Tag Archives: nationalism

Misc

Kitabe aur ta.aliim

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“Of all the social sciences, it is history which rouses the greatest interest in the minds of the politicians. There are various reasons for this. It has always had an inventive and purposive use. The line between history and mythology is thought to be thin; the past can be used to lend legitimacy to any aspect of the present….”

R. Mahalakshmi, ‘Communalising history textbooks’
New Delhi train station © 2016 Pippa Virdee
Fatehpur Sikri © 2017 Pippa Virdee

Resource list:

  • Extract published from ‘RSS and School Education’ from the book RSS, School Texts and the Murder of Mahatma Gandhi, written by Aditya Mukherjee, Mridula Mukherjee and Sucheta Mahajan, 2008. Published by Indian History Collective.
  • R. Mahalakshmi, ‘Communalising history textbooks’ Frontline, 2 August 2021
  • Sylvie Guichard. The Construction of History and Nationalism in India. Textbooks, Controversies and Politics. London / New York: Routledge, 2010.
  • Kusha Anand & Marie Lall (2022) The debate between secularism and Hindu nationalism – how India’s textbooks have become the government’s medium for political communication, India Review, 21:1, 77-107, DOI: 10.1080/14736489.2021.2018203
  • Neeladri Bhattacharya, ‘Teaching History in Schools: The Politics of Textbooks in India.’ History Workshop Journal, no. 67 (2009): 99–110. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646212.
  • Romila Thapar, “The History Debate and School Textbooks in India: A Personal Memoir.” History Workshop Journal, no. 67 (2009): 87–98. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646211.
  • Sanjay Joshi, Contesting histories and nationalist geographies: A comparison of school textbooks in India and Pakistan. South Asian History and Culture. 1. (2010) 357-377. 10.1080/19472498.2010.485379.
  • Yuji Kuronuma, ‘Hindu nationalism creeping into Indian textbooks’ Asia Nikkei, 25 June 2016.
  • Alex Traub, ‘India’s Dangerous New Curriculum’ The New York Review, 6 December 2018
  • S. S. Dikshit, Nationalism and Indian Education, Sterling Publishers, 1966.
  • Raksha Kumar, ‘Hindu right rewriting Indian textbooks’ Al Jazeera, 4 Nov 2014.
  • Eviane Leidig ‘Rewriting history: The ongoing controversy over textbooks in India’ LSE Blogs 1 June 2016.
  • Aminah Mohammad-Arif, “Textbooks, nationalism and history writing in India and Pakistan.” In Veronique Benei (ed) Manufacturing Citizenship, pp. 143-169. Routledge, 2007.
  • Murali Krishnan, ‘Is the BJP altering textbooks to promote Hindu nationalism?’ DW 25 May 2022.
  • Seema Chishti, ‘Rewriting India’s History Through School Textbooks’ New Lines Magazine, 9 March 2023.
  • Kamala Visweswaran; Michael Witzel; Nandini Manjrekar; Dipta Bhog; Uma Chakravarti, “The Hindutva View of History: Rewriting Textbooks in India and the United States,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 10, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2009): 101-112.
  • Naseem, Mohamed Ayaz, Ratna Ghosh, James McGill, and William C. Mcdonald. “Construction of the ‘other’in history textbooks in India and Pakistan.” In Interculturalism, society and education, pp. 37-44. Brill, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789460912498_004
  • Sridhar, M., and Sunita Mishra, eds. Language Policy and Education in India: Documents, contexts and debates. Routledge, 2016.
  • Krishan Kumar, Political agenda of education: A study of colonialist and nationalist ideas. SAGE Publications India, 2005.
  • Sanjay Seth. “Rewriting histories of nationalism: The politics of “moderate nationalism” in India, 1870–1905.” The American Historical Review 104, no. 1 (1999): 95-116. https://doi.org/10.2307/2650182
  • Carey A Watt. “Education for National Efficiency: Constructive Nationalism in North India, 1909–1916.” Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (1997): 339-374. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X00014335
  • Lars Tore Flåten, Hindu nationalism, history and identity in India: Narrating a Hindu past under the BJP. Taylor & Francis, 2016.
  • Marie Lall, “Educate to hate: The use of education in the creation of antagonistic national identities in India and Pakistan.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 38.1 (2008): 103-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057920701467834
  • Janaki Nair, “Textbook Controversies and the Demand for a Past: Public Lives of Indian History.” History Workshop Journal. Vol. 82. No. 1, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbw023
  • Romila Thapar, “Politics and the rewriting of history in India.” Critical Quarterly 47.1‐2 (2005): 195-203.
Short Essays

Mujibur Rahman’s First Secret Meeting with an Indian Officer — Me

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In January 1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — released from prison in Pakistan — flew to independent Bangladesh from Rawalpindi (Pakistan) via London and …

Mujibur Rahman’s First Secret Meeting with an Indian Officer — Me
India, Short Essays, Videos

Sahir Ludhianvi and the anguish of Nehruvian India

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This song/poem written by Sahir Ludhianvi for the film Pyaasa, starring Guru Dutt, has as much relevance today as it did in 1957 at the height of the Nehruvian age. The lyrics and translation below are courtesy of Proud Indians, Are We? – Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par – Pyaasa By Deepa.

It is also worth reading the broader article, which is on Guru Dutt, “a man clearly ahead of his time.” Follow link for the song via YouTube. Make sure if you listen to any other versions that it has the last Antara of the song, which has been cut in some versions.

Ye kooche ye nilaam ghar dilkashi ke
Ye lutate huye caravan zindagi ke
Kahaan hain kahan hain muhafiz khudi ke
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

Look at these lanes, alluring houses which are up for sale/auction everyday. Look at these robbed caravans of life. Where are those protectors of self respect and pride? Where are those who say we are proud Indians? What are you exactly proud of?

Ye purpech galiyaan ye badnaam bazaar
Ye gumnaam raahi ye sikkon ki jhankaar
Ye ismat ke saude ye saudon pe taqraar
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

These complicated streets, these defamed, scandalized markets. The unknown pedestrians who walk in anytime with bagful of money. This trade of honour and chastity followed by the bargains of the same. Are we Indians proud for this? Where are those who say this?

Ye sadiyon se bekhauf sehmi si galiyaan
Ye masli huyi adhkhili zard kaliyaan
Ye bikti huyi khokhli rangraliyaan
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

These lanes which for years have been under pressure of fear, distress, angst. This place where the pale half blossomed buds are crushed (referring to young girls who fall prey to the flesh trade). The hollow festivities which are sold in this market. Show all this to those who say, they are proud of this country. Where are those people?

Wo ujle darichon mein paayal ki chhan chhan
Thaki haari saanson pe table ki dhandhan
Ye berooh kamron mein khaansi ki thanthan
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

The sound of the trinkets, anklets which come from the shimmering windows. Those tired, ill heartbeats which try to keep pace with the pace. This soul less room which filled with the unpleasant sound of coughing. For those who say they are proud Indians, please come and see this.

Ye phoolon ke gajre ye pikon ke chhinte
Ye bebaak nazrein ye gustaakh fiqrein
Ye dhalke badan aur ye bimar chehre
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

The flowers, the garlands, the stains of betel juice. The bold stares, the blunt, audacious comments. The deteriorating, decaying bodies and weak faces. Look at them, those who say, they are proud of their country.

Yahan piir bhi aa chuke hain jawaan bhi
Tanaumand bete bhi abba miyaan bhi
Ye biwi bhi hai aur behan bhi hai maa bhi
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

The ambassadors of religion, the young and the old, the sons and the fathers, all are regular visitors to this place. Here you will find someone’s wife, someone’s sister or mother too. Come and have a look at this place. Will this place make you proud?

Madad chaahti hai ye hawwa ki beti
Yashoda ki hamjins Radha ki beti
Payambar ki ummat Zulaykha ki beti
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

The girls, women here need help. They are no different from Eve, Yashoda, Radha, Zulaykha who are seen with regard and respect. Come and help them, they need you.

Zara mulk ke rahbaron ko bulaao
Ye kooche ye galiyaan ye manzar dikhaao
Jinhe naaz hai hind par unko laao
Jinhe naaz hai hind par wo kahaan hain
Kahaan hain kahaan hain kahaan hain

Someone please call the so called guides, leaders of the country. Show them these lanes, show them this miserable scene. Call them those who say they are proud of their country. Where are they?

Gallery

Relics of an ideology

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In this age of electoral nationalism, a reminder of how a different ideology exists at the periphery of the public imaginary.  Memento Park, Budapest.

© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee
© 2019 Pippa Virdee

India, Short Essays

The Sikh Question: two thoughts

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Master Tara Singh
Master Tara Singh
Baldev Singh and Nehru
Baldev Singh and Nehru

 

Jawaharlal Nehru to Baldev Singh, 23 November 1948 (JN SG File No. 15 Pt.-II):

‘[Your] note about the Sikh position in East Punjab…I was surprised and depressed to read it. I entirely agree with you that we should help the Sikhs wherever possible. But [your] proposals seem to me basically opposed to the very things we proclaim and stand for. Our government as well as the Constituent Assembly have declared themselves to be totally opposed to communalism. We may not be able to put an end to [it], but in all governmental activities we can give it no place…The Constituent Assembly [came] to certain decisions last year in regard to minorities which are applicable to all of them…no government can apply one principle to one community and totally different principle to other communities…This means joint electorates, reservation where desired by the minority, but on the basis of population only and no weightage.

Regarding the carving out of a new province or transfer of Gurgaon district to Delhi, I have been opposing suggestions for provincial redistribution or division…I believe that something of this kind will have to be done but [not] I at this particular time when we are grappling with very difficult problems…Let this matter be considered dispassionately somewhat later. The Punjab, as you remind us, is a frontier province now and we cannot allow the situation in the East Punjab to deteriorate. Nor will it be desirable to think in terms of communal provinces when refashioning our provincial areas…Any untoward development in East Punjab might have serious repercussions on the Kashmir situation…As for the formation of constituencies, any attempt made to gerrymander in favour of this or that group would also lead to bitterness and conflict.

I would very much like to do something to convince the Sikhs that their fears are groundless. Indeed, I do not myself see why a progressive and enterprising community like the Sikhs should be afraid of the future…It would be doing an ill-turn to the Sikhs to treat them as the Muslim League wanted the Muslims to be treated before the Partition. What I have been specially distressed is the strained similarity between the present demands of some of the Sikh leaders and the old Muslim League demands…Can we not learn from bitter experience? You have rightly complained of some articles and cartoons in the few Delhi papers. But whatever these papers may have written, it pales into insignificance before the speeches and statements of Master Tara Singh…extraordinarily irresponsible…open incitement to war and to internal conflict…upset me a great deal’.

Tara Singh (District Jail, Banaras) to Nehru and Patel, 19 April 1949 (JN SG 23 Pt.-I):

‘Since I read in the “Statesman” that the consideration of formation of linguistic provinces in northern India has been indefinitely postponed, I have been deeply thinking how to convince you that the Sikhs are in urgent necessity of maintaining Panthic entity in order to protect their religion…the Sikhs in order to exist, must have a home in the Indian Union where they have some power to practice and advance their culture, religion and language according to their own light…Why should the Congress yield to the communal demand of the Hindus of the Punjab and be a tool in the hands of the communalism of the majority? The vocal section of the Hindus in the East Punjab wish to dominate us and use us as chowkidars…it was the Hindu press which was the first to write that the Hindus cannot live in a province where the Sikhs be in majority…this is the mentality of the so-called nationalists…if the Hindus who have majority in the central government cannot stay in a province where the Sikhs may have majority, how can the Sikhs stay in a Hindu-majority province when they are in hopeless minority in the centre also?…It is of course easy for those in majority to pose as purely nationalists, for best nationalism and worst communalism coincide here…

I feel I am the person responsible for bringing the Sikhs to the present position…In 1929, when [Motilal] Nehru report was published, the Sikhs as a community went out of the Congress…I, with some colleagues, [persuaded] the leaders of the Central Sikh League to come to a settlement…I, with others, came back to the Congress. If the Congress now forgets its promise, I am not going to shirk my responsibility…I may give an example. A [Sikh] deputation met Sardar Patel some time ago and put some demands. He did not agree to any one of them. One of the demands was that while granting certain privileges and concessions to depressed classes, no distinction on religious ground be made…at present, if a Hindu of a depressed class embraces Sikhism, he is deprived of these privileges and if a Sikh of a depressed class embraces Hinduism, he gets the privileges…Congress leaders had [said] that if that distinction was removed, some of the depressed class Hindus would embrace Sikhism. This is how cat was let out of the bag…

Most of the Punjab Hindu leaders [are] communalist at heart…a Sikh protects every religion…Guru Teg Bahadur sacrificed himself to protect Hinduism…so I claim that the Khalsa Panth is not communal…most Hindus do not realise it…independence to them appears Hindu domination…I do believe in the fundamental oneness of the Hindu and Sikh religions, but I do not call myself a Hindu…I wish to save the Khalsa Panth which will prove a pillar of strength of the country, as it did in the past…Sardar Patel does not seem to realise this…my only hope and my only weapon is righteousness of my cause and my faith in Him who saved Prahlad…I make the following two demands: 1) Sikhs and Hindus of the depressed classes should have the same privileges and concessions; 2) a Punjabi-speaking province shall be created so that the bulk of the Sikh population shall not live under Hindu domination on provincial basis…I have never demanded and do not demand now an independent Sikh State…I do demand a self-governing unit within the Indian Union…we are a religious minority in dire need of protection…if my above two demands are not granted, I shall start my fast unto death…Kindly do not enter into technicalities while replying…’

Read further:

J.S. Grewal, Master Tara Singh in Indian History. Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Sikh Identity, (OUP, 2018)

J.S. Deol, Baldev Singh (1902-1961), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

Short Essays

“The Magic Spell Of A Book”

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Today is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s (1869-1948) 150th birth anniversary. In his autobiography, “My Experiments With Truth“, published in the late-1920s, Gandhi devoted a section under the sub-title “The Magic Spell of a Book” to John Ruskin (1819-1900) and his book, “Unto this Last”, published in 1860.
Henry Polak, Gandhi’s friend, gave him the book to keep him company on a train journey in South Africa, in the early-1900s. To take the story forward in Gandhi’s words:
“The book was impossible to lay aside, once I had begun it. It gripped me. Johannesburg to Durban was a twenty-four hours’ journey. The train reached there in the evening. I could not get any sleep that night. I determined to change my life in accordance with the ideals of the book.
This was the first book of Ruskin I had ever read. During the days of my education I had read practically nothing outside text-books, and after I launched into active life I had very little time for reading. I cannot therefore claim much book knowledge. However, I believe I have not lost much because of this enforced restraint. On the contrary, the limited reading may be said to have enabled me thoroughly to digest what I did read. Of these books, the one that brought about an instantaneous and practical transformation in my life was Unto This Last. I translated it later into Gujarati, entitling it Sarvodaya (the welfare of all).
I believe that I discovered some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin, and that is why it so captured me and made me transform my life. A poet is one who can call forth the good latent in the human breast. Poets do not influence all alike, for everyone is not evolved in an equal measure. The teachings of Unto This Last I understood to be:
1. That the good of the individual is contained in the good of all.2. That a lawyer’s work has the same value as the barber’s, inasmuch as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work.

3. That a life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman, is the life worth living.

The first of these I knew. The second I had dimly realized. The third had never occurred to me. Unto This Last made it as clear as daylight for me that the second and the third were contained in the first. I arose with the dawn, ready to reduce these principles to practice.
Photos: John Ruskin lived the last decades and more of his life at Brantwood, Coniston (Lake District).
Short Essays

Kashmir: protest and writing 1947-2019

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Below are some books in chronological order during the decades following from August 1947 when India and Pakistan were created. The are from different historical and political vantages and show the enduring struggle in Kashmir and how it has been represented. Above are pictures from a protest organised on 15 August 2019 outside the Indian High Commission in London following the Government of India’s decision to revoke Article 370.

Michael Brecher, The Struggle for Kashmir, Ryerson Press, 1953.

Prem Nath Bazaz, The History of Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir: Cultural and Political, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Kashmir Publishing Company, 1954.

Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, Princeton University Press, 1954.

Christopher Birdwood, Two Nations and Kashmir, Robert Hale, 1956.

Aziz Beg, Captive Kashmir, Allied Business, 1957.

 

Sisir Gupta, Kashmir: Study in India-Pakistan Relations, ICWA, 1966.

Alastair Lamb, The Crisis in Kashmir 1947–1966, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.

 

Muhammad Yusuf Saraf, Kashmiris’ fight for freedom, Vol. 1 (1819–1946) and Vol. II (1947–1978), Feroze Sons (1977, 1979).

Prem Nath Bazaz, Democracy through intimidation and terror, Delhi: Heritage, 1978.

 

Sheikh Abdullah and M.Y. Taing, Atish-e-Chinar, Srinagar Shaukat, 1985.

S.T. Hussain, Sheikh Abdullah-a biography (based on Atish-e-Chinar) Wordclay, 2009.

B.C. Taseer, The Kashmir of Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, Lahore: Feroze Sons, 1986.

U.K. Zutshi, Emergence of political awakening in Kashmir, Manohar Publications, 1986.

 

Alastair Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy 1846-1990, Roxford, 1991.

Robert G. Wirsing. India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute: On Regional Conflict and Its Resolution, New York: St. Martin’s. 1994.

Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire, Bloomsbury, 1996.

 

Iffat Malik, Kashmir: Ethnic Conflict International Dispute, OUP 2002.

Mridu Rai, Hindu Rulers: Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights and the History of Kashmir, Princeton University Press, 2004.

Chitralekha Zutshi, Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir, Hurst, 2004.

Praveen Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad: The Covert War in Kashmir, 1947-2004, Routledge, 2006.

Andrew Whitehead, A Mission in Kashmir, Penguin, 2007.

 

Sanjay Kak, ed. Until my Freedom has Come, Penguin, 2011.

A.G. Noorani, Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir, The Kashmir dispute: 1947–2012, OUP, 2011.

Christopher Snedden, The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir. Hurst, 2012.

Shonaleeka Kaul, The Making of Early Kashmir, OUP, 2018.

Duschinski, Bhan, Zia and Mahmood, eds. Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

India, Pakistan, Partition, Short Essays

Freedom and Fear: India and Pakistan at 70

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IMG_2257
© 2017 Pippa Virdee

The role of any democratic country, with a well-defined rule of law, is to protect ALL its citizens, ensuring that their rights and freedoms are safeguarded. It is in fact difficult to imagine these lands without the heterogeneity that forms the essence of being South Asian. It is this vibrancy and diversity that gives it character and strength. To move toward a homogenous culture is not only problematic but also dangerous because it is based on exclusivity.

Extract:

In the midst of the monsoon of August 1947, British India ceased to be and gave way to two independent nations. The logic of this partition being religious and regional, the older and larger India was reinforced as a Hindu majoritarian society, while the newer and smaller Pakistan emerged as an Islamic country. No partitions are total and absolute but this one was especially terrible and ambiguous; it left about a 20 percent religious minority population on both sides. Moreover, it created two wings of Pakistan with a hostile Indian body-politic in the middle.

This event was not entirely of subcontinental making. The British Empire in Asia cracked under the hands of the Japanese army during World War II, most spectacularly with the fall of Singapore in February 1942, and began to crumble in South Asia after the war. Along with India and Pakistan, Burma (today’s Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) also emerged independent (both in 1948) at this time. All this was to bring about many changes, both internally in India and internationally. Europe, the ravaged battlefield of the world wars, ceased to be the center of the Western world, with political and economic power shifting decisively to the Soviet Union and the United States, representing two contrasting and conflicting ideological visions for the post-1945 world.

The end of British rule in South Asia happened alongside the emergence of this conflict, christened the Cold War. The road to freedom and partition of India and the creation of Pakistan was a long one and accompanied with fundamental social, economic, and political changes. From the mutiny of 1857 to the massacre of 1919 in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar; from the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 to the establishment of the All-India Muslim League in 1906; from fighting for king and country in two world wars to seeking self-rule in the interwar years; and from the development of an elaborate civil and military bureaucratic and infrastructural apparatus and a space for provincial politics – all these were to completely transform Indian society.

This transformation and its underlying tensions ultimately contributed to that final moment, when in the middle of August 1947, Britain finally bid farewell to its prized colony after being there in one form or another as traders, marauders, administrators, and rulers for over 300 years. Weakened by World War II, the British were forced to accept the new realities of a determined nationalist struggle and an emerging new world order in which old-fashioned colonialism no longer seemed feasible. The journey toward this reality was slow and painful.

This year, on August 14 and 15, the Pakistani and Indian state and society, respectively, will mark 70 years of freedom. The bulk of both countries will be in celebratory mode as much of them were in 1947. Neither will want to remember the hard history of this freedom, nor face the harsh realities of it today. Back in 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah was in Karachi and Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi, both welcoming a new dawn of freedom, but also engulfed in the fear and flames of communal violence. The worst of this was in the partitioned province of the Punjab in North India, where from March 1947 onward in Rawalpindi, communal violence and forced migration of people completely changed the landscape. Over the next year, but largely concentrated in August-December 1947, approximately 1 million were massacred and over 10 million were forced to move from one side of the Radcliffe line to the other. Bengal in East India, the other province to be partitioned, experienced similar, if slower, migration but not murder on the same scale. Other provinces, like Sindh, United Province, Bihar, Assam, Bombay, and the North-Western Frontier Province, also saw religious riots and exchanges of refugee populations.

Partitions are never easy; they are fraught with physical uprooting and dislocation, emotional and psychological separations, and, often, bitter memories of enmities. The partition of British India, though, appeared inescapable in early 1947, once constitutional attempts to secure a confederal arrangement for the Muslims in India to live in a post-colonial Hindu-majority country, without fear, collapsed. The movement for a home for Indian Muslims had gained currency in the interwar period, with poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal’s presidential address to the 25th session of the All-India Muslim League in December 1930, envisioning “a consolidated, North-West Indian Muslim State” amalgamating “the Punjab, North-West Frontier province, Sind, and Baluchistan” and self-governing “within or without the British Empire.” It culminated, almost 10 years later, in March 1940, in the lawyer- politician Jinnah’s speech at another session of the League. Describing Muslims as a “nation,” not merely a community, Jinnah demanded “homeland, territory, and state” for them.

Full article in The Diplomat, Issue 33, August 2017 or contact me.