Nationalism or Fascism ???

Recent attacks on noted lawyer Mr Prashant Bushan by the Rama Sena in his chamber in the Supreme Court of India describes the grips of these fascist forces over our nation. The venue as well as the follow up insult of Bushan’s supportors next day in the court portrays the depth of the problem. It was indeed a shame for our democracy but for these hooligans it was a proud moment as they took pride in their act and projected themselves as the saviour of India. This is not the first time these incidents have occured. In recent times self appointed saviours of India have carried out several similar attacks. These saviours are often used by the politicians to solve their political purposes thus the political will to crack the menace is nominal.

Criticism in media was quite visible but the queue of admirers can be counted in millions. Facebook, twitter, news website etc are loaded with support for these bigots. I am not writing this note to criticise these bigots or their ideological feedstock but through my blog I wish reinvent the ideological difference of two icons of pre-independent India and discuss the exploitation of nationalism  for mass mobilization and its sensitivities.

Nehru writes about the discussions between Gandhi and Tagore in his memoirs ....point of discussion was Nationalism, which Gandhi defended. He said that one must go through nationalism to reach internationalism, in the same way that one must go through nationalism to reach internationalism in the same way that one mist go through war to reach peace.

Although Tagore greatly admired Gandhi but he had many disagreements with him on a variety of subjects including nationalism and patriotism, the importance of cultural exchange, the role of rationality and of science and the nature of economic and social development. These differences, I shall argue have a clear and consistent pattern, with Tagore pressing for more room for reasoning and for a less traditionalist view, a greater interest in the rest of world and more respect for science and for objectivity generally. (Argumentative Indians – Amratya Sen)

In daily life we might have forgotten Gandhi, but these acts of arrogance and non violence rejuvenates his legacy. The above debates between Gandhi and Tagore in some way helps us to understand the possible causes of this growing arrogance in the name of false patriotism.

Tagore goes on to write in his novel Ghare Baire ‘Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual diamonds and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live’. In his novel Nikhil, Tagore writes ‘I am willing to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it’

Tagore was a great admirer of Gandhi and it was he who for the first called him Mahatma Gandhi. However, Tagore had several ideological disagreements with Gandhi on variety of subjects like hyper usage of Nationalism and Patriotism; undermining the importance of the Cultural Exchange, Role of Rationality, Science, Economic and Social Development etc. Through his writings Tagore gave strong warnings to leadership of his time about the corruptibility of Nationalism. He said that hatred of one group can lead to hatred of others, no matter how far such feeling may be from the minds of humane nationalist leaders like Gandhi.

We are definitely aware about Gandhi’s lessons on Ahimsa but we don't realise that he was amongst the first political leaders who excessively used the nationalism for the mass mobilisation and created a precedent for others to use or misuse it. His intention would not have been the one we are experincing in modern India but his predecessors had their own agendas.

Gandhi’s assassination was also a result of hyper-nationalism. Where nationalism was galvanised with religion to make it even more venomous. In the name of two all your ills becomes the will of the nation or the god. Patriotism as the will of god became the biggest weapon for these demagogues in their political struggle. They used it to polarise the society at their will which created blindness against the cultural rationality and social reasoning.

In this is culture of bigotry and irrationality we somewhere forgot Tagore and started to believe that we are incorrigible. Our history and culture never had any shades of grey or black. We seem to deny all the caste atrocities; we wish dalits have forgotten all that they have suffered for generations. We seems to believe that Kashmir will forget the illegal accession of their nation and not to mention million such ill believes.

So, what is a nation, is it boundary or people within the boundary? If it is the citizen then why we don’t consider Kashmiri’s as Indians and if we do then we don’t feel hurt when they are hurt or why we don’t feel humiliated when they are humiliated? Why we ignore the truth in the name of nationalism? Why do we kill the nationals for nationalism? Why we criticise a national for criticising the nationalism?

Why can’t we simply start acknowledging the facts and rectify it through Tagore’s ideas? Why can’t we develop a people centric nationalism where we as nation can discuss and resolve the problem of nationals and not the inverse...?

Originally published in Rozmarra.com