This is a #BookReview of a book I wish I'd read a long time ago: @Ram_Guha's "India After Gandhi". If your Indian education was like mine, I think you'll want to read it. I also know this will irritate some of my Indian friends (but do read through). Here goes: [thread»]
Guha's premise is that Indian history has tended to halt at 1947 (or 30 Jan 1948). Everything after that is sociology or political science. He wants to fix that, and spends over 900 pages doing so. I found the book gripping and wanting more. »
My hunger was stoked by my so-called education in social studies. History and civics were about memorizing, not analyzing. I could name a 100 kings but not tell you what any stood for. We had a vague sense of an Indian nation, hundreds of miles wide but an inch deep. »
As an example, there would be no country if the Princely States still existed. How did they dissolve? The textbooks repeatedly credited Patel — in one sentence. The much longer, somewhat sordid history of this dissolution is told in quite a bit of detail here. »
Perhaps because of the fragility that the union was believed to suffer, the struggles of people far and near were completely hidden. What, say, was a Naxalite? My texts didn't say; the newspapers assured me they were bad people. End of story. »
What was going on in Meghalaya? What about the regions of Uttar Pradesh? At least Tamil Nadu I *sort of* understood, being in a Tamilian household. The rest were all "disturbances", "rowdy elements", and other euphemisms. When they were in fact profound struggles. »
The big one is, of course, Kashmir. There's a rather staid history of Kashmir presented by official channels. Its complex composition, the long attrition, the overlapping forces, the jailed leaders, the affiliations…all that was too dangerous to say out loud. »
The result is, I think, that the student is left with a profound myopia. Because the struggles here are not just of *regions* or their close proxy, languages: they are also of classes and castes and religious variations. It's a rich, dazzling milieu. »
Guha also breaks down the evolution of Indian politics through generations, identifying that each 20-year–period or so coughs up a new dominant line of division. But something remarkable also happens after Emergency. This really resonated for me because: »
The first election I saw in the US, I asked a friend about the process. He gave me his view on the two dominant parties. I was very confused. I was confused because the parties seemed to *stand for something*. This was a wholly new concept to me. »
You see, I had come of age soon after Emergency. Guha identifies this as the time that parties went from being about ideologies to being about personalities. There were no meaningful platforms or differences of philosophy. There were just … charismatic or divisive leaders. »
Guha points out that it was not always so (and, in many ways, it isn't now, again). In the early days of the republic, parties had clear ideological bents. Sometimes they were just defined contra the Congress, but that still meant an articulated platform. »
Finally, a major theme that Guha develops slowly and pushes on hard by the end is: What makes a country? He serially enumerates theories of statehood that India contradicts, then finds in these contradiction the source of India's strength. It's well done and also heartwarming. »
This book is organized in a thoroughly linear fashion. I think that is just as well. One could easily get too clever trying to spin narrative threads, and fail miserably. A temporal presentation, with frequent back-references, actually does very good service. »
Now for the book's weaknesses. Some are inevitable with a book of such scope, ambition, and length. But some are much harder to overlook. »
The big, obvious one is his immense affection for Nehru. It is popular now to vilify Nehru for various sins, both imagined and very real. Guha has no truck with such treatment. Some correction is worthwhile, but he takes it to an extreme. »
Essentially, when Nehru does a good dead, it goes unquestioned. When his actions are demonstrably bad, we are told how Nehru must have *thought* or *felt* differently than his act suggests. Essentially, he is so sainted he can only be misunderstood; he can never do wrong. »
More subtly, whereas most would put Nehru on the left, here Nehru is unquestioningly and entirely implicitly taken as the center. People are positioned to his right and (rarely) to his left, but he has no position; he's the pole star around which the axes revolve. »
Indeed, as politics has become increasingly heated in India, Guha has gotten increasingly embroiled in it. This makes his very name a litmus test. That is unfortunate; the book stands separate from his activity, even if they have a consistent philosophy, namely: »
Guha is very much a creature of the secular Indian project. I sympathize deeply. But in the cacophony of modern India, he reads both starkly partisan and brutally — but almost touchingly — old-fashioned. A smart reader can account for this; a partisan will find constant fault. »
The book also suffers from drawing overly on the very fields it tries to supplant, almost completely ignoring economics, science, and so on. Other than maybe two or three references to growth and GDP, there's nothing. The anti-Nehruvian, especially, will find this risible. »
In the end, I think these flaws are not show-stoppers. Most of all, it was a corrective and stimulant I much needed, and with each passing chapter I realized how much more I needed and wanted it. »
For instance, I have looked at the creation of several new states over the past 20 years with some bafflement, only loosely understanding their motivation (often in cynical terms): Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Telangana… »
Little did I know that they embody struggles from the earliest days of the republic! But, presumably afraid of separatist tendencies, concerned that the center would not hold, our texts hid them. And anyway, it would take too much sociology to explain their motivation. »
Guha ends on a positive note: that the union has never seemed more secure; the fears of splitting have vanished; a new confidence permeates at least some parts of the country. All this is quite right. »
Still, he sees dark clouds on the horizon (especially in a new chapter written for the second edition). By his metric, those clouds have grown far darker. Others see in them a new kind of light. It seems pointless to ask which of these Indias will "win". »
The pendulum will likely forever swing between these poles. But that India can have such a debate at all is a testament to the robustness of what once seemed so very fragile. For generations, observers have predicted its dissolution. It has proven them all very, very wrong. •
Here's the @threadreaderapp version, if you prefer that.
