I wanted to look at three aspects of Indian nationalism as we celebrate another Independence Day. The first is the anthropomorphic (meaning having human characteristics) nature of the Indian map as we have been taught it.
The figure of Mother India or “Bharat Mata” corresponds to the physical lines of the map and the nation is shown as a woman in a sari. The state of Jammu & Kashmir is the head of this figure, the narrowest part sof the peninsula in the south are her ankles and feet and the billowing pallu of her sari forms the north-eastern states. I can remember similar maps 40 years ago, so, clearly, they have been around a long time because they find resonance in the popular mind.
The obvious fallout of this feature is that any change in the lines on the map are not acceptable to the individual who has long seen it as human and in some sense alive. The map of India is not a set of lines and topographical features alone and it becomes difficult for the government to communicate changes.
The border question with China and the fact that a large part of Kashmir sits in Pakistan cannot be discerned from our official maps. The outside world issues maps which the Indian government spends time and effort physically correcting, printing official stamps on these to point out their offensive nature. But such maps are still very common and the media often angrily reports it when someone innocently uses them. For most Indians, the figure of a slightly disfigured Bharat Mata is offensive. She must be inviolate.
The second aspect one has to understand is the history of that map. What India inherited in 1947 was a colonial state that was aggressively expansionist, pushing into territory never held by the Mughals, particularly in the North-east. Not being held by the Mughals or their successors meant that these areas were secured under new and original treaties. Many parts of what we consider to be coherent nation were fought and won by the British Indian Army. This aspect is not taught to Indians and is the reason why there is such hostility towards insurrections in the area. It may surprise some to know that Mahatma Gandhi was not unsympathetic to the cause of the Nagas.
Today the Indian Army has little sympathy for a part of India which is held in similar fashion to the colonial era, and under the heel with the most outrageous laws. The Army operates with impunity and immunity not because of these laws, but mainly because the vast majority of India is fine with its actions, because in the popular imagination it is the guardian of our nationalism.
The third aspect is this nationalist nature of the Army, which is a myth. India had a mercenary Army which became overnight, at midnight on August 1947, a national Army. Pakistan also went through the same process. There was zero difference between the British Indian Army of August 14 (whose Punjabis of Baloch regiment and Nepalis of Gur-kha regiment shot down unarmed Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims at Amritsar’s Jallianwala Bagh) and the Army of free India that came to be on August 15.
The “Indian Army” has a long and, I suppose, proud martial ancestry. In the 4th century BC, Greek historian Arrian wrote on the campaigns of Alexander the Great, chiefly using the history written by general Ptolemy (who later founded the Greek-Egyptian line of pharaohs that ended with Cleopatra). The toughest part of the Macedonian Army’s campaign in Punjab was combat against mercenaries who were hired by villages. A century before that Herodotus reported that at the battle of Plataea, the Persian side had a regiment of Indian mercenaries. In the Mughal period, it is already known that from Jat to Maratha to Sikh, the Indian was available to fight for whoever paid the top price.
At the battles which signify “foreign” conquest over India, like Plassey or Haldighati, the majority of fighters by far on the victorious side were Indians. All of this does not sit comfortably with the warmth of our conviction that the Army is “nationalist”. All of this is not something that we are taught in our schools and those who learn of our real history are confronted by two opposed narratives that they must reconcile. It is unlikely, in my opinion, that these three aspects will change anytime soon, given the nature of our culture and its sensitivities. But they are the sort of thing that a columnist may write about to a small and discerning audience.
Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist
