Left-liberals assist the state in slowing Indias

natural evolution from a discrete salad bowl

to a composite, dynamic melting pot

ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY has

written eloquently in these pages
that Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modis third consecutive election victory and his potential ascendance to a role in national politics
challenges the so-called idea of
India (Modi needs a Vajpayee,
IE, December 25, 2012). A great
debate is brewing in this context.
What is the idea of India? Should
certain groups have special rights
over and above the individual rights
that all citizens enjoy in a free, democratic India?
This is a fundamental schism
in political philosophy. While many
intellectuals have long argued for
the primacy of group rights over
individual rights, and the protection of minority interests, there
needs to be broader discussion on
how this mindset might atrophy individual identity.
An identity-based minority
group right can broadly be of two
types. It can either give the groups
members more liberty or enforce
more restrictions. Will Kymlicka, a
leading proponent of multiculturalism, has developed a similar classification he supports the former, terming them external
protections, and is less enthusiastic about the latter, which he christens internal restrictions. But
even external protections can be
problematic. Examples of such
protections in India include allowing members of certain groups to
have multiple spouses, or providing for special autonomy in
education. The question, then, is
why not extend this greater liberty to all citizens? If the rationale
for not doing so is that polygamy is
socially harmful, or that regulation
of educational institutions is
needed, then why be condescendingly detrimental towards such
minority groups?
Enforcing more restrictions
like restricting alimony or adoptions is worse, as it forces individuals to choose between the states
definition of their faith or official
apostasy. As Vrinda Narain argues
in Gender and Community: Muslim
Womens Rights in India, this discrimination dictates a system of
differential citizenship based on
ascriptive belonging.
The prevailing intellectual consensus that affords special rights to
minority groups manufactures
resentment in the majority community. This consensus offers no
comment on realities like state control of Hindu places of worship. It
correctly brands as communal an
assertion of majority group rights
that manifests itself in episodes like
the banning of beef or banning voluntary conversions, while tacitly accepting similar rights for minorities in the name of protection. Is
this secularism?
This double standard is principally illiberal. Labelling those asking for individual rights over group
rights as radical liberals or extremist troglodytes, while claim-

BEIJINGS NUKES
UNITED STATES President
Barack Obamas expected announcement Tuesday night (at the
time of going to press), in his
annual State of the Union address to the US Congress, on
plans to reduce the American
nuclear arsenal to about 1,000
weapons is unlikely to make a big
impression on China.
Beijing has long called for
drastic, verifiable and irreversible
reductions of the arsenals of the
US and Russia, which hold most of
the worlds nuclear weapons.
China, however, is unwilling to
make cuts of its own nuclear
arsenal at this stage. It has insisted
that other nuclear weapon states
should join the process
of reductions only when
conditions are ripe.
This approach leaves Beijing

ing oneself to be a moderate liberal, may be an effective rhetorical

stratagem, but it is a specious argument. Moreover, there is evidence
to suggest that such a standard
worsens communal relations
Steven Ian Wilkinson of Yale University has shown that increasing
consociationalism in India has led
to rising ethnic violence.
The tacit thrust of the propagators of this mindset is towards redistribution from the majority to
the minority to ameliorate discrimination, while ignoring that
identity rights pander to conservative elements that keep communities backward in the first place.
Moreover, Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker has shown that
in market economies, discrimination hurts even those who indulge
in it, not just those who are discriminated against. It follows that
in a non-market system, it makes
economic sense to indulge in discrimination. In India, it is rare that
those who bat for secularism
come out in strong support of economic liberalisation.
It dawned on Marxists by the
1950s that workers wanted to engage with and possibly reform capitalism from within and
not overthrow it altogether. In such a
scenario, theorists of
the New Left started
scouting for virgin
proletariats, based
more on culture than
class. Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt
School was one of
those who bridged
Marx with his
understanding of Nietzsche and others,
playing up the nonintegrated forces of
minorities, outsiders
and radical intelligentsia in his book,
One-Dimensional
Man. Integration
would mean capitulation to the end of
history. This furthered the scholarship on the compatibility of liberalism PRADEEP YADAV

THE TACIT thrust of the

propagators of group
rights is towards
redistribution from the
majority to the minority to
ameliorate discrimination,
while ignoring that
identity rights pander
to conservative
elements that keep
communities backward in
the first place.
and group rights in left-leaning
academia.
Left-liberals complain that
radical liberals ignore the reality
of individuals existing in a world
based on social intercourse. This
misrepresentation ignores the fundamental difference between the
state and society, between coercion
and choice. Indeed, Thomas Paine,
Alexis de Tocqueville, Mohandas
Gandhi and Deendayal Upadhyay
much leeway in responding to
Obamas latest nuclear initiative.
It allows Beijing to hold the high
diplomatic ground on supporting
the long-term goal of global zero,
promising to join multilateral talks
on nuclear reductions when it is
convenient, and leaving room for
its nuclear weapon modernisation
in the interim.
According to a report in The
New York Times earlier this week,
Obama has plans to work out an
informal agreement in the next few
months with President Vladimir
Putin of Russia to make deeper
cuts in their nuclear arsenals.
Under a treaty called New
START, which the two countries
signed in 2010, Washington and
Moscow agreed to bring down
their deployed nuclear warheads
to 1,550 each by 2018. If Obama
can get Putin to agree this is by
no means certain, given the cur-

l WEDNESDAY l FEBRUARY 13 l 2013

Why India must

allow hyphens

One versus group

HARSH GUPTA & RAJEEV MANTRI

13

THE OP-ED PAGE

TheIndian EXPRESS

www.indianexpress.com

In this country, undifferentiated citizenship is an ideologues or a

philosophers pipe dream with ghastly real-world implications

have argued along these lines as

well. As Jan Narveson writes, only
individuals can make decisions,
have values, engage in reasoning
and deliberation.
In our country where new ideas
are in short supply, such meta-ideological waltzing is rare. Our left-liberals assist the state in slowing Indias natural evolution from a
discrete salad bowl to a composite,
dynamic melting pot, lest what they
think of as the antediluvian, regressive right obtain political power.
The reasoning goes that majority
communalism is a bigger threat
than minority communalism, partially because of the formers conflation with nationalism. This is not
an invalid point, but many of the
mainstream rights controversial
demands for a uniform civil code
and repeal of Article 370, for example are not communal, but
liberal and nationalist. The
Supreme Court and the Constitution call for a uniform civil code.
Similarly, proscribing the autonomy of
individuals to sell
their lands to residents of other

ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY

HARSH GUPTA and Rajeev

Mantri admire Narendra Modi.
They find my positions on Modi
implausible, but worth engaging.
I appreciate the invitation to an
intellectual exchange.
Most arguments in support
of Modi tend to be economic.
Economically speaking, Modis
Gujarat is Guangdong-like, immensely successful and increasingly a darling of international
and domestic investors. It is easy
to admire Modis economics.
The speech at the Shri Ram
College of Commerce is the best
speech I have
heard on markets
as a source of
mass welfare from
an Indian politi-

DEBATE

and VHP will seek to push him

back, but he is astute enough to
know that to rise nationally, he
needs to move beyond 2002.
Gupta and Mantri situate
their support for Modi in political arguments, not simply economic. But basic disagreements
remain. They have made their arguments needlessly pedantic. The
core issue can be easily summarised. Our left-liberals, they
say, assist the state in slowing Indias natural evolution from a discrete salad bowl to a composite,
dynamic melting pot. A salad
bowl gives ample political space
to group identities: tomatoes, cucumbers, onions can all stay as
tomatoes, cucumbers and onions,
without spoiling the salad. A melting pot turns all ingredients into a
single whole. Identity groups become undifferentiated individuals. Not Muslim Indians, Dalit Indians or Bengali Indians, simply
Indians. There are three keywords here: left-liberals, salad
bowls, melting pots.
Let us start with left-liberals. It is a term marked by a
rapidly disappearing anachronism. It described Jawaharlal
Nehru best. Nehru was economically on the left, but politically
liberal. His promotion of state
planning, not markets, represented the former; his unflinching faith in democracy epitomised
the latter. Except for a few nostalgic souls in the National Advisory Council, those still marching
to CPM tunes, those admiring
Arundhati Roys travels to Naxal
lands and a few more, no one today is against markets. My own

DOES MODI want to

integrate minorities by
giving them space to
breathe and feel Indian
because India respects
their belief systems? Or
does he want them to be
undifferentiated Indians,
or Indians whose values
would be defined by the
majority community?
provinces, in the name of their
provinces autonomy, also violates
equality and liberty.
Liberals of all hues should
advocate for strengthening the lawand-order machinery so that no violence irrespective of its antecedents goes unpunished.
State welfare programmes should
be targeted to those in economic
need, and not bluntly based upon
caste or religious identity. The government also shouldnt have discretion on what constitutes offensive
speech, to prevent politicians from
fuelling competitive intolerance.
When the state has no discretion to pick certain groups as winners, fraternity is more likely to
prevail because socio-economic
intercourse, unlike political competition, is not a zero-sum game.
India needs more liberalism
rule of law, open markets, separation of identity and state not its
leftist perversion.
Gupta is a fund manager and
writer. Mantri is a venture
capitalist and writer

cian. The UPAs economic reformers have allowed Modi to

steal the thunder of 1991.
To my mind, the unresolved
and contentious issues about
Modi are all political, not economic. Unfortunately, isolated
exceptions aside, it is rare to find
support for Modi embedded in
political arguments. Every time
I write a column or express a
viewpoint online, Modis supporters respond with comments
that vastly exceed the bounds of
basic decency. The relentless
venom knows no embarrassment. Does Modi know that he
presides over a mountain of
crudeness and vulgarity online?
Partly in reaction, some of the
best Indian commentators have
begun to compare Modis support
base with that of European fascists in the 1930s. European fascism also emerged from the
womb of majoritarian democracy
and fury. My judgement is different. Modi of 2002 had fascism
written all over his politics; he appears to have evolved. The RSS

ChineseTAKEAWAY
C. RAJA MOHAN
rent lack of warmth between the
two the two sides could trim the
size of their bloated nuclear
armouries by a third.
China knows that further
negotiated nuclear cuts are
possible only when Washington
and Moscow sort out their
differences on missile defence,
which might yet take some doing.
Like Moscow, Beijing also
opposes the US development of
missile defences.
China is also certain that fiscal
pressures to significantly cut
American defence expenditure
are as much behind the logic of
deep cuts as the traditional frame-

work of arms control with Russia.

Much like the West that saw
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachevs
nuclear disarmament initiatives
nearly three decades ago as stemming from Russias economic
weakness, China could interpret
Obamas moves as reflecting longterm American decline.

ASIAN CONCERNS

IF CHINA is unconcerned about

deep cuts in American nuclear
weaponry, some among its East
Asian neighbours are deeply worried about the credibility of Americas extended deterrence.

position is that the post-1991 shift

in Indias economic policy was a
monumental breakthrough, not
only producing high economic
growth but lifting millions out of
poverty. Modi has by now become
the poster boy of markets, though
Manmohan Singh gave birth to
the new economic era.
Gupta and Mantri lend the
term left-liberal considerable
imprecision. They see many more
economic adversaries than there
actually are. Very few oppose
markets today. The bone of contention is whether markets alone
would lead to mass welfare, or
state intervention is also required.
Liberals like me find markets necessary, but not sufficient. India
needs greater play of market
forces, but the governments welfare, regulatory and public-goods
functions remain.
Let us now turn to salad
bowls and melting pots. Invented by Ashis Nandy, these two
metaphors have had a lasting impact on how we think about the
Indian nation.
Americas Asian allies, especially Japan and South Korea,
chose not to develop their own nuclear weapons, on the bet that the
US nuclear umbrella works for
them. During the Cold War, the
US extended deterrence against
the Soviet threat seemed credible
for Washingtons allies.
Today, amidst the rise of
China and its increasing political
assertiveness, many in Japan and
South Korea wonder about the
sustainability of US nuclear
guarantees if Washington brings
about rapid reductions in the
size of its arsenal.
Many American arms controllers dismiss the Asian fears
about extended deterrence as
overblown. But for East Asia, living through a historic shift in the
regional balance in favour of
China, deep cuts in the US nuclear
arsenal may reinforce their

Though often associated in

popular mind with the US, scholars of nationalism are clear that
France is the ultimate melting pot
of the world. There are no hyphenated identities in France.
Muslim-French, Jewish-French,
Arab- French are not categories
France allows; all have to be
French in an undifferentiated
way. In contrast, the US allows
hyphens: Irish-American, ItalianAmerican, Jewish-American,
Chinese-American,
IndianAmerican are all accepted categories. Moreover, the term minorities is highly prevalent.
There is no minority quota to be
sure, but affirmative action is
practised as an enabling provision. I routinely sit on admissions
and fellowship committees,
which consciously search for minority candidates.
America allows minorities to
flourish. The White House celebrates Diwali today. Yet America
remains strong as a nation. One
does not have to become a France
to acquire national purpose and
strength. Since the 19th century,
India has played with two ideas of
India: one that sought Europeanstyle nationhood, built on uniformity; another that sought integration of minorities via recognition
of diversities. Hindu nationalists
have always sought the former;
Gandhi and Nehru, whose ideas
won out and were finally enshrined in the Constitution, thought
accommodation of diversities
would make minorities secure.
They were not consciously thinking of the US, but their intrinsic
understanding was that India was
nothing if not diverse. They also
thought that imposing uniformity
would undermine India, not
make it stronger. In India, undifferentiated citizenship is an ideologues or a philosophers pipe
dream with ghastly real-world implications. It will unleash incalculable violence. Havent we
learned from the violent tragedies
of Europe in the first half of the
20th century?
A singular national identity
was also equated with masculinity
by Hindu nationalists. Vivekananda, whose sayings Modi
tweets, came to promote three
Bs for Hindus: beef, biceps and
the Bhagavad Gita. For Gandhi,
as also Nehru, Indias identity
could be soft and feminine. For
them, femininity was not a crippling evil; if anything, it was a sign
of inner strength. One did not
need beef and biceps to generate
national resolve.
Does Modi want to integrate minorities by giving them
space to breathe and feel Indian
because India respects their
belief systems? Or does he want
them to be undifferentiated
Indians, or Indians whose values would be defined by the majority community?
If Indians can be Gujarati Indians or Hindu Indians, why cant
there be Muslim Indians or Christian Indians?
The writer is Sol Goldman
Professor of International Studies
and the Social Sciences at Brown
University, where he also directs
the India Initiative at the Watson
Institute. He is a contributing
editor for The Indian Express
apprehensions about Americas
ability to sustain the regional
balance of power.

DELHIS VIEW

IN CONTRAST to some in East

Asia, India has every reason to
welcome Obamas plans to negotiate deeper nuclear cuts with
Russia. Like China, India has seen
deep cuts in the US and Russian
arsenals as an important first step
on the road towards nuclear
disarmament.
When Obama came to India
in November 2010, he and Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh
reaffirmed their shared commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free
world and called for meaningful dialogue among all states
possessing nuclear weapons to
build trust and confidence and
for reducing the salience of

View from
the LEFT
BAD BILL
CLAIMING that the government has ignored almost all the
basic recommendations of the
select committee, the Left has
indicated that the passage of the
Lokpal Bill in the forthcoming
Budget session of Parliament
may not be easy.
The way the Union government has treated the recommendations of the Rajya Sabha Select Committee on the Lokpal
Bill, it is obvious that the government is not serious [about] getting the bill passed... The draft
approved by the cabinet is bound
to be opposed not only inside
Parliament but outside as well,
the editorial in CPI weekly New
Age says. The editorial argues
that the delay in bills passage
will encourage those who want to
use it to sidetrack other, much
more serious problems, particularly the economic crisis.

POLITICAL DECISION

The CPI(ML) has criticised the

government for hanging Afzal
Guru. An editorial in ML Update states that it was impossible to see the execution in a narrow legal framework and miss
the political context and content that stare all of us in the
face. It claims that the
information of rejection of
Gurus clemency plea was kept
secret to prevent him from
seeking a possible judicial stay
on the grounds of the delay in
the disposal of his petition.
The Congress had earlier
said the Afzal petition would be
taken up after petitions from
earlier dates had been disposed.
Why was the queue suddenly
jumped? it asks. The fact that
it was a political decision to hang
Afzal Guru on the eve of the
Budget session with the 2014
Lok Sabha elections not too far
away is clear to anybody... Even if
the government were now to
show parity in execution, the
alienation of the average Kashmiri has been deepened immeasurably... it concludes.

GROWING INTOLERANCE

An editorial in CPM journal

Peoples Democracy focuses on
the politics of cultural and religious intolerance. The article
compares the present situation
with that in the NDA days.
High pitched communal and
religious intolerance dominated
the discourse at that time... Unfortunately, now history seems
to have travelled in a full circle,
it says.
The article refers to the
speeches made by Praveen Togadia and Akbaruddin Owaisi,
protests over Vishwaroopam,
row over the all girl Kashmiri
rock music group Praagaash and
West Bengal government preventing the visit Salman
Rushdie and argues that all
these are ominous signs that
threaten the unity and integrity
of our country and the secular
fabric of our society.
It adds: A desperate RSSled BJP, in its effort to regain control of the reins of government at
Delhi... is preparing to fall back
on its core Hindutva agenda to
rouse communal passions. The
consequent communal polarisation, it hopes, will deliver political
and electoral benefits.
Compiled by Manoj C.G.
nuclear weapons in international affairs.
This is not very different
from Chinas call for multilateral nuclear arms control at an
appropriate stage. The differences are essentially about timing and the list of participants
and other conditions.
Yet, there is no denying that
Indias disarmament policy
shares much common ground
with the stated positions of the
US, France, Russia and China.
This is a good moment for India
to actively intervene in the global
nuclear debate, articulate the
priorities and seek to promote a
nuclear consensus among the
major powers.
The writer is a distinguished
fellow at the Observer Research
Foundation, Delhi and a contributing editor for The Indian Express