Elite Indians try out the democratic route

The news of successful professionals and businessmen, like Meera Sanyal and Gopinath, joining politics was unexpected yet interesting. The English language media as usual tried to portray these people as saints who will lift us from depths of misery and prosperity. As someone who keenly follows Indian politics, this phenomenon makes me happy and worried at the same time. The Indian middle class has often lampooned our democratic system. For them, democracy or power to the masses meant impediment on the path of development. Deep in their hearts heart they desired for a Pinochet style corporate dictatorship. However, the success of Indian democracy in the last sixty years has made them realize that Indian democracy is much potent and mature than its Latin American counterparts. This realization has ensured that the middle class no longer speaks of changing the system according to their needs; it rather tries to be a part of the system that it has despised for so long. This development is indeed encouraging. It is indeed heartening to see that the urban elite have finally understood the power and strength of Indian democracy. They realize that opening a thousand facebook groups titled “Make Ratan Tata the Prime-Minister” but that would hardly make any difference. If they want Tata to be the PM, they will have to ensure that the guy has the guts to contest elections.

However, as was pointed out by a journalist in today’s edition of NDTV’s “We the People”, the middle class in India has always overestimated is political power. The phenomenon of corporate honchos contesting elections might be a manifestation of that over confidence. This overconfidence owes it’s origin to the role played by the English language media in India. The English media has often tried to project the views of an elite microscopic minority as the view of the average Indian. We saw this at work when the anti-OBC movement started in 2006. The English language media portrayed the leaders of this casteist movement as revolutionaries and their views as the views of the ordinary Indian youth. The election results of major Indian universities proved that this was not the case. The newly formed upper caste association called the “Youth for Equality” contested elections and were routed by traditional student organisations like the NSUI, AISA, SFI and ABVP. It needs to be noted that all these student organizations had officially supported the government’s proposal on OBC reservations. However, students affiliated to upper caste organizations like the YFE couldn’t swallow these results as the English language media had made them to believe that most students agree with their world view. With their dreams shattered, they now tried to distort the system in place in most universities. They now started speaking (unofficially) against the democratic structure of student politics in Indian universities. This became more than evident when YFE became the only student association in JNU campus that came out in support of the administration’s proposals that sought to shrink the democratic space in JNU. This is what worries me. The 15^th Lok Sabha elections will prove that the Meera Sanyals of South Mumbai are irrelevant in Indian politics. I can bet that even in an urban constituency with high income levels, Meera will lose her deposit. It will prove that that the vote of a dalit agricultural worker in Bundelkhand is as important as the vote of an investment banker in malabar hill. The frustration that will come with the realization of their powerlessness in Indian polity will give them incentives to derail the engine of democracy. They will cry foul on talk shows. There will be calls for tax evasion like the ones made after 26/11. They will try to use their money poor to change the rules of the game. They will start dreaming of avatars in the form of Pinochet or Suharto to save them from this “mess” and this is what worries me.

Fundamentalism and the liberals

I write this as I was rather amused by the "liberal" views expressed on the Mangalore episode in today's edition of "We the People". As someone who takes immense pride in calling himself a liberal, I was surprised and angered by the "liberal" response after the Mangalore episode. The Pink Chaddi campaign, organised by a group of elite indians, amused and irritated me at the same time. I was devastated today when I found Ram Guha, one of the greatest intellectual of our times, speaking the language of "pink chaddhi activists". I could see the manifestation of liberal fundamentalism in the face of Hindu fundamentalism.
The Muthalik episode has divided urban idea into two halves. (Rural India doesn't care) Students, teachers, professionals, politicians, intellectuals are being called upon to choose sides : Pink panties Vs Khanki chaddhis.The problem is that making such a choice is a lot like making a choice between Bush and Saddam or IDF and Hezbollah.
What happened in Mangalore is deplorable. The Hindu right ,which has seldom understood the language of democracy, unleashed it's terror on innocent Mangloreans. The state turned a blind eye as the BJP smelled blood: a new issue before the polls.
However the intellectual debate that followed changed tracks and focused on something deeper: the concept of "moral policing". I was surprised by the the moral indignation,shown by the " liberals", about the concept of moral policing. They spoke as if the concept of "personal freedom" is absolute and sacrosanct. Can we name a society that doesn't indulge in moral policing? When the state stops a person from flashing in the public, is it not infringing on his personal freedom? Will feminists see that act of masturbation in public as an expression of personal freedom? When I state it to my feminists friends, they argue that this is something that causes unacceptable psychological harm to others, while the act of wears a mini skirt/going to bar is harmless. However the very idea of "causing unacceptable harm to others" is subjective and differs from person to person. A person coming from the interiors of Budelhand might be scandalized looking at women in tank tops on the streets of Delhi. Ideas regarding acceptable public behaviour can change very rapidly as we move from Malad to Bandra, from Murshidabad to Kolkata or even when we move from Sahajanabad to Luytens Delhi. Now to which sets of values should our laws, action, political behavior conform in a country. As a unapologetic democrat , I feel that it is natural the laws should reflect the values of the majority. I realize that such a view has it problems.By stretching my argument one can justify the acts of Narendra Modi or Buddhadev Bhhatacharya, but is there a better( fair and just) way of dealing with this problem of preference aggregation. However I often feel Indian laws, reaction of the media and polity reflect the ideas, morality and aspirations on a "liberal" elite and doesn't represent the views of India as a whole. Since the time of Nehru (remember the Hindu Code Bill), the ideas of an liberal oligarchy has been thrust down the throat of an unwilling majority. If this continues to happen we will soon and up in a situation like Turkey. Nothing helped the radical Islam in Turkey more than the western ideas of modernity imposed on unwilling masses by Attaturk and his successors.Sagarika Ghose mentioned in one of her blogs that she fears that India might end up being like Iran where a coterie of elite liberals had their way before 1979. If we liberals want our idea of an idea of an ideal society to prevail, we will have to reach out to the millions who don't share our vision of an ideal society. Have the liberals lost faith in the democratic process or have they lost faith in the average Indian? "Pink Panties" don't help. A few people get to score brownie points but the chasm between the two India's widen. Gandhi's country should be mature enough to understand that two wrong never make a right."Liberal" intolerance in face of "Hindu" intolerance will only create a more divided India , rather than the liberal paradise we envision.