Maatukathe IV, Session 3

Maatukathe IV, Session 3 

Ninasam, Heggodu

April 29, 2016 

Minutes: Lakshmi Arya 

The day began with a discussion of a movie screened the previous evening (Inspector Barnaby). Parallels were drawn between the investigative processes by which Inspector Barnaby arrives at the truth, and the processes of research, in which each of us, as research scholars, are engaged. The similarities observed can be clustered under the following heads: (a) the formulation of the right question (subject to correction and revision); (b) the procedures by which we arrive at answers, which involve methods of investigation, and sifting through relevant (as opposed to irrelevant) clues or information; and (c) proposing a narrative / hypothesis.

The rest of the sessions picked up on the theme of the slogans regarding India, which had been introduced the previous day. First, the idea of the Constitution was discussed. There were two levels at which this discussion was initiated: One was a textual analysis of parts of the Preamble of the Constitution, and the other was its location in the context of the liberal tradition of the 19th century. Liberalism is a particularly 19th century tradition of thought. There was a reference to Barzun’s periodization of developments in the West: If the 16th century was the time of religious revolution in the West, the 17th, that of monarchical revolution, the 19th century was the age of liberal individualism. 

It was emphasized that the Constitution is a contract, agreed to by all the people of India. Parts of this contract are inviolable: the fundamental rights. It was also emphasized that the Constitutional document makes sense within the intellectual context of the 19th century. The 19th century was when the idea of nation was articulated in parts of Europe. Inextricable from this idea, is that of the citizen; someone who is no longer subject to an emperor, but a subject of the state: A citizen-subject. The King, likewise, goes from being the sovereign to the first servant. The purpose of education undergoes a transformation too, in line with the other transitions towards nation-building. Education becomes the pre-condition of being a responsible citizen. The purpose of education, in other words, is to produce a responsible citizen. To achieve this end, institutions are established in the 19th century. Institutions like the University, museums, and symphony orchestras are all educative in this sense. 

These 19th century ideas have relevance for India. Macaulay’s idea of educating Indians had this end as well: It was meant to turn out citizens. Hence his debate with the Orientalists on what classics should be part of higher education in India? The Orientalists, who had recently discovered the Indian textual tradition, were of the view that education should be in the Indian classics. Macaulay’s disagreement with them was that these classics could not produce citizens. It was also noted that the 19th century had another prevalent idea: that of civilization. The work of the Orientalists contributed to this idea, by re-discovering the ancient Indian and Chinese civilisations. They found that there were other Ancients, much like their own Greeks and the Romans, in India and China. One of the slogans identified in the previous day’s sessions (that of India being an ancient civilisation) has this contextual significance. 

The idea of transition is captured in another of the ‘slogans’ identified in the previous day’s sessions: That Indian is a developing country. Development here is shorthand for transition, or a set of transitions towards modernity. When we say development, we usually think economic development. However, only part of this ‘development’ is economic: the movement from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. There are various other transitions: The re-arrangement of social relations along a contractual model, the replacement of kingships with a liberal-democratic form of state; the recognition of individual rights (i.e. the centrality of individual as the bearer of rights); likewise, a recognition of human rights; and, finally, in terms of knowledge-production, the giving up of myths for scientific inquiry. Thus, there were a range of transitions: Economic, social, political, and epistemic.

To return to the idea of the Constitution as contract, it was observed that contracts are open to dispute. Indeed, many of the political disputes that have wracked modern India have taken place within the Constitutional framework. The discussion among the participants centred around two such disputes: Universal temple entry and the Ramjanmabhoomi controversy. The debate around temple entry takes this form: Everyone (women, Dalits) should be allowed to enter temples, because they are public spaces. This debate does not make sense outside of the idea of the ‘public’. The social contract very fundamentally makes a distinction between public and private spheres. The public sphere is the domain of citizenship; it is where we are all citizens, irrespective of what we are in our private spheres (Hindus, Muslims, women, Dalits, tribes). If temples are public spaces, it follows that all citizens must have access to them. Within this discourse, other ideas of temples and the rituals connected with them, seem incongruous and even ridiculous: The idea, for instance, that women cannot enter the Aiyappa temple, because the god there has chosen a celibate life, and does not want to look upon women. There are various iterations of the idea of the public in contemporary India: Public health, public decency / morality, public reason (the sphere where issues are debated and discussed). 

Another fundamental premise of the social contract is that of harm: The harm that citizens can cause one another. As a legal dispute, the Ramjanmabhoomi controversy takes these contours. There is a person who is harmed, and that person is Ram Lalla. Most modern disputes are articulated within this Constitutional framework in India, insofar as they all evoke ideas of rights, public access, and harm. Another example was taken to illustrate this: The debates around the beef ban. Some Muslim groups have contended that the beef ban violates their right to work. This takes the beef issue out of the domain of culture (and its public or private nature) to the relatively neutral terrain of work. I am reminded of a similar turn to the abortion debate in Australia: The framing of the abortion issue as one of public health, and access to it, and not as one of religion versus secular citizenship for women.

There is a certain sense of universality that is associated with the idea of the public, of citizenship and of fundamental rights. It supposedly includes everyone, leaving out nobody. Yet, there is an innate contradiction in liberalism. The discussion pointed out this contradiction. If free speech, as a fundamental right, were granted to everyone, there would be no free speech. As Milton famously said, the Catholics could not be given free speech, because if they were, they would not allow it, having no conception of free speech themselves. Another contradiction lies in the idea of freedom itself. If freedom were absolute, everyone would not have it. Some groups would oppress others, as happens in a capitalist society. Liberal ‘universal’ freedom necessarily excludes some, in order to sustain itself. 

Given that the predominant framework of conducting disputes and discussions in contemporary India is the liberal, democratic, Constitutional framework, what is the role of the academician? One reflection that emerged was that the role was to make alternatives available. To create milieus of discussion which draw upon traditions other than the liberal one. To create other conversations; indeed to have other forms of mathukathe.