An empire that was built on the counterfeit

By Swapan Dasgupta

Maybe there will come a day when the National Capital of India chooses to have its very own coat of arms and a matching motto. The college of heraldry is best suited to design a crest appropriate to a city that a former Viceroy (who opposed the transfer of the Capital in 1911) described as the “graveyard of empires”. However, when it comes to the motto, nothing would please me better than the commonly-understood phrase: Jaante nahin mein kaun hoon?

If there is a single phrase that defines the ethos of a city built to flaunt the grandeur of political power, it is the imperious assertion by the few to the many: “Don’t you know who I am?”

In most cases we don’t and so we have to be educated. How does a harassed parking attendant at one of Delhi’s celebrated hotels on a Saturday evening know that the rude 20-something who has blocked the flow of traffic is the favourite younger son of the minister who controls a formidable caste vote bank? How does Mr Ordinary Middle Class who protests against the queue jumping at airport security know that preferential treatment must be accorded to Mr Self-Important, IAS?

And how is a spirited young women brought up to repudiate patriarchy and the ‘commodification’ of women, believe in feminism, women’s empowerment and so on to know that when the high priest of progressive thought makes a crude sexual advance at her in a hotel lift, the answer has to be yes? After all, Jaante nahin mein kaun hoon?

To view the ongoing saga of an individual who forgot where influence and self-importance ended and where ordinary decencies took over as an unfortunate aberration caused by an excess of drink is to misread the social context of the incident. Goa may well be a place where inhibitions are supposedly abandoned and where it all hangs loose, but this was no ordinary misreading of a situation. What took place was an act of brazenness brought about by the belief that power, influence and grandstanding generate exceptional entitlements.

It may have begun with fighting the good fight against the dark forces that were hell bent of taking India down the slippery slope of bigotry and hate. Even though the means may have been contested, that was a democratic right, guaranteed by the Constitution. However, from battling for so-called liberal values to embracing sharp financial practices and taking full advantage of political cronyism was a leap into another league, into the world of the Jaante nahin. It didn’t matter that this was not accompanied by the seedy and very vernacular social ambience of hard drinking and disreputable assignations in hotels with hourly rates. In essence, the assembly of beautiful people in festivals celebrating the cerebral but underwritten by dodgy liquor barons and victims of extortion also turned out to be a cover for an empire built on the counterfeit. Once values had been mortgaged to self-fulfilment, the descent to moral corruption was near-inevitable.

In a libertine world where anything goes, consent is somehow taken as implicit. But whether groping-gone-wrong was consensual or forced begs a larger and more disturbing question. What is the mentality of an individual who thinks nothing about making a lunge at a junior colleague who also the friend of his daughter? Did it stem from the licentious groupthink of people who flaunted their rejection of conservatism and moral orthodoxies? Or was the process also aided by a belief that in kaliyug the law is an ass, at least for those who, like the character in T.S. Eliot’s Cocktail Party can say:  “You know, I have connections—even in California.”

The ‘crime’ was despicable enough; even more sordid was the attempted management of its inevitable fallout. For some, the veneer of religiosity was a cover for preying on female devotees; for others, a damaging charge of rape can be debunked as a political frame-up. Rape, radical feminists used to say is always political. Now we are told it is an anti-secular conspiracy.

The hallucination doesn’t stem from the fogging of individual minds. It happens because some people have internalised Delhi’s overriding philosophy: Jaante nahin main kaun hoon? 

Sunday Times of India, November 1, 2013

Loonies of the world unite!

By Swapan Dasgupta

        There is a famous photograph of V.I. Lenin, shot sometime in 1917, addressing a gathering of 'revolutionary' workers during the course of the upheaval that led to the Bolshevik Revolution. It is a photograph that has been published and re-published on many occasions and, like Adolf Hitler's iconic images during the Nuremberg rallies, it has become synonymous with the Communist movement.

        However, the photograph underwent a change over the years. The original showed Lenin declaiming while flanked by a galaxy of Bolshevik leaders, some known and others largely forgotten. By the mid-1930s, the photograph underwent some innovative editing. Leon Trotsky, who was in the original photograph standing next to Lenin was expediently air-brushed away. Trotsky had lost out in the inner-party struggle with Stalin and was banished from the Soviet Union. Consequently, he became a non person and was dubbed a fascist collaborator. Entire generations of pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese Communists learnt their history of the movement without any understanding of the role of Trotsky in 1905 and 1917 and the basis of his critique of Stalin. In the annals of official Marxism, Trotsky became a shorthand for treachery.

        History doesn't repeat itself as a carbon copy. However, there is something eerily familiar about the manner in which the writer Salman Rushdie is being transformed into a non-person by the custodians of faith in India. In 2012, the author was prevented from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival this year the West Bengal Government prevented him  from attending the premiere of Midnight's Children directed by Deepa Menta. Rushdie had also been apparently invited to a sesson of a literary festival in Kolkata but the local police sent word to him that he would be sent back if he landed up on any flight to the city.

        Apart from Satanic Verses which was banned by the Rajiv Gandhi Government in 1988, there is no ban on any of Rushdie's other books. They are available in all good bookshops in India and the film Midnight's Children is being screened in many movie halls all over India. Yet, for all practical purposes, an unofficial ban has been imposed on Rushdie making an appearance at any public function. As the holder of a PIO card, Rushdie can, of course, travel to India whenever he wants to but in terms of his public persona he has been declared a non-person.

        Rushdie is not the only one who has been permanently banned from public occasions. The Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen was more or less hounded out of Kolkata three years ago and now leads an undercover existence in an Indian city. Each year, when her visa comes up for renewal, pressure is put on the Government of India to deport her. So far the Government has withstood the pressure but it would be hazardous to believe that this constitutes the last word on the subject.

        Rushdie and Taslima are both foreign nationals and there is a suggestion that the authorities need not go out of their way to defend the civil liberties that are guaranteed to Indian citizens. Yet, the same harassment greeted M.F. Husein, till, in exasperation, he took up the citizenship of Qatar and spent the final year of his life outside India. Mercifully, no similar harassment has yet greeted Ashis Nandy for his comments in this year's Jaipur Literature Festival. Indeed, two days after the kerfuffle in Jaipur, Nandy was photographed releasing a book in the company of Vice President Hamid Ansari. I don't know if a similar indulgence is likely to be shown towards the four Kashmiri girls who had formed an all-woman band.

        There is a temptation to interpret these attacks on creative individuals and the recent fuss over Kamal Hassan's new fim as evidence of India's intellectual regression. To some extent this is true. There is a growing body of individuals, not least in the social media, who are inclined to believe that they have a monopoly of the truth. This astonishing self-assurance is coupled with the belief that certitudes are more important than open engagement.

        That there are individuals with closed minds is a problem that is not limited to India alone. Even the most evolved liberal democracies have individuals who are not merely resolute in their views and prejudices but are even willing to even kill for it. In India, on the other hand, the problem  is not individuals but the effortless forging of collectives. In the cases of Rushdie, Taslima, Nandy and Husein, it was the fear of deranged and fanatical mobs that forced the state to buckle under pressure.

        It may be said that the mobs cut across religious communities. Hindu mobs targeted Husein's art exhibitions; Muslim mobs threatened Rushdie and Taslima; and the fear of Dalit mobs haunt Nandy. But this cross-community outrage is hardly a source of reassurance. On the contrary, they suggest that what was triggered by Islamist itolerance has become contagious. 'If Muslims get so easily offended', it has been said, 'why should we show enlightenment?'

        This is a point that needs to be addressed seriously. The reason     why there are alarm bells ringing all over India over the deterioration of our democracy is precisely because an increasing number of Indians are becoming prickly. There is not enough anger at the disgraceful treatment meted out to Rushdie and Taslima precisely because self-professed members of the majority community joined the witch-hunt against Husein and Nandy.

        It may sound provocative but the harsh truth is that minority blackmail succeeded precisely because the majority community allowed its loonies to go berserk. If the persecution of Husein hadn't happened, Centre and state governments wouldn't have had the moral authority to capitalate to the clerics. In 1988, when Satanic Verses was banned, it was  possible for the BJP to put the Government on the mat. In joining the chorus against Husein, the BJP forfeited its right to speak for a expansive democracy. To reclaim our eroding freedoms, it is the majority community that must be willing to be stand up and be counted. The rest will follow. 

Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, February 8, 2013

Indian Democracy Compromised

By Swapan Dasgupta

On hearing that the Supreme Court has directed the police to refrain from arresting Ashis Nandy, arguably India’s most celebrated contrarian, a wicked thought entered my head. Imagine a situation if, instead of Nandy, some other (perhaps lesser-known) non-political public figure had given similar offence, real or contrived, to a group that enjoys exceptional Constitutional protection? Would the Judges have used their common sense and brushed aside the contention that a casual statement in a discussion constituted an “atrocity” that must automatically be accompanied by a non-bailable arrest warrant against the deemed offender?

Asking an awkward question does not imply that I am demanding that Nandy be arrested and peremptorily sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. Far from it. Nandy, as even his academic friends who signed petitions in his support maintained, was guilty of clumsy formulation, unwarranted impishness and even lack of empirical rigour. These are grave charges to be levelled against a public intellectual of Nandy’s standing. Anyone else would have been pilloried mercilessly for such failings and perhaps even been castigated as a “goonda intellectual” –Dalit activist Kancha Ilaiah’s gratuitous description of Arun Shourie and me at a CNN-IBN programme last week. But since Nandy’s heart was apparently in the right place, his defenders insisted that a literalist interpretation of the law would be a travesty.

I have enormous sympathy for this argument which also has found favour with the Supreme Court. Nandy’s analysis of the social contours of corruption would not have contributed to social tensions. Indeed, had it not been for a panellist who carries a permanent chip on his shoulder, I doubt whether it would have been noticed outside the Jaipur Literature Festival venue. After all, such festivals are occasions where the chattering classes can let their hair down and say a few outrageous things—as long as some red lines aren’t crossed.

By suggesting that the corruption story in India couldn’t be written without a special section on Madhu Koda and that Bengali wholesomeness had been preserved by maintaining the caste character of bhadralok society, Nandy did cross the Lakshman Rekha. Interestingly, as a British MP of African origin pointed out, so did former diplomat Pavan Varma when he alluded to the “half-castes” of the former British Empire. But since Varma’s target was cultural inter-mixing and a defence of national purity, it was overlooked. I daresay if Varma had spoken in a similar vein at a literary meet in Britain, he would certainly have been booed by the audience. He may even have had a case under the Race Relations Act slapped on him.

Of course, if such a case had indeed come up before the British courts the judges would—like our Supreme Court—have dismissed it out of hand. Labelling a phenomenon as ‘half-caste’ is very different from a racist assault on miscegenation. The law, as Mr Bumble famously said in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, “is an ass—a idiot.” But experience also tells us that “show me the man and I will show you the law” principle is a universal one. It is also one that is unduly influenced by prevailing fashion. If the citadels of intellectual power in India had not stood by Nandy, it is entirely possible that a ham-fisted state machinery would have harassed him no end.

There are two possible conclusions from the fuss over Nandy. The one that may strike a chord among the permanently aggrieved is that there is not enough justice to go around, and that the man got away because he was well connected. A less famous pamphleteer who may have put the same views in colloquial terms would undoubtedly have been languishing in jail by now, completely un-mourned.

The other conclusion which I am tempted to pursue lies in a simple question: why have such absurd, inflexible draconian laws at all? This is a relevant query in the context of today’s India. The past few years, especially since ‘civil society’ became the arbiter of right and wrong in society, has seen every crime, misdemeanour or a perceived act of injustice being accompanied by spirited and angry demands for harsher laws. The Roop Kanwar sati was followed by a new law that made the ‘glorification’ of that awful custom a crime; the rise in Dalit assertiveness was accompanied by the Act that landed Nandy in such a mess; dowry deaths prompted legal changes that turned the presumption of innocence on its head; and the outrage against the Delhi gang-rape last year is likely to lead to a significant enlargement of the legal meaning of rape.

The point to note is in all these legal modifications brought about as a consequence of sectional indignation over horrible events. Yet, no one can seriously deny that most of these draconian laws carry the potential of cynical misuse. The SC-ST Atrocity Act has been used to settle personal scores, the Dowry Act has been used for extortion, and I have no doubt that the new rape laws may also become a cynical plaything in the hands of the unscrupulous.

In recent weeks, the quality of Indian democracy has been compromised by assaults on basic freedoms. What is curious is that every assault has had the backing of the letter of the law. It is time India explored the virtues of less laws (however well intentioned) and more freedom (however ill intentioned). 

Sunday Pioneer, February 3, 2013

Parliament versus Democracy

By Swapan Dasgupta

In 1927, Carl Schmitt, a German philosopher associated with the conservative parties of the Weimar Republic, proffered a curious formulation in his celebrated book The Concept of the Political. According to him, the existence of a state presupposed the idea of the political. And the defining feature of the ‘political’ was a clear distinction between friend and enemy.

Schmitt’s ideas are anathema to the liberal ideal of a state that believes in harmonising existing and potential areas of conflict and, indeed, de-politicising its citizenry. It is, however, remarkable that politics in India is fast becoming a clash between antagonists who perceive the other side as not merely a competitor but an enemy. This is all the more remarkable because the ‘alternative’, fringe narrative suggests that the enmity of competitive politics is largely spurious and contrived. Arvind Kejriwal as repeatedly asserted in the course of his made-in-media campaigns that there is an unholy “setting” involving the Congress and BJP.

Had the relationship between the two principal political formations been indeed one of covert understanding, it is unlikely that contemporary politics would have become so utterly dysfunctional.  From spats over the ground rules of parliamentary proceedings to bad blood over executive decision-making, there is hardly any facet of politics and government that does not resemble a combat zone. Moreover, this schism has spilled over into civil society. Even a cursory perusal of the social media will suggest that India is in the midst of an undeclared civil war. So far the instruments of combat have been words. But if the fault-lines continue to widen, even the superficial civilities could be replaced by more lethal behaviour.  

Take the case of the executive decision to permit foreign investment in multi-brand retailing, an issue that led to parliamentary proceedings being disrupted for the first few days of the winter session. Going strictly by the letter of the Indian Constitution, the UPA Government was entirely within its rights to notify such a decision, without taking recourse to parliamentary approval. The Constitution, after all, does allow the executive enormous discretionary powers, far more than is sanctioned in other democracies. At the same time, the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy allows the elected representatives to insist on ministerial accountability.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that Parliament, after deliberating on the subject, decides in its wisdom to disapprove the measure. Since a Government defeat does not imply that the UPA-2 no longer commands a majority to govern, there is no obligation on the part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resign. Simultaneously, since the Government did nothing unconstitutional in notify the change in the business rules of the retail trade, it is under no obligation to withdraw the measure.

Remaining intransigent is an option that is in theory open to the Government in the event of a defeat in Parliament this week. But regardless of whether it retreats gracefully or puts up a brave fight to protect its turf, the implications are bound to be grave.

Regardless of whether the DMK and Samajwadi Party vote with the government or not, these two parties have made public their disapproval of any form of FDI in multi-brand retail. Going strictly by the parliamentary strength of those parties that supported the Bharat Bandh on September 20, it would seem that only a minority in Parliament is willing to endorse this particular reform. This implies that there is a potential conflict between a Constitution principle that facilitated the decision in the first place and the principle of democracy which encapsulates the “general will” of the people. Therefore, even if the Government passes the floor tests in both Houses, preying on the fears of an early election, it is possible to argue that in passing the parliamentary test it failed the test of democracy.

Interestingly, Schmitt, who wrote his major works in the last years of a tottering Weimar Republic, had anticipated a conflict between liberal principles (epitomised by the Weimar Constitution) and democracy. By his logic, a liberal parliamentary state can become undemocratic by defying the popular will, which the Weimar Republic did frequently because of a provision that enabled Chancellors to govern and pass laws by the approval of the President.  Likewise, an authoritarian state can in theory be more democratic by being in tune with the public mood.

Schmitt was clearly partial to authoritarian forms of government and his writings were devoted to assessing the larger shortcomings of a liberal political order. But this largely forgotten German professor is not central to our concerns. What is more relevant is that India is being confronted with a systemic crisis caused by the inability of the political class to reconcile parliamentary government with democracy.

Thanks to the government’s brazen disregard of the public dissatisfaction with corruption and inefficiency, the gap between executive credibility and the popular mood is growing. In more normal circumstances, the established opposition parties would have filled the moral and political vacuum. Unfortunately, both the BJP and Left are busy licking self-inflicted wounds. This state of uncertainty could even lead to a situation whereby a UPA-3 is voted in at the next general election, but without securing public trust. In that event, the polarisation between friend and enemy won’t remain confined to just the institutions of parliamentary government and democracy. Indian nationhood is also certain to suffer grievously.

Maybe, exceptional situations demand out-of-the-box responses.

Sunday Pioneer, December 2, 2012

The India of today: Griping tiger, brazen swagger

By Swapan Dasgupta

To be a successful politician in India, an individual must be blessed with three attributes: the art of listening patiently, the ability to tolerate fools and the skin of a rhinoceros. Most of the successful practitioners of what has come to be a disreputable profession in India normally manage the first two—witness the career graph of Manmohan Singh. However, when it comes to the third, there are too many that falter.

Last month, Mamata Banerjee became a target of derision because she couldn’t countenance the insolence of a farmer who heckled her at a public meeting. He was dubbed a Maoist and spent a week or so cooling his heels in prison.

The man was lucky. On the evening of November 1, 1975, the Government of the day had organised a reception for delegates to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Delhi’s Red Fort. This being at the height of the Emergency, a group of young men suddenly got up from their seats, shouted a few slogans against the murder of democracy and threw leaflets in the air. The police and some Congress activists rushed in and began rounding up the demonstrators.

According to the Interim Report of the Shah Commission of Inquiry into the Emergency’s excesses, a reporter “saw that one of the demonstrators was caught by the wrist by a lady, who—he later came to know—was Mrs Ambika Soni.” The journalist, in a fit of misplaced meddlesomeness, is said to have told the all-powerful right hand woman of Sanjay Gandhi, “to leave the job of arresting the demonstrators to the police”. Upon seeing this exchange with Soni, “the then SP (CID) came running to the spot and after speaking to Mrs Soni briefly ordered the policemen to arrest” the journalist who was then led away to a police van.

It is said that Soni, on learning that the difficult individual was from the media, asked him: “Don’t you think it was your duty to help me arrest the boy instead of preventing me?” Pat came the reply: “…it was none of your business when the police are there in large numbers.”

This was no way to talk to the head of the Youth Congress. Soni’s reply was terse and to the point: “OK then you go in.” And in he indeed went, detained under the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) for nearly nine months.

It is unlikely that the Minister of Information and Broadcasting in Manmohan Singh’s Government would want to be reminded of this incident today. Much has happened in India in the intervening 37 years for anyone to seriously believe that the whimsical highhandedness of the Emergency can ever be repeated. Media insolence has become a feature of contemporary life, despite the consternation of the Establishment. Yet, at odd times the ingrained imperiousness that comes with a hierarchical society resurfaces.

Last week, incensed by a report in Washington Post detailing the falling stock of the Prime Minister,  Soni flew off the handle again. She called the report—which merely replicates what is being said in the domestic media on a daily basis—“yellow journalism” , demanded an abject apology and, failing that, a formal complaint to the US Government. The Prime Minister’s media minders also plugged into the outrage and, given the outburst of ugliness, there could even be a threat to cancel the reporter’s visa.  

There are two issues involved. First, there is an astonishing show of prickliness over anything critical that appears overseas. This suggests a deeply ingrained inferiority complex that most foreigners find deeply amusing. Whereas Chinese xenophobia stems from the country’s upward climb, India’s gripes are centred on either frustration or plain pig-headedness. Somehow we seem to believe that the rest of the world lives to undermine India, its beloved leaders and subvert our pre-destined journey to greatness.

Secondly, despite all claims of treasuring democracy and pluralism, the culture of public discourse remains grounded in assertions, conspiracy theories and sloganeering. The phrase “argumentative Indian” doesn’t imply Indians appreciate arguments. It merely suggests that the country is dotted with rival, unflinching beliefs. Democracy implies irreverence but India dotes on deference. Our politicians mirror society.

Sunday Times of India, September 9, 2012