TASK OF INDIAN INYELLECTUALS

TASK OF INDIAN INYELLECTUALS

Problem of Indian intellectuals is that they want to change Indian political practices by western models. But such a vision is bound to fail. India's democratic polity has its own unique features  and within the country there are many local uniques. Macro ideologies are required to understand broader principles but local miniatures are important to be understood for comprehending reality in totality. One uniqueness of India's democratic polity is that it has been under the influence of Hindu religion from its starting days during India's struggle for freedom . Tilak used Hindu symbols to push democratic freedom movement forward and Gandhi had given the movement a strong religious and spiritual tenet. His emphasis on satya, and ahimsa had strong imprint of the Shreemadbhag Geeta. His support for the Khilafat movement was another characteristic.  Rank and file of the INC  was mostly from rural India and this support base was mostly religious in nature. A lot of local movements of broader  freedom struggle were organized by such deeply religious and God fearing people . But the distinctive feature was that except Hindu Maha Sabha and Muslim League no other major group which was even consisted of deeply religious people even tried to turn freedom struggle  a struggle for establishing religious supermacy. Indian freedom struggle was never a purely political exercise. It was simultaneously political, social, cultural, economic and spiritual movement. And after independence the politics   carried on by politicians of the pre independence  days. In independent India almost all politicians were those who fought for freedom in British India and after independence they continued to carry the values of the struggle days and so religion was essentially an integral part of the polity and governance of the day.one of the Independence. Even the Constitution recognized this and so the emphasis on religious impartiality has been made again and again in many Articles of the original constitution. Framers  of the Constitution were perhaps well aware that though during freedom struggle religion and religious symbols were used to unite the people, after independence when the independence would not  remain the goal and when the growth and progress with equality and justice would  become the primary objectives to be achieved  there might be comptetion among various groups of people  for the scarce resources  religion, caste, creed , language , region  might be used to unite people into various groups and subgroups and pressure groups . And so the Framers tried to avoid this situation by debarring religion, region, caste, sex , language etc from playing any role in the process of development in Independent India. Many  Articles in the Constitution speak a volume in this regard. 

      Their apprehension was not unfounded. From the beginning religion has been being  used  as a pressure agent to influence polity and economy for controlling scarce resources. Although Pt Nehru had no charm for religion, common and special members of the party  and the government and  leaders had so. As time passed leaders of various parties continued to ensure the continuity of role of religion and other factors. In this process the ruling elite failed to define the idea of secularism in Indian context. Secularism as such is understood as the system in which the state has no affair in religion but here in India the State could not dissociate itself from religion. Formal and informal methods and means have continued to be used by all sorts of politicians as religion was and is paying attractive dividends in electoral process. When electoral process was started in 1952 it was thought everything would evolve as the scheme of the Constitution but in that enthusiasm our political elite forgot one important lesson of the democracy and that is if people don't feel appreciable amount of enhancement in their socio-economic status religion substitutes the secular elements as a source of pride and satisfaction. Indian story of economic growth has been a story of growth of inequality. The country  started developing but her people did not feel the taste of development in sufficient dimension. This might cause disengagement of the people from the political process and so the political.elite which could not generate desired growth with justice and equality hastly and shrewdly shifted the politics to the plateform.of religion. Initially it was used to exploit the minority sentiment by creating an illusionary fear in the mind of minorities. This , in course helped to creat a sense of fear in the minds of majority. Thus in place of social and economic growth religion and it's sister sentiments captured the centerstage of Indian democratic polity.

    If this reality is comprehended the future course can be drawn by Indian intellectuals. One thing must be  understood. Religion can't be very enduring strategy of political success. This is the age of science, technology, information and media. This is also the age of prosperity. If people can be taught successfully that modern system of prosperity has nothing to do with false sense of religious superiority , and that religion has no capacity in modern times to give us prosperity and social status politics based on religious tactics can easily be defeated. But for this the most important factor is that a sense of such awareness has to be established first in the minds of people. And this is the task which is waiting to be accomplished by the Indian intellectuals.