Book Review of Nikita Sud's 'Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and the State: A Biography of Gujarat biography ' (Poornima Joshi / KIndle Magazine, May 2013)

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Poornima Joshi Books May 2, 2013
Review of Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and the State: A Biography of Gujarat
biography of gujarat nikita sud


Author – Nikita Sud

Book – Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and the State: A Biography of Gujarat
Publishers – Oxford University Press
Price – Rs. 695

A shuttered window of the house where Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was once born frames the beautiful jacket and theme that Nikita Sud investigates in this extraordinary book. This is an exploration of the centrality and the stunning transition of the state from championing Gandhian ideas, to what is now a vehicle for the most horrific repression of minorities and the biggest marketer of Brand Gujarat. These are ideas that challenge contemporary India which now faces a seemingly uncontrollable force in Narendra Modi, who has ensured popular impunity for presiding over a Muslim pogrom in 2002 by securing a third consecutive victory in the recent Gujarat legislative assembly elections.

The nuanced enunciation of what the scholar describes as the merging of economic conditions for facilitation of free private enterprise with political conditions that constrain the exercise of personal freedom is not a novel idea, nor has it remained unearthed in the several decades of the present and last century when globalisation gradually erased welfare and developmentalism from state vocabulary. The prolonged and exhaustive efforts of Hindutva forces in Gujarat too coincided with the formal initiation of economic liberalisation in India. The first Janata Dal-BJP government in the state was sworn in 1990, a year before the economist Manmohan Singh quoted romanticist Victor Hugo in the Indian Parliament to usher in economic liberalisation: “No one can stop an idea whose time has come.” Five years later, in 1995, Gujarat had its first BJP Chief Minister in Keshubhai Patel with a simple majority of 122 in the 182-member assembly.

The book combines the rise of Hindutva forces to the dominant position of turning the state simultaneously into a promoter of Brand Gujarat and big business, as well as a deliverer of services which has lost the vocabulary of welfare. The state of Gujarat has become a theatre so absurd that every expression of anguish or protest against the continual marginalisation of not just its Muslims but Dalits, Adivasis and small farmers, is lampooned by the only dominant political actor – the Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Just recall his remarks on Gujarati women being “beauty conscious” when reminded of abysmal levels of malnutrition in the state. Mark the sarcasm that he reserves for those who question his governance record. It is a state where electoral supremacy is ground for immunity from law and social censure. Modi, the supreme leader with the Mask, represents a personalised form of Hindutva which overshadows even the Sangh Parivar; the Mask diluting contribution of individual workers and portraying a supreme leader constantly under threat from ‘secular’ national institutions such as the courts, media, civil society et al as well as Muslim ‘terrorists’ who are conveniently disposed of in routine police encounters.

Sud’s analysis portrays the Hindutva experiment in Gujarat as some sort of perverse exceptionalism. She gives us reasons to hope that the prospect of the Modi Mask replacing the moderate form of Hindutva promoted by the only nationally acceptable face of the BJP, former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee {once ironically mocked at by the party ideologue K. N. Govindacharya as a ‘Mukhauta (mask)’} are not quite as bright as the Gujarat Chief Minister tends to project. The author analyses and investigates how Hindutva in Brand Gujarat has flourished in a specific socio-economic and political context. She traces the seeds of political illiberalism that long precedes Modi’s rise to power in Gujarat, even if under Modi, there is an enhanced complimentarity of a clearly articulated Hindutva and Hindu revivalism with aggressive market reforms.

While Modi can be credited for polishing this peculiar brand of Hindutva, there is a specific context in which it flourished in Gujarat, which Sud has traced decades in advance of his rise to power. She highlights how Gujarat has historically been a conservative political ground, in that a progressive current such as the freedom movement did not extend to the princely states in the wide swathes of Kathiawad and Kachch till as late as 1938, when the Congress, at its Haripura session, decided to extend its nationalist struggle and support to satyagrahas (protest) against Rajkot and Limbdi states. While the Congress was constrained, the RSS had started consolidating on a foundation of revivalist currents. It is no coincidence, one learns from the book, that the present Chief Minister was an ardent follower of Madhukar ‘Rao’ Bhagwat (the title ‘Rao’ having been self-accorded), the first swayamsevak (a follower of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) deputed to Saurashtra and mainland Gujarat in 1940 to establish the RSS in the state. Madhukar Bhagwat’s son Mohan Bhagwat is the present chief of the RSS.

The Congress’s restricted growth is in sharp contrast of the alacrity with which the economic right organised. The princes who feared being deposed, the industrialists wary of statist policies and the landlords suspicious of Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru’s perceived egalitarian agenda got together rapidly. Bhailalbhai Patel, a prominent agriculturist from Kheda first headed the Lok Paksha with the aim of entering active politics and opposing land reforms in any shape and form. Patel later headed the Swatantra Party, an anti-statist formation of deposed princes and industrialists who revolted against a resurgent Indira Gandhi with her Garibi Hatao slogan in the 70s. A similar formation took place in the shape of Praja Paksha in Saurashtra under the leadership of Shyamaldas Gandhi, who also served as Revenue Minister in the Congress Government at the insistence of Vallabhbhai Patel. This too was an extremely conservative grouping which attracted tenants who had acquired land through reforms from the Girasdars (Big land owners) but became progressively conservative.

The industrial houses and entrepreneurs who drove these political formations opposed to the Congress from the beginning, had ironically been enriched by heavy channelling of resources from the Bombay state by its Chief Minister and prominent Congressman Morarji Desai, and other powerful cabinet ministers from Gujarat such as Jivraj Mehta, the former Diwan of the Baroda state.

The Opposition gradually consolidated with a socially, economically and political conservative lobby in Gujarat. Along with these currents that influenced the evolution of the state as an idea in Gujarat, what has contributed to the rise of the BJP in Gujarat is the total absence of social reform movements like the ones in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra and Left mobilisation such as the one in Bengal, Bihar, Kerala, Tripura et al. Historically, Gujarat has been characterised by an absence of progressive movements and heavy presence of revivalist currents such as Arya Samaj, V. D. Savarkar, Hindu Mahasabha and finally, the RSS, Bharatiya Jansangh and its progeny, the BJP. The writings of Dayanand Saraswati, K. M. Munshi and V. D. Savarkar were popularised in popular discourse by the politically dormant but organisationally ascendant RSS. K. M. Munshi, as minister in Nehru’s Cabinet, paved the way for the future Ramjanmabhoomi movement by insisting in the “insurrection” of Gujarati and Indian pride in the reconstruction of the Somnath temple that was once destroyed by Muslim invaders. He was helped by Vallabhbhai Patel in this venture, although Nehru rejected the plan for building and inaugurating the temple at state expense.

An enriched elite naturally inclined towards revivalism, nevertheless controlled the Congress and restricted or usurped initiatives such as land reforms. The author documents how Indira Gandhi’s attempts after a convincing victory in 1971 to push for a tighter land ceiling limit and benefit the landless were compromised by Gujarat’s powerful elite. The story of resistance to state efforts vis-à-vis land reforms and its continuing control by deposed princes and feudal families is simultaneously unravelled by the author, along with the narrative of industrial development being embedded in politics.

In 1960, the state inherited an ancient mercantile tradition and a solid manufacturing base in the century-old, mechanised textile industry. After the reorganisation of the state, the Gujarat government extracted huge compensation for the loss of Bombay to Maharashtra in terms of schemes for modernisation of agriculture and industry, infrastructure provision, credit extension and technical education provision. The author documents how, in nearly every case, the beneficiaries were Savarnas who also laid exclusive claim to the political sphere. The rich co-operative movement in Gujarat, which traces its origins in the freedom movement and Gandhian principles, was appropriated almost exclusively by the dominant castes with some exceptions of the cooperatives headed by Dalit and Backward caste groups.

The enriched and dominant caste groups were already looking for a dirigiste growth path when India opened its gates to the World Market. The state was pushed to shed and undo even partial measures for welfare and social protection and become a facilitator of growth for the industry.

Along with these factors, the rise of the BJP in Gujarat is also a tale of the revolt of the powerful Savarnas (upper castes), who controlled the state through their stranglehold over the Congress as well as the opposition that mainly comprised the conservatives, against widening of democracy and processes that pushed for a redistributive state. A distinct process in this trajectory was the attempt in 1980 by the aggressive Congress Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki to implement the strategy devised by the reformist, backward caste Congress president Jinabhai Darji to weave an umbrella support base of the numerically powerful Khshtriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim (KHAM) communities. Solanki assumed power in 1980 through aggressive wooing of groups under the KHAM umbrella, with a stunning majority of 141 seats in the 182-member assembly.

An analysis of this election and later events is key to understanding preceding and unfolding socio-economic and political trends in this coastal state. The Congress had put up 111 candidates from KHAM groups in 1980 and got 96 elected. The defeated and incensed opposition that mostly comprised the BJP and the Janata Party displayed a reverse of the caste dynamics reflected in the Congress’s selection of candidates. Thirty one opposition MLAs were from non-KHAM groups including 22 Patidars, a landed and economically prosperous community popularly referred to as Patels. Madhavsinh Solanki naturally assumed his electoral triumph as a ratification of the backward caste assertion. His Cabinet was populated predominantly by KHAM members and the government board and corporations, a major patronage source for politicians across the country, were dominated by KHAM groups.

The Savarnas revolted almost spontaneously. Students of the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy Medical College started a strike against a roster system in postgraduate courses that allowed unfilled reserved seats to be carried forward into the next year and also allowed for interchangeability between unoccupied seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). Violence started and soon spread to Dalit and Muslim tenements and industrial workers’ settlements in 18 of the 19 districts in the state. The author quotes a commission of enquiry having implicated members of the BJP and its students’ wing, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in the violence.

Despite this, Solanki went ahead and announced 28 per cent reservation for OBCs in 1985 with an eye on the upcoming elections. Protests once again erupted in university campuses and when Solanki won again by a thumping majority, 149 of the 182 seats in the March, 1985 assembly elections, the upper caste rage intensified. This time, the violence was communal, with Muslim homes, business establishments and religious places as targets of attack. In all, a commission of enquiry documented 220 killings in the violence of 1985 and classified 743 incidents as communal. ABVP and BJP were once again implicated. The agitation ended only with the resignation of the Chief Minister in July, 1985. The conservative, upper-caste Hindu opposition, notes the author, had won in bringing down a popularly elected government through street mobilisation.

The subsequent Hindutva upsurge with the Ramjanmabhoomi movement current passing through Gujarat in the late 80s and early 90s, and decimation of the Janata Dal by the untimely demise of its stalwart, the former Congress Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel witnessed consolidation of the political vehicle of Hindutva, the BJP in Gujarat. The question that begs an answer here is, if the majority of the poor/backward castes, Dalits, was still behind the Congress in the shape of KHAM, how did the party flounder so badly ever since?

The immediate answer is that KHAM, unlike its conceptualisation by the committed Jinabhai Darji, was not used as a vehicle for political mobilisation and empowerment. It became an electoral tool and was not allowed to go beyond tokenism. So, as is not uncommon in such affirmative endeavours elsewhere in India, the elite among the KHAM reaped the dividends of political power while the majority remained unaffected. Jinabhai Darji’s proposal that land be redistributed through KHAM cadre went unnoticed as the cadre itself became susceptible to the ascendant Hindutva that sought to undermine caste barriers and presented a pan-Hindu identity with a specific focus on a narrow, parochial strand in this province that is reflected in ‘Gujarati Gaurav’, ‘Asmita’, the pride of ‘Eight Crore Gujaratis’ whom the present Chief Minister constantly invokes as images of his own in the shape of his mask.

But the roots of the Congress’s present vulnerability, apart from the violent upper caste reaction to KHAM, lie far deeper in Gujarat. They are embedded in the constrained expansion of the freedom movement in the state and the continuing interference of the central party and the stalwarts, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Morarji Desai, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi in the affairs of the local Congress, with these leaders placing the party in direct conflict with the popular sentiment in the state i.e. Morarji Desai’s support to a bilingual Bombay that went against the Gujarati sentiment against being numerically subjugated by the Maharashtrians. Desai totally miscalculated that the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission about constitution of a bilingual Bombay state comprising Kachch, Saurashtra, Vidarbha and Marathwada would be acceptable to the mainland Gujaratis. Desai’s own prime ministerial ambition was furthered by the prospect of continuing as Chief Minister of such a large state as the erstwhile United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh), a mistake that led to the first popular upsurge against the Congress by an umbrella of the Hindu Right, farmers’ groups and even some disgruntled Congressmen in the form of the Maha Gujarat Janata Parishad (MGJP). The Maha Gujarat movement led to the creation of the boundaries of present-day Gujarat when Bombay Reorganisation Act was passed in 1960.

Such interference from the top routinely affected the affairs of the Gujarat Congress. For instance, Rajiv Gandhi’s desire to topple V. P. Singh’s government, which led a reluctant Gujarat Congress to support a Janata Dal government headed by Chimanbhai Patel, who extended support to Chandrashekhar as Prime Minister in Gandhi’s bête noire V. P. Singh’s stead. Chimanbhai Patel had been labelled ‘anti-poor’ and corrupt by the Congress in the run-up to the election. In fact, he was the chief target of the Navnirman movement against corruption in Gujarat. The Congress made no gains by supporting him as CM in the later phase.

An organisationally weak Congress lost its last socially progressive agenda in the withering away of KHAM while an already ascendant Hindutva in the state made a giant leap forward, first with Ramjanmabhoomi and then with Narendra Modi’s aggressive Hindutva mixed with a heavy dose of market reforms. If the spectacle is still surprising, read Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and the State: A Biography of Gujarat. It will give you a context and the reasons for the ‘shaping’ of the present day Gujarat. With apologies to Achyut Yagnik, I will not call it ‘modern’ Gujarat (Yagnik Achyut, Sheth Suchitra, The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva and Beyond).

Poornima Joshi is a Delhi-based journalist and associate editor with multi-disciplinary academic journal Social Change.