Prologue to a New Passage to India

To many a native, the subject of India, can go quite remiss. It is a large landmass, borscht of people, heady mix of elitist and proletarian dialectics. It is summarized as one big mess. To those, like me, who have dabbled in India from a distance and from within for a while, it is fascinating. It is in fact as fascinating as it is to the non-South Asian observer.  However, no part of India is perhaps more fascinating than its politics. I like to believe that the intrinsic nature of Indian politics is one which truly came forth after Independence. I states so despite have no credentials as a historian, an academic or an erudite observer.

The reason that India’s politics is fascinating is because it was born as an epilogue to one of the greatest upheavals in world ideologies.  If the Magna Carta was the first assertion of people’s power upon government, 1917’s Bolshevik revolution was another; even the Fascist surges of the 30s have much purchase in people’s movements. However, it was after WW2 that the world stabilized in terms of a definition of Left, Right and Centrism to the common man. It is of course very sad to know that Anarchism as an ideology was sent to the badlands of students’ deconstructions in political science class. It exists in the hearts of every Socialist and Democrat – perhaps even regarded as a vestigial quirk in the DNA of the Capitalist – a quirk that destroys the political stability every now and then.

India was born amidst the greatest people’s movement in history that destroyed colonial imperialism as a form of Government. It must never be forgotten that the Gandhi is the man who was instrumental in the collapse of the British Empire as much as the losses of WW2. He also sparked a million revolutions all over the world. With all this glory there was a cellular discontent within the subcontinent of Right Wing Fundamentalism – marginalized politically because that was neither the soup d’jour of the time nor did their involvement in the assassination of Gandhi help. Nevertheless, their genesis and existence is equally interesting.

There are certain milestones of Indian politics; when people democratically revolted against Government. I can and will only comment in due course about 2004 and 2014. Many might call Centrist-Leftist bias at this.  Time and pages succeeding will tell if this is the case or not but the author will attempt a disconnected analysis. Finally, these are the writings of the average Joe; therefore, all dismissals from the better knowing academics and elite are expected.

This is not the voice of the Elite, it is the voice of the ordinary – the same ordinary that changes history.