Muslims, Christians and so on will be compelled to worship the cow.
The years 1757 and 1857 are much memorialized in Indian history. In the first, the East India Company defeated the ruler of Bengal in the battle of Plassey, thus gaining the British their first bridgehead on the subcontinent. In the second, the British faced, and eventually overcame, the massive popular uprising known to some as the ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ and to others as the ‘First War of Indian Independence.
Ambedkar’s slogan for his followers was: ‘Educate, Agitate, Organize.
Despite what various commentators say about Nehru, none could deny that he has the ‘everlasting credit’ for he insisted that Untouchables be granted full rights. He stressed that the equality of man would be maintained in the secular state of India.
C. N. Annadurai, also known as Anna from the state of Tamil Nadu, asserted that Hindi was merely a regional language like any other. It did not have ‘special merit.’ He even said that Hindi is less developed than other Indian tongues and hence less suited in the time of rapid technological advances. To rub salt on the wound, he remarked, “If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow.”
Mrs. Gandhi was the second woman to be elected to lead a free nation (Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon having been the first). Jacinda Ardern is my favorite world leader as of this writing.
The West Bengal chief minister, Jyoti Basu, had ordered the police to ensure that peace be maintained. The instructions were honored, with the city’s powerful trade unions keeping a vigilant eye. The example of Calcutta showed that prompt action by the administration could forestall communal violence, a lesson, alas, lost to the rest of the country.
‘In a few years even the votes may not be worth counting because we may have killed democracy by then.’
In one of the courses at IIM Ahmedabad called RGG, we studied the Kashmir issue and Article 370. ‘India’s constitutional settlement, for all its other grandeur, has not yet passed the Kashmir test.’
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