Looking for Muslims in an Indian ‘State Nation’

Recently, controversy erupted when Raj Thackeray of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) gave an ultimatum to the Maharashtra government to shut down loudspeakers in mosques. Though his demand was framed as a ’social issue’ concerning ’noise pollution’, chiefly on trial was the booming sound of the azan, the Muslim call for prayer. Thackeray threatened that if the offending loudspeakers were not removed, MNS would “put loudspeakers in front of the mosque and play Hanuman Chalisa”. The statement needs some unpacking. By ‘threatening’ to play Hanuman Chalisa, Thackeray converted the religious mantra into a weapon, presumably imagining that Muslims will burst into flames when they hear its triumphant sound. More importantly, by posing his threat as a tit-for-tat response to the playing of azan, Thackeray betrayed his assumption that public spaces in India are, by default, Hindu, and any Muslim presence in them is an imposition which the Hindu may graciously allow, or not. Thackeray’s threat also undermined the Hindu nationalist claim that it is Hindu tolerance, derived from the Sanatana ideal of ‘Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinaha’, that underpins the famed Indian multiculturalism, aptly encapsulated in the phrase ‘Unity in Diversity’.

Radical Potential of ‘Unity in Diversity’

‘Unity in Diversity’, today, occupies a position akin to the beauty pageant cliché ‘world peace’ — it is, at best, a fanciful homily and, at worst, a cynical lip-service. Yet, it was once a necessary phrase for Indian nationalism. In the late 19th century, as Indian political leaders from various parts of the subcontinent tried to develop a nationalist political consciousness, they were compelled to look past differences in language, religion, dress, cuisine and most other aspects of daily life. These leaders were trying to counter a Colonialist discourse that tried to present Indian nationalism as a preposterous idea.¹ To do so the nationalists invoked a unifying civilisational thread that had bequeathed upon our people a distinctively Indian “set of morals and mental qualities”². Over time the idea of unity in diversity became embedded in our political culture, and even became mythologised. Among the eminent nationalists who helped sanctify the idea was Jawaharlal Nehru, who wrote in The Discovery of India,

Some kind of dream of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilization. The unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside , a standardization of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of belief and custom was practiced and every variety acknowledged and even encouraged.³

The civilisational ‘dream of unity’ of Nehru’s conception was sought to be achieved without foisting on the people an artificial uniformity. Quite the opposite. This was a unity that not just recognised, but encouraged, difference. The seemingly banal phrase thus had the potential to re-conceptualise nationalism, far beyond the narrow idea developed in 18th century Europe that demanded high level of conformity to a ‘national culture’. The European idea of nationalism is best described by Ernest Gellner who wrote,

nationalism is, essentially, the general imposition of a high culture on society… It is the establishment of an anonymous, impersonal society, with mutually substitutable atomised individuals, held together above all by a shared culture of this kind, in place of a previous complex structure of local groups⁴

A radical reconceptualisation, however, couldn’t be achieved by members of the Nationalist elite, a class that “came to (India) via the West and looked at her as a friendly Westerner might have done”.⁵

The romantic in Nehru might have appreciated Indian diversity but the ‘scientific’ Nehru understood that ‘objective economic interests’ were the only real interests of the people, and the only real differentiation between people was that of class. This ‘scientific’ understanding of History, derived from Marxism, gave ‘primacy to the economic’; political and cultural considerations were to necessarily follow economic logic. Based on his understanding of the ‘spirit of the age’, Nehru concluded that India needed rapid industrialisation which was being impeded by the colonial state. In its place was sought a centralised state power controlled by the Nationalists, which as a by-product would inevitably create in its image a uniform, secularised citizen, possessor of “full and equal rights of citizenship irrespective of religious, linguistic or other cultural differences”.⁶ In this ‘progressive’ vision, diverse cultures would be reduced to mere quirks of domestic life, devoid of any political significance.

’State Nation’ as a solution

A glimpse of what a radical reconceptualisation of nation-state would look like appears in Yogendra Yadav’s idea of the ‘state nation’ which accepts that political boundaries need not coincide with cultural ones, and that a political community can be imagined across deep diversity. Yadav first highlights that the presumed default model of ‘nation state’ is a relic of 19th century France, a place where “advocacy of federalism was at times a capital offence”.⁷ This model, in its attempt to match the political boundaries of the state with the presumed cultural boundaries of the nation, can lead to the use of social pressure to suppress alternative cultural practices and “coercion that might, in the extreme, even involve ethnic cleansing”.⁸

The ’nation’ in the ‘state nation’ model can contain multiple politically salient cultures. It envisions “not only multiple but also complemantary identities within a multinational, federal, democratic framework”.⁹ In support of this model, Yadav presents the successful cases on Spain, Belgium and India. In all these countries citizens have multiple, and yet complementary, identities — in India, for example, a 2005 survey revealed that only 15% of Indian citizens had an ‘exclusively Indian’ identity, while 73% felt connected to their state identities (to varying extents)¹⁰. Conservative nationalists, believing that national identities are mutually exclusive, assert that encouraging multiple identities will necessarily lead to separatism. Yadav argues that this is a ‘gross oversimplification’, highlighting that despite the high level of attachment to state identity seen in India, only around 20% of citizens privileged their state identities over their Indian identity.

Yadav credits the success of the ’state nation’ model to policies which “recognise the legitimate public and even political expression of active socio-cultural cleavages” and “evolve mechanisms to accommodate competing claims”¹¹, but at the same time encourage and require “respect for the common institutions of the state”¹². For instance, Louise Tillin has identified a “strong element of flexibility” in the Indian constitution, specifically highlighting Article 3¹³ as a tool for accommodating diversity that has helped strengthen the Indian federation.¹⁴ It is important to note that the kind of ‘politically activated’ socio-cultural cleavages that both Yadav and Tillin deal with have an element of territoriality attached to them — for India this translates largely to linguistic cleavages, with the exception of tribal and pahadi communities that adopted a similar political vocabulary to carve out states for themselves.

Yadav identifies different ‘ideal types’¹⁵ of societies based on the nature and articulation of socio-cultural divisions. Here, nature refers to the degree of geographical concentration and articulation refers to the use of ‘nationalist’ vocabulary. He, however, quickly sidesteps this discussion, choosing to focus on the ‘political strategies and specific institutional responses’ used for dealing with such divisions.¹⁶ It is implied that the strategies and responses are neutral to the nature and articulation of the divisions. However, all the examples presented in support of ‘state nation’ policies refer to identities that invariably have a territorial element.

Conspicuous Exclusion from ’State Nation’

Yadav’s narrow focus on geographically concentrated identities has the effect of leaving out the most explosive social cleavage in India, the Hindu-Muslim division, given that Muslims are geographically dispersed to a large extent. In the conclusion to his paper, Yadav makes all the right noises about rising ‘Hindu fundamentalism’ and the 2002 Gujarat riots, going as far as to recognise the ‘Gujarat model’ as a threat to India as a ‘state nation’. He does all this despite not discussing Muslim identity as a constituent of the ’state nation’ at any length.

One of the ‘ideal types’ that Yadav identifies but does not discuss is a society “where socio-cultural divisions exist but are not geographically concentrated and are not articulated in a ‘nationalist’ vocabulary”. This type is called a ‘multicultural’ society, as our author refrains from the use of the N-word. An obvious variation of this type — a society with geographically diffuse divisions which are articulated in a ‘nationalist’ vocabulary — has not even been considered. Perhaps implicit in this formulation, is the assumption that ‘national’ identities cannot form in a geographically diffuse community. This assumption, though, plainly contradicts the two-nation theory which resulted in India’s partition.¹⁷ Perhaps it is the painful history of India’s partition that prevents Yadav from discussing an independent and politically active Muslim identity, in the same way that he does regional or linguistic identities.

Whatever the reason, it is clear that Muslim identity has not benefited from the same ‘state nation’ policies that have helped create political space for other cultural identities. While Muslim identity in domestic life is barely tolerated, any display of ‘Muslimness’ in public is viewed with suspicion. As Hindu fundamentalism grows in confidence, every attempt is being made to stamp out any sign of ‘Muslimness’ from public spaces — be it hijabs in Karnataka or azans in Mumbai. As Hilal Ahmed notes in his book Siyasi Muslims,

Every aspect of Muslim life is problematized to create an impression that Muslim identity is an irresolvable political phenomenon. For instance, we are told that the birth of a Muslim child is a threat to the Hindu population; the madrasa education of a Muslim child is a symbol of separatism; the eating habits of Muslims are anti-Hindu (as Muslims eat beef); the married life of a Muslim couple is a social evil (as Muslims practice triple talaq). And, even the death of a Muslim is as an anti-national act (because Muslims occupy valuable land for graveyards)¹⁸

It is important to recall that regional and linguistic identities were once viewed with suspicion too. In the aftermath of the Partition, they were viewed as fissiparous tendencies that posed a danger to the unity and integrity of India. When the first National Integration Council was convened by PM Nehru in 1961, among the ‘evils’ targeted were ‘regionalism’ and ‘linguism’.¹⁹ It was only through the ‘political strategies and specific institutional responses’ of the state-nation model that these identities were mainstreamed in Indian politics. Muslims, certainly, have a much harder path since they carry the albatross of Partition (despite the fact that less than 9.5% of Indians could vote at that time), and since divisions forged in violence and massacre cannot be easily bridged.

A good first step towards including Muslims in an Indian state-nation would be to distinguish between a politically active Muslim identity and Muslim separatism, and understand that one doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. Just as a linguistic and a national identity can be complementary, an idea amply demonstrated in Yadav’s paper, so too can a religious and a national identity. Once this is accepted we may investigate the specific sites at which linguistic identities were mainstreamed and how these sites were closed off to the Muslims. The process will not be easy; it will inevitably be resisted by the foot-soldiers of Hindutva which depend on the permanent Otherisation of Muslims to “hide its ambiguities and internal contradictions”.²⁰ It is nonetheless the only way that a Muslim can exist in India, not just domestically but also in the public and political sphere, and not as the permanent Other but as an Indian.

(A follow-up article looking at the specific sites at which linguistic and cultural identities were integrated, and from which Muslims were systematically excluded, is in the works)

1. For example, Valentine Chirol wrote in his book Indian Unrestthat India was a “mere geographical expression” and that it was “an anti-thesis to all that the word ‘national’ implies”. Similarly, John Strachey asserted that “Scotland is more like Spain than Bengal is like Punjab”.
2. Nehru, Jawaharlal, and Sunil Khilnani. The Discovery of India., 2010. Print. p.55
3. Ibid.
4. Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
5. Nehru, Khilnani. p.41
6. Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. London, 1993. Internet resource.
7. Yadav, Yogendra. Making Sense of Indian Democracy: Theory in Practice. , 2020. p.109
8. Yadav. p.112
9. Yadav. p.125
10. The figures are from the State of Democracy in South Asia Survey 2005 conducted by CSDS. 12% of respondents did not answer
11. Yadav. p.112
12. Yadav. p.113
13. Article 3 of the Indian constitution allows the Parliament to unilaterally alter the area and boundaries of a state
14. Tillin, Louise. Indian Federalism. , 2019.
15. ‘Ideal type’ is a tool of analysis associated with sociologist Max Weber. It is a ‘perfect’ hypothetical model in which certain characteristics highly accentuated. Objects in real-life usually lie between multiple ‘ideal types’.
16. Yadav. p.111
17. Whatever one’s opinion about the validity of the ‘two-nation’ theory may be, it ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy
18. Ahmed, Hilal. Siyasi Muslims: A Story of Political Islams in India. , 2019.
19. The idea of National Integration is, incidentally, based on the ‘nation state’ model which views the existence of a uniform national culture as necessary for the stability of the state.
20. Ahmed, Hilal.