Sunil Khilnani's Idea of India
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www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 Sunil Khilnani’s Idea of India: An Ideological Critique on his Book The Idea of India (1997) Vinod Kumar Lecturer in English, BHSBIET (Established by Govt. of Punjab), Lehragaga, Sangrur. Literary theory has recently opened up radically new ways of reading. It can be stated that theory has de-essentialized the literary text by historicizing it. The present paper proceeds on the assumption that 'India' as a text is not an essential, timeless and unchanging entity, but a historically changing one. Peter Barry writes, “Many of the notions which we usually regard as the basic ‘givens’ of our existence (including our gender identity, our individual selfhood, and the notion of literature itself) are actually fluid and unstable things, rather than fixed and reliable essences” (34). The paper relies mainly on the insights made available in the theories of ideology to examine ideological formation of India in Sunil Khilnani's The Idea of India. The paper aims to study the ideological position of Sunil Khilnani writing about ‘India’; how does he ideologically conceive an idea of India as a subject of socio-historical and material conditions of the time. Ideology literally means the set of beliefs held by a particular group. It denotes forms of thought as a reflection of material changes in historical conditions. Hence it can be argued that ideology changes with time and conditions. The coiners of the term 'ideology', namely Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy and their friends, "assigned to it as an object the (genetic) theory of ideas" (Althusser 21). The Marxist idea of superstructure refers to "definite forms of social consciousness", such as political, legal, religious, ethical and aesthetic. Thus, Marxism views the function of ideology as “. legitimat[ing] the power of ruling class in society” (Eagleton, Marxism 5). Pierre Macherey uses the term "illusion" in his book The Theory of Literary Production (1966) to denote ideology. Ideology, as Althusser says, constitutes persons as subjects through interpellation. A subject's understanding of the self and the world depends upon several factors which include, as Marx famously pointed out, his/her material conditions. This process is mediated by ideology. Althusser says, “Ideology signifies the imaginary ways in which men experience the real world. .” (qtd. in Eagleton, Marxism 16). Ideology makes us happy by concealing the real conditions of our existence from our conscious awareness. Ideology is thus not only the expression of explicit ideas and opinions but it also exists in silences and gaps. Its function is to maintain the existing hegemonic relations. We are formed as subjects under the prevailing ideologies. From the Marxist perspective, the dominant ideologies are the product of the ruling class. So it can be argued to some extent that most of the ideologies are produced by the West in the world because we find that it is the West that is ruling over the world through hegemony, the power to rule with consent of the people being ruled, as stated by Althusser. Vol. 4. Issue-VI 341 Editor: Dr. Vishwanath Bite December 2013 www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 The ruling class rules through Repressive State Apparatuses (like the police, the army, administration etc.) as well as through Ideological State Apparatuses (like religion, education system, family, culture etc.) (Althusser 11-12). Ideology is therefore a tool to dominate the masses with their consent. The function of Ideological State Apparatuses is to create and perpetuate the existing system of domination and exploitation. The ISAs circulate the ruling ideology and thus reproduce the given relations of production. Clearly, ideology is not ahistorical but produced by the existing relations of production. It also has a material existence because it is consumed and practiced by its subjects. Ideology, however, does not reveal itself as ‘ideology’. It recruits people as its subjects by interpellating them as free. No author is entirely free to write. The writer, the writing and the publication are parts of an industry, as Walter Benjamin states. Writing is also the part of a wider structure which includes certain forces and modes of production. According to Benjamin, among other things an author helps to circulate prevailing ideologies. Capitalist business requires them to produce the commodities (called writings) to be consumed by the reading public. Critics and academicians are hired to teach how to consume the commodities (Eagleton, Marxism 55-57). The process of producing and consuming is overseen by a dominant socio-political ideology. Sunil Khilnani was born in New Delhi and grew up in India, the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia. He earned his graduation from Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1983 and PhD in Social and Political Sciences from King’s College, Cambridge in 1987. He began his career as a lecturer in 1989 and went on to become a Senior Lecturer, Reader, and then Professor of Political Science at Birkbeck College, University of London in 2000. He is the Governor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Trust, and has been awarded Parvasi Bharatiya Samman by the Indian Government in 2005. He is completing a book on India’s global role and prospects, besides continuing his research on Indian democracy and Jawaharlal Nehru. Khilnani’s book titled The Idea of India is focused on India as an idea on different stages of history. Khilnani writes that the India known to us is the result of various ideas prevailing at particular times, and he claims to trace the history of this idea from pre- independence and Nehruvian nationalism to the neo-liberal state of 1990s. The ideological formation of India undergoes a major transformation in the 1990s as the country’s political elite rapidly turns away from the socialist past to embrace neo-liberal capitalism. So, this book is the result of present historical and material conditions of the time. Khilnani provides the bridge between the nationalist and socialist ideological formation of India on the one hand and the later neo-liberal capitalist formations on the other. The book opens with an introduction (2003) demonstrating the difference between socialist past and emerging neo-liberalism in India. He discusses the arrival of Bill Gates in India and the enthusiasm of Indians for him. The historical difference can be noted that Indians struggled in past to expel East India Company from India while today the culture of European capitalists, open market, and privatization is being welcomed. He illustrates the face of emerging neo-liberal India. Khilnani argues that the “economic progress and the emergence of a middle class promote moderate and centrist politics, and as such Vol. 4. Issue-VI 342 Editor: Dr. Vishwanath Bite December 2013 www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 provide the conditions for a liberal democratic politics” (Introduction The Idea of India x). And writing about the purpose of the book, he declares that it is to execute the conception that provided the intellectual and practical underpinnings of modern India, that gave it its distinctive identity over the past half-century, and that kept it, unlike so many other new states, democratic, tolerant, and open-minded. Of the many possible ideas of India, The Idea of India makes the case for one in particular because it is the only one that can enable other ideas to emerge, and allow them to learn to live alongside one another. (xv) He claims to trace the history of modern India throughout his writing and perpetuates the neo-liberal India, which according to him, is more modern, free, flexible, and progressive. He also adds that the book is an attempt to “make clear why Nehru is so fundamental a figure in modern India’s history, and why he demands to be understood anew in this period of flux in India’s life” (xvii). The book is essentially a discourse of the celebration of Nehru’s role in shaping Indian economy and politics after independence and it provides the bridge between the secular socialist formation of India on the one hand and neo-liberal capitalist formation on the other. In the chapter titled “Introduction: Ideas of India” (1-14), Khilnani treats India merely as an idea of different minds at different historical stages, besides its geographical existence. He states that it is “constituted by politics” (9) at various stages of history. He refers to the ideas of popular thinkers about India such as Nirad C. Chaudhuri, V.S. Naipaul and many others. At the same time, he argues that history of independent India can also be studied as the history of state, because according to him, a new state called India emerges with independent India. He further asserts that “the performance of Indian state invites evaluation by external and comparative standards” (3). So, according to him, “[t]his book is an initial venture into the task of retelling the political history of independent India” (3). Khilnani claims to trace the history and formation of India as a nation state after independence. He describes Indian nationalist history after the British Raj as “a slow but irresistible erosion of the sand-castles of the British Raj” (1). He argues that all are not happy after independence and quotes Nirad Chaudhuri and V.S. Naipaul's disillusionment with India emerged after independence. He argues that this nostalgic vision of India is often reflected in various writings unthinkably and “a standard Indian response to this dull narrative bass has been a percussive nationalism” (2). He claims to analyze the history of India after independence as well as the narrative of it.