The Indian Ideology Paperback – 4 Nov 2013

Anderson's writing is impressive; fluid, engaging, and garnished with funny sarcasm. I would say this book (which is a set of three long essays) challenges you to rethink the romantic notions of the allegedly multicultural and democratic struggle for India's 'independence'. To do this, the author focuses on the various decisions taken at various points by the two most visible players of the anti-colonial struggle, namely, Gandhi and Nehru. The decisions are dismantled to reveal the problematic ideology that under-girded them. The ideology that Anderson illuminates is a toxic mix of Hindu nationalism combined with pretentious caste-blindness of the Indian National Congress. The BJP that emerged in eighties is thus shown to be just a more rabid variation of the Congress party. Ambedkar emerges as the one true visionary in this book. His quote, "Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path," kept coming back to me as I read through this fascinating polemic.

To conclude, this book will challenge everything savarna Indians have been brought up to believe about Gandhism, Independence, Partition, and post-colonial India. It provides a radical new framework for interpreting the current big issues of India, such as occupation in Kashmir and Northeast, and the evolution (not in a good way) of contemporary Indian political scenario.

Two years after publication, only two reviews of this book have been posted on Amazon.com. Both seem to be from people with a background in India. This is regrettable. Not only is this book lucid, incisive, and well written - a pleasure to read. It resonates with lessons for the world beyond Indian borders: it highlights adjacent possible developments in many modern countries.

Religion (the increasing role of religious sentiment), regionalism (the fracture of the national states in a mosaic of locally based factionalism vying for spoils form the center), and hidden repression (the increasing of state surveillance to quench opposition) are forces shaping India, but also countries where the political discourse of economic and social development as well as income distribution have been effectively silenced. India may be, in some ways, post-modernism in the making.

Democracy, secularity, and unity are the three pillars of the "Indian ideology." The book traces its intellectual origins, its establishment in the new Republic, and its evolution, or its transmogrification until today. The fresco is not flattering and the outcome, so far, less than heartening - if hidden in plain view of the international community. About one third of the country life under martial law, the basic parameters of economic and social development (education, health, women's status) are dismal, and the political system has not only become criminal and corrupt, but also semi-feudal, with dynasties taking up a good part of the political space and cooperating on the basis of collective egoism (pg. 168). All the while, it has failed to shake off the explicit dirigisme of the Raj (doubled as socialism), reinforced by the pervasive role of caste.

There have been highlights: the country has held together despite its infinite diversities. India is slowly breaking away from the rigid caste system, and it is beginning to address the issue of rural poverty (NREGA). The Supreme Court has taken on a novel role of pro-active conscience of the Constitution, and not just its interpreter (it has done so in a rather haphazard and frantic way).

Foreign relations do not figure prominently in the analysis. Understandably so. Having established itself as one of the leaders of the Non-Alignment movement, India has practiced equidistance between the blocks of the Cold War as a way to concentrate politicians' minds on solipsism (except for managing its position in respect of Pakistan). Its foreign policies were little more than vague nods to the prevailing winds of change.

The world is now at India's doors. On the one side it will no longer be able to avoid comparisons with countries like China (Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India), Mexico, or Brazil. It will faced international competition from them as its comparative advantage of speaking the English language fades (e.g. IT, and engineering). Whether India will want to be a "first tier" country in a multi-polar world, or whether it will content itself in the role of a swing-vote country (as today) is anyone's guess. Many of the hidden forces that will drive the country are exposed in this excellent book - a reason more to read it carefully.

This just might be the most important book written on India in the last 25 years. Diverging from the celebratory panegyrics of Ramachandra Guha, Patrick French, Edward Luce and others, Perry Anderson instead delivers an incisive polemic against the founders of modern Indian nationalism and how their ideological shortcomings helped sow the seeds for the malaise that is currently eating away at the republic often touted as the "world's largest democracy."

In a series of three essays, Anderson argues that the common trope of India as an exceptionally "secular, democratic, unified" nation is a politically engineered myth that conceals the sectarian and caste-based fault lines that have enabled the current system beyond reason. He goes back to the independence movement, showing how Gandhi's Hindu-oriented philosophy and Nehru's obstinate attachment to "India's natural unity" helped to create a political legacy that damaged India's future in terms of alienating the Muslim League (bringing about Pakistan), absolving it from any responsible discussion and introspection over the annexation of Kashmir and the Northeastern territories, and bringing about a smug self-confidence among the Indian establishment and its supporters over the success of a multicultural gigantic democracy. Such a self-confidence, Anderson argues, mask the severe problems afflicting the republic, be they the disenfranchisement of Muslims from a union that cannot separate its professed secularism from its devotion to the symbols and interests of its Hindu majority, the disastrous impact of caste-based politics that still leaves Dalits and tribals marginalized, or the ever widening gap between rich and poor perpetuated by an elite of upper class and urban middle class that is increasingly out of touch with the conditions of the bulk of the population.

These essays are not meant to be comprehensive nor are they to be expected to have in-depth discussions of every small facet of modern Indian political life and history. So there shouldn't be too much fury over what Anderson did or didn't leave out. What these essays do offer is a powerful outline of analytically fruitful suggestions for changing the intellectual framework for how historians and political analysts approach India and what changes have to occur in order to open the door to more radical and beneficial political solutions to the ills of the Republic.

I think this book deserves to be on every bookshelf given the importance of a the second most populated country (and perhaps the most complicated country) in the world.

There are some valid points made by the Author (many of which have previously been made), but his pomp and lack of understanding of the country makes this book rather worthless.

I quote,
"The “idea of India” was a European invention, as the name itself makes clear. No such term, or equivalent, as “India” existed in any indigenous language. A Greek coinage taken from the Indus river, it was so foreign to the subcontinent that as late as the [sixteenth] century, Europeans could define Indians simply as “the natives of all unknown countries” and use it to describe the inhabitants of the Americas."

Anyone with half a brain (and some schooling) would be able to tell the author that India's constitution starts with "Constitution of India. India ie. Bharat is a Union of States." Bharata is a term dating back to the Ramayana, which is atleast 3000 years old.

We can forgive the author for not knowing this factoid, but surely he can't claim to be ignorant of Columbus' quest for India through the West, which led to its eventual "discovery" ? There is even a term for Indian-Americans: "East-Indians" !

The author also believes strangely that somehow India wasn't culturally unified (except for the usual punching bag of 'caste'). Whilst Dharampal's works clearly undermine the nauseous propaganda, and subsequent demonization of Hinduism around the nature of the varna system, I'm starled by this claim.

If not anything else, their methods of 'seeking truth' via Meditation, and Deva-worship (ever heard of the Avalokiteshwara ?) would be enough to prove these claims wrong. Rajiv Malhotra's 'Being Different' goes more deeply into the unities tying together the Dharmic traditions. I wouldn't expect the author in all his arrogance to ever bother reading it though.