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Article of the Month
The Bauty of Compromise
Ramachandra Guha
*The beauty of compromise:
Revisiting some of the
more intractable conflicts in Southasia begs the question: Could conciliation
and compromise by all concerned parties have changed the course of our history?
Ramachandra
Guha
Himal
South Asian, February 2008
Our cover
story this issue is devoted solely to one story, one argument – though
including a plethora of threads. In it, Ramachandra Guha, the eminent historian
and author, argues in favour of a political philosophy of moderation and
dialogue. Using examples from a variety of Southasian conflicts – including in
the Kashmir Valley, Sri Lanka and the erstwhile East Pakistan – Guha seeks to demonstrate how the extremism
and inflexibility of the contending parties have worked to intensify and deepen
the conflicts. The people are left to suffer. Sometimes this inflexibility has
come from the state; at other times, from rebels or insurgents. Either way,
Guha suggests that it is the special responsibility of writers and
intellectuals to seek and promote the middle path of compromise and
reconciliation.
“The
Beauty of Compromise” was the inaugural lecture of an annual series sponsored
by Himal. As an independent magazine that seeks to promote peace and progress
in Southasia on the foundation of idealism and realism, we believe in the
importance of a fuller understanding of the subcontinental history of the last
six decades. Two central figures who have defined the terrain of these sixty
years have been Jayaprakash Narayan, featured on this issue’s cover, and Mohandas
K Gandhi. We see both of these figures as quintessential ‘Southasians’.
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all drawings by karen haydock
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Over the past few
decades, the nation states of Southasia have been home to some of the most
bitter and costly conflicts of the modern world. Subaltern classes have
resisted the hegemony of the elite; areas on the periphery
have protested exploitation by the centre. To class and geography have been
added the fault lines of language, caste, religion and ethnicity.
No region of the world
– not even the fabled Balkans – has witnessed a greater variety of conflicts.
Southasians are an expressive people, and so they have expressed their various
resentments in an appropriate diversity of ways: through electing legislators
of their choosing; through court petitions and other legal mechanisms; through
marches, gheraos, dharnas, hunger strikes and other forms of non-violent
protest; through the torching of government buildings; and through outright
armed rebellion. The record of our nation states in dealing with these
conflicts is decidedly mixed. Some conflicts, which once threatened to tear a
nation apart, have been, in the end, resolved. Other conflicts have persisted
for decades, with the animosities between the contending parties deepening with
every passing year.
From this vast
repertoire of experience within Southasia, this essay will foreground some of
the more intractable of these conflicts: among others, the Kashmir
dispute and the Naga insurgency in India, and the rebellion of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. These conflicts have remained unresolved because of the
inflexibility and, dare it be said, dogmatism of the contending parties. The
question to ask is: Would a middle path of accommodation and reconciliation,
adopted by either party to a conflict or both, have
helped in reducing or mitigating the violence and the suffering?
In search of an
answer, let me first turn to some forgotten episodes in the career of a man who
might be considered the paradigmatic Southasian, Jayaprakash Narayan, or ‘J P’.
He was an Indian patriot, but he retained close links with the republican
struggle in Nepal, as well as the socialist movement in Sri Lanka. He worked actively for conciliation between India and Pakistan, and was also an early supporter of the Tibetan people and their
cause. Thirty years after his death, J P must be remembered for his idealism
and activism, which continues to hold meaning for peace and progress in
Southasia.
Missed opportunities
Within India, J P is celebrated for his role in two major movements: the Quit
India struggle of 1942, and the ‘Indira Hatao’ movement of 1974-5. During Quit
India, J P achieved countrywide renown for his daring escape from Hazaribagh
jail, after which he spent more than a year underground, eluding the colonial
police. The movement of 1974-5 was, of course, led and directed by him.
Starting in his native Bihar, it soon became an all-India struggle against the corrupt
and tyrannical regime of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Both the upheavals saw
J P in an uncompromising mode. In 1942, he was a charismatic young leftist, who
sought to throw the British out and rebuild India on socialist lines. In 1974-5, he was a charismatic old
radical, who sought to throw Indira Gandhi out in the process of bringing about
a ‘Total Revolution’ in India. While in India today J P is remembered for his
anti-colonial and Total Revolution campaigns of the 1940s and 1970s, what has
been quite forgotten is his equally interesting and, in my view, even more
noble work during the 1960s, when he tried heroically – if, in the end,
unavailingly – to resolve the two civil conflicts that have plagued the Indian
nation state since its inception. At either end of the Himalaya,
these were the Kashmir and Nagaland conflicts.
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Let’s begin with Kashmir.
Among the politicians and social workers of mainland India, J P spoke out longest and loudest against the illegalities
of the Union government in Kashmir. He was a close friend of the popular Kashmiri leader Sheikh
Abdullah, who was jailed by the Indian government in 1953. J P called
repeatedly for the release of Sheikh Abdullah, and when the Sheikh was finally
set free in April 1964, encouraged the idea of sending him over to Pakistan as an emissary for peace. This was originally a proposal of
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and it was opposed across the political
spectrum, from the Jana Sangh on the right to the communists on the left. Even
the majority in Nehru’s own Congress party thought that the Sheikh should not
have been released.
Bucking the jingoist
trend, two men of conspicuous independence supported Nehru’s idea, despite
being, on other matters, fierce critics of the prime minister’s policies. One
was C Rajagopalachari, the first Indian Governor-General of India; the other, Jayaprakash Narayan. When some cabinet ministers
threatened to put Sheikh Abdullah back in jail, J P wrote, “it is remarkable
how the freedom fighters of yesterday begin so easily to imitate the language
of the imperialists.”
Nehru died in May
1964; the peace initiative died with him. The next year, Sheikh Abdullah was
put behind bars once again. In June 1966, J P wrote an extraordinary letter to
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, asking that the Sheikh be freed in time for the
next elections. “[To] hold a general election in Kashmir
with Sheikh Abdullah in prison,” remarked J P, “is
like the British ordering an election in India while Jawaharlal Nehru was in prison. No fair-minded person
would call it a fair election.” If “we miss the chance of using the next
general election to win the consent of the [Kashmiri] people to their place
within the Union,” continued J P,
I cannot see what
other device will be left to India to settle the problem. To think that we will eventually wear
down the people and force them to accept at least passively the Union is
to delude ourselves. That might conceivably have happened had Kashmir not
been geographically located where it is. In its present location, and with
seething discontent among the people, it would never be left in peace by Pakistan.
This letter received a
brief, non-committal reply from Mrs Gandhi. It took another eight years for her
to allow the Sheikh to re-enter politics. When Sheikh Abdullah was made chief
minister of Jammu & Kashmir in February 1975, J P welcomed the move
(despite being, by then, a bitter opponent of Mrs Gandhi). But the concession
itself was perhaps eight years too late. For by then the Sheikh had become
reconciled to subservience to New Delhi, and in time was to place the interests of his own family
above those of the Kashmiri people. What might have been the fate of Kashmir and
the Kashmiris, had Mrs Gandhi listened to J P in June 1966 – by releasing
Sheikh Abdullah, allowing him to contest a free-and-fair election that he would
certainly have won, and then letting him run the administration in the best
interests of the people themselves…
The uncompromising
west
Let me now move away from India, and J P, to a civil conflict in a Southasian neighbour. In
1966, the rulers in New
Delhi were too nervous to
allow Sheikh Abdullah to conduct a provincial election in Kashmir.
Three years later, the rulers in Islamabad permitted a radical Bengali politician to contest a national
election. To their great surprise, and shock, his party won a majority. What
were they to do now?
The east of Pakistan
had begun to be distanced from the west from the very beginning, when, on his
first visit to Dhaka, the governor-general of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah,
told his Bengali audience that they would have to take to Urdu sooner rather
than later, because “the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no
other language. Anyone who tries to mislead you is really the enemy of Pakistan.” Jinnah was already dead in 1952, when bloody riots broke
out in Dhaka after the police fired on a demonstration of students
demanding equal status for the Bengali language. In 1954, Bangla was recognised
as one of the state languages of Pakistan, but the feelings of being
discriminated against persisted, fuelled by imbalance in the share of
government revenue, in the army and civil service, and even the national
cricket team.
Pakistan was under military rule between 1958 and 1970. Towards the
end of 1970, General Yahya Khan called for elections. Apparently, he had
expected the ambitious politician from Sindh, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, to become
prime minister, allowing him to continue as president. But these calculations
went awry. The Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won 167 out of 169
seats in the more populous East
Pakistan. Playing on the sense
of discrimination, Sheikh Mujib’s party achieved a majority in the national
Parliament.
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The Awami League’s
platform included a federal constitution, in which each wing would manage its
social, political and economic affairs, with only defence and foreign relations
in the hands of the Centre. Keeping in mind the significant revenue from jute
exports, the Awami League also proposed that each wing would get to spend the
foreign exchange it earned. The proposals to reform the Constitution were
deemed unacceptable by the generals and politicians of West Pakistan. It
seemed as though the self-proclaimed martial Punjabi could not abide the
thought of conceding power to the allegedly effete Bengali. Another reason for
spurning Sheikh Mujib was the large presence of Hindus in the professional
classes of East Pakistan. As one general put it, if the Awami League came to power,
“the constitution adopted by them will have Hindu iron hand in it.”
Rather than honour the
democratic mandate and invite Sheikh Mujib to take office, Yahya Khan postponed
the convening of the National Assembly, and in this he was encouraged and
abetted by Bhutto. The response was a general strike in all of East Pakistan,
and the Pakistan Army decided to settle the matter by force of arms. But with India choosing to ally with the Bengali dissidents, the task was
made much harder than the general had anticipated. Eight months of episodic
fighting culminated in an all-out war in December 1971, which led to the defeat
and dismemberment of Pakistan.
Would Pakistan have remained a single nation state if Yahya and Bhutto had
permitted Mujib to take over as prime minister? In asking this question, I
certainly do not mean to turn the clock back, or to suggest that the creation
of Bangladesh was a mistake. I mean only to highlight how the techniques
of suppression, so often used by a state to settle an outstanding conflict,
tend mostly to intensify and deepen it. The ruling elite of Pakistan was both obdurate and deaf:
obdurate in hanging onto its privileges, deaf to the justice of the demands of
those who asked merely for their rights as citizens. In this respect, the
break-up of Pakistan holds lessons for the political elite in other countries of
Southasia – not least Bangladesh itself – that are challenged by social and political
divisions within their boundaries.
Linguistic anxiety
As it happens, the language problem is one issue that
the Republic of India has been able to more or less successfully resolve. Back in
the 1920s, Mohandas K Gandhi and the Congress party had promised that, when India became independent, each major linguistic group would have
its own province. But, after 1947, the Congress leaders went back on that
pledge. India had just been divided on the basis of religion; would not conceding the linguistic demand lead to a further
fracturing? However, in 1952, a protest fast by an Andhra Congressman forced New Delhi to agree to the creation of the Telugu-speaking state of
Andhra Pradesh. Other linguistic groups then intensified their claims for states
of their own. A States Reorganization Commission was constituted, which in 1956
recommended that the map of India be redrawn to accommodate these demands.
Fifty years later, it
is possible to deem the creation of linguistic states a relative success,
despite the occasional hiccup. Contrary to the fears of the Congress
leadership, the existence of these states has not threatened the unity of India. If anything, they have deepened this unity. Once the fear
of the eclipse or subjugation of one’s language was allayed, the different
linguistic groups have been able to live as part of the larger India.
The experience of Sri Lanka went in the other direction. In 1956, the year the states of
India were reorganised on the basis of language, the Parliament of
what was then Ceylon introduced an act recognising Sinhala as the sole official
language of the country. Sinhala was made the medium of instruction in all
government schools and colleges, in public examinations and in the courts. The
new act was opposed by the Tamil-speaking minority concentrated in the north of
the island. “When you deny me my language, you deny me everything,” stated one
Tamil MP. “You are hoping for a divided Ceylon,” warned another. An opposition member, himself
Sinhala-speaking, predicted that if the government did not change its mind, and
insisted on the act being adopted, “two torn little bleeding states might yet
arise out of one little state.”
The protests were
disregarded. The insecurity of the Tamils was intensified by the Colombo riots of 1958. In 1972, Sinhala was confirmed as the
official language of the state, and for good measure Buddhism was added as the
official religion. The interests of non-Sinhala speakers were ignored, and the
sentiments of Hindus, Muslims and Christians hurt grievously. The Tamil youth
became disenchanted by the incremental, parliamentary methods of their elders.
During the 1970s, several paramilitary groups were formed, known by their
acronyms – EROS, PLOTE, ERPLF and, not least, LTTE.
Many Tamils still kept
their faith in the spirit of compromise. However, two events in the early 1980s
decidedly put down hopes of a peaceful, democratic reconciliation of the
linguistic question. The first was the burning, by the Sri Lankan army, of the
great Tamil library in Jaffna in 1981; the second, the anti-Tamil Colombo pogrom of 1983, directed by Sinhala politicians. The Tamils
increasingly took to armed struggle to meet their ends. And so, we have had a
quarter-century of a civil war that seems unending. If it were to end, it looks
likely to happen only though the birth of two torn little bleeding states,
rather than through the reunion of the two fragments into one robust, inclusive
nation state.
The Northeast’s J P
Now we will return from Pakistan and Sri Lanka back to India. During the 1960s, Jayaprakash Narayan was concerned not
only with an honourable solution in Kashmir, but with the restoration of peace in Nagaland. This too had
been a most troubled part of the Indian Union. In 1946, a Naga National Council
(NNC) had been formed, which was undecided as to whether to join the
soon-to-be-free India. During the early 1950s, one faction decided to make a
compact with New
Delhi. The other faction,
led by A Z Phizo, held out for an independent Naga state. This was not
acceptable to India; as a consequence, an armed conflict broke out in the Naga hills, between the Indian Army and Phizo’s guerrillas. As ever,
the main casualties in the conflict were the communities caught in the middle.
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In 1964, after a long
decade of civil war, a ceasefire was declared between the NNC and the Indian
government. A three-member ‘peace mission’ was formed, consisting of the
Anglican missionary Michael Scott, the Gandhian nationalist B P Chaliha, and
Jayaprakash Narayan. Sadly, the mission collapsed within a year, due to
inflexibility on both sides, and the rebels returned to the jungle. It was at
this time that J P wrote an extraordinary if still little-known booklet in
Hindi, based on a speech he delivered in Patna on
Martyrs Day, 30 January 1965.
The booklet is titled Nagaland mein Shanti ka Prayas (The Attempt to Forge
Peace in Nagaland). While ostensibly about a dispute within a single small
state of the Union, the document is actually a meditation on the meanings of
democracy everywhere.
“In the history of
every nation,” began J P, “there have been disagreements among the servants and
leaders of the nation. Where democracy prevails, these disagreements are
discussed and resolved by democratic means; but where democracy is absent, they are resolved by the use of violence.” However,
history teaches us that violence begets counter-violence and, eventually,
violence against one’s own comrades. Thus, “when disputes arise, past alliances
and friendships are forgotten, and allegations of betrayal, traitorous
behaviour, etc are levied on one’s opponents.”
J P proceeded to
recount the history of the civil war in Nagaland – the recourse to the gun of
one side, the reaction of the other, and the brutalities committed by both.
Then, in the spirit of his master, Gandhi, he asked each party to recognise and
respect the finest traditions of the other. First, he told the Nagas that,
among the nations of Asia, India was unusual in having a democratic and federal Constitution.
Were the rebels to abandon the dream of independence and settle for autonomy
within the Union, the only control they would have had to give up was over
the army, foreign affairs and currency. In all other respects, they would have
been free to mould their destinies as they pleased.
Narayan recognised the
distinctiveness of Naga cultural traditions. While both East and West Pakistan
bore the impress of the Indic civilisation, “what we call Indian culture has
not made an entry into Nagaland.” That said, J P thought that the Nagas could
not sustain an independent country, what with China, Pakistan and Burma all close by and casting covetous eyes on their territory.
Why not join up, therefore, with a democratic and federal India? When New
Delhi could not dominate Bihar or Bengal,
how could it dominate Nagaland, J P asked
rhetorically. If the rebels were to come over-ground and contest elections,
said Narayan, they could give their people the best schools, hospitals, roads
and so on.
Towards the end of his
lecture, J P turned to educating his Patna
audience about the virtues of the Nagas. He was particularly impressed by the
vigour of the Naga village councils. Anywhere else in India, he said, to construct an airport the “government can uproot
village upon village,” whereas in Nagaland this could never be done without the
consent of the local people. He was even more struck by the dignity of labour,
and the absence of caste feeling. In matters of cooperative behaviour, said J
P, the Nagas could teach a thing or two to the people of India. He gave the example of a magnificent church that had been
recently constructed in a village near the town of Mokokchung: with a seating capacity of five thousand, it had been built
entirely with local material and local labour, much of it contributed voluntarily
by graduates and post-graduates. J P contrasted this with the contempt for
manual work among the educated, upper-caste elite of the Indian heartland.
Pride and prestige
The conflicts of Kashmir and
Nagaland had their origins in an inflexible state, but were often exacerbated
by recalcitrant rebels. If conflicts are to be successfully resolved, then they
require the state to be flexible, as well as the rebels to be more
accommodating. That, certainly, is the lesson to be learnt from the most
successful peace negotiations of contemporary times, that which led to the
demise of apartheid and the birth of a democratic South Africa. Had President F W de Klerk and his National Party not begun
a dialogue with the African National Congress, and had Nelson Mandela and his
comrades not turned their backs on the gun, there might yet be a civil conflict
raging in that country.
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One notable aspect of
the transition in South
Africa was
that the reconciliation was racial as well as political. The whites handed over
power, but did not relinquish their rights as citizens or professionals. The
need for black economic advancement was recognised, but it was not pursued in
wanton haste. The comparison with neighbouring Zimbabwe is striking. There, the end of settler colonialism was
followed by savage retribution, with the whites forcibly dispossessed of their
lands and coerced to leave the country. What was once the breadbasket of Africa has
become a basket case.
Looking over to Europe,
Southasians may also take instruction from the political transition that took
place after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once run with an iron hand from Moscow,
countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have emerged as vigorous democracies. After the hold of the
Soviets was loosened – largely through the voluntary abdication initiated by
the visionary Mikhail Gorbachev – the different sections of Polish, Hungarian
and Czech society eschewed the politics of revenge and retribution. Instead of
turning on one another, communists and anti-communists formed political parties
of their own and fought elections based on universal adult franchise. Autocrats
became democrats, while rebels became governors (most famously, Lech Walesa and
Vaclav Havel). Who, in 1960, or even in 1980, would have imagined a transition
as painless and productive?
One might also profit
from a look at the recent history of Ireland. After the Good Friday agreement of 10 April 1998, the previously militant Sinn Fein put away their guns and
entered the democratic process. The two parts of the island remain under
separate sovereignties; but the ceasefire has permitted a deeper engagement
with the democratic process within the Republic of
Ireland as well as Ulster, a free movement of people across the border, and a sharp diminution
of sectarian violence. These changes have led to a surge in economic growth,
with investments pouring into an island always legendary for its natural
beauty, known also for its rule-bound and largely peaceful society. While it
took some time to arrive at a compromise, in ultimately forging it the two
sides to the Irish conflict gave up pride and prestige, to gain, in exchange,
prosperity and peace.
Dam compromise
To return to Southasia, and to move on from political
conflicts to social ones, consider the controversy over the Sardar Sarovar dam
in central India. The benefits of this project flow wholly to one state, Gujarat,
whereas the costs are borne disproportionately by another state, Madhya
Pradesh. When it is built to its full height, the dam will displace close to
200,000 people, a majority of them Adivasi. From 1989, the oustees have been
organised under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), whose leader is
the remarkable Medha Patkar.
Between 1989 and 1995,
the NBA organised a series of satyagrahas to stop construction of the dam.
Their struggle won wide appreciation, both for its principled commitment to
non-violence and for its ability to mobilise peasants and Adivasis. By now,
several scientific studies had been published calling into question the
viability of large dams. These studies adduced environmental arguments, such as
the submergence of scarce forests and wildlife; economic arguments, such as the
fact that sedimentation rates and soil salinity had greatly diminished the financial
returns from such projects; and social arguments, namely the utter despair and
demoralisation of the communities that the dams render homeless.
The struggle and the
science notwithstanding, the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam proceeded.
In 1995, a group of engineers based in Pune advocated a compromise solution.
Given that the dam had already come up to a height of about 260 feet, clearly
it could not be stopped. But its negative effects could be minimised. The Pune
engineers were proposing a model of a dam smaller than that originally
envisaged. The reduction in height would greatly reduce the area to be submerged, yet retain much of the benefits that were to
accrue in power and irrigation. The drought-prone regions of Kutch and
Saurashtra would still get water, while fewer communities would be displaced in
the upper catchment.
The compromise formula
was rejected both by the Gujarat government and the NBA. The former insisted that the dam had
to be built to its originally sanctioned height of 456 feet. The latter
insisted that the dam must never be built. The Andolan was continuing with the
rallying cry, “Kohi Nahi Hatega! Baandh Nahin Banega!” (No one will leave their
homes! The dam will not be built!), even as the construction and displacement
continued. A part of the dam was already complete, thousands of tonnes of
concrete had already been poured, and no one really expected a reversal of
this. On the part of the state establishment, there was not a hint of its
willingness to consider a reduction in the dam height.
In retrospect, it is
unfortunate that the NBA did not accept the lowered-height proposal. Had the
Andolan advocated this alternative energetically, it is just possible that
public opinion would have veered more strongly in their favour. The Supreme
Court, before whom an appeal was pending, might have given a more favourable
verdict. Confronted with the stark alternative of continuing with dam
construction as planned and putting an end to the project, it was expected that
the court would be inclined to the former course, for many thousands of crores
of public money had already been spent on the project. If the court had been
adequately alerted to the compromise solution, which would still bring water to
the most deprived parts of Gujarat, while minimising the suffering of the displaced, they may
have been persuaded towards reducing the height of the dam. In the event of the
NBA’s unwillingness to consider compromise, the dam construction now proceeds
as planned. In all likelihood the submergence will be complete, and with it the
displacement.
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Diasporic desires
The case of Sardar Sarovar forcefully brings home the need for
social movements to be flexible in their strategies. What seems feasible and
plausible at the start may no longer be so during year five or year ten. (As
John Maynard Keynes liked to say, “When the facts change, I change my mind.”)
It is past time that two of the most enduring oppositional political movements
in Southasia change their approaches and strategies. To be more specific: the
Naga people stand enormously to gain if their leaders abandon their dream of a
sovereign homeland and agree to be part of the Republic of
India. So do the Tamils of northern Sri Lanka, if the LTTE settles for an honourable place in a single,
united island nation, rather than fighting on for an independent Eelam.
The civil war in
Nagaland has gone on, episodically, for 50 years now. The struggle for a Tamil
Eelam is almost as old. In the meantime, thousands of lives have been lost, thousands of families have been broken. But the dream
of an independent homeland seems as distant as ever. Should not the rebels now
sue for peace, peace with dignity and honour?
That last caveat is
crucial – ‘with dignity and honour’. To get the rebels to drop the sovereignty
demand will require handsome gestures. As the veteran journalist George
Verghese has suggested, the Nagas could have recognition of their distinctive
status indicated on their passports – not ‘Indian’, but ‘Naga Indian’.
Likewise, Colombo could explicitly disavow the earlier enactment making
Buddhism the ‘state religion’ of Sri Lanka, while at the same time placing the Tamil language on par
with Sinhalese. Other measures will also be necessary, among them the deepening
of federalism to allow true autonomy for the region concerned, special grants
to rehabilitate victims and former combatants, and even – why not? – public recognition of the sufferings caused by the state’s
armed action.
Were gestures like
this forthcoming, would the Naga and Tamil rebels give up their arms and, as it
were, join the national mainstream? One cannot be so naďve as to think this
very likely. There is the issue of pride: having fought so long for a certain
goal, it cannot be let go of easily, or at all. There is also the issue of
sacrifice: having lost so many lives in the cause, would it be fair to the
memory of the martyrs to settle for less than what they gave their lives for?
Sentiments such as these are widespread both among the leadership of the
National Socialist Council of Nagalim (IM), the leading insurgent group in
Nagaland, and of the LTTE, who have for some time now been the main – indeed,
unchallenged – representatives of the Sri Lankan Tamil cause.
In both the Naga and
the Tamil cases, compromise is also made more difficult by the desires of the
diasporic community. Nagas in exile and Tamils in exile are even more emphatic
in their demands for complete independence. Since they pay for the guns, their
voice carries much weight. This is a depressingly familiar story, the story of
the expatriate who is more unyielding than those who live on the ground. Palestine might be a less violent place were it not for the Jewish
opinion on the East Coast of the United States. The Good Friday agreement might have come earlier had it
not been for Americans of Irish-Catholic extraction. Many fewer lives would
have been lost in the Indian Punjab during the 1980s had Sikhs in the United
Kingdom, Canada and the United States not decided to support and encourage the
struggle for an independent Khalistan.
The Nagas and the
Tamils share certain attributes. They both have a very strong sense of
identity, and the pride that goes along with it. Both communities have a
better-than-average acquaintance with English, the language of professional
advancement in the global economy. As compared with other Southasian cultures,
they practice less gender discrimination – here (whether in the Indian
Northeast, or the Sri Lankan north and east) many women assume leadership roles
as teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs and guerrilla fighters. And if one is able
to make the last of these professions redundant, there will be much greater
scope for the others. Were this generation of Nagas and the Sri Lankan Tamils
to put down their weapons, the next generation would reap untold benefits. They
would be part of a larger economy in which, due to their communitarian pride
and legacy of professionalism, they would enjoy advantages that other Indian or
Sri Lankan communities do not.
The leader-in-command
The primary hurdle in the way of a successful
resolution of the Naga and Tamil issues is the burden of history. Both sides to
both these conflicts have much to complain about. The Jaffna Tamils cannot
forget the burning of the great library or the pogrom of 1983; the Sinhalas
will remember the assassination of their leaders and the bombs that explode and
kill innocents in markets. The Nagas recall the promises made and betrayed by
the Indian state down through the years; the Indian state remembers only the Nagas
seeking Chinese help and the killing of moderates. Looking back to the past,
one sees only crimes committed by the other party, crimes real as well as
imagined. It is necessary for the contending parties to look to the future
instead, to think of the fate of the generations to come. Do today’s rebels
want the youth of today, too, to live a life of uncertainty and instability, in
and by the shadow of the gun? When is enough enough, and a compromise possible?
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History is a burden in
another way too. In the thick of the rebellion, insurgency leaders are prone to
rhetorical excess, to make commitments and promises that make compromise at a
later stage difficult. Thus, the LTTE has often said that it will hold out for
nothing less than an independent nation, the Tamil Eelam. The NSCN has likewise
stood for an independent Nagalim; to consist of the Naga-speaking areas of
Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam as well as Nagaland. When the rebels do come to the
negotiating table, these past promises come back to haunt them. If they are not
reminded of these claims by their own cadres, then surely rivals within the
movement will make certain to draw the public’s attention to the ‘sell-out’.
(In the same manner, Medha Patkar is still constrained by the stirring slogan
that captivated her followers when the Narmada
movement was at its height: “Baandh Nahin Banega! Koi Nahin Hatega!”)
These constraints and
impediments are real and serious. But they must be overcome if the real and
substantial benefits that are to flow to the Nagas and Tamils through a
successful resolution of the two conflicts are to be arrived at. For the Nagas
and Tamils, especially, the potential gains from giving up the gun are massive
indeed. The Indian Constitution does allow for a great degree of devolution.
If, as Jayaprakash Narayan told the Nagas long ago, they can run their own
economy and promote their own culture, then why does it matter that they do not
have their nation and their own flag? A deeper federalism can also handily
serve the aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamils. With the attributes that the
Nagas and the Tamils share, they stand to gain enormously from the acceptance
of an honourable place within the constitutional framework of India and Sri Lanka.
It is, of course, not
just the Naga and Tamil peoples who have virtues and traits in common. So do
their acknowledged leaders. The main Naga separatist leader, T Muivah, and the
Tamil Tiger supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, are both men of extraordinary
energy and drive. During the course of lives dedicated to the cause, they have
nurtured the strengths and talents of countless cadres and followers. The Naga
struggle is inconceivable without Muivah; so, too, the Tamil struggle without
Prabhakaran. In the past, their charisma and determination have played a
crucial part in the making and deepening of the struggle. Can that same
charisma and determination now play their part in forging a compromise? For, if
anyone can persuade the Tamils to give up the gun, it is Prabhakaran. If anyone
can charm the Nagas into accepting the Indian Constitution, it is Muivah.
These two leaders have
a legitimacy and popular appeal denied to their colleagues, and possibly also
to their successors. While they are alive and in command, the state in New Delhi and Colombo might consider giving up more than it would otherwise. If a
solution is not found within their lifetimes, the state may be tempted to
withhold these concessions, in the hope that in their leader’s absence the
rebel movement will splinter into factions and thus lose its energy and
legitimacy. By the same token, the Nagas and the Tamils may, at present, be
able to get a better – perhaps even far better – bargain than might be possible
ten or twenty years down the line. Speculation on the future of Tamil
separatism when its leader dies or disappears might lead to the conclusion
that, if Prabhakaran is no more, it will be the beginning of the end of the
LTTE. Likewise, it is overwhelmingly likely that a post-Muivah NSCN will be far
less influential and credible than it is now. All the more reason, then, for a
deal to be struck and implemented while the leader is still living and in
command. As things stand, however, it appears that the claims of passion are
winning over the cold logic of reason in both theatres of Northeast India and
the north and east of Sri Lanka. Several years of talks have not brought the Indian
government and the Naga rebels any closer to a solution. While Muivah is at
least talking, Prabhakaran has taken Sri Lanka back into a full-scale civil war.
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Back in 1966, when the
state was strong and the rebels weak, the Indian government refused to
rehabilitate Sheikh Abdullah. What followed has been a continuously violent and
unstable Kashmir. The break-up of Pakistan in 1971 was likewise the fault mainly of an arrogant and
overbearing state. Looking at the case of the Naga and Tamil rebellions, one is
forced to ponder whether the roles have not now been reversed. While the
deadlock of the past may be ascribed to the intransigent state establishment,
will it be that the window of opportunity in Nagaland and Sri Lanka will be shut principally because of the dogmatism and
insecurity of the rebels?
The uncompromised
Gandhi
It is entirely likely that the proposals put forward here for a spirit of
compromise from the state and the insurgents will be met with scorn and
derision, not just from within the Naga and the Tamil fold, but also from
scholars and analysts engaged with these issues. But then, as the American
critic Lionel Trilling noted long ago, intellectuals have always tended to
embrace an ‘adversary culture’: standing against the state, against the market,
against the establishment – in fact, against anything and everything but
themselves. Conciliation and compromise does not come naturally to
intellectuals, whose armchairs tend to be removed from the zones of conflict
and who do not suffer the fallout of continuous, decades-long fighting.
On the other hand,
conciliation and compromise were an integral part of the vocabulary and political
repertoire of a man to whom I owe the title of this essay, the man whom I can,
uncontroversially, refer to as the greatest Southasian of them all, Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi knew when to begin a movement, but also when to call
it off; when to challenge an opponent, but also when to talk to and seek to
understand the adversary. The only thing he was uncompromising on was the use
of non-violence.
In many ways, Gandhi
was the arch-reconciler, the builder of bridges – bridges between Hindus and
Muslims, between India and Pakistan, between high castes and low castes, between men and women,
between the coloniser and the colonised. Independent India has had many
failures, but also some successes. The most conspicuous of the latter are owed
to Gandhi’s political followers having honoured his spirit of compromise. India is not – or, at least, not yet – a ‘Hindu Pakistan’, because
its first prime minister followed Gandhi in promoting
religious pluralism. The Indian Constitution provided special privileges for
Dalits and Adivasis under the inspiration of Gandhi. In fact, the Dalit leader
Dr B R Ambedkar was made both India’s first law minister and chairman of the Drafting Committee
of the Constitution on the recommendation of Gandhi. It was also Gandhi who first
advocated and promoted the idea of linguistic states. All of these initiatives
were attempts by Gandhi to reach out to the ‘underdog’ with a hand of
conciliation and unforced magnanimity.
Among the
all-pervading but little recognised of Gandhi’s successes was the forging of a
stable, harmonious and even affectionate relationship between the United Kingdom and independent India. Certainly, nowhere else have Empire and Colony maintained
such a friendship after the sundering of the imperial (and essentially
inequitable) tie that once bound them. Consider the bitter relations that exist
to this day between the French and the Algerians, the Dutch and the
Indonesians, the Belgians and Congolese, the Russians and the Poles, the
Japanese and the Koreans.
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That the citizens of
India today do not ‘hate’ the English is owed largely – one might even say
entirely – to Gandhi. His closest friend was an Englishman, Charles Freer
Andrews. When Andrews died, in 1940, Gandhi wrote that while the numerous
misdeeds of the English would be forgotten, not one of the heroic deeds of
Andrews will be forgotten as long as England and India live. If we really love Andrews’ memory, we may not have
hate in us for Englishmen, of whom Andrews was among the best and noblest. It
is possible, quite possible, for the best Englishmen and the best Indians to
meet together and never to separate till they have evolved a formula acceptable
to both.
In the six decades
since the Raj ended, the ‘best Englishmen and the best Indians’ have met regularly
and amicably, to their mutual advantage. A spirit of conciliation helped England and India to evolve a powerful friendship, which had myriad benefits
for both. The economic benefit to India from this friendship alone will have been enormous.
While the
India-England rapprochement was admittedly of a different kind, can there be a
time when the same can, or will, be said of Nagas and the people of the
heartland of India, or Jaffna Tamils and the monks of Kandy? It
would take a great deal of give-and-take on both sides, an honest
acknowledgement of error, a willingness to compromise and, perhaps above all,
the ability to think of a hopefully harmonious future rather than a bitter and
bloody past.
The Naga and Tamil
struggles are founded on the principle of identity. These two peoples have a
strong sense of who they are and what unites them, this defined by a shared
territory, religion, culture and language. It is the denial, both perceived and
real, of this identity by the nation-state establishment and its policies that
explain the origin and persistence of the secessionist movement. The key to a
solution lies in converting the currency of identity into the currency of
interest. The groups that are currently protesting about threats to their
identity must be provided with a stake in power and decision-making. That is
how, for example, the Solidarity generation in Poland