Swapan Dasgupta | Why India Suspects American Intentions | NatCon 4

in a gathering of American conservatives which is no longer a fringe movement as we've been told at very time is certainly uh a government in Waiting as some people would like us to believe and I think that's quite true that in such a gathering India has Indian conservatism or trends of political Trends in India have entered the radar and I think that's interesting in very ways because the the anglosphere has hither to been slightly wary of accommodating the conservative Trends in either say Japan or Israel or even India into its fold so that's a new trend and I think it's a positive one now when we approach the subject of why India sometimes doesn't get America or why America also doesn't get India it's curious because on the face of it the relationship between the two democracies is actually as robust and vibrant as Can Be Imagined okay there are occasional points of friction but uh uh compared to what the special relationship Israel has with the United States the frictions are nowhere as profound or as marked uh the uh the yeah with special relationship I mean we this I I I thought the special relationship was across the pond uh but never mind uh the in the past there has been a tendency on the part of the United United States to view India purely through the lens of whiteall that was a old tradition and for a long time it was understood that the Brits perhaps understood India a little better than the Americans understood India whether that's true or not is debatable but anyway that was the conventional wisdom both countries I would say the across the Atlantic and this side however didn't understand that there is a phenomena called Indian conservatism for a very long time it was believed that the political consensus in India veered around a loose sort of Fabian construct and it was sort of determined by sort of upper class labor politicians with some occasional hint of conservatism coming in here and there which Mr Naru epitomized and Mr neru had a certain aesthetic disdain for America if you see whatever things he thought it was there were subtly crash and it was not a very unusual point of view it was he reflected the conventional wisdom of the country houses of England at that time however this has changed quite a lot there is a very vibrant energetic entrepreneurial Indian diaspora which is there in the United States now doing phenomenally well if I'm told that I think they're giving the Jewish Community a run for its money as far as the per capita income is concerned but that may just be P see however the political influence of this community is still very very patchy it's still a new relatively new community as far as America is concerned it's there more important I think as far as this community is concerned which is broadly technocratic in nature which is Broad which is heavily concentrated in the professions their exposure to Indian conservatism is Skin Deep if at all now what exactly do we mean when we're talking about Indian conservatism what are the three Cardinal principles firstly unlike America unlike various parts of Europe in India the term nationalism is not seen as a paj ative construct it is seen also as something which Embraces both sides of the political divide so a large number of liberals too would actually say oh we are nationalist as well the question is whose nationalism is better that becomes the thing in the 19th century when nationalism became a sort of a defining Hallmark of India it was often said why was this what was the main preoccupation the main preoccupation of the Nationalist at that time was asking the question why is an old and ancient civilization like India in a state of political subordination why has it lost its sovereignity and this still hangs over the definition of Indian conservatism my my my friend Ram mad will obviously elaborate at length about them but I just want to say that there are three features of Indian conservatism which I think are very important in defining in understanding it in understanding the Modi government in understanding the present currents in India the first is the preoccupation with national Unity that India is one the union is argument you might say if I might use a American analogy it's the unionist argument which is very very important in that sense that India is one and India is indivisible the second issue which comes about as a result of that is the question of national identity and this is very important because throughout the 19th and much of the early part of the 20th century it used to be said that India is much of a Nation as the equator that India is just something which has been patched together as a geographical entity and just it's it's it's it's a contrived nationality it's a contrived nationhood that just like Hindus are made up of different conflicting sects and James can tell tell you much more about the fact that to find a unifying theological Trend in Hinduism is quite uh exp it's it's quite a challenging proposition that how can this be an identity and therefore was this something which was a modern identity which was created post 19th century or has been an identity which has been existing in in in the past and that it's not a political identity it's a cultural identity that's the point and I think this cultural identity is something which is often missed out by a lot of people who are looking at India from the outside you mentioned the case of the citizenship laws which are actually very similar to the law of return exactly it's exactly the same and I when we I was there in the uh select committee which was there which which debated it and the idea was that when it comes to religious persecution this is important to point out religious persecution Muslims don't get persecuted on religious grounds in an Islamic State they may be persecuted for other reasons freedom of speech economic reasons there could be lots of them I a very good friend taslima nin from Bangladesh who who's been persecuted because uh what she writes is seen often as blasphemy but those are rare most of them have been persecuted it for other reasons whereas the persecution of Hindus in Afghanistan there was a very considerable sick population in Kabul which used to be the money lenders of Kabul at one time now after the Taliban came and they've been turfed out why have they been turfed out partly because they're siks I mean you have a choice you convert or depart and under those circumstances it is I think a natural obligation on the part of India to give them citizenship and that for example I my family comes from what is now Bangladesh which was East Pakistan at one time now being a Hindu in Bangladesh is not a very happy situation to be in and a large number of them have come over to India now if they are denied that citizenship for what was believed at one time to be a unified Indian state that to my mind is you know so the question of national identity is very very important and finally there's this question of National Recovery and Resurgence and I think this is very important the fact that you're sick of being in the third world there was a time when people used to celebrate and romanticize the third world when I was a student and in the late 60s that used to be a you know good sort of leftist radical thing you know third world first and stuff like that uh people used to go to Nicaragua I think Salman rushi went and wrote about the Jaguar smile and um Fidel Castro's posters uh quite the rage at that time well it's no longer the case I think people want facilities they want a standard of living which is comparable to the first well we haven't got there it probably take a long time to get there but at least as far as infrastructure is concerned as far as facilities is concerned I think I would say having landed at JFK that are airports in India are far far superior I can um that I think somewhere the development of infrastructure got stuck after the New Deal in America uh well the point is a latecomer does have advantages and and I think it's got to be understood that a lot of the impulses in India political impulses of India stem from this desire that we will no longer be patronized we will no longer be looked down upon that our that we won't only sell the idea of a Thousand-Year Buddha which can sell a lot of Mystics over and it will go give uh employment to people in Cambridge the the apart from selling Yogi yogis and gurus and things like that there is another India at one time Indians used to be thought you know the were they were looked upon as uh in in the' 70s when you used to go to hro you would be told that oh the sweepers Indian now I think uh here you come across and you find that this is the CE of Google is an Indian so it's it's we moved a little bit from there uh so the idea is that your aspiration and your political impulses have suddenly converged at a point where conservatism we're taking into account the inheritance of India what your identity is what your cultural roots are it's not cosmopolitanism and that's where the fault line India is between those who see development as being part of the uh globalizing impulses of the world and those who see progress in terms of also depending on who you are that your identity as Indians are very very important and this is something which is occasionally not understood the cultural Pride which goes in so one of the biggest fault lines which there in the United States and I think this is the cause of a lot of friction between Indian and American conservatives is the question of religion what is considered anatema in India and a great source of abhorrence is the idea that you should convert now the idea of conversion does not exist in Hinduism so you must realize is that it doesn't exist you're born a Hindu you die a Hindu you may believe in it you may not believe in it but you still Hindu the Hindu umbrella incorporates people who are atheists so it's a cultural phenomenon so when this Evangelical movement is being spread funded from the United States it creates a lot of friction particularly when it is accompanied by a form of rhetoric which thinks of Hinduism or the Hindu Customs Faith Etc as something primitive barbaric and not worthy of consideration in the 21st century and I think this is a issue which I think requires some dialogue and understanding and I would like people who are involved and I understand that the cultural identity the cultural underpinnings of the United States is to a very very large extent judeo-christian this is something which I it did didn't require Samuel Huntington to point it out but he did point it out and it was something which we uh accept that there is a cultural roote just as in the United Kingdom I still believe that the Anglican church or at least the Anglican Church which once existed uh was a very important point in defining what that identity was likewise it's important to realize that what is in India is that there is a large cultural underpinning it's not exclusive it's not exclusively let me point it out that there is a very important Islamic input there there's a very important sik input there there are other inputs there in Southern India there's an important Christian input there but by and large don't forget that the underpinnings of our civilization our culture our identity is what we might Loosely call Hindu and that when you confront this theologically you are actually creating a rift which sometimes becomes unbridgeable I believe there is a natural Alliance and understanding which reachs conservatives of the United States the United Kingdom and India and that understanding is just growing that awareness is growing there's India we didn't really have something called conservatism for a very long time I remember in my Twitter handle in in 2009 I put by Instinct a conservative most people say what what is that what what what what exactly is that what do you what do you mean are you one of those who wants to go back to you know the 18th century in terms of your custom so that was a certain stereotype which existed I'm glad to say that those stereotypes don't exist exist any longer but a formal relationship a formal communication understanding dialogue conversation which involves people of the right in the UK in US Australia New Zealand the anglosphere as it were the Commonwealth you can call it whichever I want to call it Japan Israel this is overd do and I think there are issues which is not that we will necessarily agree with everything that is why there's something called a national conservative thing it is National or it is nothing what Disraeli once said conservative is is either National or it's nothing and that National part is very very important and but above all I think there is that commonality which we need to explore and I hope when you all have your regime change in [Applause] November this process of trying to understand because like you we have often been called the stupid party just like yall are being looked down and the objects of tremendous amount of liberal condescension what the ivy league to does to you we've been subjected to exactly the same thing I I I went to rather Elite institutions and I often get there's a sort of Alumni network which is there in WhatsApp and you often get they they're just petrified of what's happening in America someone is ill and therefore the country you know therefore the entire regime is falling apart the whole country is falling apart it's the end of civilization as we know it well I hope it'll be the end of that Civilization as we know it and there'll be a better civilization thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: National Conservatism

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Id: FtDWIRgz01A

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2024