A subject that was of general interest in the past, and although the interest may have declined, the theme of my essay is of critical importance to the present. I am referring to the right of the citizen to dissent – as part of the right to free speech. The right to dissent has come to be recognized as such in modern times, but its actual practice goes back many centuries.

However much we may wish it, Indian society – as every other society – has not been a seamless harmonious unity, with little or no contradiction. As with others, we too had our share of intolerance and violence, along with a clash of ideas. Dissenting voices were many. They had a much wider articulation in the past than we choose to recognize.

Let me briefly clarify what I mean by dissent. It is in essence the disagreement that a person or persons may have with others, or more publicly with some of the institutions that govern our pattern of life. Institutions have a long history but the right to question their functioning is recent. Earlier only the elite had this right but today it extends – in theory at least – to all citizens. In earlier times the right was often argued over, but did not become a public issue. Implicit in having these rights is the exercising of dissent where thought appropriate. This has an historical continuity even if its forms have changed.

In historical terms, the social relationship of earlier times was encapsulated as that of the lord and the subject. This has given way to a new construction in the form of the relationship between the citizen and the state. This historical change coincided with the emergence of industrialization and capitalism through the evolving of the middle class controlling the new technology, and was expressed in the new identities that came with the emergence of nationalism.

This phase marks an alteration in governance. Secular democracies replaced kingship, and representatives from all sections of society had rights of equal status. This helped to integrate the secular, the democratic, and the national. In a true democracy the right to dissent and the demand for social justice are core concepts. Since it includes all citizens, its inclusiveness requires it to be secular.

 

Since satyagraha was so integral a form of nationalism, let me say a few words about nationalism. In India, its initial and overwhelming form was anti-colonial nationalism, common to most erstwhile colonies. This implied the assertion of the free citizen ready to challenge political orthodoxies of various kinds. The construction of this identity recognizes that it is new, nevertheless it seeks legitimacy from the past. So history becomes crucial. As was common to most colonies, the colonial reading of the colony’s earlier history that contributed to formulating its identity was from the perspective of the colonizer. The colonial writing of Indian history led to the emergence of a legitimate anti-colonial nationalism, but also to two less legitimate forms – those of religious nationalisms. Less legitimate because nationalism ideally endorses a single all-inclusive identity whereas religious nationalism endorses a single selected identity that is not all-inclusive and excludes all but the one.

The colonial comprehension of India was founded on the two nation theory. James Mill argued in 1817 that Indian history was essentially that of two nations – the Hindu and the Muslim – and that the two had been permanently hostile to each other. Colonial scholarship based itself on this idea and its implications. This theory was also loyally followed by both religious nationalisms – Hindu and Muslim. The concept of the Islamic state and of the Hindu Rashtra, the latter based on the Hindutva version of history, are each rooted in the colonial understanding of Indian history. Each of the two excluded the other and each distanced itself from anti-colonial nationalism.

Anti-colonial nationalism however, saw India as a nation of citizens who, irrespective of origins and with substantially a similar identity, were all of equal status and were coming together in the demand for independence. It was all-inclusive and secular in its demand for a democratic nation state. It envisaged no primary or exclusive citizens as in the case of the two so-called religious nationalisms. Nationalism, if defined by a single identity, becomes majoritarianism.

 

Unlike religious nationalisms, anti-colonial nationalism did not exclude dissent, neither in its own evolution nor in opposing colonial authority. This was one of the differences separating anti-colonial nationalism from religious nationalisms. Anti-colonial nationalism incorporated various forms of opposition to colonial rule. The most striking of these was the satyagraha of Gandhi. It seems to me that it echoes in some ways the earlier historical concepts of dissent that surface at various times in Indian history. But my argument is less concerned with Gandhi’s use of these ideas in constructing satyagraha, and more with how they have been appropriated by the public. What explains the overwhelming response to Gandhi’s satyagraha?

I would like to begin on a personal note by speaking about how my interest was aroused. There was one occasion a lifetime ago, when I very briefly met Gandhi and exchanged half a sentence on a simple matter. In a curious way it came to symbolize for me the need to go beyond the obvious, to search for what I like to call the context of thought and action.

 

I was in school in Pune in the early 1940s. Gandhi, when not in jail would hold prayer meetings that we as young budding nationalists, made a point to attend. One evening I took my autograph album to the meeting and with much trepidation requested Gandhi to sign in it. He signed in the book and when handing it back to me asked why I was wearing a silk salvarkameez, adding that I should only wear khadi. I readily agreed and assured him that I would do so. But what did khadi mean other than it being a kind of textile, and in some way associated with Gandhi’s ideas? This question remained unanswered until many years later when, searching for the context, I began to comprehend the meaning of satyagraha – and not just the concept but how it became relevant to anti-colonial nationalism. Even more important for me was how and why did it resonate with the many who participated in the national movement. Without this resonance it would have remained just a slogan.

The events of the 1940s, the Quit India movement and the mutiny in the Royal Indian Navy, had their own message. Independence was imminent and the future was enveloped in debate. How would a colony be transformed into a secular democracy? What was going to be our identity as Indians, as free citizens? We would have a new relationship with the state – a state of our making. The constitution was in a sense the covenant between the citizen and the state, recording the rights and obligations of each. Hovering over all these questions were those concerning the methods that we had used to attain independence. What marked our movement as distinctive, it was said, was the concept of satyagraha.

 

Over the years I have asked myself why this concept became such a bedrock specifically in Indian anti-colonial nationalism. Predictably, it failed to find any place in the two religious nationalisms – the Hindu and the Muslim. These religious nationalisms converted the two religions into political agencies – the Muslim League supporting an Islamic state and the Hindutva version of Hinduism becoming the base for a Hindu Rashtra. In the politics of these, the chickens of the colonial interpretation of Indian history and culture came home to roost.

To understand the context, I would like to go back a little in time and briefly trace the flow of some ideas that I regard as foundational to Indian civilization. These have had a noticeable presence in Indian society for two millennia. Since religion has become central to politics I would like to look at the way in which we in modern times, have given shape to our religions and how this differs from the past.

In the last two centuries, Indian religions have been reconstructed largely along the lines suggested by colonial scholarship. This was seldom seriously challenged and therefore came to be accepted. The focus has been on belief, ritual and texts, with little space for analyzing the reach of religion into society. What social forms did it create or endorse and how might these have differed from what was there before.

When a religious teaching acquires a following, it establishes institutions that are initially places of worship – chaityas, viharas, mandirs, masjids, gurdwaras, churches. Monuments are not just architectural features. They exercise control over those that use them as places of worship, and as institutions of socialization bonding society to religious norms. At this point ideological support or opposition becomes a matter of asserting domination. This can be met by acceptance from some and dissent and disagreement from others, sometimes becoming protest.

Religions in India were generally not viewed as monolithic, and especially not so in their practice. Religion was articulated more often in the form of a range of juxtaposed sects, some marginally linked with existing ones, others distant. In pre-modern times the religion of a person was identified more often by sect or caste and less frequently by an overarching label of Hindu or Muslim. Even in the last century we saw the birth of a new deity in Santoshi Ma and a new sect following the Sai Baba.

 

However, colonial perceptions of Indian religions projected a different form. Religious sects that seemed similar were bonded together under a few distinctive labels. Thus the label of Hinduism included, apart from Vaishnavas, Shaivas and Shaktas, almost all others – such as Buddhists, Jainas, Charvakas, Sikhs. These latter actually originated from an opposition to Hindu belief and worship. Even as late as the sixteenth century the Buddhists, Jainas and Charvakas were regarded as alien by the brahmanas. Madhusudan Sarasvati lists them and also the turushkas – the name used for those that came from Central Asia and were Muslim – and describes them as nastika and mleccha. They were dismissed as non-believers because even if they worshipped Allah they did not believe in the Vedic and Puranic deities.

Within the label of Hindu, as defined by colonial scholarship then, some sects contradicted each other’s teaching and practice. The implications of this were ignored and uniformity was insisted on. The 19th century middle class interest in religion was largely confined to its own social boundaries, virtually unconcerned with the religions of what we now call SCs, STs and OBCs. Interest in the religion of these avarnas, those outside caste, was casual and of little importance in the definition of Hinduism or Islam or any other religion.

 

Not recognizing the role of sects, each religion was treated as monolithic and uniform. Nor was it recognized that every religion has adherents, but it also has dissidents who question its belief and practice. Serious contradictions have been resolved at times only by changes in the code and creed. Despite this, religious persecution was practiced, but generally between the sects, as for example, between the Vaishnava Bairagis and the Shaiva Dashnamis. Even now dissenting opinions can evolve into marginal sects that can find an almost unnoticed place in the spectrum of religious sects.

Sects shape the nature of Indian religions. Each religion is a collective of sects some of whom are proximate to the orthodoxy and some are far removed. Belief can be flexible and accommodating. Adherence to code and creed links religion to society in which caste plays a major role. This is true for all religions in India. For the larger number of people in the past, the sect was a legitimate religious identity. Hence the easy mixing of religious observances among a range of sects in earlier times, when all religious festivals were open to everyone, barring of course the Dalits. This form militates against a unified, monolithic, overarching religious structure. Caste and region had a presence in the making of a religion. Orthodoxy tended to gravitate to the core with dissenting groups at the periphery. Some degree of dissent was therefore always present.

Dissent takes various forms. In philosophical argument dissenting opinions are necessary if theories are to be tested and advanced. The presence of dissent was acknowledged and in more sophisticated discussions it had an assigned place in the argument. The recommended procedure, perhaps akin to some legal procedures, and to the dialectical method, was simple. The argument has first to state as fully and correctly as possible the views of the opponent – the purvapaksha. Then follow the views of the proponent – the pratipaksha. After this comes the debate and a possible resolution or siddhanta. This would have been the pattern in the many debates between the Buddhists and the Brahmanas referred to in texts.

 

The presence of dissent in religion is equally clear. Mention is made since early times of dharma, but of two parallel and distinctive streams, that of the Brahmanas and that of the Shramanas. Modern scholars have given the collective name of Shramanism to the heterodox sects of the Buddhists, Jainas, Ajivikas, and some even include the Charvakas. These were the dissident sects whose teaching was in disagreement with Vedic Brahmanism and later Puranic Hinduism. They denied the Vedic deities, the divine revelation of the texts, and the ritual of sacrifice. Brahman texts refer to the Shramanas as the nastikas, the non-believers.

The Shramana dharmas gave substantial attention to social ethics. This was expressed in their absolute commitment to ahimsa /non-violence, to compassion, and to working towards the social good. Social ethics were not absent in Brahmanism but became increasingly ambivalent with the influence of caste laws.

 

For the first few centuries up to the Christian era, Buddhist and Jaina sects had a well respected social presence and received royal and elite patronage. This however changed when in the post-Gupta period Brahmanism came to dominate the political scene. By medieval times Buddhism had been exiled from India but had become a powerful religion in Asia. Jainism was limited to western India and parts of the peninsula. By colonial times almost all non-Muslim sects were labelled as Hindu, even those that were not. The geographical identity mutated into a religious identity.

The dissenting ideas of the Shramanas were expressed in part by their beliefs and practices that did not coincide with Brahmanism, and their pattern of life being alternate to that of established society. Monasteries enabled an alternate way of life. They flourished on handsome royal donations, on grants from merchant donors and support from lay followers.

Shramanas as renouncers should not be confused with ascetics. The true ascetic performs his funeral rituals as a prelude to declaring himself dead to family and social connections and goes away to live in solitude. He seeks wisdom through meditation and searches for release from rebirth. It is a moot point whether Gandhi can properly be called an ascetic. That he was influenced by the philosophy of the renouncers would perhaps seem more accurate, and that is what I would like to argue.

Let me try and explain what I mean by the renouncers. Two dharmas are mentioned as visible on the Indian landscape, starting from about mid-millennium BC, and are referred to as those of the Brahmanas and the Shramanas. This gave rise to major debates. The Greek visitor to Mauryan India at that time, Megasthenes, refers to the two as the Brachmanes and the Sarmanes. The edicts of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka have many references to bahmanam-samanam, a compound term for the sects. The grammarian of Sanskrit, Patanjali, when referring to dharma mentions only these two, and compares their relationship to that between the snake and the mongoose. These were the dominant two with multiple sects not conforming strictly to either.

 

The early Puranas demonstrate the antagonism between the two in their hostile remarks on the Shramanas. In the 11th century AD, Al-Biruni describes the Brahmana religion at length and also mentions those that oppose it as the Sammaniyas. The second millennium AD witnessed the rise of a series of sects – the Bhakti sants of diverse Vaishnava and Shaiva and other persuasions. Many Sufi schools were also established and active. Some supported the rulers and some opposed the mullahs and qazis. There was much exchange of belief and ideas with the Bhakti sants. Their followers were a mix across the range of sects, at shrines such as Hinglaj and at khanqahs in the Multan area of southern Panjab and the Doab.

Dissent did not lead only to the founding of renunciatory orders; it extended to discussing religion as an agency of social norms. The dissent of the renouncers took diverse forms some of which were continued by the Bhakti sants. The views of Kabir, Dadu, Ravidas and others underlined social ethics, and questioned caste. We tend to set this aspect aside in our single-minded focus on religion alone. Historically therefore, there was a continuing multiplicity in religious beliefs with some sects clearly dissenting from established views.

Renunciation therefore became a parallel stream to the orthodox, ritual based patterns of religions. Religious institutions mushroomed through the patronage of the elite. There were flourishing agraharas and mathas as well as temples richly endowed and established from the late first millennium AD and continuing throughout the second. The Sufi khanqahs were equally impressive. Bhakti and Sufi teachers propagated much of popular religion. Folk literature and the poems and myths on local deities drawing from all religious traditions, are evidence of this. Renunciation and dissent take on something of a continuing counter-culture from earlier times.

 

The sects of the renouncers were open to all. They could and sometimes did question the dharmashastra rules, so they were open to all. The alternate society did not arise out of a violent social revolution but it envisaged social change as coming from a process of osmosis. It was essentially a way of stating and legitimizing dissent by persuading people to its ways of thinking, with an emphasis on social ethics and freedom to chose whom to worship. This freedom also imbued renouncers with a degree of moral authority in the eyes of people at large. Social equality and justice were demands that were not readily supported by established religions except occasionally in theory. The act of renunciation became an expression of dissent.

Foremost in the ethical code of most renunciatory sects was negating violence of any kind. The concept of ahimsa as physical violence is variously discussed and continues to be discussed. Is non-violence tied to bodily needs that might discourage violence? What was consumed as food therefore, was important to some, for whom the diet had to be vegetarian. Fasting was a form of bodily purification and control. But undertaking a fast even to death for personal reasons was not the same as a fast in support of social protest.

 

The articulation of protest took diverse forms in different cultures and societies. Unlike in China where peasant revolts of a violent kind were known, in India, peasant protest in earlier times, resorted to migrating to a neighbouring kingdom. We are told that kings feared such migrations since they resulted in a loss of revenue.

Urban protests took different forms. One of these was included in the repertoire of Gandhi. It was known by various names, one among which was dharna. Its success lay in its being undertaken by a particular body of people – the charan and bhat. These were bards, regarded as repositories of knowledge that was crucial to legitimizing the power of the ruler. This is another instance of people investing authority not in an officially designated person but someone viewed as respected and integral to society. Today, with social change, they do not perform their earlier functions, but recognizing their role provides a glimpse of how societies operated not so long ago.

Some activities of these bards were essential to power. Authority needs legitimation. The bards maintained the genealogies of the rulers, and occasionally of the important functionaries, through which they became the keepers of the history of the dynasty. They legitimized the dynasty through a claim to its history. The status of those in authority was asserted by the charan through alluding to the believed historical evidence of clan and caste. The charans themselves had a low social status, but since early times they had been treated as inviolate, and were called upon to arbitrate in disputes.

Authority is of various kinds. In some situations moral authority takes precedence over the political. It goes with the belief that a particular kind of person being what he is and does has moral authority. The charan had it. He would take up the protest of the people once he was convinced of its legitimacy. To support the protest he would position himself at the threshold of the royal residence, and go on a hunger strike until there was a resolution of the conflict, or alternatively the nearness of his death by voluntary starvation.

 

The effectiveness of the fast was dependent on the person fasting being someone who commanded moral authority, and was respected by both rulers and subjects. His power was intangible, but based on this respect. His protest was legitimate if it focused on a demand for justice. If the charan lost his life owing to the fast, the ruler was doomed. Thus the moral threat posed by the fast was feared. The dual purpose of the fast as dissent and a moral threat was not unknown in earlier forms of registering protest. The fast subsumed the protest and diverted it from becoming violent.

Can one see in this some parallels to the use of the fast by Gandhi. The British Raj may not have admitted it publicly but each of his fasts was a matter of anxiety to their political control, he being the leading national figure. The title of mahatama in turn recognized his moral authority with the people. The fast was a protest against injustice but also carried a grave threat should it have taken its toll. This was understood by all.

But let me turn to the implications of this activity. Dissent of various degrees was at the core of the renunciatory tradition. Can we then ask whether Gandhi’s satyagraha drew to some degree, from this tradition, either consciously or subconsciously? More central to my argument is that this feature probably encouraged the massive public response to satyagraha. Is there a link between the essence of Shramana renunciation and the resonance of the people to Gandhi’s satyagraha.

 

His understanding of the concept drew from the authors he read and wrote about who have been much discussed: Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Ruskin in particular. He had lengthy conversations with Raichandbhai on the Jaina religion, as he would also have done with his mother and others in Gujarat. He read many texts of the Hindu sects as well. My concern is more with trying to understand what it was that struck a public chord in this particular form of protest.

His reading of the texts associated with Hinduism was of a different genre, as for example, his careful reading of the Gita and the attraction of brahmacharya. Could the prevalence of alternative cultural patterns from the past have nudged him into an instinctive response? The imprint may have been less apparent than we have realized? Did the form of and justification for satyagraha reach out to a stronger tradition of expressing dissent? Some have argued that it was the ideal of brahmacharya that he was emulating. But this was not born out of dissent; on the contrary, it was acceptable to orthodoxy and focused not on the social ethic but the individual. Satyagraha was primarily a political statement.

Parallels with renouncers are more noticeable in the making of the practitioner, the satyagrahi. To be effective a period of training was preferred, although there were exceptions. There is some mention of taking vows or consenting to observe certain rules. Once accepted, the discipline of living in the ashrama was reasonably strict. Satyagraha was not a monastic order, nevertheless it had its own rules, relationships and identity.

To assert a greater moral force, it was preferable that the satyagrahi be celibate, although this was not insisted upon. Protest included the non-violent Swadeshi movement – the boycott of foreign goods, especially cloth, was linked to industrialization in Britain. This was part of civil disobedience with its much broader concerns. Objections to mill-made cloth and the wearing of khadi, was not intended as a Luddite movement but as registering another form of dissent and explaining why it was necessary.

 

Some symbols of renunciation also surface. Underlying satyagraha lay the force of moral authority – soul force – of the person calling for civil disobedience. This in a sense echoed what also gave authority to renouncers of various kinds, and in diverse ways. That Gandhi was named a ‘mahatma’, an honour that interestingly he did not reject, was partially recognition of his moral authority.

A fundamental requirement of satyagraha, as also in the Shramana religions, was to refrain from using violence. Violence destroys moral authority. Ahimsa faced two kinds of opposition: that of the colonial power and its continued violence against nationalist protestors; and that of Indians in authority some of whom doubted its effectiveness in directing protest.

The commitment to non-violence and truth also underlined the idea of tolerance. All religions were to be equally respected. This came from satyagraha not having its own singular religious identity, although one of the religions was perhaps more equal than others. However, there was a moral right to break the law if it caused widespread suffering. But who had the right to judge? Did being called a mahatma strengthen Gandhi assuming this right? The dilemma becomes more acute if one accepts what one may call the contingent ahimsa of the Gita, that where evil prevails it can be fought with violence. Yet the satyagrahi tried to persuade the other to his view in non-violent ways, and through a system where the means and the ends are not contradictory.

 

A more complicated issue was present when satyagraha was practiced in the larger social context. This involved the equality of all castes including the outcastes. Did the equal status of all castes as frequently maintained among dissenting sects apply to both the varna and avarna members of society or only to the former? How was the hierarchy to be countered in practice? Gandhi tried, but to little effect. Many maintain that the actions of one’s previous life determine one’s birth in this life. But if actions are evaluated according to the dharmashastra codes then the codes would have to be discarded if the hierarchy is to be annulled. Few argued for this.

The Shramana sects claimed that the monasteries did not observe caste. On a wider social scale it was some of the Bhakti sants who also opposed caste, particularly those who came from the lowest castes. For Gandhi, if the varna castes began doing the demeaning jobs allotted to the avarnas, the stigma might go. But caste by now had many other ramifications as well. Unlike the renouncer the satyagrahi did not necessarily discard his caste identity.

The appeal of satyagraha is evident from the large numbers that responded when the call was given for civil disobedience. We have to ask what went into the making of this form of defiance. Could there have been an echo of the persistence of dissent that still surfaced when injustice was experienced? It galvanized national sentiment, but it also diverted this sentiment away from violent revolution when it came to channeling it into protest. This was true to type as such movements, even in the past, had steered away from violent revolution. In the colonial situation satyagraha forced both the protestors and the authority against whom they were protesting – be it over salt, or cloth, or the freedom of a people – to give the protest visibility. It underlined a claim to status by the colonized by fore-fronting moral authority against colonial power. This was outside the experience of the colonizer.

 

Admittedly Gandhi, in his readings, lists little that goes back to the texts of the Shramanas. His formal interest in such sources seems marginal, especially compared to his intensive study of the Bhagvad-Gita. However, that satyagraha could envelop dissent rather than violent protest suggests that these ideas did have a presence, however inaudible. Given the complexities of thought, society and politics, in the first half of the 20th century in India, it would seem that a major player on the scene, may have held on to the truth of some forms of dissent from the Indian past, and used them almost instinctively to recreate a new form of dissent.

One could ask whether Gandhi’s endorsement of the Gita was a seeming contradiction of the insistence on non-violence in satyagraha. The translation he chose to read frequently – apart from the Gujarati – was curiously the English translation by Edwin Arnold, The Song Celestial, published in 1885. The potential of the Gita to be the single sacred book of Hinduism, the equivalent of the Bible and the Quran was being discussed at the time.

The Gita and the segments added to it are thought to date to around the turn of the Christian era. There were regular commentaries on it over the centuries. It surfaced in a big way in the 19th century and rode the European Orientalist wave that was searching for wisdom from the East. The Theosophists adopted it as their central text and gave it wide diffusion. Inevitably, many Indians wrote on it as a representative text. Some saw it as an allegory and this excluded questions of historicity. W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Christopher Isherwood, all flirted with its ideas. Its appropriation by many nationalists was possibly because it could be used to endorse even violent political action as the duty of those fighting for rightful demands and justice. If colonial rule was evil then violence against it was justified.

 

What is perhaps curious is that the question of violence and political action should have drawn so heavily on the Gita. A more challenging text is the twelfth book of the Shanti Parvan of the Mahabharata that unambiguously focuses precisely on this subject. This segment of the epic is dated generally to the post-Mauryan period. Subsequent to the battle at Kurukshetra, Yudhisthira was expected to take up the kingship, but he initially refused to do so, preferring to retire to the forest. His objection to ruling was that kingship involves many levels of violence and he was averse to these.

He asked how any war could be called dharmic when it is the duty of some such as the kshatriya to kill others? His grandfather Bhishma still lying on a bed of arrows from the battle, justified such killing as the ruler needing to defend the realm. This conversation is a fine example of dissent explored through debate. Yudhisthira eventually agreed – although I think with a very heavy heart.

Those for whom ahimsa was absolute would obviously oppose ahimsa as contingent. Yudhisthira has a moral and ethical objection to violence. This debate reflected the discussions on violence at this time, perhaps enhanced by the views of the Emperor Ashoka in support of ahimsa, as has been argued by various scholars. Was the centrality of ahimsa in this conversation a concession to Shramanic thought? Unlike Nehru, Gandhi had a perfunctory interest in Buddhism. Nor was he particularly interested in a sequential study of the past. History was perhaps not a subject of great intellectual interest for him.

 

That there were occasions of violent and intolerant actions in our past is undeniable. That there were also legitimate traditions of non-violent dissent is also undeniable. The forms of the latter changed in conformity with a changing society and we have to recognize the forms and how they were used and when. Gandhi created new forms of dissent. Yudhisthira’s statements on political violence seem to argue that when religious ideas and their implications become agencies of political mobilization, their fundamental purpose changes. The political determines thoughts and actions. The continuation of the right to dissent, to disagree, to debate, can be seen in the varied manner in which it has been formulated. Satyagraha has been one effective form in recent times.

In many ways the right to dissent has been highlighted by the coming of the nation state in our history. It calls for a new relationship involving the rights of the citizen and the obligations of the state. It remains open to the citizen immersed in the ideology of secular democratic nationalism to articulate this new relationship by reiterating the right to dissent. And it needs the state to acknowledge the validity of this right.

 

* Edited text of the Tarkunde Memorial Lecture, 6 December 2019, Delhi.