Chola-Era Sceptre in Parliament Is an Attempt to Rehabilitate Manusmriti in the National Imagination

The installation of a replica of a Chola-era sceptre in the new parliament building has sparked an interesting debate because it has inscribed a cultural artefact with immense political meaning by resignifying it as a symbol of sovereignty. The narrative being conjured to legitimise its installation is one of ‘civilisational recuperation’, which basically states that the sceptre is a symbol of the civilisational roots of our nation-state, and by its installation, the current regime is reigniting the civilisational consciousness and pride which was sought to be extinguished under the Nehruvian consensus.

The current regime has a deep understanding of the power of political symbolism, which it uses with great deliberation to advance its ideological agenda. Ever since coming to power, they have attempted to create a sense of a historic break by coining neologisms like ‘new India’, renaming places and erecting statues of Congress leaders like Sardar Patel and pitting them against Nehru. This is all a part of inventing a new national mythology. The installation of the sceptre as a civilisational symbol in the new parliament should be seen as part of this trend. This is because the regime could have simply chosen to reinstall the Constitution; however, it chose to invent a new symbol of civilisation.

The historical accuracy surrounding the narrative of civilisational recuperation is already being questioned. However, nationalism is fuelled more by myths than by history. Therefore, this myth of ‘civilisational recuperation’ needs to be critiqued and historically situated in order to uncover its grave ideological consequences.

Civilisation as ideology  

The term ‘civilisation’ emerged in 18th-century Europe and was the ideological handmaiden of colonialism. The concept was used by colonialism to construct its ‘Other’ defined in cultural terms; namely the uncivilised. They justified colonial subjugation by claiming that they were merely bringing the savage races within the ambit of civilisation.

India too was subjected to such cultural denigration and pegged at the lowest level of civilisation by British colonialism. The principal ideological task for Indian nationalism, then, was to mount a cultural defence and showcase a past of civilisational achievement to counter colonial claims. It was in this context that multiple narratives of Indian civilisation were woven in the service of nationalism and therefore, the concept of civilisation has always been fundamental in defining our national identity.

Three stories of civilisation

Three major narratives of Indian civilisation were developed by three competing ideological streams: the nationalists, the anti-caste movement, and the Hindutva movement. The first two streams critiqued the received colonial frames. The nationalists foregrounded the syncretic, dialogic, and assimilative traditions in our past while the anti-caste project launched a forceful internal critique and rejected the very existence of civilisation – describing it rather as a felony – on account of the persistence of the hierarchical caste system which subjected the Dalits to dehumanisation for millennia. This enabled them to imagine an egalitarian and pluralist state based on civic nationalism.

Also read: The Sengol: A Spectacle Of Sovereignty For ‘New India’

However, Hindutva built upon the received colonial frames of the Indian past to develop a myth of a ‘harmonious’ Hindu civilisation which was defiled by the semitic invaders. This served the ideological aims of ethnicising the Hindu identity by – firstly, identifying the Indian nation entirely with Hinduism; secondly, downplaying the role of caste conflict in Indian history and finally, by establishing the Muslim as the primary other. In other words, they used the civilisational discourse not to counter colonialism but to ‘otherize’ non-Vedic religions and cultures.

Inside and outside Civilisation

The normative order envisaged in the constitution was born out of a conflictual dialogue between the nationalists and the anti-caste movement. Therefore, according to the Hindutva discourse, neither the Nehruvian consensus nor the constitution represent our ‘authentic’ Indian values and are somehow antithetical or ‘outside’ Indian civilisation.

This was made clear when M. S. Golwalkar, in Bunch of Thoughts, declared that our constitution was nothing but a “…cumbersome piecing together of articles of Constitutions from various western countries”, and that “… there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution which can be called our own”. The RSS mouthpiece Organiser also rued the fact “… that there is no mention of the unique constitutional development of Bharat”, viz. Manusmriti.

Therefore, in the civilisational discourse of Hindutva, while the sceptre represents ‘sacred’ and ‘ancient’ civilisational values, the constitution is a banal and borrowed document which is external to Indian civilisation. However, this narrative of Indian civilisation hides the brutal and unequal caste order and robs the Indian people of centuries of struggle and sacrifice for reclaiming their humanity and hence, needs to be confronted.

Constitution as the crowning jewel of our civilisation

Contrary to the claims of the Hindutva discourse, not only are the Nehruvian consensus and the constitution firmly rooted within our civilisational history, they represent the zenith of its cultural achievement – because, for all our past achievements, we have recognised the equal dignity of all Indians for only seven decades. In the preface of, Who Were the Shudras?, Ambedkar argues that it was because of the ancient laws that the Shudras were degraded and deprived of culture and civilisation. Therefore, the constitution represents a revolutionary break in our history; and an egalitarian India – of, by and for the people – was born only in 1947.

The constitution emerged out of a history of centuries of socio-political struggles by the Bhakti saints, rationalists, anti-caste reformers, and freedom fighters. However, the choice of the Hindutva discourse to invent another symbol of sovereignty from the ancient era reflects a nostalgia for a past when India was governed by caste morality. Therefore, the entire discourse of ‘civilisational recuperation’ serves the ideological aim of normalising and rehabilitating Manu within the national imagination. After all, all the emperors of the past were duty-bound to uphold the caste system. If the sceptre is presented as a symbol of sovereignty, then we must forcefully ask: Whose sovereignty does it represent?

Anshul Trivedi has a PhD in political science from JNU and is currently a Congress worker. He tweets at @anshultrivedi47.