March 12, 2012
Ambitious compendium of India
source:Hindu
INDIA SINCE 1950 —
Society, Politics, Economy and Culture: Edited by Christophe Jaffrelot; Yatra
Books, New Delhi. Foundation Books, 4381/4, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New
Delhi-110001. Rs. 995.
A book on contemporary India comes with a French flavour, unlike that of
Anglo-American scholarship
No one is likely to dispute the author's claim that India since
1950 is an ‘ambitious book', both in terms of its thematic reach and
scholarly participation. It seeks to cover almost every aspect of post-colonial
India: political history, foreign policy, economic trajectory, social and
demographic dynamics, cultural diversity and artistic achievements as well as
media developments. Narrating the diverse dimensions of these developments of a
vast country like India is not an easy task. Christophe Jaffrelot has tried to
accomplish this near-impossible task through the compilation of essays written
by a large number of scholars, teaching or researching in France, which imparts
to this volume a flavour different from the usual Anglo-American scholarship.
Apart from a brief introduction and the conclusion there are 37
essays in the volume grouped together in four parts. The first part deals with
‘Politics and Economy', the second with ‘The Indian Union and the Political
Administration of its diversity', the third with ‘The Indian People: Class,
Caste and Communities' and the final part with the ‘ Media and the Arts'. Each
part is prefaced by a very concise statement about its content. A distinguishing
feature of this collection is the equal attention it pays to ‘politics,
including public policies in the economic domain, society, analysed from an
anthropological point of view and culture, designating religion and language as
well as artistic traditions'. An unusual, but extremely welcome, part is on the
dynamics of culture, which provides a fullness generally missing in such works.
Each of these essays forms a part of the larger story of India's struggle to
create a secular and democratic nation.
Influence of Orientalism
For a long time western scholarship on India, trapped in the
influence of Orientalism, has been obsessed with the unchanging character of
Indian society. The influence of this tradition was believed to be so strong
that the ability of India to develop modern political institutions and achieve
economic development was in doubt. Consequently it was argued that India had ‘
dangerous decades' ahead of it, which was likely to impact adversely upon the
working of the democratic polity and secular institutions adopted by the Indian
Constitution. History has disproved these assumptions and, as the editor of this
volume rightly observes, India has obviously ‘frustrated these pessimistic
predictions', despite several twists and turns in its polity and economy during
the last sixty three years. Indian democracy managed to overcome the challenge
posed by the Emergency imposed during 1975-77 and also outlived the threat of
Hindu fundamentalism. At the root of this success was the strength of the
‘Indian path' which sought national reconstruction in which ‘all the
communities, linguistic as well as religious, were called upon to live together
in one secular Indian Union', based on the notion of composite culture.
The Indian path did not witness any ‘revolutionary breaks, but
only inflections' and as a result India did not ‘break with its history through
violent ruptures', instead only piled up ‘ evolutionary transformations'.
Nevertheless, neither democracy nor secularism has lived up to their potential
by extending economic and cultural equality to the minorities and the
marginalised. The former lived under discriminatory conditions, particularly in
BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and Karnataka and the latter constantly faced
economic and social deprivation. The bulk of the contribution on these
dimensions is by Jaffrelot himself, whose earlier works had covered the rise of
Hindu nationalism and lower caste movements.
Capitalist order
A major consequence of the Indian path is that it paved the way
for the growth of a capitalist order, leading to the increasing incidence of
inequality, particularly after liberalisation. In the summing up the editor
points out that ‘Economic liberalisation has enabled those who had some capital
— intellectual, social or financial — to make it fructify, whereas others have
lagged behind. Ten years after liberalisation in 1991, 70 per cent of the Indian
population was still living with less than 90,000 rupees a year, but during the
same period, the number of those who earned more than one million a year has
increased from 2, 68,000 to 8, 07,000. These nouveaux riches have introduced a
new life style in Indian cities where ‘golden ghettoes' have developed with
their private schools, private hospitals and shopping malls. The modernisation
of India, which is being attempted with the support of global capital, excludes
overwhelming majority of people from its benefits. It is to the credit of this
volume that it clearly highlights this increasing disparity.
This work was initially intended for French readers, as a
comprehensive factual account which would serve as a reference source on
post-colonial India. Understandably, therefore, its focus is more on information
rather than on interpretation. Nevertheless, even for English readers it is a
useful guide to the nature of French scholarship on modern India.
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