Diary 2016 (Feb 27th)- Why paying lip service to ideals might be important
During the past month, one issue has dominated headlines across India, the JNU sedition case. Weren’t there events of greater import happening during this period? Of course, yes. There were many events which should have been of much greater significance. Till last week, I felt that a mountain had been assiduously generated out of a molehill, thanks to the over-reaction from Delhi police and certain elements from the government. I felt those students were a tad idiotic for persisting with cliched and dead communist jargon (I think I should mention here that I self-classify as a left-leaning liberal) and definitely didn’t have much good sense. I thought that they were provocative for the sake of being provocative. But then something changed.
Last week the Indian Parliament started its new session. Prior to that according to news reports, the prime minister to launch an unapologetic counter-offensive. The chief of the ruling party said, “The government has done nothing wrong.” The below were statements made by Cabinet ministers in the ensuing period.
Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley : “Are we going to give respectability to those whose primary ideology is that they want to break this country?…(not)camouflage this great offence which has taken place.”
Home minister, Rajnath Singh : “Never should have something been done which puts a question mark over the country’s sovereignty and integrity. On such occasions, the entire country should be speaking in one voice. I would also appeal to all political parties not to view such episodes through the prism of political gains and losses”
Education minister, Smriti Irani: “ Madam, this is a poster, which has the name of a child, unfortunately. I look at this child who has been mobilised as a weapon against the State. This is a child who does not have an idea that India is one, but a child who must have been infected with this thought. By those who want to bear arms to overthrow the state. It bears the name of Kanhaiya Kumar.”
The government has made its stand clear on the JNU controversy. These cabinet ministers state unequivocally that students raising slogans on a university campus is equivalent to working towards breaking up the motherland. They deserve to be and will be treated as traitors.
Strictly speaking, there is a difference between criticizing the government and going against the nation. In the latter case, primal emotions can be drawn upon and stoked, as the government has done. It muddles the entire conversation, transforming it into a personal attack on every single patriotic individual. The gist of the accusations against the students is that they support the secession of Kashmir and oppose the hanging of Afzal Guru. Both are specific subjects and imply criticism of the actions of current and previous governments (mostly previous) and of law enforcement agencies.
What about the slogans demanding the break-up and destruction of the country? The language used was over the top and overly dramatic. Even if the accused had personally led the slogan raising and meant every single word literally, no mature, confident nation with an established, vibrant democracy should not feel threatened by words. On this point, in my humble opinion, there are no two sides, both worthy of attention.
Since the current government assumed power, it was evident that ‘fringe’ elements had assumed it was carte-blanche for them to proceed with the imposition of the Hindutva agenda. They seemed to operate with impunity. Legal action would be much delayed and hesitant after each incident. It was obvious that the government thought of them like errant but well-meaning children. Some actions were blamed on over-enthusiastic underlings or party affiliates. After all, the central government couldn’t be expected to interfere in every small communally tinged incident across our large country. The prime minister had the minor job of running the country. He couldn’t be expected to condemn everything worth condemning. Fair point. Maybe the media was targeting the government unfairly. Maybe it was ‘hangover’ from the 2002 Gujarat riots, in which our current prime minister had been exonerated of all charges by the highest court of the land.
Sometimes, much delayed statements would appear from the prime minister or the government, as after the Dadri lynching. If nothing, it was lip service to the ideals of the Indian democracy. It helped maintain the veneer, though it was thinning steadily. Now it’s been ripped off.
How does it matter? Anyway, the Congress also paid lip service to those ideals and played the cynical, opportunistic game of vote-bank politics, promising everything to everyone. They had honed it to an art form. From propping up the most conservative, regressive elements within Muslim society to repeatedly resorting to the sedition law to suppress dissent to repeatedly banning works of art in the name of protecting the sentiments of one community or the other, the Congress record has been far from spotless.
But before the last 1–1.5 years the foundations of the system laid at the time of independence appeared rock-solid. With the exception of the dark period of the emergency, a democratic and secular republic and the principles of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity appeared to be inextricably embedded in the political and social fabric of India.
But the fabric has been fraying, at least in my eyes. I have been living outside the country for the past 3 years. But whenever I talk to middle-class Indians whether living in India or outside, it almost always devolves into polarized conversation, devolving into straw man and ad hominem attacks in a short while. Friends and acquaintances express a narrow vision of jingoistic nationalism and bigoted views against minority communities without any hesitation or compunction. In a way, it is similar to Trump-like truth telling and rejection of political correctness, combined with a feeling of victim-hood and being under siege. Now they feel the time has come to set right the wrongs of the past. The liberals say they are under siege now. At times, their reaction isn’t any prettier.
If the ideals were always just that, ideals, then why is it important that the flimsy, fragile layer of pretense is gone. Isn’t it better in a way if everyone says what they truly think, instead of living in a make-believe world, where everyone is make-believe nice and sweet?
I despise political correctness. It is the biggest demon haunting liberalism across the world and it pushes very real problems under the carpet. But while, rejecting political correctness, we must be careful not to throw out the hard-fought ideals.
The Oxford dictionary defines the noun ‘ideal’ as ‘ A standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at’. I believe high-minded ideals are never truly achieved. The point is to have them in place and struggle towards them. Ta Nehisi Coates’ writes in Between the world and me about that eternal struggle: “ This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.”
During the past 60–70 years, even the worst dictators have not deviated from the rhetoric of democracy. They have held elections, however fraudulent they might have been. Those elections also have value. They indicate a changed world from the time, when non-Caucasian races were considered incapable of governing themselves in any fashion, let alone have a popularly elected democratic government. If at least in words, the idea of democracy remains alive, there is the probability, however minuscule, that it will grow into something more than an idea some day.
Till the second half of the twentieth century, the idea of all men being created equal had numerous well-understood exceptions to it. But since the ideal was there, women and the ‘inferior’ races could fight for their rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was nothing more than a piece of waste paper for over 40 years, after it was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. The Cold war and the principles of sovereignty ensured that no action was ever taken. Both superpowers fought the battle for world dominance with minimal concern for basic human rights. It was not even an after-thought. Realpolitik ruled, as it does now. Still, I would claim, the adoption of that bill was momentous. As was the official adoption of the term genocide during the 1940s, thanks to the efforts of Raphael Lemkin. Though it didn’t stop and could never have stopped many subsequent genocides, such as in Rwanda and Bosnia. The ideals will always be betrayed, exploited, never achieved. Having those humane ideals I feel is essential to being human. It provides purpose to our existence. Recognizing them officially, even if at a superficial level, is important.
Similarly, holding those imperfectly formed and implemented principles or even pretending to do so, I think is better than euthanizing them. They can always be built upon and developed as long they are alive. It takes a long, long time to get their roots in and not time at all to uproot them. Now those very ideas are being attacked. The ruling government wants to demolish the old structures (there’s a lot wrong with them but I don’t see any fixes happening) and build new ones in their place. It is not a simple battle. There are nuances.
I will try my best to explore this idea of an alternate national narrative during the coming week. I will also attempt to understand how liberal and secular became dirty words .
