Opinion Loving the old regime

A strange thing happened earlier in the year. The UP Legislative Assembly celebrated its 125th anniversary.

March 10, 2013 02:08 AM IST First published on: Mar 10, 2013 at 02:08 AM IST

A strange thing happened earlier in the year. The UP Legislative Assembly celebrated its 125th anniversary. A moments reflection will show that whatever Assembly UP had in 1888 could not have been made up of elected members from a wide franchise. But the surprise is that for UP,which claims some distinguished freedom fighters,the anniversary being highlighted meant an acceptance of Indias colonial past. It is as if democracy came to UP in 1888.

Yet,it is not surprising. The Congress Raj was a smooth continuation of the British Raj. There was,and even now is,much posturing about the freedom struggle but,once the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms had granted partially elected legislatures at the Centre and in the States,the granting of a Dominion Status (like what Australia and Canada have today) was inevitable. India was able to join the League of Nations as an original member. The struggle between 1919 and 1947 was a protracted bargaining game by Indian nationalists to win a better deal. And they succeeded with India becoming a Republic and still being in the Commonwealth.

But our fascination with the West has never gone away. India may be geographically part of Asia but psychologically Indians think they are part of the West. Ever since Sir William Jones spoke of the Indo-European languages as one family with Sanskrit,Greek and Latin being cousins,Indians began to see themselves as part of the West. The word Aryan was used by Indians as well as the British to describe a common ancestry until Hitler made the word toxic. But Indians were flattered to be regarded as fair skinned.

Our leaders during the Independence movement were mostly educated in England with JP being the rare exception of having been to America. Rabindranath Tagore was the only Indian leader of note who travelled eastwards to China and Japan. For Indians,going foreign meant westwards. After independence,Panditji adopted a non-alignment policy but when the Chinese knocked at our door (or may be knocked down our door) Indians rushed to the US Embassy in Delhi to seek arms assistance. When push came to shove,India knew it was part of the West. Of course we still pretend to be non-aligned. There are Congresswallahs who would even like India to be part of the Organisation of Islamic Countries. Many believe being anti-American is being socialist. But that is posture. Their children still go to British or American universities. Even children of Left party leaders.

The latest episode in this saga has been the way Narendra Modi is being evaluated in the West. He has been to China but we dont really care about that. The issue is: will he get a visa to the West? With Wharton School cancelling its invitation to Modi,spirits must have perked up in Congress circles. It was not even a question of going there with or without a visa. It was a telecast. Yet there are people in the land of the free and the brave who believe that Modi is pariah. The question one asks is: Did Wharton not know of Modis record before inviting him? I say this not as an alumnus of Wharton,but I do belong to the University of Pennsylvania alumni and it is distressing to see that standards of literacy or whatever have fallen so low that Modi was invited without the knowledge of who he was!

The objection to Modi is that the Gujarat riots of 2002 were horrible and anyone in power should be punished for this. That is quite correct. Of course,no court has been able to convict him but Wharton may not know that. Americans are not to know that riots where Muslims (or Sikhs or Christians) get killed are bipartisan events in India and happen with a sad regularity. My neighbour on this op-ed page,Tavleen Singh,has reminded us in her book,Durbar,about the Turkman Gate massacre during the Emergency ordered by Sanjay Gandhi,where 1,200 Delhi Muslims died. But the Congress,then in power,changed the Preamble to the Constitution to declare India to be a secular republic!

The Americans do not need to know Indian history. All they need to know is that the Congress is secular and the BJP communalist. Modi is BJP and so,not secular. That is,until the Americans give him a visa.