Did We Replace British Rule Only to Surrender to Religious Rule?
Did We Replace British Rule Only to
Surrender to Religious Rule?
When the British came to India, they found a country divided
into kingdoms, castes, religions, and communities. Education remained largely
concentrated among privileged sections, while the masses were poor and mostly
uneducated. Religion, caste, wealth, and rulers controlled much of society,
leaving ordinary people with little power over their own lives. The British did
not come to liberate India; they came to rule and exploit it, and they
themselves used India's divisions to maintain that rule. But during British
rule, modern education also expanded, producing Indians trained in science,
mathematics, medicine, law, economics, administration, and modern systems of
government. Many of the leaders who eventually fought the British had been
exposed to these ideas and understood something extremely important: India
could become independent from the British and still remain imprisoned by its
own religious, caste, and social divisions.
That is why the fight for independence was ultimately about
much more than throwing the British out. India's leaders had to decide what
would replace British rule. Would India return to a system where religion,
caste, kings, wealthy groups, and ancient social rules decided people's rights,
or would it build a modern nation governed by constitutional law? India chose
the Constitution. The Republic was built around justice, liberty, equality,
fraternity, fundamental rights, democratic elections, and equal citizenship.
Religion was protected as an individual's right, but citizenship was not
supposed to depend upon religion.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar understood the danger perhaps better than
anyone. On November 25, 1949, just before India adopted its Constitution, he
asked whether Indians would put the country above their creed or “place creed
above country.” His warning was frighteningly clear: if political parties
placed creed above country, India's independence could once again be put in
jeopardy. In the same historic speech, he warned Indians against surrendering
their freedom to powerful leaders. He specifically warned about bhakti,
or hero-worship, entering politics, saying that political hero-worship could
lead to “degradation and to eventual dictatorship.”
Read those warnings again and then look at India today. Creed
above country. Hero-worship in politics. Democracy retaining its outward form
while dictatorship grows underneath it. These were not warnings written after
seeing today's India. Ambedkar warned us about these dangers before the
Republic was even born. He understood that writing a great Constitution was not
enough. In that same speech, he said that even a good Constitution could turn
bad if the people operating it were bad, because ultimately institutions depend
upon the people and political parties running them.
The BJP itself has gone through different stages. Under Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, it presented a more moderate face and governed through a
coalition. Narendra Modi later emerged nationally selling a different message:
development. “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas” sounded inclusive. After the Anna
Hazare anti-corruption movement weakened the UPA politically, millions of
Indians were attracted to promises of cleaner government, development, jobs,
infrastructure, and progress. The question India must ask today is what
happened to those promises and why religion has become such a powerful part of
political messaging.
This is where today's battle over education, voting rights,
institutions, privatization, inequality, and religious politics becomes much
larger than one election or one political party. It is a fight between two
fundamentally different ideas of India. One believes India should be governed
through the Constitution, equal citizenship, education, science, reason,
evidence, and laws that apply equally to everyone. The other places greater
political importance on religious identity, tradition, and majoritarian power.
Ambedkar's warning asks us to consider what happens when creed becomes more
important than country.
I find one contradiction especially painful. People can
become furious when somebody damages a stone idol, yet sometimes the same level
of anger is missing when a child is raped, a student loses years because the
education system fails, a poor person cannot get justice, or someone's
constitutional rights are taken away. People will march for the protection of
religious symbols or animals but may remain silent when another human being is
denied dignity. What kind of religion teaches us that protecting a symbol is
more important than protecting a human being?
This is not an argument against Hinduism, Islam,
Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, or anyone's right to believe in God.
Believe whatever you want. Worship whoever you want. Go to a temple, mosque,
church, gurdwara, monastery, or nowhere at all. That freedom itself is what a
constitutional democracy protects. The danger begins when someone's religious
belief becomes the government's instrument for deciding how everybody else must
live.
Ambedkar's message was not complicated. Democracy cannot
survive merely because elections continue to take place. He warned that
democracy could retain its outward form while giving way to dictatorship in
reality. He argued that political democracy could not survive without social
democracy based on liberty, equality, and fraternity. The Government of India's
Ambedkar Foundation similarly summarizes his philosophy as emphasizing dignity,
unity, freedom, rights, and democracy in the social, economic, and political
spheres.
That is why the fight over education and voting rights in
India today goes far beyond students, examinations, voter lists, or individual
elections. At its deepest level, it raises the same question Ambedkar put
before India more than seventy-five years ago: Will Indians place country above
creed, or creed above country?
India now has to decide what kind of nation it wants to leave
to the next generation. Do we want a country where children are taught to
question, study science, understand mathematics, examine evidence, challenge
authority, and live as equal citizens under constitutional law? Or do we want a
society where religion, caste, wealth, political power, and ancient social
ideas increasingly determine people's rights and how they should live?
That choice does not require anyone to abandon God. It
requires us to understand the difference between personal faith and government.
Religion belongs to the individual. The Constitution belongs to every Indian.
Ambedkar warned us before the Republic was born. We cannot
now say that nobody told us what could happen.
The question is whether India will listen before it is too
late.
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