Understanding Sceptical Disengagement

The question of engaging and disengaging with certain kinds of politics gives rise to a palpable scepticism. The scepticism to directly participate or support anti-colonial politics, among other things, was due to a premium that the freedom fighters put on the common cause of seeking independence from the imperialists. Most importantly, the language of anti-imperialism was necessarily non-cognitive, in that it had a moral element of aspirational appeal rather than arrogance, conciliation rather than difference, and negotiation rather than the negation of inclusive positions. The non-cognitive vocabulary such as seva, sacrifice, duty, and collective responsibility was often invoked during the anti-imperialist mobilisations. Such language cuts across various social and particular group differences.

Arguably, the non-cognitive idiom of political mobilisation stirred particularly by M K Gandhi did contain the vocabulary that focused more on negotiating differences for reconciliation that was needed to forge nationalist solidarity against the imperialists. The thrust was to moderate rigid stands. The Gandhian experiment with truth was to achieve solidarity by using a language that could effectively avoid polarising people on parochial lines.