India's Search for National Spirit

What is India? Is it an Idea, an Imagination or a Spirited Nation?

Debates are raging currently among the intelligentsia about the national identity of India. Opinion writers repeatedly refer to it as the idea of India. The question of equating India to an idea or somebody's idea is misplaced and completely misunderstands the nature of nationhood in India. It also completely misses the notion of spirit of India that pervades every national action known in the history of India. Western notions of idea or imagination of nationhood is not suitable to understand the spirit of India.

The spirit of India rests in its cultural and religious heritage, which the colonial regimes and post-colonial socialist governments tried to shatter by writing history suitable to their purpose of perpetrating their power and supremacy, while disenfranchising the masses from their traditional culture and history.

Constitutional Day

National government recently introduced a new national holiday, the Constitution Day. While constitution day and developing national understanding of constitution may help develop and affirm national unity among the citizens of India, it cannot foster national spirit. National spirit and common values of national affirmation could only be asserted by nurturing its cultural, linguistic, and religious heritage. 

Food, dance, music, language, religion and art are neglected at each stage of education. School education at various stages teaches language only superficially, while dance, music and religion are not part of school curriculum. Publicly funded Universities in India that teach religion, and arts (music, dance and painting) are less than ten across the country. Religious education in Christian and Islamic religions is offered in public universities and wide spread than Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. While numerous state universities host departments of Islamic studies in addition to numerous Madrasas run by Wakf boards across India, which enjoy generous grants of public money from the Government of India, Hinduism does not enjoy such support. Hinduism is the religion of almost 80% of Indians. China even though a communist state without religion teaches Confucianism in schools and supports Confucian studies at university level in China as well as abroad through creation of Confucian Institutes.

Indian Values of Nonviolence and Tolerance

Indian values of nonviolence and tolerance are projected as the responsibility and duty of only Hindus, but no such values are expected from other groups, especially Muslims. The opposition asserts and calls of ‘Hindu terrorism’ at its every public meeting and event, while staying mute in the face of acts of Islamic terrorism. While there is no evidence that any Hindu activist had ever landed in a foreign country akin to Mumbai attacks or Paris attacks to self-detonate a suicide bomb or shoot innocent citizens, opposition party continues to perpetrate blatant misinformation on Hindus in a majority Hindu nation with utter disregard for the sentiments of the majority Hindus of the nation. All citizens of India regardless of their caste must embrace nonviolence and tolerance. Acts of terrorism should be regarded as acts of war on the sovereignty of India and its perpetrators should be prosecuted in military courts not municipal or state courts.

Education Reform and Change in History Education

History of India had been treated as Lego building blocks set for far too long. Pieces of historical evidence were arranged and rearranged with utter disregard for understanding the true history and cultural heritage of India. Any one can obtain a Ph.D. in History without learning Sanskrit, or the language of the historical period they are studying, which compounds the problem of historical study in India and leads to misinterpretation of the historical evidence. India must revise its history education and include methods that require language training and historical methods.

India must begin rewriting its history incorporating new evidence and classical sources. Citizens of India have a right to learn their true history and cultural heritage.

Uniform Civil Code

Every citizen living in India must be subject to the same civil code.  It should not change based on religion, tribe and region. A uniform civil code is the requirement for any nation to foster the spirit of nationhood.

Religious Freedom

Religious freedom must mean the same for all religions in India: not something different for minority religions and majority religion. It should not change based on each religious group. Each minority religion has freedom to maintain its religious places worship and institutions. Hinduism and its practice is restricted by government and Hindu temples are maintained by government through endowment boards. Hindu temples are run as businesses charging for every service right from the time a Hindu devotee enters in to the temple. Resulting money is spent according to the plans of the government implemented by the endowment boards rather than serving the cause of Hinduism. Hindu temples must be freed from government supervision and run by Hindus themselves. State should not have any interest or interference with any religion. Each religion must be free to run its institutions and temples as it deems necessary. For a modern state to promote national spirit it is essential that the government is completely separated from all spheres of religious activity.

Equal Opportunity

Every citizen in India must have equal opportunity for jobs, housing, loans, and political positions. The current reservation system has failed to help lower castes and also the poor rural folks of India. Quota based reservation system in India benefits SC/STs (Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes) and creates wage discrimination against other castes of India. There are two issues with this reservation system. Firstly, it still uses and asks persons of lower castes to certify their caste at every stage reinforcing the use of caste instead of helping them proceed beyond the caste system. Secondly, the reservations are currently capped at 50% of all the educational seats in all the educational institutions, public sector jobs, and local bodies, central and state political positions. Certain OBCs (other backward castes) are still left out of the reservation system even though they are living in similar social and economic conditions. This results in periodical discontent and reservation agitations. India should lift its conventional reservation system and replace it with the more efficient affirmative action system that is based on economic status and be restricted only to first time college students.  

For India to move forward in the twenty-first century it is important to develop its national spirit and foster co-operation among its citizens.

Is It Time to Go Beyond Caste?

Is It Time to Go Beyond Caste to Determine Eligibility for Reservations?

India needs to adapt a new way to support economically and socially disadvantaged sections of Indian society than caste based reservation system. Caste based reservations have left millions of people across India helpless although it helped urban and literate sections of the society. India should replace caste based reservation system with class based affirmative action system similar to the United States of America. Affirmative action system adapted by the higher educational institutions in the United States has helped economically disadvantaged students of America, as well as the African-American and Latino students tremendously.

The new affirmative action system can also include preferences for both low-income students and the students who are first in the family to attend college. This system will help economically and socially disadvantaged groups and it might not also cause dissatisfaction among the general population, since first generation-students generally tend come from low-income families and may also be the only ones to attend college in their. Allowing the first generation students attending college to utilize affirmative action also might stop abuse of reservation system commonly noted since generations of the wealthy and successful SC/STs and BCs continue to use reservations, while their less fortunate brethren are left in a position of disadvantage.

Affirmative action program similar to the United States or a class-based action program will be more equitable and may also help rid Indian society of the caste system.

Indian government policies are solely to blame for the survival of caste in India in the twentieth century and for its successful continuation into the twenty-first century. Indian society would have moved away from caste in the last sixty-eight years since independence, if the government had not used it as a parameter to determine eligibility for reservations in education and jobs. At least, after seventy years of Indian independence, hopefully, Indian government would come forward with a policy to help economically and socially weaker sections, but move away from the caste system at the same time.  

Caste is an Outdated Parameter to Determine Backwardness

Caste is an Outdated Parameter to Determine Social Backwardness and Underdevelopment

Government of India used caste as a parameter to assign social programs for almost seventy years after independence. People of lower castes have enjoyed free education, caste based admissions programs favoring lower castes to be admitted in to educational institutions even though they had only sub par merit. The lower castes also enjoyed quotas in jobs, as well as promotions based on their castes. The reservations system has done miracles for peoples who utilized them. However, it has also left numerous people, especially poor landed caste people as farm laborers and workers on the country-side without much help.

Landed castes are left with small landholdings, often very small farms with very small annual per capita yield that does not support their families, let alone their educational advancement. Landed castes should also be allowed to enjoy the fruits of reservation system under the quota system. Landed caste regardless of ownership of land are the modern backward castes since they face discrimination at every level due to their poverty.

Caste should not serve as a parameter to determine the eligibility to quality for government programs. In the modern world every person living in poverty faces the same discrimination from educated and elite classes regardless of caste.

Asking someone for caste is meaningless in this modern world. Castes that have enjoyed admissions to privileged colleges, and jobs might find it hard to let go of the facilities caste provides them. However, it is necessary that caste should no longer matter for those living in poverty. Every farmer holding less than five acres of land or every person with annual income of less than Rs. five lakhs should qualify for quotas in schools and colleges, with no such preference extended in jobs. Providing equal educational opportunity should be the prerogative of the government. The young people should take advantage of the opportunities to perform to the best of their ability to quality for a variety of employment opportunities the modern world offers.