In the first essay of this series on the swadharma or inner life of the Indian Republic, we reflected on sarva dharma sambhava or secularism. We now turn to the second strand of said swadharma— samata (equality) and the idea of socialism.

Equality as a social ideal is a modern concept, but the idea that all human beings are equal is not new. The proposition that because human beings are equal, they are entitled to equal resources and equal dignity is new. And the idea that society itself must be reorganised around this principle is very modern. There is no denying that the vision of building a new social order with equality as its organising axis came to India via Europe in the nineteenth century and the Bolshevik Revolution in the twentieth. So, it is often assumed that the idea of equality is alien to the Indian mind, that it’s an imported doctrine grafted onto a reluctant civilisation.

A serious interrogation of India’s swadharma must test this assumption. In one sense, the history of the world is a history of inequality and injustice. Yet India’s civilisation stands apart in one crucial respect—the caste system, which does not merely reflect inequality, it institutionalises and embeds it in social structure. Hindu religious texts clothe this hierarchy in theological legitimacy.

But it would be hasty to conclude that inequality is India’s swadharma. The existence of a system does not prove that it was society’s highest ideal. India’s civilisational ethos has never been hostage to........

© National Herald