Thursday 7 April 2022

Indians are being-humans not human beings- Milan Vaishnav

Many years ago, I recall my esteemed College friend, the erudite Professor Pankaj Sharma telling me that, from the Heideggerian point of view, Indians were better described as being-humans rather than as human-beings. I confess I did not quite follow his argument. Did he mean that whereas most humans lack being and are doomed to remain in the realm of becoming, Indians were already more than mere 'shepherds of being'. They themselves were being which was in the process of becoming human- i.e. coinciding with itself as its own lack. Was this what Sharmaji meant? He shook his head sadly. My training in Economics had coarsened my brain. To clarify the matter in terms I might understand, he mentioned the distinction between pussy cats and cat pussies. Whereas all pussy cats emerge from cat pussies the reverse is not the case. Thus, for a reason Suppes and Sen have elucidated, the only place I was likely to get pussy was a cathouse. 

For many years, this Heideggerian apercu remained dark and obscure to me. Then I heard about a distinction made by Prof. Yogendra Yadav which is as important and seminal as Sharmaji's distinction between pussy cats and cat pussies. 

But I feel I am not sufficiently academically qualified to expound on this topic without the aid of another great genius, Milan Vaishnav , who works for the Carnegie Endowment for Talking Bollocks, and who asked, three years ago, in the Hindustan Times,

Is India a “nation-state” or a “state-nation”?

Unlike the US or Canada, India became a Nation at about the same time that the Jews and the Greeks and the Chinese. It is not the case that the indigenous people were killed and dispossessed in the recent past though no doubt some territories which once were Indian are no longer so.  

This may seem like semantics, but the answer will determine India’s democratic future.

No it won't. Nobody gives a shit about questions raised by cretins employed by some Charitable Foundation for the feebleminded.  

In their 2011 book, Crafting State-Nations: India and other Multinational Democracies, political scientists Juan Linz, Alfred Stepan, and Yogendra Yadav argued that ethnically diverse societies have one of two options when balancing the twin objectives of nation-building and democracy-building.

These cunts don't get that a Nation can be ethnically diverse on the basis that intermarriage between people of different regions was restricted for exogenous reasons- e.g. geographical distance, inheritance laws etc. Germany is actually ethnically diverse. West Germans are closer to their French speakers across the Rhine. East Germans are closer to Poles. Arabs are ethnically mixed. Some Saudi royals look African, others look European, yet others fit the Hollywood stereotype of the saturnine desert Sheikh.  

One route is the construction of a nation-state

which nation has been 'constructed'? None at all. The US is what it is because of colonization. The WASPs expanded to the West and immigrants conformed to their template. This was pure 'Tardean mimetics' and was driven by the market. 

State construction does occur within pre-existing Nations and such States may cross national boundaries. Saudi Arabia was constructed by Ibn Saud. But the Arabs pre-existed as a great Nation who founded a vast Empire.  

in which the political boundaries of the State mirror the cultural boundaries of the nation.

Nations have no cultural boundaries. My distant cousins who speak Tamil and who perform Sandhyavandham in the agraharam acknowledge that their sophisticated relatives in Mumbai and San Francisco are of the same community. Some may be called NRI, but they can assert patriality and reclaim Indian nationality. It is obvious that people living in remote mountains or deserts or forested regions will have a very different material culture and may speak a different language to their fellow nationals living in tony neighborhoods of big cities. But that was as true of Ireland or Scotland when Gandhi and Nehru first went to England.  

The historian Eugen Weber famously described how French leaders in the wake of the Revolution transformed “peasants into Frenchmen” by moulding a common cultural, linguistic, and national identity that was uniquely — and exclusively — French.

French had become the language of diplomacy and learned disputation. Leibniz wrote in both Latin and French. He did not write in German. Thus what was happening in France represented 'levelling up'- giving villagers the same opportunity to rise as Parisians. Germans responded by raising up their own language and academic stature so that their own people could take equal pride in the (admittedly less) standardized version of their tongue. Shakespeare and the King James Bible had already achieved this for 'Chancery English'. 

One reason Hindi could not become the Indian national language in the way that Urdu (except in the North and West) has been accepted in Pakistan, is because it simply does not have a prestigious secular literature. But, it must be said, Hindi speakers are wholly uninterested in imposing their language on others- especially because few spoke the 'shuddh' version of it.  

But for societies that possess strong cultural diversity, at least some of which is territorially based and backed by strong sub-national identities, the nation-state model is ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.

Not if there is a pre-existing sense of Nationality clearly reflected in the Religion of the majority. Look at Israel. The Ashkenazi had a different language from the Sephardic who in turn could not converse with the Mizrachi- not to mention the Indian or Ethiopian or Yemeni Jews. But their Religion was the Religion of a Nation. Similarly Hinduism is the religion of the Indian nation. Some Muslims and Christians have accepted that some aspects of the manner in which they practice their religion reflects the religious tradition of some, or all, of their ancestry. But it is equally true to say that third or fourth generation Hindus and Sikhs in the UK or America admit that their Religion has been shaped by the Christian majority in the nations to which they feel great pride in belonging. There is nothing wrong with that at all. We may object to a Hindu giving himself the airs and graces of an upper class Englishman while living in India but it is only natural that a Hindu in England will behave like an Englishman- because that is what he actually is.  

For these complex cases, Linz, Stepan, and Yadav suggest an alternative path — what they term a “state-nation”.

Which is an oxymoron. Nations are not forged by administrative fiat though, no doubt, a feeling of nationhood may emerge over the generations- more particularly if there is an external threat or a factious minority within its borders.  

Whereas a nation-state insists on alignment between the boundaries of the State and nation,

No Nation-state has ever done so unless there was a secessionist or other threat to the State's integrity. It is a different matter that 'levelling up' may require teaching 'received pronunciation' and discouraging the use of dialect but only so that kids are not disadvantaged when it comes to educational and employment opportunities.  

a state-nation allows for a multiplicity of “imagined communities” to coexist beneath a single democratic roof.

Why should it? Ibn Saud created a state. Did it allow for a multiplicity of 'imagined communities'? Kemal Ataturk created a state. Did he encourage the Kurds to develop their own language? 

The fact is, if a 'state-nation' has more than one language or religion then it won't be democratic or will turn into a Lebanon like shitshow. These guys are imagining a type of community which has never existed. Belgium was a 'state-nation' created purely for balance of power reasons. It is a democracy. But its Government has been in a continual state of crisis for the last 15 years. It is the King who keeps the country together. Federalism and devolution- both of which have proceeded apace since the late Sixties have not solved the underlying problem. Perhaps there will be a partition of the country. Who can tell? 

It recognises that citizens can have multiple, overlapping identities that need not detract from a larger sense of national unity.

But it may indeed so detract. Ask the Ukrainians. Suppose you considered yourself Russian as well as Ukrainian on the basis that Russian is your mother-tongue. In the past you might not have had to choose one identity over the other. But now you do. 

Although the Constituent Assembly debates did not frame arguments in precisely these terms, India’s founders grappled with this choice between a unitary Indian nation-state or a flexible state-nation.

Nehru and Patel were agreed that India had no choice but to be unitary. Had the Assembly not come to the same conclusion, it would have been dissolved and elections would have been held. Congress would have swept the polls and the Constitution they wanted would have been promulgated. In any case, the thing was swiftly amended and the jailing of Sheikh Abdullah sent a crystal clear message that India was unitary not federal.  

They shied away from the prevailing European model

there was no fucking 'prevailing European model'. Europe had fucked up. Parts it were starving. Russian and Mongolian and Kazakh soldiers garrisoned the East. American G.Is were more welcome in the West. 

However, India did copy aspects of the Irish constitution- e.g. Directive Principles.

not out of weakness, but rather a conviction that India’s unprecedented diversity could not be corralled into such a hegemonic framework.

Nonsense. These guys had all known each other for decades. They understood that the Tamil likes rice and the Punjabi likes roti but what both like even more is giving gaseous speeches.  

The power and force of this idea of India was that there was, in fact, no single idea of India.

Except the reality that India was a Nation united by Hinduism which religion, however, drastically needed to reform itself and had understood that the only this could be done was through elected representatives rewriting Hindu laws.  

Citizens could belong to an Indian “nation” but also express their pride as Tamils, Urdu-speakers, Hindus or Yadavs.

Just as Americans can express their pride as Californians, Spanish-speakers, Jews or Yadavs.  

The ability to possess multiple, complementary identities was a key element of the state-nation model,

as well as the non state Nation of Nowhere model 

but not the only one. Asymmetric federalism,

 or symmetric non-federalism

an embrace of individual rights

or a hand-job from collective obligations 

and collective recognition,

or the individual ignoring of boring shitheads who try to signal to you when you are talking to a pretty girl 

and a belief in political integration without cultural assimilation

or gender reassignment 

were also critical.

If by critical you mean- 'shit that doesn't matter in the slightest'- then, sure, why not? 


Most of India’s social cleavages — caste, region, and language

having a dick instead of a vagina 

— do not pose an existential threat to democratic balancing, thanks to their cross-cutting nature.

But crazy guys who kill people do till they are extra-fucking-judicially shot in the fucking head.  

The only cleavage that can be reduced to a bipolar majority-minority contest is religion. Indeed, advocates of Hindu nationalism have consistently expressed unease with the state-nation model. VD Savarkar’s maxim of “Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan” mirrored European-style nationalism based on religious identity, common language, and racial unity. Loyalty to the nation — in this case, the Hindu nation — was paramount.

Savarkar, like the other revolutionaries- Bal, Pal, Lal etc- came to this view after the war. Previously they thought Western Imperialism was the enemy. But the Great War was the graveyard of Kaisers and Caliphs. Europe would destroy itself. Islam, Hinduism's ancient and only enemy, was resurgent. For a while it seemed that the Muslims wouldn't want to go back to their bad old ways in the areas where they were the majority. But that was the outcome nevertheless. Hindus learned the hard way that their only 'Asal Hindusthan' (as Nepal styled itself after the Mughals conquered the territory to their South) was where Hindus were the majority. Your homeland is where, when you have no where else to go, they have to take you in. India is such a homeland- unless your ancestors crossed the border into Pakistan in 1947 or 1948. Such people were deprived of citizenship. Non-Muslim refugees got it and might also get compensating land taken from Muslims by the Custodian of Evacuee (later 'Enemy') property.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) 2014 electoral triumph laid the groundwork for Hindu nationalism’s resurgence

Actually, Congress was once the muscular arm of Hinduism. The RSS was the provincial but hard working sister of the Congress Seva Dal.

and its present ideological hegemony. In the eyes of Hindu nationalists, India’s Hindu identity is not only important on its own terms, but also because it has the potential to foster the kind of coherent national community needed for stability at home and recognition abroad.

But farsighted Muslims and Christians in India recognized this long ago. The majority must thrive if the nation is to thrive. When the nation gets weaker and poorer, it is the minorities who suffer most.  

Since being re-elected in 2019, the BJP has moved with an impressive clarity of purpose in implementing this vision. The abrogation of Article 370 undermines the promise of asymmetric federalism.

There was no such promise. In 2016, the Supreme Court said Kashmir had no vestige of autonomy.  

The fact that asymmetric arrangements in India’s Northeast remain untouched

because head-hunting isn't actually a Hindu practice 

creates the perception that such an accommodation was verboten in Jammu and Kashmir because it was India’s only Muslim-majority state.

Why no mention of Pakistan's role there? Would the Carnegie Endowment cut Milan's pay if he mentions America's favorite country in the region?  

In November, the Supreme Court delivered a second longstanding BJP objective in its Babri Masjid judgment. Although the verdict was the product of judicial, not executive, action, the ruling was widely seen as a foregone conclusion.

Because Indian law accords legal personality to temple deities and Hindu worship of the relevant idol had been ongoing since 1949. 

This feeling of inevitability had little to do with the legal merits of the case, but rather the political context in which it was adjudicated.

Milan is an expert on feelings. He is such a special boy. Please don't make fun of him. He will cry and cry.

And last week, Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which grants expedited citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities originating from three of India’s neighbours.

Though this had been happening since 1947. Muslim refugees who had crossed the border in panic were prevented, by a law passed by the Constituent Assembly, from returning to reclaim their property. There was an exchange of population and, sadly, there will be one again if India ever loses a war with Pakistan. That is why sensible Indian Muslims want the country to be able to defend itself. 

It is impossible to view this legislation without recognising its connection to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

Which was brought in by the Supreme Court acting suo moto. 

Frustrated by the fact that a large proportion of the 1.9 million residents left off the NRC rolls are Hindus, the BJP has pledged to move the CAB in order to end their purgatory. In fact, the party has campaigned on implementing an NRC on a nation-wide basis.

Thus keeping its hold on the Hindu vote without actually doing anything.  

These moves suggest a departure from the state-nation model.

Which doesn't exist save perhaps in Rahul Baba's poor addled brain. He recently said in Parliament that the Indian Constitution says that India is not a nation! God alone knows what he thinks the name of his party- which is 'Indian National Congress'- actually means. 

But India’s political leadership should think long and hard before uprooting the negotiated framework that has made India the envy of the democratic world.

Very true. Look at all those Americans and Canadians and Britishers queueing up outside Indian Consulates hoping to gain refugee status in India. 

India could have had a 'negotiated framework' at the Federal level. The British held Round Table Conferences for this purpose. Gandhi showed up for the second one and managed to alienate everybody including Sikhs, Dalits and Madrasis. That's why the Brits had to impose the voluminous act of 1935- the longest piece of legislation in British history. They still thought the Indians could negotiate a Federal framework. It was because no such thing existed even 4 years later in 1939 that the Viceroy had no choice but to take India into the war unilaterally. There simply wasn't any Federal body for him to consult. In 1946, Congress monopolized the Hindu vote as the Muslim League monopolized the Muslim vote. Thus it was the Congress Hindus who pushed through a strong unitary center that could jail any C.M- like Sheikh Abdullah- who wagged a secessionist tail. But then Indira showed that the Constitution allowed her to jail all her opponents and even do forcible sterilization. This caused Americans to envy India greatly. Jimmy Carter himself went and banged on the door of the Indian Ambassador loudly demanding Indian nationality and forcible sterilization because he was committing adultery in his heart all the time. Harold Wilson resigned from Number 10 and tried to sneak into India. Sanjay Gandhi caught him by the ear and forcibly deported him back to Blighty. 

Of the handful of longstanding multinational federal democracies, only India lacks an advanced industrial economy.

Because it is a democracy and has an intensely stupid class of 'public intellectuals' each of whom is as stupid as Milan.  

This does not mean India’s model is flawless. The unusual definition of Indian secularism — whereby the State maintains a principled distance from all religious faiths,

though it permits polygamy for Muslims but not Hindus which is why Hindus pretend to convert so as to marry their mistresses and legitimize their kids.

God alone knows what Indian 'secularism' means. Rahul thought it meant that if Muslim terrorists are a threat you must say Hindu terrorists are a threat even if no such beasts exist. Now he thinks secularism means saying he is a janeodhari Brahmin and therefore opposed to Hindutva which does not acknowledge hereditary distinctions of caste. 

as opposed to a clear firewall — may have run its course. The opportunistic violation of this doctrine by secular politicians has hollowed out its core.

I suppose he means Rajiv Gandhi's actions re Babri, Shahbano etc.  

Similarly, it might be time to revisit the idea of separate personal laws for different religious faiths. While one option is to usher in a uniform civil code, another possibility — as Yadav has recently argued — is retaining separate family laws while removing their illiberal provisions.

Try to take the hijab of girl students and look what happens. This is not a road anybody wants to go down- even Arif Mohammad Khan.

In 1947, if forced to wager, political analysts would have bet that Sri Lanka — not India — would emerge as South Asia’s democratic success story.

It got universal suffrage 14 years before France did. But nobody thought it would do particularly well. India, on the other hand, looked promising. The American edition of 'Discovery of India' reads well. It shows Nehru as a smart guy who would use the resources of the State to build up private enterprise till it got scope and scale economies and thus moved up the value chain. That's why in the early to mid Fifties, Americans would turn up hoping to build factories. Then the bureaucrats wore them down and they finally upped sticks and ran away.  

It boasted better human development indicators, higher per capita income, and fewer politically sensitive social cleavages.

The Sri Lankan independence struggle began when Indian Muslims, backed by the Brits, provoked the native Buddhists into rioting in 1915. 

As India was busy building its state-nation, Linz, Stepan and Yadav note that Sri Lanka was lured down the nation-state path by the siren song of religious hegemony, linguistic uniformity, and cultural assimilation.

Fuck off! What happened was that the Burghers in the Army tried to launch a coup. So the Bandarnaikes weakened the Army to a point where the Trotskyite JVC launched an insurrection which Indian and Pakistani soldiers put down. That should have been a wake up call. Sri Lanka needed a kick ass Army. Also it needed to execute the leader of the rebellion and to do what Indonesia and Malaya did- viz hunt down and kill Commie nutters. The Sri Lankans didn't bother and so a crazy Christian named Prabhakaran created the Tamil Tigers which, admittedly, did kick ass. But why kick Buddhist ass? Hindus are also Buddhists. Who gives a fuck if Sinhala is an 'Aryan' rather than a 'Dravidian' language? Shit like that only mattered to missionaries. Rajiv, fool that he was, sent in the Indian army which incurred the hatred of both the Tigers and the Sinhalas. It may be that Sundaram, not Rajiv, was responsible for that debacle. But it was Rajiv who paid the price. Pity. 

Sri Lanka’s majoritarian experiment is a protracted tragedy that still haunts the island nation.

Tamils don't have a problem with Sinhalas and they like Buddhism, Jainism etc. Sri Lanka's mistake was to weaken its army. Later on the mistake was to borrow too much money. Later still, the President decided to turn the entire agrarian economy organic. What I'm saying is there is a pattern of stupidity here which has nothing to do with 'majoritarianism'. The vast majority of Tamils and Sinhalas and Moors and Burghers are smart and decent people. But if leaders do stupid shit then the country becomes a shit-hole. 

The push to redefine India as a nation-state could lead the country down a similarly precarious road, one whose enduring consequences Indians only need to look southward to grasp.

What's the worst that could happen? India massacres Muslims in some areas the way Pakistan has done. There are tensions on the border but India can fight a two front war because its Army aint shit. Defense procurement is a shit-show, that's true enough, but it needn't be. What bigger problem could emerge? Terrorism? But India has the capacity to crush Khalistanis or Kashmiris or Naxals- if that is what it wants to do. Unlike Sri Lanka, no Indian politician has ever had any reason to fear an Army coup. That's why India can't go down the Sri Lanka road though it can go down the Pakistan road- indeed, there was ethnic cleansing in Jammu, East Punjab, Rajasthan, Meo-belt, and Bihar. The Rezakars in Hyderabad didn't put up much of a fight. The Nizam's Yemeni mercenary were happy to return home and bore the Indians no ill will. 

That's it. That's the whole story here. Stupid people employed by the Carnegie Endowment might not understand that story but then it is never stupid to be as stupid and ignorant as your job requires you to be. Unless you can get a better job. But neither Milan nor Yogendra can do that. Thus they will continue to recycle the same shite every time a Hindu becomes Prime Minister of India. 'This is naked majoritarianism" they will say. 'India was once the envy of America as a democratic paradise. Now those fucking Hindus have gone and elected a Hindu- when what they ought to do is elect Mormons if no Muslims are available- the country is bound to turn into Myanmar. This is because Indians think they are human beings. As Professors Zbqnex and Yadav have shown Indians are being-humans not human-beings. This is a very important distinction and Carnegie Endowment should fund my research into this in the cathouses of Las Vegas and Bangkok.'

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