By M K George
Rome: It is going to be a week since India celebrated its 75th Independence Day. There were the usual festivities, with Covid restrictions certainly, and speeches/ articles galore. Perusing them, I see two clearly contrasting narratives — A highly positive and promising, given by the ruling regime; and a terribly negative and depressing one from the critical academia and activists.
The political leaders speak
“I can say with confidence that as you celebrate the 100th year of Independence in 2047, I can visualize India having progressed much farther on the path of development…The discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, community and language is a ghost of the past buried deep in the sand of time… I envision a prosperous, progressive and peaceful India gently striding on the world stage in a manner that is endearing and cooperative. The consolidation of India’s influence in the world and its thought leadership a century after Independence is benign and inclusive for the entire humanity,” President Ram Nath Kovind said.
The Prime Minister declared from the ramparts of the Red Fort, “A time comes in the development journey of every country when that nation defines itself from a new end when it takes itself forward with new resolutions. Today, that time has come in India’s development journey. ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’. Now, ‘Sabka Prayas’ is important for the achievement of all our goals…..I can see the dawn of a new era for India, rise of new self-confidence, a bugle of echo of self-reliant India. Once again, I extend my heartiest best wishes of Independence Day to all. Let’s all come together, and raise our hands, and say with all the power at our command, Bharat mata ki Jai…”
Activists and academics warn
In sharp contrast, some of the leading activists and academics of the country have an exactly opposite story to tell.
Tavleen Singh in a critique of the Independence Day celebrations, challenges the tall claims of progress made by the ruling elite. For instance, she notes, “…A new narrative is that the economy is doing well and that not a single Indian is going to bed hungry. The truth is that so many millions of Indians have lost their jobs that a worrisome wave of extreme poverty is becoming visible in rural India. Families with middle class aspirations have been pushed back into poverty. Millions of small businesses have closed, and small time entrepreneurs now do menial jobs to survive…” Her priority suggestions are, interestingly,”… what will make a difference is real improvement in the economy and the speed at which we are vaccinating India. And a serious effort to stop Hindutva hate crimes.” (Indian Express 15.8.2021)
Shiv Visvanathan presented an interesting alternate picture of the Independence Day Celebrations with a new set of tableaus: “…there are no army marches or jet flights, no sign of the military power of the nation. The first tableau is of Covid migrants from the informal economy walking. The storyteller announces this is the greatest uprooting since the partition….”
He goes on with descriptions of other tableaus on Gandhi’s monkey’s with masks on , killing of two merchants by the police, ‘national-antinational debate,’ farmers, and so on and concludes,”…that this is the India the middle class has created: majoritarian, mediocre, and authoritarian, with no place for dissent, margins, minorities, or alternatives. There is a sadness in the air as the flag is hosted, and funeral music is played. India’s tryst with destiny is complete as the tableau fades into the distance. The storyteller waits and then adds a line. He says, “The age of the storyteller is over. The era of post-truth news has arrived”. .” (14.8.2021)
Menaka Guruswamy wrote, ‘75 years ago, Parliament shaped and reassured a nation in turmoil…today, are we a democracy if our Parliament does not function.’ (14.8.2021).
The Onus is on the citizens
Confronted almost on a daily basis with such contrasting narratives, the ordinary citizen is bound to be confused, distracted and divided along lines of ideological loyalties. Many Indians do not have the time, knowledge or energy to engage in discourses on these. Many have become voting machines who are used once in five years. Others have become pawns in the hands of ideological apparatuses so smartly produced and maintained by stakes subtly supported by the ruling elite.
So, the onus now falls on the educated, critically conscious and socially committed citizens to engage in a dialogical mode of education among the citizens. Obviously, our formal educational systems cannot do this. We have to fall back on the kind of non-formal approaches developed by Ivan Illich, Paulo Freire, Rabindranath Tagore and others — An educational process, which invites everyone to analyse critically our own sociopolitical and economic contradictions and to develop a critical awareness. Not an academic type of analysis, but lived analyses leading to praxis and creative change.
Paulo Freire said, “if the great popular masses are without a more critical understanding of how society functions, it is not because they are naturally incapable of it—to my view—but on account of the precarious conditions in which they live and survive, where they are “forbidden to know.” Thus, the way out is not ideological propaganda and political “sloganizing,” … but the critical effort through which men and women take themselves in hand and become agents of curiosity, become investigators, become subjects in an ongoing process of quest for the revelation of the “why” of things and facts.”
(Jesuit Father M K George is based in Rome and looks after the South Asian region of the Society of Jesus.)