REFLECTIONS
Two flavours of nationalism
INDIVAR KAMTEKAR
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A visit to Jallianwala Bagh and Wagah raises questions about the transformation of national feeling in India.
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Photos: Hardip Puri and AFP
From hope to belligerence: The emotion and action is at Wagah, not Jallianwala Bagh.
THE cycle rickshaw driver assured me that I would be back in a few minutes. It was my first visit to Amritsar, and I had engaged him to take me to Jallianwala Bagh. Though he obviously wanted to earn more by driving me around further, his confident assertion — `yahan time nahin lagda'— seemed extraordinary. After all, this was a place every Indian schoolchild learns about.
Place of pilgrimage
This was where General Dyer ordered the firing that, more than any other single event, ripped the mask off the face of British rule, and changed the course of Indian history. By one estimate, 379 helpless men, women and children were killed here, and hundreds of others wounded, on April 13, 1919. As I paid the driver, I reflected that, for a student of nationalism, Jallianwala Bagh was a place of pilgrimage.
Walking through the narrow passage into the large garden, I found myself facing a little stone pyramid. It bore the inscription: "People were fired at from here". Opposite were various signboards. Some proclaimed that the area was "saturated with the blood of about two thousand Indian patriots", and "hallowed by the mingled blood of about two thousand innocent Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims who were shot by British bullets on 13th April 1919".
Other signboards, incongruous in tone, strictly prohibited the use of cigarettes, cigars, pan, tobacco, and narcotics, on the one hand and walking on the grass, plucking flowers, cycling, playing cards, football, volleyball, cricket, tennis, badminton, kite-flying and kabaddi, on the other.
Few people were around, even though it was mid-morning. Some policemen were chatting idly, occasionally scratching themselves. The Martyrs' Gallery was being repainted. The pool around the red stone monument was dry.
To attract attention, a few bullet marks on the walls had small wooden frames mounted around them. An eternal flame flickered near the garden's entrance. Next to it, a board announced that the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas had inaugurated the Amar Jyoti on November 25, 2000, and that it was "Indian Oil's Tribute to the Martyrs". In Jallianwala Bagh, almost literally, Indian nationalism has become an unsuccessful public sector enterprise.
At the border
The same evening, I took a bus from Amritsar's modern bus terminal for the one-hour journey to the Wagah Border. Once again, I was unprepared for what I saw. I had expected perhaps 100 people to travel to see the daily ceremony of the closing of the gates between India and Pakistan. To my surprise, the crowd numbered some thousands. Patriotic music blared from the nearby dhabas. Youths danced the bhangra. A master of ceremonies with a cordless mike worked the crowd. People shouted frenziedly. He had to warn them to stick to those slogans, which were prescribed and acceptable. When the Indian and Pakistani soldiers marched towards each other, the excitement was electric.
But for the audience, the performance was over far too soon. Its energy took long to discharge. After the gates had been closed, the crowd had to be repeatedly reminded that the event had ended, and had to be cajoled to leave. This, too, was a public sector enterprise, but a much more successful one than at Jallianwala Bagh. It was a spectacular show, full of sound and fury, signifying something.
Two different things
One may reflect that like most things, Indian nationalism is not what it used to be. Or that, in speaking of Indian nationalism, it is easy to forget that two different species are involved. One evolved in opposition to British rulers; the other has the government of Pakistan as its main target, or at least as its reference point. The choice of bad guys is different in each case.
Compare the commandments: "Feel you have been exploited", on the one hand; "Fear or hate thy neighbour", on the other. Anti-colonial nationalism was steeped in a sense of victimisation; Indian nationalism is now imbricated with aggression. Moreover, when Britain was the reference point, nationalism unproblematically invoked secularism; when Pakistan is the reference point, communal feelings repeatedly threaten to get entangled.
The nationalism that arose against British rule belongs substantially to the past: the nationalism that thrives on anti-Pakistani anger is, abundantly, the stuff of present politics. Anti-imperialist nationalism lies refrigerated in history textbooks: anti-Pakistani nationalism is often warmed by television channels, newspapers and magazines.
Past and present
Historically, the movement against British rule, inseparably associated with the Congress, lies securely in the kitty of one party. Handling a threat from Pakistan is a present concern with future prospects, a still open enterprise, in which other political parties can invest. Shares in contemporary nationalism can still be bid for and bought in the market: every bomb blast invites fresh bids.
Once confusion is cleared, an allegiance can be indicated, and a dislike declared. In India under British rule, we had the nationalism of Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo; in independent India, we have had the nationalism of Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The first brought independence and dreams of emancipation: the high points of the second were the military victory of 1971 and the nuclear explosions of 1998.
A generous, expansive political language marked by hope, gave way to a constricted language, marred by belligerence. In history, a butterfly can become a caterpillar: this is the melancholy lesson that, by the example of its own career, Indian nationalism teaches us. Many questions can be asked about the transformation of Indian nationalism. Let us leave this aside, and face a simple fact. The emotion and action is at Wagah, not Jallianwala Bagh. The desire not to be ruled by foreigners is wholesome; but anti-colonial nationalism is now a stale dish, long gone cold. It evokes the yawns at Jallianwala Bagh, while the new nationalism evokes the fist-clenching adrenaline at Wagah.
Ironically, while signboards prohibit sports in Jallianwala Bagh, at the Wagah border post something resembling a sports stadium has been constructed. The daily ceremony reminds you of a sports event. It is another matter that this sport leads, not to the sports field, but to the battlefield.
Costs of transgression
Compare, finally, the costs of transgression. What happens to leaders who break the rules? Visiting Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi in 2005, paying "respectful homage to the great man", L.K. Advani injected a positive note into the assessment of Jinnah. His words cost Advani his job as the head of the BJP. Visiting Oxford in the same year, Manmohan Singh made a speech asserting "that India's experience with Britain had its beneficial consequences too". He dismayed some professors, but left political parties and the public, indifferent and unmoved.
The writer is a Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru Univesity, New Delhi.
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