MUCH like L.K. Advani’s Karachi speech on the ‘secular’ credentials of Jinnah, Manmohan Singh’s ‘appreciative’ remarks on British rule in India have raised howls of protest. Both speeches have variously been derided as historically naive if not incorrect, hurtful of national pride and politically retrograde. Assessments of personalities and historical processes often differ. What, however, is troubling is the virulence marking the speech of those who disagree, possibly bringing into question Amartya Sen’s characterization of India as a civilization which values argument. As such, we may once again lose out the possibility of re-examining received wisdom.

Both the prime minister and the leader of opposition have in their own ways, perhaps unwittingly, provided us an opportunity to interrogate some of our deepest complexes, those associated with nationalism and national pride. To be asked to consider the ‘virtues’ of Jinnah, popularly held as responsible for Partition and as an exemplar of the growing tendency of politicising religion for secular ends, is nothing short of anathema – not just for political Hinduism or the votaries of Akhand Bharat but even many secular nationalists. Similarly, to read the Indo-British encounter against the grain and locate the enduring, positive legacies of an undoubtedly brutal colonial encounter cannot but rile the nationalists, both of the right and left.

It is not often remembered that it was not just Nehru, often caricatured as the last Englishman, who was willing to place on record the positives of the encounter – not the least by forcefully arguing for membership to the Commonwealth. Even the Mahatma, when asked, ‘How far would you cut India off the Empire?’ replied, ‘From the Empire, completely; from the British nation not at all, if I want India to gain and not to grieve.’ And as the PM reminded us of Tagore’s memorable lines, ‘The West has today opened its doors/There are treasures for us to take/We will take and also give/From the open shores of India’s immense humanity,’ it is time that we move away from knee-jerk rejectionism and display some faith in our innate strengths as a people and civilization.

This is not to say that there is nothing to contend with in Manmohan Singh’s acceptance speech on the occasion of receiving an honorary degree at his alma mater. As historian Basudev Chatterjee points out, that it was probably preferable to be colonized by the British than be subjected to the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Belgians or the French, i.e., if at all. And not just because we received a head start in the learning of the English language. More importantly, the encounter introduced us to the virtues of democratic institutions, secularism and the rule of law – notions somewhat alien to native traditions, seeped as we were (and are) in caste, community and ethnicity. There is of course the downside of borrowing the British system of administration, the all India civil services and the rule of the collector, that few today see as a blessing.

More useful than carping about Manmohan Singh’s selective use of quotations or the historical accuracy of his assessments would be for us to assess how the institutions, processes and norms emerging out of the encounter with the British have travelled in our society. Would we, for instance, be mistaken in arguing that the deep distrust the modern, westernized Indian displays towards institutions and values native has served to widen the divide between the rulers and the people. Few today understand or follow the maxim, ‘the rule of law’, described by cynics as more ‘the rule of lawyers’. And has not the contestation implicit in the Anglo-Saxon framework of jurisprudence helped convert us into a litigation-loving nation?

No encounter, more so in situations of asymmetry of power can ever be an unmixed blessing – be it in the realms of technology, markets or institutions. Even English, which today helps millions enter the global marketplace and make India a favoured site for BPO investments has worked as an exclusionary device for many more poor and marginalised handicapped by their low command over an ‘alien’ language.

What, however, is significant is that both the Advani and Manmohan Singh speeches are ‘coming of age’ statements, exhorting us to look ahead rather than behind. In Advani’s case, the effort was to nudge discourse beyond narrow nationalism and demonizing the ‘other’ – adventurous given his background and legacy. Manmohan Singh is only carrying forward the legacy of his doctoral work on trade, foregrounding the benefits of an open economy and society. In a situation marked by extreme acrimony on the processes of neo-liberal globalization, the prime minister has clearly signalled his preference. But to locate him in the Niall Ferguson mode of valorizing the Empire would be doing both him and us a disservice.

Harsh Sethi