The Battle for India's Soul

The 2009 elections are going to be important. In all the media circus around the American elections, middle class India has almost forgotten that India too is scheduled to elect a new Parliament in 2009. This time, thanks to the short-sightedness of our people and the unchecked venality of our 'leaders', there will be issues, unfortunately, more fundamental than the 'BiPaSa' (बिजली पानी, सड़क)---power, water and roads--- issues discussed during the last General Elections in 2004.

Cry, Beloved Country

Empirical evidence shows that more often than not, a people really get the government that they deserve, and by extension, the political leaders that they deserve. If people are wise, if they are really humane and civilized (not every one in a large collection of people can be, but at least if the large majority of them are), then they would elect the right kind of people. People who stand for truth and justice. People who focus on the real issues---livelihoods, law and order, education, health, infrastructural development. However, we have political leaders around the country who are creating constituencies by projecting themselves as representatives of a particular caste or community and by polarising society along these lines. These politicians are seeking to create an unhealthy 'us-vs-them' mentality, tearing India's rich multi-cultural and multi-ethnic fabic to shreds in order to achieve narrow short-term political gains.

They Lead and We Follow

Whether it be marauding, sectarian mobs in Orissa or the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena's army of goons in Maharashtra, or Narendra Modi's wild popularity in Gujarat, there is ample evidence to show that shameless, Nazi-style parochialism is supported by at least a certain segment of society. Some of them have, again, cold efficiency to support them (like Narendra Modi); some like Naveen Patnaik in Orisa don't even have that.

The Price of Freedom

In the recently concluded National Development Council, there was a lively debate on which was the bigger threat – Islamic Terrorism, which typically followed guerilla tactics or Hindu Nationalism. I see both these as two sides of the same coin---the willingness of intolerant people to threaten or use violence against those whom they perceive to be different or who do not toe their line. As a citizen, I would very much like the state to act---decisively and justly---but I am wary of the state taking on draconion powers like POTA or TADA ostensibly to 'protect' us---the fact is that there are enough laws to take action against terrorists who have been proved to be so; if at all the state hopes to break the back of terrorism, it is through better surveillance, by being seen as acting equally tough with Hindu Nationalist mobs and by better communication with high-risk groups like Madrassa graduates---not by taking on powers to arrest people on suspicion and doing away with 'legal niceties' which actually seek to protect vital individual human rights against the organised might of the state. In fact, the irony is that we again let the terrorist win, when we sacrifice the rights of the individual to ensure the protection of the masses. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance; and sometimes a little blood. I would rather die in a bomb blast triggered by a maniac who keeps an explosive in a plastic bag and then scurries away into the darkness, than in a torture cell funded by my own tax payments. In fact, I appreciate that the government--- if it is serious about protecting individual life and liberty--- cannot always prevent a terrorist attack. A sinister mind can create explosives and then keep them in a public place and then disappear among evening shoppers and office goers and shop-keepers; he only needs to get it right once---the government, in contrast, has to get it right every time if it is to avert a disaster. I think the most compelling answer to the terrorist is what Mumbai did after the train bombs---it is stoic resistance; it tells the terrorist that he has not succeeded in breaking us; that our government will not resort to indiscriminate killing to avenge the killing of innocents; that we will thumb our noses at them and continue to live our daily lives.

The Bigger Threat

I see forces like the Bajrang Dal, the Maoists, the MNS and the Salwa Judum as a greater threat to me as an individual citizen and collectively to us as a country because they don't keep bombs in plastic packets and surreptitiously disappear; under the garb of being popular movements (pandering usually to certain disgruntled elements in society in the same manner as terrorist organizations do), they openly challenge the supremacy of the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, that is the hallmark of any civilised society.

Defending the Constitution

So right-thinking Indians have to first defend the idea of India by speaking up; by standing up and being counted. We need to expose leaders who are playing the divide and rule game, creating false constituencies, since they have nothing constructive to offer us. One very effective way to do this is obviously to elect the right kind of people. Are we a parochial , uncivilized people who were led by a generation of Western-educated liberals and were bestowed a Constitution that we neither deserved, nor can we defend ? Unfortunately, the electoral choices for India are rather limited: though the Congress still plays lip service to a multi-cultural India, their failure to act time and again when the Constitution was openly challenged (as by sectarian forces in Orissa, and by the MNS in Mumbai) calls their willingness and competence to question. There are hardly any hopes one can harbour from the BJP, since it has openly aligned with Hindu Nationalist forces, in a blatant and shameless show of majoritism.
So finally, it is a bit of a chicken and egg question – the right kind of people need to stand for elections to be voted in. I believe we still have a few (though not enough by far ) sane, civilized people entering the fray; those of us who believe that we need to defend India’s soul, need to sound the trumpet that will rally the forces---by casting our votes for these people, so that at least some of the good people who want to enter Parliament / the State Legislatures get to do that.