Peter Ronald deSouza - Democratic Accommodations: Minorities in Contemporary India

Democratic Accommodations

Democratic Accommodations:
Minorities in Contemporary India

Peter Ronald deSouza
Hilal Ahmed
Mohd. Sanjeer Alam

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First published in India 2019

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ISBN: HB: 978-9-3884-1454-8; eBook: 978-9-3884-1456-2

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To
Jawaharlal Nehru, who established the architecture for a plural and inclusive India

Contents

Indias attitude to and treatment of its minorities has several unusual features that distinguish it from other plural democracies. It recognises many languages. There are national holidays for different religions, a relatively rare event in other societies. Dress, food and other such markers of cultural identity provoke no controversy. Minorities are constitutionally recognised and given clearly defined rights and liberties that are in some cases greater than those of the majority. Indeed, while they are a constitutional presence, the majority is hardly mentioned in the Constitution and hovers over it as a kind of pervasive but vague presence. All this needs to be explained. I suggest that the explanation is to be found in the formation of the Indian state, its non-ideological character and its hospitality to diversity.

In Europe, the birth of the state was a pretty violent affair involving the dismantling of the existing communities, expelling aliens, suppressing dissidents and creating a homogeneous space for the newly emergent state based on the supremacy of the dominant ethnos. The latter defined the identity of the state, saw itself as its historical bearer and set the norms to decide what was to be tolerated in the practices of its citizens. India followed a different path. The colonial rule which consolidated and designed the shape of the new state after much violence by and large made its peace with the existing ethnic, religious and other communities and made them its partners. The state made its own laws but also recognised those obtaining in the various communities. At Independence India had little choice but to continue with the prevailing arrangements. It had to reassure its minorities that they would continue to enjoy broadly the same degree of freedom and autonomy after independence as before. Had it not done so it would have created an even greater chaos than that surrounded its violent birth.

There was also another dimension to the state formation in India. Unlike Europe where the state established its own independent identity and enjoyed unchallenged supremacy over other bodies, especially the religious and the ethnic, the Indian state shared its sovereignty with them. The state was superior to them all but not supreme or sovereign in the European sense. In certain clearly designated areas its authority was subject to their approval and could only be exercised in cooperation with them. The minorities were constitutional partners of the state, sharing its sovereignty and enjoying broadly the same foundational status.

Another factor also played an important part in giving the minorities dignity and status. From the nineteenth century onwards liberalism and democracy were the widely available bodies of thought in Europe. They had different origins and historical trajectories but they dealt with complementary areas of social and political life. They needed to be combined and that could be done in three ways, giving rise to three different kinds of political system. One might privilege liberalism, define democracy within its limits and establish a liberal or liberalised democracy as Hobbes, Locke, Kant and others did. Or one could do the opposite, allow democracy to set the limits of liberalism and arrive at democratic liberalism as Rousseau, de Tocqueville and other did. Or finally one could give them more or less equal importance, suitably reinterpret them and bring them into harmony as T.H. Green and other British idealists did.