Independent India’s failure to base its polity and constitution on the core values of Hindu civilization has long invoked surprise or disdain from intellectuals and observers, depending upon their respective worldviews. Most analysts tend to privilege western democracy as the only legitimate form of government in the modern world; the Hindu ideal of ‘Ram rajya’ as a possible model for the modern nation invites derision as being non-inclusive of non-Hindus, or at least not applicable to them, and worse, as resting upon uncertain principles.
It has taken the ruthless State-sponsored massacre in Muslim-dominant Nandigram to expose the untruth of this anti-Hindu polemic. Nandigram demonstrates the urgent imperative of establishing Ram rajya as the nation’s foundational ethos, especially as a surreptitious new political ‘consensus’ is being manufactured to make India ‘the republic of the rich.’ Under the mind-numbing slogan of globalization, a pernicious move is afoot to exclude the poor and the less affluent sections of the middle class from full citizenship.
Nandigram, where greasy multinationals and their well-heeled minions tried to grab the land of toiling farmers and sharecroppers, exposes the naked face of this shameless conspiracy. A political culture of angry impatience with the general masses is being nurtured insidiously and a secret yardstick of affluence established and privileged. ‘Adequate compensation’ is floated as the mantra justifying the attempt to dispossess unwilling owners of land held for generations, and teeth are gnashed in frustration over the failure of force to overwhelm the humble might of the people.
Ironically, the retreat by the State raises hopes for validating the concept of Ram rajya. The Hindu kingdom, as opposed to the Semitic State, exists for the happiness and well-being of the people, and not to establish God’s will upon earth, or otherwise treat subjects as objects. In Ram rajya the State, as the sole legitimate agency wielding power (force), imposes limits upon its exercise of power, either for the greater happiness of the people, or to evade a greater tyranny that could be caused by moral outrage or self-righteousness.
Thus, the moral exemplar of Hindu society relinquished his legitimate claim to the throne in deference to his step-mother, and thereby established the principle that State power must not be used to crush a woman’s will (stri-hath). He abandoned his beloved wife because common folk found it difficult to accept her after the abduction to Lanka, and thus founded the principle that a ruler’s duty is the satisfaction of his people (raja-dharma). He submitted to the defiance of Luv and Kush when they captured the royal horse during the aswamedha, and instituted the convention that the State must bend to the tantrums of youth (baal-hath). Superimposing might and right in these cases would have been just, but victory would have been as sweet as vinegar. Maryada Purushottam Shri Rama avoided this bitter aftertaste through self-restraint and surrender.
Nandigram did not become India’s Tienanmen Square because the Hindu culture of those manning the Marxist-Semitic State could not roll bulldozers upon the people once it became apparent that they would rather die than surrender the land. Subsequently, the CPM regime scrapped the Nandigram Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and promised that no land anywhere would be acquired against the wishes of the people.
I challenge all West-funded activists to show me a similar instance in the West where people’s unarmed resistance forced a reversal of unjust government policy. Can the American people make Washington withdraw from Iraq and rescind oil contracts extorted from a stooge government? America will retreat only when it is financially unrewarding to remain, because its much-touted checks and balances only insulate the President and his coterie of white financial sharks from Congress and the people. This system of Corporate Banditry with zero public accountability is being introduced in India through the back door, in the name of globalization, development, and the ubiquitous Foreign Direct Investment.
India’s elites are hell-bent upon making her the back office of the West. The burgeoning BPO industry ensures that while the Western world sleeps, India awakes to drudgery and servitude. I cannot imagine a self-respecting nation allowing its youth to work graveyard shifts so a corporation in London or New York can ruin local people and pay unconscionable salaries to some top executives. More shocking is that the Hindu conscience can live with this displacement of disempowered people in those countries.
Not long ago, Mahatma Gandhi told the Lancashire mill workers that their work was ruining the lives of ordinary Indians; they gave him a respectful hearing. Today we have surrendered all social and economic initiative to the West; indeed, there are indications that even spiritual inputs are being out-sourced through the agency of globe-trotting gurus working to make Hindu dharma conform to Christianity so that the Hindu mind can serve the Christian-Western world better. Those who have renounced Indian citizenship for the dollar paycheck are avidly fuelling this drive for the second colonization of India by a West hungry for cheap labour and mineral wealth. We must immediately stop privileging these Self-Ejected Indians, mistakenly called Non-Resident Indians, and treat them as predatory foreigners with an eye on the main chance.
Meanwhile, it appears that the threat from Special Economic Zones is by no means over. There is much doublespeak by the Central and State governments, which indicates the extent of pressure from those who were promised these islands of affluence where the writ of the State would not run. The Centre has promised it will stay aloof from land acquisition for industry, and will ensure compensation for both landholders and sharecroppers. But it has remained shy of banning alienation of fertile agricultural land, notwithstanding its possible impact on long-term food security and people’s livelihood.
It has also refused to limit land acquisition to an industry’s actual needs, to prevent conversion of cheaply acquired land into realty deals. Gurgaon farmers are now resisting this form of crony capitalism. At Singur, acquired land has been leased for 90 years. Why wasn’t a cooperative of landholders and sharecroppers set up, so land could revert to their families on expiry of the lease, thus bringing fresh benefits in terms of a new lease or a realty deal if the company withdrew? A people-oriented approach to so-called progress is imperative.
The Pioneer, 3 April 2007
