Ashis Nandy is one of the few intellectuals in India who captures the imagination of the reading public. In this interview, he talks about hollowed out constructs of socialism, democracy and the changing idea of freedom.
What is a cliché to you?
Let me think… One thing which has been said or used many times and therefore has lost its sharpness and therefore doesn’t really convey much.
So when we say India at 65, what is the biggest cliché about that?
(Pauses) That India is a democracy, world’s largest democracy.
Could you elaborate on that?
By this time we should have been able to accept that India is a democracy and demanded more from it, after 65 years. But we are not doing that. We are just happy with the idea of democracy though it has hollowed out and we have lost out on many fronts like freedom of speech, freedom of organization, freedom from torture, so on and so forth. Yet that silly cliché is repeated ad nauseam that India is the world’s largest democracy.
So how do we reimagine democracy or atleast the way we talk about it?
Yes atleast the way we talk about it because we cannot alter the Constitution… we can only make the public more aware of the fact that they are speaking clichés, that the Indian democracy has lost some of its charms. It has enormous achievements like the peripheries of society have gained a lot. The power structure has changed dramatically but this is accompanied by large scale larceny and misuse of the powers of the state.
What about the term socialism… the journey from Nehruvian socialism to Ambani’s Antilla?
Even socialism is a cliché. Young people are not enthused by it or even by Marxism.(laughs) In human affairs, any concept which is used repeatedly and is used to justify yourself loses its sharpness in the long run. It doesn’t evoke the same image that it did when it was first introduced in the public discourse. After 200 years socialism looks like a very tired cliché because we all know that it is not working well. Socialism now means only moderating the sharp edges of capitalism. That’s all. Its futuristic emancipator potential has been forgotten and I don’t think it captures the imagination of the present generation. So stop using these terms… even the term ‘progress’.
But if we talk about our founding fathers, these are ideas on which they envisioned the nation…
No, they didn’t put it that way. The Constitution did not mention ‘our’ secularism or ‘our’ socialism. These were all introduced during the emergency by Mrs. Gandhi and I don’t think Mrs. Gandhi was such a great thinker or a great democrat or a socialist that we have to take her seriously. She did it to score a political point. That’s about it. See… we did have a secular Constitution, a socialist Constitution but it did not say that in so many words. These words were introduced into the Constitution in mid 70s when civil rights were suspended by Mrs. Gandhi because she had to show the world that she was still running a democracy, still running a socialist regime.
So do you mean that these terms are so fundamental that they need no further reiteration by stating them?
No, I am not saying that. What I am saying is all words after a point get blunted and rusted and then if you use them, you have to remember that there are hundreds and thousands of people are using them to justify whatever they are doing. Soviet Union and China killed millions of people in the name of socialism. America killed millions.
When these terms lose the edge, what are the new battle lines?
The battle lines are different now. I think environment still enthuses the youth. I think the removal of hunger enthuses the young because that is a very vivid image. That there is hunger even after 65 years of socialist, democratic rule… So these words are direct and are not ideologically tinged. So everybody can join in.
And how do you achieve a hunger free world?
I am not saying that it can be achieved but yes that should be the goal. Whether they can do it or not, whether they want to do it or not are different issues. Whether it will be a slogan or not is also a different issue but I believe that everybody can think or contribute to removing hunger, directly or indirectly. Even the capitalists believe that if the cake can be expanded, people will have a larger share and it will have a trickle down effect. There may not be a trickle down effect but they think that way.
What would be the ideal way to achieve that?
Achieve what?
Trying to reach a state with more equity…
That is everybody’s position. Eveybody wants to achieve that. I do not need to have a take on that.
But how should the youth negotiate these varied positions and work towards achieving equity?
I don’t know and I don’t prescribe anything. It is for you to find out, for them to find out. My days are past. I am 75 and this is not an age when I should advise the youth.
Let’s get to another term – secularism. Is it a cliché?
Not just in our country. Already people like William Conolly, Charles Taylor, Jośe Casanova,Agamben, all famous names, have expressed their doubts about secularism. Only I said it 30 years ago and when I said it, I was subjected to enormous abuse. Now that the Western scholars are saying that, Indians are listening to them like docile students and Indian scholars are also providing limited criticism of secularism. I don’t get exercised about all this. I understood many years ago that the days of secularism are out. In a democracy, you need categories on which people depend because they have the vote. They think.
For instance we use the term socialism just to retain our hold on power, otherwise do people even know the history of the word ‘secularism’? Do they know about the separation of the church from the state? Was Ashoka a secularist or Buddhist? And if he was a Buddhist, we need to find out what were his values, criterion for propagating his way of life. I am sure they were tinged with Buddhism and Hinduism. Was Akbar a secularist? Only secularist I remember was Jawaharlal Nehru. Kabir was not a secularist, nor was Lalon. I mean we have this fascination for borrowed concepts and like docile children, we go for pedagogical guidance from the West, even though we have done better in experiments of tolerance and living together, retaining plurality and diversity in this part of the world.
Finally what’s the idea of freedom to you?
The idea of freedom was different at one point. I was hoping for more positive freedom and more positive concept of emancipation. I didn’t expect wonders but like all young people I had hopes that vulgar instances of operations and violence would end, there would be no riots because after all you had produced 2 countries, that you would have a regime that would be committed to some kind of justice and equity, that there would be openness in public life. But the secrecy has increased, surveillance has increased in the last 65 years. So now I only expect a continuous battle to retain the freedoms that we have protected till now and expand its sphere, atleast to start with the area of knowledge, information and protection of basic human rights. Someone should not be just be put in jail for protecting these rights. Arts and culture also… now any Tom, Dick or Harry claims that he has an opinion on art. It will be a hard struggle but I think the country will have to do that. We did it during the emergency and one can do it again.
