It’s our tradition to agree to disagree
India as a country and as a civilisation is an unending celebration of human plurality
Dissent is one word which has assured, in the last few years, a currency unprecedented in our democratic history. The reason obviously is that at many levels, political, social, cultural, dissent is under severe assault. A political ethos and regime have emerged asserting that dissent from majoritarianism is not permissible if not by the State, by the numerous groups of vigilantes which have mushroomed illegally and unconstitutionally. Dissent is not a right which was conferred upon ‘we the people of India’ as the Constitution states but it is inherent in all structures of democratic nature. However, in the current climate of violence and bans, dissent is seen as ‘anti-national’, ‘anti-Indian’, ‘anti-Hindu’.
It can be reasonably argued that in India, from the beginning of its civilisational enterprise, nothing has been singular for long. Whether god or religion, philosophy or metaphysics, language or custom, cuisine or costume — every realm is dominated by plurality. It is not accidental or purely a linguistic device that in many Western languages the word for India is plural – Indes meaning Indias. It is difficult to talk about a single Indian tradition: there are multiple traditions, all authentically and robustly Indian. Even within Hinduism there are four vedas (not one), millions of gods, 18 upanishads, six schools of classical philosophy, two epics, four purusharthas. In fact it can be easily claimed that India as a country and as a civilisation is an unending celebration of human plurality. It has survived through millennia mainly through plurality.
Plurality is inevitably embedded in the notion that there are many ways of looking and living in the world. Also, that plurality accommodates differences. These differences, in turn, embody and enact dissent. When the vedic seer ordains in a grand manner the noble notion ‘aanobhadrah kratvo yantu
vishwatah’, what is being sanctified is the notion that there are ideas all over the world and they are all welcome. The other vedic saying ‘vasudhaiv kutumbkam’ say that the whole earth is a family. Such openness to the acceptance of the plurality of ideas is the core of the Vedic cosmic vision. It could be asserted that, throughout the millennia, Indian civilisation has never lost sight of this vision nor ever failed to allow space for it.
India invented four religions namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. The growth of these religions is another instance when the founders of the three latter religions, dissented against the ritualistic and social caste rigidities of the sanatan dharma to discover new paths of spirituality, metaphysics, and social organisation. Here is religious plurality created through dissent. Buddhism and Jainism are two religions in India which are not posited on the notion and existence of God. Also, sanatan dharma included Buddha as one of the ten avatars of God, along with Rama and Krishna.
Whether in traditions of creative expression or in the repertoire of intellectual articulation, in India dissent from faith or from the state has always been allowed to grow and be acknowledged. In fact, the plurality was inspiredand expandedthroughdissent.For instance, when the classical tyranny of Sanskrit needed to be questioned and subverted, many modern Indian languages came into being as forms of dissent from the classical. The vernacular did not, as it were, demolish or aspire to occupy the hallowed space of the classical. Instead it became a dissenting parallel. Each Indian language embodies and sustains a worldview which deviates from the classical world view of Sanskrit. The presence of nearly 1,000 Ramayanas in India ranging from creative transformations in languages to different readings from the Jain point view for instance, are evidence that the domination of a narrative and the worldview it enacted and expressed was creatively challenged and transformed. A Kannada Ramayan or a Hindi Ramcharitmanas deviate quite substantially from the original in Sanskrit by Valmiki and all of them have validity and sanction.
Some satisfaction can be derived from the fact that in the present situation some writers-artists-intellectuals have refused to be silent and have protested. It could be claimed that they have stood by the glorious and unbroken tradition of plurality and dissent and hopefully would continue to fight through creative and intellectual means for democratic values of freedom, justice and equality as enshrined both in our traditions and the Constitution. All thinking and creative persons owe this much at least to Indian heritage, creative imagination and humanity. That they have many different points once again underlines the innate plurality of both affirmation and dissent in India.