Tags:
Journalism of Courage
IT must be the Mangal Pandey fever. Divided in Democracy is a book of two essays 8212; one by the Indian-born British economist Meghnad Desai and the other by the Pakistani lawyer-politician Aitzaz Ahsan. The essays are meant to examine and explain why India is a democracy and why Pakistan isn8217;t. Interestingly, though altogether astonishingly, both see 1857 as a inflection point.
For Desai, the Uprising /Mutiny/War is a beginning. After power was transferred from the East India Company to the British government, the institutional foundations of what was to become, a century later, Indian democracy were laid.
What follows is a fairly faultless, fairly bland exposition of Indian history as it has evolved in the past century and a half. As an introduction of India to a foreign audience, it would probably be unexceptionable. An Indian reader or an India buff would have wanted more of Desai8217;s own voice to emerge over the mere iteration of history.
There are some piquant points. Talking of the gradual disintegration of the Congress after 1969, Desai writes, 8216;8216;The fissiparous tendency of the Congress is in some ways typical of Indian society. The Hindu social structure is a honeycomb of divisions and subdivisions carefully ordered by hierarchical status yet constantly shifting and adapting in the light of new developments.8217;8217;
In trying to appreciate the philosophy, if that be the word, of the process of political coalition building, this is a good start. Perhaps in another book Desai will complete the journey.
Ahsan, a remarkably agreeable man whose achievements include being Benazir Bhutto8217;s interior minister and Majid Khan8217;s opening partner in the Aitcheson College cricket team, writes a different history. It8217;s not always convincing, but is still an impressive exhibition of the lawyer8217;s craft, of creating 8212; perhaps inventing 8212; a thesis to suit your position.
For Ahsan, 1857 is a conclusion, in a manner of speaking. In the century between Plassey and the Mutiny, he writes, 8216;8216;as the British set up trading posts in Bengal, Hindu traders, merchants and book-keepers were 8230; the exclusive intermediaries of British trade in India8217;8217;.
8216;8216;To the feudal Hindu or Muslim,8217;8217; Ahsan continues, 8216;8216;the position of an account keeper or munshi was anathema.8217;8217; As 8216;8216;new rentiers8217;8217; like 8216;8216;Hindu Marwaris8217;8217; climbed up the economic ladder, 8216;8216;the feudal landowners of Bengal, almost entirely Muslim, were out in the cold8217;8217;.
By the mid-19th century, the 8216;8216;partnership between the Indian merchant was fraying8217;8217;, however, and 8216;8216;Indian merchants and businesses were themselves becoming a force8217;8217;: 8216;8216;One hundred years after Plassey it was the turn of the Indian bourgeoisie to be left out in the cold.8217;8217;
While this was happening in 8216;8216;India8217;8217;, as Ahsan chooses to call it, in 8216;8216;Indus8217;8217; 8212; Sindh, Punjab, the Northwest Frontier 8212; 8216;8216;the British now began to strengthen, and to depend upon, the landowners. In the Indus region, in fact, they themselves first installed the feudals, then began to empower and use them.8217;8217;
8216;8216;India8217;8217; became capitalist competition; 8216;8216;Indus8217;8217; became 8216;8216;prolific granary for the empire8217;8217; and fertile recruiting ground for the army. This led to two different modes of social evolution. 8216;8216;The demarcation between democracy and praetorianism,8217;8217; Ahsan argues, 8216;8216;was gradually becoming vivid.8217;8217;
In time, this made 8216;8216;India8217;8217; India and 8216;8216;Indus8217;8217; Pakistan; in still more time, it made one democratic and the other not so. Doff your hat to Ahsan 8212; he8217;s one very smart advocate.
