Splitting India IV

Facing criticism from Indians and Pakistanis alike, Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times tackles questions on the Hindu class system and religious nationalism  

As I argue my thesis that the partition of India, Bengal and Punjab was not necessarily the best option for Muslims – a point of view that in Pakistani nationalist historiography is inadmissible, to my very great surprise it has elicited quite bizarre reactions from some Indian readers. One of them, writing in the comments section after the publication of my second article dated 27 September 2013 considers me arguing my case in the same vein and wave-length as Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the head of the Jama’at-ud-Da’wah and formally of the defunct Lashkar-e-Tayyaba who advised Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan to migrate to Pakistan to rid himself of the cloud of suspicion he was under in India, despite being one of their most admired and loved artistes! This commentator asserts that the Indian constitution suffices to protect the rights of Muslims.

The partition lent legitimacy to religious nationalism in both India and Pakistan

May I add that Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar went public some years ago over their vain attempts to buy an apartment in Mumbai, the reason being that they are Muslims. The great thespian Dilip Kumar has been hounded by Shiv Sena for years. I need not say that these are very high profile Indian Muslims. The partition of India rendered every Indian Muslim a suspect for rightwing politicians. I have explained this at length in my earlier essays on this theme.

The architect of India’s secular constitution

Another gentleman found my article accusative because I drew attention to the vulnerable position and depressed status of Indian Muslims. To my third article in the series dated 5 October 2013, one commentator alleges that “the article reeks of hatred and prejudice against Hindus. Don’t know where to start.” He goes on to claim he has never heard about Manusmitri!

I can help him to start with the mid-1940s, with a scene described vividly by Mr Dina Nath Malhotra, son of the publisher of the notorious tract, Rangeela Rasul. The scene is from Nisbet Road Lahore, an upwardly mobile middle-class Hindu locality close to the heart of pre-partition Lahore’s cultural centre: Lakshmi Chowk and Royal Park:

“During the summer months in Lahore, young Hindu volunteers from good families used to haul trolleys of cool water, scented with kewra and sandal, on Nisbet Road and other areas, offering water in silver tumblers to every passer-by with courtesy. But it was limited to Hindus only. When any Muslim, even if decently dressed, came forward to get a glass of water, he was given water in a specially reserved inferior glass, the water being taken out from a bamboo funnel more than a yard long. This was most humiliating and repulsive. Such acts effectively made the Muslims feel discriminated against. Under the circumstances, it was inevitable that the exhortations of Jinnah had a telling effect on the mind of the Muslim community” (Malhotra, Dare to Publish, New Delhi, 2004: 59).

With regard to the Indian constitution let me say that a gap between a constitution as a theoretical instrument of rights and the actual practice of states has always existed, though over time if the political system adheres to constitutionalism then that gap narrows or even closes. I will give only a few examples. The US constitution (1787) famously declared that all men were created equal and endowed with equal rights, but till the mid-1960s racism was endemic in the southern states. African-Americans had to wage a protracted struggle to be included in the category of equal citizens. The French Revolution (1789) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ushered in the first democratic revolution in Western Europe, but it was not until 1945 that French women were granted the right to vote. The English arrogate themselves over the Magna Carta (1215) as the first constitutional instrument limiting the power of the king, which in 1769 was further strengthened by the English Bill of Rights but it was not until 1928 that the right to vote was granted to all men and women in Britain. As late as the 19^th century a child of 12 caught stealing a loaf of bread could be hanged under British law.

The Khilafat Movement temporarily brought Hindus and Muslims togther

The Indian constitution is indeed a great document and it goes to the full credit of the government of Jawaharlal Nehru that he helped get the evil practice of untouchability declared a penal offence in 1955. However, it would be naïve to imagine or believe that more than two thousand years of socialization into the doctrine of pollution and caste which divides Hindus into strict hierarchy no longer informs social attitudes and behavior. Attacks on Dalits take place all the time. There is a documentary film by K. Stalin on how widespread is the persecution and humiliation of Dalits in India. It is available on You Tube and anyone can see it. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has observed:

Even after 60 years of constitutional and legal protection and support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of the country… Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our society that is fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general. The only parallel to the practice of untouchability was apartheid. (28 December 2006, The Guardian, UK).

With regard to Indian Muslims, no doubt there is nothing in the Indian constitution which disqualifies them from enjoying citizenship on an equal basis with other Indians, but what do the facts tell us? In my article I have referred to the rabid anti-Muslim propaganda of Hindu extremist organizations such as the RSS and Shiv Sena, and I might as well add to that list the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal who together form the notorious nexus of Sangh Parivar, who constantly demonize Muslims as fifth columnists.

Indian Muslims felt that they were subjected to systematic discrimination

I also referred in my earlier article to the 2006 Sachar Report which found that Indian Muslims as a whole were a depressed community. It also reported that the Indian Muslims felt that they were subjected to systematic discrimination. Further, I drew attention to the infamous attack on the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the carnage of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Then what about the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984? It is clearly reminiscent of scenes that were enacted in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. An Indian friend of mine, a Sikh who served in the highest position in the Indian Foreign Service had to run for his life and sought refuge in a foreign embassy to save his life. I believe that the celebrated Sikh writer Khushwant Singh had to do the same. Let me develop this point even further. Attacks on Christians have also been taking place of and on. The horrendous attack on Father Staines and his family is one such case but not the only one.

In civilized societies there is no scope for mob revenge attacks

Of course one can make a case about the slaughter of Muslims in 2002 and of Sikhs in 1984 as reactions to terrorism that some Indian Muslims, possibly with the backing of the Pakistani ISI, and of Khalistani Sikhs had carried out, but in civilized societies there is no scope for mob revenge attacks and with the state being complicit in it. Those guilty have to be put on trial and if found guilty, punished in accordance with the law of the land.

Once again, I set forth my argument: the partition lent legitimacy to religious nationalism. Pakistan succumbed to it rather easily and naturally despite the famous 11 August 1947 speech of Mr Jinnah. The situation today is so bad that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan who till recently were being damned by the Pakistani media and politicians as RAW agents have now been conferred respectfully as “stakeholders” in the Pakistani state project! India will touch nadir if voters elect Narendra Modi to the same office which was once occupied by Jawaharlal Nehru who led India towards democracy, secularism and progressive social reform.

It is the genius of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru that they opted for secular democracy

I am convinced that in India most people are good and decent and common folk are able to accommodate religious and ethnic differences if given a chance. In fact one of the greatest strengths of Hinduism is that it has always let other religions go on with their belief systems. It has even tried to co-opt religious and spiritual leaders into its own traditions. The whole world can learn from this great capacity of Hinduism. On the other hand, Hinduism and Hindus must understand that the caste system effectively defeated any serious sense of community amongst them and it is because of that weakness that a handful of foreigners could come and exploit the divisions within Indian society and establish their rule. M J Akbar’s Siege Within (1985) has a long history and pedigree extending far back in time. It is the genius of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru that they opted for secular democracy and thus a foundation was laid for not only formal democracy but also substantive democracy. A reformed and progressive Hinduism, just like Western European Christianity would be a lovely cultural system, but before that happens a great deal of effort is needed to move in that direction.

Narendra Modi, widely tipped to be elected to the same office which was once occupied by Jawaharlal Nehru

Let me take up another matter on which people want my response: the Khilafat Movement (1919-24) and Gandhiji’s support for it. It was launched by anti-imperialist Sunni Muslims to protest the ruthless policy of the victorious allies, especially British Prime Minister Lloyd George, to dismember the Ottoman Empire. When the war broke out, Indian Muslims were confronted with a veritable moral and religious crisis: how to continue associating themselves religiously with the caliphate while simultaneously maintaining good relations with their British rulers. A way out was found by agreeing to remain loyal to the British on the understanding that the caliphate will be spared and sovereignty over Muslim holy places in the Middle East continue to be vested in the Ottoman sultan.

However, an Arab revolt in 1916, masterminded by British agents such as the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, under the leadership of Sharif Hussein of Mecca hastened the defeat of the Turks – they would have lost otherwise too, but that is another matter. Indian Muslims felt cheated. Consequently many stepped forward to mobilize support for Turkey. Gandhiji was looking for an opportunity to bring Muslims into the fold of the nationalist movement – since the 1909 separate electorates system Indian Muslims were alienated from the freedom struggle; exceptions were of course there too. On the other hand, the Muslim felt that without the support of Hindu leaders and masses they could not challenge British authority. Gandhi declared the Khilafat cause just and offered his support. He was invited to join the All-India Khilafat Committee that was set up in 1919. He served for a while as its president.

Consequently, a genuine nationalist upsurge took place in which Muslims and Hindus joined ranks at all levels against colonial rule. Som Anand, a Lahori Hindu remembers its positive effects in the following words:

“[T]he first current of change was felt during the Khilafat movement in the early twenties. Though the spirit of Hindu-Muslim amity received many reverses in later years, at the social level the urban elite had changed its code of conduct for the better. This was due, in part, to Western education. What this change meant was evident in my father’s attitude. When he was young, my mother used to recall, he would come back to change his clothes if a Muslim had touched him while walking in the bazaar; but during my childhood in Model Town, my father had several Muslim friends and he considered my mother’s inhibitions a sign of backwardness” (Lahore: A Lost City, Lahore: Vanguard  1998: 3-5).

I therefore pose this question: Did support for the Khilafat movement generate Mullah power? Not that I know of. For a while radical Muslims were in the streets and some commotion took place, but it petered out on its own. Gandhiji’s politics was meant to bring Hindus, Muslims and all other communities into one fold. To support a cause that was dear to Indian Muslims was to act in the best spirits of solidarity with a community he wanted to be part of a grand Indian nation of equal men and women.

I think I should be winding up this series, or else it will go on and on. So, other aspects and details will have to wait for another round of essays. However, I feel obliged to explain, one, how British policy impacted the partition process; and two, where do we go from here. As a social and political scientist I am always interested in proposing measures that can be useful to policy makers.

I do apologize for addressing Madam Mayawati as Shrimati, which is a designation for a married lady. It was just a slip. I knew she never married. I was just trying to be respectful.

Another inaccuracy in my last article occurred with regard to the issue of universal adult franchise. It now seems that both Congress and the Muslim League were in its favour. This then renders the issue of separate electorates all the more meaningless because that would have effectively ensured Muslim majority in the north-western and north-eastern zones of India, so Hindu domination would become impossible. Even under the 11 per cent restricted vote the Muslim majority was never in danger, but with universal adult franchise any disadvantage to it deriving from property and educational qualifications was out of the question. The Motilal Nehru Report was thus the best solution for everyone.

Since I have shifted recently to Lahore from Stockholm all my books have been left behind except those I need to teach some courses; hence the mistake in not checking the Muslim League position. In any case, it is interesting to note that the British had granted universal adult franchise to its Sri Lankan colony already in 1931. Not granting it to India then must have been determined by other considerations.

Splitting India III

Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times continues his myth-busting series on the partition of India, Punjab and Bengal -  

A reader has pointed out that in my first article dated 20 September, I had given the wrong Hindu–Muslim ratio: 7: 4. I regret this error and it should be 9: 4, though even that is questionable as the official statistics from the 1941 census for the whole of India including the hundreds of princely states return 24.9 percentage of Muslim population. In the British administered areas the Muslim percentage went up slightly. In any case, the Muslims were between one-fourth and one-third of the total population of India.

Another reader has argued that Mr Jinnah was an ardent nationalist and it was Gandhi and Nehru who antagonized him and therefore they bear the responsibility for what happened later. This type of blame-game is the favourite haunt of nationalist historians whose heroes and villains are all too well-known. I am a political scientist and although I am examining the history of the partition of India I am not doing it as a historian. I do feel a bit sad when I am described as a historian. For me the partition of India and of Bengal and Punjab are processes with both intended and unintended consequences. No doubt leaders at the top and the games going on at the level of high politics played a very important role in determining the direction history would move in and it moved towards partition. But leaders are embedded in social and political webs and are trapped by their own doings and moves. This is what I proffer in the theory I have propounded to explain the partition of the Punjab in my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed. For me the partition of India, Bengal and Punjab is inexplicable without British strategic interests being brought into the analysis.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah leading a prayer

Let me state my case very, very candidly – the demand for the partition of India and the creation of Muslim states was originally masterminded by Lord Linlithgow who had his views conveyed to the Muslim League in great secrecy through Sir Muhammad Zafrulla, who was a member of the Viceroy Council and one of the most trusted friends of Great Britain. From 23 March 1940 onwards, the Muslim League never wavered even for a moment from its demand for separate states for the Muslims of India (which soon afterwards crystallized around one state, Pakistan) and anyone who seriously reads the speeches of Mr Jinnah would have no problem in identifying that he consistently and constantly laid stress on the Hindu-Muslim dichotomy. He was always ready for a peaceful settlement, but for him that was to partition India on a religious basis.

Anyone who has read the speeches of Mr Jinnah seriously knows that he consistently laid stress on Hindu-Muslim dichotomy

The truth is that two Congress decisions proved to be colossal mistakes: resigning the ministries in September 1939 and then the ill-fated Quit India movement of August 1942 whose chief merit was that the Congress was nowhere around to make a difference while the Muslim League filled that space and secured a mandate from the Muslims of India for a separate state. Had the Congress not earned the contempt and wrath of the British who considered the lack of support during the war as a betrayal that was tantamount to treason, the course of history would have been very different.

However, we need to step back some years to understand where things began to go wrong before they became impossible to repair. In this regard, I would like to draw attention to the 1928 Motilal Nehru Report. There was broad participation in its preparation. From the Punjab, Maulvi Abdul Qadir, grandfather of ex-foreign minister Mr Khurshid Mahmud Qasuri, took part in its preparation. It had three main elements: there will be no state religion; men and women will have equal rights as citizens; and India will be a federation with a strong centre. The conflict between Mr Jinnah and the Congress leaders was over weightage and separate electorates. Such problems can be made sense of only if one assumes that the right to vote would be restricted on the basis of property ownership and education. Till 1947 roughly only 11 percent had the right to vote in India. But if instead universal adult franchise had been adopted, as the Congress proposed – I have not seen any Muslim League document supporting universal adult franchise – the Muslim majorities in north-western and north-eastern India would have been permanent and irrevocable and thus the advantage the Hindus enjoyed in these areas because of greater ownership of property would have become redundant and obsolete. Scholars have not looked into this aspect of the conflict between Mr Jinnah and the Congress leadership.

Dr Ambedkar, a lower caste Hindu was made Chairman of the Constitution Comittee of India

Now, once all men and women are given equal citizenship rights theological Hinduism becomes a dead horse. It is the end of the dreadful Manusmriti, which apologetic Hindus now tell me was never the only social code that defined stratification of Hindu caste hierarchy. To them I say other regional codes were even worse (except some anti-caste remnants of the Bhakti-inspired and other such non-conformist movements) such as those in some areas of South India where to see an untouchable meant one got polluted. So, those unfortunate creatures had to come out only when night had fallen to the villages, if they had to. Hinduism has over the centuries lost members to other religions which in principle offered greater equality to them and that include Islam, Christianity and Sikhism and then Buddhism after Dr Ambedkar in 1956 decided to convert with thousands of his followers to that religion.

But was the Congress Party at any stage making a case for a Hindu India based on the caste system? I have not found any evidence of it but would welcome any corrections. In this regard the most vilified Congress leader on the caste question is undoubtedly Gandhi. As Perry Anderson has pointed out he did speak about the righteousness of the caste system on a number of occasions. But, there is the counterfactual too. In 1920, Gandhi spoke at the Harijan Congress and this is what he said:

‘We describe the government (British) as Satanic because of some of its policies but what restraint have we exercised in oppressing our untouchable brethren? We force them on their knees. We make them rub their noses in the dust. With red-shot eyes indicating our anger we force them out of railway compartments. We have become untouchables for the British because we have created untouchables in our own midst. The fact is that those who make others slaves, suffer the most themselves because of slavery. If I am to be born again then I would like to be born an untouchable so that I can experience and share their pain, problems and humiliation and then an occasion may come when I can convince them to struggle for their liberation. 

A Dalit, Shrimati Mayawati has been elected the chief minister of UP four times

The original book is in English and I have it in Stockholm. Here I have translated it from the Urdu translation, Gandhiji kee Ghair Mamuli Qyadat’ by Ambassador Pascal Alain Nazereth, Delhi: Urdu Academy, 2013. Here I find Gandhi practically subverting orthodox Hinduism, and it is not surprising that the Hindu extremists made three attempts on his life before getting him finally in January 1948.

There is no doubt that Dr Ambedkar was very suspicious of Gandhiji. He felt Gandhi had blackmailed him into accepting that his community was an integral part of the Hindu social system and thus deprived the Dalits of separate electorates. I would not challenge Dr Ambedkar’s assertion, but would like to add the following, once again from my vantage point of a political scientist. Unlike the Muslims who could press for separation from the rest of India in places where they were in majority – in north-western and north-eastern India the Dalits were everywhere but nowhere in a majority. They were roughly 15 to 20 per cent in all the regions of India. In political terms, for such a community the only way to find relief is through vertical movement upwards and not horizontal movement in a separatist direction. Therefore the 1932 Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar was the best option for them – unless one believed that the British would remain in India forever and take care of their interests.

People who assail Gandhiji have to explain something else too. Dr Ambedkar was never a member of the Congress Party and in fact remained hostile to Indian freedom under the leadership of that Party. However, he was made the chairman of the Constitution Committee. How? First of all the Constituent Assembly elected in 1946 had a clear Congress majority which became even greater when the Muslim League members shifted to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly after the partition. Reportedly Gandhiji suggested Ambedkar’s name to chair the constitution committee. Nehru reacted by saying it was not possible to make him the chairman when he was not a member of the Congress Party, but had opposed it all his life. Gandhiji then said, ‘Jawaharlal, are we making the constitution for India or for the Congress Party?’ That settled the matter. Now even if this story is a fabrication someone has to explain how Dr Ambedkar could have become the chairman of the constitution committee if the Congress Party had opposed him.

But Gandhi’s greatest passion was Hindu-Muslim unity. Here again I have found both rightwing critics and left-liberal detractors saying that he was a fraud. I have with me a recorded interview with Syed Ahmed Saeed Kirmani who attended one of the Morning Prayer meetings of Gandhi which began with a recitation from the Quran, followed by similar reading from the Bible and the Gita. Mr Kirmani said that he was profoundly touched by that experience and he found it very genuine. I need not remind the readers that Mr Kirmani was a student leader of the Muslim Student Federation which was the student wing of the Muslim League. He has remained convinced that it was important for Pakistan to come into being. That is his right and I respect it.

Even Mr Jinnah called Gandhi’s sacrifice a great act of humanity

Gandhiji was simply trying to establish the equality of all faiths and one God at the centre of their worship. If he was doing this all as a trick to make the Muslims agree to keep India united then that façade should have ended when despite his best efforts India was partitioned and India and Pakistan emerged as two antagonist neighbouring states. All his efforts had been in vain. There was no need then to go on fasting to ensure that Pakistan should have its due share of common colonial kitty and that Muslims who wanted to remain in India be given all the protection that any Indian citizen was entitled to. The homage paid to Gandhiji after his assassination on 30 January 1948 in the various Pakistani provincial legislative assemblies and in the Constituent Assembly is there for all to read. In Aftar Singh Bhasin’s 10-volume collection of India-Pakistan documents, India-Pakistan Relations, 1947-2007: A Documentary Study, New Delhi: Geetika Publishers; 2012, those proceedings can easily be read. Even Mr Jinnah called his sacrifice a great act of humanity and in the Constituent Assembly reference he graciously did not describe Gandhi as a great leader of the Hindu community. Gandhi died for the rights of those Muslims who had remained in India and there are very few examples in world history where someone gives his life for the community he is supposed to have been an enemy of.

I therefore do not find the Congress Party at any point in time seeking to impose a Hindu state on India. Once when Gandhi was asked what really Ram Raj was he said that there was no historical record of a government run by Ram, so it was only a metaphor for a good and chaste government. The only example he could think of a government based on Ram Raj was the governments of Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar. This statement is mentioned by Allama Shabbir Ahmed Usmani in the debate on the Objectives Resolution of 7 March 1949. I will be looking at that debate too in a forthcoming article in this series. Furthermore, Gandhiji said categorically that India would be a secular state with equal rights for all men and women. In fact the introduction of reservations in the Indian constitution for the Dalits and Adivasis (aboriginals) in my opinion is a major contribution to constitutional theory. It was all because of the the Gandhi-Ambedkar Poona Pact of 1932.

A Dalit, Shrimati Mayawati, has been elected four times as the chief minister of the biggest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh – the same population strength as Pakistan. From an orthodox Hindu point of view this is sacrilege; this is blasphemy. A Dalit should never have a right to vote and to have it on a par with a Brahmin is effectively a negation of the logic of the caste system. Imagine if all the Indian Muslims were also in a united India. It would have hastened the end of the caste system even quicker. No doubt the RSS and other rightwing Hindus, while hypocritically condemning Gandhi and Nehru for agreeing to the partition of India, are quite pleased that a very large portion of Muslims opted out of it and therefore their system of oppression can continue somewhat longer.

There is a philosophical debate as to whether by bringing religion into politics Gandhi created the basis for different sorts of religion-based nationalism. I shall be looking at it too, but once again all this is based on a flawed premise, which is that before he brought religion into politics, it was excluded from it. This is not true at all. The Hindu, Muslim and Sikh revivalist movements predate the emergence of Gandhi by at least 40-50 years. The Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj: Deoband’s Reshmi Rumal movement, the emergence of the Ahmadiyya movement with its theology radically breaking with Sunni and Shia beliefs and the response of the Sunni and Shia ulema to it; the conflicts within Sikhism over the control of the Gurdwaras and between the Sikhs and the Arya Samajists – all are pointers towards religion having very much arrived in Indian politics and in a very big way. The revivals were in fact religious nationalisms entering politics but in divisive ways. Gandhiji tried to convert such developments into an inclusive, essentially secular platform which sought to bring all faiths into a shared humanity. 

Alan Bennett: Abolish Private Education

Alan Bennett in The Independent

Preaching is a hazard when writing plays. One isn't supposed to preach and gets told off if one does. Poets are allowed to, but not playwrights, who – if they have naked opinions – do better to clothe them in the decent ambiguities of their characters or conceal them in the sometimes all too thin thicket of the plot. Just don't speak to the audience.

I have always found this prohibition difficult. John Gielgud, who was in my first play, thought talking to the audience was vulgar. Then he was prevailed upon to try it and thereafter would seldom talk to anybody else. I understand this and even in my most naturalistic plays have contrived and relished the moments when a character unexpectedly turns and addresses the house and, in a word, preaches.

This may be because as a boy and a regular worshipper at St Michael's, Headingley, I heard a lot of sermons. I also used to go to Saturday matinees at the Grand Theatre in Leeds, though on occasion the sermons were more dramatic than the plays. This was particularly so when they were preached, as they quite often were, by visiting fathers from the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, who were almost revivalist in their fervour and the spell they cast over the congregation.

So when, as a young man, I first had thoughts about what nowadays is called stand-up, it's not surprising it took the form of a sermon. Like all parodies, it was born out of affection and familiarity and the Anglican services that were in my bones, and there is symmetry here, as the first sermon I preached on a professional stage was in Cambridge 50-odd years ago, across the road at the Arts Theatre in the revue Beyond the Fringe. It was on the text: "My brother Esau is an hairy man but I am a smooth man."

That sermon apart, I have never formally preached since until this morning and here I am again in Cambridge.

This is where I came in.

I had first seen Cambridge 10 years before when, as a boy of 17, I had come down from Leeds in December 1951 to sit the scholarship examination in History, staying the weekend, as one did in those days, in the college of my first choice, Sidney Sussex.

The place and the university bowled me over. Leeds, where I had been born and brought up, was like the other great Northern cities still intact in 1951, but though I was not blind to its architectural splendours – unfashionable though at that time they were – it was a soot-blackened, wholly 19th-century city and as a boy, like Hector in The History Boys, I was famished for antiquity.

I had never been in a place of such continuous and unfolding beauty as Cambridge and, December 1951 being exceptionally cold, the Cam was frozen over and a thick hoarfrost covered every court and quadrangle, giving the whole city an unreal and celestial beauty. And it was empty, as provincial places in those days were.

I see my 17-year-old self roaming unrestricted through the colleges, as one could in those unfranchised days, standing in Trinity Great Court in the moonlight, thinking it inconceivable I could ever come to study in such blessed surroundings. And nor could I, so far as Trinity was concerned.

Sidney Sussex wasn't quite my taste in buildings, but you had to be cleverer than I was – or higher up the social scale – to have the real pick of the architecture.

Still, we were examined in the Senate House, the interior of which, had it been in Leeds, would have been sequestered behind red ropes, and I went to evensong in King's, astonished that one could just walk in and be seated in the choir stalls.

It was Advent, or what nowadays is called the countdown to Christmas, and one of the hymns was "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", which is rather dirge-like, but it has stayed with me all my life since.

Interviewed by the kindly dons at Sidney, I was for the first time conscious of having a Northern accent.

If the dons were genial, some of my fellow candidates were less so. That weekend was the first time I had come across public schoolboys in the mass and I was appalled. They were loud, self-confident and all seemed to know one another, shouting down the table to prove it while also being shockingly greedy. Public school they might be, but they were louts.

Seated at long refectory tables beneath the mellow portraits of Tudor and Stewart grandees, neat, timorous and genteel, we grammar school boys were the interlopers; these slobs, as they seemed to me, the party in possession.

But it was a party, seemingly, that I was going to be allowed to join as, though I was a long way from getting a scholarship, Sidney Sussex offered me a place to read History, to come up after my national service.

This, too, takes in Cambridge and if you're beginning to wonder whether, far from being a sermon, this is just a stroll down memory lane, take heart, because here is where a tentative homily begins to shove its nose above the horizon.

Having done basic training in the infantry, I was then sent on a course to learn Russian, a year of which was spent out of uniform and in very relaxed circumstances in Cambridge.

It was a heady atmosphere, more so in some ways than university proper, where many of my colleagues were headed after national service. Some of them were disconcertingly clever; boys from public schools who, when they talked of their schooldays, often had in the background a master whose teaching had been memorable and about whom they told anecdotes and whose sayings they remembered; teachers, I remember thinking bitterly, who had presumably played a part in getting them the scholarships most of them had at Oxford and Cambridge.

For them, the scholarship examination – from which I'd just managed to scrape a place – had almost been a formality. They had been schooled for it and groomed for the interviews that followed, with the scholarships and exhibitions that ensued almost to be taken for granted. This was Oxford and Cambridge after all; they were entitled. If I felt this was wrong, which I did, it was not at that time an altruistic feeling. I was thinking of myself and how the odds were stacked against me and boys like me. And here I should apologise that this narrative is couched so continuously in single-sex terms, but then, so had my education been, my school, the army, my eventual college – all of them at that time male institutions.

As I say, I saw the odds as stacked against me but took some comfort, as I think educators did generally, in assuming that this situation must inevitably alter and that the proportion of undergraduates from state schools at Oxford and Cambridge would gradually overtake that from public schools until they were both properly and proportionately represented.

It was only when, as time passed this didn't happen, that what in my case had begun as a selfish and even plaintive grievance, hardened to take in not just entrance to Oxford and Cambridge, but access to higher education in general, with the scramble for university places more desperate year by year. And this is to say nothing of the cost. Better minds than mine have tackled this problem and continue to do so and I would be foolish if I claimed to have a solution. But I know what is part of the problem and that is private education. My objection to private education is simply put. It is not fair. And to say that nothing is fair is not an answer. Governments, even this one, exist to make the nation's circumstances more fair, but no government, whatever its complexion, has dared to tackle private education. It might have been feasible at the time of the Butler reforms in 1944 but there were other things going on.

The Labour government in 1945 could have tried, but it had a great deal to do besides. There was not another chance until 1997, when Labour's huge majority would have at least allowed a start, except that the prime minister had been a public schoolboy himself and seemingly a happy one, so that opportunity too went begging. I am not altogether sure why. When the question comes up there is always talk of the social disruption that would result, as if it might be the Dissolution of the Monasteries all over again. But would it?

I am not, after all, suggesting that public schools should be abolished, but a gradual reform which began with the amalgamation of state and public schools at sixth form level, say, ought to be feasible and hardly revolutionary, if the will is there.

And that, of course, is the problem.

Some of this lack of will can be put down to the unfocused parental anxiety summed up, almost comically now, in Stephen Spender's 1930s poem:

My parents kept me from children who were rough,

And who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes.

Class, in a word, still. Less forgivably, there is a reluctance to share more widely (and thus to dilute) the undoubted advantages of a private education: smaller classes, better facilities and still, seemingly, a greater chance of getting to university. Beyond that, though, I'm less sure of the long-term social advantages which once would have included the accent, but hardly today. Still – and this is not to discount the many excellent schools in the state sector – a child of average ability is likely to do better at a good public school. Otherwise why would they be sent there?

 

Were reforms to happen, I suspect that the ones who would be the least worried by such an amalgamation would be the boys and girls themselves.

It would be unsurprising if you were to discount these forthright opinions as the rantings of an old man. I am now 80, an age that entitles one to be listened to, though not necessarily heeded. I had never been much concerned with politics until the 1980s, when they became difficult to avoid.

Without ever having been particularly left-wing, I am happy never to have trod that dreary safari from left to right which generally comes with age, a trip writers in particular seem drawn to: Amis, Osborne, Larkin, Iris Murdoch all ending up at the spectrum's crusty and clichéd end. If I haven't, it's partly due to circumstances: there has been so little that has happened to England since the 1980s that I have been happy about or felt able to endorse. One has only had to stand still to become a radical. Though that, too, sounds like an old man talking.

Still, I don't regret it and one thing it's always a pleasure to see on television is the occasional programme about ancient and persistent activists; old ladies recounting their early struggles for women's rights or battles for birth control, veteran campers from Greenham Common: cheerful, good-humoured and radical as they ever were; still – though it's not a word I care for – feisty after all these years. That to me is wisdom as disillusion is not.

Another reason why there is a lack of will and a reluctance to meddle – a reluctance, one has to say, that does not protect the state sector where scarcely a week passes without some new initiative being announced – is that private education is seemingly not to be touched. This I think is because the division between state and private education is now taken for granted.Which doesn't mean that it is thought to be fair, only that there is nothing that can or should be done about it.

But if, unlike the Daily Mail, one believes that the nation is still generous, magnanimous and above all fair, it is hard not to think that we all know that to educate not according to ability but according to the social situation of the parents is both wrong and a waste.

Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them then that education has been wasted. I would also suggest – hesitantly, as I am not adept enough to follow the ethical arguments involved – that if it is not fair, then maybe it's not Christian either.

How much our ideas of fairness owe to Christianity, I am not sure. Souls, after all, are equal in the sight of God and thus deserving of what these days is called a level playing field.

This is certainly not the case in education and never has been, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go on trying. Isn't it time we made a proper start? Unlike today's ideologues, whom I would call single-minded if mind came into it at all, I have no fear of the state. I was educated at the expense of the state, both at school and university. My father's life was saved by the state as, on one occasion, was my own. This would be the nanny state, a sneering appellation that gets short shrift with me. Without the state, I would not be standing here today.

I have no time for the ideology masquerading as pragmatism that would strip the state of its benevolent functions and make them occasions for profit. And why roll back the state only to be rolled over by the corporate entities that have been allowed, nay encouraged, to take its place? I am uneasy when prisons are run for profit or health services either. The rewards of probation and the alleviation of suffering are human profits and nothing to do with balance sheets. And these days no institution is immune. In my last play, the Church of England is planning to sell off Winchester Cathedral.

"Why not?" says a character. "The school is private, why shouldn't the cathedral be also?" And it's a joke, but it's no longer far-fetched.

With ideology masquerading as pragmatism, profit is now the sole yardstick against which all our institutions must be measured, a policy that comes not from experience but from assumptions – false assumptions – about human nature, with greed and self-interest taken to be its only reliable attributes.

In pursuit of profit, the state and all that goes with it is sold from under us who are its rightful owners and with a frenzy and dedication that call up memories of an earlier iconoclasm.

Which brings me nearly to the end.

One pastime I had as a boy which, thanks to my partner, I resumed in middle age, was looking at old churches, "ruin-bibbing" Larkin dismissively called it, though we perhaps have a little more expertise than Larkin disingenuously claimed he had. I do know what rood lofts were, for instance, though, like Larkin, I'm not always able to date a roof.

The charm of most medieval churches consists in what history has left and one learns to delight in little, the dregs of history: a few 15th-century bench ends, an alabaster tomb chest or, where glass is concerned, just the leavings of bigotry, with ideology weakening when it came to out-of-reach tracery – the hammer too heavy, the ladder too short – so that only fragments survive, a cluster of crockets and towers maybe, the glimpse of a golden city with a devil leering down.

In my bleaker moments, these shards of history seem to me emblematic obviously of what has happened to England in the past, but also a reminder and a warning of what in other respects is continuing to happen in the present, with the fabric of the state and the welfare state in particular stealthily dismantled as once the fabric of churches more rudely was, sold off, farmed out; another Dissolution, with profit taking precedence over any other consideration, and the perpetrators today as locked into their ideology and convinced of their own rightness as any of the devout louts who four and five hundred years ago stove in the windows and scratched out the faces of the saints as a passport to Heaven.

I end with the last few lines of my first play, Forty Years On. It's set in a school with the headmaster on the verge of retirement and is what nowadays is called a play for England. It ends with the boys and staff singing the doxology "All Creatures That on Earth Do Dwell", with before it, this advertisement for England:

To let. A valuable site at the crossroads of the world. At present on offer to corporate clients. Outlying portions of the estate already disposed of to sitting tenants. Of some historical and period interest. Some alterations and improvements necessary.

Should Indian passports be renamed as Indian stopports

Jug Suraiya in the Times of India

Should Indian passports be called ‘stop-ports’, in that people who have them are routinely stopped from entering foreign countries, or even transiting through them?

This happens all the time. Recently, Bunny’s cousin and his wife who were going to visit their daughter who is settled in the US had their family plans ruined when the Canadian authorities refused them permission to transit through Toronto airport on their flight to the US. The reason? They did not have a Canadian visa.

They argued that since they are not going to actually enter the country, but would only be in a cordoned-off area in the airport, and as such there was no logical reason why they should require visas. Such reasoning was of no avail. If you are unfortunate enough to have an Indian passport, you cannot even pass through a Canadian airport without a visa. What next? That if you have an Indian passport you can’t even look at a map of Canada without a visa?

Canada is not the only country where an Indian passport is treated like a stop-port. A couple of years ago, Bunny was denied entry to Finland. Why? Because though she had a valid Schengen visa – which Finland accepts – it was stamped not on her new passport but on her old passport which was stapled onto the new one.  The US, and all European Union countries, accept valid visas stamped in an old passport, if this is attached to the new passport. But not Finland. Bunny was turned back from Heathrow airport where she was to board the flight to Helsinki, losing out on the airfare and the hotel in Finland that had already been paid for.

To add insult to financial injury, some other passengers who were not Indians but who also had a similar visa problem were allowed entry by the Finnish authorities. The message was clear: if you have an Indian passport, you’re not just a second-class citizen of the world but a third-class citizen.

The reason for this is obvious, and known to everyone. Sixty-seven years after Independence, economic conditions for the majority of India’s population are so terrible that this country has become globally notorious for its illegal immigrants, who’ll risk any hazard to find employment and a new life in a foreign land.

It is to India’s shame that the country forces so many of its citizens to become economic refugees, to be exploited and ill-treated in alien and often hostile climes. To make matters worse, the Indian government grants visas on arrival to citizens of Finland and many other countries which discriminate against Indian travellers.

By doing this, our sarkar tacitly accepts that in the eyes of the global community, India is a third-class country of third-class citizens.

India’s new Prime Minister is known to be a no-nonsense person, who can not only talk tough but act tough when necessary. It’s time that countries which openly discriminate against Indian citizens be deterred from doing so by being given a taste of their own bitter medicine.

Canadian passport? Finnish passport? Sorry, no swagatam for you guys.

The incredibly malleable spirit of cricket

Ed Smith in Cricinfo

	Ian Bell was out in the Trent Bridge Test against India in 2011... until he wasn't © PA Photos  Enlarge

Two British satirists, the late John Fortune and John Bird, mastered the art of explaining slippery subjects through humour. They would take a major news story and apparently merely knock it about in a light, spontaneous chat on TV. But their mischievous dialogues often took us closer to the heart of the matter than acres of self-important newsprint. (Here they are in a famous sketch from 2007 about the financial crisis)

How I would have loved them to address cricket's confusion about the "spirit of cricket". The old controversy was reignited this month when Sri Lanka "Mankaded" Jos Buttler. In the spirit of admiration rather than emulation, in this piece I imagine a conversation between the two great satirists, reflecting on Mankading and cricket's odd attitudes towards morality...

"So what is it, this spirit of cricket thing? Presumably it's about behaving with dignity out on the pitch and that kind of stuff?"

"Oh no, not really. Most players can get away with swearing at each other non-stop for five days without contravening the spirit of cricket. We don't get involved morally at that level. Better to turn a blind eye."

"You mean sledging - that's the right term isn't it? - does not contravene the spirit of cricket?"

"Not really. No, cricket tends to celebrate verbal abuse as "banter", even though it's very rarely funny. Let's put it this way. If someone sledges you all day in a Test match, the correct response in modern cricket is to go up to him at the end of play and say, "I loved the way you showed real passion about playing for your country, you seem like a champion cricketer, can I buy you a drink, as I'm sure you're a great bloke off the pitch."

"So the appropriate response to someone calling you a "f****** ****" for seven hours is to say, 'Thanks, can I buy you a beer?'"

"Exactly."

"Now I'm confused. So abusing someone who is simply doing his job is fine. But when an opponent performs a run-out, entirely within the laws of the game, he has broken the spirit of cricket, and the crowd starts booing and the whole occasion is apparently demeaned?"

"You are beginning to understand how the phrase "spirit of cricket" can be thrown around."

"But what could Sri Lanka have done to avoid the Mankading? Other than the threat of a Mankad, there's no other way of preventing a batsman setting off for a run from an advanced position is there?"

"Not really."

"And I suppose, in the heat of battle in elite sport, no one offers warnings before acting within the laws, do they?"

"Well, actually Sri Lanka offered two warnings."

"So they offered two warnings to an opponent who was - deliberately or, in this instance, accidentally - gaining an illegal advantage, and yet they still broke the spirit of cricket?"

"According to lots of people, yes."

	Everything up to and including my actions are "within the spirit of cricket". Anything I don't like about the actions of other players is "against the spirit of cricket"

"So if acting within the laws is against the spirit of cricket, what does upholding the spirit of cricket look like?"

"It's about not taking advantage of the fact that a man can lose his mind immediately before eating a slice of cake."

"I'm sorry, you've lost me."

"Back in 2011, poor Ian Bell offered a plea of temporary insanity brought about by the immediate temptation of a slice of cake. The 'spirit of cricket' jury gave him a reprieve, effectively a second life as a batsman."

"You're joking, right?"

"Deadly serious. Ian Bell made a brilliant hundred at Trent Bridge against India. But after the last ball before tea, he lapsed in concentration and assumed that the ball had crossed the boundary when in fact it hadn't. As he sauntered off for tea, the Indian team dislodged the bails, and Bell was run out. That is indeed out, according to the laws. But after an English delegation went to the Indian dressing room to complain, India retracted their appeal.

"That is, they invited Bell to bat again. Not because he wasn't out, but because they now realised that the prospect of tea had clearly clouded Bell's mind. Pundits agreed that everyone had behaved superbly. After all, how could a man be expected to remember the laws of the game when he can already sniff the aroma of chocolate cake in his nostrils?"

"This spirit of cricket is incredibly complex and malleable, isn't it? It looks as though you can explain or condemn almost anything using the rhetoric of the spirit of cricket."

"Exactly. That's the magic of it. It's all about not crossing a line."

"Whose line?"

"My line."

"What do you mean your line?"

"Everything up to and including my actions are 'within the spirit of cricket'. Anything I don't like about the actions of other players is 'against the spirit of cricket'."

"So it's possible for two people to argue for hours about someone 'crossing the line' without anyone knowing what or where the line is?"

"Exactly. That's the brilliance of the idea."

"Let's go back to the Mankading controversy. Wasn't there some background controversy about the bowling action of Senanayake, the bowler who performed the Mankading?"

"Senanayake's action has been reported as suspicious by several officials - i.e. it may be deemed a throw rather than a bowl. He will have to go to Cardiff to have his action specially filmed and analysed to see if it is legal after all."

"But isn't there a risk, when spin bowlers have to attend special testing, that they will simply bowl with a slightly different and 'more legal' action during the forensic examination?"

"What do you mean 'risk'? Basically, almost everyone who is tested eventually gets cleared. Think of the whole thing as a cooling off process."

"But what about the bowlers who don't have questionable actions? Aren't they placed at an unfair disadvantage by having to bowl in the traditional manner?"

"What do you think this is, a charity? This is cut-throat, elite sport. There is no room for sentimentality."

"Except the spirit of cricket?"

"Except for that, of course."

-------

The Economist on Mankading

THERE was a controversial incident during England’s one day international (ODI) against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston last night. Sachithra Senanayake, a Sri Lankan bowler, ran out Jos Buttler, England’s best ODI batsman on current form, while he was backing up (pictured). In other words, as Mr Senanayake ran in to bowl, Mr Buttler wandered down the wicket to make it easier to complete a quick run. Having spotted this (and apparently having already warned Mr Buttler twice), Mr Senanayake stopped in his delivery stride, removed the bails and appealed for the run-out. Despite having the opportunity to withdraw the appeal, Angelo Mathews, Sri Lanka's captain, backed his bowler and Mr Buttler was given out.

“Mankading”, as it is known, named after Vinoo Mankad, an early proponent of the art, highlights an interesting divide. By and large it is frowned upon by professional players. Alastair Cook, England’s captain, described the incident as “a pretty poor act”, adding, apparently without irony, “there is a line and I think that line was crossed tonight.” Backing up as the bowler approaches, pros argue, has long been an accepted part of the game. As with many de facto sporting rules (which might also include footballers returning the ball to the opposition when a player is injured or the "neighbourhood play" in baseball, in which umpires will call a runner out so long as the fielder's foot is in the general vicinity of the bag) a team allows opposing batsmen to get away with it because they expect to be granted the same courtesy themselves. In this sense, they are entitled to be angry when the unwritten code is breached. Certainly, Mr Matthews could have few complaints were he now to be run-out in a similar fashion. Indeed, it is classic game theory on his part: weighing up the short-term benefit of disrupting a stable equilibrium against the long-term consequences of retaliation in kind.

But judging by others’ reaction to the incident, non-professionals (including your correspondent) see nothing wrong with Mankading. Stealing a few yards before the bowler has released the ball is gaining an unfair advantage. Put-upon bowlers, who have watched as the game has been skewed further and further in favour of batsmen, have every right to call them out on it. What is more, their right to do so is enshrined in the laws of the game, which state: "The bowler is permitted, before releasing the ball and provided he has not completed his usual delivery swing, to attempt to run out the non-striker."

Nonetheless, abiding by rules is not the same as acting in a right-minded way. Thepreamble to the laws of the game say cricket "should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game". But who are the guardians of ethical norms in sport? It increasingly seems as if the principles of professional players are accepted, de facto, as correct. And they have judged that Mankading is not permissible but, for example, appealing for an LBW decision when the bowler knows the ball to be missing the stumps is. It is the same in other sports. In football, pundits talk, in pseudo-moralistic terms, about strikers having “every right to go down” when they sense the merest contact from an opponent in the penalty box. The moral imperative, they seem to argue, lies with the defender not to touch the attacker, rather than on the attacker not to play-act.

It is perhaps inevitable that professionals should become sport's moral arbiters. After all, their conduct is watched by millions every match. This has the effect of normalising their behaviour. What is more, when public judgment is required it is undertaken by ex-professionals on sports programmes, who tend to share their sensibilities. In their defence, there is also perhaps a case that professionals, paid to eke out every advantage, are more aware of where sport’s pressure points lie, and so are the best judges of what constitutes a crossing of the moral line. But either way, eventually that relentless professional viewpoint is bound to dominate everyone else’s thinking.

There might be an argument for moral relativism; that given the pressures they face, professionals should play to different standards than the rest. But this, it seems, is just a way of saying that professionals’ conduct can be less ethical than others’. And there is a difference between what has become accepted and what is right. In an ideal world, it would be the amateurs who would have the right to decide what is morally acceptable on the sport’s field; the enthusiasts that ruled as philosopher kings above the self-interested professionals. Having played Sunday cricket for many years, your correspondent suspects that those who most cherish cricket’s spirit are to be found on the village green, not the county square. If they say Mankading is moral, who are the pros to disagree?

Beware the politician who thinks a debate about ‘British values’ is the way to voters’ hearts

Yasmin Alibhai Brown in The Independent

Here we go round the mulberry bush repeating the same old verses – fine when you are a three-year-old, but really not for a PM. Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown crusaded for “British values”, and now David Cameron does the same, prompted, I suspect, by the looming Scottish referendum and the disquieting “Trojan Horse” confrontation.

The crisis at some Birmingham schools must be dealt with fairly and robustly. Academies and free schools give parents and governors too much power, and this is the result. The fanatically ideological and thoroughly incompetent Michael Gove created this mess. But, as ever, when in trouble of their own making, British politicians either blame immigrants or evoke Britishness, as if it is a magic spell that will get voters to love them again. It always turns out to be a hex.

Last week, once again, Britishness was talked up by some, knocked about by others and mocked by many. Watch Huffington Post’s Mehdi Hasan speaking for one minute on this – droll, wry and very British. Some nations push patriotism so relentlessly that it becomes oppressive and enforces conformism. I was on Sky News with the Telegraph journalist Andrew Gilligan, who believes we should emulate America’s brand of flag-waving, unexamined patriotism. I really can’t see that happening.

Contrariness is what I most admire about my fellow Brits, plus their instinctive scepticism and questioning of authority, which comes out of a particular history. Of course, the state and establishment know that everyday nonconformity diverts actual revolutionary movements or resistance. At a time of purposely engineered poverty and inequality, even the poor worship the royals and blame fellow citizens rather than their rulers. Yet, still, having lived under the controlling, undemocratic British Empire, one of my biggest and best surprises was to come and settle in this mischievous, quirky and open motherland.

The critical mind and voice should indeed be promoted among the young of all backgrounds. And personal autonomy, too. I was on the advisory group led by Sir Bernard Crick that, after much deliberation, introduced the citizenship curriculum in schools. Children were taught binding values, rights and responsibilities, and it proved a good way to create a sense of common purpose and emphasise commonalities between various peoples of the UK. Taught properly, pupils are enabled to question governmental obsessions, the economic system, ruling elites, each other’s faiths or cultures, and spun histories. Although Gove declared his support for this education in 2013, teachers tell me it is withering on the vine, pushed out by other core subjects.

Politicians don’t want to encourage such dissent, this fundamental enacting of Britishness. Remember the draconian policing of student marches against university fee rises, and UK Uncut and trade union demos. And now Boris Johnson wants water cannon to be part of the arsenal against legitimate protests. Nothing about this is simple.

We should take proper pride in our arts and writers and the beautiful, most amazing language that everyone in the world wants to learn. However, many of the qualities that Cameron listed as British are global. We didn’t invent democracy and, when barely 35 per cent of people turn out to vote here, South Africa can be counted more democratic than us. The rule of law? It’s a universal desire. So, too, a craving for personal and political liberty. Tolerance cannot be owned by any one country, and this latest attempt by British politicians to claim it sounds terribly like propaganda when racism is, once more, stalking us people of colour and migrants.

Whose Britishness shall be deemed exemplary? Those proud brutes Rod Liddle and Richard Littlejohn? Shall we put on to the curriculum their nasty new books, lamenting the white, superior, sexist nation they grew up in? Or do we go for Danny Boyle and Suzanne Moore’s inclusive and ever-transforming, kaleidoscopic Britishness? Then there is Alan Bennett’s lovely, kind, left version. And Shami Chakrabarti’s, based on principles and powerful historical moments when liberty was enshrined in law. You could lock Simon Jenkins, Nigel Farage, Helena Kennedy and Lenny Henry in a castle for a month and still they would not agree on the defining characteristics of our nationhood.

If getting drunk is a typically British thing to do, I want no part of it. Hating incomers seems to be a British pastime. Sorry, can’t join in. And don’t expect me to despise those on benefits either. The Empire was not glorious for the ruled, and you can’t make us celebrate such a complex history. Britain holds itself up as a beacon of human rights and freedoms, but duplicitously undercuts all our basic rights and freedoms. We surely cannot exult Magna Carta when we now have secret courts, the state spying on us all and withholding information from us.

In 2007, when we went through another episode of evangelical, revivalist Britishness, an establishment newspaper asked its readers for a single sentence that defined it. The winning entry was this: “No motto, please, we’re British”. And no enforced patriotism either. Do we want to be like the French?