US Academic thinks Indian Democracy is in Danger
Martha Nussbaum’s third post is a continuation of her tirade against the “Hindu Right” in India. She speaks eloquently against victimizing the Muslim community of being violent or waging a war, yet she contradicts her stance and accuses the Hindu (Right) community of the same actions.
It is a matter of great pride that, as she highlights, India’s Muslims have no ties to terrorism. Indeed, President Bush recently introduced PM Manmohan Singh to his wife along these lines, “Laura, meet Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India. His country has over 200 million Muslims, yet none of them are part of Al Qaeda.”
However, sadly, I read recently of Indian Muslims being attracted by jihadi groups for recruitment. Martha’s claim that there is no indigenous Muslim militancy in Bangladesh is utterly incorrect.
Bangladesh recently suffered from a horror when about 250 crude bombs were simultaneously set off all over the country to threaten the Govt. into making the country more Islamic (than it already is!). And, perhaps to Martha, cruelty to Hindus is perfectly alright, for torturing and terrorizing Hindus is not very uncommon in Bangladesh.
Martha accuses the RSS-BJP of romantic nationalism as espoused by Nazi Germany. While I agree that attacking lovers on Valentine’s Day is not nice, how is nationalism a bad quality? Being a developing country, I think that nationalism and pride in the country will help India a great deal. Why, being citizens of the most developed country, Americans still choose to be nationalistic!
Hindus in India have internalized a historical narrative according to which they are a pure and peaceful civilization who have been conquered again and again: in the Middle Ages by Muslim invaders, in recent times by the British.
While Martha concedes that this simple narrative contains some truth, she warns Westerners that
Instead of looking at a �clash of civilizations� here, Europeans and Americans, looking at India, should see the reflected face of their own ugly history, made the more malign by the anger that accompanies the repudiation of longstanding colonial domination.
How is the above simple narrative misleading in any way? Of course battles were fought even by Hindu rulers, but there was relatively much more peace and a lot more wealth in India before the plunder by the Mughals and the British. In what way is this romanticizing or oversimplifying any part of History that Europeans and Americans need to be warned about it?
Of course the Mughals and the British were attracted by the wealth of India and have, as the present evidently shows, drained it of all splendour that was India’s during the preceding Hindu rule. While it is well known that the Mughals and the Europeans were attracted to India by its immense wealth, the impoverished country that India today is, clearly shows that the invaders have stolen all of it.
I should, however, thank Martha for conceding that the Western “civilization” is a farce. But she disagrees that there is any non-West or Eastern civilization as a whole.
While this may sound true on circumstantial reasoning, on a deeper level most non-Western cultures have deep-running similarities in their value systems that when seen in the bigger picture, a “non-Western” is quite self-evident. For example, while in the West, only Indians watch Bollywood movies, in the Middle-East, South and Southeast Asia, Japan etc. Bollywood has a substantial non-Indian following. Eqyptians are big-time fans of Amitabh Bacchan and Indonesians can sing Hindi songs!
This is because non-Western people can identify more with the culture and values portrayed in Bollywood movies, whereas Westerners trivialize the same. Hence my argument that a coherent non-West exists.
Martha appreciates the immense diversity in India and the appropriation of the English language by Indians. I agree with her that English should not be replaced and, moreover, think that English could replace Hindi to be India’s national language.
Overall, I think that the article by Martha Nussbaum is insipid and has numerous contradictions to existing reality as do her previous articles, which I have critized here:
- Indian Democracy Collapsed into Religious Terror?
- US Professor’s faulty logic blames Indian Govt. for Religious Riots
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Comments
It is a hard fact that european and specially British rule had economically exploited India. In the year 1605 when the East India Company was established by the Briitish the share of India in the global trade was 20% while that of Braitain was only 1%. In the year 1947 when India became independent the British share in the global trade was 20% and that of India was only 1%. The average income of the Indians was reduced to half with in three years fron 1927 to 1930. This was the greatest exploitation in the history.
I read some were that most of British India was indirectly through princely states. As Gandhi said in the film “you are only here because we cooperate with you”.
Naipaul made a good point when he said India was severely weakened by the Islamic incursions that why it fell to the British so easily.
The Arabs good the decimal system, Algebra, and navigation after taking Sindh, this they gave to the Europeans. Who then came to India is ships. Because of history circa 750 AD nehru decided to close India from the world and rule through the licence raj.
PS I don´t have a licence to blog.
Nationalism is definitely a desired quality in a nation but in a pluralistic society, nationalism has to be an inclusive one.
It is the definition of nationalism that often poses a problem in India.
i found Ms.Nabassum’s article a very dispassionate one. Contradictions are bound to be there, ‘cos of the complexity of ground reality of indian democracy.Besides, looking at India from the outside, things are bound to appear the way they do to her. I have mentioned in my comment to her blog that the reality as we live it in India is a little different - different and certainly much less alarming.
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