Ramachandra Guha Quotes

What is now in the past was once in the future

It is in the nature of democracies, perhaps, that while visionaries are sometimes necessary to make them, once made they can be managed by mediocrities.

So long as the Constitution is not amended beyond recognition, so long as elections are held regularly and fairly and the ethos of secularism broadly prevails, so long as citizens can speak and write in the language of their choosing, so long as there is an integrated market and a moderately efficient civil service and army, and — lest I forget — so long as Hindi films are watched and their songs sung, India will survive

Here we are on top of the world. We have arrived at this peak to stay there forever. There is, of course, this thing called history. But history is something unpleasant that happens to other people. —Arnold Toynbee, recalling the 1897 diamond jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria   Like other practicing historians, I am often asked what the “lessons of history” are. I answer that the only lesson I have learnt from studying the past is that there are no permanent winners and losers. —Ramachandra Guha

In India, the sapling was planted by the nation’s founders, who lived long enough (and worked hard enough) to nurture it to adulthood. Those who came afterwards could disturb and degrade the tree of democracy but, try as they might, could not uproot or destroy it.

in India, Bhakti or what may be called the path of devotion or hero-worship, plays a part in its politics unequalled in magnitude by the part it plays in the politics of any other country in the world. Bhakti in religion may be the road to the salvation of a soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.

India is no longer a constitutional democracy but a populist one.

If Jawaharlal Nehru was the Maker of Modern India, then perhaps Potti Sriramulu should be named its Mercator.

in the post-Gandhian war for power the first casualty is decency’.

Our treatment of Adivasi is a blot on Indian democracy. Only someone who cares sincerely for the future of this country will say that. Others will say that ‘Oh no no, they are doing fine, they live wonderfully… It is all hyperbole, exaggerated and manufactured dissent.’ If you are in a mode of self-denial, you will stay where you are- a flawed, intolerant and imperfect society. The main task of any nationalist is to be ashamed of crimes committed against his fellow citizens in the name of nationalism.

In India the choice could never be between chaos and stability, but between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder. ASHIS NANDY, sociologist, 1990.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom,

என்னைக் கொல்வதன் மூலம் ஒரு தீயவனை ஒழித்துவிட்டதாக நினைப்பாரென்றால் அவர் உண்மையான காந்தியை அல்ல அவருக்குத் தீயவனாகத் தோன்றிய காந்தியைத்தான் கொன்றிருப்பார். என்னைக்

a mere five years after the last maharaja had signed away his land, Indians had ‘come to take integrated India so much for granted that it requires amental effort today even to imagine that it could be different’.

My religion is a conspiracy My prayer meetings are a conspiracy My lying quiet is a conspiracy My attempt to wake up is a conspiracy My desire to have friends is a conspiracy My ignorance, my backwardness, a conspiracy.

Like other practicing historians, I am often asked what the “lessons of history” are. I answer that the only lesson I have learnt from studying the past is that there are no permanent winners and losers. —Ramachandra Guha

In 1951 Dec 20th, Nehru, while campaigning for the first democratic elections in India, took a short break to address a UNESCO symposium in Delhi. Although he believed democracy was the best form of governance, while speaking at the symposium he wondered loud... the quality of men who are selected by these modern democratic methods of adult franchise gradually deteriorates because of lack of thinking and the noise of propaganda....He[the voter] reacts to sound and to the din, he reacts to repetition and he produces either a dictator or a dumb politician who is insensitive. Such a politician can stand all the din in the world and still remain standing on his two feet and, therefore, he gets selected in the end because the others have collapsed because of the din. -Quoted from India After Gandhi, page 157.

You gave us a lawyer; we gave you back a Mahatma.

A common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to laws which have conflicting ideologies.

the differences between the countries of Europe were much smaller than those between the ‘countries’ of India. ‘Scotland is more like Spain than Bengal is like the Punjab.’ In India the diversities of race, language and religion were far greater. Unlike in Europe, these ‘countries’ were not nations; they did not have a distinct political or social identity. This, Strachey told his Cambridge audience, ‘is the first and most essential thing to learn about India – that there is not, and never was an India, or even any country of India possessing, according to any European ideas, any sort of unity, physical, political, social or religious’. There was no Indian nation or country in the past; nor would there be one in the future.

As that wise Indian, André Béteille, always points out, what we must strive for is reasonable equality of opportunity, not absolute equality of result. That we have plainly not achieved,

In his speeches on Azad Hind Radio, Subhas Bose referred to Gandhi as the ‘Father of the Nation’. This seems to be the first time Gandhi was called this. The usage soon became ubiquitous.

பாரபட்சம் அவரை துன்பப்படுத்தியது. அவர், ‘இன்னொரு மனிதரின் சிந்தனைகள் மோசமானவை, நம்முடைய சிந்தனைகளே நல்லவை என்றும், நம்மிடமிருந்து வேறுபடும் பார்வை கொண்டவர்கள் நாட்டின் எதிரிகள் என்றும் சொல்வது கெட்ட பழக்கம்

An early gesture was to rename Harrington Road after a hero of the world communist movement, so that at the height of the Vietnam War the address of the United States Consulate was 7 Ho Chi Minh Sarani, Calcutta.

நியாயமான வழிமுறைகளே நியாயமான விளைவுகளை உண்டாக்கும்; எல்லாவற்றிலும் இல்லாவிட்டாலும், குறைந்தபட்சம் பெரும்பாலான நிகழ்வுகளில் அன்பு, இரக்கம் ஆகியவற்றின் சக்தி ஆயுதங்களின் சக்தியைவிட எல்லையற்ற அளவில் அதிகமானது. காந்தியைப்

Srinagar, there was a grave of a Christian soldier from Travancore, which had the Vedic swastika and a verse from the Quran inscribed on it. There could be ‘no more poignant and touching symbolof the essential oneness and unity of India’.61

It’s no conspiracy [for the Hindu] to make me a refugee in the very country of my birth It’s no conspiracy to poison the air I breathe and the space I live in It’s certainly no conspiracy to cut me to pieces and then imagine an uncut Bharat.

Writing in 1959 – a decade and more after Independence – an Indian editor who was bitterly opposed to Nehru was constrained to recognize his two greatest achievements – the creation of a secular state and the granting of equal rights to Untouchables.

The Indian commitment to the semantics of socialism is at least as deep as ours to the semantics of free enterprise . . . Even the most intransigent Indian capitalist may observe on occasion that he is really a socialist at heart. J. K. GALBRAITH, economist, 1958

How much more does Sonia Gandhi’s son know about the past of the party of which he is now the vice president? Not very much. In Rahul Gandhi’s understanding of his party’s history, only five leaders have mattered: his mother, his father, his grandmother, his great-grandfather and Mahatma Gandhi, the only Indian politician whom he (and Sonia) have granted parity with their own family. Gokhale, Tilak, Rajaji, Azad, Kamaraj, even (or especially) Patel—these are merely names (and sometimes not even that) to the heir apparent. By

I have no doubt that if British governments had been prepared to grant in 1900 what they refused in 1900 but granted in 1920; or to grant in 1920 what they refused in 1920 but granted in 1940; or to grant in 1940 what they refused in 1940 but granted in 1947 – then nine-tenths of the misery, hatred, and violence, the imprisonings and terrorism, the murders, flogging, shootings, assassinations, even the racial massacres would have been avoided; the transference of power might well have been accomplished peacefully, even possibly without Partition. LEONARD WOOLF, 1967

And it is only in its early stage. All those who believe they will remain untouched by its wrath are delusional. If Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament with a line to the deputy prime minister’s office, could be dragged out of his home and gashed and burned alive, what makes anyone think he or she will remain unharmed? If Aamir Khan, one of India’s biggest film stars, can be unpersoned; if Gauri Lankesh, one of its boldest journalists, can be shot dead; if Ramachandra Guha, one of its greatest historians, can be stopped from lecturing; if Naseeruddin Shah, among its finest actors, can be branded a traitor; if Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, can be labelled an agent of Pakistan by his successor; if B.H. Loya, a perfectly healthy judge, can abruptly drop dead; if a young woman can be stalked by the police machinery of the state because Modi has displayed an interest in her—what makes the rest of us think we will remain untouched and unharmed? Unless the republic is reclaimed, the time will come when all of us will be one incorrect meal, one interfaith romance, one unfortunate misstep away from being extinguished. The mobs that slaughtered ‘bad’ Muslims will eventually come for Hindus who are not ‘good’.

Thus, Rajaji wrote of the need to try and think fundamentally in the present crisis. Are we to yield to the fanatical emotions of our anti-Pakistan groups? Is there any hope for India or for Pakistan, if we go on hating each other, suspecting each other, borrowing and building up armaments against each other – building our two houses, both of us on the sands of continued foreign aid against a future Kurukshetra? We shall surely ruin ourselves for ever if we go on doing this . . . We shall be making all hopes of prosperity in the future a mere mirage if we continue this arms race based on an ancient grudge and the fears and suspicions flowing from it.27

மனித உழைப்பை இடம்பெயர்க்கும் இயந்திரங்களுக்கு அங்கு இடம் கிடையாது. அது அதிகாரத்தை ஒரு சிலரின் கைகளில் குவித்துவிடும். நாகரிக மனித சமூகத்தில் உழைப்புக்கென்று ஒரு விசேஷ இடம் உண்டு. மனிதர்களுக்கு உதவும் ஒவ்வொரு இயந்திரங்களுக்கும் இடம் உண்டு. ஆனால், அப்படியான இயந்திரம் என்னவாக இருக்க முடியும் என்று உட்கார்ந்து யோசித்துத்தான் பார்க்கவேண்டும். இப்போது

My own view – speaking as a historian rather than citizen – is that as long as Pakistan exists there will be Hindu fundamentalists in India. In times of stability, or when the political leadership is firm, they will be marginal or on the defensive. In times of change, or when the political leadership is irresolute, they will be influential and assertive.

கல்வி தொடர்பான அத்தியாயம் ஒன்றில் காந்தி இந்தியாவுக்குள் ஆங்கிலம் அல்லாத பிற மொழிகளின் பயன்பாட்டைத் தீவிரமாக ஆதரித்தார். இந்தியர்கள் அனைவரும் தம் தாய் மொழியை அறிந்திருக்கவேண்டும். இந்தியை ஓர் இணைப்பு மொழியாக முன்னெடுக்கலாம். அதை எழுத தேவநாகரி அல்லது பாரசீக எழுத்துக்களைப் பயன்படுத்த அனுமதிக்கலாம்; இதன் மூலம் இந்துக்களுக்கும் முஸ்லிம்களுக்கும் இன்னும் நெருங்கிய தொடர்பை உருவாக்க முடியும்.

Had Shastri been given another five years, there would have been no Nehru–Gandhi dynasty. Sanjay Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi would almost certainly still be alive, and in private life. The former would be a (failed) entrepreneur, the latter a recently retired airline pilot with a passion for photography. Finally, had Shastri lived longer, Sonia Gandhi would still be a devoted and loving housewife, and Rahul Gandhi perhaps a middle-level manager in a private sector company.

British journalist Don Taylor. Writing in 1969, by which time India had stayed united for two decades and gone through four general elections, Taylor yet thought that the key question remains: can India remain in one piece – or will it fragment? . . . When one looks at this vast country and its 524 million people, the 15 major languages in use, the conflicting religions, the many races, it seems incredible that one nation could ever emerge. It is difficult to even encompass this country in the mind – the great Himalaya, the wide Indo-Gangetic plain burnt by the sun and savaged by the fierce monsoon rains, the green flooded delta of the east, the great cities like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. It does not, often, seem like one country. And yet there is a resilience about India which seems an assurance of survival. There is something which can only be described as an Indian spirit. I believe it no exaggeration to say that the fate of Asia hangs on its survival.

The changes which the destruction of forests, the clearing of plants and the cultivation of indigo have produced within half a century in the quantity of water flowing in on the one hand, and on the other the evaporation of the soil and the dryness of the atmosphere, present causes sufficiently powerful to explain the successive diminution of the lake of Valencia . . . By felling the trees that cover the tops and sides of mountains, men in every climate prepare at once two calamities for future generations, the want of fuel and the scarcity of water.

நீ மட்டும் தைரியத்தைக் கைவிடாமல் இருந்து, தேவையான சத்தான ஆகாரங்களையும் எடுத்துக்கொண்டால் உடம்பு சரியாகிவிடும். ஆனால், துரதிர்ஷ்டவசமாக நீ காலமாகிவிட்டால், நான் உயிருடன் இருக்கையில் என்னிடமிருந்து பிரிந்திருக்கும்போது நீ அப்படிச் செய்வதில் குற்றம் எதுவும் இல்லை என்று மட்டும் சொல்வேன். நான் உன்னை எந்த அளவுக்கு நேசிக்கிறேன் என்றால், நீ இறந்துவிட்டாலும்கூட என்னைப் பொறுத்தவரை வாழ்ந்துகொண்டுதான் இருப்பாய். உன் ஆன்மாவுக்கு மரணமில்லை. நான் அடிக்கடி சொல்லியிருப்பதை மீண்டும் சொல்கிறேன்: உன் வியாதி உன்னை எடுத்துச் சென்றுவிடுமானால், நான் இன்னொரு திருமணம் செய்துகொள்ளமாட்டேன். 33 இந்தக்

Then, in January 1961, a religious riot broke out in the central Indian city of Jabalpur. A Hindu girl had committed suicide; it was alleged that she took her life because she had been assaulted by two Muslim men. The claim was given lurid publicity by a local Jana Sangh newspaper, whereupon Hindu students went on a rampage through the town, attacking Muslim homes and burning shops. In retaliation a Muslim group torched a Hindu neighbourhood. The rioting continued for days, spreading also to the countryside. It was the most serious such incident since Partition, its main sufferers being poor Muslims, mostly weavers and bidi (cigarette) workers.52

Both Arun Shourie and Arundhati Roy see history in terms of heroes and villains. Neither seeks to place the choices made by Gandhi and Ambedkar in context, seeking only to elevate one by disparaging the other. Roy has all of Ambedkar’s polemical zeal but none of his scholarship or sociological insight. Shourie, meanwhile, perhaps loves India as much as Gandhi did, but he loves it in the abstract, without empathy for those Indians who suffer discrimination at the hands of their compatriots. Both seek—by the technique of suppressio veri, suggestio falsi so beloved of ideologues down the ages—to prove a verdict they have arrived at beforehand: that Gandhi was the Enemy of the Dalits, for Roy; that Ambedkar was the Enemy of the Nation, for Shourie.

the key question remains: can India remain in one piece – or will it fragment? . . . When one looks at this vast country and its 524 million people, the 15 major languages in use, the conflicting religions, the many races, it seems incredible that one nation could ever emerge. It is difficult to even encompass this country in the mind – the great Himalaya, the wide Indo-Gangetic plain burnt by the sun and savaged by the fierce monsoon rains, the green flooded delta of the east, the great cities like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. It does not, often, seem like one country. And yet there is a resilience about India which seems an assurance of survival. There is something which can only be described as an Indian spirit. I believe it no exaggeration to say that the fate of Asia hangs on its survival.9

More notable perhaps were the names of those who were not from the Congress. These included two representatives of the world of commerce and one representative of the Sikhs. Three others were lifelong adversaries of the Congress. These were R. K. Shanmukham Chetty, a Madras businessman who possessed one of the best financial minds in India; B. R. Ambedkar, a brilliant legal scholar and an ‘Untouchable’ by caste; and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a leading Bengal politician who belonged (at this time) to the Hindu Mahasabha. All three had collaborated with the rulers while the Congress men served time in British jails. But now Nehru and his colleagues wisely put aside these differences. Gandhi had reminded them that ‘freedom comes to India, not to the Congress’, urging the formation of a Cabinet that included the ablest men regardless of party affiliation.6

remarkable achievement’, then went on to say that ‘both Union and democracy are under increasing strain these days, with the future of both in doubt’.66 However, most Indians were by now comfortable with the diversity within. They could see what bound the varied religions, races and regions:

In 1962 one Naga faction had made its peace with the government of India, as had another faction in 1975. But there remained a group stubbornly committed to the idea of an independent and sovereign Nagaland. This was the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, led by Isaak Swu and

The world over, the rhetoric of modern democratic politics has been marked by two rather opposed rhetorical styles. The first appeals to hope, to popular aspirations for economic prosperity and social peace. The second appeals to fear, to sectional worries about being worsted or swamped by one’s historic enemies.

The first such avenue was education. After Independence there was a great expansion in school and college education. By law, a certain portion of seats were reserved for the Scheduled Castes. By policy, different state governments endowed scholarships for children from disadvantaged homes.

Peking followed Lenin’s dictum that ‘promises, like piecrusts, are meant to be broken’.

an empty refugee special steaming into Ferozepur Station late one afternoon. The driver was incoherent with terror, the guard was lying dead in his van, and the stoker was missing. I walked down the platform – all but two bogeys were bespattered with blood inside and out; three dead bodies lay in pools of blood in a third-class carriage. An armed Muslim mob had stopped the train between Lahore and Ferozepur and done this neat job of butchery in broad daylight.

the most powerful enemy of the idea of India now is the Indian state.

Instrument of Accession

It is difficult to even encompass this country in the mind – the great Himalaya, the wide Indo-Gangetic plain burnt by the sun and savaged by the fierce monsoon rains, the green flooded delta of the east, the great cities like Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. It does not, often, seem like one country. And yet there is a resilience about India which seems an assurance of survival. There is something which can only be described as an Indian spirit. I believe it no exaggeration to say that the fate

I do not hold with all these cracks and mockery/ At Krishna Menon./ It is his virtues I would rather pin on./ For instance, consider his skill with crockery:/ What could be finer/ Than the loving care with which he handles china?

plain, once ruled by a single monarch, was now split between

The Shiv Sena was the handiwork of a cartoonist named Bal Thackeray, whose main target was south Indians, whom he claimed were taking away jobs from the natives. Thackeray lampooned dhoti-clad ‘Madrasis’ in his writings and drawings; while his followers attacked Udupi restaurants and homes of Tamil and Telugu speakers.

The Constitution of India recognizes twenty-two languages as ‘official’. The most important of these is Hindi, which in one form or another is spoken by upwards of 400 million people.

This leprous daybreak, dawn night’s fangs have mangled – This is not that long-looked for break of day, Not that clear dawn in quest of which those comrades Set out, believing that in heaven’s wide void Somewhere must be the stars’ last halting-place, Somewhere the verge of night’s slow-washing tide, Somewhere the anchorage for the ship of heartache.10

satyagrahas

India incorporates a greater variety of religions (whether born in its soil or imported) than any other nation in human history.

The election campaign of 1951–2 was conducted through large public meetings, door-to-door canvassing, and the use of visual media. ‘At the height of election fever’, wrote a British observer, ‘posters and emblems were profuse everywhere – on walls, at street corners, even decorating the statues in New Delhi and defying the dignity of a former generation of Viceroys’. A novel method of advertising was on display in Calcutta, where stray cows had ‘Vote Congress’ written on their backs in Bengali.

Chou was more combatively challenged by the brilliant and opinionated finance minister, Morarji Desai. When the Chinese leader asked how the Indians could have allowed their soil to be used by Tibetan dissidents, Desai answered that ‘in our country everybody holds conventions; the Algerians do so and so do the Indians sometimes [against their Government]’. Then he cleverly (or perhaps mischievously) added: ‘The Chinese Prime Minister is aware that Lenin sought asylum in the UK but nobody restricted his political activities. We in India do not encourage anyone to conspire against China but we cannot prevent people from expressing their opinions. Freedom of speech is the basis of our democracy.

These three conceptual and ideological challenges (Hindu fundamentalism, Communist dictatorship and ethnic separatism) all date to the founding of the nation. To these have, more recently been added, three more mundane and materialist challenges. These are inequality, corruption and environmental degradation.

At no other time or place in human history have social conflicts been so richly diverse, so vigorously articulated, so eloquently manifest in art and literature or adressed with such directness by the political system and the media.

Among the VIPs was Dr Syed Mahmud, a veteran freedom fighter who had been with Nehru at Cambridge and in jail. Like the others, he had to disembark from his car and walk up the steeply sloping lawn that fronted the prime minister’s residence. Austin saw a weeping Mahmud given a helping hand by Jagjivan Ram, a senior Congress politician and Cabinet minister of low-caste origin. This was truly ‘a scene symbolic of Nehru’s India: a Muslim aided by an Untouchable coming to the home of a caste Hindu’.

The history of the twentieth century, he pointed out, is replete with instances of the tragedy that overtakes democracy when a leader who has risen to power on the crest of a popular wave or with the support of a democratic organisation becomes a victim of political narcissism and is egged on by a coterie of unscrupulous sycophants who use corruption and terror to silence opposition and attempt to make public opinion an echo of authority. The Congress as an organisation dedicated to democracy and socialism has to combat such trends.

Narayan was manhandled by the police while on his way to a public meeting in Patna. While warding off a baton, he stumbled to the ground; the picture was splashed across the newspapers the next day. He was an old man as well as a sick one (he suffered from diabetes), and although the injuries were slight the indignity provoked much outrage. The Bihar administration was compared to its colonial predecessor – as one journal somewhat hyperbolically wrote, ‘JP was, for the first time in free India, a victim of police repression.

But the history of independent India has remained a field mostly untilled. If history is ‘formally constituted knowledge of the past’, then for the period since 1947 this knowledge practically does not exist.

Naturally, national unity and linguistic diversity have not always been seen to be compatible. Indians speaking one tongue have fought with Indians who speak another.

Patel’s guiding hand was indeed wise and sure; another Congress politician, even (or especially) Nehru, might not have supervised the princes’ extinction with such patience and foresight. But he could scarcely have done the job without V. P. Menon, who made hundreds of trips to the chiefdoms, chipping away at their rulers. In turn, Menon could have done little without the officials who effected the actual transition, creating the conditions for financial and social integration with the rest of India.

nobody in India will love me for the award about the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me. I do not want them to find me . . .

No event of any importance in India is complete without a goof-up. In this case, it was relatively minor. When, after the midnight session at the Constituent Assembly, Jawaharlal Nehru went to submit his list of cabinet ministers to the governor general, he handed over an empty envelope. However,

When an opposition member taunted Nehru with regard to his remark that Aksai Chin was barren land, with no grass growing on it, a Congress MP added this telling supplement: ‘No hair grows on my head. Does it mean that the head has no value?’ This was widely viewed as a dig at Nehru who, of course, was completely bald himself.59

From his home in New Delhi, Atal Behari Vajpayee spoke by satellite to tribals in Kashipur, whose kinsmen had died after eating mango kernel because their crops had failed. ‘It is extremely unfortunate that in today’s world people die by eating poisonous material’, said the head of a government that could speak to its citizens by videophone, yet not supply them with wholesome food.

By 1888 the British were so solidly established in India that they could anticipate, if not a thousand-year Raj, at least a rule that extended well beyond their own lifetimes.

and Bengali literature – in sum, ‘an awesome polyglot, the

To my knowledge, the best summation of this ideology appears in D. R. Goyal’s authoritative history of the RSS. In Goyal’s rendition, the core beliefs of what the Sangh Parivar calls ‘Hindutva’ are as follows: Hindus have lived in India since times immemorial; Hindus are the nation because all culture, civilisation and life is contributed by them alone; non-Hindus are invaders or guests and cannot be treated as equal unless they adopt Hindu traditions, culture etc.; the non-Hindus, particularly Muslims and Christians, have been enemies of everything Hindu and are, therefore, to be treated as threats; the freedom and progress of this country is the freedom and progress of Hindus; the history of India is the history of the struggle of the Hindus for protection and preservation of their religion and culture against the onslaught of these aliens; the threat continues because the power is in the hands of those who do not believe in this nation as a Hindu Nation; those who talk of national unity as the unity of all those who live in this country are motivated by the selfish desire of cornering minority votes and are therefore traitors; the unity and consolidation of the Hindus is the dire need of the hour because the Hindu people are surrounded on all sides by enemies; the Hindus must develop the capacity for massive retaliation and offence is the best defence; lack of unity is the root cause of all the troubles of the Hindus and the Sangh is born with the divine mission to bring about that unity.29

The plural, inclusive, idea of India has three enemies. The best known is the notion of a Hindu Rashtra, as represented in an erratic fashion by the Bharatiya Janata Party and in a more resolute (or more bigoted) manner by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and other associated organisations.

On November 4 1948, B. R. Ambedkar introduced a draft report in the Constituent Assembly. This, with a few modifications, was to become the Constitution of India. Ambedkar said of the document he had overseen that ‘it is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peace time and in war time. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that, Man was vile.

Ghalib’s poem was composed against the backdrop of the decline of the Mughal Empire. His home territory, the Indo-Gangetic plain, once ruled by a single monarch, was now split between contending chiefdoms and armies. Brother was fighting brother; unity and federation were being undermined. But

If he is a bastard, at least he is our bastard’,

These ‘sinister communal elements’ would if they came to power ‘bring ruin and death to the country’.

In Governance is realised all the forms of renunciation; in Governance is united all the sacraments; in Governance is combined all knowledge; in Governance is centred all the Worlds. The Mahabharata

Nehru had an unusual capacity – unusual among politicians, at any rate – to view both sides of the question

Asian Relations Conference

Kuomintang leader Chiang Kaishek,

New version: A republican Government was established under George Lavoff, a member of the Royal Family. It failed to secure popular support and proved incapable of ending the war or of effecting social and economic reforms. At this time, Lenin arrived in Russia and this gave impetus to the Russian people. A new Government with Lenin as President was evolved. First, Lenin made the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany. Then land and other capital goods were nationalised. All agricultural land was taken away from the landlords and divided among the peasants. All factories became the property of the State. The privileges of the clergy and the nobility were abolished. Mines, railways and banks were taken over by the Government. And thus to the astonishment of all, a new world, based upon Socialism, took shape in Russia and the dreams of Karl Marx were realized in this way. Old version: Lenin established a Workers’ Government. But the first election showed that the Bolsheviks had no majority. However, to maintain themselves in power, they dissolved the Duma on the ground that it was reactionary. Local Soviets who did not support the Bolsheviks were also disbanded. Private schools were forbidden and education was taken over by the State. Voting right was denied to the nobility and the clergy. Communism encourages violence, and does not believe in an omnipotent God. The Communists forget that man has a soul. It is a one-party Government that prevails in Communist Russia. There is neither freedom of opinion nor of religion. Many other defects in the System may also strike the eye of an observant critic.

The Assembly finally arrived at a compromise; that ‘the official language of the Union shall be Hindi in the Devanagari script’; but for ‘fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement’.59 Till 1965, at any rate, the notes and proceedings of the courts, the services, and the all-India bureaucracy would be conducted in English.

Never, never underestimate a politician’s need to survive . . . I will not make the mistake of underestimating the political instinct of a Kashmiri, who is, additionally, Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter.

Lathi goli khayenge, phir bhi Bambai layenge

Jana Sangh ko vote do, bidi peena chhod do/ Bidi mein tambaku hai, Kangresswala daku hai’.

have been consulted by this writer.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar,

This took the shape of government announcements paid for by the Directorate of Audio-Visual Publicity (DAVP). While ‘liberally granting advertisements to so-called “friendly” periodicals’, the DAVP withdrew their favours from those deemed critical of the government.

The Hindi novelist Phanishwaranath Renu returned the Padma Shri bestowed upon him by the government of India, the act recalling Tagore’s disavowal of his knighthood after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

will be remembered also for the great interest he took and the trouble he took over the question of Hindu law reform.

An incidental victim of Sanjay Gandhi’s family planning drive was the great popular singer Kishore Kumar. Other film stars and musicians agreed to perform in a programme to raise money for sterilization, but Kishore refused. As a consequence, his songs were banned from Vividh Bharati, the AIR channel that exclusively broadcast film music. The Film Censor Board was instructed to hold up the release of movies in which Kishore acted or sang. Sanjay’s men also warned record companies against selling Kishore’s songs. It was an act of petty vindictiveness in keeping with the times.

From the time of the Congress split, Mrs Gandhi had worked to place loyal individuals in position of authority, and to make public institutions an instrument of her will.

History is really a record of every interruption of the even working of love or of the soul.

Is it any great wonder’, asked the writer, ‘that an Indian Muslim no longer feels secure in secular India? He feels discriminated against. He feels a second-class citizen.