This post is prompted by the Facebook past (about the incidence/anecdote about a conversation between C.D. Deshmukh and Lokamanya Tilak) of Niranjan Rajadhyaksha. I did not write this long response there since I am often terrified to express my opinions about inflammable issues on social media.
His Facebookpost started with the question – ‘Did the soldiers who fought in the army of
British India or the administrators who served in the colonial bureaucracy in
effect betray their country?’ Those two words at the end, ‘in effect’ are very
important. The answer hinges on them. The answer to the question is – YES. They
did in effect betray their country if they had a notion of ‘my country’ in
their conscience and if we think that British rule was actively harming the Indian
then.
But we cannot
make more direct charge of betrayal because they did not intend, plan, or
choose to betray. The same way they never chose to fight for the freedom, not
at the cost of their livelihood or their professional career. They were
professionals, which is what one means by mercenary. Those were mercenary soldiers;
those were mercenary minds. They did what they did for non-altruistic reasons,
unlike freedom fighters.
The betrayal
or lack of it depends on what we think of British rule. If we think that governance
apparatus that British had in India (police, bureaucracy, and army) was
ultimately to serve the purpose of Briton to benefit at the cost of India, then
every Indian working in that apparatus ‘in effect’ contributed to harm. The harm
could have been direct – brutal police action on non-violent agitators or
indirect – helping to run a policy that stymies Indian potential (in trade or
production) to help British cause. We can absolve those whose contribution to
harm was mainly in later, ‘potential’ part. I do not have arguments to absolve
the former.
I guess the
latter group can be absolved even more easily if we think that British governance
apparatus in India was not always about exploitation or harm. It was partly an
instrument of colonization and partly an instrument of modernity, where modernity
instrumentation existed independently, then there is room to absolve many,
assuming they work in parts which were separated from purpose of colonization. I
personally find this too much of a spin doctoring.
It also possible to provide
utilitarian counterweight to the ‘in effect’ betrayal. The ‘in effect’ betrayal,
mainly in terms of loss of potential, is balanced by creation of human capital
and institutions which served the independent nations. Even though it is a
sensible argument, it seems like a sour grape argument generated to assuage the
tormenting conscience. And, if we will be honouring these professionals for
institutions which served the independent nation later, then we should adjust
their betrayal for ills of these institutions in independent India as well.
My own
little, extreme, and likely unreal conspiracy theory is during the whole period
of twilight in mid-1940s, the ICS lobby ensured that their nuisance value and sphere
of privilege remain undeclined even after the transition. Part of their efforts
was to ensure that they won’t be seen as British agents in independent India,
and it seems that they have succeeded! I see the cynical extremity of my
argument. The better theory is of extreme professionalism, irrespective of the
identity of the master, aimed at smooth functioning of welfare and governance
machine.
The type of individuals, professionals, has existed and perplexed us for
long. Mahabharata poses this question to us when Dronacharya does not rise to
help the pleading Draupadi. Was he right or was he wrong? He was a professional
serving an employer and the matter in front of him did not concern his
professional expertise directly, assuming the expertise was mainly about
warfare. It concerned him as a person. Perhaps his stance there could have jeopardized
his professional status. Why couldn’t he rise to occasion is same question as
asking why so many bureaucrats kept serving the British empire despite witnessing
Jallianwala or Bengal famine. And may be what he said, अर्थस्य
पुरुषो दासः is perhaps the answer.
Professionalism is a spirit, a morality of a
section of us, it always has been. This spirit is what made many excellent
warriors fight for empires descended from invaders and against their own kith
and kin. The same spirit makes many to leave their parents, their home and wander
on the path of expertise. They all betray, but only ‘in effect’. I am not
equating the quandaries of a warrior with that of a NRI, but they are at some
level same. I do not think many of these professionals are in fact living the
torment of ‘in effect’ betrayal. One aspect of professionalism is a certain cold-blooded
approach to emotions, which reduces the hold of argument of betrayal. A
fraction of them perhaps lives with the contradiction that awareness brings, awareness
that their actions will be generating the ‘in effect’ betrayal.
The betrayal question becomes pertinent when we
consider the active harms. How do we absolve the policeman who fired upon the
agitators or beat them? Should we use ‘cog in the machine’ defence, which we
denied to Eichmann? Or should we see these active agents of harm as examples of
banality of the evil because many of them must have then lived their usual
lives, separating what they did as a professional to what they were as a parent
or a spouse?
Finally, the question of betrayal brings us to a
more fundamental and urgent question. Is our collective present as a nation a
clean break of past (remembered but made ineffective) or a continuity where we addressing
the past matters for present?