R Jagannathan of FirstPost critiques Pankaj Mishra's recent article in New York Times. Well, I think I need to critique both!!!
First, Pankaj Mishra claims that there is a ressentiment within the Indian elites that is subterranean, which is potentially more dangerous than Taliban and ISIS etc. In reply, Jagannathan thinks that it is the West who is afraid of a revived liberal & democratic India who is about to find its Hindu-Buddhist-Jain cultural moorings, and that Mishra is just attending to pander to this fear.
There are a number of assumptions and arguments here, and I should disentangle and spread them out for clarity.
Arguments from Mishra are as follows:
1. The revival of the Indian political right-wing is part of a deeper cultural upraising, that includes the ressentiment against the West who cut the nationalistic pride of a rich culture into pieces in the past.
2. This cultural upraising is not only nationalistic, but also carries a threat of going beyond its current national boundaries. Mishra ends his piece with the statement that "one can only hope that Indian democratic institutions are strong enough to constrain yet another wounded elite from breaking out for geopolitical and military manhood". He is afraid that Modi or a successor could turn out to be any one of those wounded elite nationalists who has created havoc who are mentioned in his article.
3. This threat is much stronger than the other forms of extremism found in this world right now, due to the terrifying combination of modern state (that must include military too), nuclear technology & media. This is the conclusive argument from Mishra.
Arguments from Jagannathan are:
4. There is an equal ressentiment from the West (at least the liberal West represented by NYT, Guardian etc.) against an Indian revival. Jagannathan thinks that the lop-sided articles published against the Modi government in the liberal Western media is due to this factor.
5. People like Mishra, Arundhati Roy & co. has internalized the colonialized attitudes and does not want to let go of it. Hence the reason articles like this are being created.
6. The recent Indian politics is not showing up the rabid version of Hindu nationalism, but is a reflection of the fact that a large number of Indians are coming out of the caste & class mindset and trying to evolve a development paradigm.
7. The West is truly afraid of an Indian revival, much more than a Chinese revival because the intellectual challenge to the Western paradigm will not come from authoritarian China, but a liberal & democratic India who has found its Hindu-Buddhist-Jain cultural moorings.
I think that's the crux of both the articles. Now, let me look at each argument more closely.
I would disregard the points 4 & 5 straightaway. They are purely ad hominiem attacks and do not contribute to the intellectual discussion at all. Whether NYT & Co. are harboring some secret ressentiment against India, whether Pankaj Mishra is possessed by the Colonial Ghost is immaterial. The only relevant thing of these two points - that the West is uneasy about India - is captured in point 7. So, we are left with 1,2,3,6 &7.
Both authors agree there is a cultural element to the recent election victory of Mr. Narendra Modi. This is something only a naive, unobservant & unthoughtful person would contest. But, where they differ is the element of the aggressive nationalistic fervor.
While Mr. Jagannathan is right that Modi has only done the right pronouncements till now, and that we need to wait for some more time to conclude anything, I think he is missing the larger picture. If he agrees that there is a cultural revival happening in India (point 7), then it is unmistakably the RSS-version of nationalism. This revival got its best shot in 1992, and has ever been getting stronger. It is an indisputable fact that it was the RSS cadre that worked tirelessly to get Mr. Modi elected. It is an indisputable fact that there is an RSS cloud hovering over the entire political landscape of the victorious section of the country's polity. Modi's pronouncements or the absence of them are not very significant. For all his ambition, what if Modi just considers himself to be another karyakartha who is content to build a platform for an opportune time to exercise the nationalistic dreams, either by himself or by a successor?
So, the only relevant question is- how strong and deep is that nationalistic sentiment? Is it strong enough to attempt a cultural revision to the centuries past? Is it deep enough to aggressively pursue geographical ambitions? In a nuclear world & globalized economy, the field available to even the strongest of the modern states to express their nationalistic ambitions is very limited. But, in the context of Indian subcontinent (where three neighboring Nuclear states are playing an uncomfortable catch-me-if-you-can), even the mildest of aggression could have devastating consequences - both in terms of external security as well as internal social equations.
I don't know if anybody can know or predict this, but the ambitions expressed by some of the intellectuals and leaders from the extreme right are really strong & deep, and I suspect that, in the absence of a strong counterweight, Mishra's fears cannot be ruled out. He has put his hope in the Indian democratic institutions (and a Congress/Left/Kejriwal-Mukhth Bharat is not going to help that cause at all) and I tend to agree with Mishra's assessment on this point.
But, where Mishra might have overstated his case would be in thinking that this is even more dangerous than the other extremists groups (Point #3). While it is true that a Nuclear bomb is not handy to them right now, let us not forget that there is a Nuclear-armed state that is slowly imploding into the hands of God-knows-who. An extremist Khalifah-ruled modern state with sufficient armory is not an impossibility at all, and is definitely as threatening as any other kind of nationalistic threats the world has ever seen. And it is more real and present as compared to an Akhand-Bharat military movement.
I would also strongly question the point#7 raised by Jagannathan. The West is right now a Post-Christian world, and that is a reality that the Indian intellectuals often miss. Today's West is not a holy book-driven religious culture (the last battle in the cultural war in the West is being fought in the USA, and it will end soon with a couple of more Democratic terms). The culture that catapulted the West into world dominion is losing the internal cultural war. And the liberal media led by NYT, Guardian etc. are indeed on the side of the victorious culture, which is, by definition, a long term self-destructing hedonistic culture. So, the question really is: is the Hedonistic culture from the West is afraid of an Indian revival? Yes, it will be if that revival is accompanied by the revival of the old Hindu/Buddhist/Jain religious traditions. But, in that case, India itself will cease to be a liberal state contrary to Jagannathan's expectations. On the other hand, if India remain a liberal state, there is no reason for NYT & Co. to be afraid of an Indian revival. In fact, the only reason why we see articles like Mishra's is because they are afraid that India will cease to be liberal. So, this is what Jagannathan misses in the Mishra article. Mishra is afraid of an India revival NOT as a soldier of the world-dominating Western culture, BUT as the soldier of a liberal hedonistic culture.
First, Pankaj Mishra claims that there is a ressentiment within the Indian elites that is subterranean, which is potentially more dangerous than Taliban and ISIS etc. In reply, Jagannathan thinks that it is the West who is afraid of a revived liberal & democratic India who is about to find its Hindu-Buddhist-Jain cultural moorings, and that Mishra is just attending to pander to this fear.
There are a number of assumptions and arguments here, and I should disentangle and spread them out for clarity.
Arguments from Mishra are as follows:
1. The revival of the Indian political right-wing is part of a deeper cultural upraising, that includes the ressentiment against the West who cut the nationalistic pride of a rich culture into pieces in the past.
2. This cultural upraising is not only nationalistic, but also carries a threat of going beyond its current national boundaries. Mishra ends his piece with the statement that "one can only hope that Indian democratic institutions are strong enough to constrain yet another wounded elite from breaking out for geopolitical and military manhood". He is afraid that Modi or a successor could turn out to be any one of those wounded elite nationalists who has created havoc who are mentioned in his article.
3. This threat is much stronger than the other forms of extremism found in this world right now, due to the terrifying combination of modern state (that must include military too), nuclear technology & media. This is the conclusive argument from Mishra.
Arguments from Jagannathan are:
4. There is an equal ressentiment from the West (at least the liberal West represented by NYT, Guardian etc.) against an Indian revival. Jagannathan thinks that the lop-sided articles published against the Modi government in the liberal Western media is due to this factor.
5. People like Mishra, Arundhati Roy & co. has internalized the colonialized attitudes and does not want to let go of it. Hence the reason articles like this are being created.
6. The recent Indian politics is not showing up the rabid version of Hindu nationalism, but is a reflection of the fact that a large number of Indians are coming out of the caste & class mindset and trying to evolve a development paradigm.
7. The West is truly afraid of an Indian revival, much more than a Chinese revival because the intellectual challenge to the Western paradigm will not come from authoritarian China, but a liberal & democratic India who has found its Hindu-Buddhist-Jain cultural moorings.
I think that's the crux of both the articles. Now, let me look at each argument more closely.
I would disregard the points 4 & 5 straightaway. They are purely ad hominiem attacks and do not contribute to the intellectual discussion at all. Whether NYT & Co. are harboring some secret ressentiment against India, whether Pankaj Mishra is possessed by the Colonial Ghost is immaterial. The only relevant thing of these two points - that the West is uneasy about India - is captured in point 7. So, we are left with 1,2,3,6 &7.
Both authors agree there is a cultural element to the recent election victory of Mr. Narendra Modi. This is something only a naive, unobservant & unthoughtful person would contest. But, where they differ is the element of the aggressive nationalistic fervor.
While Mr. Jagannathan is right that Modi has only done the right pronouncements till now, and that we need to wait for some more time to conclude anything, I think he is missing the larger picture. If he agrees that there is a cultural revival happening in India (point 7), then it is unmistakably the RSS-version of nationalism. This revival got its best shot in 1992, and has ever been getting stronger. It is an indisputable fact that it was the RSS cadre that worked tirelessly to get Mr. Modi elected. It is an indisputable fact that there is an RSS cloud hovering over the entire political landscape of the victorious section of the country's polity. Modi's pronouncements or the absence of them are not very significant. For all his ambition, what if Modi just considers himself to be another karyakartha who is content to build a platform for an opportune time to exercise the nationalistic dreams, either by himself or by a successor?
So, the only relevant question is- how strong and deep is that nationalistic sentiment? Is it strong enough to attempt a cultural revision to the centuries past? Is it deep enough to aggressively pursue geographical ambitions? In a nuclear world & globalized economy, the field available to even the strongest of the modern states to express their nationalistic ambitions is very limited. But, in the context of Indian subcontinent (where three neighboring Nuclear states are playing an uncomfortable catch-me-if-you-can), even the mildest of aggression could have devastating consequences - both in terms of external security as well as internal social equations.
I don't know if anybody can know or predict this, but the ambitions expressed by some of the intellectuals and leaders from the extreme right are really strong & deep, and I suspect that, in the absence of a strong counterweight, Mishra's fears cannot be ruled out. He has put his hope in the Indian democratic institutions (and a Congress/Left/Kejriwal-Mukhth Bharat is not going to help that cause at all) and I tend to agree with Mishra's assessment on this point.
But, where Mishra might have overstated his case would be in thinking that this is even more dangerous than the other extremists groups (Point #3). While it is true that a Nuclear bomb is not handy to them right now, let us not forget that there is a Nuclear-armed state that is slowly imploding into the hands of God-knows-who. An extremist Khalifah-ruled modern state with sufficient armory is not an impossibility at all, and is definitely as threatening as any other kind of nationalistic threats the world has ever seen. And it is more real and present as compared to an Akhand-Bharat military movement.
I would also strongly question the point#7 raised by Jagannathan. The West is right now a Post-Christian world, and that is a reality that the Indian intellectuals often miss. Today's West is not a holy book-driven religious culture (the last battle in the cultural war in the West is being fought in the USA, and it will end soon with a couple of more Democratic terms). The culture that catapulted the West into world dominion is losing the internal cultural war. And the liberal media led by NYT, Guardian etc. are indeed on the side of the victorious culture, which is, by definition, a long term self-destructing hedonistic culture. So, the question really is: is the Hedonistic culture from the West is afraid of an Indian revival? Yes, it will be if that revival is accompanied by the revival of the old Hindu/Buddhist/Jain religious traditions. But, in that case, India itself will cease to be a liberal state contrary to Jagannathan's expectations. On the other hand, if India remain a liberal state, there is no reason for NYT & Co. to be afraid of an Indian revival. In fact, the only reason why we see articles like Mishra's is because they are afraid that India will cease to be liberal. So, this is what Jagannathan misses in the Mishra article. Mishra is afraid of an India revival NOT as a soldier of the world-dominating Western culture, BUT as the soldier of a liberal hedonistic culture.
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