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Embedded Pluralities in Conceptions of ‘Self’ and ‘Universals’: Insights from Indian Political and Social Thought and Practices

Navnita Chadha Behera

Modern IR places an overwhelming emphasis on universal explanations for many of its

key problematiques. It also privileges political over social domain, state over society and

indeed claims of state sovereignty over all other kinds of political communities. This, in

effect, presents the Westphalian state as the uniform role model for all states in the

international system. Drawn from the specific historical experiences of the Western

Europe, a mechanical application of most of these apparent universal formulations has

proven to be raison d étre of violent conflicts in many parts of the Global South. That is

because the social and political ethos of their civilizational pasts were of a radically

different nature and, some of these had traversed very different historical trajectories of

state making owing to their encounters with the colonial modernity. More importantly, in

doing so, it also largely obliterates the ‘historical pasts’ of the other parts of the world as

a possible site of knowledge creation in IR. This paper illustrates this point with reference

to the Indian philosophy along with its social and political practices, which in contrast to

the European model, had traditionally nurtured the deeply embedded pluralities in India’s

social and political sphere by ways of seeking reconciliation between different cultures,

languages and religions rather than forcibly imposing a uniform model.

The paper looks into India’s historical pasts and draws its insights from its deeply

plural ways of knowing and understanding social and political realities in order to explore

if, and how these offer any alternate standpoints for better understanding and perhaps re-

casting the processes of state making in various parts of the world. The mainstay of the

paper lies in understanding the intrinsic nature of pluralities of an individual’s

relationship with his/her own self, other social groups in the society and the state as

conceptualized in the Indian thought. It seeks to understand the traditional and deeply

plural notion of a social identity; the multi-layered character of the political authority in

pre-colonial India as well as state’s relationship with the society. This is followed by a

brief discussion on how these were fundamentally transformed by colonial modernity,

which in turn, had unleashed the forces of nationalism that eventually replaced the

civilizational basis of organizing social and political life in the pre-colonial India. It


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concludes with a discussion on how an alternative worldview of IR may be generated by

drawing upon myriad ways of knowing, ideas and practices of Indian ‘pasts’, which may

help in cultivating a political imagination coining practices that recognizes, understands

and nurtures differences and creates alternative ontological possibilities of social and

political spaces for differently conceiving communities as well as their interactions that

criss-cross the spatial (territorial) boundaries of nation-states.

The ‘Self’: An Embedded Plurality

Unlike the modern conception of a dichotomous relationship between the ‘self’ and the

‘other’, the Indian notion of ‘self’ was itself conceived as a plural term. Indian

philosopher, Daya Krishna explains this phenomenon by contrasting what he terms as a

“socio-centric perspective of the Western philosophy with the Atman [self/soul]-centric

perspective of the Indian civilization.” The first offers a “completely secularized view of

man as a social animal who achieves his humanity through the society.” In the Greek

tradition, a man was not even considered to be a human being unless one was a citizen. In

the Indian thought, on the other hand, man is viewed as “a transcendent being” who is

essentially “asocial, or rather, trans-social in nature and, that is how “the relationship with

the other, which is at the heart of sociality, is secondary too”. (2012: 12-15). The issue,

Krishna notes is

not the distinction between . . . the ‘I–thou’ and the ‘I–it’ relationships. Rather, it is between these two on the one side and what can perhaps only be called the ‘H’ relationship on the other. The two ‘I’s’ in the equation are, at one level, the empirical and the transcendental self... At another level they may be conceived of as referring to the self-as-subject and the self-as-object and the relationship between the two. . . . . [Either way] the central focus remains on the relation of the Self with itself and not with what constitutes the other (emphasis added) (Ibid.).

Explaining it further, Krishna points out that the first perspective leads to a socio-

economic predicament in that the individual, who is supposed to have nothing in himself

which is not derived from society, is simultaneously and intrinsically responsible for

others’ actions in the same spirit as the Christ had to redeem Adam’s sin. Thus

conceived, a man certainly develops a sense of community, but “it is a community more

in guilt than in redemption.”(ibid; 13). However, the doctrine of karma in the traditional


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Hindu thought “does not derive from an other-centred consciousness in which the

consequences of one’s actions on others are the subject of one’s focus of attention,” and,

“not merely does what one does have consequences upon oneself but, conversely,

whatever happens to one could only be the result of one’s own actions” (ibid; 14).

Translated into spiritual terms, “it was the essential relatedness of the Self to itself as in

Sankhya or its being bereft of even this relation as in Advaita Vedanta that was the central

assertion” (ibid; 19). Society in the “atman-centric” perspective is also seen as helping a

person “get away from his ego-centered consciousness, which is always concerned with

the satisfaction of petty personal desires,” and “towards an awareness of obligations to

others and towards the sustaining of those institutional mechanisms that make human

living possible.” (ibid; 17). This, Krishna points out,

is the realm that is classically denoted by the concept of dharma in Hindu thought. This is the moral realm par excellence, the realm that is constituted by the notion of ‘debt’ or ‘the owing of an obligation to others’. The ‘others’, in the Hindu tradition, include not only persons, but also ancestors, gods, plants, animals, earth, sky and so on. The concept is wide enough to include all realms where the ‘other’ happens to be an empirical ‘other’ with whom one can enter into a relationship. . . .The obvious implication, therefore, is that the transcendent Self is not only the highest but also the widest, in the sense that it basically cannot be described in terms of spatial or temporal characteristics at all.” (ibid;17-18)

Ashis Nandy makes the same point in arguing that in the subcontinent “the other is

considered to be simultaneously the definer of the self” (Nandy 1998: 68). What Nandy

has in mind is “something like the self spilling over–over its boundaries into other selves,

and in turn other selves spilling over their boundaries into your self” (cited in Lal 2000:

59). In the traditional Indian society, this held true not just for an individual but also for a

social group as explained in the following section.

Social Moorings of an Identity

The nature of an identity in pre-colonial India was a purely social phenomenon. People

living in communities followed elaborately codified rules of social differentiation though

their sense of belonging and solidarity was not based on political considerations. Habitat,

religion, language, kinship and similar associations helped identify an individual

(Kaviraj: 1995:116; Chatterjee: 1994: 122). The plurality of a pre-modern identity figured


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on a horizontal plane, while each aspect of such an identity had a distinct social role to

play and did not have to be prioritized nor limited by an absolute albeit ideational

boundaries in terms of rituals, practices and beliefs of what a person was allowed or not

allowed to follow. For instance, a Muslim king could celebrate Hindu festivals and visit

Hindu shrines and a Brahmin could compose hymns and prayers for Hindu deities in the

Persian language. That is because a person was not characterized as first a Hindu or a

Muslim or a monk. Identity had different meanings in different situations. Historical

records show that renowned scholars and literary figures were not merely patronized by

the court, but received official stipends from both their Mughal patrons and rulers outside

the Mughal empire. Scholarly debates and exchange of ideas and competing

interpretations among them had little to do with their loci and “seems to have existed

independent of the political boundaries and conflicts attendant on them, which produced

a busy circulation of ideas across distant regions (Kaviraj: 2010:3). This was specially

because the political setting for these cultural developments was not a single unified state

covering all of India, but numerous relatively small kingdoms, most of which provided

patronage to the arts and religion—a point we will revert to shortly.

A pre-modern collective identity was also contextual in that its social character

and basic constitutive elements were shaped by its local milieu specially the local socio-

cultural traditions. Buddhism in Kashmir Valley, for instance, was influenced by the

older Shaivite traditions,1 while in Ladakh it was prone to traditional Bonpa influences

and later dominated by Tibetan Lamaism (Hewitt 1995:31).2 Similarly, Kashmiri

Hinduism and Islam had distinct local characters, markedly different from Hindu

practices and Sharia Islam elsewhere in India.3 The caste system acquired a special

character in each region. It was closest to its original form in the Jammu region, while in

the north-west and tribal areas of Baltistan, it became watered down because of the

tenacity and countervailing forces of tribal and clan loyalties and egalitarian philosophies

of Buddhism and Islam (ibid; 28).4 The Kashmiri Brahmins were, for instance, influenced

by local practices. They would drink water given by a Muslim, eat the food cooked in a

Muslim’s boat, and even justified mutton-eating introduced by the pre-Aryan tribes—

Pisacas. That’s because a new religion was rarely imposed by its ruler on its subjects. It

was accepted by people gradually because of its egalitarian principles or absence of


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rituals appealed to them and reconciliation between much older practices and newer

beliefs evolved in the social domain over a long period of time. That explains why a

collective identity was not immutable since conversion to another faith did not result in

obliterating old beliefs and traditions.

The thousands of communities that have lived in this region for millennia are not

only deeply aware of the diversity that surrounds them but they also developed the

collective means to adapt to it. The primary mode of adaptation, according to Ashis

Nandy, has been “to telescope the ‘others’ within oneself–a form of introjection where

the others might survive as recessive but nonetheless unavoidable vectors of the ‘self’. In

fact, the self remains definitionally incomplete without the telescoped others.” He adds

that “the Indian concept of the ‘self’ has never been static. The self is not only

dialogically defined–the self that emerges from a deep, continuous, long-term encounter

with the others is the normatively defensible self.” (1998: 55). This is not to argue that in

this experience of co-survival over the millennia, there have been no tensions, hostilities

and violence, but that along with these, “there has also been sophisticated adjustments

and subtle reinterpretations of doctrines to accommodate other faiths and cultures.” (ibid;

59). This has been possible because most religious traditions in India shared the ethos of

dharma as a common governing principle.

Dharma: The “Root Paradigm” of Religious Traditions in India

The “root paradigm of all the major indigenous religious traditions” in India, Nandy notes

is that of “the cosmic, moral social order, of dharma (1999:213). According to Hinduism,

Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, the universe is sustained by dharma. The basic meaning

of dharma, a word derived from the root dhr, “to sustain,” is the moral law, which

sustains the world, human society, and the individual.5 Dharma is in fact a key word of

Hindu culture, and Hinduism itself is sometimes designated as Sanatana Dharma, the

Eternal Dharma (Embree 1988: 209-210). Embree rightly points out that the terms

Brahmanism, Jainism, and Buddhism are conventional rubrics for encompassing diverse,

but linked, social phenomena. “Hinduism, or the Hindu way of life, in this sense, means

the whole fabric of social life,” which is perhaps why he prefers to “use the term “Indian”

instead of Hindu, to avoid the tendency to think in modern categories relating to


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religion.” (ibid; 203). Though the core philosophy of Hinduism is predominantly

influenced by the Brahminical traditions going back to more than a millennium but it has

also enriched as well as transformed by important and enduring contributions from the

plural traditions and value systems of the Buddhism and Jainism.

The nature of Hindu religious texts also made possible almost endless

interpretations, providing legitimization and sanction for a wide variety of beliefs and

practices. Unlike the Qur’an or the Bible, Hinduism never had any single authoritative

text but instead a vast corpus of material, produced over a period of at last two thousand

years, that is regarded as sacred and authoritative. The Vedic literature is sruti, that which

was heard, the truth discovered by the great sages; the later texts are known as smrti, that

which is remembered, the traditions and interpretations of later times. Smrti includes such

fundamental texts as the great epic the Mahabharata, the Puranas, and the law books

(Embree 1988: 206). Owing to its vast corpus that originated in many different times and

places, it offered many opportunities for contradictions and ambiguities creating spaces

that permit creative growth and development (ibid).

In addition, many concepts, myths, social patterns, and religious practices came

from indigenous people who either predated the Aryan migrations or came into India by

other routes at other times (Embree 1988: 204). Let us explain this with reference to

Kashmir, which evolved a unique and composite Kashmiri culture. The Aryans who first

came to this region had adopted the customs, rites and festivals of the aboriginal Nagas

and worshipped their deities. So, there is a nag, a cobra, around the neck of Shiva,

Vishnu reclines on Anant Nag, and Shesh Nag became the ‘spring of life’ (Punjabi:

1990:102). According to the Rajatarangini6, the great serpents Nila Nag, Sankha Nag and

Padma Nag guarded Kashmir. When Vedic brahminism gave way to Buddhism, the idea

of karma and transmigration of souls was absorbed in its philosophy. The fusion of

Buddhism and Shaivism later gave birth to the Trikka philosophy that centred around

Parma Shiva, the Supreme Being, but the Buddhist influence was reflected in its

emphasis on a direct and personal relationship between the individual and God which

could be realized and experienced only through yoga. It also accorded a place of honour

to Buddha in the Hindu pantheon.1 By the time Islam came, Kashmir had assimilated the

monotheism, mysticism, and devotional worship of Mahayana Buddhism and Shaivism.


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The Sufi tradition of Islam was profoundly similar to these earlier practices, and, further

influenced by local beliefs, it evolved the philosophical tradition of religious humanism

popularized by the Order of Rishis. Islam was, thus, accepted by the Kashmiris not as a

negation but as a culmination of a proud spiritual heritage. Often the cultural markers of a

collective identity were shared by more than one community. For instance, a marble

stone with the imprint of a large footprint, preserved at Asar-i-Sharif, Janab Sahib at

Soura in Srinagar, is claimed by all three major religious traditions: by the Muslims as

Qadam-i-Rasul (the footprint of the Prophet Mohammad), by Hindus as Vishnu-pada (the

footprint of Lord Vishnu), and by the Buddhists as Sakyamuni-pada (Buddha’s footprint).

Bengal offers another important example where masses who converted to Islam

were won over more by Sufis than by kings and “the promise of syncretism was

realized,” through Hindu mythology and cosmology becoming the vehicles for Islamic

dogmas and practices. “As Bengal was Islamized, Islam itself became Hinduized.

Muhammad’s biography became a variant of Krishna’s early life; Hindu Gods rubbed

shoulders with Muslim saints. (Nandy 1999: 228). In fact, “expression of devotion to a

particularly deity (or to Deity, nonparticularized),” in the bhakti tradition, which became

the pervasive form of religious expression in most of the great cultural regions of India in

the medieval period also “represented a fusion of Dravidian elements with the Vedic, or

Aryan, religion that had penetrated the South centuries before (Embree 1988: 207-208).

Both the Shaivite (worship of Shiva God) and Vaishnavite (worship of Vishnu God) cults

of the bhakti tradition produced a vast devotional literature in Tamil, Marathi and Hindi

languages that coloured the lives of the people and gave those areas an identity and self-

awareness that they have never lost. Nandy explains that this is because accommodation

of other faiths and cultures in the Indian context is of qualitatively different nature. He

says that

in the case of India, we are not speaking so much of forms of accommodation as they have been understood in the West, partially because these forms of accommodation are, (a) not imposed from above, (b) they constitute a form of lived experience, and (c) they actually lack an element of self-consciousness (Ashish Nandy in Conversation with Vinay Lal 2000: 58).


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Relationship between State and Society

The relationship between the state and society in the traditional Indian order was of a

qualitatively different nature. An individual’s loyalty in ancient India was primarily to the

tribe, clan or caste group, and his/her relationship with the political authority was limited

to paying taxes. Political allegiance to territorial states was a tenuous affair under

traditional conditions. Political rulers changed frequently and kingdoms and empires

constantly collided and expanded at each other’s expense, so that a group of people

inhabiting a particular space could be part of different kingdoms in a short space of time

(Kaviraj 1995: 116). The ease with which such political inclusion could be achieved also

put such allegiance on a much weaker footing in contrast to modern practices wherein a

state commands complete and steadfast loyalty from its citizens. It was in that sense

“impossible to achieve the kind of firm identification between people and a form of

politicized space which is presupposed in the political ontology of the modern nation-

state” (ibid). The relationship between a collective identity and the state was structured

within the framework of a layered sovereignty.

Political authority and control tended to be dispersed and distributed between

various levels of authority: vassal states, regional kingdoms and empires, as distinct from

a centralized political unity of the modern sovereign state. In the Vedic texts, terms like

adiraja and samrat, often loosely translated as ‘emperor’ seem actually to imply lordship

over a number of feudatories. Even in Mauryan times, vassal chiefs existed in the outer

periphery of the empire. With the fall of the Mauryas, the typical large kingdom had a

central core of directly administered territory, and a circle of vassal kingdoms

subordinate in various degrees to the emperor. These vassals had vassals of their own in

petty local chieftons calling themselves rajas (kings). The Indian system differed from

that of Europe in that the relations of overlord and vassal were not regularly based on

contract (Bhasham 1954:95). If a king was decisively defeated in battle, he could render

homage to his conqueror and retain his throne. Thus vassals usually became so by

conquest rather than by contract and “lawful conquest” dharamvijya, according to the

epics and Smrti literature, did not involve the absorption of the conquered kingdom, but

merely its reduction to a vassal status. The amount of control exercised by the overlord

varied greatly. Ideally the vassal was expected to pay regular tribute to his emperor and to


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assist him with troops and funds in war. He attended the overlord’s court on ceremonial

occasions and in some cases, a vassal acted as a minister of his suzerain (ibid.). Mostly

however, the suzerain’s hand weighed very lightly especially on the more powerful and

remoter vassal states. This created a fluid and malleable political system with constantly

changing political status and loyalties of kingdoms, and also the state or its upper layers

had little direct interaction or control over the collective identities at the grass-roots level.

Kaviraj argues that the imperial impulse in the Indian history that had united vast

territories under a single centre of political control was both “transient, and, except for a

temporary military enforced territorial unity,” they found it hard to impose a relentlessly

uniform system of rules and regulative order.” (1995: 3) He points to the

power of the second fundamental impulse of Indian political life: the reassertion of regional kingdoms, when the grasp of the imperial centre slackened, and a transfer of both authority and resources back to smaller political entities which could depend on the cultural self-identification of peoples inhabiting flourishing vernacular cultures, which for examples had emerged in the Maratha, Mysore, and Punjab regions after the decline of the Mughal state. Historically, in India’s political history constant shifts of power occurred from one level to another and the relation between these levels of authority is better described as one of subsumption or subsidiarity rather than sovereignty. Political structures in India therefore continued to develop a complex pattern of rules and legislative orders, stretched across at least three planes–of ‘locality, province and nation’–to express in modernist language a flexible structure that persisted over the longue duree. (ibid; 4).

Drawing upon three key theoretical texts and epics of the Hindu tradition namely the

Manusmriti, the Arthashstra written by Kautilya,7 and the Mahabharata, Kaviraj

identifies the following key elements of royal power in that early Hindu reflections on the

state had produced a theory which, “while recognising the requirement of unrestricted

royal authority, sought to impose restrictions upon it by positing an order that was

morally transcendent–an order to which it was both subject and in complex ways

eventually responsible.” (Kaviraj 2010:44, 47). By distinguishing between ‘the law’

(danda) and a fallible human agent (the king), Manu is able to construct a theoretical

structure in which the king does not enjoy unconditionally absolute power over the lives

of his subjects. “It is absolute in the sense that there is no other human authority, which

can contest it, but it is not absolute in a more fundamental sense as there exists a moral

framework of dharma to which it is, in turn, subordinate.” The Manusmrti makes it


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entirely clear that the locus of sovereignty is in the danda, not in the person of the king or

his adventitious intentions: “In essence it is the law [danda] that is the king, the person

with authority, the person who keeps the order of the realm, and provides leadership to

it.” (Manusmrti, chapter 7, sloka 17) (Kaviraj 2010:45). The central idea of this form of

political theory is that “social order is not subordinate to the king’s legislative function;

rather, he is subordinate to the social order.” (ibid; 48). While the state enjoyed great

ceremonial eminence in fact it had limited powers to interfere with the internal

organization of the social segments. The conceptual language of “acting “on behalf” of

the society as a whole was unavailable to this state” (Kaviraj 1991: 75).

Furthermore, “society, the age-old divinely ordained way of Indian life,

transcended the state and was independent of it. The king’s function was the protection of

society, and the state was merely an extension of the king for the furtherance of that end”

(Bhasham 1954: 90). The basic unit of most kingdoms comprised of the self-sufficient

village communities which were regarded as a cooperative social unit though not

recognized as part of the state machine (Sen 2004: 241). While an effective control was

exercised on towns, villages were relatively free from active imposition of power by the

royal officials. These were independent of the government and continued to function,

whatever dynasty was ruling the district. They were rather autonomous bodies that were

not only self-sufficient economically, but also self-governing.

The king’s function involved protection not only of his kingdom against external

aggression, but also of the order of society, the right way of life for all classes and ages,

as laid down in sacred texts. In fact, the duty of the state did not end with the protection

of life and property. It had a higher purpose namely to help the individual in his self-

realisation in a spiritual sense. With regard to the requisites of the state for instance,

Kautilya in Arthashastra discussed the qualities of the kingdom for its prosperity, so as to

“enable men to realise the aims of life, to lessen the struggles for existence at home, to

reduce the dependence of the community on the outside world, to be in a position to help

others in distress, and thereby to ensure an existence conducive to the happiness of man

in this life and paving the way to a brighter one in the future”(Sen 2004: 239).

Going beyond the brahminical theory of rulership, Kaviraj points to striking

similarities between Hinduism and Islam in terms of their understanding and rules that


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govern the relation between the power of political rulers and what he calls “the ‘social

constitution’, they obeyed surprisingly similar rules.” He writes:

The Mughals, the most powerful of the Islamic dynasties in India followed “a theory of

rule drawn from a tradition of Persianate Islam which developed under entirely

exceptional circumstances in the Khorasan region. The task of the ruler was not just to

ensure that his subjects were able ‘to live’, but ‘to live in a way fit for human beings’.

[This] required conditions in which subjects could use their intellectual and spiritual

capacities (pp. 49-50). More significantly, even Islamic political rulers “implicitly

accepted limitations on political authority in relation to the social constitution, which

were parallel to those of Hindu rulers,” meaning that “the Islamic state also saw itself as

limited and socially distant as the Hindu state” (ibid.). Kaviraj explains the need to

“understand the difference between actual weakness of a state and its marginality in

principle. The relative autonomy of the social constitution from the state did not arise

because the state was weak, and would have invaded social rules if it could muster the

necessary strength. Rather, it accepted a marginality that was a consequence of its own

normative principles. The marginality of the pre-modern state was a social fact precisely

because it followed from a moral principle, which guided the relation between rulers and

subjects (Kaviraj, pp. 49-50).

Colonial modernity radically altered that as driven by the European

Enlightenment, it had historically transformed the nature and form of political authority

in a fundamental and irreversible manner towards an impersonal government based upon

contractual rule of law and a common code of morality, run by a rational bureaucracy.

The colonial state’s concept of sovereignty and the impersonal nature of public power

had eliminated the intermediary layers of political authority, encroached upon the

autonomy of social processes and appropriated the role of indigenous social regulatory

mechanisms and organizations such as the caste system and the Sangha—societal

definition in the Hindu and the monastic order Buddhist traditions, respectively. Since the

state sought to represent the collective interest of society and became the sole repository

of social and political power, all social demands had to be routed through the state. With

the passage of time the British centralized the administration of the subcontinent and

imposed political unity, thus creating a unitary, sovereign state. It ruptured the old,


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indigenous and creative mechanisms of compromise and collaboration between various

identities and the political authority, “creating a wide unbridgeable gap between the

integrative institutions of the colonial state and the complex mosaic of social and cultural

diversities within Indian society” (Jalal 1995: 9-10).

The colonial powers had brought in new principles of statecraft, a different

productive system and economic relationships based on individual property rights, but,

more significantly, they introduced hitherto unknown cognitive tools of maps and

numbers. This imparted a sense of territoriality to collective identities and enumerated

their social space and materially changed the self-perception of communities. A

nontraditional entity in the form of abstract identities based on convergence of interests

was introduced (Kaviraj 1992: 20-21).8 For example, people were indeed Hindus or

Muslims before, but under the conditions of modernity, their perceptions of the collective

self as the majority and minority community changed fundamentally.

Colonial modernity also sought to unify the diversity of the social world under the

overarching categories of the census. Individuals who could argue endlessly about the

Islamic propriety of offering prayers at shrines of Sufi saints and mazars of pirs and

differentiate painstakingly between Sufi Islam and Sunni Islam, or whether a Buddhist

belonged to the ‘yellow hat’ or ‘red hat’ of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, debate

indefinitely about the hierarchical status of the Bhanmasi and Malmasi Kashmiri

Brahmin castes, were simply classified as Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus respectively.

Yet another important consequence of enumerating the social terrain was the

either/or mode of thinking. An individual was either a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist.

This forced individuals and communities to order the plurality of their identity in an

hierarchy. Since a collective identity could characterize itself as the majority community

on a single or, at best, a combination of principles, it had to choose some aspects of its

identity over others. It forced individuals and communities to choose one aspect of their

identity, in this case religion, over all others by prioritizing them in ascending order. The

horizontal plane giving expression to the plural identity was lost irrevocably. The

political scientist Don Miller points out:


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By their education, legislation, administration, judicial codes and procedures and even by that apparently simple operation of objective classification, the census, the British unwittingly imposed dualistic either-or oppositions as natural normative order of thought. In a multitude of ways, Indians learned that one is either this or that; that one cannot be both or neither or indifferent. The significance of identity thus became a new paramount concern. . . . Orthodoxy of being was gradually replacing heterodoxy of beings (1995: 196).

This made them self-conscious about their hitherto unrealized and untapped potential for

collective action to achieve political objectives. To recapitulate, while a traditional

identity was a social phenomenon that was inherently plural and contextual in nature; a

modern identity is a political and historical construct based upon a convergence of

abstract interests and generated by individuals and communities, to pursue common

political goals. This is how an Indian nation was imagined into existence with the

political objective of overthrowing the colonial rule and creating an independent nation-

state.

Nationalism versus Civilizational Principle of Human and Political Orders

There was no singular conception of an ‘imagined India’ however. Political thinkers like

Rabindranath Tagore who believed in the civilizational principle of organizing political

life critiqued the very idea of nationalism. Tagore wrote:

We had known the hordes of Moghals and Pathans who invaded India, but we had known them as human races, with their own religions and customs, likes and dislikes, we had never known them as nation. We loved and hated them as occasions arose; we fought for them and against them, talked with them in a language which was theirs as well as our own, and guided the destiny of the Empire in which we had our active share. But this time, we had to deal, not with kings, not with human races, but with a nation – we, who are no nation ourselves . . . I am not against one nation in particular, but against the general idea of all nations. What is a Nation? . . . It is the aspect of a whole people as an organised power. This organisation incessantly keeps up the insistence of the population on becoming strong and efficient. But this strenuous effort after strength and efficiency drains man’s energy from his higher nature where he is self-sacrificing and creative. For thereby man’s power of sacrifice is diverted from his ultimate object, which is moral, to the maintenance of this organisation, which is mechanical (Cited in Ahmed 1998:4).


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Thus, nation “controls the life of the individual insofar as the needs of the needs

of the State or Nation make it necessary” (cited in Fenn Jr., 1929:321). Mahatma Gandhi

had also warned that “modern state does indeed swallow up individual persons, even as it

is, ironically celebrating their autonomy, and that it has also destroyed the intimate ties of

traditional community life” (cited in Gier, 1996: 263). The Gujrati text of Gandhi’s Hind

Swaraj makes a significant distinction between a genuine nation formed as praja

(community) and a nation of individuals merely held together by state power

characterized as rashtra (ibid.:267). In fact both Tagore and Gandhi had “refused to

accept the western idea of nationalism as being the inevitable universal of our times”

(Nandy 1994: vi). Characterizing them as “dissenters among dissenters”, Nandy points

out that

they did not want their society to be caught in a situation where the idea of the Indian nation would supersede that of the Indian civilization, and where the actual ways of life of Indians would be assessed solely in terms of the needs of an imaginary nation-state called India. . . They refused to recognize the nation-state as the organizing principle of the Indian civilization and as the last word in the country’s political life. . . Their alternative was a distinctive civilizational concept of universalism embedded in the tolerance encoded in various traditional ways of life in a highly diverse, plural society (ibid.:2-5).

Significantly, this emanated from Tagore’s understanding of the composite character of

the Hindu civilization, which had always worked for “an adjustment of races, to

acknowledge the real differences between them, and yet seek some basis of unity” (as

cited in Nandy, ibid.) The basis for this tradition has been built in India at the social level,

not the political. Right from the Vedic period, Tagore pointed out, the pantheons of the

Hindu civilization were those heroes/kings who were worshipped as an Avatar for

striving to bring about the reconciliation between Aryans and non-Aryans in contrast to

those who sought to acquire dominance over others through physical prowess and

military skill and were long forgotten (Tagore as cited in Chakravarty 1961:183). In the

epic of Ramayana, he mentions three leading figures—Janaka, Visvamita and

Ramachandra— who sought to embrace both Aryan and non-Aryan in a larger synthesis.

This was followed by the Buddhist revolution when not only non-Aryans but also non-

Indians from outside gained free access. Buddhism demystified religion and made


15

nirvana more easily attainable through personal effort while refusing to admit that any

distinctions between men were inherent and perpetual. The Sangha—the principal

monastic order of Buddhism—through wider contacts between monks and the public

created a powerful Buddhist laity and Buddha’s teachings swept over the whole country.

The Saka and the Hunans followed and mixed with the older inhabitants. This “long

social and religious revolution had the effect of erasing individual features of the

traditional Aryan culture,” on the one hand and “collection and compilation, rather than

any new creation” became the hallmark characteristic of this age (ibid.:191). “The

transcendental mind of the Aryan, by its marriage with the emotional and creative art of

the Dravidian, gave birth to an offspring which was neither fully Aryan, nor Dravidian,

but Hindu” (ibid.:192). It’s precisely because of the mixed strain in its blood, the essence

of Hinduism lies in its attempting “the reconciliation of the opposites”. It is this

solution—unity through acknowledgment of differences—that India has to offer to the

world” (as cited in Nandy 1994:6). For Tagore, “Indian unity was a primarily social fact,

not a political agenda (ibid.: 80) whereas the objective of those who believed in the

philosophy of nationalism was precisely the opposite, that is, to forge a political unity

among the populace of a new ‘imagined India’. The voices of anti-colonialism in the

early phase emanated from the traditional communities, the older, limited and fragmented

identities such as the Bengali jati. So a new constellation had to be forged by breaking

down natural boundaries of communities and devising new social and cultural bonds.

Most of these were still not territorial in their vision Sri Aurobindo Ghosh wrote:

“For what is a nation? What is our mother country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure

of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, [power] composed of all the

Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation . . .” (cited in Singh, 1967:70-

71). He looked upon India as a living and pulsating spiritual entity and nationalism was

envisioned as a “deep and fervent religious sadhana,” a spiritual imperative essential for

the emancipation of the motherland from the colonial rule. (ibid.:74). Bankim Chandra

Chatterjee had earlier popularized this notion by constructing “a nationalist consciousness

through pure bhakti (devotion to god), especially the popular bhakti of goddess Kali,

eulogizing her with the hymn, Bande Mataram [I bow to thee, Mother], so as to reveal

her as the Bharat Mata (Mother India) . .as a divine entity worth struggling for” (cited in


16

Ahmed, 1993:119). V.D. Savarkar argued that the Hindus “are not only a nation but race-

jati. The word jati, derived from the root jan, to produce, means a brotherhood, a race

determined by a common origin, possessing a common blood” (1969:84-5). He rejected

the idea of a nation state based on an abstract social contract with individualised citizens

dwelling within its administrative frontiers. They did, however, had an instrumental value

to the extent they aimed at creation of an independent Indian nation-state. From this

standpoint, the contestation was mainly between the Golwalkar’s exclusionist Hindu

nation and Nehru’s modernist conception of Indian nationalism. That is because

Mahatma Gandhi’s Ramrajya, rooted in the belief that society’s dharmically ordered

heterogeneity was prior to, and to a considerable degree autonomous of, state authority

was not even backed by the Indian National Congress. The fact that Indian nationalism

won this battle of identities was largely due to various historical and political exigencies.

That was because Golwalker’s idea of a Hindu nation was a monolithic unity epitomized

by the centrality of the brahminical tradition (1947). The particular notion of a Hindu

nation being imagined and propagated was extremely narrow and rigid, incapable of

extending its boundaries to include the large numbers of Muslims, Sikhs and Christians,

or the vast submerged groups of lower-caste Hindus and adivasis, which was a historical

necessity at that juncture and hence did not survive. Nehru’s idea of nationalism was a

part of “a political language he ha[d] taught himself to use . .It d[id] not figure in his own

‘scientific’ vocabulary of politics” (Chatterjee, 1985:147). Nehru didn’t even understand

Gandhi and admitted:

I used to be troubled sometimes at the growth of this religious element in our politics. .I did not like it at all. . [The] history and sociology and economics appeared to me all wrong . .Even some of Gandhiji’s phrases sometimes jarred upon me—thus his frequent reference to Rama Raj as a golden age which was to return. .He was a very difficult person to understand, sometimes his language was almost incomprehensible to an average modern. (ibid.:51).

Unlike Gandhi and Tagore’s reservations in internalizing the values of western

modernity, Nehru “was eager and anxious to change her [India’s] outlook and appearance

and give her the garb of modernity” (Nehru, 2004:41). Historically, Nehru believed that

the Asian nations succumbed to the European onslaught because they had lost their inner


17

vigour and vitality and that “India, as well as China, must learn from the West, for the

spirit of age is represented by the West” whose hallmark was humanism and the scientific

spirit (emphasis added) (ibid.:564, 622). Understanding Nehru’s nationalist thought is

especially important because he was the principal political architect of Indian state.

Nationalism, for Nehru, had an instrumental value whose chief objective was to create a

sovereign national state. He had firmly situated nationalism “within the domain of a state

ideology”(ibid.:132) though he still upheld the secular, pluralist idea of the Indian nation

in which the older, un-reconstructed identities like the Rajputs, the Marathas, the

Bengalis and the Sikhs had found a secure place within the new collective self. Although

politically they identified with the Indian nation, they coexisted on the social plane. But

given the European model, the cultural unification of India was a prerequisite for building

a modern nation state which did not fit the pluralities and diversity of Indian society. The

result was a paradox. Nehru insisted that conceptually the imagining of the Indian nation

was an accomplished and irreversible fact that did not have to be constantly negotiated,

presented and justified.9 Materially, however, it was in infancy, a nation-in-the-making

which needed to be protected against contending identities. Accordingly, state formation

processes were geared towards constructing a strong state, capable of defending a nascent

nation. This would eventually cause alienation among several communities—an issue we

will address in the following sections.

Modernity’s Legacy: State, Identity and Conflicts

The modernist project had led every state in search of a national identity. Most South

Asian states constituted culturally and socially plural societies - and as is to be expected

in such an ancient crucible of civilization where peoples, cultures and religions are

inextricably interwoven - boundary demarcations invariably cut across communities,

tribes and ethnic groups. A national identity, therefore, had to perform a dual function. It

sought to unite the diverse populace divided along ethnic, tribal, regional and linguistic

identities into a single national identity and distinguish itself as a collectivity from the

people across the frontiers.

The whole process negated the diversity, humaneness and freedom that were

fundamental to their cultures. Trying to manage and enforce ideological and political


18

conformity on the sub-nationalities in the interest of the nation-state, sought to “impose a

monolithness and homogenisation that were alien and alienating” (Wignaraja 1993:7).

That is because The creation of a collective self inherently requires an other and so long,

an “us vs them” differentiation lies at the root of any identity assertion, it has an in-built

element of hatred for the other.

Many such deeply plural societies are, therefore, torn by conflicts because their

social and cultural diversities are viewed as a political threat by the homogenizing

impulses of modern nation-state. What lies at the root of most such conflicts is a

fundamental inability on part of their political leadership to view differences and plurality

as a source of strength rather than fear and danger and/ or to recognize that they need not

necessarily view each other through a rigid and binary of self-versus-other mode of

thinking. There are divisive ramifications of externalizing the other in the construction of

a nationalist identity in the international domain as well. Such a nationalist worldview

inevitably generates hatred for an alien community or foreign country and makes these

biases and prejudices a part of its national psyche.

Mutual enemy images of India and Pakistan are one such example. Following

two-nation theory, the Muslim nation of Pakistan had embraced Islam in search of a

national identity because the partition had ended the unity of Indian Muslims and it was

not easy to define who a Pakistani was. The identity that Pakistan had sought rested on

twin foundations of its inhabitants being Muslims and Indians. It is this Indo-Muslim

consciousness which had sustained the unity of Pakistan. India, thus remained a major

element in the separate statehood of Pakistan. To counter that, Pakistani leadership

constantly stressed the religious differences between India and Pakistan and the Islamic

ideology came in handy for this purpose. Within Pakistan, the debate on modernist and

orthodox interpretations of Islam explained Pakistan's identity in terms of a Pakistani

nationalism and an Islamic or Muslim nationalism, respectively. A number of political

observers argue that it is partly because of Pakistan's constant harping on its Islamic

nationalism vis-à-vis Hindu nationalism of India and partly because of its failure to

evolve a national identity on something more than anti-Indianism, that the Indo-Pak

disputes have seemed so intractable.10 Significantly, while the modernists stressed the

political threat of India, in not being reconciled to Pakistan’s independent existence and


19

the orthodox ulema viewed the totality of Indo-Pak relations in rigid ideological terms of

irreconcilable Hindu-Muslim differences, antipathy for India remained a common and

critical feature of both.

Across the border, they find a match in BJP and Shiv Sena’s ideologues of

hindutva. The Hindu nationalists reject secular nationalism and argue that India’s national

identity is rooted in Hindu culture and Hindu civilization for the obvious reason that

Hindus are the dominant majority in the country. Although hindutva does not enjoy state

sanction, BJP has made impressive electoral gains in past few years. The construction of

a Hindu national identity casts the Muslims as the other. BJP’s active role in the

demolition of Babri masjid in 1993 and resultant communal riots extending beyond

India’s frontiers in Pakistan and Bangladesh points to the potential dangers of inciting

hatred for the Muslim community not just across the borders but also at home.

The modern identity’s strong and determinate sense of self inevitably leads to

intolerance of those outside its boundaries. A dominant identity seeking subjugation,

assimilation or submergence of other identities, and self-assertion of a non-dominant

identity seeking a share in state power controlled by the former, is inherently imbued

with the risk of (and potential for) violence. For instance, the Hindu nationalists’ belief

that the only way of avoiding large-scale (Hindu-Muslim) violence is

. . . a change in the Muslim view of the community’s role, traditions and institutions so that the Muslim can adapt - the word meaning anything from adjustment to assimilation - to the Hindu majority’s national culture. . . . [However] to ask the Muslims to recognize themselves in the Hindu nationalist history of India, to expect them to feel their culture confirmed in Hindu symbols, rituals and celebrations is asking them to renounce their cultural identity and to erase their collective memory so that they become indistinguishable from the Hindus (Kakar 1995:251).

As long as neither side gives in, the in-built potential of violence endures. When the state

takes on a majoritarian or sectarian character, the relationship between the state and non-

dominant identities turns violent. In Sri Lanka for instance, the Sinhala—the majority

community—nationalism has been the central driving force in shaping the nature of Sri

Lankan state and civil society. The Sinhala character of the state and the question of

Sinhala ideology, was politicised only in the 1950s.11 What is important about these


20

nation-building processes was that “suddenly all Sri Lankans were made conscious that

they were no longer just ‘people’ but either ‘Buddhist-Sinhalese’ or ‘Tamil Hindus’ or

‘Muslim Hindus,’ and so on, and the fact of being one or another determined their fate

and prospects in the island.”12 Nationalist construction, thus, began to be constructed in a

way that enunciated a specific kind of political relationship among ethnic groups, which

usually meant “establishment of an ethnic hierarchy in which the majority community is

assured of its ‘legitimate’ place, and the minorities their ‘proper place.’”13 The Sinhalese

ideological construction of the Sri Lankan state, is driven by the powerful idea of Sri

Lanka being “our land,” ape rata. Uyangoda points out that this “territorial possessionist

idiom in the Sinhalese political discourse implies a condition of social appropriation of

the state which is mediated by ideology,” and it also refers to a “collective self-

understanding of a polity—a polity of “ours” and not of an “other.”14 Sinhala nationalism

in this sense, is also an exclusionary ideology, the central question of which is: How can

“our” state power be shared with an ethnic “other.” Also, Sinhala nationalism has always

been for a unitary state, or a “unified” Sri Lanka, where legislative and executive powers

were centralised in accordance with the notion of “unified sovereignty” (which meant

centralised powers not in an abstract state authority but the one controlled by Sinhalas).

Any demands by the ethnic minorities, particularly the Tamils is thus, equated with the

prospect of the country “being divided” and obviously, no division of sovereignty is

acceptable to the nationalist search for an ideal political order.

Paradoxically, however, the very denial of nationhood to a collectivity that has

come to regard itself as such, and the use of coercion to decisively establish the

supremacy and indivisibility of the juridical state, seems to further spread “national”

consciousness among the dissenting collectivity and heighten the resolve of the alienated

to resist the state, with arms if necessary (Bose 1994: 178). It is precisely this kind of

“nationalist discourse—well disposed towards the Buddhist-Sinhala majority—organised,

nurtured and backed by the state power of post-independence Sri Lanka, that has given

rise to Tamil Tigers,” plunging the country into an eighteen-year-long civil war that

continues unabated (Ahmed 1998),.

The story is no different for “other nation-states of South Asia where, ‘Muslim

Pakistan,’ ‘Hindu India,’ ‘Muslim Bangladesh,’ and ‘Hindu Nepal,’ all suggest the


21

simultaneous organisation of the majority community and nation-state, albeit in each case

in the manner defined by the dominant social forces” (ibid.). And, as a result, almost

every state in South Asia has been confronted with broadly similar challenges to

centralised authority, and no less important, to the hegemonic discourse revolving around

the nation-state. The observation Hamza Alavi made two decades ago about Pakistan can

thus be readily extended to the rest of the subcontinent.

The . . . outstanding fact about Pakistan’s political history is that the most powerful challenges to the dominant central authority . . . came primarily from political movements that draw the strength from people of underprivileged region and voiced demands for regional autonomy and for a fuller share . . . in the distribution of resources, as well as in the state power (1972: 152).

Indeed the national question is the driving force behind most separatist and secessionist

movements—Kashmiri, Assamese, Tamil, Sikh, Baluch, Chakma—which might

otherwise differ in character, support base and dynamics, but share in common an

uncompromising opposition to the centralised political authority, and unequivocal

rejection of the legitimacy of the nation-state as presently constituted.

The logic of the modern nation state allows recognition of only a single

determinate, demographically numerable form of nation within its jurisdiction. In a

society richly endowed with diverse identities, the state’s identification with only one

identity is inherently problematic because it denies political space to other identities. The

working of electoral democracy makes it more complicated because it rests on the

principle of majority rule. Majority rule tends to marginalize and alienate the minority

identities. With the state being the primary repository of political power, the minorities

have no alternative avenues for political expression. They are, therefore, forced to try

creating political spaces where they constitute similar majorities. Without any

fundamental transformation of the state structures, however, the process continues to

provide the rationale for further fissuring of identities.

Retrieving the Pluralities

The concept of the nation state with all its homogenizing ramifications cannot encompass

the diversity of most third world societies, underscored by the “absence of [the] well-


22

defined lowest common denominator of cultural identity as it exists in more massified,

individuated societies in the West” (Nandy 1998:54). Each individual, community and

‘nationality’ in India, for instance, has a ‘plural self’ that simply cannot be embodied and

represented by the single category or frame of the nation state. What needs to be

questioned, however, is not the practice and the politics of the modern Indian or for that

matter, Pakistani or Sri Lankan nation state, but its very logic. Once we accept the

premise of ‘a one state, one nation’ principle, it is difficult to join issue with the

operatives of its logic, which acquires its own political dynamism. We need to go beyond

modernity and evolve indigenous concepts and tools, best suited to their social realities.

From this standpoint, the relationships between an individual and the state, and

between communities or sub-national identities and the state need to redefined. Instead of

debating whether an individual is an ‘Indian first, Hindu and Muslim second’, or an

‘Indian only’, the very need for improvising a definitive exposition of ‘Who is an

Indian?’ may be questioned. As long as an individual carries out the obligations and

duties of being a citizen of any state, she/he should be free to contextualize her/his

identity in a sociological framework. This is the nub of the problem. The modern nation

state is not only the sole repository of political power, but has also increasingly

encroached upon the social spaces and appropriated the role of indigenous social

institutions which had maintained a diverse social order. It has acted as a catalyst for

politicization of the communal identities of social groups for electoral and larger political

ends. What is, therefore, needed is to recreate such social spaces and breathe fresh life

into the social instrumentalities that would give expression to the pluralities of

individuals and communities.

This could be done in two ways. One is to revive the culturally rooted albeit ‘pre-

modern’ traditions, codes and norms of inter-community relations and to reinforce the

role of community ties and community leadership in maintaining social order. Such

social practices and customary laws bypass the state sector and place the initiative of

managing social relations between individuals and social groups and among social groups

in the social institutions. This is based on the awareness that “large parts of the Indian

society still do not use the language of the Indian State and have access to the idiom of

secular politics, neither can they separate their ethnic, religious and political selves nor do


23

they feel morally obligated to do so” (ibid.:64). Notwithstanding the modernist trends of

exclusionary ideologies and hardening group boundaries, several communities still retain

their plural identities. For instance, castes such as Jats and Rajputs come in three

varieties—Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. They do not intermarry and inter-dining is

limited, but they do retain highly nuanced, complex relationships amongst themselves,

preserving their separate religious identities and a common Jat identity. Other

communities such as the Meos have developed a bicultural identity. They “continue to

live a rich Islamic life within a cultural frame which today will be called “Hindu” by

modern South Asians” (ibid.: 66). These communities are not exceptions. In fact, nearly

600 communities or roughly 15 per cent of all Indian communities, documented by K.

Suresh Singh’s mammoth survey of communities of India, see themselves as having more

than one religious identity—of simultaneously being Hindu and Buddhist, Hindu and

Muslim or Hindu and Christian (1994: 51-53).

Alternatively, the social domain may be reinvigorated through the new social

movements that have created new publics, new associations and new institutions to give

voice to the subalterns, to the people who have been bypassed or marginalized by the

modernized sectors of the state. The people’s movements and small-scale grass-roots

experiments for alleviating poverty, preserving the environment, attaining social justice

and the like, are mobilizing people for social change in one form or another. These have a

varied mix of activities, ideologies, operational methodologies and scale, but they all seek

to empower the people at different levels. Such movements perform multiple functions—

political, economic, social and cultural—and are interested in creating a space which

would allow a democratic society to emerge (Wignarajah 1993). This approach also seeks

to create an alternative discourse where several narratives of diverse communities, each

with its own cultural mythology, social memories and customary laws can coexist. The

idea is to underline the importance of these ‘little traditions’ which cannot be

amalgamated into the single overarching category of nation state.

The modernist nation-building project has gone awry. Diversity is now viewed as

a threat to the nation. Such thinking and mindsets militate against the social ground

realities and lie at the root of various secessionist movements by sub-national group

identities. The basic notion of the sub-national identities’ allegiance to the national


24

identity needs to be questioned (if not dismissed), because it casts them in an inherently

conflictual mould of a dominant-subordinate relationship. An alternative may lie in

devising a complex and multilayered matrix where all sub-national identities coexist and

together make up the national identity. Accordingly, the state needs to develop a more

loose and confederate character. A true version of the decentralized polity calls for

entirely new ways of thinking about the whole edifice of governance. It calls for

restructuring the state and the political system through which it is supposed to be

institutionalized; the socio-economic structure within which it operates (but which it is

also supposed to transform); and the cultural diversity and identities that it encompasses.

Decentralization has to be conceived as providing a total model of social, economic,

political and cultural arrangements, as a conception of organizing civic life, and as a

philosophy that moulds the lives of the people.


25

1 Shaivite beliefs in Kashmir Valley endowed Shiva, the Supreme Being, with an immanent aspect in which he pervades the universe, and a transcendental aspect in which he is beyond all universal manifestations. Mahayana Buddhism (inspired by Shaivism) also professed that an individual could attain the position of Bodhisattva (one who is capable of reaching nirvana) and become a spiritual or god-like power while Buddha himself became the Supreme Being, whose idols and personal relics could be worshipped. 2 The Buddhist prayer flags and the decorations inside Ladakhi monasteries often depict demons associated with earlier animist practices. 3 Kashmiri Brahmins wrote their own shastras to guide them in the course of their lives. They held the Hindu religious shrines of India in esteem, but created their replicas in their native soil, like Gangotri at Gangabal and Haridwar at Shadipur. Among Kashmiri Muslims, the post-namaz (prayers) singing in chorus, darood or salutations to the Prophet Mohammad, great reverence of shrines and tombs of Sufis and saints and preservation and display of relics of saints are a purely Kashmiri phenomenon. These are links in one long historical chain. Kashmiri Muslims modified the rules of Islamic jurisprudence to suit their needs. Adoption, for example, is forbidden by Islam but is prevalent among the Kashmiri Muslims. The adopted son — pisar-parwardha or mutbana — enjoys the same rights and has the same obligations as a natural son. Similarly, the inheritance given to dukhtar-i-khana nashin (a daughter who does not leave her parental house even after marriage), directly contravenes the Islamic Law of Inheritance. According to local customs, however, such a daughter is entitled to an equal share in the parental inheritance. (Punjabi 1990:103, 111). 4 It may be noted, however, that Kashmiri Muslims retained their old caste names like Bhat, Pandit, Raina, Rishi, Koul and Wani. Some scholars even divide the Kashmiri Muslims of the Sunni sect into three distinct castes. The Pirzadas were descendants of fakirs; the Baba Zadas were descendants of the Khalifas of Makhdum Sahib; and Wanis, the original Muslims of Srinagar city, were considered to be of purest descent. The shawl-weavers (khandawav), embroiderers and village zamindars were of a low status. Alongside these indigenous castes were immigrant Muslims like Sayyids, Mughals, Ashai, Bande, Bachh, Ganae and Kanth. Other castes were based on trade, occupation or habitat of the people. (Bamzai 1987: 312). 5 Dharma thus replaced the Vedic word rta, the principle of cosmic ethical interdependence. Although dharma generally refers to religiously ordained duty, in other passages it may just mean morality, right conduct, or the rules of conduct (mores, customs, codes or laws) of a group. Embree, 209 6 Explain Rajtarangini 7 He was the shrewd counsellor to the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta who defeated Alexander’s successor Seleucus and established a Hindu empire. 8 This corresponds to Ferdinand Tonnies differentiation between the gemeinschaften, a community that fostered a feeling of intense solidarity and belonging not based upon a convergence of interest, which distinguished the gesellschaften. Kaviraj points out an interconnected set of dichotomies between modern and traditional social forms based on this theory: solidarity based on interests and on community, the unlimited possibility of extension of gesellschaften associations and the naturally limited contours of gemeinschaften, the contractual dissolubility of societies and the indissoluble primordial nature of community belonging. 9 Sudipto Kaviraj, ‘On the Structure of Nationalist Discourse’, in Sathyamurthy, op. cit., p. 330. 10 Jha argues that Islam's failure to create an effective and enduring national identity has led Pakistan to resolve its problems of nationhood in terms of conflict with India. The common geographical and cultural heritage of two countries also makes the creation of a separate Pakistani identity a difficult task, hence, the necessity for an ideology of national survival in which hatred of India has played a major part. (Jha 1983: 9-10, 16-17). 11 Wilson notes that “political Buddhism,” was never taken up by its pre-independence, westernised constitutional reformers. Nor did any Sinhala nationalist grouping such as the Sinhala Mahajana Sabhas of 1920s or the Nationalist Maha Sabha of S.W.R.D Bandarnaike inaugurated in 1936-37 or any other Sinhala-based political parties adopted the political slogan “Buddhism in danger” in any meaningful manner throughout this period. (Wilson 1990: 269). 12 Nissan and Stirrat point out that even during the colonial era, the developing Tamils and Sinhalese identities were not in direct competition; they were primarily directed against, and mediated by, the British. It was only


26

later, after independence, that the British were to be replaced by the Tamil as the “dangerous other” implied in much of the self-conscious proclamations of Sinhala identity and community. As cited by Ahmed 1998: 14. 13 Jayadeva Uyangoda, “Ethnicity, Nation and State Formation in Sri Lanka,” a paper presented at a seminar on “Society, Economy and Polity in Sri Lanka,” at Jaipur, 28-30 November 1994. He lists a few examples of this hierarchy making state policy. The citizenship law of 1948, the franchise legislation of 1949, the language legislation of 1956, the re-imposition of the unitary state model of 1972, the repeal of constitutional safeguards for the minorities in 1972 and higher educational reforms in the early 1970s. 14 Uyangoda outlines the following meanings and conceptions of this category of “our land” or “our country”: (a) ours is a Sinhalese country; (b) ours is a land of Buddhists; (c) this is the only place in the world where Sinhalese race exists; (d) foreigners have come and exploited our country, and we the Sinhalese have become poorer and poorer; (e) we will not allow anyone to divide our country; (f) why can these Tamils not go back to where they originally came from? Uyangoda 1994: 90.

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