The history of mankind is that of challenges it faced and the solutions it has designed to overcome them, in its continuous march towards modernity. The challenges sometimes were of a natural order, while others, the result of its own making and the paths chosen were the factors distinguishing one society from the other. The Britishers enthused with the enormous boost in production after industrial revolution and the consequent demand of raw materials and market it generated, sailed thousands of miles to reach a civilization which until then was alien to them, which with all its past glory & riches has to be eventually not only ruled by them for next two centuries but to totally change itself in form and character by the time they leave. The moment was of a monumental significance in the history of civilization. A new epoch has begun. A nation state with all its power, as if it was some mechanical press was thrusting itself onto a society which in its rich and diverse history dating back to more than five millenniums has never known something even close to this and was still in its nascent stage.
The history of Indian subcontinent has been that of mingling of different races. Its has been a mixing pot of cultures starting from Indo-Aryans, Dravidians, Hellenistic, Grecco-Romans, Yueh-chi in the ancient period to Turks & Mughals in the medieval phase. All the earlier conquers representing a different culture, which in turn assimilated into the one they conquered, the native culture changing itself accommodating the newer ones. This is probably what Gandhi was hinting to, when he said "
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any". Well, what can be the use of keeping your feet firm on ground when its is surrounded by mud through all sides.
Indian society as it is known now, can be divided into three broad groups of people, the brahmans, follower of vedic brahmanism sect who enjoyed the patronage of whosoever ruled the subcontinent, coming up with the new books on Dharmasutras to preserve their ritual exclusiveness and social status excluding small phases of hostile rulers, the other three varnas who did not strictly recognized themselves with the varna divisions nor followed the rules of brahmanic texts until the late eighteenth century and were mostly the follower of shramanic sects or a whole range of diverse beliefs which were later termed as Puranic Hinduism. The third were the out-castes who were regarded as untouchables by the brahmanic texts and were subject to numerous social atrocities since the ancient times. This order was to be maintained through ritual status ascribes to different varnas , occupational heredity and inherent inequality in its nature. Due to this rigid social order Indian society could survive numerous waves of antithetical culture while perishing to none. The different kingdoms, wars, rulers were like a phases of clouds over the blue sky of this social order in the backdrop. The seasons changed, the rulers changed from turks to mughals, from marathas to rajputs, but the sky was always there with its ever constant bluish tint in the backdrop. It was this social order in the backdrop which India inherited when British knocked the door. But this time the natural clouds were replaced by the mushroom cloud of nuclear explosion. It was not the British culture but the British nation state with its hunger for resources, that was to make Indian its colony. Indian society of that time had no notion of a nation state. Had it been another wave of invaders like countless before, with the political sovereignty changing hands its would just have been a passing storm. But the Britishers were to act as a new binding force parallel to this social order and sometimes even disrupting it, which will give India its future identity. British Raj was to sow the seed of Indian nation. A nation where people come together to pool their political sovereignty into a society with a well defined territorial expanse for their economical well being.
Indian freedom movement led by Congress was nevertheless a portrait of deep fissures in the Indian society. For most of its part it was dominated by the upper class, intelligentsia and the merchant class rendering it to be of limited political force. It was only after the coming of Gandhi that it took shades of mass movement with the application of satyagraha which he developed and successfully applied by during his stint at South Africa. Indian society which is believed to be secular for the most of its past has to become increasingly communal after the British conquest. This can be attributed to two reasons. First the concept of Hinduism as a religion was introduced to India by Britishers who compared the diverse group practices of prevalent in India at that time to their uniform society & religion. Thus every religious sect in India not in congruence with a distinct religion like Islam or Christianity was to be called a Hindu. This bought a sense of religious identity to Indians and the practices of vedic brahmanism were to be imposed on followers of many different sects more ferociously than ever before. Secondly, Britishers considered Muslims to be the major culprit of the revolt of 1857 and followed a discriminatory policy against them as a consequence for next half of the century with a wider objective of divide & rule in mind. This further led to a sense of alienation among Muslims and also led to their backwardness in both economic as well as educational aspects. This continued with Congress facing intense competition with Muslim league for the political representation of Muslims leading to independence, that eventually led to the partition.
Many Hindu right wing groups like Hindu Mahasabha, RSS were also established during this period, which may be regarded as the interpolations of the brahman patron to the kingdoms of the earlier time for their sabotage of freedom movement at the behest of the British. Although their membership remained meagre at that time but they were to become the most important political force in the country in next 100 years. Hindu nationalism of that time was more anti-Hindu than anything else, with the term Hindu becoming a substitute for Vedic Brahmanism. With them being in favor of varna system, there was no regard to the upliftment of women and other oppressed classes in their agenda leave aside the animosity and intolerance towards Islam.
Gandhi too was mostly interested in political freedom with limited or no interest towards emancipation of oppressed classes. Although he appealed for the abolition of slavery but this lacked vigor of a Satyagraha for peasant movements. Gandhi probably did not want to distance the Congress from the upper caste Hindus and invest his energy on social issues with a much bigger agenda of political freedom in hand. The untouchables, excluded totally in the brahmanic setup since ages, were suddenly clubbed together as Hindus and Gandhi rejected to recognize them as separate from Hinduism. While going on fast against the communal award for the untouchables his argument was that this will create fissures into the Hindu social fabric.
Ambedkar rightly understood that political freedom alone will not mean anything in a society with deeply engraved social hierarchy leading to both physical and mental subordination. There is a tendency of looking at the ideas of Gandhi and Ambedkar in contrast with each other but they have a lot in common too provided they are traced to the origins of these leaders. Gandhi coming from a baniya well to do family in a village community was never subjected to untouchability himself and saw it a deficiency in his own social group and appealed to his own upper class for its abolishment. Ambedkar born to a subedar in Army, lived his youth in Mumbai city and had a modernist approach to the issue. He himself adopted the Gandhian principle of Satyagraha at Mahad and he appealed the protesters to be non-violent when they faced the violence of upper castes. There was certainly a reluctance for the cause of untouchables on Gandhi's part but nevertheless he identified himself with their cause.
Ambedkar's contribution to India goes much beyond his well know struggle for Dalit rights. He envisioned an India free from its social stratification, which is enshrined in our preamble through the specific mention of word 'fraternity'. He saw freedom struggle as a golden opportunity to change the social order continuing since millennia. Freedom for him was not merely the transfer of power from British to rulers of Indian origin. How much of this dream is realized after 70 years of independence and how much of it is still prevalent is for us to judge. The continuous curbing of citizens freedom by the Indian political class, the continuous exploitation of the poor by the bureaucracy and the selfish character of different social groups should make us think whether India might have succeeded as a nation-state but has failed as a society! Whether we have missed the golden opportunity Ambedkar rightly identified or whether there still is time & hope!
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