Frontline, Oct 20 - Nov 2, 2007
BHASKAR GHOSE
The systems of governance prevail and are seen as enduring, to be looked up to for redress in times of chaos in the country.
THERE is something very touching about the way the media and to some extent people in general, particularly the middle class in the country, react when there is a bomb blast in which a number of people die or are injured – some horribly, losing their eyes or limbs or being maimed or disfigured for the rest of their lives. Once the horror and shock have been overcome, there is a sense of something akin to achievement when the incident does not cause – indeed no incident in recent years has caused – any spread of communal passions or hatred that can lead to orgies of killing or looting and arson, as if that is something for which we need to congratulate ourselves.
There was, of course, one exception, which was the reaction to the killings in Godhra railway station, but that was orchestrated and organised partly by the forces of the state, something that the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, does not even bother to deny now, though the coming elections have made his reactions less arrogantly dismissive and more evasive.
If this orchestrated violence is discounted, the attacks and bombings in Ayodhya, Varanasi, Delhi, Malegaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad and now Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan do underscore the refusal, almost, of people to react to these incidents with violence and communal passion.
This is, rightly, lauded and given prominence by the media; not only are the people complimented for their refusal to be provoked, but the stoic spirit of the common man in the street, and the heroism of some, are featured for a long time after the incidents are over.
It remains, nonetheless, a curious phenomenon. The pre-Independence days, and the early decades after it, witnessed communal violence almost all over the country. It was as if the two communities – Hindu and Muslim – barely tolerated each other, and it required a trivial incident to spark off riots that on some occasions lasted for days.
What has happened to change that, to bring about an atmosphere where the two communities not only co-exist, but mingle without any of the earlier prejudices and hostility? One reads almost every day of gangs of toughs, car thieves and the like, being caught, and they belong to both communities; political demonstrations have people from the two communities who are equally vocal and, unfortunately, equally violent when these demonstrations turn ugly.
If one looks at the supporters of the Trinamul Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) during the violent incidents that took place at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal not so long ago – in fact, the violence in Nandigram has not yet died down – one will find an equal number of Muslims and Hindus among them. Arguments that the residents of those areas are both Muslim and Hindu will not wash. What gives members of the minority community the confidence to take to violence with members from the other community when some two or three decades ago that confidence was conspicuous by its absence?
Political parties will have their own, and usually facile arguments that will ultimately be statements replete with their stock arguments and a great deal of casuistry. Scholars may well have very complicated answers to this particular trait in people all over the country, but it is perhaps possible for laymen to identify two factors, and a third that is related to the other two only by marriage, so to speak. There is also the fact that all types of activity – economic and even criminal, as we have seen – have begun to include everyone, as the quest for prosperity transcends other considerations. But even this is based on the two tacit assumptions or traits that one can see around one today.
One is the fact that people belong to different communities. Perhaps, this is to state the obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. In the often bewildering diversity of India, these communities often seek to stress their special identities – the Himachali, the Keralite, the Bengali and the Maharashtrian, all want to establish their particular identity through their dress, cuisine, customs, language (but naturally) and other ways. Special days are set aside to observe Maharashtra Day, or Assam Day, for instance. In this effort the religious differences are not as important, unless of course it is linked to something like cuisine – Andhra Pradesh is as proud of its Hyderabadi cuisine as it is of its Telugu dishes.
The other is that, given the huge transformation in our means of communication, religions, at least the two main religions, spread through the whole of the country and act as a common factor among believers. Television plays a crucial role here; there are a number of channels that are entirely given over to religions of different kinds. This factor is not at variance with the first, but is just another factor that shares the same characteristic – it brings people of one kind or another together. So it is that pilgrims go from all over the country to Vaishnodevi or Tirupati, and also to the dargahs of Ajmer Sharif and Nizamuddin Auliya.
The third element is a little less distinct, but it exists, nonetheless, and in a very real sense. Over the years our systems of governance – the legislatures, courts and the State and Central governments – have become a part of everyone’s existence, possibly in a manner in which they were not before Independence. It is a different matter that our legislators behave in strange ways, but the fact is that the systems function, after a fashion, and are the subject of much interest to people in general. One has only to open a newspaper to see what kind of stories are on the front pages; a sizable number of them will have to do with ministerial pronouncements, laws passed by or disturbances in, legislatures and orders passed by courts.
The point is the systems are what are of common interest. Not leaders anymore. It is usual to hear people bemoan the fact that there are no “tall leaders” left. Perhaps, that is not such a bad thing after all; tall leaders tend to dwarf institutions. Very few great leaders have actually helped build systems and institutions as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru did. He could have, given his stature after Independence, reduced Parliament and even the courts to insignificant and irrelevant institutions, and used his massive hold over the people to do so. That, after all, is what Hitler did. But Jawaharlal Nehru was the exception. Most “tall” leaders have trivialised the institutions that they have seen as standing between them and power.
Thus, in our time, it is perhaps not such a bad thing that we have small men as leaders and the primacy of our institutions, with all their failings, remains unquestioned. To paraphrase William Shakespeare a little, our institutions “bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men… peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves”. “Petty men” meaning, naturally, those who style themselves as our leaders. The systems prevail and are seen as enduring, to be looked up to for redress in times of trouble.
These factors may be why we, as ordinary people, have stopped reacting with the earlier hatred and passion to bomb blasts and other outrages. But, the weave of the fabric of our unity is very strong. Those who plan the killings and blasts still, clearly, have the old, outdated beliefs, that such incidents will cause chaos in the country. They will not, as the warp of our communities and the weft of our religions holds us together in a manner that makes such beliefs rather ridiculous.
The tragedy is that the cost of our ability to endure and accept, of the fabric of unity we have woven, is paid for by some innocent people, sometimes children, and the price is a terrible one for anyone to pay.
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