 My assigned topic is secularism in India and I been told I should speak about it historically and Speak to the current situation. I'm keen to speak to the current situation though. I feel a little impertinent speaking about it with Young activists here who have been in the field for so long and know much more about it than I do and people like Harshmander and others Anyway, I'm going to make an honourable stab at speaking about it and let me begin by Saying that we can't really understand secularism unless we situate it historically and Secularism is a European notion. It's not an Indian notion And the secularism India adopted was the secularism that originated in Europe So it's good to get the genealogy of secularism right because Concepts have Origins in very specific circumstances. You can't analyze a concept or philosophically expand a concept without Situating it in its genealogy in the conditions under which it arose because it applies with urgency when the conditions under which it arose are replicated and So I'd like to quickly situated in its origins in Europe and then move on to talk about Briefly about its its trajectory in India in the 20th century and then speak to The conditions we are for we are landed in now In the 17th century roughly in the middle of the 17th century After the Westphalian peace Certain standard ways of legitimizing state power Sees to have any hold on people For centuries State power was legitimated and justified by a theological ground the divine rights of The monarch who personified the state In with the rise of the new sciences in the 17th century that Justification for state power cease to have any hold in people's minds so a new form of justification was sought and It was sought not in theology, but in political psychology by that I mean that a new form of entity had emerged after the Westphalian peace much later it came to be called the nation and Scattered locations of power began to be increasingly centralized and when that happened the concept of the nation and the concept of the state Became indissolubrily fused. In fact, they were represented by a hyphen became the nation-state and There was no understanding the one without the other And justifications of state power in this new psychological version rather than theological version Took the form of creating a feeling in the populace For the left-hand side of this hyphenated conjunction nation-state rather than directly for the state so you had to generate in the population a feeling for the nation the left-hand side of the conjunction but because the nation in the state were Indissolubrily fused that provided a justification for the exercise of state power in That centralized form over the nation It really only happened in the middle of the 17th century a nation by tax for the first time was imposed by crumble in the Interregnum that's the middle of the 17th century so So it was done by this Psychology political psychology of generating a feeling on the left-hand side of this concept In order to justify the exercise of state power. It is on the right-hand side of the disjunction How was this feeling generated all over Europe by an absolutely standard ploy? which was to create a feeling in the populace by identifying an external enemy within Subjugating it and despising it and saying the nation is ours not theirs That's the history of Europe everywhere in Europe. This was how state power was legitimated By nation-building exercises of this kind after the Westphalian peace an external enemy within to be subjugated and despised Saying the nation is ours not theirs The Jews the Irish the Catholics and Protestant countries the Protestants and Catholic countries. That's the history of your Now going to India the question arose Was secularism ever Something which is very central During the 20th century and the answer is it was not for almost the entire Period of that fantastic series of decades of the freedom movement Which is perhaps the most creative political period in the life of our country and It's really remarkable that not just Gandhi but even Nehru hardly ever talked of secularism for decades during the freedom movement and Nehru and Gandhi were completely at one on this Now why was this so? because they both argued and It's not much known that Nehru argued this along with Gandhi But if you read the discovery of India, which is by far his most profound book It is exactly his argument Nehru says that secularism emerged in Europe to counter the damage that I've just Expounded as occurring in Europe nation-building exercises finding an external enemy within Subjugating it and saying the nation is ours not theirs and When that happened in Europe Nehru says There were minoritarian backlashes to it and Many of the majoritarian and minoritarian Majority this majoritarianism that I've just described and the minoritarian backlashes were based as I said on religious grounds Protestants Catholics Jews and So it was felt that even though the fault line began with religious Majoritarianism in this nation-building in the state legitimizing in Europe Even though the fault line began with religious majoritarianism Because there were religious minoritarian backlashes to it This created a civil strife in which it was thought religion was the source of the strife So religion must be ushered out of the orbit of the state and the polity That's the origins of secularism in Europe to repair the damage of State legitimizing nation-building exercises That's the genealogy the social conditions the political conditions under which secularism emerged Nehru and Gandhi said that there's No such damage in India, so secularism is irrelevant If secularism's genealogy is that it's there to repair a certain damage which has a certain provenance certain conception of nation-building and State legitimizing that has not happened here. So secularism is besides the point This is all through most of the freedom movement now Why was this so vivid for Nehru and Gandhi the answer is that they claimed that and Discovery of India is really mostly about this idea they claimed that Indian society did not have this damage It was always characterized by what and I'm using Nehru's expression here an unself-conscious pluralism An unself-conscious pluralism. It's a very interesting term the use of the word unself-conscious there and And his claim was that Since this unself-conscious pluralism has never been undermined by the kinds of things that are just expounded has happened in Europe secularism was irrelevant Gandhi said this even more explicitly the discovery of India says it somewhat more indirectly now What was the alternative idea of a nation or nationalism in India? All these terms nationalism and all came later what I've described in Europe is something that a whole range of Concepts later on described it feeling for the nation came to be called nationalism and when statistical and numerical forms of discourse came to Be deployed in the study of societies and polities notions of majority and minority emerged this way of creating a feeling for the nation came to be called Majoritarianism and Minority backlashers and songs later vocabulary, but the phenomenon started much earlier so Gandhi and Deru's view all through the most of the long freedom movement was Nationalism for us is nothing of that kind that happened in Europe Nationalism for us was rather to replay the unself-conscious pluralism of centuries-long Indian society in the national movement Which would be inclusive to reflect that unself-conscious pluralism So nationalism meant something entirely different than what it was in Europe Because in Europe it had a very specific purpose and it was a very specific ploy What I was calling this subjugation of it of an external enemy within Now Neru and Gandhi's efforts to To make real this idea that for in this country nationalism would be Just simply a replaying of an unself-conscious pluralism in a national movement which would reflect that pluralism Was manifested in very specific moments which Some of which have been very carefully studied some of which have not been very carefully studied So it was a it was a quite different nationalism and they tried to to really make that Different ideal real in very specific very dynamic remarkable moments in in the national movement this inclusive ideal of the pluralism and the two Most significant moments were the Khilafat movement which included the Muslims qua Muslims That was an essential part of insisting that The pluralism of Indian society would be reflected in the national movement and the Khilafat movement was absolutely central to pursuing that ideal I don't the Khilafat movement has been widely studied and I think it is It was one of the most dynamic Movements in The freedom movement it lasted for it's it lasted for three years But its effects lasted for five or six years longer and had it had Tremendously dynamic effects in a whole range of regions in the country, especially Bengal, UP, Bihar, Assam and Very progressive Implications in political society including making Muslims very Progressive on a whole range of fronts and and the remarkable peasant movements of the 1930s which were Not always in the control of the Congress and really were very often independent of the anti-imperialist movement, but were movements of Agricultural laborers and sharecroppers against their overlords Could not have happened without the dynamism of the non-cooperation movement and the Khilafat movement before these were real inspirations for later movements of the 1930s So the inclusiveness of the Khilafat movement Where Muslims were brought in qua Muslims was absolutely essential in understanding the nationalism that sought another later Moment was the Muslim mass contact program, which is hardly studied at all. There's one Excellent article on it by Mashir al-Hassan and that's about it But it it's a very important movement where once again Muslims were included qua Muslims and The and the Congress Party was unafraid to say that we are Using the concept term Muslim to understand our nationalism that was essential part of the inclusiveness and People should be studying it much more carefully than they have it was aborted in a year and a half partly because of the Maasabat element in the Congress high command, but But it should be much more studied it was in the hands of a Marxist a Muslim Marxist qua Mashir and Once again, it was an anti-imperialist national movement the Muslim term was Conspicuously used, but it was completely non-communal movement just as the Khilafat movement was a non-communal movement except for some symbolic eccentric reference to an external cause of the caliphate in in the Ottoman end of the Ottoman Empire so So these moments of inclusiveness were essential to making real the idea of The Indian national movement being inclusive in this way Replaying the pluralism of the country essentially different from European nationalism So secularism didn't surface very Conspicuously in this period because secularism is there to contain and repair a certain damage Hadn't occurred in India Now after independence because of entirely formal reasons of law and constitution that emerged due to the reform of of the Hindu code bill and other Constitutional reforms naturally secularism emerged as a central idea, but it was technically legally constitutionally characterized and This was mostly on matters of reform and Ambedkar and Nehru were very central in pursuing that reform and Urging secularism as a tool for implementing that reform But it's only in the 1980s that secularism Emerged with a kind of urgency that we all have been witnessing in the last 30 years for very specific reasons that emerged in the 1980s and Secularism became and quite rightly became an obsessive focus after the 1980s because for the first time secularism as for the first time Indian Politics and society did begin to replicate what had happened in Europe In the genealogical account that I very briefly gave for which secularism was formulated finding an external enemy and Subjugating it emerged in the 1980s for very specific reasons that have to do with the 1980s So what I'm I'm saying this with some emphasis because there is a view abroad around that a Tendency to say that the Khilafat movement was a communal movement. It was the roots of I don't know Shahabuddin the Shah-e-Ma'am and so on That the Maasabayat element in the Congress of the roots of Narendra Modi and so on I think that view is completely wrong And I think it's very important to to say that it's wrong I Think the the real grounds the roots for Which replicated? European history were laid in the 1980s and I think it's really wrong to take the other view that that the roots were earlier For instance, just three or four days ago. Javed Naqvi wrote An op-ed in which he said the Khilafat movement was was the roots of of all this Muslim Communism of from the 80s on That's the view I think is wrong and sort of historically ignorant and the reason very simple the reason is that Historians have to make a distinction between roots and antecedents antecedents there are lots of antecedents No doubt the Maasabayat in the Congress, Savarkar's Ideas and so on were antecedents to what we're seeing today, but they're not the roots and For something to be the root of something you have to establish that there's an organic causal path from the root to the flowering later on nobody has shown that about Either the Khilafat movement or the Maasabayat and other Hindutva elements In the earlier period So I really think it's very important to stress that it our society Transformed in the 1980s for very specific reasons and you have to diagnose those reasons in the 1980s as you or know Indian society got democratized in a way that it had never been before this was a result of a whole range of of Emerging conditions, but one of the the triggers which was very salient was the Mandel commission report which generated a certain form of politics which caught fire and it And it created a whole range of the possibilities of benefits of various kinds for particular groups casts and the spread after the Mandel commission report and a kind of democratization took place where the people were making demands and The state was responding to them really nearly in a way that had never happened until the 1980s and and the real Hindutva ideology took hold in the Parliamentary politics of India only because it was felt by upper castes and the upper caste outlook that this new politics had revealed that Hinduism was a very divided society and something must be done to unify it and To paper over however illusorily These divisions that had been exposed by the marginalization of politics and This was done by replicating the European idea that you find an external enemy So that Hinduism is united against it rather than divided within itself and that really was the origins of a very determined effort to make a Hindutva politics central to the Parliamentary domain of politics in India and it's when the BJP emerged a Second thing which we have to admit and recognize is that right wing in Hindu politics gained a moral high ground during the emergency You simply have to acknowledge that and it gained the high ground a moral high ground because it showed some courage in opposing the emergency and The center left did not show that courage the center left which was much more powerful the CPM The left showed the courage and opposed it, but the center left Which was much more powerful then just lay down like doormats while Indira Gandhi and her son stamped on the liberties of this country and The Hindu right wing got serious moral high ground and Were able to enter with that high ground into The parliamentary politics of this country of course the last Secondary tears have shown that they did not deserve that Moral high ground because they were a far more authoritarian than the emergency But there is no doubt speaking historically that it got that high ground and it came to have a centrality in Parliamentary politics because it did show a certain courage that the center left which was much more powerful than did not so So the the BJP only emerged as a result of the high ground that was one in that period and came to have a Kind of respectability and centrality in parliamentary politics because of that a third Thing that was essential to the 1980s Onwards is actually a little later in the top a little later, which is the populist version of Hindutva Which emerged somewhat later? Partly over the Babri Masjid issues and then of course in the Personage of the current prime minister who's a populist figure And this all is a more recent development and it's emergence this kind of populism's emergence In Hindutva is is very much of a piece with the emergence of populism say in the outcome of Brexit in Britain or of figures like Trump in the United States and The reason for this populism, which is a slightly later period than the 80s Where what I was describing earlier emerged This populism emerges because of the seeming inability of the left to Introduce in a central and serious way a Vocabulary a discourse a critical discourse to make Fundamental critiques of the political economy that had emerged in this country since 1990 That is Not just in this country, but in Britain. So I'll take the two examples are given of the United States and Britain there's serious dissatisfaction among the working people in all these three countries and There isn't in the political zeitgeist of these countries the conceptual and critical vocabulary in discourse to make a critique of the newly emerging political economy and the reason for this has to be laid at the door of The Blairite Labour Party The orthodoxies of the Democratic Party in the United States and the Congress Party in this country They ushered out of the political zeitgeist any deep understanding of that could allow Ordinary working and work less people to understand what was going on in the political economy That is the orthodox liberal center in all these three countries Usher out any possibility of deeply understanding economic issues. It's just not part of the zeitgeist So if somebody comes along offering fabulously different zeitgeist that are virtually fascist Working in work less people having no other discourse critical vocabulary to turn to turn to these other forces Fantastic illusory alternatives So that's a third reason for the slump somewhat later popular populist emergence of The replication of the European genealogy that I was talking about I want to switch to a slightly different issue again talking about Europe. You see in Europe what is very interesting is that I've given you the genealogy of secularism, but I want to give you quickly the genealogy of another concept, which is quite different from secularism, but But needs to be characterized because it's important in the history of Understanding it's important understanding the history of these this region of concepts. It's a notion of multiculturalism Now multiculturalism is a Self-conscious version of what Nehru in the discovery of India called an unselfconscious pluralism So multiculturalism is a self-consciously formulate A version of that idea and it emerged for very specific reasons in Europe Which was that after the Second World War in which European nations had Lost a lot of manpower They were reconstructing the economies and they invited into their economies Migration from the erstwhile colonies and Many of the migrants came and worked on They were invited to help reconstruct the economies due to man to labor shortages and when they arrived They found themselves facing real trials of racial hostility The Maghreb Muslims in the banlieu of Paris and other cities in France Indian and Pakistanis in all over Britain Turks and Germany and so so they faced serious racial hostility and They felt that The secularism which whose origins I expounded a little earlier was to blunt an instrument To speak to their trials and difficulties in the context of being minorities facing these Racial hostilities there because secularism Because of the on the grounds that I mentioned I should all of it treated everybody on a pile I should out all of religion whereas they felt but that's doesn't speak to the minority specific Difficulties and trials so a new doctrine was formulated in which Minoritarian aspirations for a comfort zone against racial hostility that they faced which is quite severe and continues to be severe and Multiculturalism is the broadly speaking the idea of speaking Crudely here, but it's not doing any violence to The issues multiculturalism is roughly the idea as it was formulated that there are new majorities Everybody's a minority that they just should not be a majoritarian Outlook that everybody should be treated as a minority everybody is Equal that's that's the that's the Aspiration of this new doctrines very different from secularism very focused on Minorities as an issue which arose for very specific genealogical reasons after the second world war in Europe All right, so now if you look at the current situation in there There is a tendency amongst some Commentators by the way, I should add that it is thrilling to me That quite apart from the remarkable things that are happening on the Maidan in the street. Thanks mostly to the young um One of the things everybody's noticed the effects that they have we are morale has been boosted by by the events of the last month And but one of the really tremendous Outcomes of it is that even the mainstream press is Publishing punditry of a very high quality. I mean even something like the Times of India which it which it's No, which it is even hard to call it a newspaper. I mean what it really What it really does is bring together consumers and Corporations right on its pages and it happens to have a few words on the page, but but But even the Times of India, I think yesterday or day before had an editorial which cited in vote The the ex-civil servants Claim that you know this remarkable group of ex-civil servants around headed by Aruna Roy and Sundar Burra and others To say that urging the Supreme Court to declare the CA this is the Times of India I think this is a result really of what's happening on the street at Maidan and you know, I want to speak to that a little more later on So that but there is a tendency in some of the commentary to to say Some it's mostly in the hands of professors not in the hands of activists to to say that Multiculturalism is the more appropriate Ideal right now because the minorities are being oppressed and I Think I Mean I hate to say this, but I think that's hopeless I Think it's hopeless. I mean the idea that in the present climate with the complete domination in the mentality of of ordinary people of the idea of a Hindu nation I Mean just everywhere every time I sit at an auto rickshaw or a taxi. I ask them. It's hot Okay, all right, everyone. It's just basically you it's so widespread that the idea that you're going to convince everybody that There is no majority. Everybody's a minority including the Hindus is Is just pie in the sky It is no way to put your best foot forward now It's too remote an idea What the young are doing on the streets in the Medan is Much more sensible the saying we already have a constitution We already have the formal apparatus of of secularism Which is there in the Constitution because of what I said were the formal maneuvers after independence Just fight for that because that is being undermined by these developments of of registry and the CA this pincer combination of the CA and The NRC which everybody's written excellent commentary on So I think unlike the professors the activists Have it much more sensibly right they're much more understanding of what is feasible one step at a time now I Do want to raise some questions, however While talking about the present the current situation That there's a lot of the everything I read right now, so there's very useful valuable Data that has been presented. I think mostly by the CSDS I Scholars who are accumulating a valuable data bank It looks as if we are right now in a very schizophrenic political scenario At the formal electoral political level the real resistance is happening in The regions in the States at the formal political electoral level Maharashtra People resisting in Bengal, Kerala Jharkhand Electrolot comes these are Resistances, but they're happening at the state level at the national level of formal electoral politics. There's no echo of this the BJP just simply has a kind of Stranglehold of the national level issues and national politics This is evident from the data that you can gather from especially the very useful provided by People like the CSDS and Kristof Schafrilo and others Now The national level issues, however though they're not being They're not actually being fought at the parliamentary formal electoral level because the BJP has a strong control over that at the national level The real large issues are happening on the street in the middle So the schizophrenia is that we have Nothing to echo the resistance of the formal political Resistance at the national level But we have the street in the Madan, which is raising all the big issues citizenship Authoritarianism etc. Resisting it. This is a really unusual situation and One of the things one has to now think about if one is thinking about the possibilities of secularism is how do we Integrate what are the possibilities of integrating this now? There's some things I don't have answers to this many of you probably have thought much higher about it because you've thought about it much Much more from on the field than I do because I'm domiciled Away from you and only come here in the winters But one of the things I don't understand and I raise these earliest questions now before I end I just want to raise some questions that I find very puzzling one of the things that really I Don't understand what which could perhaps Generate something on the large national issues at the formal political level rather than just the activists In the squares in the streets One of the things I don't understand and this is not my view by the way because my Eventual hopes are for a socialist India. So I'm now speaking from the point of view of I'm sort of Holding my nose and Raising questions that should be raised because of not my normative ideals, but about the descriptive scene What are What are the corporations doing when a regime Favors so manifestly favours a very small portion of the corporate sector right Called the Gujarati mafia as as Clearly it is there's no doubt that this regime favours a very small and Brazenly it's got standard cliche take Descriptions crony capitalism and so on and so forth 80% of the corporate sector is excluded from this particular way of Promoting the corporate what are they doing? See I was brought up to think by my intellectual upbringing that in a capitalist society What 80% of the corporate sector's interests are happens, but 80% of the corporate sector actually Should be very unhappy and no doubt are unhappy but They're completely pusillanimous Right, I mean Raul Bajaj has made some noises admirable, but What is what are the? Nairan Murthy is in the Aziz. What are they doing? Why aren't they forming alliances? Why aren't they why aren't they doing something to keep a bourgeois party like the Congress party alive? It's dead in the water Well, the Congress party's learning curve is flat money forgive me for but What why is it? What why isn't the why isn't the bourgeoisie propping up a Party which has always stood for them and and Because surely they don't want to put all the eggs the bourgeoisie doesn't want to put all its eggs in One basket a basket in which it's being marginalized in favor of the Gujarati Capitalist, so I mean there's something completely Shrouded in obscurity for me over here. Now you can say that they are fearful and this government is you know is Ruthless in the way, but I I still Stand by what I said in a capitalist society If 80% of the corporate sector want something they should not be afraid What they want can happen if it's a genuinely capitalist society So you can't just say oh, it's fascism and it's not a capitalist society It's something here is not credible and I don't get it and we really have to try and understand What's going on? Maybe there are people here who can illuminate things for me? The you know what one of the answers you immediately get is that that They can be pulled up for corruption and so on but so here's another question I have for us You see when it comes to corruption in a society like ours everybody in this room knows That every political party is corrupt Nobody really seriously denies that I mean you know I mean I think this the the CPM is is somewhat of an exception and is And but every major political party which has any cloud whatsoever, right? We know it to be deeply corrupt so There was a very brilliant fascist political theorist called Karl Schmidt who said Sovereignty in liberal democracies lies in who gets to call the exception What he meant by that is you could have all these lofty constitutions and laws protecting everything but Emergencies can be declared Exceptions can be declared and whoever has the power to call the emergency is the sovereign Okay, so I want to ask a corresponding question Who gets to call corruption? You see the upe it too fell Because somebody called corruption and fell for lots of reasons, but it fell because somebody called the corruption Who was behind calling it the corruption and who is not calling the corruption today? These are things we need to explore whoever gets to call the corruption has a middle level of sovereignty in this country Who is it? We don't really know and haven't studied carefully enough where and how corruption gets called Who is the underlying caller of corruption? And I think that's something really worth trying to understand So in the schizophrenic scenario that I've briefly mentioned There is it there is one way to think about it is that We should just acknowledge That There is no party at the national level. There's no scope for alliances at the national level the real Resistances at the state level. It's a very depressing thought The idea that politicians third-rate politicians like Uddhav Thakri and Mantha Banerjee are going to save democracy Is a very serious reflection of the country we are in But it is true. They are being they are source of resistance of a very specific soil now the question is We know that that resistance is completely precarious right None of them have said the other day. Yes. Yes. Yes. Things are fine. Nobody knows what's going to happen Nobody knows what's going to happen in Maharashtra tomorrow. It might change He knows perfectly well that these politicians can be bought they can defect Nothing is stable. So this resistance can't be seen as some real I mean the scope for it is completely precarious just given the nature of the resistance takes So the question arises How when it's so when even the corporate sector is is not promoting a national level Formal resistance, it's all only happening on the streets One of the interesting questions to ask is what are the national level issues that are being raised on the street? and of course it's citizenship and It's formal basis which are being fought for Courageously right now, but also it's because in in When it is formulated and when when there's resistance, there's tremendous authoritarianism and and so the anti-authoritarianism is Absolutely central to the national level issues that are being fought. Now. What do I mean by? the extraordinary nature of this authoritarianism It's unprecedented In the post-colonial period in the period of independence What is what what makes it exceptional? What makes it different from the emergency? What makes it different from the state authoritarianism against the peasantry and its rebellions all through the 60s and early 70s? This is just completely different What is the difference and How is it so extreme that whether you call it fascist or not what makes it special and The answer is I believe that You see Gramsci had Gramsci had a notion of hegemony It's a technical term. It's not hegemony hegemony doesn't mean Just dominating people controlling people etc For Gramsci, it's maybe that's maybe what it is an ordinary palace But in Gramsci, it's a technical term and the idea of hegemony is That there whoever rules and since Gandhi since Gramsci was a Marxist. He was talking about classes He said the ruling class has in liberal democracies is Gets to be the ruling class Because it convinces all other classes that its interests are the interests of all other classes Okay, that's what hegemony is for Gramsci. I'll repeat that Whoever rules in his interest that was ruling class Gets to be the ruling class by convincing everybody every other class that its interests are the interests of every other class Now That's in liberal democracy now when you have liberal democracy in that form With hegemony as I've just expanded it. There's no need to be authoritarian You have convinced all other classes that Your interests are their interests So you don't need to be authoritarian Only somebody who doesn't have Gramsci in hegemony Needs to be authoritarian. That's what happened actually in in in the Ragan these emergency The Kareebhi Hattar program had manifestly not Hattar to Kareebhi and she had She did not have hegemony and it was driven the the authoritarianism was was driven by a Feeling that hegemony was missing This government boasts and congratulates itself on having hegemony and haven't convinced everybody yet Continues to be authoritarian And if hegemony means you don't need to be authoritarian if you have a job and you still are thought of it in that's compulsive That's pathological and the students have seen that I mean they've seen it in the sense that they've experienced it Right, you've experienced it and you you just you know you've got hegemony you've got the national level you've got the population by and large in the mentality of of the European idea of nationalism Need the hegemony you are hegemonic Don't call it fascism. It's if you don't want to it's pathological It's absolutely compulsive and the students have seen that That is an inseparable issue. It's you can't separate it from the issue of citizenship and so on those are the national level issues and the question is how can these issues of citizenship and Anti-authoritarianism which is so central how is it possible for it to grow and You have to admit that tremendous though the resistance it how Fantastic boost of morale for all of us as a result of it. It's still restricted to the cities and to the urban intelligence here so can it have the aspirations of effects of a wider spread and all the objective conditions for it are there because It's Quite apart from economic issues of farmers distress and so on the plain fact is that ordinary people in the countryside are the least possessive possession of the least documentation when it comes to Registry of citizenship. They don't know There's no documentation if you ask somebody where they are from they say They're absolutely no way So it is a real objective in their interests to oppose this registry and There's every reason to think that it should spread if the registry is carried out and The question is Will it or not? They put up with a lot of suffering during Demonetisation will they put up with the suffering to come these are all open questions. Thank you very much