Democracy does not feed on ignorance and credulity alone

The Telegraph, 11 June 2011

DANGERS OF THE CIRCUS
- Democracy does not feed on ignorance and credulity alone

by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

Asked by Karan Thapar in a CNBC programme whether the Ramdev episode had damaged the government’s image, I had no hesitation in replying that it had damaged India’s image. Governments come and go, and no one is surprised when they stumble. But for a government to be seen to be held to ransom by a dancing, prancing performer who mesmerizes thousands of people who know nothing of the billions he has stashed away in business enterprises is a slur on the country’s pretensions to modernity and rationalism.

My comment was not well received, as I had known it wouldn’t be. Earlier, the e-mail brought me a heavily sarcastic message titled, “The babagiri in emerging India”. It was not, as the title seemed to imply, an indictment of “godmen” (that hideous oxymoron with which India pollutes the English language) who exploit faith, sell their benediction and run profiteering ventures. Instead of ridiculing “babagiri” like “dadagiri” or “Gandhigiri”, the e-mail ranted against the “roughly 2% population of the so-called intellectuals/upper strata” who apparently resent “this rural, illiterate ruffian… trespassing on their zamindari”. Echoes of that same class complex surfaced on television with a snide reference to Doon School and St Stephen’s College (distinctions I cannot claim), presumably as bastions of the English-speaking elite that is supposed to feel threatened by holy con men.

Leaving aside vitriol which says more about a speaker than his target, the only new aspect of the current furore over corruption is the attempt to package it as a mix of moral crusade and political theatre. Televised meetings of the lok pal committee would serve a similar populist effect by enabling viewers to feast on the circus of histrionics even while denied the bread of true reform. No one quarrels with the need to address the core malaise but the way it is being done replaces all sense of serious purpose with showmanship. That is not to endorse the charge of a conspiracy of right reaction and left anarchism which, as I also said on CNBC, smacks of an afterthought. But no one in his right senses would ever imagine that, however shrewd and versatile the star performer might be and however devout the crowd he assembles, they can come to grips with the legal, political and social intricacies of widespread corruption.

The Kripalani Commission that Jawaharlal Nehru set up was before my time. But I remember writing to welcome the appointment of an independent Central Vigilance Commission as a result of K. Santhanam’s report, while criticizing the refusal to grant the CVC the wide powers of inquiry and investigation Santhanam proposed. We also deplored the rejection of the recommendation that “[if] a formal allegation is made by any 10 members of Parliament or a legislature in writing addressed to the Prime Minister or Chief Minister, through the Speakers and Chairmen, the Prime Minister or Chief Minister should consider himself obliged, by convention, to refer the allegations for immediate investigations by a committee”.

Every government since then has been under pressure to take decisive action to check corruption and has avoided doing so. The legal framework to bring to book serious offenders, especially in the areas of tax evasion, misuse of position by public servants to award contracts, black marketing and adulteration that Santhanam listed, has not been strengthened. As prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not act on his own admission to a parliamentary committee when he was a relatively young Opposition politician that all Indian legislators start their careers with the lie of the false election spending returns they file. Even if a prime minister like Manmohan Singh were prepared to accept a lok pal’s jurisdiction (and I cannot think of a single other soul in Indian politics who would be willing to take such a risk), the system will not allow him to do so.

Jayaprakash Narayan well understood the ingenuity with which authority takes away while appearing to give. “Let me not create the impression that the appointment of a Lokpal and Lokayuktas will in itself cure the disease of corruption so rampant among Ministers and civil servants,” he wrote, saying that a careful scrutiny of draft legislation would reveal that “the action of these vital officers is severely limited and hemmed in by restrictive provisions”. Bureaucratic transfers, postings and promotions were major sources of ministerial corruption in JP’s time. Globalization, the economic boom, spiralling exports and imports, sophisticated technology, soaring election expenses, arms purchases, trade in contraband and the ramifications of terrorist activity have added many layers since then to the business of generating illicit wealth.

That apart, any assemblage centred on a so-called godman who talks of mobilizing 11,000 armed followers warns of the peril India faces of being dragged back into its own dark ages. Recognizing the danger, the first Press Commission denounced as “undesirable” what it called “the spread of the habit of consultation of, and reliance upon, astrological predictions” that was “certain to produce an unsettling effect on the minds of readers”. The second Press Commission called on editors “who believe in promoting a scientific temper among their readers and in combating superstition and fatalism” to “discontinue the publication of astrological predictions”. No editor took the least notice because astrology, like vaastu, appeals to a huge mass of Indians whom newspaper circulation and advertising managers can’t afford to ignore even if some of them practise gender discrimination, bride-burning and caste persecution, and indulge in sporadic sati, honour killings and khap activism.

Tragically, it’s not only the poor and uneducated who are prisoners of ancient superstitions. Hamish McDonald’s racy account of the Ambani story describes members of the warring clan going off to temples and ashrams to muster the spiritual forces on their side for the epic showdown. Indira Gandhi’s socialism did not exclude a curious succession of supposedly holy men and women. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s pyramid of rational conservatism rests on the base of sangh parivar primitivism. Some among West Bengal’s Marxists may nurse the private conviction that they wouldn’t have been trounced if they had paid greater attention to pujas that animate the masses. Many corporate chiefs won’t stir an inch without consulting the stars. It isn’t considered patriotic to cite Churchill but one of his more memorable speeches roundly castigated “these Brahmins who mouth and patter the principles of Western Liberalism, and pose as philosophic and democratic politicians” but, at the same time, cruelly suppress “untouchables”. “And then in a moment they turn around and begin chopping logic with John Stuart Mill, or pleading the rights of man with Jean Jacques Rousseau.”

Such contradictions are seared into Indian society. The obvious reason for the government’s initial placation of Ramdev was fear of the wrath of his followers. But I also suspect superstitious fear for similar Ramdevs might come tumbling out of the cupboards of many Congress party members too. Both sides of the political divide are also accustomed to passing responsibility to what used to be called extra-constitutional centres of power. The category might include sundry sadhus but it’s an insult to the masters of India’s spiritual life to compare every Tom, Dick and Harry in beads and saffron to Swami Vivekananda or Mahatma Gandhi.

Politicians are expected to go all out to court society’s largest section, but seeking their votes and allowing them to take over are altogether different things. Much was said during the CNBC discussion (echoing comment elsewhere) about mass movements being of the essence of democracy. But democracy doesn’t only feed on ignorance and credulity. It has established rules and procedures, forums for discussion, elected leaders and well-defined channels of redressal. Those who spurn these institutions for the circus are votaries not of democracy but mobocracy. Far from sanctifying their performance, a devotional veneer reduces religion itself to a charade.