Evolution of Public Sphere in India

Author(s): Amir Ali

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 26 (Jun. 30 - Jul. 6, 2001), pp. 2419-2425
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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Special

articles

Evolution of

Public

Sphere

in

India

The particular manner in which the public sphere has evolved in India under colonial
rule and during the national movementand hence the very nature that it has acquired has
made it susceptible to the recent advance of Hindutva. It is in the backdrop of the
ambiguities of the national movement,which were partly a result of nationalist responses to
colonial rule, that one can understandsome of the anomalies in the public sphere as it
currently exists in India. In any consideration of the public sphere its relation to the
private sphere cannot be neglected for it is in its relation to the private sphere that the
public is itself defined and given shape. Institutionalisingmulticulturalismin the
public sphere will involve a renegotiationof the relationshipbetweenthe two spheres. Ways
and means of recreatinga public sphere so that it adequatelyreflectsthe diversity
of the countrymust be seriouslyexplored.
AMIR ALI

he inabilityof the publicsphereto

reflect a plurality of cultures has

resulted in its inaccessibility for
members of minority groups and hence
their exclusion from it. As a corollary to
this inability to adequately reflect cultural
diversity, has been the fact of the public
sphere being defined and dominated by
majoritarianvalues and norms, which have
been considered to be neutral. This particular tendency has been further accentuated and exacerbated by the recent rise
in the Indian polity of the phenomenon
of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism.This
particular phenomenon seeks to firmly
entrenchand institutionalise the symbols,
cultural norms, values and beliefs cherished by it as the only legitimate ones
capable of defining the Indian state.
The first section of the article will look
at the actual creation of the public sphere
underthe influence of British colonial rule.
For the purposes of understanding the
public sphere and its evolution in India,
the distinction that Sandria Freitag (1990)
makes between the public sphere of western Europe conceptualised by Habermas
and what she terms, as the 'public arena'
in India will be closely followed. It will
be argued that the particular manner in
which the public sphere has evolved in
India and hence the very nature that it has
acquired, has made it susceptible to the
recent advance of Hindutva. One of the
major goals of Hindu nationalism today
is to create a public sphere that is completely defined by the symbols cherished
by it. This can be seen in the emphasis that
is placed by proponents of Hindutva on
symbolic issues like the singing of 'Bande

Mataram' and the 'Saraswati Vandana'.

It is on account of this vety reason that
it has earlier been argued that the only
way to stop the continuous Hindutva advance is by emphasising a multiculturalism
that privileges the aspect of making the
public sphere more conducive to the expression of minority cultures [see Ali
2000: 1503-1505].
The second section of the article will
look at the nature of the public sphere that
the nationalmovement helped to configure.
Here it will be argued that it was in the
ambiguities and anomalies of the national
movement, which were partly a result of
nationalist responses to colonial rule, that
one can understandsome of the anomalies
in the public sphere as it exists in India
at present. In any consideration of the
public sphere its relation to the private
sphere cannot be neglected for it is in its
relation to the privatesphere thatthe public
is itself defined andgiven shape [Habermas
1989: 2]. Therefore, a large part of this
article, especially the third section, will
refer to the natureof the private sphere and
its relation to the public. Further, it will
be argued that the very idea of institutionalising multiculturalismin the public sphere
will involve a renegotiation of the relationship between the two spheres. The last
section of the article is an attempt to look
at ways and means to actually recreate the
public sphere so that it adequately reflects
the diversity of the country.
The idea, to put it briefly, is thatcolonial
rule created a public sphere but left the
private sphere free for the native elites.
There was thus a very sharp distinction
between the two spheres.The public sphere

was thus to be governed by British laws

pertainingto areasof life like land relations,
criminal law, laws of contract and of
evidence. On the other hand, the colonial
state was reluctant to encroach upon the
private spheres of the two major religious
communities. This reluctance can be seen
in its policy of allowing this sphere to be
governed by Hindu andMuslim laws which
were defined as personal law and which
dealt with areas of life that were more
intimate like family relationships, family
property and religious life [Sarkar 1993:
1871]. It is in this dichotomy between the
public and private spheres and the political
jockeying that took place among native
elites for control and domination over the
private sphere that one can understandthe
particular institutionalisation of the two
spheres in the Indian polity. The fact that
the nationalist movement was to formulate
a response to colonial rule that was very
closely tied with the private sphere has
furtherinfluenced the shape thatthe public
and private spheres have taken.

Influenceof ColonialPolicies
The present configuration of the public
sphere as it is to be found in India has been
decisively shaped by the experience of
British colonialism and the national movement that arose in response to it. These two
influences have continued to exert a strong
influence in the postcolonial era. In fact,
it is only by analysing the actual manner
of the evolution of the public sphere in
India that an understandingcan be reached
regarding its specific characteristics.

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2419

Itwouldperhapsbe usefulto beginwith

the influenceof Britishcolonial policies
first.One of the moresignificantof these
is the precisemannerin whichthe British
imperialstate in India chose to interact
withthepopulation
atlarge.SandriaFreitag
hasnotedthattheverynatureof theimperial
'intrudingstate' ruledout the possibility
of a directrelationshipbetweenthe individualandthestate.TheBritishstatechose
insteadto relyon a 'representational
mode
of governance'thatwas basedsociologically on discretecommunities,with particularindividualsrepresenting
thoseinterests[see Freitag1990: 191-92].Thus,certainindividuals
wouldinvariably
be chosen
as therepresentatives
of the discretecommunitiesidentifiedby the colonial state
andtheywouldthenrepresenttheinterests
of the community,which acted as their
politicalconstituency.It was in this manner that the 'representationalmode of
governance' mentioned above was to
evolve. More importantly,this representationalmodeof governanceensuredthat
thenativeelites,theones privilegedby the
British state as the legitimaterepresentativesof theirparticular
communities,had
an importantstakein this formof governance.Freitagobservesthatthispatternof
stateintrusionsdiffereddramaticallyfrom
the patternof stateintrusionsin England
andFrancein the 19thcentury.This particularmannerof the interactionbetween
the imperialstate and individuals,with
communitiesmediatingthe relationship
has had importantconsequences,especiallythemannerinwhichthepublicsphere
is relatedto the privatesphere.
Thedifferencesinthenatureof thepublic
sphereas it is to be foundin Indiaandthe
publicspherein EnglandandFrancehave
beentracedbyFreitagto thedifferentways
in whichthecommunitywas linkedto the
individualandthestate.Inthecaseof India
it has alreadybeen noted that the very
natureof the imperialstate ruledout the
possibilityof a directrelationshipbetween
the individualandthe state.Nationalrituals in Europeemphasisedcommonvalues
and 'traditions'.They stresseda history
thatdefinedparticipantsas alike in their
relationshipto the state.On the contrary,
imperialritualsinBritishIndiastressedthe
'diversity'of Britishimperialrule.Freitag
points out that recent Europeansocial
historyhasamongoneof itscentralaspects
of theilluminationof theprocessby which
popularidentificationwith local commuintoidentification
nitybecametransmuted
with a largerentity. Public participation
incollectiveactivitieslikeceremoniesand
publicprotestscreatedanimportantcorollaryto thenationstate- the'publicsphere'
in which individualsparticipatedin the
shapingof theirstatesthroughtheexercise

2420

of public opinion. These ceremonies and the explanation of the present configuraprotests provided the widening ideologi- tion of the Indian public sphere in the
cal frameworkthatinformedtheconnection natureacquired by the national movement
between nation state and the individual in response to colonial rule.The reason for
[Freitag 1990: 177]. Thus, two elements this is that the right to national self deterwere to prove important in the European mination can be considered as the right to
shift of popular identification from local ones own public sphere, in which the latter
community to that of the nation state in is defined by certain desirable cultural
England and France, according to Freitag. norms, values, beliefs and practices [Tamir
The first was participation in collective
1993: 70]. However, the right to national
rituals informed by an ideological frame- self-determination and its concomitant
work that came to equate'community' and public sphere are invariably weighted
'nation'. Secondly, the creation of a public against the minorities. The resultantpublic
spherein which citizens of the nationhelped sphere is therefore largely defined by the
to shape it through the exercise of public cultural values and symbols of the majoopinion. This shift in the organisation of rity.Further, for Tamir minority discommunity aroundthe local community to advantage arises when membersof minorone in which individualsidentified with the ity communities are prevented from carrnation was accompanied by the creation of. ying their cultural particularity into the
a public sphere, which was fully elaborated public sphere [Tamir 1993: 53]. Itis for this
and institutionalised in the 19th century. very reason thatTamir argues for a 'liberal
Freitag observes that while the various nationalism' that combines the legitimate
characteristicsof the nationstatecitedabove need for recognition by a people with their
were indeed to serve as an importantmodel right to democratic participationand polifor thirdworld nationalism,theseprocesses tical representation. This liberal nationwere not wholly replicated in the colonial alism further seeks to provide safeguards
part of the world with the inevitable local to the minorities and thereby prevents the
influences creeping in. Thus while there construction of a public sphere that is
were'superficial similarities' which made culturally inaccessible to its members.
it seem that the European model of the
It was the coexistence of diverse tendennation and its public sphere could be cies in the Indian national movement and
borrowed directly, substantive differences the frequent suppression of the more libprevented an easy translation to British eral ones that was to result in the shaping
India [Freitag 1990:192]. As resultof these of the public sphere in its present form.
substantive differences anti-imperial agi- Thus it was the more illiberal and retrotators in north India drew not from the gressive tendencies within the national
movement that gave rise to those aspects
European model of state-individual
relationships but from definitions of com- of the public sphere thatmake it less demomunity established in northIndiain the late cratic and prevent its being accessible to
19th century. Freitag observes that most large sections of the population. Freitag,
of these north Indian definitions revolved noting the differences that arose in the
aroundreligious identity.As a consequence public sphere in western Europe and in
politicised religious identity or commu- India, argues that in creating a south Asian
nalism emerged as an equivalentand viable equivalent of the nation state's public
alternative to nationalism [Freitag 1990: sphere, anti-imperialismcould not provide
196]. As a result of the cultural particu- the same base as nationalism would have,
larities prevalent in India there emerged and that community was later sought as
what Freitag terms as public arenas as the base instead [Freitag 1990: 230].
The more importantand subtle point to
opposed to the public sphere in western
Europe. Public arenas facilitated popular note is that the present distortions that are
participation in ritual enactment of the to be found in the public sphere are, in fact,
polity. They provided an importantimpe- a telling commentary on the exact nature
tus to integration in 19th century India. By of the national movement.They provide an
serving as a conduit for the expression of insight on those less desirable aspects of
symbolic statements of collective values, it that often compromised with or colluded
they performed a role very similar to that with the colonial authorities [see Sarkar
of public opinion in Europe expressed
1993]. The compromises and collusion
through the public sphere [Freitag 1990: took place at the level of the native elites
192]. The problem of reshaping the public who were eager for the guarantee of their
arena to function as the equivalent of the own separate sphere of influence. This
western public sphere revolved around sphere of influence, it is importantto add,
issues of authority and legitimacy, which lay in the private sphere of the commualso lay at the heart of collective ritual as nities thatthey represented.This particular
it came to be shaped in the modern nation aspect of the public and private spheres
state of the west [Freitag 1990: 284].
and their relations to the anomalies of the
It is importantat this stageto searchfor nationalmovement will be morefully taken

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June 30, 2001

up in a subsequent section. For the present colonial elites. Thus for Chandhoke while 1993: 1871]. The conscious policy of leavit is enough to emphasise that such anoma- the first wave of liberation took place
ing an inviolable private sphere for the
lies occurred due firstly to the nature of along with decolonisation, the second wave native elites was in keeping with the shift
the relationship between the public and comes up against those very elites who had in British policies in the immediate afterprivate domains, as the two domains had taken over power with decolonisation. In math of the Mutiny of 1857. This shift was
evolved under the influence of British many cases, Chandhoke feels that this from an Anglicist aim of creating a class
colonial rule; and secondly the political reassertionamounts to a re-examinationof of westernised Indians as conceived in
bargaining that took place between colo- the political discourse thatinformedunder- Macaulay's famous minute on education
nial elites on the one hand and native elites .standings of the decolonised world.
in 1835 to the conscious courting and
on the other for political influence over the Chandhoke's analysis of the ills of Indian encouragement of the more orthodox or
two spheres [see Sinha 1995].
civil society, in a mannersimilar to the way traditional Indian groups [Sinhl 1995: 4].
in which the present distortions in the
The reluctance of the British to intrude
Indian public sphere have been traced to into the private spheres of the two major
II
the anomalies of the national movement religious communities, the Hindusand the
Influenceof
above, also lead her to go back to the Muslims,was to result in two similar reNationalMovement
moment of independence to 'see what went sponses from the elites of both communities.What was common to these re[Chandhoke 1998: 30].
wrong'
her
seeks
to
Freitag,extending
analysis,
was that both were decidedly
sponses
bringout the links thatexist between public
revivalist in content and both of them
arena activities and the national moveIll
supported and strengthened the national
ment.Freitag uses the example of the Cow
Relationshipbetween Public movement. In the case of Hindu revivalist
Protection Movements of the late 19th
and PrivateSpheres
nationalism, resistance was to be manicentury as a public arena activity to argue
thatwhile it was 'clearly not nationalism'
The particularrelationshipthatthe public fested in the hostility to the Age of Consent
Bill of 1891. In the case of Muslim revivyet the point is that "it operated in the very sphere bears with the private sphere is alism in
the form of the Deoband School,
samepublicspaces, utilising the same forms itself an outcome of colonial practices.
it
was
to
be seen in the creation of an
of publicity andvenues of communication, More specifically, it was an outcome of
and made very similar kinds of demands the manner in which the colonial elite, in autonomous community with its own
for protectionof shared values and modes accordancewith its 'representationalmode privatesphere.Theboundariesof this sphere
of behaviour as did the nationalist move- of governance', chose to interactwith native were sharply defined and the activities of
ment" [Freitag 1996: 219-20]. Freitag as- elites, the representatives of various com- this sphere were not to be interfered with
sertsthatit is importantto emphasise these munities.What is distinctive about the by either the colonial authorities or a later
Indian state.
points because, for her, the example rein- private sphere is that the imperial state post-colonial
While looking at two decidedly revivforces ParthaChatterjee's point of Indian would almost invariably leave the private
nationalism being a derivative discourse. sphere alone and would be reluctant to alist responses that formed an important
the nationalist movement, it is
Thus, movements like the one for Cow encroach upon this sphere. This is not to part of
Protection "had at least as influential an say that the imperial state had no influence important to differentiate between the
various streams of the nationalist moveimpact on the development of Indian na- whatsoever on the private sphere. It certionalism as did the western model from tainly did intervene in the private sphere, ment itself.There were thus elements rangwhich its vocabulary was often drawn".In for example to codify the personal laws ing from liberals to revivalists to commuthis way, the national movement has of communities [see Freitag 1996: 212]; nists and socialists in the national movement. For the present, we need to focus
'helped to shape a very differently config- however, the point here is that even this on the
revivalistelements of the movement
ured civil society' [Freitag 1996: 220].
limited intervention was meant to uphold
Neera Chandhoke (1998) has also
or ended up actually reinforcing and to gain an understandingof the distortions
that are to be found in the public sphere.
pointed out the difference in contexts that strengthening the boundaries defining the
What is thus being argued here is that the
exist between assertions of civil society in private sphere.
the west and those in post-colonial sociIn fact, the sharp division between the present configuration of the public sphere
eties like India. She notes that the assertion two spheres was a reflection of the basic and its anomalies that have been menof civil society in the west is based upon division in the legal domain postulated by tioned earlierhave been conditioned by the
a shared collective memory of the manner English legislatorsandjudges.Thus, British more revivalist tendencies within the
in which limits and restraints were placed and Anglo-Indian law had a 'territorial' nationalist movement. Both of these revivalist tendencies will be considered in turn.
upon absolutist states b' the activities of scope and ruled over the 'public' world
the responses of the Deoband School
Firstly
self-conscious rights bearing individuals of land relations, criminal law, laws of
in association with others. The west thus contract and of evidence. In sharp contra- will be taken into account and secondly
has a historyof the assertionof civil society distinction to this were Hindu and Muslim the responses of revivalist Hindu nationalism will be considered. It will furtherbe
against the state and it is precisely this laws which were defined as 'personal',
shared history that is sought to be recap- covering persons rather than areas, and argued that two contemporary problems
tured and recreated when the slogan of dealing with more intimate areasof human that have been witnessed recently in the
civil society is invoked against the state. existence - family relationships, family Indian polity, namely the Shah Bano
However, in the case of the post-colonial property, and religious life. This sharp controversy and the rise of Hindutva, both
world it is not a question of the 'remem- distinction was further bolstered by the involving controversies over private and
brance'of, butthe 'creation' of civil society Queen's Proclamation of 1859, which public domains, are inextricably linked to
as the sphere where democratic politics promised absolute non-interference in these responses mentioned above. Thus,
can be constructed. Civil society has thus religious matters.There was thus a certain the furorethat erupted over the Shah Bano
become the 'leitmotif of movements strug- wariness on the part of the colonial state ruling by the Supreme Court was a direct
gling to free themselves from the clutches towards encroaching on the private sphere outcome of the Deoband School's creation
of irresponsibleand often tyrannical post- especially in the post 1857 decades [Sarkar of an autonomous private sphere in the
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2421

latterhalf of the 19th century. Peter Hardy

(1972) has described this system as a form
of 'judicialapartheid'.Its implications were
obvious in the perceived violation of the
Muslim private sphere after the Supreme
Court'srulingon theShahBanocase in 1985
and the subsequent calls to protect Muslim
PersonalLaw. All these developments were
to lead to the passage of the Muslim
Women's Proteckionof Rights on Divorce
Bill in May 1986 by the Rajiv Gandhi led
Congress government on the ostensiblegrounds of protecting minority rights.
In similar ways, the contemporary reassertion of Hindutva is a result of the kind
of revivalist nationalism that was initially
formulated by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in his writings in the latter half
of the 19th century. The two controversies
are further linked in the sense that both
arose around the same time, that is in the
mid-1980s. In fact the Shah Bano controversy was to actually impartan unparalleled
momentum to the emerging politics of
Hindutva as the former was effectively
used by the latter to reinforce the idea that
the Indian state was appeasing Muslims.
The difference between the two however lay in the fact that while the Muslim
response to the Shah Bano judgment was
meantto protectthe Muslim private sphere
from a perceived encroachment by the
Supreme Court; the Hindutva movement
was out to stamp the Indian public sphere
with the symbols, culturalvalues and norms
of Hindu nationalism.This attempt to redefine the public sphere is significant as
the politics of Hindu nationalism was taken
out of the private sphere of the Hindu
family and Hindu conjugality where it had
existed in the latterpartof the 19th century
[Sarkar1993]. This shift is indeed significant and represents the dissatisfaction of
the votaries of Hindutva with the way in
which the public sphere of the Indian state
had been defined in the post-independence
period. It is obvious that the more liberal
streams of the nationalist movement had
considerable influence in the shaping of
the post-colonial public sphere in India
and it is particularly such liberal sentiments that Hindutva has chosen to denounce. This can be seen in its various
challenges to ideas that had till recently
been accepted as an integral partof Indian
public life, for example the manner in
which Nehruvian secularism has been
successfully portrayedas being alien to the
particularities of the country.
The revivalism of the Deoband School
will be considered a response of the
'religious elite' of the Muslims in India to
the changed circumstances that it was confronted with in the immediate aftermathof the Mutiny of 1857. The particularpredicament that the religious elite faced was

2422

that the events of 1857 representednotjust

the loss of political power from Muslim
hands to British hand, which in itself was
a momentous loss. More importantly, it
brought into focus the problem of living
in a predominantly non-Muslim society as
a numerical minority without the benefits
of political power [Kepel 1997]. This
particular predicament which had never
before been experienced in any part of the
Islamic world was resolved by arriving at
what Barbara Daly Metcalf (1982) terms
a 'modus vivendi'. This involved the
acceptanceof the legitimacy of British rule
in returnfor the guarantee or assurance of
a private sphere in which the religious and
cultural observances of the Muslims as
enshrined in the sharia could be faithfully
carried out. This of course would be done
without interruptionfrom the British state
or the fear of being swamped by the larger
non-Muslim society. The important point
to note is that the political trajectorytaken
by the religious elite at no point of time
took it anywhere near the idea of creating
a separateIslamic state of Pakistan. It was
merely content with the continued maintenance of its privatesphereand it is for this
reason that it sided with the Congress-led
national movement, a political position
thatit was to articulateforcefully andclearly
with the creation in 1919 of the Jamiatal-ulama-e-Hind.
Mrinalini Sinha (1995) in her book
Colonial Masculinity has studied in detail
two differentlypositionedelites, one among
the colonisers and the other among the
colonised. From the 'perspective of the
uneven and contradictory intersection of
various axes of powers', 'the dynamics
between colonialism and nationalism', on
the one hand and between 'colonial India
and metropolitan British society' on the
other,Sinha's book seeks to reconceptualise
some of the major colonial controversies
of the late 19th century in India. The book
looks at four specific controversies: the
'white mutiny against the Ilbert Bill in
1883, the official government response to
the Native Volunteer Movement in 1885,
the recommendationsof the Public Service
Commission of 1886, and the Indianopposition to the age of Consent Bill in 1891
[Sinha 1995:1].
It is especially the last of these controversies mentioned above that is important
for our purpose of analysing the manner
in which a distinctive private sphere was
created as the result of a compromise
between the colonial elite on the one hand
and the native elite on the other. What is
remarkable about the passage of the Age
of Consent Bill is that its limited nature
itself was a compromise with indigenous
upper caste patriarchal norms and practices [Sinha 1995:138]. Interestingly

enough the defence of an unreformed

indigenous patriarchy served as the medium for revitalising nationalist politics in
late 19th century India. Tanika Sarkar
(1993) sees this as the result of the gradual
disillusionment of Indian nationalists with
the 'public sphere' as an arena for the test
of manhood. The result of this disillusionment was a withdrawal of emphasis from
the public to the privatedomain with Hindu
conjugality and domestic social arrangements becoming an intensely politicised
arena in colonial and national conflicts
[Sinha 1995: 139; Sarkar 1993: 1870-71].
This withdrawal was accompanied by the
fact that the colonial authorities had conceded the indigenous domestic realm as
an autonomous site for native masculinity
[Sinha 1995: 140]:
Rather than seeing the Age of Consent
Bill controversy as being a simple rejuvenation of nationalist politics in India,Sinha
finds the agitation against the bill more
'ambiguous'. She sees the controversy as
aligning with rather than challenging
colonial politics.The politics of 'colonial
masculinity', as Sinha refers to it, ensured
that the opposition to the bill wasinterpreted as being nationalist and yet this
supposed opposition actually brought it
into closer harmony with colonial politics.
There thus existed a certain complicity
between colonial politics and nationalist
politics. This was effected by an agreement to leave the domestic realm of all
customary practices designated as 'private' as the arenaof Indianautonomy.This
colonial policy of non-interferencethereby
committed itself to the nurturingof orthodox indigenous practices similar to the
manner in which the Deoband School's
demand for a private sphere was conceded.
It was in fact in line with the shift, after
the Mutiny of 1857, in favour of the conscious courting and encouragement of
the more orthodox tendencies and social
groups.
The fact that the Age of Consent Bill
controversy resulted in the empowering of
the revivalist-nationalist opponents of the
bill at the expense of the reformist-nationalist supporters of the bill [Sinha 1995:
152] underlines the anomalies of the
national movement that have been mentioned above. Tanika Sarkar has also
pointed out in this connection that the
historian cannot afford to look at the colonial past as an unproblematic retrospect
where all power was on one side and all
protest on the other. Instead, a 'multifaceted nationalism' (and not simply its liberal variant) has to be taken into account,
which involved aspects of complicity with
power and domination even when they
critiqued western knowledge and challenged colonial power [Sarkar1993:1870].

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June 30, 2001

To conclude then, the alternativeprivate policy. On the one hand it tried to ensure
sphere regulated by Muslim and Hindu that no community is excluded or systemlaws was juxtaposed with the public sphere atically disadvantaged in the public arena,
of criminal codes, land relations, laws of on the other it provided autonomy to each
contract,etc,thatwere regulated by British community to follow its own way of life
in the private sphere [Mahajan 1998: 4].
and colonial law [Sinha 1995: 141].
Further,the fact that the national moveGurpreet Mahajan has argued that proment found support from revivalist quar- visions for minority empowerment have
ters has conditioned the very formation of had perverse effects in this country bethe public sphere in the post-independence cause of the fact that religious and cultural
period. There are also striking similarities communities have escaped the effects of
between the two revivalist responses being democratisation and the breaking of hierdiscussed. Both responses took advantage archies. The private sphere has thus been
of the shift in British colonial policy im- made inaccessible to the reach of legislamediately after the mutiny, a shift that tion especially legislation that seeks to
preferredto leave traditional native prac- reform it. This attitude has often been
tices alone, therebyresulting in the encour- defended in the name of the inviolability
agement of native orthodoxy. This was of the private sphere. However, a closer
achieved through the guarantee of an examination of this contention reveals that
inviolable private sphere. The parallels inviolability, while itself being a valid
between the two extend much furtherwhen premise for the private sphere cannot be
one considers the fact that both revivalist used to justify the complete resistance to
tendencies contributed immense support reformistlegislation. This resistanceshown
to the national movement. Thus, Deoband -by defenders of the private sphere has
was to extend unstinted support to the often bordered on outright hostility.
The resultant lack of democratisation,
Congressled nationalmovement andHindu
revivalist nationalism was to articulate a alongwith the fact that Indian society has
nationalismthatwas situated firmly within not experienced the gradual effects of
the Hindu private sphere.2 It is only after secularisation, thereby resulting in the
such a consideration that we can look at continued powerful appealof religion, have
ways of correcting the anomalies of the combined to ensure that the effects of
public sphere as it is to be found in India. provisions for minorityempowermenthave
had a number of perverse effects. They
have led to the actual reinforcement of the
IV
more conservative social tendencies within
PrivateandPublicSpheres communities,
the bolstering of the posiIndia tion of religious leaders
inPost-Independence
and the ruling out
Freitag has noted that the British state of the possibility df revising the cultural
proceededto create and design institutions practices of communities [Mahajan
of governance that were premised on the 1998: 7]. This stands out in sharp contrast
sharpdistinction between the private and to the west where provisions for minority
the public spheres. She notes that within empowerment wereadvanced afterthe sucthis dichotomy the state identified itself as cess of the democratic project when the
the protectorand protagonist for 'general' internalstructuresof religious and cultural
or public interests after which it relegated communities had been significantly demo'private'or 'particular' interests to the cratised. Further,such provisions were adnumerous communities constituting the vanced after religion had ceased to be such
realm.One of the difficulties of this divi- an important force in people's lives.
Earlier a distinction was made between
sion was that it assumed all 'political'
issues could be accommodated within the the political demandsthatwere put forward
state's institutions. Issues related to reli- by the 'religious elite' of the revivalist
gion, kinship, and other forms of commu- Deoband School and the political demands
nity identity were considered 'apolitical' of the modernist 'political elite' of Aligarh
and thus not requiring the attention of the (see endnote 1). What will be argued here
stateand its institutions. However, this did is that the later institutionalisation of the
not rule out the state's intervening in the private/public distinction in the Indian
private sphere, the most prominent in- constitution referred to above and the
stance of which was its codifying personal different provisions for minority empowlaws for Hindus and Muslims [see Freitag erment pertainingto these two spheres can
be explained in terms of the distinct nature
1996: 212].
This sharp distinction was to be later of the political demands made by the
reflected in the manner in which the pro- religious and political elites of the Musvisionsofminorityempowermentwere later lims. The purpose of differentiating beincorporatedinto the Indian constitution. tween the religious and political elite is to
Gurpreet Mahajan has noted that the show that the demands that were put
forward by the religiouselite were of a
IndianConstitution devised a 'two-fold'

Economic and Political Weekly

qualitatively distinct nature from those of

the political elite. While the religious elite
was content with the creation and continued maintenance of a private sphere in
which Muslim religious observances and
practices could be carriedout; the political
elite demanded that Muslims be given
adequate representation in the institutions
of the public sphere like representation in
the legislatures and reservation of government jobs. The demands of the religious
elite were to directly influence the first part
of the Indian Constitution's 'two-fold'
policy, i e, the provisions pertaining to the
conceding of autonomy to each religious
community to carry out its distinct religious and cultural practices in its own
private sphere.The demands put forward
by the political elite, concerned with securing representation for Muslims in the
public domain, very indirectly influenced
the second partof the constitution because
such political provisions, while they were
definitely debated and even passed by the
constituent assembly, were subsequently
dropped [see Ansari 1999].
The reason why the demands articulated
by the religious elite were the ones that
were finally incorporated into the Indian
Constitution is due to the religious elite
siding with the Congress led national
movement and continuously opposing the
demands for a separate state of Pakistan.
The demands of the political elite for provisions for representation were obviously
deemed unacceptable' by the Congress.
Freitag (1990) has noted that while Muslims were successful in creating a community ideology for public arenas,by the early
1930s they had no alternative to offer to
a state structure that embodied Hindu
populist ideology.Hindu populism felt that
community interests could be protected by
the imposition of an independent Indian
state informed byHindu majoritarian
values. Muslim interests however could
not be protected by either the British Raj
or by a majority dominated independent
state. Freitag concludes that the result of
such a large contingent of the body-politic
not having access to influence on the state
through public opinion expressed in public arenas, precluded the development of
a public sphere like that represented by
the western European model [Freitag
1990: 244].3

V
ReinventingPublicSphere
The manner in which the Indian public
sphere has evolved under the influence of
colonial practices and the national movement has been noted. Furtherthe natureof
the public sphere in post-independence
India and the effects of two momentous

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2423

and interlinkeddevelopments in the Indian

polity in the mid-1980s, namely, the Shah
Bano controversy and the rise of the
Hindutva movement, have also been considered. Freitag feels that it is in the very
nature and functioning of civil society, or
the operation of the public sphere that one
can find the content of the contestations
that have continued to plague the Indian
polity over the past few years [Freitag
1996: 21 1].Therefore, it is in the realm of
the public sphere and the civil society that
occupies this realm that we must search
for a solution.This means looking for ways
in which multiculturalismcan be institutionalised in the public sphere. This indeed,
is not going to be an easy task, considering
the fact thatthe BJP-led NDA government
is firmly in the saddle of governance. The
process of making the public sphere more
conducive to the expression of minority
cultures needs to be undertaken through
two separateefforts that are almost simultaneous and parallel. The first is by'occupying the public sphere and preventing its
further appropriation by the forces of
Hindutva and the second is by renegotiating the relationship between the public
and private spheres.
First a look at the public sphere. At the
highest and most symbolic level this would
involve spreading the realisation that the
various symbols of the Indian state have
a distinct majoritariantinge to them and
hence the difficulty that large sections of
the Indian population face in identifying
with them. This would mean a total and
outright rejection of the symbolic appeals
made by the Sangh parivar through calls
for singing the 'Bande Mataram' and the
'Saraswati Vandana'.
Given the fact that in present-day Indian
political life the Sangh has appropriated
for itself the complete monopoly over
sentiments like patriotismand nationalism,
there will inevitably be accusations that
proponents of an Indian multiculturalism
are anti-national because they uphold a
concept that is alien. Such accusations
have to be counteredby demonstratingthat
Hindu nationalism while not only being
just one form of nationalism, among many
others, is in fact the most retrogressive.
This can be done by bringing back from
the margins the other forms of nationalism
that the Hindutva discourse has been successful in marginalising, and thereby creating adiscursive field fora numberof contendingnationalisms.It is importantto point
out thatthe nationalmovement was not one
monolithic block but consisted of a number of different streamsof nationalism like
Nehruvian nationalism, Gandhian nationalism, Ambedkarite nationalism and Left
nationalism, to name but a few of them.
While initiating a debate on multi-

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culturalism in this country it must further

be kept in mind thatapartfrom the concept
being vilified as being an alien construct
unsuited to the cultural ethos of India, by
the Sangh parivar, there is also the possibility of its being distorted and appropriatedby it. This has happened in the case
of secularism, which has been portrayed
as being false (pseudo-secularism), after
which an 'indigenous', homegrown variety
of secularism has been offered. It must be
madeclearat the veryoutsetof thedebate on
multiculturalismthat the concept is meant
to counter the anti-democratic impulses of
the Hindutva movement and thereby save
the Indian public sphere and civil society
from being subverted by these forces.
Further,what has to be taken note of is
the fact that important public institutions
that form a part of civil society are being
increasingly taken over by these forces.
One has to mention only the important
ones with the educational and research
institutions being the most prominent- the
Indian Council for Historical Research
(ICHR), the Indian Council for Social
Sciences Research (ICSSR), the University Grants Commission (UGC), the National Council for Educational Research
and Training (NCERT) and the Jawaharlal
Nehru University (JNU) being the latest
to be added to the list.
After having considered the public
sphere, it needs to be added that there is
a simultaneous need to initiate a parallel
effort to reform the private sphere. The
underlying principle that needs to guide
the efforts to reformulate the two spheres
is increased democratisation and one cannot conceive of a democratic public sphere
coexisting with an oppressive andundemocratic private sphere. The consequences of
an undemocratic and oppressive private
sphere, where structures of patriarchyremain intact .are obvious in the manner in
which minority rights pertaining to the
private sphere of community and religious
practices have had perverse effects
[Mahajan 1998]. In this direction, there is
a need to initiate reform in the personal
laws of various communities. The demand
for a uniformcivil code is not the exclusive
preserve of the Hindu Right and this
particulardemand has also been raised by
otherdemocratic and progressive sections.
Therefore.there is a need to ensure that if
a debate on a uniform civil code is conducted at this stage, it is done so without
the unwanted interference of the Hindu
Right. Further, this debate is conducted
keeping in mind those who persist in their
demands for a separate personal law, especially aspects of such demands that are
justified [Bhargava 1999]. Such a debate
will ensure that the acceptable limits of
cultural diversity can be negotiated and

that further 'aspects of the liberal ethic can

be incorporated' into existing community
practices so that community rights do not
clash with principles of gender equality
[Mahajan 1998:7]. This will further ensure that at least the problem areas are
sorted out rather than being exacerbated
as usually happens when such a demand
is raised from Hindutva quarters. 313

Notes
1 The response of the religious elite of Deoband
has to be seen in sharp distinction to that of
the political elite centred in the Mohammedan
Anglo OrientalCollege, whichlaterbecamethe
AligarhMuslimUniversity.Whilethereligious
elite was preoccupied with the creation and
maintenanceof a privatesphere,the objectives
of the politicalelite were representationfor the
Muslims in the central and provincial
legislatures and reservation of seats for the
Muslims in the bureaucracy,objectives that
definitely lay in the public domain.Whatis
interestingto note is that the religious elite at
no pointof timeconceived the ideaof a separate
Islamic state of Pakistan. On the other hand
the political trajectorytaken by the political
elite of Aligarh was to lead it towards aln
increasing separatismthat resultedultimately
in the creationof Pakistan.This distinctionthat
has been made between the religious and
political elites each being represented by
Deoband and Aligarh respectively has been
borrowed from Ira M Lapidus (1987). Thus
Lapidushas identified two differentresponses
to European colonialism - the first coming
from the political elites and the newly formed
intelligentsia who had received western
education and upon whom the achievements
of thewesthadlefta deepandlastingimpression.
They favoured a modified interpretationof
Islam to suit the changing natureof the times.
Thesecondresponsecamefromthetriballeaders
andthe merchantandcommercialfarmingstrata
led by the ulema and the Sufis who arguedfor
a reorganisationof Muslim communitiesand
the reformof individualbehaviourin line with
fundamental religious principles. What is
particularlystrikingabout the Indiansituation
is thatit was themodern,secularandwesternised
leadershipprovided by the political elite that
was to become the mainproponentof a separate
stateof Pakistan.Ontheotherhandtheorthodox
religious leadershipprovidedby the ulemawas
to consistently oppose the creation of such a
state on religious grounds, reaffirm its confidence in composite nationalismand remain
within the fold of the Congress led national
movement. Lapidus has located the cause for
this development in the peculiarities of the
Indiansituationwithitsattendantpluralism.This
pluralism was to bring forth a multi-sided
response to colonial rule and lead to a power
strugglewithintheMuslimcommunityamongst
the several Islamicmodernist,secularist,nationalist, socialist and Muslim traditional and
reforming elites [Lapidus 1987: 97, 101].
To gain a further understanding of the
differences thatseparatedthe religiouselite of
Deoband and the political elite of Aligarh it
is perhaps useful to take note of the marked
class differencesbetweenthe supportersof the
two. Deoband drew upon Muslims who were
predominantlyurbanand ashrafand belonged
mainly to the lower middle classes and were
petit-bourgeois.Hardyhas described them as
being 'poorratherthanrich', 'respectablerather
than ruffianly','school educated rather than

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June 30, 2001

university or college educated', and

'traditionallyrather than modern educated'.
Theyweredrawnfromprofessionslike printers,
lithographers,booksellers, skilled crafstmen
and petty zamindars.They were literatein the
vernacularandableandwilling to readthe large
outputof Muslimdevotionalliteraturethatwas
publishedeveryyear[Hardy1972:169j. Aligarh
on the other hand found its support bases in
the more privileged upper classes and upper
middle classes. Its most influential supporters
werethe largezamindarsof thepowerfullanded
aristocracyof the Western United Provinces
and the English educated upper middle class
Muslims who held importantpositions in the
government.Thereligiousandpoliticalconcerns
of the two were completely different. For
Deoband it was maintainingthe purity of the
sharia and for Aligarh it was preserving the
positionof pre-eminencethatthe Urduspeaking
elite of the United Provinces had hitherto
enjoyed.It was probablythe realisationamong
the Deobandisthat a futurePakistanwould be
led by westernisedsecular Muslims devoid of
respectfortheshariawhichled themto cast their
lot witha HindudominatedIndia[Faruqi1963].
2 On the nationalistmovement and its carving
out a unique space for itself in the spiritual
domainwhere it declaredits sovereignty from
colonial domination see Chatterjee (1993).
Chatterjeewhile discussing the uniqueness of
Indiannationalismseeks to recapturea domain
forit in which it can be independentlyimagined
withoutnationalismnecessarilybeing 'modular'
incharacter.Chatterjeestatesthatthedistinction
between the material and 'spiritual domains
does not coincide with the public/private
distinction(ibid: 10). However,the point is that
the spiritualdomain lay definitely inside the
private sphere of Hindu family life and
conjugalityespecially as it was formulatedin
the latterhalf of the 19thcentury.The problem
with Chaterjee'sformulationis that while he
may have succeeded in capturing for a third
worldnationalismlike India's its own right to
imagineits formof nationalcommunityagainst
Anderson's'modular'nationalismsthat had to
be handeddown to the thirdworld, he fails to
evaluatethe natureof the nationalismthat was
actuallyformulated.Thus, Chatterjeefinds the
phase in which 'there was a strong resistance
to allowing the colonial state to intervene in
mattersaffecting'nationalculture'as the period
of nationalism.It is in this spiritualdomainthat
accordingto Chatterjee'nationalismlaunches
its mostpowerful, creative and historically
significant project' [Chatterjee 1993: 6]. On
Bankim Chandra's influence on Indian
nationalism[Chatterjee 1985: chapter 3].
3 Iqbal Ansari (1999) has gone into the history
of the debates in the constituent assembly to
show the mannerin which various provisions
forminorityrightswere continuously'denuded'
and 'watered down'. He concludes that the
commitment of the framers of the Indian
Constitutionto such rights were merely 'skin
deep'.AnsaribeginswiththeLahoreResolution
of the Congress of 1929 which assured the
Muslims and the Sikhs that no solution to the
communalquestionwould be acceptableto the
Congressthatdid not fully convince the parties
concerned [Ansari 1999: 1131. He then goes
on to the Congress's Karachi resolution of
March 1931 and continues his narrative till
1949, the year the Constitutionwas passed, to
show the mannerin which the whole issue of
minorityrights in the IndianConstitutionwas
derailedat the instance of Sardar Patel. The
1931resolutiondealt with FundamentalRights
and Duties of citizens, which provided for the
right to equality and non-discriminationand
soughtto guaranteetheprotectionof theculture,

Economic and Political Weekly

language and the script of the minorities. It

requiredthestate to observe neutrality with
regardto all religions [Ansari 1998: 114]. In
addition, Ansari also takes note of'the Round
table Conference that took place in the same
year as the Congress passed the Karachi
resolution. The Round Table Conference is
important in a consideration of minority
demandsas the Congress acceptedthe various
provisionsrelatingto themlike non-interference
with personallaws, in additionto which there
wereguaranteesof provisionsin thefundamental
rightsto protectsuch personallaws, the protection of language, culture, script, religion, etc.
The crucial period in the debateon minority
rights was between August 1947 and May
1949. Ansari argues that the Advisory Committee of the Constituent Assembly on
FundamentalRights, headed by SardarPatel,
accepted most of the recommendationsof the
sub-committee on minorities(chaired by a
Christian member, H C Mookherjee, who is
describedby Ansari-asbeing 'pliant'andhence
susceptibleto be swayed by Patel)andadopted
its Report on Minority Rights on August 8,
1947. He addsthatthe entirescheme of political
and economic safeguardsprovided for in the
reportwas in accordancewith the Congress's
policy on minorities, as it had evolved since
thelate 1920s.Theconstituentassemblyadopted
on August 27 and 28, 1947 the entire report
of the Advisory Committee providing for
reservation of seats for minorities based on
their populationunderjoint electorates in the
central and provincial legislatures. Then in
February 1948, the recommendationsof the
AdvisoryCommitteewerewrittenintotheDraft
Constitutionin PartXIV underthe title 'Special
RightsRelatingto Minorities'.Ansarifeels that
thingsseemed to be on course until April 1949.
It was in his letter of the May 11,1949 that
Sardar Patel reopened the issue of minority
rights in the Constitution, an issue that had
almost been sealed. In the reconsiderationof
the issue of minority rights that was effected
by Patel, it was the provisions relating to the
political and economic rights of minorities
that was to become the victim, while the other
set of rights relating to religious, educational
and culturalrightswas allowed to be included.
Ansari opines that the dilution of minority
rightswas done on the initiativeof SardarPatel
basedon his appealingto the sentimentsof pure
nationalism.In this view, the rights that were
being guaranteedto the minorities were seen
to be underminingpurenationalism.Thescheme
pledging to safeguardpolitical and economic
interests of minorities was characterisedas a
compromise between the proposals based on
undilutedcommunalismand undilutednationalism. He goes on to say that the various possibilities of ensuring adequate representation
for minorities like proportionalrepresentation
were to "melt in the heat of the forging of a
homogenised, pure, undiluted nationalism".
To show the manner in which the various
provisionsof minorityrightswerecontinuously
eroded, Ansari describes how apart from the
dropping of minority representation in the
legislature, another provision relating to the
representation of minorities in the public
services was greatlyalteredto the disadvantage
of the minorities[Ansari 1999: 123]. He further
observes that the 'inominious burial' given
to even a semblance of economic safeguards
and to the provision for minority officers to
monitor and report the working of minority
safeguards, marked the culmination of a
process of denudation that the majority
performed on a 'demoralised'minority. He
infers fromall thisthatsuch limitedassurances
in the limited sphere of family laws given to

the minorities was the result of a compromise

between undiluted pure nationalism and pure
communalism that was accepted by the
Congressto accommodatenationalistMuslims,
when in the aftermathof partitionit could very
well have opted for a pure and homogeneous
form of nationalism.
It is obvious that the provisions relating to
minorityrightsin the IndianConstitutionwould
have been of a much more far-reachingnature
if the provisions describedabove had not been
deleted.

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