A charter for liberal Indians: Liberals, it’s time to boldly and constantly assert your vision of patriotism – Times of India (blog)

Dear Indian liberals,

The photograph of a blood-soaked father of three urgently negotiating for his life minutes before he was beaten to death in a Jharkhand town, has horrified you. It reveals the impunity a mob enjoys when violence goes unpunished. Is the rule of law becoming only weak liberal wishful thinking in times of cow hooligans and enraged mobs enforcing street retribution?

The entire liberal project, youre being told, is apparently dead. This is supposed to be the era of macho patriotism in which those arguing for a dialogue with Kashmiri stakeholders or talks with Pakistan or those who question religious nationalism, are shouted down as anti-nationals and jihadists. Driven into silence by an anti-minority nationalistic fervour, the idealistic middle class, once the great bedrock of Indias freedom movement, is missing in action. The potential loss of idealism among the middle class can become a tragedy of monumental proportions. But its not too late to recover it if liberals speak up strongly.

Illustration: Ajit Ninan

Indian liberals, youre told that you belong to a small westernised elitist club and have colonised mindsets. This is not true. Numerous liberal protestors who down the decades have fought for progressive values have hardly been disconnected and exclusive. Those who stood by Tamil author Perumal Murugan after he was slapped with criminal complaints, rationalists like Kalburgi, Pansare and Dabholkar, those who fought for womens empowerment like Ela Bhatt, for farmers rights like Sharad Joshi, to deepen democracy at the grassroots like Sandeep Pandey and Aruna Roy, none of them were or are westernised elitists. The rooted salt-of-the-earth liberal is found in every Indian small town and city.

Indian liberals, your quest is individual freedom. Your ancestors are Gandhi, Tagore, Ambedkar, Nehru (who was a social liberal if not an economic one) even a C Rajagopalachari, all of whom believed in the individual over dominant state power. You would like to see citizens freedom enhanced responsibly and lawfully. You have always chafed at controls, both economic and social. You dont like theocracies or morality cops.

The nationalist Right-wing (like the ideological Left) believes in a gargantuan state machinery, in unbounded state power and in the states superior rights over the individual, as reflected in the attorney generals recent comment that You may want to be forgotten but the State doesnt want to forget you. The AG of a Hindu nationalist government sounded a bit like a Soviet commissar!

Indian liberals instead have always stood against rampaging state power and for individual rights. Those who protested against the Emergency, against the Anti-Defamation Bill, against bans on books and movies and those who campaigned for citizens rights, they have all held firm against brute state authority.

Liberals are called anti-national. But the greatest patriot of all, Mahatma Gandhi was Indias original liberal. Gandhi was always deeply apprehensive of state power and did not believe in enforcing his personal ideology through government agencies. A devout Hindu, he never wanted a law banning cow slaughter. For Gandhi individual rights of others were greater than his own beliefs. In fact, he had unlimited faith in the power and goodness of individuals, which is why he saw the freedom struggle as a lift off into personal as well as political regeneration.

To Gandhi, the means were always much more important than the ends. He called off the 1921-22 non-cooperation campaign because it descended into violence and failed to be the just means to a cause. For the liberal, means are always just as important as ends: because once the ends are achieved, the means shape the nature of the victory.

Indian liberals, dont let anyone tell you that you dont represent a mighty tradition. You represent the tradition of liberalism in the Upanishads, in the Bhakti movement and the one embodied by Gandhi and the Constitution. Its a heavy duty legacy that is neither confined to a small minority, nor elitist, nor westernised nor simply restricted to any political party. But with such a strong tradition why then are liberals losing out to the votaries of majoritarianism?

Thats because the liberal language has become mired in, as newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron pointed out, negativity and fear. Its become too focussed on denigrating and demonising opponents. Instead, the Indian liberal language should draw upon Gandhi and propose something positive, open and persuasive, a language that stimulates goodness and a sense of justice in every citizen and encourages every citizen to be her best not her worst self. It should encourage private enterprise, not crush or over-protect it and seek ways out of poverty for globalisations victims. Above all, it should recognise the freedom of every citizen to pursue his or her goals without harming others.

Liberal Indians, why should you be fearful? Above your heads floats the spirit of the founders of constitutional India, a spirit that has always opposed those who insist on dress codes, behaviour codes, romance codes, bans on free speech and restrictions on religious, intellectual, dietary and sexual freedom. Confronted with a control-freak state, once again its up to you to speak up against those who seek control of what you eat, study, watch, wear, speak or worship, in the name of their version of nationalism.

This is not the time to shy away or secede or retreat from the debate. This is the time to speak boldly and constantly on every current issue, and emphasise your version of patriotism, grounded in law and respect for all faiths. Its time to proudly say yes I am a patriotic Indian and I am a liberal.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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A charter for liberal Indians: Liberals, it's time to boldly and constantly assert your vision of patriotism - Times of India (blog)