The Army: Between the Quartet’s Agenda and the National Narrative
Dr. Al-Dardiri Mohamed Ahmed
Before comparing various aspects of the independence narratives in India and Sudan, it is important to examine the elites who shaped these narratives.
India’s struggle for independence followed a long and complex path spanning more than a century. It evolved from scattered local resistances into a national movement that initially employed violence but later adopted a peaceful approach. The Indian National Congress was founded early, in 1885, primarily as a platform for dialogue with the British rather than confrontation. In 1915, Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa and introduced the principles of nonviolence (Ahimsa) and civil disobedience (Satyagraha), establishing these methods as both practical tools for the struggle and ethical exemplars for the society at large.
The first notable feature of the Indian elite was that they established the Congress Party sixty-two years before independence and maintained its unity throughout that period. Second, they transformed the Congress into a unifying platform that transcended the prevailing nationalist, religious, and sectarian divides. Third, the Congress paid meticulous attention to rural areas, drawing inspiration from their heritage and making it a beacon for the struggle. It established an extensive organizational network from villages to cities, composed of district and state committees, allowing each region to express its particularity within the party’s general framework. Fourth, the Congress prevented the domination of any single faction, balancing leftist, rightist, and moderate currents. Gandhi, Nehru, and Patel were granted absolute symbolic leadership alongside collective governance. This trio succeeded in unifying India despite its immense diversity and remained a source of inspiration after independence.
Through this long temporal span and deliberate political strategy, the Indian National Congress transformed from an elite forum into a mass national liberation movement encompassing all segments of Indian society and its political currents. It succeeded in turning the independence narrative into a story of the future, stability, and development.
In contrast, the Sudanese elite attempted to replicate the Indian Congress model by founding the Graduates’ Congress in 1938. This organization united graduates of secondary and higher education (including Gordon Memorial College and Kitchener Medical School), transcending sectarian and regional affiliations. In 1942, it submitted a memorandum to the Governor-General demanding Sudan’s right to self-determination after World War II. This memorandum marked the effective founding of the Graduates’ Congress and represented the birth of the Sudanese “independence narrative,” offering a unifying discourse that transcended traditional divisions between North and South, as well as Ansar and Khatmiyya supporters.
However, a weakness exploited by both the colonial authorities and the religious sects was the Graduates’ Congress’s failure to move beyond its elite ivory tower. Membership remained limited to degree holders, automatically excluding influential segments such as tribal leaders, traditional merchants, agricultural leaders, and urban populations. The Congress focused on issues relevant to its small constituency—employment, Sudanization, administrative representation, and constitutional development—while neglecting rural and illiterate concerns such as land, water, agricultural projects, and taxation. It also failed to engage in popular mobilization. When it demanded self-determination, the memorandum was submitted directly to the colonial authorities without prior grassroots campaigning. It could have turned this demand into a mass movement through seminars, demonstrations, and civil disobedience, thereby rallying popular support. Similarly, the Congress ignored rural engagement, failing to draw upon the countryside’s heritage or address its concerns, unlike the Indian Congress leaders.
This allowed the religious sects to monopolize the countryside, control the loyalties of the uneducated, and claim to represent the majority. Consequently, the elite became dependent on these sects, leading to a split within the small group that shaped the independence narrative. The colonial powers played their traditional role, intensifying sectarian loyalties within the Graduates’ Congress, which split in 1944 into two factions: one favoring independence and the other federalism, each aligning with a sectarian leader to secure popular support. Instead of building a unified entity representing all Sudanese, the elite relied on pre-colonial—and arguably pre-modern—loyalties, making personal allegiance to spiritual leaders a vehicle for political gain. Rhetoric between the two factions deteriorated, amplified by newspapers and public speeches, sometimes escalating to popular confrontations. The rift was so profound that even a handshake between the two leaders on January 25, 1953, became a historic event. Internal competition for the spiritual leader’s favor reached its peak.
We now turn to comparing the narratives produced by these elites in India and Sudan, beginning with their impact on constitutional drafting.
Due to the Indian elite’s unity around the Congress, the independence narrative broadened and diversified in content. Although Gandhi and Patel disappeared from the scene shortly after independence—Gandhi assassinated and Patel deceased—the symbolic unifying leadership persisted in Nehru, who acted as the figure around whom people rallied. This enabled India to complete its constitution in less than three years after independence. The Indian Constitution was promulgated on January 26, 1950, becoming the first major constitution outside Europe and the Americas. With more than 400 articles, it was the longest and most comprehensive worldwide at the time, reflecting the density and consensus embedded in India’s independence narrative.
By contrast, Sudan’s independence constitution—the 1956 Transitional Constitution—contained only 58 articles, resembling a statute for an association, drafted overnight based on the 1953 Self-Government Constitution prepared by the British. Later transitional constitutions followed a similar telegraphic style, except for the 2005 Constitution, which included 226 articles and six extended schedules.
The primary goal of India’s constitution was to embody the national independence narrative and express its principles within an inclusive democratic framework, redefining India as a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nation after centuries of colonial rule and internal divisions. Drafted as a social contract among all religions, ethnicities, and regions, it guaranteed fundamental rights for everyone. The Indian Constitution combined rigidity in some aspects with flexibility in others, undergoing over a hundred amendments in the past eight decades to remain a living, evolving document. Consequently, the independence narrative matured rapidly, extended its branches widely, and transformed into a dynamic constitutional text drawn upon in every election and crisis.
In Sudan, independence was achieved amid elite division. The meeting of the two key leaders did not produce real unity. The independence front was merely a tactical alliance that froze disagreements without resolving them. Fundamental national issues concerning the social contract, governance system, and center-periphery relations were left untouched due to the absence of minimum national consensus. After independence in early 1956, the front lost its justification, and the two parties resumed competing for power and resources, negatively impacting parliamentary performance.
Post-independence, the parliament was designated as a constituent assembly to draft the constitution, in the hope that this formal procedure would overcome political conflict. However, changes in form could not compensate for the lack of substance; the assembly reproduced the same divisions evident in parliament. A major challenge was the southern representatives’ demand for a federal constitution, categorically rejected by the northern majority, stalling the assembly’s work. Attempts to resolve deadlock through the formation of the “Committee of Fifty-Five” in 1957 failed as well. The conflict was further complicated by debates over whether the country should adopt a parliamentary or presidential system, reflecting a struggle for power rather than constitutional principle. The Umma Party, holding a parliamentary majority, favored a parliamentary system to concentrate real power in the Prime Minister, whereas the Unionist Party, lacking such a majority, sought a system enabling its charismatic leader, Ismail Al-Azhari, to attain the presidency through alliances without parliamentary dominance. This highlights the Sudanese independence narrative’s failure to produce widely accepted principles capable of being embodied in a permanent constitution, unlike India.
We now examine the impact on national unity. During the long struggle, the Indian elite dreamed of uniting the entire Indian Subcontinent under one narrative, encompassing British India, administratively linked regions like Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Burma (Myanmar), Bhutan, and Nepal. Religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity became the foundation of the Indian independence narrative under the motto “Unity in Diversity.” Despite the partition separating Pakistan and Bangladesh and the administrative distancing of Sri Lanka, the Indian elite did not retreat into Hindu-centric nationalism. The principle of “Unity in Diversity” remained central, complemented by a flexible federalism designed to accommodate minorities and distant regions while limiting central intervention to emergencies.
In contrast, the Sudanese narrative completely neglected the South. Although the 1943 self-determination memorandum referred to the entire Sudan, it made no mention of southern particularities. In response, early southern educated leaders, including Benjamin Lwoki, Santino Deng, and Toby Madut, founded the Southern Sudan Party in 1951, independent of the Graduates’ Congress or the National Movement parties, advocating regional autonomy within a united Sudan under the slogan “Federalism after Independence.” Notably, the party did not call for secession but sought equitable political partnership. The northern elite, however, did not expand their narrative to incorporate the South, overlooking sparks of potential conflict. The Sudanization government of 1953 failed to implement measures to prevent northern domination in southern employment, with long-term repercussions that remain widely recognized.
The Indian independence narrative engaged with the countryside not merely as an object of attention but as the narrative’s source of inspiration, legitimacy, and ultimate destination. Gandhi made rural India a symbol of national identity, famously stating, “Real India is not in Delhi or Bombay, but in seven hundred thousand villages.” The rural was not described as “backward” but as “authentic,” the site where India remained unspoiled. Symbols and practices drawn from rural life—traditional clothing, the spinning wheel (Charkha), vernacular languages, and local foods—were elevated to national significance. Post-independence, Nehru linked modernization and rural development, situating major infrastructure projects—dams, electricity, irrigation—within villages, portraying them as “temples of modern India.” The Indian Constitution incorporated the rural institutionally and legislatively into the state’s core. The countryside became a source of moral and political legitimacy, actively participating in daily governance rather than being a passive object.
In contrast, the Sudanese independence narrative was formulated within an urban space that neither represented nor encompassed rural Sudan. The countryside remained marginal, following the colonial indirect rule system, and was perceived as “traditional,” needing modernization to gain access to national legitimacy. Post-independence discourse prioritized urban residents—educated, professional, or skilled—while rural populations with their tribes, dialects, and agricultural interests remained absent. Consequently, the Sudanese independence narrative did not grant the rural a symbolic or emotional place in the concept of the nation. Over time, the countryside became the “margin,” while the urban center constituted the “nation.” Justice and representation were absent in both symbolic and economic terms. Conflicts in regions like the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Abyei, Darfur, and the East reflected rural revolts against urban centers, turning the independence narrative into one centered on the capital, where ministries, the army, universities, factories, electricity, water, and paved roads existed. Urban Sudanese were seen as the model citizen, while rural areas were excluded from decision-making and development until decades later.
It should be clarified that this is not an endorsement of militia propaganda; noting the urban-centric discourse does not imply ethnic bias. Major Sudanese cities brought together elites from diverse tribes and regions, fostering hybrid urban identities. The process of detribalization, replacing tribal affiliations with occupational, educational, and urban-based identities, was active, though gradual. Urban elites such as the poet Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Hayy (1922–1975) exemplified pride in civic identity without ethnic exclusivity, highlighting the emergence of a post-tribal national consciousness. Yet rural populations remained largely excluded from national narratives.
This is the story of India’s independence narrative—a narrative that gave India, despite its diversity, a shared belief sustaining democratic resilience and economic growth, establishing it as one of the world’s largest democracies and economies. In this episode, we have compared Sudan’s failed narrative with a successful model. In the next installment, the comparison will be made with another narrative that initially failed but was later revitalized into a success, whereas Sudan’s independence narrative was abandoned and replaced with divisive narratives fueling conflicts, leading the nation to a state of dysfunction.
