Dr. Shashi Tharoor in his book, 'The Battle of Belonging' makes a case for both Patriotism and Nationalism, and to whom they should belong.
Patriotism, he says, is less thought out and more instinctive — as a child would naturally love its mother, notwithstanding her flaws and faults. The mother belongs to the child and vice versa.
One would then, similarly, love the country for what it is — naturally, without qualifications but with integrity intact, despite the defects and differences that may exist within. To him, this is what patriotism is all about.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is respect for the country's Constitution and all that flows from it — the national flag, democracy, social justice, secularism, and the many institutions. That too can belong to the individual.
So far so good, and one cannot but appreciate what Dr. Tharoor has offered.
However, he then puts on his political cap.
In his inimitably eloquent manner, he further dissects nationalism into two types, perhaps to justify the dwindling returns of his party's long investments in Indian politics and yet its diminishing prospects.
He labels the above as "Civic Nationalism," which he wholeheartedly endorses.
But he calls out the supposed rise of a second kind — "Majoritarian Nationalism" — which he laments as exclusivist, anchored in the ethno-religio-linguistic identity of the state.
According to him, this majoritarian nationalism has given rise to a peculiar narrative where a large section of the citizenry has begun to subscribe to an idea where the Prime Minister linearly equates to the ruling party, the ruling party to the government, and the government to the state itself. So, to disagree with any entity in this chain is to be opposed to the Indian state itself.
He alleges that this has been skillfully crafted by the BJP-led dispensation at the centre, giving rise to a zero-sum game: either one sacrifices individuality to fit into this majoritarian nationalist paradigm, or is automatically deemed anti-national. He reminisces about the days when conventional wisdom meant that one must always love their country but love their government only when it deserves it. He bemoans that the distinction between country and government has dissolved.
His longing is for the good old civic nationalism that supposedly existed when his party was in power.
One can understand why Dr. Tharoor is very popular with the young. It is easy to fall for him if one is ignorant of his party's long and chequered background.
Any person not politically astute enough to search for the true intent behind eloquent words will begin to subscribe to the beautifully narrated idealistic images that people like him project.
The youngsters haven't yet discovered that in theory, there is not much difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.
It is rather smug of Dr. Tharoor to portray that when his party, the Indian National Congress, was in power, such civic nationalism existed.
For starters, the supposed majoritarian nationalism wrapped in what he calls ethno-religio-linguistic ideology was not some surreptitious agenda to be triggered later once the BJP won. It was an open clarion call during the hotly contested 2014 election. The idea of a future 'New India' was spelled out with specifics at election rallies. The exact intent was also printed in the BJP's manifesto for all to see.
Led by none other than Narendra Modi himself, the BJP ran a brilliant campaign on every platform, allowing the people to choose. The BJP eventually beat the Congress-led opposition, and how!
It is worth pondering why, as Modi-led BJP once again won a second term in 2019 with an even higher margin of victory, unprecedented in India.
It means that people wholeheartedly subscribed to the BJP's vision of India at one end, and the BJP too delivered on its promises and was truly appreciated by the people.
In the final reckoning, realpolitik comes to the fore at the ballot box. And PM Modi's "India First" type of nationalism did indeed capture the imagination of the Indian masses, which Dr. Tharoor contemptuously dismisses as a majoritarian nationalistic machination.
At its very core, Dr. Tharoor continues to remain a bad loser.
His assessment of the prevalent zeitgeist is at best satire without humour, and at worst a poor understanding of the changed winds that the multi-polar world order has thrown up, including the Indian imperative.
So let us understand why Dr. Tharoor is so inappropriate in his criticism of what the Modi Sarkar has dismantled and replaced:
Nationalism as Defence, Not Aggression
Dr. Tharoor implies that the BJP's version of nationalism, taking the shape of a "freedom movement," may be justified when people are unjustly ruled by an imperialistic power, as during the British Raj, but has no role in a free, independent India.
For starters, we can wonder how history would have unfolded if today's version of nationalism had existed on the day the very first boat from the East India Company docked on Indian shores.
Had that been the case, the British — or for that matter any colonial power like the Danes, Portuguese, or French — would not have been able to rule over even an inch of ground here.
Let us be clear, the East India Company didn't come with guns, cannons and an army to conquer. They came for commercial reasons but eventually crept in with evil intentions. They took unsuspecting people by surprise and later most of the Indian sub-continent got swallowed by the British Empire. That lasted for approximately 200 years, in which what started as small pilferage eventually became so blatant that the word 'loot' was unabashedly added to the Oxford dictionary. The British Raj reduced the people here from one of the most prosperous in the world to one of the poorest.
Thus, to trigger nationalism only after you are conquered is for people who are not visionaries and are poor students of history. The current nationalism is not aggression against any entity nor an expression of revenge. It is a strong defensive moat and an experientially evolved mindset that protects and preserves India's people, her vast land mass, her resources, and her ancient civilizational values from direct adversaries and indirect parasites.
Today's East India Company has taken many avatars — one-sided free trade agreements, tax-dodging transnational companies, mega corporate houses and sovereign wealth funds acting as fronts for others, opinion-altering media houses, unfair trade-practicing e-commerce platforms, hawala transacting entities, foreign NGOs bringing funds for anti-India activities, predatory foreign loans for projects of national importance, donations used for religious conversions or for arranging project-stalling protests, organizations protecting terrorists in the name of human rights, spyware-embedded cell phone apps — all attempting to influence or capture India's tangible or intangible assets.
The current version of Alert Nationalism is not soaked in naive morality. It welcomes all the above in the form of trade of goods, exchange of services and barter of ideas for mutual benefit, but at the same time ensures it is not one-sided.
Today's nationalism is a longing for authentic independence.
From Transfer of Power to True Independence
Throughout their long rule, the British tirelessly and cunningly worked to erase the good and exploit the bad in our history and cultural heritage, to keep people ignorant and divided. On one hand they dismantled the glory of ancient India's achievements, and on the other they manipulated various castes and communities to achieve their famous 'divide and rule' policy. As a result, people's cognition of their own past remained stunted, rendering them unconfident in the present and doubtful of the future.
Dr. Tharoor needs to acknowledge that the same oppressor's legacy was shamelessly continued by the 'Indian National' Congress.
Nehru's "Tryst with Destiny" remained a speech-writer's speech.
Vision-less policies, instead of dismantling the caste system, cemented it further in all government-owned institutions. By not making a uniform civil code, the earliest government ensured scant respect for meritocracy and paved the way for perpetual appeasement of the Muslim community.
While not neutralizing that evil in the present, they also stunted future development through a warped educational syllabus. They did not wish to resurrect the indigenous school of thought or language and thus pride in one's very being. Besides expanding the scope of Mughal rule in history textbooks through a Saudi-born education minister to appease Muslim pride, they largely continued the British legacy of the infamous Macaulay education system — a system where English-ness was the only ticket for escaping poverty, no matter how alien it was to over 99% of the rural and vernacular population.
Ironically, in the words of none other than Mr. Rahul Gandhi, escape from poverty in India became more difficult than 'the escape velocity of Jupiter'.
Full-time lip service and little action for six long decades kept India behind on most parameters, making it a poster child for poverty. While many nations moved on, it was proving beyond doubt that we got not independence but a neat transfer of power from the imperialistic British to the self-serving multi-generational dynasts. It was in such a system that the narrative of family-equals-the-state became entrenched.
The current version of Inclusive Nationalism is about a 'Congress-mukt Bharat' — not a mere slogan or a call for alienation, but a metaphor against sham democracy created by self-serving private limited enterprises.
Civic Nationalism and Reciprocity
Dr. Tharoor says that while patriotism is natural, civic nationalism, even if not, can be adopted — as when an immigrant would in a different country, if the host culture is accommodating. He gives credit to the West and cites Europe and America.
Sure, the larger group or majority must make the first move to show it is accommodative. But does that alone complete the cycle without equal reciprocation by the other side? Shouldn't the smaller group also bear the same responsibility in conscience, speech and action? Should the minority not overtly volunteer in society as a rule, not an exception? Should its leaders not make a visibly demonstrative and vociferously loud proclamation guiding their youth to assimilate with the mainstream, swearing respect for institutions, values, emblems and symbols representative of the host's pride? And be the first to scold, correct, counsel or disown any member from its own community found in deviance?
Dr. Tharoor must answer these questions by citing specific overwhelming examples.
If he can't, he must take cognizance of what is unfolding in the same Western world he cites as representative of civic nationalism. There, the immigration experiment is failing.
Brexit happening out of fear of incompatible immigrant inflow, France banning burqa veils, America passing laws to extra-scrutinize immigrants from select Muslim countries, the rethink of immigrant-friendly policy in the EU, the rise of right-wing parties in Europe, Switzerland capping minaret heights, Poland openly denying entry to Muslim migrants — these are worthy examples of why a one-size-fits-all universality was wrong to begin with. India has not done anything even remotely similar, yet gets a lot of bad press.
Having learned through experience, the champions of the free world are themselves rethinking and stopping those non-indigenous elements that were wedded only to the fruits and not the roots of the host's offerings.
With this context, let's come to the issue of Muslim Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar and wanting refuge in India, which the BJP is not willing to grant, versus those who qualify under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. Both are flagged as majoritarianism at work.
Unlike the wealthy West, we have since inception been financially stressed and burdened with Hindu-Muslim fault lines perpetuated during 60 years of misrule.
With that background, we must assess whom we let in without aggravating existing problems. Like every nation, it would be fair that we accept those communities having higher cultural affinity, like those mentioned under CAA, so that they turn into contributing assets at the earliest. This is distinctly different from those simply running away from another country with no cultural connect.
At best, we can offer Rohingyas temporary refuge and then pressure Myanmar to take them back or ask one of the 50-plus Islamic republics to adopt them.
The current version of Defensive Nationalism is not unique to India but seen across the world. In India, it arises from pragmatic considerations that keep altruism alive while serving the Indian state first. Evaluated selection is very different from blatant discrimination. The clarion call by candidate Modi was "Peace to all and appeasement to none."
The Core Ideological Difference
Dr. Tharoor is very critical of the ethno-religio-linguistic majority not giving adequate space to minorities. He talks of cow vigilantism and lynching by fringe elements as sending a message of fear. It is time he engages in honest dialogue, away from exceptions and euphemisms.
He should stop quoting fringe exceptions and assigning those attributes to the whole Hindu community as a "majoritarian" group. PM Modi himself has spoken out against such miscreants. He should also address whom he speaks for as they are: Muslims — a 200 million-plus group, the largest among minorities but perpetually posturing as victims.
Let us assess what the Hindustani-Hindu-Hindi core ideology is and benchmark it with the core ideology of Muslims.
For starters, the ancient Indic philosophy later named Hinduism is innate to India and has existed for thousands of years, even before the Indian state was born. It is not because of the Constitution but through civilizational values that Indic practices have been far more open to other ideas than any other ideology. The West's modern discovery of pluralism as a virtue has existed here as an innate core value for centuries. We have no examples of crusades or mass conversion movements originating from here.
Thus, narrow concepts like The God, The Holy Place, The Holy Book, The Holy Day do not exist among Hindus. There are no religious authorities; each is a seeker based on one's understanding. It is the Arabs who recognized believers of such open philosophy and gave the land the name "Hindustan."
Obviously, concepts like blasphemy, heresy, apostasy and punishment thereof are alien to India. One can be a Muslim and a Hindustani simultaneously.
It is this Indic philosophy which gives rise to "Cultural Secularism" — which allowed Hindus to shelter Jews fleeing persecution; a Hindu king to build one of the earliest mosques, the Cheraman Masjid, for Muslim visitors; early Christians to build churches on the Malabar Coast; a Hindu king to resettle Parsis displaced from Persia and build a fire temple for them.
Post-partition, as a response to breakaway Islamic Pakistan, the majority-controlled constituent assembly did not make India a Hindu state nor Hindi its national language. That is because the core Indic value system itself was culturally secular.
By contrast, in most Muslim-majority countries, there is no democracy or secularism and little space for minorities or even Muslim women.
Under Modi, not a single new law has been passed that can be considered against any minority. Decriminalization of homosexuality and 10% reservation for economically backward sections in the general category happened during his era.
Cow protection is enshrined in our Constitution and beef ban laws were passed by Congress; BJP merely implemented them by stopping illegal slaughter. The ban on triple talaq, long banned in Pakistan itself, is a pro-women measure. The Ram Mandir dispute was settled not by parliamentary majority but by the Supreme Court.
Dr. Tharoor should expend energy educating Muslims on the virtues of democracy and secularism.
But he won't, because his conscience is not free of guilt.
It was his party that came out with a biased version of secularism at the expense of the Hindu majority. While keeping all mosques and churches free of government control and allowing them to be influenced by ideologies from Mecca and Vatican, Congress perpetuated government control over thousands of temples. Most major Hindu places of worship became dilapidated, idols were stolen, and their premises turned into land banks.
On one hand they took away from Hindus, on the other they introduced Haj subsidy, using state resources including diverting Air India flights.
After losing an election, his party declared Emergency in the mid-70s, shut down the press, attempted forced sterilization, imprisoned opponents and replaced cultural secularism with constitutional secularism when technically the Constitution itself was abrogated. That was under President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, ushering in overt state-sponsored Muslim appeasement.
Congress inculcated a feeling of entitlement among Muslim religious leaders and used them as campaign mouthpieces to create vote banks. The stature of orthodox clergymen rose while the larger Muslim population's dignity diminished.
The most glaring example was overturning the Supreme Court's judgement in favour of Shah Bano, depriving her and all future divorced Muslim women of alimony.
In their last term, a Sachar Committee was established to study only Muslims and no other minorities — a clear signal to a 200-million-strong community that without government intervention they are incapable.
Adding insult, Dr. Manmohan Singh, himself from the minority Sikh community, declared that minorities and particularly Muslims have the first right to India's resources. After defeat, it took A.K. Antony to wonder if Congress had become a "Muslim Party."
Thus, courtesy Congress, Muslims, despite being the second-largest majority, have remained backward on most parameters.
Soft Power and Results
Let us assume Congress was indeed subscribing to civic nationalism and reasonably successful at it.
After ruling for most of the first 60 years, what was the bottom-line result?
Dr. Joseph Nye, former Dean of Harvard's Kennedy School, observes what makes a nation's soft power — the power that raises its stature and naturally attracts others.
It happens when:
a) Its dominant culture is aligned to global trends — democracy, open trade, fair judiciary, women's empowerment, pluralism.
b) Its grand culture is effectively communicated — not opaque.
c) It shows results — uplifting its citizens.
There is a parallel between what Dr. Tharoor says about civic nationalism and what Dr. Nye says, the only difference being that Nye completes the loop — effective communication and demonstrative outcome.
Under Congress rule, India remained a soft state and kept losing soft power. Today, the Indian flag is flying high.
Notwithstanding the global pandemic, from lagging on all counts, we are witnessing a vibrant India on the move.
Our soft power is a manifestation of newfound internal confidence — JAM-linked direct benefit transfer becoming a global case study; unprecedented UN endorsement of Yoga; renewed connect of the Indian diaspora and now their contribution back to the motherland; visa-free travel to many more countries; rising acceptability of software and hardware exports; invitation to the OIC meeting; beeline of business trade agreements and world leaders visiting India; removal from the "Fragile Five" list and inclusion among preferred FDI destinations; swelling forex reserves; rating upgrades and improvements in World Bank's Ease of Doing Business; rise of startups and unicorns; leadership in the Global Solar Alliance; contribution in providing vaccines to the world; inclusion in the Quad, BRICS G 20, SCO & G7 as an invitee; exponential rise in Olympic winners; Gati Shakti's speed of implementation; highest national awards conferred on PM Modi.
The current version of Evolved Nationalism recognizes that we have indeed progressed and arrived on the world stage.
We march to our own beat and yet get the world to move in tandem with us.
In conclusion, before exhorting the Modi Sarkar on what not to do, Dr. Tharoor needs to reconsider his position.
Instead of appealing through rhetoric on why the Modi-initiated Hindustani-Hindu-Hindi movement is bad, he should look in the mirror and guide those within his own party on how to authentically engage the hearts of all Indians.
