Hyphens and national unity

It would be impossible to survey the entire gamut of issues covered in the debate. A column is like a three-minute song,not a full blown raga. Books can afford to do a raga,covering the different dimensions of a musical theme. Columns have to be leaner. Columns need the popular brilliance of a Lata Mangeshkar,not the classical virtuosity of a Bhimsen Joshi.

Unfortunately,Gupta and Mantri try to force a book into a column. They end up citing so many intellectual and political figures that they are vulnerable to multiple interpretations. Their first column (‘One versus group’,IE,February 13) cited as many as ten figures: Will Kymlicka,Vrinda Narain,Gary Becker,Karl Marx,Herbert Marcuse,Alexis de Tocqueville,Thomas Paine,Mahatma Gandhi,Deendayal Upadhyay,Jan Narveson. The second column by Gupta (‘Against entrenched identities’,IE,March 6) added three more,including Gautam Buddha. Several of these figures come from diverse intellectual traditions. Their ragas are not the same; putting them together in a column generates cacophony.

Let me give an example. If you seek support both from Upadhyay and Gandhi for your conception of citizenship,as Gupta does,you invite puzzlement about the possibility of coherence. Gandhi would have been revolted by Akhand Bharat Aur Muslim Samasya (Undivided India and the Muslim problem),an important Upadhyay text on India’s nationhood. Gandhi was singularly incapable of conceptualising Muslims as a “problem”.

Gupta often invokes Gandhi,but his stance on Muslims continues to mirror Upadhyay’s position. He does not think India practises discrimination against Muslims. Rather,Muslims are responsible for their misery. They treat their women badly,thereby keeping the community backward. “That Muslims are disproportionately unsuccessful even in computer-checked,multiple-choice examinations” is,for him,another example of how Muslim misery is self-inflicted.

One may entirely agree with Gupta about the need for women’s emancipation in Muslim society,though one should quickly add that the liberation of Hindu women is neither complete nor exemplary. But what is Gupta comparing Muslim performance in “computer-checked,multiple choice exams” to? To Hindus in general,or is he controlling for income and deprivation?

Because of a serious divergence in socio-economic conditions,the academic performance of Muslims simply cannot be compared to all Hindus,only to Hindu OBCs. To believe that “multiple choice exams” show an absence of discrimination against Muslims in India,and they are responsible for their misery,is to abjure standard canons of scientific reasoning altogether.

Let me turn to two other themes. Sitharaman doubts that America is serious about allowing hyphenated identities,as I had claimed. She points to the struggle of Hindu Americans in recent years as evidence (‘The tyranny of hyphens’,IE,February 20).

American record is undoubtedly imperfect. Almost every new migrant group in the US has historically faced problems — in some cases,also persecution. It should,however,be noted that all such groups — the Irish,the Italians,the Jews,the Asians — managed to find a place under the American sun.

Mormons were persecuted in the US,but a Mormon finished second in the recent presidential race. President Obama,elected twice,describes the 1960 biracial marriage of his parents,a black African father and a white American mother,thus: “In 1960,the year that my parents were married,miscegenation still described a felony in over half of the states in the Union. In many parts of the South,my father could have been strung up from a tree for merely looking at my mother the wrong way; in the most sophisticated of northern cities,the hostile stares,the whispers,might have driven a woman in my mother’s predicament into a back-alley abortion — or at the very least to a distant convent that could arrange for adoption.” (Dreams from my Father).

The US,indeed,has a chequered practice of inclusion. But,because its basic national principles allow such inclusion,politics has increasingly reduced the gap between the ideals and the practice. Hyphens,while resisted,sometimes violently,get accommodated. In the end,all arguments that hyphens are anti-American collapse.

This leads me to the second point in the debate. Do hyphenated Indian identities undermine national cohesion? If Indians continue to be Muslim Indians,Hindu Indians,Christian Indians on one hand,or Gujarati Indians,Bengali Indians and Tamil Indians on the other,would Indian nationhood suffer?

Sitharaman thinks so; Javed Anand and I do not. Gupta now argues that hyphenated identities can exist in society,but the state should not recognise them. “Nobody is saying Indians cannot see themselves and fellow citizens as belonging to any group. The argument is simply for the government to not see Indians as Hindus,Muslims,Christians or so on.”

It will be instructive to look at the empirical evidence before saying what the state should do. Two research institutions — the University of Michigan and Delhi’s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) — have conducted extensive surveys of identities in India. In 2005,only 35 per cent of India said they were “only Indian”; 41 per cent said they had both an Indian and a regional identity; and 12 per cent called themselves “only regional”. Despite that,88 per cent Indians said they were proud of India,a figure ranking just below the US and Australia and much higher than for Germany and Switzerland. Surveys also repeatedly show that Indian Muslims are as proud of India as Indians in general.

Hyphens,thus,have not undermined national pride or unity. It may well be that by permitting hyphens,not suppressing them,India has also allowed national feeling to increase,or remain high. Hyphens signify inclusion; their erasure would have led to an erosion of national feeling.

The existence of hyphenated identities does not mean that only one identity is strongly felt,or that the two sides of the identity are necessarily in contradiction. Narendra Modi,after all,keeps emphasising the Gujarati side of his identity,not simply the Indian. He has also often celebrated the Hindu part,not just the Indian. But he appears to deny that hyphenated privilege to Muslims and Christians. Does he by any chance believe,as Savarkar wrote in Hindutva,a founding text of Hindu nationalism,that Muslims and Christians could not be true Indians because,unlike Hinduism,Islam and Christianity not born in India? For Muslims and Christians,said Savarkar,India was a pitribhumi (fatherland),not a punyabumi (holyland). As he rises on the national stage,we need to know Modi’s position on who belongs,and who does not.

Would the numbers of those feeling “only Indian” go up as India’s urbanisation proceeds further and greater prosperity accrues? Comparative evidence is not clear cut. America’s urbanisation boomed in the late 19th century,but ethnic politics also stepped up at the same time. Even after reaching high levels of prosperity,Scotland today is going through a Scottish revival. The remarkable enrichment of Barcelona and its surroundings have not taken away the desire for Catalan distinctiveness. Mumbai,India’s richest city,has “sons of the soil” politics.

Sitharaman is right to argue that an aspirational India is rising. But it does not follow that the rising and prospering youth will shun their hyphens,or that if they kept their hyphens,they would be less proud of India. If young Indians lose their hyphens voluntarily,that is entirely to be welcomed. But a political ideology that pushes minorities to unhyphenate will bring more harm than good.

The writer is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University,where he also directs the India Initiative at the Watson Institute. He is a contributing editor for ‘The Indian Express’