Opinion Let them have the past
When did we start weighing modernity against popular support?
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It has been a breathless session of Parliament. Momentous questions stalled for decades seem to have been swiftly dealt with,the womens bill passed by the Rajya Sabha and the Centre clearing the idea of census enumerators quizzing citizens about caste pretty much how curious fellow passengers in an overnight train want to suddenly ask you after the tea and bonhomie,But what is your caste? It has also been a sub season,with demands for sub-quotas and now,surprisingly,by sub-castes with a Haryana MP making it his business to back the khap panchayats and portray them as rational forces vital for social cohesion at the village level and important for any politician who wishes to continue getting votes the easy way.
The Centre is expected to take a line different from the one Om Prakash Chautala has taken and have a bill that squarely addresses the problem of these cohesive village forces turning murderous. But it perhaps did not surprise those of us watching successive politicians tie themselves into knots to rationalise khaps. One virtually invoked Gregor Mendel,as he advocated hybrids and not marriage within sub-castes as a scientific hypothesis. Another called khaps informal organisations,like NGOs. We are yet to hear from the top party leaders of any party active in Haryana on khaps the hesitation,while a quick back of the envelope is done,is so evident that we can almost hear the rustle of paper. Of course khaps may have started out as bodies of village elders that provided a forum,helped life get on and preserved the status quo and centrality of land ownership patterns in the area. Marriages were but another way of extending or managing property. Khaps allowed widow remarriage several years before Ram Mohun Roy made it an issue a very big step,but keeping land sorted and organised being the sole driver.
But NGOs and genetic rationalisation in todays context of honour killings and ostracising of those who defy the khaps rules about who may marry whom? The answer needs to be a straight one,without any hmms and haws.
The track record of the interface between public life,representation and social change in India is mixed. And the record of the early years of independence is a tough act to follow. The early modern Indian leadership stuck its neck out to fight old frozen identities and articulated the idea of India and made it politically viable,well before the majority thought it possible,or perhaps even advisable.
The south is full of examples of leaders and movements when figures in public life tied the idea of social change to their politics and fused the two,boldly. The thought of being able to construct a majority behind a certain idea must often have been paramount,but consider what was happening in Tamil Nadu,when old and powerful caste shibboleths were demolished,or the entry of Dalits into temples like in Vaikkom was won. These are things we now take for granted but they were hugely unpopular steps at the time that did not have the vocal influential elite onboard at all. Yet eventually,sustained effort led to durable leaderships being built around these ideas.
Remember,these were times when devices to judge what was representative were not institutionalised. Even then,there were those who thought about public life as a calling,not a family or business enterprise. When Pandit Nehru piloted the Hindu Code Bill,he did it at a huge risk,with surly opposition from important sections in his own Congress party and with open opposition from President Rajendra Prasad. Several reformist moves and decisions such as Periyars or Ambedkars would not have happened but for calculated risks of alienating elitist wisdom entrenched in the power centres of the time.
For those unable to reach Naveen Jindal on why he set out to empathise with khaps,one has to only check with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the perils of trying to fiddle with the status quo. The land question which he merely commissioned a report on,by the now famous West Bengal bureaucrat,D. Bandopadhyay,has effected a grand coalition of the upper castes led by the landed elite to somehow unseat the chief minister. And this,60 years after the abolition of zamindari.
Social change and political representation have not always co-existed smoothly. Leaderships have mostly veered around the conservative and vocal base. Look how the Muslim vote is perceived it is seen to be mediated by the most reactionary section of the community. Most politicians,unmindful of the huge numbers of puzzled and silent Muslims,those who lie between the Khan stereotype of the Bollywood Muslim and those delivering the (totally illegitimate and unauthorised) fatwa on a divorce or marriage.
Perhaps our representatives are so cut off from those they claim to represent,that the distance between their ears and the ground is too large to be ever bridged. Its easy for them to bank on those who claim to speak for the grassroots,those who are fighting the last-ditch battle to secure a feudal system on the wrong side of history.
Perhaps our representatives are missing a vital moment,a moment of change that the average Indian is experiencing,social and economic some change for the worse,but lots for the better.
At that moment of social unshackling,if our leaders claim to attempt to stand for those who are fighting change,its a moment they will rue soon.
But then,sometimes one wonders if our very ideas of modernity need to be reviewed. Democratic India once proudly and confidently shook off titles like maharaja and prince but now these are back,with shocking regularity,with people described,even self-referentially,as the ruler of…. The last sigh of the feudal edifice,or perhaps,worryingly,a sign of the indifferent new order that cynically lives on? After all,it can always be explained away as an idea close to the masses. In reality,these are dangerous choices being made by a lazy and populist elite unmindful of whats being unravelled.
seema.chishti@expressindia.com
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