When Scripts of Nationalisms are not Celebrated: Scenario of Recent Violence in India

The recent violence between two communities which recently engulfed the capital city of India claimed nearly 50 lives being lost and several hundred being critically injured. In addition people suffered due to material losses and mental health traumas. We generally consider mob violence naturally erupts phenomena, therefore, no capital punishment for the rapist during violence in India. However, it is a serious symptom that when violence becomes part of a political and ideological script, then its implementation is a political must. We recently witnessed this political-ideological sanction that has been coupled with administrative judiciary impunity. This situation poses a question, why does our society fail to look beyond religious and ideological differences even though we claim to live in a democracy and we have a constitution that uphold rights and value? Why we failed to develop a mass-psyche that upholds humanity beyond differences? This question seeks to investigate an in-depth analysis of culture, economy and political nexus that stitch together the fabric of a nation.


Review
The recent violence between two communities which recently engulfed the capital city of India claimed nearly 50 lives being lost and several hundred being critically injured. In addition people suffered due to material losses and mental health traumas. We generally consider mob violence naturally erupts phenomena, therefore, no capital punishment for the rapist during violence in India. However, it is a serious symptom that when violence becomes part of a political and ideological script, then its implementation is a political must. We recently witnessed this political-ideological sanction that has been coupled with administrative judiciary impunity. This situation poses a question, why does our society fail to look beyond religious and ideological differences even though we claim to live in a democracy and we have a constitution that uphold rights and value? Why we failed to develop a mass-psyche that upholds humanity beyond differences? This question seeks to investigate an in-depth analysis of culture, economy and political nexus that stitch together the fabric of a nation.
Analysing economic, cultural and political condition is one of the toughest jobs to be undertaken, since convolutions, uncertainties, opportunisms rule over ideologies, philosophies and values.
Analytical prediction therefore is not as easy to make as earlier but still symptoms of the society can be read and certain assumptions made. However, to a certain extent cyclic nature of history helps us to read and reflect on the present. This article discusses a vast topic within a simple logical framework, which has its own limitations. The framework for the discussion of this paper is as follow: Firstly, Indian politics function within a framework of ideologies as well as philosophies; on one side, those are used as a medium to gather public opinion and on other side to gather the interest of the few. Those are used in the most convincing way possible to influence people by the effective manipulation of people's feelings, emotions, identities and reason.
The major question, addressed by the ideologies and philosophies, is 'what does integrate people together as a nation? If we call that integrating factor/s as nationalism, then, what do we mean by nationalism? 1 ' Though this is a very old political question, still world turns around on this fulcrum. Political debate in the USA, unrest in Middle East, South Asia, Korea, Japan and others address this question every day in their politics, economy, culture and religion.
To understand the relevance of this question in Indian scenario, we need to identify the ideological and philosophical contexts and contentions between political parties. It is important to understand that in the Indian context there is not just one 'nationalism' but several. The major political frameworks that address this question, and define the meaning of nationalism are as follows: As per the philosophy each one defines, 'who is Indian' and 'who is not'. Even we feel at times our constitution is side-lined.
Thirdly, each view professes economic ideology. Though apparently all look same, with an exception of subaltern economies, they have differences. Discussion based on the framework set out above will give us a general picture of present day socio-politics, economic and cultural condition of Indian society.

Ideological Struggle or Confusion to Perceive a Nation
We live in the midst of ideological diversities and people belonging to different generations witness these diversities in different ways. A nation with good number of vibrant youths, many rich experienced politicians who mostly belong to older generations, and ordinary people, educated and uneducated, with gender diversities, various races, languages, religions, regions, and castes etc. will always have a problem here. Because they will always address this question in different ways. They have difficulty in perceiving this question in a unified manner.
Nevertheless, along with differences, we have bonds of unity, which are located through underlying principles, ethos, and values, which work together as a mechanism of integration. Our mechanism of integration historically as well as politically was developed and became an essential feature of the nation. It is more or less a conception rather than a definition. However, one of the best explanations of national integration can be found in the interim report of the sub-group on National Integration Council of India, which writes: "The concept underlying national integration, shorn of all verbiage is to attain a particular kind of consciousness in every citizen of the Republic of India which will enable him or her to feel that he or she, transcending the primordial divided of our ancient society thinks and acts as citizens of India first. This in turn means territorial identification with the whole of India. It also means primary loyalty to Indian nationhood and a refusal to agree to that primary loyalty being corroded or eroded by considerations of caste, religion, region and language.
In brief it (national integration) means that the citizens of India should be the promoter of the idea of nationalism based on civic consciousness rather than narrower consciousness implicit in our history and geography 2 ." what secular nationalism is meant for and looking at the practical side of secular nationalism will help us to appraise this ideology.
Historically nationalism as a concept can be divided in number of ways. S. Gurumurthy divided Nationalism into three ways 3 : firstly, as a modern term it has its roots in Europe; secondly, in a pre-modern sense nationalism was perceived as a consciousness: in the case of Jewish nationalism, the Jews were without a nation and Roman Eagle floated everywhere but Roman nation is limited, and thirdly, in ancient times the Indian nation was Bharat as one nation but multiplicity of states.
India as a nation is not merely rooted in an ancient sense of nationalism since that ancient sense was the creation of a small section of society and even calling a nation by the epic term 'Bharat' is an injustice to major section of Indians.
The spirit of nationhood of India abides in the constitutional bodies, which function in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution, which has its roots in modern sense of nationalism. In brief we can say India as a nation is not standing merely on muchglorified past based on domination and subordination but on the values which were shaped by contest and contentions. Majority of the third world countries adopted the idea of nationalism from the west but with their own emphasis, which ended up in projecting either a dominant language as national language, dominant religion as national religion or the culture of dominant group as national culture.
Indian Nationalism was understood/interpreted in different ways: Firstly, against the backdrop of colonialism, Nationalism was used predominantly as a political slogan for the political integration against colonial nations in Asia, Africa and South America.
Secondly, colonial policies produced religious nationalisms, the dominant form of which was termed as cultural nationalism.
However, cultural nationalists claim their origin from the epics.
Those who adopted the concept of civic nationalism implanted its values (liberty, equality and fraternity) within the foundation Ethnic nationalism refers to nationalism as determined by descent. Attachment are inherited and not chosen, representing the exclusivist element of nationalism. Ethnic nationalism was active on behalf of the high culture. Since there were not the required foundations and institutions in place in society, they had to create one from what they had. This was likely to be language, culture, skin color, religion etc., this paved the way for exclusivism in ethnic nationalism.
as the fundamental principles. These people were called secular nationalists over against cultural/religious nationalists. The term 'secular nationalism' has a unique meaning; Mark Juergensmeyer explains Hans Kohn used the term (secular) nationalism, as apolitical organization: "…in such an organization individuals are linked to a centralized, all embracing democratic political system that is unaffected by any other affiliations…the linkage is sealed by an emotional sense of identification with geographical area and a loyalty to a particular people, an identity that is part of feeling of nationalism 8 ." However, Nehruvian followers practiced it in different ways.
Though as a conceptitapparently looks good, in reality throughout these years, it is meant for a nation centred on Brahminic 9 -leadership, together with various sub-leaders emerging from lower section of the society.
This view accepted the premise that a nation is defined by a common culture, but not ethno-religious culture, along with other requirements. This can be well termed as Cultural pluralism or Multiculturalism. This pluralistic culture, which is common, was defined by shared historical experience and joint struggle to build this nation. It was also constituted by cultural elements generated out of inter-penetration of beliefs, values and practices.
The congress rules almost sixty years, with the ideology of secular nationalism and cultural pluralism/composite culture.
After around sixty years, there are many studies conducted to know the actual state of the people. One of those studiesis as follow; Arundhadi Roy details in her book, Annihilation of Caste: the Saint and the Doctor, after forty years, in 1990, "the writer Khushwant Singh, in his piece called "Brahmin Power," stated that: Brahmins form no more than 3.5 per cent of the population of our country ... today they hold as much as Economic philosophy also has a composite nature; it begins from socialism, then liberal and moved towards Neo-liberal, moved in between security state and welfare state. One side they globalized Indian economy and on the other side addressed its consequences through welfare measures. More beneficiaries of globalized economy is higher caste since they could easily climb the competitive ladder, however economy failed to address the real 8 It was grew up through a long period, spanning three centuries of intermittent wars, followed by peace treaties-beginning with Peace of Westphalia (1648), through the congress of Vienna (1815) Ibid., 31. 13 "Out of the four most important English national dailies, three are owned by Vaishyas and one by a Brahmin family concern. The Times Group (Bennett, Coleman Company Ltd), the largest mass media company in India, whose holdings include The Times of India and the 24-hour news channel Times Now, is owned by the Jain family (Banias). The Hindustan Times is owned by the Bhartiyas, who are Marwari Banias; The Indian Express by the Goenkas, also Marwari Banias; The Hindu is owned by a Brahmin family concern; the Dainik Jag ran Hindi daily, which is the largest selling newspaper in India with a circulation of fifty-five million, is owned by the Gupta family, Banias from Kanpur. Dainik Bhaskar, among the most influential Hindi dailies with a circulation of 17.5 million, is owned by Agarwals, Baniasagairt. Reliance Industries Ltd (owned by Mukesh Ambam, a Gujarati Bania) has controlling shares in twenty-seven major national and regional TV channels. The Zee TV network, one of the largest national TV news and entertainment networks, is owned by Subhash Chandra, also a Bania. (In southern India, caste manifests itself somewhat differently. For example, the Eenadu Group-w'hich owns newspapers, the largest film city in the w'orld and a dozen TV channels, among other things-is headed by Ramoji Rao of the Kamma peasant caste of Andhra Pradesh, which bucks the trend of Brahmin-Bania ownership of Big Media. Another major media house, the Sun TV group, is owned by the Marans, who are designated as a 'backward' caste, but are politically powerful today.)" Ibid., 33. struggle of the lower sections and they are all always at the mercy of welfare of the state, which functions through caste structure.

Religious Nationalism, (Hindu) Culture, Cultural-Neo-liberal Economy
The dominant Cultural/Religious nationalists found their roots in the epics. However, as an ideology it developed during British period. They argued that our culture is rooted in a religion called Hinduism-Brahminical Religion, and so India's nationhood must be defined in terms of a common culture, a culture configured by a particular notion of Hinduism. Religion is the major determinant of nationalism. Christophe Jaffrelot recognizes that Hindu Nationalism emerged at the forefront as a distinct political ideology around the turn of the century in the north and north-west part of India and it was theorized in the 1920s. He further argues ideological construction of Hindu nationalism is a cultural strategy to defend Brahminical hegemony 14 .
The entire territory of the subcontinent was the home of Hindus; this meant other communities whose religion had its origins outside the subcontinent could live in India only at thesufferance of Hindus. Political faction of this concept is BJP-RSS. Now they rule a nation, which lived about sixty years with different ideological stream; bringing all the nation into their ideological way of thought is the biggest struggle they have ever had. They use many means such as gauoraksha, love-jihad,etc.to control people. This view professes Hinduism as a cultural stream which flows through the nooks and crannies ofBharat, which has its colour and otheridentities. Being part of those identities and colour is the major requirement for a true national. They repeatedly emphasize dichotomy between 'national' and 'anti-national'. Devoted allegiance is called as 'national'; if anybody question he/she is called as 'antinational'. Here culture means nationalism and nationalism means culture. They promote religious and language-centred culture.
Economic policy of this faction, presently, can be termed as cultural neo-liberal economy. This term ispreferred here because Modi government represents a strikingly distinctive form of the Indian state shaped by neoliberalism which strategically evokes populist, traditional modes of cultural norms as a means of deepening market process.
Modi used 'economical issues' as a means to grab power in 2014, they highlighted 'black money' and succeeded in promoting those issues to the people with the help of major Media. Though, previous governments began to address this issue, it was too late and failed to get momentum due to series of scams along with media propagation. BJP knows tax-evasion happens everywhere in the world and the corporates as well as mighty middle men, who play big role in setting all the major arms and other deals, are the major culprits. They are untouched; to ensure that at the same time the common man should not get disappointed with the government's performance so Modi used another strategy 'ban all the high currencies' of the nation. Apparently, he tells it is to curb black money. In reality, he played another strategy to promote neo-liberal market economy and destroy all the local economies or allow the corporate world to handle all the transaction process of local economies. In a long run, they swallow local economies as well.
Here, we must read through programmes and regular rhetoric

Federal Nationalism, Cultural Federalism, Federal-Neo-Liberal Economy
Since India is a federal national state nationalism can be best termed as federal nationalism, which also can be termed by RajeevBhargava as coalescent nationalism. According to him, each cultural unit has potential to organize territorially. All these units see themselves as part of a larger, equally significant common culture, which forms the basis of coalescent nationalism.
Federal nationalism is not a dominant ideological-political formation. It is generally confined to few regions. It is represented by the fragmented communist, socialist, and regional parties.
We can term their nationalism as federal nationalism; this is an ideology of seeing the Indian Nation a confederation of various ethnicities, languages and cultures and sub-cultures. It describes decentralization as a necessary condition for national unity.
They promote cultural federalism and oppose anyemphasize on dominant culture. They promote cultural diversities. However, within a region it is caste-centric; either Backward Castes or Other Backward Castes (generally not Brahminism). Familism is another nature cultural federalism.
Economy is neo-liberal but they bombard population with feebees and welfare policies. It helps them to deactivate civil society from active participation. Thereby, the neo-liberal economy and its consequences are well protected. Political rhetoric is rarely on economic policies but based on fee-bees and cover-up programmes.

Subaltern Nationalisms, Counter Cultures, Subaltern Economies
When I use this term subaltern nationalism, I understand there is no competing vision that holds us together as a nation from the subaltern communities. This paralysis of the mind is linked to their systemic cultural, intellectual and spiritual destruction. However, many fragments from many buried past times can be linked together with the existing (past) subaltern ideologies of Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar, that can pave the way to a broad-based unity of Indian society based on egalitarian principles. For example, Mussahar community is one of the Dalit communities in North India, they are comparatively more in number in Bihar. They are classified as untouchable group. Being landless and in many cases homeless too, they used to wander from place to place in search of livelihood. But now they have started to build fixed settlements. Mussahar community is now part of Hindu Religion. However, they follow certain deities, who are mythical figures which belong to Mussahar community. Caste Hindus very rarely follow or worship these deities. It is interesting to note that some of these deities protested against the Hindu god-designed caste system. The major reason to keep these deities among them is to remember the act of protest. One of the striking examples of two human heroes who became deities is Dina-Bandri.
The single name Dina-Bhandri is actually the names of two men, combined, namely Dina and Bhadri. They were two brothers born to a person named Kalu, who was a Mussahar in Nepal. Kalu and his wife had the two boys in their old age after they received a promise from a deity that they would be blessed with two children. Both children were very healthy, as they grew up, they learned wrestling. Dina-Bhandri's statute or idol is placed in the middle of the village. Every year villagers offer worship with a lot of jubilation.
The village deity, they believe, is the protector of their race.

Concluding Remarks
The above analysis gives a bird's-eye view of the political and ideological framework of Indian society. The swing of the nation between these frameworks is well defined by the religiously-rooted psyche of the mass. Community-centred conscience/psyche always has a positive side; however, in the Indian context largely it works towards the opposite end. Knowing the condition, the political parties take advantage of the mass psyche andfail to rebuild or reorient the community. For establishing power, many political parties either use communal violence as its prerequisite or keep themselves away during the violence andbecome active after the violence. Nothing changes but time after time they cut and re-stitch the fabric of the nation.