The Politics of Celebrating Independence

S. P. Udayakumar



1947, when the majority of South Asians achieved independence, and the rest witnessed the waning of the British intrusion, was, no doubt, an important milestone for the region. The 50th anniversary of that fresh beginning evokes distinct responses from different sections of South Asians. The most contradictory ones are the self-absorbed celebrations at the top echelons and an insensible confusion among the lower rungs. Both groups have obvious reasons to bask in the glory of independence, and to barge about the political spectrum respectively.


The independence-centred rendering of South Asian affairs has served some useful purposes for powers that be. Among other things, it vindicates the replacement of the consolidated 'White Master' by the centralised 'Brown Master' with all the 'Master paraphernalia' as the sole legitimate political process. It justifies the mindless imitation of the Western Trinity: nation-statism, scientism, and developmentalism as the only way to socio-economic salvation. It extricates the 'Brown Master' from serious accountability or responsibility since anything bad and everything wrong could be conveniently blamed on the colonisers. Moreover, the dissenting voices and visions of Gandhi, Tagore, and such South Asian geniuses could be bluntly pushed out of the political arena.


The independence-oriented narrative hides the pre-independence collective liberation struggles of South Asians but highlights their divided post-independence 'accomplishments'. Thus the national history, national culture and national visions all come to be consolidated under the independence rubric and are considered to deserve no more debates. The disparate projects of nation-building get on full-swing with the typical preoccupations such as electoral politics, industrial development, national security, and so forth. The questions of cultural identities, human dignity, the subjugated groups of people, and their subaltern histories and futures are some of the many victims of this development. In this continuity-inspired political journey, the British road map is quite vital and independence is the only available highway. It is neither an exit nor a turning point.


On the contrary, the poor and illiterate South Asians: landless rural workers, marginal farmers, urban poor, deprived ethnic groups, unskilled women workers, child laborers, and others, who constitute more than half of the 1.2 billion poor on Earth, are at a complete loss when it comes to the meaning of independence. The seventh plan of India estimated that 273 million people were living in absolute poverty in 1984-85. In the 1980s, 29% of rural households and 32% of urban households in Pakistan lived below the poverty line. Now South Asia, which has 22% of the world's population, earns only 6% of the global income. About 40% of South Asians are poor, 46% illiterate and half the region's children malnourished. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives and Nepal are considered to be some of the 'Least Developed' countries in the world. The promising road that the poor South Asians embarked on has led to a dead-end of corruption and decay spawned by socio-economic divisions, and structural and physical violence.


Ever since the two-pronged 'divide and rule' approach of the British and the 'two nation' theory of the communal forces led to the partition of the subcontinent, the elites of South Asian countries have always bifurcated the region's modern history with the independence divider. This 'two portion' analysis that compares the so-called post-independence 'freedom' with the pre-independence bondage replicates similar handicaps in psychological and emotional realms too. Entrenching the South Asian psyche even more firmly in the colonial framework, the independence fixation makes the forced departure of the British as important as their uninvited arrival. The contemporary period thus comprises of 'before 1947' when the British themselves ruled, and 'after 1947' when the British ideas rule. The colonizer still continues to be the central organizing force in our identity constructions and the quest for better life.


Some of the alternatives that scholars suggest for South Asians are economic development and modernisation, administrative restructuring and so forth. These suggestions simply reflect the Western institutions of developmentalism and nation-statism, the two traps the poor of South Asia presently find themselves in. The first development suggestion gives rise to many questions as to the social and ecological cost of "successful economic development," the recent trend of trans-national capital swallowing up the social aspirations of labour and other weaker sections, and the global tendency of enriching the rich and ignoring the poor.


There have been many proposals along the lines of administrative restructuring. Raju Thomas suggests digging up the British Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 which proposed a loose confederation of three parts in what are essentially the modern Pakistan, India and Bangladesh and forming "a democratic, decentralised, and secular United Indian Confederation." Other insignificant suggestions include "some sort of Indo-Pak Confederation," and "a confederation or Common Market of the Hindustan Peninsula". None of the above-mentioned economic programs and political arrangements seems to be forthcoming or promising.


If the poor of South Asia were to accept the independence rhetoric uncritically, they would be falling victim to the elitist 'before-after' approach. They will be obliged to subscribe to the 'after-independence achievements' such as founding the nation-state and formulating development plans, both of which have failed them consistently for the past fifty years. They would be left with only a few concrete choices. First, the poor may have to continue scraping along with their present 'fate'. Second, some individuals or communities may try in vain to regain the 'before-state' with a nostalgic frame of mind like calling the British back. Then there is the third option of putting independence behind, transcending the 'before-after' mindset, and pulling oneself together with a futuristic frame of mind.


Accepting some of the 'after-independence' developments such as the political self-determination of various peoples of the region, all South Asians should restore some of the 'before-independence' heritage such as unrestricted travel and un-restrained socio-economic miscegenation. We could also go for certain things that we had neither 'before' nor 'after' independence such as "Forward Looking Strategies" to bring peace, better life and dignity to all South Asians. We have to look beyond the nation-state formulation of a linear, orderly, controlled, violent, singular future where better life is often determined by impersonal institutions and their statistical aggregates. Leaving the 'before-after' approach behind and thus getting past the historical pre-occupations, and overcoming the traumas and resentments of partition, the civil societies of South Asia should re-open the disrupted dialogues. The plural futures we envision should be both local and regional (and global), specific and general, humane rather than bureaucratic, and empowering rather than disabling.


The partial political independence the South Asian countries obtained in 1947 is, of course, a noteworthy event for the regional peoples in our long history. But to hail that as the single most important turning point is not just incorrect but also misleading. After all, independence also involved religious bigotry, anomalous partition, unnecessary holocaust and enormous human suffering. It marked the onset of one of the protracted conflicts (Kashmir) in the modern world, and the beginning of an era of increased military expenditure, nuclear competition and poverty. It is high time South Asians put independence aside as the highest political value and loftiest socio-economic platform for the future as it has failed almost half of us and taken the rest on a wrong way to a dead end. South Asians with fortitude and creativity should engage ourselves in a redemption struggle to prioritise poverty and misery as the most important issue of South Asia and to regain human dignity.