Author – Sarthak Mehra

“India is a peculiar country and her nationalists and patriots are a peculiar people. A patriot and a nationalist in India is one who sees with open eyes his fellow men treated as being less than man. But his humanity does not rise in protest…..The patriot’s one cry is power for him and his class. I am glad I do not belong to that class of patriots”. This quote by Dr. B R Ambedkar captures very beautifully the aspect of caste in Indian nationalism. The article will further try to focus on this centrality of caste and critically examine it in the making of Indian nationalism.

Imagine a time, a time when the whole world collectively breaks all barriers which count for inequality and discrimination. Imagine a time, a time when the whole world collectively demolishes capitalism, questions patriarchy, and all existing gender relations. Imagine a time, a time when the notion of race and racism is dismantled. Even if such a thing happens and utopia is effectuated, India as a nation and as a society will still be discriminatory and unequal. It will still be enslaved by the shackles of caste which accounts for multitudinous ways of discrimination and inequality. Caste is something which is both religious and cultural according to my understanding and this religious-cultural nexus is the reason why caste as an institution cannot evaporate. Caste is cultural in the sense that it has penetrated in other religions such as Islam and Sikhism. Sikhism which took birth from Hinduism, was created on the lines of criticism of the caste system in Hinduism, could also not stay immune from caste. The Hindu religion internalizes the caste system and backs it on the principals of karma and dharma which makes it even more laborious to fight it. 

According to Susan Bayly, caste as an institution of varna and jati has not remained fixed and unchangeable. It has constantly changed into codes of moral order. It has changed due to diversity in the cultural and physical environment and also political systems. Caste and its relations are so powerful that it has pertained in totally different political spaces and systems; from kingship to colonization and even in independent India. Caste has been an integral part of all the political systems and the way people have been governed; from Brahmins advising the kings on how to govern to Britishers using caste for their own good to  Independent India where affirmative action is looked down upon. Caste has survived all political forms. This survival of caste through all political forms of governance shows its strength in pre-colonial/modern, colonial, and independent India. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, caste also works on the principle of biological determinism. 

Nationalism in contrast to caste is a modern phenomenon. Nationalism in India emerged only with the advent of colonization and modernity. Before colonial rule, there wasn’t a sense of a nation in India, only different princely states existed. While caste has its roots back in the Vedas, the Hindu holy texts and scriptures, nationalism is a modern concept and it emerged with the coming in of Britishers. Nationalism per se has also been defined differently. In the west, nationalism was based on the lines of homogeneity of people, culture, language, etc. In India, nationalism took the path of anti-colonization struggle. It comes under the category of colonial nationalism.  

The creation of ‘self’ and the ‘other’ is the backbone of the nationalist emotion. While there have been different reasons for the emergence of nationalism, one thing common to all is the creation of the problematic other. Hitler too, for instance, provoked the people of Germany against a common believed problematic other ‘the Jews’ in the name of nationalism. In India, the Britishers were given this title of the problematic other. We need to ask the lines on which nationalism is produced and carried forward and whether the lines are faulty or not in the Indian context. Is nationalism new or old, objective or subjective, civic or ethnic or either, universal or particular or both, inclusive or exclusive, doctrine or sentimental, cultural or political or both and the most important; is Nationalism good or bad?

When we look at nationalism through the lens of caste, it gives us a new perspective altogether. Caste as an institution has created a divergence between nation and nationalism. The Indian nation constitutes people belonging to different castes, class, community, religion, culture, region, ethnicity, language but nationalism has ignored the most celebrated aspect of the Indian nation, ‘diversity’. Nationalism in this sense has been monolithic. It has only and only represented a sect of people who are at the top of the hierarchy produced along the lines of caste. Only the upper caste Brahmanical narrative of nationalism has prevailed across the nation. So, while on the one hand, India as a nation is so diverse and on the other – the emotion of the nation – nationalism has remained monolithic, taking into account only upper-caste Hindu men. The idea of finding your identity in the society has been completely missing in this upper caste Brahmanical narrative of nationalism. This Brahmanical narrative of nationalism has been hugely criticized because it superimposes a nationalist identity and gets rid of a person’s true identity. 

The idea of self and the other is also flawed in the context of Indian nationalism. Who all are incorporated in the ‘self’? Is it the tribal? Is it the lower castes? Is it the Dalits? No. Only particular sects of people who enjoy supreme power because of the caste they are born into are encompassed in the ‘self’. There is an ‘other’ in the self itself. The other in the self is the lower caste groups whose idea of freedom and independence is not just restricted to freedom from the British rule but from the Brahmanical social order which discriminates heavily based on caste. A great example of the other within the self is the battle of Koregaon which was fought on 1 January 1818 between the British East India Company and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha confederacy at Koregaon Bhima. The ‘Mahar’ community, a lower caste group fought along with the British army against the Peshwa faction of the Maratha confederacy which led to the victory of the British. Now, if we look at this battle from the mainstream Brahmanical nationalist perspective, the Mahar community is anti-national, the Mahar community is the other within the self. But, if we closely analyze the incident, the Mahar community was just fighting for itself, against not only the Peshwas but also the Brahmanical social order which the Peshwas were practicing. They wanted freedom from the Brahmanical social order which is based on the principle of discrimination along caste. 

Nationalism can be seen as a tool to gain/re-gain power over oneself, the apparatus to self-governance. The consciousness of nationalism mainly emerged from two groups; first, the upper caste Hindu which created the Brahmanical narrative of nationalism. They were seeking power to rule over oneself from outside the culture, from the British. The second group was the lower caste which was seeking power from the Brahmanical social order. They, on the other hand, were seeking power from within the culture.

A sense of belonging to one shared land which is central to the idea of nationalism was denied significance by the practice of the caste system. The atrocities faced by the lower castes faded the sense of belonging to common land. Mainstream Brahmanical nationalism also shows a glimpse of Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony and nationalism. Gramsci explains that the class which wishes to become hegemonic has to nationalize itself. The caste hegemony was already present but Brahmanical nationalism took it forward to a political dimension that helped to pertain the hegemony in the years coming. The ignorance of lower caste in the nationalism paradigm can also be seen as a subaltern space and identity. 

Dalit movements across the nation have also exposed the hollowness of the nationalist claim to represent the whole nation. Periyar’s claim for Dravidistan also highlights the difference between the so-called Indians. G. Aloysius in his book; ‘Nationalism Without a Nation in India’ explains nationalism as the ideology of the most advanced segment of the emergent ruling class which happened to be the national bourgeoisie at that historical juncture”.  

The creation of a Hindu Rashtra which is much debated in contemporary times is also a product of Brahmanical nationalism. 

Back in 1947, the independence of India could have been seen as a regressive step by the lower castes was it not for Dr. BR Ambedkar and the constitution he gave us. It would have been regressive in the sense that the social order that would pertain would be the same practiced under the British rule and even before that, in the pre-colonial era. The same Brahmanical social order of discrimination would have been practiced. The independence of India was not revolutionary but the adoption and implementation of the constitution were indeed revolutionary. Suddenly people who were suppressed for god knows since when were equal in the eyes of the newly formed Indian state. This too was just something on paper and had a negligible effect in the real lives of people. The constitution ensured that this new nation is built on promises and aspirations.