I was present in the room of an editor when the Soviet August Coup took place. The editor was making a round of calls asking responses to Gorbachev’s fall. Annex-diplomat surprised both of us by “celebrating” the fall. Was he a closet Stalinist? No, 1 don’t think so, He held Gorbachev responsible for loosening the bounds of the Soviet “nation” and applauded the coup leaders for restoring “centralism”. Today the Soviet “Nation” has disintegrated. On the eve of the Ukraine vote for independence, Fred Hiatt of Washington Post reported as follows, “Gorbachev is isolated in his disposition against the flow of history and nationalist fervor. He battles to salvage some form of nation out of the wreckage of the Soviet Union. He is trying to reverse in a matter of weeks the centrifugal tendencies that have been building for decade’s even centuries. He’s bewildered”.
The “bewilderment” of Gorbachev corresponds to the “apprehension” in our ex-diplomat. I could read the latter’s mind. As a good Indian civil servant he saw parallels in the Soviet and Indian situations. India had not been a “nation” before the British came in it was a sub-continent with many ethnicities, many languages, and many religious cultures, none of them constituted a “nation” in the 19th century. European sense. Each of them had its own remembered past. The “forgetting” of such a past constitutes in the view of Renan, one of the elements in the formation of a “nation”.
The British gave “India” a distinct politico-social identity by the fact of ruling over it or parts of it for over 150 years. This “India” was passed on to the Successor State or frees India.
But did “collective amnesia” set in? Have we brought into being in the last 45 years a “literate, mobile formally equal society with a fluid and atomized inequality and with a shared, homogeneous literacy carried and school inducted culture (Gellner)” We have not. Gellner regards the above society as basic to creation of a modern nation State. On the other hand, we have cultures which have willed themselves into existence without the benefit of a dynasty or a state. This is a global phenomenon. No culture is without its national theater, national museum and national university, and these in tum will not be safe until there is an independent Ministry of Interior to protect them” (Gellner).
Things have not gone to this extent here. But they are moving in that direction. The movements in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam and even the Tamil movement in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu began basically on “cultural” movements.
The Lenist-Stalinist-Brezhnev State in the Soviet Union and the Tito regime in Yugoslavia held similar movements in check by “centralism.” The Indian ex-diplomat felt that the Central Government in India was basically performing a similar service. Hence glasnost and perestroika which burst apart the Soviet “nation” were not ideal for multi-ethnic and multi-cultural states.
Of course we are not the Soviet Union. Still a brief glance at how the Soviet Union was strung together may be useful. The old “Russian” or Muscovy State, originally battered by Germanic and Tartar invasions, gradually expanded its hold by alliances and conquests from 17th century onwards. If you want a key to why the Soviet Union is falling apart from read not Marxist tomes but Tolstoy’s fiction about the conquest and Russian rule over Central Asia specially “Haji Murad”, the tale of the tragic humbling of a proud people. The sees of the fall of Communism lay not only in its denial of individual freedom or of market place but of nationalism.
Let’s avoid the over obvious case of Gorbachev and take the case of Yeltsin, the Russian “nationalist”. But his “nationalism” came up against the nationalism of Chechens, part of his Russian federation. The problem of Yeltsin vs Chechens has important bearing for all countries containing substantial ethnic minorities. Chochono-Ingushetia is a small republic in northern Caucasus with a large percentage of Chechen Muslims who have fought Russian supremacy since the 19th century. Their moves towards: “independence” was countered by Yeltsin’s declaration of emergency. This was defeated by the Chechens following Yeltsin’s own tactics of resistance in the August coup.
Yugoslavia has some lessons for India too, Nora Del off, an epical on the Soviet bloc and Yugoslavia, has pointed out how Tito in his four decades of rule perpetuated tow lies.
(a)That everyone in the country had been a Partisan (communist fighter against Nazis) and
(b) that any form of nationalism was treachery. The fatal result of these false assumptions is there for all to see.
Some lessons have to be drawn by us from Russian Chechen and Some lessons have to be drawn by us from Russian Chechen and Yugoslav episodes though our situation is not identical. Like them we too are a “provisional” nation, in the last 45 years we have not built up a national identity like the Americans. French or British. The question is: Should we try to do s0? If we do that now, the result will be not unity but disintegration. At the intellectual level we have yet to grasp the historic emotive appeal of the movements in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam and Tamil Nadu-Sri Lanka If we don’t do that we will go down the same slide of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the Titlist legacy.
[ Iqbal Masud is an Indian Muslim. He is a Marxist and is a perceptive writer Masud sees great similarities between the soviet and Indian political situation.-Editor]
Article extracted from this publication >> December 13, 1991
