Mamta Kalia

with the toilers, who played a notable
role in the fields of physical production
and culture, and, to that end, assumed
the responsibility of taking knowledge,
both scientific and other, to them in
their idiom. At the same time it also
created the urge among talented young
men and women from higher castes to
understand, learn and accept the lifesustaining
folk culture created by masses
over the ages. On the other plane another
large section of the upper middle class
who had acquired mastery over the
English language tried to adopt what
Gandhi called (Angrejiat), that is, the
English pattern of behaviour and way
of thinking and of treating the common
people as an illiterate, backward lot.
This tendency of Anglicisation led it to
turn its face against its own traditions
and to become indifferent towards them.
Understandably, this tendency created
a yawning gulf between the elite and
the common people.
Both the tendencies can be seen in
the awakening at the national level and
in Uttarakhand. If in the Gandhian era,
the first trend appeared to be stornger,
in the post-Gandhian period the second
trend went on gathering strength. As
a symbol of the defeat of the first trend
or tendency, the example of
Uttarakhand’s popular leader, Pandit
Hargovind Pant, brings out clearly the
dual face of the leadership. In the
Gandhian period, as a participant in
ploughing the field and, thereby, cutting
38 :: April-June 2010
himself off from the Brahmanical tradition
of looking down at physical labour as
demeaning, Pantji had taken a
revolutionary step. But later, by
undergoing penance at Haridwar to
placate the enraged Brahmin community,
he sought to prove his continued belief
in this very Brahmanical tradition. Not
only in the national awakening and
development, but also in that of
Uttarakhand, it is essentially this weakness
of character of the elite whose pernicious
consequences confront us today. That
is why the place of the old or nationalist
leadership has been taken by revivalist,
backward-looking social elements who
have emerged as a new force. Their
espousal of the cause of making
Uttarakhand autonomous also hides their
hostility to the issues of equity, of social
reform and of a cultural renewal which
were raised during the freedom struggle.
We will have to face this bitter truth
that at the root of this damaging
development are the economic, social
and cultural changes of the British period
which had given birth to a spurious
middle class. The principal tendency of
this class led it into accepting the English
way of life and mode of thinking. As
a reaction to this tendency other sections
mistaking the dogmas of tradition to be
the core of tradition got entrapped into
a campaign for revivalism.
It also has to be accepted that in
the national movement in its developed
form there had begun to take root a
healthy trend which was different from