Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India; K.S. Komireddi; HURST; Rs.314; Pages 224 In 1964, Rajni Kothari wrote about the unique nature of the Indian party system describing it as a “one-party dominance” characterised by the existence of a multiparty system dominated by one party, the Indian national congress. It was an umbrella organisation extending its ideology to other parties, internalising and absorbing dissent within and without its ranks, and, effectively being the only viable national political option for millions of voters. However, while Kothari was intrigued by the operation of the congress as a party, he was also acutely aware of how the dominance he referred to was extended to other areas as well. In the 1960s the congress, the self-appointed heir to the mantle of governance after independence, also influenced the framing of the constitution, built institutions, staffed them with yes-men, initiated coercive counter-insurgency in areas which saw local resistance, annexed Sikkim, Goa, Hyderabad and managed to arm twist the ruler of Kashmir, Hari Singh, into signing the Instrument of accession which legally bound Kashmir to India. the party reneged on promises of plebiscites in Kashmir and nagaland and didn’t think twice about strafe bombing Aizawl to defeat the Mizo national front. It won election after election, got embroiled in numerous scams, imposed the emergency, rewarded compliant men and women, and played around with the presidency and president’s rule. And yet, the Indian public repeatedly rewarded it. Why? Kapil Komireddi’s book Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India is an eye-opener. He believes that one reason the congress was vehemently defended and propped up by public intellectuals was because of its almost fundamentalist commitment to the idea of a secular India. this commitment was the prime factor that shielded the congress from harsh criticism from liberals. Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India is a catalogue of what went wrong in India under congress rule and how that paved the way for the mephitic political institutionalisation of the BJP. Komireddi writes: ‘they (congress politicians) thought of themselves as modern democrats, but oligarchy was the condition of their supremacy. only strongmen, the British had suggested, could bring order to India. congress internalised that lesson.” However, the BJP alternative doesn’t have any redeeming features. If congress was tied to secularism, which Komireddi argues is a non-negotiable essential condition for the unity of India, the BJP’s reactionary alternative has moved as far away as possible from that ideal. It argues that secularism was inserted into the preamble without debate, how minorities could live in fear not as equals but only if they acknowledge the superiority and dominance of the majority Hindu community. after decades of being forced to follow a concept that only college-educated graduates understood, this political expression of baser ascriptive instincts became something that mobilised core constituencies in the Hindi heartland. Attempts to inspissate Hindutva ideology brought repeated rounds of communal violence. If congress was squarely to blame for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, demolition of the…
