Perry Anderson: The Indian IdeologyDagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam

ASIEN – Nr. 144 (2017) pp. 160–62

London and New York: Verso, 2013. 192 S., 7,79 GBP

The foreword of this slim volume sounds refreshing: it wants to question the Indian Ideology, i. e. the ideology of India as a state and a nation, and in the process demolish a number of myths about the Indian Freedom struggle and independent India. Unfortunately, none of the three chapters (Independence, Partition, Republic) live up to this promise. Instead the author reiterates well-known facts and processes from the freedom struggle until today, albeit judging these with a very jaundiced eye. Yet, Gandhi, Nehru, and the whole process of what has come to be called the “transfer of power” have been evaluated and critiqued more competently by a number of authors before him. The proceeds form a Neo-Marxist/Gramscian theoretical framework, which makes the frequent relapses into colonial speak quite galling (p. 145: pre-Aryan population indeed!). Instead of holding to a “proper” Marxist idea of religion as something to be avoided in politics, he claims on the one hand — with some justification — that the idea of India was founded on religion, which he thinks was bad, but on the other concedes the Muslims special rights on the very basis of their religion: two into one won’t go…