ha

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arena where it is ensconced and the larger networks from higher-level political
processes that interact with the political actors of the local arena. An uncertain
state contributes to the uncertainty of the multicultural solution in the local arena:
the reverse is also true.27
CONCLUSION
In its attempts to understand the concept of multiculturalism in the context of the
post-colonial state in India and to examine the potential for its actualisation, the
essay has drawn on the religious and cultural plurality that underpins India's
institutions and her political process. A deeper analysis of the spirit of tolerance
and accommodation that characterises Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and the way
these values have influenced the development of Islam and Christianity in India
particularly after they have been delinked from state power is beyond the scope of
this essay. The point remains, however, that the Indian voter, given his sovereign
27
In reversing the judgment of the Bombay High Court which forbade the use of the word
'Hindutva' under the ban on the use of religion for electoral purposes, the Indian Supreme
Court came up with a landmark judgment. It cannot be said that any appeal for votes
wherein mention was made of 'Hindutva' is by itself sufficient to amount to an appeal for
votes for the Hindu candidates on the ground of their religion and is a corrupt practice or
creates enmity and hatred amongst different classes of citizens on the grounds of religion
and community . All India Reporter, vol. 83, 1996 April, pp 827. But the long arm of the
law would be available to intervene should any party use religious for the explicit purpose
of promoting hatred or enmity between groups of people (ibid).
SUBRATA K. MITRA 27
democratic right to define nation and state, has reinvented India's traditional
multiculturalism which has made it possible for people of many religious,
languages and opposing political views to live together during the past five
decades.
The Indian project of multiculturalism, fuzzy and implicit before independence,
and explicitly fuzzy afterwards, has drawn scepticism from theorists and men of
letters alike. However, the politics of negotiation and contestation that Indian
democracy has institutionalised has provided the requisite space in which different
communities have come together and made a concerted effort to add their voices to
the definition of the core values of the nation. The state has played a crucial role in
this process. When the state has succeeded in providing direction and fairness in its
role as arbiter in disputes, it has grown in stature and taken the project of
multiculturalism further. Its failure to intervene and suggest a way forward has
resulted in tragic outcomes. The accommodation of group identities and individual
rights has been crucial.
The sense of empowerment that India's traditional plurality and modern
democracy have provided to groups and individuals is the key to India's project of
multiculturalism. Both overwhelming power and its opposite - abject
powerlessness - hold the potential of bringing the project to a temporary abeyance.
Long before India's independence and the formal consecration of the multicultural
concept in the constitution, Forster gave voice to this relationship of power and
identity in an evocative scene towards the end of A Passage to India where he re-
enacts the theme of race and culture under colonial rule.
The Muslim Doctor Aziz, freshly reconciled with the English school inspector
Fielding, expands on his theory of how to accommodate Afghans in a future
independent India with its inevitable Hindu majority.28
India shall be a nation! No foreigners of any sort! Hindu and Moslem
and Sikh and all shall be one! Hurrah for India! Hurrah! Hurrah!
But that was not to be. Nature and race prejudice combine to foil what was meant
to be a reconciliation of the two friends. Forster's prescient comments capture how
the great chasm of power that separated the two friends also stood on their way
from meeting as fellow citizens in a common, multicultural space. Not fully
understanding the depth of Aziz's feelings and dismissing them as youthful ardour
of his earnest Indian friend, the British school inspector ridicules his sense of
nationalism which momentarily seals their separation.
India a nation! What an apotheosis! Last comer to the drab
nineteenth-century sisterhood! Waddling in at this hour of the world to
take her seat! She, whose only peer was the Holy Roman Empire, she
shall rank with Guatemala and Belgium perhaps! Fielding mocked
again. And Aziz in an awful rage danced this way and that, not
28
The talk of Indian Muslims would have been pre-mature, considering the location of this
novel in the pre first world war period.
SUBRATA K. MITRA 28
knowing what to do, and cried; 'Down with the English anyhow.
That's certain. Clear out, you fellows, double quick, I say. We may
hate one another, but we hate you most. If I don't make you go,
Ahmed will, Karim will, if it's fifty or five hundred years we shall get
rid of you, yes, we shall drive every blasted Englishman into the sea,
and then' - he rode against him furiously - 'and then , he concluded,
half kissing him, 'you and I shall be friends .
'Why can't we be friends now?' said the other, holding him
affectionately. 'It's what I want. It's what you want .
But the horses didn't want it - they swerved apart; the earth didn't want
it, sending up rocks through which riders must pass single-file; the
temples, the tank, the jail, the palace, the birds, the carrion, the Guest
House, that came into view as they issued from the gap and saw Mau
beneath; they didn't want it, they said in their hundred voices. 'No, not
yet , and the sky said, No, not there (1946: 289).
Forster's poignant passage emphasises the difficulties of achieving a multicultural
society under subjugation where overwhelming power of the English confronted
the powerless Indians. Once agency and autonomy were restored after the formal
end to colonial rule, India went back to a form of political transaction aimed at
communal accommodation. In the political space of India, it is possible today for
communities to form and dissolve, in order to re-emerge as part of other
communities. Seen from a distance and over time, political transaction has taken
manifold forms - ranging between voting and lobbying to protest movements and
ultimately, violent conflict. These in turn have produced knowledge of what leads
to violence, instilling in the process greater understanding and accommodation of
cultural and religious differences. Castes, religious communities and ethnic groups
are all impregnated by the spirit of transaction and coalition building. The result is
a significant empowerment of minorities.29 In India's multicultural society, the
members of different communities, castes and language groups have risen to the
highest levels, in public office as well as in sports, films or academia.30
Thanks to the salience of coalition politics rather than party competition, the
structure and process of Indian politics in the 1990s should have a familiar ring for
those conversant with the politics of continental Europe. In consequence, compared
29
When asked Suppose there were no parties or assemblies and elections were not held -
do you think that the government in this country can be run better? , 69% of Indians argue [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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