Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 25ular, liberal democracy. However, only the democratic politics attained the
desired level of entrenchment, and that too resulted in powerful populist
pressures and further divisions of the polity. Indira Gandhi, who had to
deal with all the resultant conflicts, reacted by centralizing the politics in
addition to the centralized economic planning that she inherited from her
father. The Nehruvian model was fast aground by the 1980s. Nonetheless,
the reinscription of Western rationality and science into Indian society
and the invocation of Gandhian values and vision that completely contra-
dicted the former were conveniently grafted onto the Indian nationhood
by the Nehru dynasty.
Positioning himself completely outside the post-Enlightenment and
hence nationalist thought, Mahatma Gandhi outrightly rejected Western
rationalism, scientism, and historicism. For him, Truth did not lie in his-
tory, and science did not have privileged access to it. The unified, unchang-
ing, and transcendental Truth could be found in daily living by practicing
moral living.^34 Equipped with this universal Truth and the conviction that
history was a contemporary myth, Gandhi could easily dismiss the Mus-
lim domination of India. As far as he was concerned, the defeat was a
problem for the victor, not for the vanquished. Although he did not think
within the thematic of nationalism, he replaced the "gentlemanly class"
as the main voice of Indian nationalism through large-scale mobilization,
organizational activism, and "constant demands on the Indian for confor-
mity to an internally consistent public ethic."^35
Pursuing a similar universal thinking, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
repudiated Western-type nationalism molded in "armament firms," "cut-
throat commerce," and "mere things" instead of "moral ideals." For him,
"We in India must make up our minds that we cannot borrow other peo-
ple's [Europeans'] history, and that if we stifle our own we are committing
suicide." The "eventual political destiny" of India could not be reached
by building "a political miracle of freedom upon the quicksand of social
slavery" or by borrowing power from the sources of other people's his-
tory. He dreamed of a humanity that did not suffer from the "dipsomania
of organising power" but sought after a moral freedom, not just political
or national freedom.^36
Building on this heritage, Gandhian universalists would insist that
India's national heritage include not just the ancient past but also the
recent past. So Indians who follow religions of external origin should
accept India's ancient past as part of their national heritage, and Hindus
and other internal religious groups should embrace India's medieval and
recent past. This all-inclusive Indian nation is fundamentally different
from a Hindu nation.^37 This is a juxtaposition to the Hindutva nationalism,
which argues that Hindu religion and Indian culture have been synony-
mous from the beginning of history and still represent the main cultural
stream. For Hindutva forces, the followers of other outside religions should