Deendayal Upadhyaya dedicated his life to popularize and propagate the ideology of “integral humanism” which he had imbibed in his mind and soul. Many of us have heard about it but mostly accepted it as a political agenda because it was the official doctrine for earlier the Jan Sangh and later, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
At this moment we need to look back to know the necessity of this philosophy and why it was felt by Upadhyaya at that point of time. The origin may be traditions of Indian culture and “Bharatiya” consciousness as that time we came out of the control of British and just got freedom.
But the crooked imperialist British thought differently. The British turned the independence movement into a campaign of lust. As a condition for leaving India, the British insisted on bi-nationalism to divide India on the basis of communal basis. No one led by India at that time protested and the British divided India and eventually left the country. This division results in a lot of bloodshed.The country is divided into two parts.
The partition of India hurt Deendayal Upadhyay. According to Deendayal Upadhyaya, a united India is not only an indicator of the geographical unity of the country, but also a vision of unity in diversity from the point of view of Indian life as a whole. Therefore, for us, a united India is not a political slogan but the foundation of our entire life philosophy.
Upadhyayji analysed the historical, geographical and cultural background of a united India. In his studies and analysis he cited the age-old Indian cultural and political traditions that relied on ancient Indian literature to help India develop into a geographically unitary state. His “Ekatma Manavvaad” book is very informative and its language is very emotional in this regard.
In his writings Upadhyayji blames the divisiveness of India on the policy of Muslim separatism, the distorted notion of Congress statehood and the policy of appeasement. In a speech in 1888, Sir Syed Ahmed advised the Muslims to stay away from the Congress and the Hindus. Upadhyayaji has described it in detail in this book. This speech is the first stage of Muslim separatism, which has practically developed the demand for separation of Aligarh Muslim University and the Muslim League of Pakistan.
Upadhyayji indirectly interprets the decision of the Hindu-Muslim policy and mixed culture of the Congress as a bi-nationalist policy. He said it was the judgment of Muslims’ separate culture and the preservation of that culture that gave birth to appeasement and distorted the concept of statehood. “By calling the Khilafah movement a state movement, we have not only tarnished our statehood. We have also created in the minds of Muslims the idea that in order to become a state, they do not need to give up the Indian instincts in the name of Islam. Mohammad Ali opposes “Bandemataram” music.
It is this tendency of the Congress that has made the entire Muslim community stand behind the separatist Muslim leadership. Although the Muslim League did not succeed in the 1935-36 elections in that way, the Muslims strengthened their organization by taking advantage of the Congress government’s Muslim appeasement policy. Jinnah first arranged 14-point and 21-point activities to negotiate with the Congress. But the agreement was not successful, because they did not want a compromise. As a result of the resignation of the Congress cabinet, the Muslim League observed Liberation Day and in 1940 declared Pakistan as its seat in Lahore.
The condition of the British was that if India did not accept partition, India would not get independence and there would be bloodshed.
Deendayalji could not accept this precondition. He said that if the leaders of the Congress had been steadfast in their decision to help the people of India, the British would have been forced to leave the whole of India and all power would have been handed over to the Congress.
In terms of bloodshed, as many people like him died before and after the partition of India, there were no deaths in the two world wars. Moreover, looting, kidnapping and murder have been shown to be the worst forms of human cruelty, all of which are not seen in any war.
The fragmentation of India has not solved any of our problems but has made them more complicated. India’s glorious face has been repeatedly lowered in the international arena due to disputes with neighboring Pakistan. There was no solution to the Hindu-Muslim problem. From the point of view of solution, Deendayal Upadhyay said in the last part of his book that in reality there is no need for war to keep India intact. War may increase geographical boundaries but not state unity. Integrity is not just a geographical norm. The country is divided as a result of the decision and compromise (understanding) of the two states. A united India is possible only if a state remains steadfast in its decisions and actions. The Muslims who are backward in the eyes of the state can also be our allies, if we give up the tendency to compromise with our statehood. Maybe what seems impossible in today’s situation may become possible tomorrow. But we must remain steadfast on our own ideals.
Explaining the mentality of non-compromise with statehood (patriotism) in another article, Deendayalji said, “If we want unity, then Indian statehood which is considered as Hindu statehood and Indian culture i.e. Hindu culture should be followed by standards. All the streams should merge in this holy stream of Bhagirathi. The Jamuna will also merge and become one with the clear stream of the Ganges by removing its own blackness.
Ambassador of culture in politics
‘Mahatma Gandhi’ said that this time the Congress party should be dissolved and separate parties should be formed according to different points of view. The Socialists left the Congress party for whimsy. Dr. Shyamaprasad Mukherjee was the first Minister of Labor in the Cabinet of Independent India. In 1950, Nehru-Liaquat reached an agreement. Shyamaprasad Mukherjee was against the deal. At that time he sent his resignation letter. October 21, 1951. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was established under the chairmanship of Shyamaprasad Mukherjee. Prior to this Mukherjee met Shri Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the then Sarsanghchalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh where the two agreed on the concept of the state. Shri Guruji Golwalkar writes in one place, “When such a consensus was reached, I chose my devoted ascetic associates who were selfless and firm, who could shoulder the burden of the newly formed team. Through them, Shyamaprasad Mukherjee, a mass activist, will be able to make his thoughts a reality. ”
Timeless Dichotomy between Western notions of socialism vs capitalism, humanism vs nationalism, individualism vs collectivism was already being contested. And these dichotomies had crept into the policy space as well. Nehruvian ideas of socialism had in effect meant that there was an undue focus on statist monopolies, Licence Raj, appeasement politics leading to fissiparous tendencies and an inferiority complex towards everything that was “old” or “Bhartaiya” in origin.
It was in wake of these, that Upadhyaya presented an alternative vision of tracing its origins to the non-dualistic philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, integral humanism propagated the oneness of various souls, be it of human, animal or plant origin and rejecting the intrinsic diversity based on race, colour, caste or religion, it identified all human beings as part of this one organic whole, sharing a common consciousness of national thought. And putting this into a political perspective, either then or now, it meant that Hindus, Muslims, Christians and the people of all other faiths and sects are essentially one and that their intrinsic unity should be based on this common consciousness of “Rashtriyata”.
He opposed how the Congress party and those pandering to “appeasement politics” had ripped up the differences between Indian Hindus and Indian Muslims solely on the basis of their religious identities only to carve out a separate nation later. Thus, instead of identifying the two communities as a product of a single “Bharatiya” thought, their religious differences were used by the so-called socialist parties to drive a deep wedge between the two communities, the seeds of which later went on to give rise to communal hatred, failures in national security and terrorism.
Usually, writers and columnists take the liberty of painting a biased picture in the memories of the reader, one that suits them and their political leanings. This is pretty much how our Indian history has been systematically distorted to suit the likes of Western sceptics and radical socialists.
Starting with the political context, we have already seen how the dominant discourse based on divisive and identity-based politics has carried out an incessant appeasement of the minorities at the cost of national integration. The word “secular” is such an oxymoron in our country that in the name of “secular” politics, a deep communal divide has been established between the majority and minority communities. VBz This has also led to a peculiar brand of national security policy wherein wooing vote banks based on religious identities takes a priority over national interest. In some cases, this freehand to nihilistic forces has also resulted in mushrooming of in-house red corridors or cross border terrorism, all thriving on black economy generated through the illegal sales of arms, counterfeit notes and drug trade.
Having adopted a “slave morality” (as described by Nietzsche) we even stalled all our efforts towards achieving a just bilateral agreement with Pakistan, thanks to the ‘excellent’ statesmanship displayed while taking the Kashmir issue all the way to United Nations. Forget Kashmir, Upadhyaya’s teachings are even more relevant in the current context of domestic politics – where for a majority of state political parties, their only achievement until now has been their ability to calculate a “winning formula” amongst their voters. And the most ironical part amongst all – is that these political parties have only paid lip service to the cause of disadvantaged social communities. Insights from political science show how for caste-based political parties, merely winning an election based on caste and social identities becomes an end in itself. The only contribution such political parties make is giving to its people the psychological security of having formed a vote bank. Ultimately, for these state governments, providing any real development opportunities to those who are really socially disadvantaged never becomes a priority. This is because the day such caste-based political parties are elected to power, the end goal of winning the elections with some social engineering has already been achieved.
Thus, development never ends up becoming a parameter to evaluate their performance, while those who have been socially and historically marginalised get embroiled even deeper into identity wars.
In the social context, Upadhyaya opined that there is only one nation. Thus, there isn’t any minority in this nation. Just like how the human body has one nose and two eyes, but that does not relegate the nose to the position of a minority. Similarly various religious and social communities were to exist as an organic whole, very much like the parts of the same body. Western media, without understanding the deeper meaning behind this organicist thought, likes to conveniently paint this as a ghar vapsi or a re-conversion agenda. Upadhyaya in his own words said that ‘do not reward/appease (puraskrit) Muslims; do not shun (tiraskrit) them but purify (parishkar)’. And this purification lies in the generation of a common national consciousness and not solely religious conversion as has been made out by the Western media. Just as how “if the country has been divided because of the lack of feeling of unity, the restoration of that feeling will make it united again”.
On the other hand, Upadhyaya states, “the Congress made its efforts for Hindu-Muslim unity on a wrong basis. Instead of sharing the experience of real unity of nation and culture which has gone on ceaselessly from time immemorial, the Congress followed the suicidal policy of fuelling separation. It tried to bring a number of diverse people artificially together through political bargaining. Such efforts can never succeed. Nationalism and anti-nationalism can never coexist in harmony”. Hence Upadhyaya advocated for an alternative idea of India where we all belong to only one culture, which is neither the Hindu, Muslim or Christian culture but the Indian or “Bharatiya” culture. According to him, “culture is not related to mode of worship; instead it is related to the country’s tradition. Kabir, Jayasi and Raskhan should serve as models for Muslims.”
Third, let us now analyse how the dichotomy between the Western notions of socialism and capitalism have played out in the economic context. With the dawn of the Cold War politics, a strong ideological war divided the world into two capitalistic and socialistic blocks. We saw how the inherently flawed model of socialism led to concentration of power in the hands of a few elite thus giving rise to one of the worst dictators of all times. This in effect completely devastated the economies of the so-called socialist states, making them ultimately fall to their own knees with the fall of the so-called great “wall” between the East and West Germany in 1990. On the other hand, we have had these capitalist states, where unabated consumerism and individualistic thinking has led to glaring inequalities, demise of collective thinking and family values, evasion of safety nets – all ultimately leading up to the global crisis of 2008. Similar was the case of India whose foundations were laid on the ill-suited Western notions of development. And what did this result into?
State monopolies with Licence Raj stifling up the vigour of personal entrepreneurship, thus feeding into corrupt political and bureaucratic systems. In fact, five-year planning models almost ignored the need for mass employment generation, self-sustaining agricultural production, skill based and vernacular education and rural development.
Soumitra Sen.