Ambedkars Political Nationalism Context, Contour & Content G Aloysius I Introduction From being thought of as a Mahar or Depressed Classes

leader, Ambedkar is slowly but tortuously graduating in academic circles as one who has contributed significantly for the democratisation of polity and society here. However, the issue of nationalism is another matter, a sacred preserve of the dominant few. It is too important and foundational an issue for the dominant therefore, to allow public intellectuals of Ambedkar mould to have any say in the matter. With the academia almost monopolised by the ascriptively dominant, Ambedkar can never hope for entry in the Indian nationalist pantheon; in fact some spoke and wrote of him as plain anti-nationalist and even stooge of the British. The Ambedkarites, on the other hand, may be for different reasons, also thought that he did not have anything to say or do with questions and issues relating to nationalism. One could almost sense a sort of defensiveness amongst many on this issue. Silence pervades, when Ambedkars credentials as a nationalist is questioned by the intransigent dominant. Their uneasy silence seemed at least till recently to assent to the expressed and unexpressed views and sentiments of the socially dominant concerning Ambedkar and his contribution. With the emergence of the Dalit movement and its multi-pronged challenges to ascriptive dominance within society, some efforts have indeed been forthcoming to re-read Ambedkar, his life and thoughts and suggest that Ambedkar too was a nationalist! This is not an altogether a welcome development, for, such a position indeed has problems. Because, the general thrust of most such efforts is to show that Ambedkar was also a nationalist in the very same mould or meaning as that of those who are usually projected as the ideologues and leaders of Indian nationalism. Such an almost contrived position goes only to belittle the contribution of this great visionary of modern India, as this intervention seeks to show. So much of ideological production and reproduction have been going on around this all important and foundational theme of Indian nationalism, that most of what the socially dominant have articulated on the issue has been taken for granted, quietly accepted and now the effort is to cut to shape, recast the ideologues of Ambedkarite tradition also and dovetail, in other words co-opt them within the same structures of dominance. Taking off from such a context, this presentation is an attempt at an ideological demystification or exercise in deconstruction as well as a discursive-critical re-construction of the idea of nation and nationalism. The deconstruction, it is hoped would expose the oppressive and ideological nature of the current dominant discourses of nationalism here. And similarly, the reconstruction, hopefully would lead to an alternative understanding of nation and nationalism which would find resonance in peoples collective life in general and subaltern struggles and Ambedkars articulations in particular. Concretely, the suggestion is to engage in three interrelated things: First, pick up and highlight the elementary but important theoretical highlights from the more recent readings on nearly three centuries-long history of nationalism across the globe. This would provide the muchneeded clarity as well as lay out the discursive context for understanding the historical development in this part of the world. Second, selectively review the developments in modern Indian history from the point of view of the unfolding of nation and nationalism and their dominant academic readings. This is a critical reading of history and historiography, an exercise in deconstruction, the necessary preliminary for the positive 1

reconstruction. Third, highlight the main aspects of the Ambedkarite understanding of nation and nationalism. It would be demonstrated here, how this understanding is on the one hand, along the lines of the recent developments in the theory of nation and nationalism within the academia and is in consonance with the existential and collective struggles of the subaltern masses here on the other. The task undertaken is an elaborate one, as most of the generally taken-for-granted positions, continually reproduced through popular as well as academic discourses will be discussed and challenged. A good bit of time therefore would be spent in critically reviewing general, macro and larger considerations both in theory and history. The hope is that the Ambedkarite ideas as well as his socio-political practice on the issue on hand would be better grasped when the underlying and unconsciously held propositions are ferreted out and criticized. Ideology operates most strongly in these discursive spheres and therefore, our challenge needs to concentrate there. The treatment of the inter-related themes would therefore unavoidably be selective and brief. II A Sociological Approach to the Study of Nation & Nationalism This section will highlight some of the consensual scholarly insights from the recent advances in the sociological studies of nation and nationalism that are pertinent to the problem on hand. First of all, nationalism is seen as distinct as well as different from patriotism. Nationalism is the ideology of the nation on the one hand, and patriotism refers to the attachment or devotion to fatherland on the other. This is an important difference which is often completely overlooked. Along with its corollary dislike or hatred of anything considered foreign, xenophobia patriotism has virtually been substituted for nationalism both in academic and popular discourses. And this is certainly not warranted. And again, nationalism is typically modern, while patriotism is not specific to modernity. The latter concerns land, country and territory, while the former is about a specific form of society and social relations. Even today most of the academic discourses in the country write of nationalism in the meaning of patriotism thus completely eliding any possible problematization of the concept. Secondly, State-formation is most often mistaken for nation-formation or nation-building. We have a concrete entity called nation-state. Of this, the state is easily, seen, experienced and even confronted. Therefore, demarcating a territorial boundary and setting up of a state and other sub-institutions are easily but mistakenly seen as the formation of nation which indeed is a distinct and different process. Within such a view, the state is primary and nation is the subsumed subsidiary. Once the state is erected, it is often and illegitimately presumed that the people within, constitute a nation. With the emergence of the sociology of nationalism, however, this residual notion of the nation has been done away with and the nation is recognised as a relatively autonomous entity and viewed as a specific formation distinct from the state-process. Within dominant academic and popular discourses once again, it is the state which creates as well as legitimizes the nation, while in fact, that is within the logic of nation-state as it evolved in history, it is the other way round. Thirdly, nation and nationalism, as we have already pointed out is specific to modernity. The terms refer to particular form of society and ideology respectively. It is said that modernity comes only in nationalist packages. It is also said that nation is the cultural contour of modernity. However, it is also its political contour (L Greenfeld, 1993 & 1996). Modern individual is a citizen of a nation-state and modern collectivity par excellence is a nation 2

administered by a state. The single most important implication of this fact is that what was hitherto not a nation is mandated to become a nation, through a multiple-process of change in the course of transition to modernity. This normative transformation in a specific direction is what characterises the nation. Change from pre-modernity to modernity is thus inscribed within the very core and definition of the nation. There is no nation, therefore also, no nation-state, if no change has been triggered off in a specific direction. When the nineteenth and twentieth century sociological texts speak of society in general, they indeed refer to and presume a nation-form of society. Fourthly, the meaning and direction of the specific form of change leading towards the formation of the nation need to be discussed. The direction of change leading to the formation of nation, taking off from enlightenment/modernity, is clearly towards inclusive egalitarianism as against the established and divinely sanctioned social and ascriptive hierarchy. It was at the critical juncture of transition from pre-modernity to modernity that the nation-form of society came into existence; and this transition is characterised by the giving up of the notion and practice of ascriptive differentiation or worse discrimination, or by the emergence of the spirit of anonymous fraternity. Ben Anderson (1983) states: Nation is always conceived as a deep horizontal comradeship. Ernest Gellner (1983) elaborates it: a mere category of persons . . .becomes a nation if and when the members of the category firmly recognise certain mutual rights and duties to each other in virtue of the shared membership of it. It is their recognition as fellows of this kind which turns them into a nation. It refers then, to a discursive transition from a society of orders/estates to one of democratic inclusion and egalitarianism. In my earlier formulation I have described this as homogenisation of power within culture (G Aloysius, 1997). Social power realisation was normatively homogenised within the putative cultural wholes transforming themselves into as many nations, first of course in Western Europe. And thus we get the emergence within different nation-states, of citizens, who are equal and free in relation to one another. The hitherto degraded and relegated labourers became the Englishmen, the agrarian semi slaves, serfs, became the French men and the ordinary rural folk became the Germans. The simple point is that at the transition to modernity when nation-states were being conceived of, it was necessary to abolish the erstwhile divinely legitimated social hierarchy, invite the hitherto relegated for comradeship or fraternity and together constitute a single society/nation of equal and free citizens. This indeed was the logic behind the modern national imaginary. And the ideology upholding and promoting such a normative transformation was nationalism; in order to make this transformation possible and maintain such a transformation the demand for erecting cultural boundary was raised and justified. This was also called popular sovereignty that is, sovereignty or autonomy is available only when its base is popular or democratic. This at least in theory was the logic of the nation and nationalism. And the institutional set up which was supposed to protect and promote it was the state, at least once again in theory. Needless to say that such a transition of societies towards, egalitarian inclusion is a long-drawn out, perennial and even contested affair. However, there must be asserted at least a consensual social-egalitarian imaginary, if a people are to be termed to be moving towards the formation of a nation-form of society. This transition was most clearly dramatised at the political level in the course of the Revolution in France whose immortal slogan was Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! Nationalism here, at least in ideology meant the internal and egalitarian transformation of the ancient regime of hierarchical orders to homogenised socially free and equal citizenship! It is this new coming into being of the nation as a distinct form of social-relational imaginary that legitimises the newly erected state-structure whose special characteristic is the other modern principle of rule of law, that is equality of all before law. 3

Fifthly, the dichotomous typology of nationalism, a consensual common place in literature is to be noted and commented upon. As this nationalism of the above description moved from the Western Europe towards the East, on account of various historical and sociological circumstances, gradually turned away from its internal focus to a pre-occupation of external/boundary problems. From an engagement with the ideology of internal powerhomogenised reconstitution as a normative process attention was diverted to an assertion of putatively homogenised culture as an already existing entity. Singular identity cultural, territorial of the collective, more often than not, in contrast to the other, real or imagined became the main pre-occupation of the leading nationalists of the various countries. Under the concrete circumstances of Imperialism, this came to be articulated as anti-colonial nationalism, based on the alleged unity, identity of the colonial countries as mirror opposites of those of the colonisers. Thus we have, anti-colonial nationalism revolving around the culture and putative uniqueness of the colonised and also spreading disaffection towards the coloniser. We have arrived at the standard dichotomous typology presented in the literature on nationalism the cultural and political (L. Snyder, 1954; A. Smith, 1998) Cultural nationalisms are claimed to be characterised by objective commonalities as race, language, religion, culture etc. On the other hand, the political nationalisms are claimed to be characterised not by any objective aspect but by a perception and experience of unity. The contrast here is between commonality and unity. These nationalisms are also known as ethnic and civic nationalisms. While the former asserts unique identity in contrast to an other, the latter argues for civic and citizenship rights for all. It needs to be said however, that this typology is a compromise with theory on the one hand and concession to empiricism. Such a typology is indeed a description of societies within existing nation-states. As pointed out earlier, this is also a residual understanding of nation and nationalism, that once states have been set up, what are to be found within them automatically constitute nations! Secondly, the state-aspect in both the cases remains the same, that is political democracy. However, in the case of the so-called cultural nationalisms, often there is no fit or consonance between the nation and state. And again, this typology is but a heuristic device only, and actual nationalisms are always combinations of both the cultural and political in different degrees at different times. Further, as no culture is monolithic, nationalism also is a dynamic settlement of the contestation of both the cultural as well as the political. The question is which one dominates, how and when. These somewhat perfunctory survey of and remarks on the theoretical considerations of nation and nationalism are but pertinent and intended to dispel the mystification that surrounds the academic consideration of the subject in the subcontinent. With this, we could move over to the consideration of modern Indian history. III Emergence of Indian Nationalism The very first thing that strikes one about the modern Indian history is the complex nature of its Colonialism, the agency through which provocation to modernity came about here. Despite much sophistication, the academic consideration of colonialism in the subcontinent is still bogged down with reified and monolithic dichotomies at various levels. The following paragraphs are intended, in the light of the above theoretical considerations, to lay the necessary historical foundation for highlighting the importance and implications of Ambedkars theory and practice of nationalism. Reading colonialism in India is a highly contestatious issue, particularly, the controversy surrounding the local elites participation

in the colonial determination of policies and practices. We could point out briefly here, only those aspects that are relevant for the purpose on hand. The two centuries of colonialism could neatly be divided into two distinct parts of one century each. The first, from 1757 to 1857, the Company rule and the second, from 1857 to 1947, the British rule proper. The Company came, abolished through a drawn out process, the ruling of the rajas and maharajas and settled down to enhance its revenue, the primary reason of its coming. As it was the river valleys which were the high potential revenue yielders, the company entered into a contract with the socially dominant there the Brahminical - either as zamindari or ryotwari, for the regular collection and payment of the revenue in return for the promise of non-interference in the custom and tradition of the land (R. E. Frykenberg, 1977) . It was during this one-century long Company rule of revenuecollection in return for non-interference in compact with the Brahminically dominant in the fertile valleys that the sub-continent came to acquire an image and reality which later was exalted into the Indian Tradition (C. Fuller, 1989). The British did all they could to oblige the Brahminically dominant, literally pamper them so that the flow of revenue is not disrupted. Through such association between the Brahminical and the trading British in the valleys, the valley way and view of life read Brahminical themselves became the medium through which the Company rulers saw, spoke, wrote and eventually transformed the subcontinent. The valley way and view of life in pre-modern times, based on as they were on ascriptive hierarchy known as varnavyavastha, could not indiscriminately be extended to the majority of the arid regions as the surplus necessary for the indulgence of the nonlabouring sections could not be produced. But with the intervention of the British, things were beginning to change as territorial integration was taking place on the valley model, ruling became writing and administering laws, the much sought after profession of the Brahminical. In several other ways also, the silent compact with the British brought and enhanced many privileges for the Brahminical who became virtually, the junior partner in the Raj (R.E. Frykenberg, 1977; S Dharmatheertha, 2004). Non-interference by the British in custom and tradition in practice resulted in indiscriminate enhancement as well as proliferation of the same custom and tradition whose aggressive and aggrandising interpretation came to be built within the very structures that were being set up then in the course of transition to modernity. The corollary of this was the subjugation, degradation and colonisation of the other ways and views of life, particularly those of the non-fertile, semi-arid and dry regions. It is needless to add that these are the regions that what most of what India is about and it is where most of the labouring classes today labelled as Shudras, ati-shudras and lower castes lived and toiled (D. Ludden, 1989). Their hitherto relative autonomy in the realms of agriculture, social organisation, culture and religion all either vanished or degraded, they were effectively brought under the dominance of the Brahminically aggressive castes, thus producing a singular India of the valley-Brahminical model. This inevitably meant that they were all being brought also within a singular and Brahminical-textual model of caste system as the Shudras and untouchables. In political economy, this also meant de-diversification of occupation and re-agrarianising the mass of people in the interest of revenue enhancement (C. Bayly, 1988, C. Baker, 1984). Having been transformed into lower orders, they were automatically denied entry into the newly emerging realms of education and employment. This was then a double loss loss of traditional freedom and denial of entry into the modern, for the mass of people everywhere. Though this has been brought about in the name of the Imperial Rule of the Company, the effective agency was with the locally dominant, with whom the company was in reciprocal 5

contract (R. E. Frykenberg, 1977). It was thus, consolidation, training, empowerment through contractual association for the hitherto traditionally dominant only in the valleys but now transforming themselves as the middle classes everywhere. On the other hand, for the masses everywhere, it was denial, deprivation, degradation and even destruction. Sometime during the middle of the nineteenth century the labouring classes everywhere found themselves deprived of most of their resources, both material and non-material. Ambedkars example of the Chinese tailor, reproducing a tattered coat in the new cloth when ordered to stitch a new one is indeed a remarkable insight into what colonialism did to the country, an insight, which came to be discovered and affirmed in academics nearly half a century later. This then is the basic contour of colonial political economy, extreme valorisation and empowerment of the Brahminical few everywhere, in association with and profiting from the rulers and the corresponding extreme degradation of the masses deprived from the traditional and also relegated in the modern. There was clear polarisation between the two everywhere as expressed in the pairs raja and porja, Brahmin-and non-Brahmin, Raniparaj and Kaliparaj, badralog and chotelog, etc. It was this dichotomous socio-economic formation that would eventually constitute the basis of the subsequent dichotomous political awakening. The response of the subaltern everywhere to this almost sudden and pervasive degradation and deprivation was also unambiguous. We find the literature of this period towards the end of the first and the beginning of the second centuries - full of efforts small and big of the generally pauperised masses to move out of their dilemma and take the situation in hand. Peasant disturbances, grain-looting, groups indulging in petty crimes for livelihood, massive migrations towards urban centres and also other countries proliferate during this period. All forms of anti-Brahminism and struggle against caste exclusion raise their head mass conversions to other religions particularly Christianity, cultural contestations, efforts towards construction of a caste-free Hinduism, discovery of Buddhism as an emancipatory religion etc. (G. Aloysius, 1997) Further, demands were being articulated for a share in the new opportunity-structures education, employment and political representation. In short, the pervasive and multi-directional moves were such that the British could not anymore rule at the behest of the revenue agent Brahminical castes, with blind and indiscriminate noninterference, as their policy, if only they are to survive as rulers. The second century of colonialism dawned with the takeover of the reins of administration by the British Parliament, the Victorian proclamation of treatment of equality to all citizens and for whatever reason, change towards a more inclusive policy. In other words, in the very interest of survival, the British had to slowly extricate themselves from their earlier contract/entanglement with the Brahminically dominant (J. Gordon, 1973). And the changes in the overall scenario revenue ceasing to be the major consideration, industrialisation of England, Macaulays legal procedural codes etc. also facilitated this process. A series of measures that are seemingly in favour of the hitherto relegated are passed tenancy laws, modern procedure codes, entry of the lower castes and other minorities into education and a token share for them in employment, systematised form of recruitment for jobs etc. These and similar measures were seen by the hitherto monopolistic dominance as scuttling their power and was interpreted by it as interference, against promise in custom and tradition. (G. Aloysius, 2010) Hitherto, the relationship of the British had been only with the traditionally dominant who had been set up by them as revenue, administrative and cultural brokers. But, now, the same British were seen as going beyond and over their heads to reach out to the hitherto relegated directly bypassing the medium of the locally dominant. This 6

was indeed an intrusion and interference in their secure and subjugated constituency the mass of lowered and degraded castes. It was this change of policy on the part of the British, which if the masses came to perceive quickly as egalitarian, inclusive and indicative of the emergent new, the consolidating middle classes ominously sensed as directed against their hitherto monopolistically held power and interpreted as interference in culture and religion. The century-long contract between the two sets of elite was breaking down. The British came to be seen as personae non-grata and in fact a threat to the custom and tradition of the land. In other words, the British who were hitherto celebrated as Providential, god-send, and an enabling partner now suddenly became Satanic deserving to be driven out as they have become a threat to the unique tradition of the land. Thus sprang the much vaunted anticolonial nationalism of the subcontinent, at that very juncture when the British for reasons of their own was beginning to be more inclusive and thus democratic. This juncture could usefully be viewed as the moment of the Colonial provocation to modernity in the subcontinent. A series of dichotomies were elaborated by the traditionally dominant as the template of this nationalism. What was conjured up as the Western, materialistic, Industrial, individualistic, rights-based and competitive society became the mirror opposite of and therefore danger to our own. It is to be noted that earlier these very same characteristics were celebrated as complementary to our own, as both the Indian and Western were read as but two branches of the one and the same Aryan and that the two long lost brothers were meeting then in colonialism. But now, with the introduction of democratic/inclusive measures by the ruling British and as the British were trying to reach out to the lower orders, all that is gone now, they have turned the enemy and threat our unique cultural synthesis. IV Nationalisms: Cultural & Political Nationalist historiography and following it most of the academics are known for their prescriptive distinction of the political and the social. In fact, Political Science studies the socalled political, and sociology concentrates on the so-called social. Such a distinction handed down by no less a person than the grand old man of Colonial India Dadhabhoy Naoroji was necessitated in order to valorise the elite-political anti-colonialism as the superior and allIndia form of consciousness and delegitimize the social as the local and parochial which could be taken up later, mostly meaning never. However, it must be clear from our above delineation of theory and narration of modern Indian history that all forms of awakening of group relations were political and depending on ones power-position within society, it became trajected towards either without or within. Accordingly, and as expressions of the dichotomous and polarised political economy of the Colonial period, there emerged also the equally dichotomous and polarised political awakening of the subcontinent. One was trajected towards power-reconfiguration within and the other, power-reconfiguration without. In other words, the latter sought to wrest power from the British and the former to democratise power within. Both these two forms of political awakenings were indeed simultaneous in their arising and inextricable combined in dynamics. Nay, it could even be argued that the politicization of the deprived and degraded subalterns seeking to re-configure power within arose prior to that of the elite. As within our own narration, it was the emergence of the subaltern group-consciousness and their bid for a share in the new-opportunity-structure that woke up and politicized the Brahminical elite from its collusive and complacent stupor. And this it did through raising the banner of religion at stake, Hinduism in danger, and protecting the unique social synthesis of our ancient sages. This clearly was an instance of Cultural Nationalism, that is, 7

nationalism claiming to define, determine, defend and thereby impose ones culture: Our culture is unique, spiritual, communitarian, duty-based and cooperative while that of the British is the mirror opposite of these all. The presence of the British here has become a danger to our custom, tradition and religion- which was getting aggressively baptised as Hinduism. We need to get rid of the British before they could do irreparable damage to it. Notably, Hinduism was constructed by the nineteenth century nationalist politicians as the culture, identity as well as ideology of this anti-colonial nationalism; it was also irrationally offered as secular, liberal, inclusive and national; having the Vedas as its core, Hinduism again was considered both as the source of all knowledge and history; the Vedas was to define, debate and determine all the minimum changes that were required for the emergent nation-state. The cultural nationalism of India was thus sought to be camouflaged by pasting secular ideals on to the emergent Hinduism itself. A strategy of such a camouflage is to set up the distinction between the imaginaries of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Indian national congress. And this camouflage is continuously being reproduced by most of the state-sponsored and institutional academics. If this as the external essence to be contrasted to the alleged Western decadence, the internal essence of this cultural nationalism was equally unambiguous and no less assertive. Ranajit Guha (1991) speaks of the disciplinary aspect of Indian nationalism. The internal power-configuration, these nationalists had imagined for the future of the nation could only be termed as ideological re-traditionalization. While Mr Gandhi was the most elaborate and unambiguous articulator of this internal face of cultural nationalism in India, (which is why he has been hailed as the father of the nation) every other major leader of the anti-colonial movement did not fail to repeatedly remind the restless masses that they have to abide by the Vedic-Hindu ideal of varnavyavastha. For the cultural nationalists held on to and brazenly reasserted the Brahminical notion that people are born differently, that difference should be maintained and that was what dharma was about. The emergent Hindu-Indian society if it is to be faithful to the wisdom of its ancient seers and continue in the modern world as a distinct identity resisting the corroding and polluting Western influence, Swaraj will have to be Ramrajya, that is a country in which the birth-ordered hierarchy would be maintained for the benefit of all as peace and harmony in society. This was clearly addressed to the restless masses making all efforts to get rid of their varna-caste determination. As a supplementary and support to this their regressive cultural call, they also constructed a history, imagined a past that was seamless, harmonious, continuous and changeless varna-ordered society. Their voyages of nostalgia into the past took them always to ports where people voluntarily took to varna ways of thinking, speaking and living (G. Aloysius, 1997). Even a cursory perusal of the activities and articulations of the major ideologues of the nineteenth century Independence movement, would reveal the fact that this internal dimension of imposing varna-discipline on the masses was as important for them as the external of anti-colonialism. In fact, it could even be suggested that it was this internal that was the reason behind the rise of the external and again it was the internal concern that was modulating and guiding anti-colonial out-pourings and activities. The point, we have tried to highlight here is that the movement, in all its variations, against the British rulers, started during the third quarter of the nineteenth century and came to be recognised by all including the academicians as nationalism in India had, despite all its diversionary rhetoric, all the regressive characteristics of the classical cultural nationalism as delineated in the theoretical literature. However, within our own paradigm, this is only one half of the story of nation and nationalism in India. The Colonially and Brahminically deprived and degraded masses everywhere, were becoming simultaneously aware of two contradictory things: one, they realised that as 8

against their own experience of multiple and relatively autonomous traditions, they were now deprived of all the customary rights they had hitherto been enjoying, brought within the oppressive ambit of Brahminism an ideology of ascriptive discrimination - both in material and non-material spheres and confronted with a singular monolithic tradition. Two, they also witnessed the dawn of something new. The very same agency, which has been indiscriminately abetting this ideology and boosted up its votary classes, was now introducing the rule of law in its burgeoning institutions. This rule of law of the institutions was perceived to be operating in sharp contrast to the dominant social ideology of ascriptive differentiation and discrimination. And from this, it was but a short step for them to see the rising hegemony of and institutional sanction to ascriptive egalitarianism and loss of legitimacy to ascriptive hierarchies. Such a collective-existential contradiction was perceived indeed as a call and provocation for the masses to recognise, enter, appropriate and thereby constitute the emergent civil society or nation, the single most important characteristic of modern states. It is against this discursive framework, that one ought to view the above narrated pervasive uprising of the so-called lower castes. While sociology has studied these movements in their individuality and specificity more often than not as caste-movements, the overall trajectory and structural implications of these movements, by and large have gone unnoticed. Because, they were all manifestations within and often enough addressed to the unified and unifying colonial modern state system, these movements themselves to an extent had acquired unified characteristics and structural implications. It is these aspects that are relevant for the purpose on hand. First of all, anti-casteism, anti-Brahminism and aspiration for an egalitarian civil society, whether expressed against the total ideology or a specific local practice, was pervasive across the subcontinent right from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Secondly, the negative aspect of these mass struggles was the attempt, varied in quantity, quality and form, reflecting the social location of the particular social group, to escape the externally imposed ascriptive identification and determination of their status and role in society. They were indeed challenging ascriptive fixity of occupation and claiming diversified recognition in terms of achievement, a true hall mark of modernity. Thirdly, positively, sensing the rising hegemony of equality over discrimination as expressed by the rule of law, they escalated their struggles for appropriating their share, as of their right in the newly emerging public spheres of education, employment and socio-political representation. It was mostly through these multifarious subaltern efforts that what little there is of the modern civil society in India was being conceptualised and constituted against persistent opposition by the cultural nationalists. Fourthly, the wide range and varied forms in which these small, big, intensive and extensive efforts of the caste-subjugated subalterns of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries manifested themselves are to be noted. Each group, depending on the circumstance one found oneself in and mobilising the resources one was equipped with, was making an all out bid to break open the old and construct the new. Professor MN Srinivass (1966) description was that the scenario was like the breaking open of a prison house. One could easily be reminded of breaking of Bastille. Nothing could be more apt! Reinterpretation of Advaitic Vedanta, discovery of Buddhism, embracing atheism, demand for education, employment and political representation, agricultural strikes, revolts by the tribals all these were but a few of the forms of their all out bid to create, constitute a democratic and inclusive public sphere. Fifthly, the non-material and religio-cultural dimensions of the struggle definitely give us the idea that many at least of these groups saw their efforts as a continuity in history and thus a re-imagining of the past. If the cultural nationalists invented history as a seamless past of harmonious and varna-abiding complementary groups, the political nationalists imagined the past as contestatious, egalitarian and even Buddhist. Sixthly, all these varied forms of struggles of the caste9

subalterns, were not being articulated and actualised in vacuum. They were directly addressed to and confronting the prescriptive rhetoric and sectarian activities of the anticolonial nationalists. It was a serious and national political contestation, each with different and contrasting notions of power re-configuration for the present and future of Modern India. The point we would emphasize here is that these above general characteristics of the subaltern struggles everywhere of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are but characteristics of political nationalist struggles everywhere. The trajectory, contour and content of these struggles of modern India were not very much different from those of the struggles engaged in the France of the eighteenth century. Through their collective and political praxis of various kinds the colonially and also collusively subordinated the socalled lower castes everywhere expressed the facts that they very well understood what was at stake, what they were being confronted with and what they were hoping to achieve in the concrete circumstances that is the conception, construction and constitution of civicpolitical national community. However, this was not all. Right from within the midst and course of these ubiquitous struggles there also emerged scores of ideologues from every nook and corner, more conscious and enlightened spokesmen of the struggling people elaborating to a more or less clarity and extent the ideology and theory of political nationalism. Jothiba Phule, Sahodharan Iyyappan, Mangoo Ram, Swami Achchtanand, Iyothee Thassar, Sant Ram, Periyar and of course Ambedkar are but few names that have managed to pierce out of the thick fog of mystifications initiated by the dominant cultural nationalists of the time and continued by the present day academics. Of these Baba Saheb Ambedkar emerges unique, but standing on the shoulders of all of them and also representing and interpreting them. In and through Ambedkars clear and elaborate articulations on nation and nationalism, the aspirations and struggles of the caste-degraded and class-deprived masses everywhere found sharp and contestatious expression of and advocacy for the constitution of political nationalism in India. The next section will highlight some of the more important aspects of Ambedkars thinking on political nationalism. V Ambedkar: Political Nationalism as Democracy At the outset, it needs to be emphasized that of all those who were engaged in the public sphere as ideologues or activists, in the late nineteenth and the early half of the twentieth century, it was Ambedkar alone who clearly and consistently, raised critical questions, grappled with and exposed the subject of nation and nationalism. The times were when the nation and nation-state were being controversially conceived and constructed. But the entire range of people whom we consider as nationalists today had nothing to say on this newly emerging phenomenon except to repeat their culturalist anti-colonial rhetoric. It is not an exaggeration to say that all of them without a single exception, were opportunistically and ambiguously oscillating between, as we have mentioned earlier, xenophobia at the worst and patriotism at best. It was Ambedkar alone who confronted this new emergence in a scholarly manner, analysed its various aspects and sought to apply them critically to the changing situations of modern Indian history. It needs to be pointed out here, that the Ambedkarites too have more or less neglected to make use of this aspect of the leaders ideology, and failed to deploy it strategically in their struggles of emancipation and empowerment.

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First of all, Ambedkar analytically isolated the idea of the nation. This is something new in the social science scholarship of India. While the students of political science, memorised treated and learnt nationalism as one of the many isms of the modern times, those of history studied nationalist movements mostly through the lens of those claiming to be nationalists, taking for granted uncritically whatever the leaders of those movements did and said. It is only recently with the writings of Gellner, Anderson and Smith in the eighties and nineties of the previous century that a sociological consideration of nation as a distinct category deserving academic analysis has come into vogue. But, even after this, nothing much changed in the treatment of the subject here. But, Ambedkar went after the nation as a new social category some half a century before. Drawing heavily upon the nineteenth century scholarship on the subject, particularly Ernest Renan, Ambedkar raised the all important question, What is a nation?, and elaborately lays down the required characteristics of a nation-form of society. Ambedkars treatment of the nation-form of society is an important contribution to social science scholarship and this has not been recognised as yet. It is a new form of social existence, he explained, in which there is density, ubiquity of sharing and communication between the different parts of the whole. It his own terms it is the pervasive social endosmosis at all levels that characterises the nation-form of society. A social whole in which there are water-tight parts and restrictions and rules laid out for communications and relations called be called a nation. Emergence of the nation-form is the overcoming of the local and ascriptive insulations. Karl Deutsch (1953), studying the phenomenon more or less during the life time of Ambedkar reached the same conclusion. Within Ambedkars frame of things such a nation-form of criss-cross communication and indiscriminate relationships is a new becoming, a result of tortuous and conscious human endeavour. In other words, one needs to create politically a nation through consciously and morally guided social change. What is, should be changed into something else to become eligible to be called a nation. That is change in an appropriate direction alone constitutes the very foundation of the modern nation-form of society. This is to be viewed in critical contrast to what was being peddled around by the cultural nationalists of the time. Most tended to subsume nation and its change-foundation under the contemporary form of nationalism as exemplified in the slogan, nation in the making; while this was for the public consumption, the strong undercurrent, the prescriptive message was that the subcontinental society as it was already constituted a nation, requiring no change, particularly in the direction envisaged by the political nationalists; if any change is required it is in the reverse direction of arresting changes and fixing groups in their alleged traditional roles. Sanatan dharm was the nation; Hinduism was the nation; Ramraj in which people would occupy pre-determined places is Swaraj! Within such an imaginary, there was to be neither crisscross communication nor relations. Instead, they, not unlike cultural nationalists elsewhere, but most untenably in our context claimed that nation in India subsisted on the alleged commonality of Vedic-Sanscritic cultural derivation. But, Ambedkar is not the one to give up. While he did challenge elsewhere, this alleged commonality and Vedic-Sanscritic derivation of everything sociocultural of the subcontinent, as a serious student of nationalism, he explained the subtle but significant difference between commonality and unity. Cultural nationalists everywhere hang on to the notion of objective commonality of either one or more of some common ascriptive characteristics such as race, religion, language etc as demarcating the nation. But, Ambedkar perspicaciously pointed out commonality is really a pre-modern thing, and if commonality is to become the basis of the modern nation, it ought to transform itself into subjective, that is perceived and experiential unity. Everyone, for example, celebrating the same festival, he explained, could only establish commonality; but, everyone celebrating the 11

festival together alone would constitute unity. And this transformation of the alleged common, becoming the basis of subjective, that is experiential unity, is a conscious and socio-political endeavour of removing the obstacles and taking to newer ways of thinking, speaking and behaving, particularly relating. As mentioned earlier, if commonality of culture has been the creed of cultural nationalism everywhere, experiential and perceived identification of all the people into one community/nation in the spirit of, consciousness of kind, and fellow-feeling, fraternity, social democracy,through a self-conscious political process is the basis of modern civic/political nationalism for Ambedkar. The single most difficult obstacle to get over in the emergence of the nation form of society in India, Ambedkar identified unambiguously was caste, primarily the caste principles of narrow insulation and hierarchicalisation by ascriptive social groups. As a true student of sociology, he went into the ideological premises that underlay such twin principle and how they are totally contrary to the logical underpinnings of the nation-form of society. The incompatibility of the two caste and nation Ambedkar explored at length and it has been elaborated with proper documentation elsewhere (G. Aloysius, 2002) Ambedkar was indeed horrified to find that Mr Gandhi and his cohorts were so brazenly offering to the world this very caste as the foundation of the nation to emerge. The varna-form of society, whatever be its peculiarly Gandhian understanding and academic sophistry, was the cultural nationalist vision of the nation in India. It was then not the traditional or residual caste that Ambedkar was battling against; on the other hand, it was the caste, which was ideologically being brought back in the centre of modern politics ironically in the very name of nation itself. Thanks to his moral fury, that we have with us today the classic text of Annihilation of Caste. Just as in Europe, the formation of modern nation required and in fact resulted in the abolition of orders/estates, the ancien regime for Ambedkar annihilation of caste is the conditio sine qua non of the formation of the nation. What about nationalism? Nationalism is the desire for the nation to lead a separate existence. This desire for separateness itself is an expression that a nation has come into existence. These two the formation of a democratised society and setting up of an independent political society are but the two sides of the same coin. In the words of Ambedkar, the desire for separate existence gets its legitimacy from its concrete determination and move towards the formation of a democratised society. Nationalism and separate existence are justified only when they are seen to guide the people concerned towards the formation of the nation and not otherwise. Ambedkar was extremely critical of the leading that is, the national class for demanding separate existence while at the same time doing all it could to arrest the formation of the nation. From his extremely wide reading of world history he could point out the basic ideological requirement for the formation of the democratised society/nation. The hitherto ascriptively privileged classes should realise the changed circumstances of modernity, read its requirements and accordingly shed the privileges they have been enjoying and accept comradeship/fraternity with the hitherto relegated masses/lower castes. In this way, Ambedkar found the leading classes of Japan, the Samurai, surrendered their traditional land rights to the emperor and thus initiated the necessary changes in the formation of the nation. This was the same course of action, according to Ambedkar that the French nobles also took when they were transforming themselves into bourgeoisie. Ambedkar compared these leading classes of these countries with those of India, the Brahminical classes. Alas! To his utter dismay, he found that the governing classes of India claimed to reinforce those traditional-ascriptive and pre-nation privileges in the very name of nationalism!

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The Brahminical elite which became the leading nationalist class, was merely demanding for the monopoly capture of state power while preventing at the same time the caste-ridden society from changing. The danger of such a demand was well recognised by Ambedkar. The mass of Shudras and Ati-shudras would merely end up as slaves and not be in a position to transform themselves effectively into free and equal citizens. The nation as a democratic social form would fail to emerge and the nationalism would fail to pass in the critical test. On the related questions of colonialism and anti-colonialism too, Ambedkars position was distinct. Nationalist leaders and several academics often refer derisively to the famous statement of Ambedkar Round Table Conference that he was not anxious for the transfer of political power from the British. In fact, what they were doing is to point out that Ambedkar was not considering the ejection of the British as an unconditional absolute to which all other considerations, including those of emancipation of the masses, particularly the so called untouchables and also the broader question of democratisation of society at large would be subjected. This certainly Ambedkar refused to do. He stoutly resisted from being drawn into the issue of atavistic or even a racist choice between what were put up as the two monolithic wholes Indian and British. For him, it was democracy and more especially the emancipation of the downtrodden the so-called untouchables was the supreme modernnational question a la French Revolution and political nationalism that was the absolute issue compelling commitment. Ambedkars understanding of colonialism and anticolonialism was not based on ascriptivism, atavism or in the more recent terminology, identity politics. For the cultural nationalists, the British should go merely because they were British and the Indians should take over also merely because they were Indians. But, Ambedkar was not swearing, as we suggested by any form of primordiality. He made in clear that he experienced, assessed and came to a conclusion on the colonial rulers independently on his own criteria. He was insisting that he was not an anti-colonialist in the same way or for the same reason as the Congress. On the other hand, he was an anti-colonial for his own reason. He arrived at the conclusion that this colonial (Bureaucratic) government should go and be replaced with a democratic form of Government because, this government is not capable of delivering the goods because of, one, its class character and two, its mortal fear of the Brahminical elite of the country. Ambedkar tested colonialism on its praxis and not on its ascriptivity. The ascriptivity argument of anti-colonialism was basically atavistic and pre-modern. For Ambedkar on the other hand, praxis is the test of truth. In fact, these two contrary tests of truth ascriptivity and achievement, Ambedkar discovered, had a long history in the subcontinent as the conflict between Brahminic and Sramminic ways of life and he found himself arguing in continuity with that of the latter tradition. VI Conclusion We have taken a circuitous route in order to explain the views of Ambedkar concerning nation and nationalism. We, first tried to grasp the essential points of recent scholarship on the twin theme; secondly, we conducted a cursory survey of the period of colonialism and nationalism highlighting some relevant aspects; against these theoretical and historical backgrounds, we highlighted some of the more important aspects of Ambedkars views on the issue. We found this was required because without the necessary background and knowledge of the contestations he was engaged with, it is not possible to appreciate the value and significance of Amedkars contribution to modern ideology. We found, Ambedkars views expressed in the historical context of late colonial subcontinent, are in full consonance with the exposition in theoretical literature on political/civic nationalism. For 13

him, as for the scholars on the theme, nationalism is about re-organisation of social relations within a culture and claim for separate existence to maintain this new social configuration, that is, democratisation and popular sovereignty. Colonialism in his register, could at best be described as the context against which the process of democratisation unfolded itself in the subcontinent. Ambedkar had read widely on European history. Particularly, he was steeped in the history of the French Revolution, deeply impressed by it and had great admiration for it. It is interesting to note, how often one finds the revolutionary slogan of Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! repeated in his writings. When he came to be a participant, albeit from the other side, in the process of nation formation in India, deployed his knowledge as a critical touchstone not merely to test but also influence the direction of history towards inclusiveness and democracy. His idea of the nation revolved around the creation of a modern political community of free and equal individuals as citizens. His was a critical approach to study the sub-continental society in general and the phenomenon of nationalism in particular. He would have imagined the scenario here as one not too different from that of France in the course of the Revolution. The only difference he would have said, that while in France, the Revolution succeeded, in India it was the counter-revolution which did though with some minimum modification. Finally, Ambedkars theory of nation and nationalism, has all the necessary components of a critical nation theory. It was not a mere positivist-empirical description of what was, but a critique of the contemporary scenario, deconstruction of the practices and articulations of the dominant self-styled nationalists, clarification of the possibilities immanent in the situation and thereby a provocation to commit for and engage in democratic and liberative social praxis. Bibliography Aloysius, G., 1997, Nationalism without a Nation in India, New Delhi, Oxford University Press. Aloysius, G., 2002, Caste against Nation in Ambedkar, Radical Humanist, Vol.65, Nos. 10-11. Aloysius, G., 2009, Ambedkar on Nation and Nationalism, New Delhi, Critical Quest. Aloysius, G., 2010, The Brahminical Inscribed in Body Politic, New Delhi, Critical Quest. Ambedkar, Baba Saheb, 1989-, Writings and Speeches (Bawas), Mumbai, Government of Maharashtra. Anderson, Benedict, 1983, Imagined Communities, London, Verso. Baker, Christopher John, 1984, An Indian Rural Economy 1880-1955: The Tamil Nadu Countryside, Delhi, Oxford University Press. Bayly, Christopher, 1988, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Deutsch, Karl, 1953, Nationalism and Social Communication, Massachussets, MIT Press. Dharmatheertha, Swami, 2004, No Freedom with Caste, The Menace of Hindu Imperialism, New Delhi Media House.

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Frykenberg, R. E., 1977, The Silent Settlement in South India, 1793-1853, New Delhi, Orient Longman. Fuller, Chris, 1989, British India or Traditional India Land, Caste and Power, in H. Alavi & J. Harriss edited, South Asia, New York, Monthly Review Press. Gandhi, M K, 1962, Varnashramadharma, Ahmadabad, Navajeevan Press. Gellner, Ernest, 1983, Nation and Nationalism, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Gordon, J., 1973, Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Gramsci, Antonio, 1968, Modern Prince and other Writings, New York International Publishers. Gramsci, Antonio, 1971, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Quintin Hoarse & G. N. Smith (ed.), New York, International Publishers. Greenfeld, Liah, 1993, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Harvard, Harvard University Press. Greenfeld, Liah, 1996, Nationalism and Modernity, Social Research, Vol.63. No. 1, pp3-40. Guha, Ranajit, 1991, A Disciplinary Aspect of Indian Nationalism. Santa Cruz, Merrill Publications. Hobsbawm, E. J., 1990, Nation and Nationalism since 1780, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Kohn, Hans, 1967, The Idea of Nationalism, New York, Collier-MacMillan. Ludden, D., 1989, Peasant History in South India, Delhi, Oxford University Press. Nodia, Ghia, 1992, Nationalism and Democracy, Journal of Democracy, Vol.3, No.4, pp3-31. Parekh, Bhikku, 1995, Ethnocentricity of Nationalist Discourse, Nation and Nationalism, Vol. I, Part. 1, pp 25-52. Rao, Parimala, 2010, Educate women and Lose Nationality, New Delhi, Critical Quest. Renan, Ernest, 1882, What is a Nation?, in Homi Bhaba edited, 1990, Nation and Narration, London, Routlege & Kegan Paul. Robinson, Ronald, 1972, Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism, in R. Owen & B. Sutcliff edited, Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, London, pp 117-140. Shourie, Arun, 1997, Worshipping False Gods: Ambedkar and the Facts which have been erased, New Delhi, ASA Publication. Smith, Anthony, 1998, Nationalism and Modernism, London, Routlege. Snyder, Louis, 1954, The Meaning of Nationalism, Westport, Greenwood Press. Srinivas, M.N., 1966, Social Change in Modern India, Hyderabad Orient Longman. Thapar, Romila, 2004, Imagined Religious Communities?, New Delhi, Critical Quest. Turner, Bryan, 1986, Citizenship and Capitalism, Allen & Unwin.

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