Need for a Confederation

India had never been a Nation, it is still not one. The name India allegedly did not come into existence before the Anglos came to know about this landmass. The other Europeans had different ways of naming this area. They followed the same tradition of come-to-stay and get "mixed up" with the local populace. Anglos were the first to devour it and go. That made all the differences in approach of "administering" the local populace. The remarkable way India stands out among the other parts of history of colonization is in the fact that the different peoples and nations residing in this geographical area, did accept aliens as their rulers. "Rule", as it was connoted here meant:

(1) To take care of the external disturbances, a service for which the inhabitants are willing to pay something to the rulers , if and only when they have something surplus to part with.

(2) Arbitering among feuding parties, whose rules had to be in-line with the existing mores and norms of the citizens.

(3) Helping the people with developing some kind of public institutions.

(4) Providing the people when some kind of natural disaster strikes.


The whole definition of centralized administration, as we understand today, is pretty inimical, not because that it is western (a legacy of graeco-roman city-sovereignty), but because the basic distinction of sovereignty-anarchy did not mean much in the Orient. Vassals and kings fought, acquiesced, coalesced and re-hashed boundaries of their own free will and choice, but the people did not come into the fray. They knew down to their day to day level of affairs, those things don't matter. What is pejoratively termed and value-judged as anarchy, was perfectly livable and almost Ideal to the people. One is recalled of the famous shot of "Shatranj-ki-khelari" that the Nawabs did not want to leave the chequers game on the courtyard of the villager on his charpoi , when they saw the Gora-fauz snailing in fiefdom of Awadh. The villager did not learn to treat a ruling Nawab in any way different from one of his normal guests. While reporting the Battle of Plassey, Robert Clive opined that if all those bystanders picked up one stone each and pelted against the British, the outcome would have upturned. That remark was symptomatic of the indifference of the people of India towards concepts of Nationhood, sovereignty and ruling system.

Macaulay did leave a rather long lasting effect. Not all of which served his ideas, they way he dreamt. Concepts from the West, which the Europeans did not want to come to India, at least in the short term, did reach the coasts of the sub-continent. In the long term however every wit of his efforts served the general grand schema of western imperialism. The concept of Nation-state is one such example, which might have removed the British empire, but has established in this oriental land the values of the west. The Empire was dead on 14th and 15th of Auguust 1947 , it got a new life , a much more long lasting and profound one after that.

Aristotle saw the virtue of cultural nation-hood in breaking the city-states and city-sovereignty, he however was the spirit behind the Greek notion of an empire. He showed the world that city or nation-state-building are worth simply to play under the more general domain of a cultural hegemony. The definition of sovereignty, constitution and many modern institutions were founded then. After the famous renaissance and the over-eulogized industrial revolution, what came to be more firmly established were the concepts of present day politics, much more than the military hegemony of the colonial powers.

All the present definitions of present sub-continent are simply parrot versions of those terms. India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and later Bangladesh never bothered to re-define or re-view such definitions, did never feel the deployment of one day's worth of national effort to build up their constitutions from below. We copied the in-famous British-India Act of 1935. The most disparaging fact is the re-assertion of the underlying meaning of the terms used. Not a bit of modification was called for, not an iota of vetting with the local conditions were sought for. We parroted them, lock stock and barrel. One such definition is the concept of NATION.

The Best method to maul a serious politics is to maul the definitions of terms and go for fast and cadaverous equating of connotations. The hegemonic and military concept of nation-states with military and territorial demarcation let the lawmakers of British India to think that Nation means two sovereign militarily independent countries are to be formed. Well, they did not think in the same way in America where no one had any problem in realizing a "nation of Islam" with territorial USA. Pakistan resolution of 1937 never dreamt of territorially two countries. Jinnah did not dream it either. When everything went wrong even on the last day he opined for a Hindustan and a Pakistan as two sovereign nations under the Union of India.

He was the first to maul the definition of "Nation" by declaring that all Muslims of India belong to one nation. He was proved wrong on the very first week, when India retained more Muslims than Pakistan amassed even after the in-famous exodus. Within years, hell broke loose. Anti-Ahmadi riots started. Incited by a person, who first denied the sanctorum of Pakistan, then undertook the Hizrat and declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslims. His ultimate efforts were to exclude Shias too. Well, thanks to the nationalistic Army officers of Pakistan, the buffoonery of these characters were quelled. Then started the famous linguistic movements almost co-temporally in India and Pakistan. India could contain that in her huge belly with so many diversities. Pakistan saw the starting of the permanent discordance among its population. Bangladesh in essence was created right there after 1948 when all efforts of forming pan-Pakistani mass organizations were throttled even among those who spearheaded those movements. Parties like National Awami Party or Democratic league really could not make equal inroads in the respective provinces. A hegemonic dependence on the feudal relations, not only of the NEFP , but throughout Pakistan, and a criminal disdain towards developing nation wide working class actually stopped any integration among the Pakistani people, they remained Bengalis, Mohajirs, Punjabis and Pakhtooons in toto. In India the degree of such linguistic or provincial apartheid was counterpoised by the fast rise of the organized sector in production and service sectors and as a natural fall out the working class and the middle class cemented in one whole pan-Indian block.

What the new found ruling-groups and classes could not do in India, was to an extent achieved by the anti-thesis of them- the sub-alterns. In Pakistan, it was nipped in the bud. The educated middle class never saw themselves as integrated Pakistanis, but belonging to their own linguistic groups. Nationalism died in infancy, and with it failed the famous Two- nation theory.

The Indian rulers wanted to make a ONE nation theory instead. It could not last even a decade. But very ironically the ashes were picked up by the anti-thesis - the producing sector, they gave the idea of a nation a completely new meaning - a rather dynamic meaning that is. They showed that the nation building could be a continuous work-in-progress, an incessant stress and strain and restructuring based on interests of the class-conflicts. Depressed nationalities and oppressed groups of people propped up their demands, only to be quelled, but not forever, it came back again. Thus started a very painful and bloody saga for a future federation of India- that struggle is more arduous than ever. But this exercise very ironically kept India intact. The One nation theory failed in the hands of the rulers around 1956, but re-modeled and re-incarnated with a totally different signification.

What is interesting in this whole affair is that it required immense bloodshed to wipe out the imposed taints of imperialistic culture. This was achieved only by people's participatory movement and creation of stress, strain and not so infrequent mini-catastrophes. That aspect was unity from below was absent in Pakistan, thanks to the obsession of the educated middle class with their newfound feudal links.

As an example, the huge windfall like fortune seized by the Bengali Muslim Middle class over night from the fleeing Hindu land-owners did never allow the same class to go for a soul-searching of their eigen-identity in the milieu of Pakistani society. They were actually apprehensive of the intrusion by West Pakistanis fearing that they might come and claim a share of the immense wealth. The bait of fast-buck in terms of real estate property saw the standard of education and training in East Pakistan go down much faster than in the Western part and the same mentality did not spur the Bengali Muslim middle class to invest in themselves for a striving professional culture. Wealth was very easily gotten this way, why strive, make sure that no one else puts their fingers on the pie- that was a lurking attitude which helped rallied behind the nationalistic aspirations of the Bengalis. On the other hand a symptomatic disdain of the fair-skinned Punjabis on the "less polished" dark skinned Bengalees justified the cultural and mental alienation of the two landmasses of Pakistan. A close proximity and compradore dependence of the ruling elite of Pakistan towards UK and USA made them very nervous of anything leftist. Actually these groups were the only ones in Pakistan - other than the Punjabi dominated Army, who tried to work towards some kind of Pan-Pakistani people's unification. But they were quelled mercilessly, to assuage the Western masters.

Pakistan paid dearly for that kind of a policy. And died with it a big hope of speedy democratization of the whole of sub-continent. Indian bureaucracy became powerful by leaps and bounds accelerating in time scale. The huge resource it garnered and the relatively less importance for any particular community in the massive cauldron helped very easily to strengthen a minority section of Indian ruling elite to maintain the balancing jugglery and live long. The power of the almost intact British bureaucratic institutions coupled by the newly formed financial oligarchy of the nationalized banks gave the Indian ruling elite an invincible power, invincible by the power of the mere 10% of the working force, who are in the organized sector.
When on one side of the border the elite almost completed their hegemony through nationalization of all resources and completed forming the financial oligarchic hegemonic empire backed by legislative institutions, on the other side the elite heard its bells tolling in the very first nation-wide general election.

Any hue of compromise between PPP and AL would have not only saved the country, but also would have created such a strong democratic revolution and re-generation of institutions, that the wave would have surely rocked the Indian side in no time. A democratic and federative Pakistan would have been the worst nightmare to the Indian bureaucracy. But leaders had their personal agenda. Feudal interests appeared so sweet and the prospect of a industrialized middle class community were so bleak in Pakistan that the ruling elite decided not to take the track of industrial and financial integration but the track of insulated petty fiefdoms in their respective home turf.

The triumph of Nationalism and sub-national fervor over the democratic renewal of the sub-continent, gave rise to another long history of troubled times and inter-nation and inter-nationalities rivalry and bellicose.
Kashmir issue, which was fading its importance to the day to day economic and social demands of the people came to its prime prominence again. Ego and especially collective false-egos became more important than any kind of economic issues and demands. A single win in the cricket pitch was more sought after than the availability of essential commodities at affordable prices. Things could not have been better for cheap userpers and profiteers. Make hay (read money) when nationalism is on the wake. Truncated Pakistan and Bangladesh satisfied their nationalistic egos, but soon plunged down into worst economic crises and lost the democratic freedom in little time. That was how the epitaph of a real post-colonial democratic renewal of the sub-continent went down the streams of Sindh, Ganga and Padma into the salty dump of Indian Ocean.

Karachi is seeing the same thing what Bangladesh saw before her birth. Kashmir on both sides is experiencing no less oppression than the pre-1971 days of East Pakistan. All for satisfying the anti-national ego of a ruling elite from Northern India(undivided). Jinnah - the Quaid- e-Azam, did not dream things would come to such a pass. His idea of two brotherly nation start their journey towards de-colonization with healthy competition and co-operation, was sabotaged, belied not only by the hawks on the Indian side like Patel, but also by his allies - the military elite of Punjab. When asked by Nehru about what should be done about the Jinnah house in Bombay, Jinnah requested Nehru not to break his heart as he wishes to go there some day. We were smart people, we knew how to dodge Jinnah and Gandhi. We "killed" both. We built huge arsenals to kill each other. We accomplished that both by amassing mammoth military industrial complex and we did that by starving our kids to amass money for such killing industry. On the year of independence, we killed humanity in the sub-continent. We took only 7 years (during that time people of one country could cross borders without permit). Every one of us, are murderers and rapists. We need not to do it in physical, we have done so many times over logically and created institutions to perpetrate it for the foreseeable future.
The sheer number of women raped on both the sides, the number of people butchered, shockingly indicates, that a very big number of families (I would not shiver if some studies some day suggest that majority of families on both sides of Punjab border) did have at least one person among their kin, who actually physically participated.

Pakistan resolution died on 14th August 1947. TWO NATION THEORY was hastily replaced by TWO COUNTRY THEORY. That too died 25 years later. Ironically the original Pakistan resolution revived in some travesty form. Sohrawardy, Fazlul Huq and other Bengali leaders demanded a version of multiple Pakistan, where Pakistan would be a federation of many muslim states with another loose con-federation of India. Three countries were born, but the meaning changed totally. They became all belligerent fighting nations. Arms build-up piled up.

The question of confederation of Indian Union with Hindustan and Pakistan and other present SAARC states, arises one grand fear - the sheer size of Hindustan is a problem. But the internal identity problem within India has given rise the question of sanctity of a strong centralized bureaucratic India.
The way new states are exigent now, calls for a serious look at the re-organizing of states. The formulae of state-reorganization on the basis of dominant language has fallen flat on the nose. The peripheral people, who once was brushed aside as mere tribals, have surfaced with vigor more than ever. The question of identity can not be equated to the dominant language of the province. Many languages got wiped out, less many languages revived and are making claims. Evidently the concept of "states" need a fresh look. The central bureaucracies are not satisfying anyone other than those in the New Delhi posh and plush quarters. A similar picture is in Pakistan. Even Bangladesh, which was thought to be seemingly homogeneous is showing cracks with Chakmas, Rohingyas, Garos and Manipuris and Biharis.

The Ireland-England problem sees a brighter day within the grand European confederation. Jinnah saw that long ago, we did not. We dodged him. We are paying for it. How long should we go on paying is the pertinent question.

A strong demand for confederation among the SAARC countries would actually stir up the fight of a fedaration within India. Anandpur Sahib resolution showed us one model. The left parties have come out fully in favor of such a scheme. The impediments are the two bureaucratic people - the Congress and the BJP. They represent the big business whose interest is to pay one fee to one institution to ensure the truck goes from Ladakh to Lanka-gate and from Kuch to Kailashahar.

There was a chance of a democratic Pakistan, which would have pushed for a more democratic India. A similar situation could be brought forth if we are serious. A strong demand of confederation would usher a movement for a federation of India with her states and a grand con-federation thereafter.

A strong Center marginalizes the periphery. But a structure where there is no center, only the circumference has always been stable as there is no hanging sword of a centrifugal or centripetal force to be bothered about. A grand cauldron, where every part is a minority by itself removes the tension of a majority/minority dichotomy. The most stable structure is a structure of continuous multi-dimensional interdependence.