Major Sections
The Hindu Phenomenon

Appendix 4 - Combining Bhakti With Power

Some liberal Hindus and Muslims have been highly critical of what I have written on the demolition of the Babri structure and related issues since 6 December 1992. They expect me to define my position on the question of the place of Muslims in India. Even if I ignore the implicit insinuation (and in some cases explicit) in it, the suggestion is misplaced. I see myself as an analyst of developments and not as a grand architect, or an ideologue, of an ideal India. Indeed, I distrust ideologies and ideologues. My main difficulty, however, is with the idiom in which the public discourse has been conducted in our country for over seven decades, that is, since the ascendancy of the Gandhi-Nehru leadership in the freedom movement. I would describe it as the liberal-Marxist Gandhian idiom. Pandit Nehru has been the foremost expression and user of this idiom and continues to dominate our discourse even in death.

 

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About Appendix 4
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