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Interpretation Of Dreams
The BJP
manifesto’s preamble is an exercise in obfuscation
Jean Drèze
 “No
nation can chart out its domestic or foreign policies unless it has
a clear understanding about itself, its history, its strengths and
failings.” Jawaharlal Nehru could not have put it better. The author
of this noble statement, however, is none other than Murli Manohar
Joshi, in his preamble to the manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata
Party, signed by him as chairman of the manifesto committee.
Ironically, this
statement is at odds with the preamble itself, which peddles a
series of myths (of the “India Shining” variety) about Indian
history and civilisation. According to this preamble,
India used to be
“a land of great wealth and even greater wisdom”. It was not only
the most fertile land but also far ahead of other countries “in the
technical and educational fields”, with “a well organised
health-care system” as early as 400 AD. Even “plastic surgery” has
been “practised for centuries” in India according to Joshi. These
achievements had their roots in the “Bharatiya or Hindu world view”
of ancient sages and Vedic rishis.
Interestingly,
the evidence given for these feats does not consist of Indian
historical records. Instead, Joshi invokes scattered testimonies of
foreign travellers, including some rather unreliable ones such as
Megasthenes, whose account of
India was
embellished with stories of dogheaded giants and other fantastic
creatures. The testimonies are highly selective, and, in some cases,
grossly distorted. A few illustrations may help.
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 The
most insidious part of the BJP manifesto’s preamble is a fake
quote attributed to Macaulay. But anyway, the fairy tale picture
that the manifesto paints gives useful insights into the
psychology of Hindutva leaders. The manifesto’s preamble
continues a tradition of “deceive and rule”. |
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Joshi describes
pre-colonial
India
as a “land of abundance”, with an “economy as flourishing as its
agriculture”. Hunger and famines, in his perception, were obviously
unknown in that period. But the fact is that famines have a long
history in India. They are mentioned in the Jatakas, the Ramayana,
the Mahabharata, the Arthashastra and Manu’s Dharmashastra, among
other ancient texts. As historian Romila Thapar notes: “Famine was
common and is mentioned in Indian texts. We do not have to go
looking for certificates of merit from foreign visitors.”
In a similar
vein, Joshi states that Gandhi was “absolutely right in saying that
India was
more illiterate in 1931 [than] in 1870”. The fact, however, is that
Gandhi was wrong on this. We know that from census data. Perhaps
Joshi considers Gandhi as a more authoritative source than the
census. But Gandhi, for all his wisdom, was not infallible, and this
is not the only occasion when he was carried away. Elsewhere, he
touchingly described “the Indian shepherd” as “a finely built man of
Herculean constitution”, at a time when the vast majority
of the Indian
population was wasted and stunted, with a life expectancy of less
than 30 years. His hasty comment on literacy belongs to the same
genre — wishful thinking.
The most
insidious part of the BJP manifesto’s preamble is a fake quote
attributed to Thomas Babington Macaulay. According to Joshi:
“India’s prosperity, its talents and the state of its high moral
society can be best understood by what Thomas Babington Macaulay
stated in his speech of February 2, 1835, in the British Parliament.
‘I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have
not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief, such wealth I
have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such
high calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this
country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is
her spiritual and cultural heritage...”
This “quote”
(abridged here) is a wonderful prop for Joshi’s arguments. But there
is a catch — Macaulay never said this. The quote is a well-known
fabrication, which has been the subject of many comments and
articles. This does not prevent it from being publicised on numerous
Hindutva websites. On a dissenting note, one of these websites
advises against using this quote, as it “has a bad reputation
amongst scholars of Indology who generally ridicule it”. Joshi is
evidently not among these “scholars of Indology”, despite his
emphasis on the need for the nation to “understand itself ”.
Incidentally, Macaulay was in
India on
February 2, 1835, making it rather unlikely that he would have
addressed the British Parliament that day.
Hopefully, these
examples suffice to show that the BJP manifesto’s preamble is an
exercise in obfuscation. As it happens, large portions of this
preamble were posted the same day on Wikipedia, in the entry on
“Indian culture”. Perhaps a well-wisher thought that inserting this
gem in Wikipedia would add credibility to Joshi’s propaganda. Be
that as it may, this entire portion of the “Indian culture” entry
was removed from the Wikipedia website a few days later.
Behind this
fairy tale are useful insights into the psychology of Hindutva
leaders and the political strategy of the BJP. The dominant theme of
Joshi’s preamble is the hurt pride of the higher castes (or “of
India” as
he calls it). Humiliated by foreign dominance in so many fields
today, their coping strategy is to claim that “we were actually
ahead all along”. Their agenda is to restore India’s lost glory as
they perceive it. This lost glory is nothing but the traditional,
exploitative social order dominated by them. Over the centuries,
this domination has been achieved partly through force, and partly
through deception. The BJP manifesto’s preamble continues this
tradition of “deceive and rule”.
The writer, now
with the department of economics, Allahabad
University, was born in Belgium but has lived in India since 1979,
has taught at the London School of Economics and the Delhi School of
Economics. He is known for his work on development economics
including hunger, famine, education, gender inequality, childcare,
school feeding, etc. He has co-authored books with economist Amartya
Sen.
29
April 2009
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