India is unnatural as well as miraculous: Guha

NT NETWORK
Posted on 2009-03-01
PANAJI- Describing India as an unnatural as well as a miraculous country at the same time, the noted historian and writer, Dr Ramchandra Guha on Saturday said that India, even after sixty years of its independence is undergoing a profound journey, where four revolutions – economic, urban, national and democratic – are simultaneously taking place; something which even the United States of America and many developed European nations could not experience in such a short span of time.
Delivering a lecture on the topic ‘Why India is the most interesting country in the world?’ at the ongoing D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas, at Kala Academy, Dr Guha said, “As a national experiment, India is unique, especially when the people had initially felt that in the capacity of a country she would fail immediately after gaining Independence.”
“In fact, many political experts and philosophers of their time had predicted that India would not survive after Independence,” he recalled, maintaining that the country still managed to exist and progress in spite of her multicultural, multi-linguistic and multi-pluralistic character.
Sharing images gathered by him during various travels around India, Dr Guha said that a small-time businessman from Rajasthan putting up a shop to sell pickles and jams, in the middle of a major book exhibition in Kerala, the state boasting of highest literacy by equating the literary exhibition to a mela or a fair, can happen only in India. “Then there is another image, which I saw during my visit to Assam,” he recalled, “It had a stadium named after Rajiv Gandhi, a park named after Jawaharlal Nehru and a library named after India Gandhi, all appearing one after another during the journey, with suddenly a dhaba (roadside eatery) called Punjabi-Amritsar Dhaba appearing out of nowhere in that North-Eastern state, as if to challenge the mindset of the particular government at that time, of naming the monuments after a single family.”
The third image which comes to my mind is passing of an unending train, as I was waiting at a railway crossing in Punjab, during my visit to the Golden Temple, Dr Guha narrated, adding that one of the bogies of the train had a mark indicating that it belonged to the Southern Railway, while the second bogie came from North-East Railway, and yet another one had its roots in Eastern Railway, a really puzzling phenomenon, which no other country could possibly display.
Speaking further, Dr Guha said that any anthropologist should regularly walk down the lawns of Boat Club, in New Delhi – except during the month of January, because of the restrictions imposed due to the Republic Day parade – and map the changing contours of various protests held at the particular location by different sections of people, for diverse reasons, which in turn would provide history of India as told from a single street.
In fact, the noted historian said, the years 1757, 1857 and 1957 were milestones in the life of India; 1757 witnessing a decisive battle in Bengal which allowed the British to settle in India, 1857 unleashing massive countrywide uprising against the British, which failed to achieve its goal and became country’s first war of Independence, and finally 1957, which saw second Lok Sabha elections being held successfully in independent India, reaffirming the fact that the 1952 elections was not a fluke and democracy had come to stay in the country.
Finally, Dr Guha said, India is made up of a number of interesting characters; the characters, which could have been produced only here and nowhere.
“The country had Palwankar Baloo, a talented Dalit cricketer, a left-arm orthodox spinner, who played for Hindu Cricket Team in Bombay during the initial period of the 20th century in spite of being stigmatised on caste basis and eventually went on to organise meetings between Gandhiji and Ambedkar, during 1932, when both towering personalities differed on the issue of separate electorate for low caste,” he recalled.
Dr Guha further said that India also gave birth to the Naga secessionist leader Angami Zapu Phizo, who demanded independence from India and led the struggle for the same from outside India, and finally received the grandest funeral ever witnessed by the North-Eastern region of the country.
“This country also gave rise to Dharmanand Kosambi, father of D D Kosambi, who left his family to first go to Pune to learn Sanskrit and then to Ceylon to study Pali, followed by his career at the Harvard University, and subsequently his arrival in India to write books on Buddha and become one of the closest associates of Gandhiji, before abandoning his life through starving,” he added.
Though as a citizen, one is exasperated at everything in India from corruption to bigotry, and feels that being a citizen of any other part of the world would have been much better, Dr Guha said, “However, any creative person is bound to feel that there could not have been any better place in the world than India, a country of great contradictions, which provides one with the joy of saying whatever he likes, without having to subscribe to any political party.”
Dr Guha also remembered D D Kosambi as the most influential historian of the country, adding that the best way to know D D Kosambi is through his works. An interaction with Dr Guha was also held on the occasion.