About faith, surrender, peace and reason

Let me begin by quoting, rather extensively, from an article by columnist David Brooks ‘Faith, not just creed’, Reprinted from New York Times News Service by The Hindu, January 29, 2014.

 

There is a yawning gap between the way many believers experience faith and the way that faith is presented to the world.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described one experience of faith in his book God in Search of Man : “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement ... get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal. ... To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

…

…Heschel understood that the faith expressed by many, even many who are inwardly conflicted, is often dull, oppressive and insipid — a religiosity in which “faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendour of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion.”

…

And yet there is a silent majority who experience a faith that is attractively marked by combinations of fervour and doubt, clarity and confusion, empathy and moral demand.

…..

If you are a secular person curious about how believers experience their faith, you might start with Augustine’s famous passage “What do I love when I love my God,” and especially the way his experience is in the world but then mysteriously surpasses the world: “It is not physical beauty nor temporal glory nor the brightness of light dear to earthly eyes, nor the sweet melodies of all kinds of songs, nor the gentle odor of flowers, and ointments and perfumes, nor manna or honey, nor limbs welcoming the embraces of the flesh; it is not these I love when I love my God. Yet there is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God — a light, voice, odor, food, embrace of my innerness, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food no amount of eating can lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God.”

David Brooks probably was on the one hand trying to describe, using the mystic language of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel or Saint Augustine what the essence of faith in and love of God may appear to the devout and the savant, with more than a suggestion that despite persistent doubts and a conflict riven mind common men and women, at least have fleeting glimpses of these moments of ecstasy. He has also argued, I think convincingly, that this spirit of living faith, in the practice of organised religion, more often than not, have come to be hemmed in rather badly by ossified creed. 

The article prompted me to flag a few irreverent questions:

-         What does a common man’s faith in and ‘love’ for God amount to? Is there more often than not a sense of indirect quid pro quo in his expectations from a supposed communion with God? How often are the wishes really altruistic like what Swami Vivekananda had experienced in his famously rumoured first encounter with the Goddess Kali in Dakshineswar temple near Calcutta? It was said that he planned to ask the goddess to alleviate his personal financial distress, but apparently he was so enthralled (by experiencing a sort of divine presence?) all he could manage to ask the goddess to bestow on him were knowledge, wisdom and devotion.   

-         Is the ‘sublime feeling or satiation/satisfaction’ what Augustine had described in the above quotation an experience reserved for the lucky few tuned to mysticism? Is it also the most optimistic or the ideal scenario?

-         Is there a sense of peace in giving up fighting irreconcilable mental conflicts, making difficult, uncomfortable and suboptimal choices and surrendering to some superior power or consciousness that has to be only ‘believed’ (not questioned) to be capable of finding a way around (not necessarily resolving) the conflict and bringing closure to problems (by not making any choices at all)? Choosing peace over reason?  

-         Does faith provide a new paradigm not accessible to reasoning a human mind is capable of – does one have to give up reasoning (ego?) to attain faith, a different way of life?

-         Does faith encourage one to become a pacifist, a status quoist (even fatalist), a non-believer in active intervention at any level beyond the individual? What is the moral position (distinguishing right from wrong) of an individual professing faith vis-à-vis too many inhuman acts of omission and commission of other individuals and communities and nations (as collectives of individuals) all over the world? Should that provoke a breach in faith sometimes? Can faith remain immune? 

(This post has appeared in another blog elsewhere)

Media’s freedom of expression, need for introspection

Not too long ago Delhi High Court had passed an order barring the newspapers and the TV channels (all media organizations) from reporting on a law intern’s complaint of sexual harassment against a former Supreme Court judge, (Justice Swatanter Kumar). A day after this order was passed, the Editors Guild of India in a statement said that the order made a mockery of the rule of law and the open and fair justice system by setting different and a very restrictive standards for the coverage of such allegations against judges (than what is applicable to any other citizen) and that this would mean an unwarranted intrusion on the media freedom.

Among the arguments marshaled by the Guild one finds the contention that such restrictions on the publication in a case such as this was uncalled for as this did not pose a serious threat to national security or would not lead to grave prejudice and miscarriage of justice. Also the presumed damage to reputation of a judge or any other person does not warrant prior restraint and would not pass the test of reasonableness under Article 19 (2) of the Constitution. There was also no justification for an assumption implied in this order that publication of mere allegations against an individual judge would inordinately and unjustifiably damage the image of the judiciary as a whole. The order for gag on the print and the electronic media also may not achieve a complete blackout since through social media and internet so much material continue to be disseminated in any case both within the country and outside.

It is the job of the media in a democracy to report court proceedings including court filings. Of course the only reasonable restriction should be that the reporting is accurate and fair. To lay down how and what exactly they should or should not report, including the type of headlines, whether or not the photographs of a public person should appear, when his images have been widely available in the media, is an avoidable intrusion into media freedom, the Guild said.

The Guild also emphasized the context of the current national debate on protecting women against sexual harassment where cases of this type raise important public issues of how to facilitate and deal with complaints by harassed women who may feel otherwise intimidated even to lodge a formal complaint with the police, who are apt to ignore them because the alleged perpetrators are well known and powerful people.

According to the Guild, responsible media houses can and should be trusted with conducting informed debate through complete and fair professional coverage of the case without critical information being held back from the public. On many similar instances, in the past, of alleged sexual assault and harassment it is only through sustained media pressure by holding open discussions with no prejudice to either the accused or to the judicial process that police have been forced to act and register cases.

Readers and viewers are generally mature enough not to mistake allegations for proof and would not assume that a person is guilty the moment a charge is published, the Guild averred and added that a judge who is trained to evaluate the evidence would be unlikely to be swayed by whatever is published.

On the face of it many of the arguments marshalled by the Guild is unexceptionable. The cumulative effect of deficit in governance and in the administration of justice in India has indeed made general public weary of the so-called ‘due process of law’ where due to sloth and corruption months elapse before police investigations are completed and charge sheets are produced. Charges are often diluted due to witness tampering through threats or inducements if the ‘accused’ happens to be an influential person. And then years pass before trials are completed in lower courts where often due to shoddy police investigation, witnesses turning hostile due to delay and/or manipulation and weak prosecution case, the ‘victim’ may not get justice to his/her satisfaction (if the case is not altogether dismissed). In case the justice goes in favour of the victim, the final closure of the case is indefinitely delayed due to challenges to such judicial orders in various higher courts where verdicts are many times overturned. Everybody spouts the statistics of the pending cases in the Indian courts. Only those fighting for justice appreciate the enormity of the odds against their goal.

It is in this hopeless environment that the dictum ‘one is presumed innocent till pronounced guilty by the courts’ (watch the plural which is indicative of the due process) appears like a cruel joke to the victim, his/her supporters and the public at large, who are becoming more and aware about such cases through media. And it is in this context that the new activist role that both the print and the electronic media in this country have started playing over the last several years can be understood and analysed. For the good it has done, and equally for its pretensions, motivations and the irreparable damage it can cause in some cases. It is as if the media in this country has found a way (which is also a commercially viable business model) for the general public to vicariously satiate its thirst for justice by providing a short cut through media trials conducted under its aegis. Editors Guild and the media in general are loath to give up this freedom and hence are protesting hard.

There can be no denying the fact that but for the wide dissemination in the media, debates, open and critical discussions (often critical of the judicial pronouncements) over the last several years the series of high profile criminal and corruption cases, especially those involving people occupying official and exalted positions, would not have the intense focus of public attention that they secured. Partly as a result of such a media pressure the government administration indirectly had to admit several lapses on their part, took some steps, though admittedly far short of what would have been desirable and in a fairly half-hearted manner. At least the need for ensuring accountability and transparency of many public institutions, government administration including police in particular, has gained currency.

By the same token, the process of justice and, in particular, judiciary itself, could not remain immune from this strong current of public scrutiny. Especially when individual members of this exalted institution have, time and again, shown themselves as susceptible to moral turpitude in corruption or sexual misdemeanour cases. The widely publicised case of Justice Soumitra Sen some years ago which went as far as potential impeachment by the parliament may be recalled.

Late last year, the allegation of sexually inappropriate behaviour against the retired judge Justice A. K. Ganguly by another intern was widely reported and discussed in the media, with pro- and contra-positions ranged in no-holds barred debates. Justice Ganguly, at the time the Chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission, by and large maintained dignified silence through out the ugly, practically one-sided publicly conducted hate campaign (tendentious ‘leaks’ in the media about privileged documents to show him in poor light, insinuation and character assassination) and finally resigned from his position, which he said in his resignation letter that he was unable to do justice to in then prevailing environment. With his resignation, everybody including the media, having satiated the righteous indignation of a section of the public, lost interest and has put the matter in the backburner. Media has not informed us what progress, if any, has been made on the original case (like filing a charge sheet in a court of law) of the sexual misdemeanour of the judge.

Justice Ganguly did not resort to a defamation suit to remedy the loss of reputation he had obviously suffered, though he could have. Many participants in the media debates at the time even questioned his silence. Probably they did not know or care to respect his fundamental right to silence even as an accused of an alleged conduct.

In the light of the defamation case filed by Justice Swatanter Kumar at the Delhi high court and the court’s order about the restriction of the ‘freedom of press’ which the Editors Guild vociferously protested as above, certain issues about the freedom of expression in and by the media again come into sharp focus. Despite Guild’s protestations about the sense of responsibility or the sense of proportion of the media institutions about maintaining fairness and balance in presentation, any independent observer of the kind of media debates conducted these days on most issues of public importance including ongoing criminal and or corruption investigations and court cases will find it difficult to vouch for the media’s ability to fulfill those responsibilities.

Media’s freedom of expression has to be valued. An independent media in India have demonstrably strengthened our democracy by informing the lay public, raising pertinent   issues of governance or the lack of it, have been bold enough (and in the process have emboldened ordinary people) to question some of the privileges that those in high places in our society and political-government establishment have been habituated to exercise in an axiomatic manner. But this democratization process has, unfortunately, generated an irreverence (a particularly cheap, sweeping and strident form of the tendency) about all or most of our institutions for governance and the constitutional procedures. For its claim to freedom of expression to be respected the media has to eschew its current tendency to play to the gallery, settle for the lowest common denominator. It should reform and refine its own news generation and dissemination functions so as to maintain the fine balance between public’s democratic right to know and an individual’s (even an accused) equally right to silence if only as a part of his/her democratic right of defence, including that of his/her reputation. There is a danger in media’s playing a moral crusader, a vigilante role.  

A new-age Satyagraha

Grace has become much less common than even common sense! Indeed, rude behaviour, if that is symptomatic of a graceless society, abounds in our daily social interactions, at home, in public places, offices and finally on the streets where this can easily turn into road rage incidents which sometimes lead to violent crimes. 

Most people following politics in India today will testify to the fact that the quality of grace is becoming conspicuous by its absence in any political discourse either inside the parliament (or any other legislative bodies) or out of it (say, in TV studios of big national news channels). Political opponents are routinely seen to interrupt each other and blatantly usurp the debating space to voice one’s partisan positions.  These could be something like a speculative promise of an intangible beneficial fall out of this or that government policy as a foregone conclusion or an exactly opposite view expressing apprehension of an unmitigated disaster and a dark future guaranteed to unfold from the same policy, depending on their relative coordinates vis-à-vis the political divide.

Just look at the comments people proffer in the ubiquitous electronic space, in respect of the e-paper or ezine articles, blogs and the social media postings. The proclivity to post comments is often not commensurate with minimum required knowledge about the subject, basic civility to engage in a conversation, attitude to learn and contribute to take a discussion thread forward. On the contrary, utter arrogance and extreme and foolhardy self-righteousness often characterize such responses. The more sensitive the topic is the chances are that the author has to walk a sharper razor edge so as not to offend one side or the other and invite virulent comments. To be fair, sometimes the original blogs/postings themselves are tendentious, judgmental, make sweeping statements, and include tasteless insensitive pictures, almost as if spoiling for a fight. And the extreme sensitivity and touchiness about our opinions or beliefs on virtually any subject is legendary.

Intolerance of any view, worldview or even perception other than one’s own is often found in individual or group interactions, and this probably is pointing towards a fact that Indian society is becoming increasingly intolerant. Our prescription of economic development and the way its fall out has been managed has unleashed not only irreconcilable aspirations among various sections of the people but often an ugly conflict between simultaneously prevailing centuries as a part of this modernisation project. We are a divided, indeed, very fragmented society and have too many identities - ethnic, caste-based, religious, regional (even sub-regional), and of course political identities to defend from each other’s perceived pillory.

Just imagine, on the other hand, how different our world would have looked if we, at least the majority among us, could pause in our fast-faster-fastest track of furious one-upmanship before complete derailment and choose, individually, to be the slower coach and address each other with that famously under-used quaint Indian phrase ‘pehle aap’ ! Or perhaps could have reconsidered the strategy of withering contempt for our opponent, whatever his or her identity, in real life (or virtual) and be prepared to acknowledge the inherent ‘otherness’ as a matter of diversity of ways of life, much like the bio-diversity, to be protected and celebrated rather than being demonised, hated and demolished.

   

I wish we could, in a new form of Satyagraha, disown the inept puppeteers of our economic and political choices, manipulators of our taste, and all those who goad us in our every waking moment into frenetic competition, as if our life is but a dissipative T20 match between India and Pakistan winner taking all, for space, for the right of way, for the wherewithal for conspicuous consumption now and the security to keep doing the same in a distant future. And make these choices and respond not in anger and antipathy but in awareness of colours that the colour-blind would never see.

And persuade the stalker to take the ‘no’ for an answer, admire the candle in the wind and move on. 

(A modified and updated version of an older post of mine appearing in another blog)

Media activism – pros and contra

In contemporary India the media, both print and especially the television media with so many 24x7 news channels, are often found playing a rather active, sometimes bordering on aggressive role. Gone are the days when news casting was this staid objective reporting of news stories, description about an event that has taken place or one about to unfold such as a sports tournament, about government policies, laws being legislated, or information about the success or failure in implementing those that have already been enacted. The news reporting has become interpretive, pretending to be an analysis of what has happened or is likely to happen, who the main dramatis personae are in this news-as-unfolding-drama on the national stage, what their motivations are and what social and political forces their actions represent. The news watchers have often been told on many such channels about their programmes being ones that are supposed to take the viewers behind and beyond the bare bone news stories. They are enlightened by background information, helped along with analytical sounding presumptions, hypotheses, to understand, or as they say, make sense of the stories. A question often being raised and debated within the media itself is what to make of such an activist trend and whether it is good or bad. 

It is probably undeniable that during the last few decades (especially since India’s open espousal of the liberalized economic policies during early 1990s) there has been an impetus to the ongoing modernization and the media has been both an active agent for democratization of Indian society, bridging the distances and breaching many social barriers and in the process is itself transformed in radical ways. Increasing media activism is a reflection of the social activism growing over the last several years among sections of Indian Middle classes who are growing in importance within the Indian polity.

News media by way of informing empower people. Increasingly media is taking on the role of an interlocutor (if not an interrogator) on behalf of the people in ‘asking questions’ to and ‘getting straight answers’ from those in charge of governance, others involved in political actions and maneuvering, holding and acting on ideological positions, reformers and renegades, evangelists of progress and modernity on one side and bulwarks of tradition and conservatism on the other). One is reminded of the rhetorical flourish in the way the popular anchors of the TV channels would often like to preface their news analysis: Tonight the Nation wants to know.

Technology today has enabled people, especially in urban and semi-urban areas of the country most exposed to the television and the print media, not just to consume news as readers, listeners and viewers but also to participate in its analysis and dissemination by way of interactions between the news broadcasters and the TV audience, phone-ins with and setting up questions for the anchors and expert panelists at the TV studios, apart from the readers’ response surveys and feed back columns (not to forget the traditional letters to editors) in their print versions.

An important part of this media initiated democratization is an apparent bridging the gap between the patricians and the plebeians, the high and mighty on one side and the lowly proverbial ‘common man’ on the other in the discussion arenas (e.g. TV studios) characterized by an ambience of irreverence. Any body can ask any critical or damaging questions of any body else, cross swords with and lampoon the rich and the powerful and tear down the carefully cultivated façade of lies and hypocrisy built by them over the years to hold down the masses of voiceless people. Class conscious niceties, need for decorum, maintaining a pecking order and orderliness are often dispensed with in no-these holds-barred shrill debates.

A clear danger associated with the inquisition format of much of the television debates is that media (and the consuming public whetted by it) is increasingly displaying a Madame Defarge like tendency, reveling in the downfall of and stridently baying for blood of the high and mighty in the society, the celebrities. Notice the hectoring style being adopted by many television anchors where they ask tendentious leading questions to trap selected participants and extract ‘confessions’. So much so that some people have called these debates/discussions trial by media.

Some people have also discerned a newfound urge for vigilantism in the zeal of the media in indulging in investigative journalism to buttress the generally held opinion on corruption cases involving big politicians and bureaucrat, conducting unorthodox ‘STING’ operations, making disclosures based on unidentified ‘sources’ and ‘leaks’ from those (whistle blowers) who are  sometimes part of the government administration. There is insufficient attention on the part of the media to balance people’s right to know vis-à-vis possible defamation of presumed wrongdoers in government, politics and business.

There is also a set of inescapable follow up questions. Is media becoming a parallel center of power not just by occupying a moral high ground seeking ‘truth’, but also because of the financial muscles of some media houses sustained independently of the government largesse, acting/operating outside the pale of government? This supra-government positioning of the media may appear to be beneficial for keeping a watch on the government, which is increasingly appearing to become non-transparent and unaccountable to very people who elect them. This kind of outsider vigilante view of the old style, ‘corrupt’, inept democratic polity is popular with the vocal urban middle class elites

But who is the media accountable to? Is their truth seeking completely value free? Are the big media companies not mixing commerce with conscientiousness? Can the media be a threat and cause destabilization of the other organs or pillars of democracy? These are questions that can not be unequivocally answered.

        

Comments on the recent article “India’s middle class awakes” by Pavan Varma

Pavan Varma, an author and former diplomat, and currently an adviser to the Chief minister of Bihar, has recently written an OP-ED article in Times of India (23^rd November, 2013). Interestingly the article has made several points about the growth in importance of the middle classes in the Indian society and polity, which are almost the same or similar to those I made in my post “Rise of the middle India” (February 2013) appearing in this blog.

For instance, he notes, like us, the growing participation of the middle class in the massive public protests in the national capital on a number of issues, such as, miscarriage of justice (e.g. Jessica Lal murder case), corruption in public sphere (most notably during the Anna Hazare agitation), and more recently in a remarkable display of the public anger about the government’s insensitivity and callousness in respect of the Nirbhaya case which was symptomatic of a larger malaise. Clearly there has been a noticeable coalescence of public disaffectation with the way our democracy is being conducted. Varma, however, has not mentioned the three or four other factors (which we felt were equally important for the emergence of the middle class) like the stellar role of the news and the television media in communicating the true facts and vital details of the criminal and the corruption cases; government’s various acts of commission and omission and the people’s fights against this malfeasance through an effective use by the activists of the newly enacted RTI law; a proactive CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) which is Government’s own audit watchdog and the law courts, and last but not the least, the emergence of the social media.

Varma has noted quite correctly that the middle class has gradually come to acquire even a numerical significance, a sort of ‘critical mass’, that it had earlier lacked and in some broad sense has also a India-wide homogeneity in tastes and aspirations. And as we suggested in our own post, the political parties today might find it no longer expedient to ignore this class. We also believe that it would be better to describe the confluence of various social groups and economic categories, as underlined in Varma’s article in terms of a range of earnings, as the middle ‘classes’ rather than an abstract conceptual category such as ‘middle class’.

The point of departure in Varma’s article is the weaknesses he finds within this emerging ‘political class’ and the lacuna it has displayed in its disparate protests and agitation movements and its apparent lack of political vision to provide an alternative to the objectives of and the ways and means adopted by the two main political formations, Congress- and BJP-centered coalition of political parties. He talks about their organizational weakness, lack of pan India presence as an organized force and leadership, apparent inability to go beyond pointing fingers at the multitude of scams and follies indulged by main political parties and not coming out with strong alternative policy options on a national scale. Presumably, Varma does not think much of the newly launched Aam Admi Party and its imminent political initiation by fire in the upcoming elections for the New Delhi assembly early December, 2013.

Varma fears that in absence of a well-articulated set of policy blue prints of national scope and significance, wider coverage of issues other than just a principled stand on corruption, the middle classes and their newer political representatives might not appear as effective to the electorate and fair badly in the elections. On the other hand unscrupulous political parties might use the anger of the middle classes about mis-governance or the governance deficit (lack of goods and services and the economic development the governments are expected to deliver) and manipulate their emotion to their advantage by subsuming and co-opting sections of the middle classes and winning them over to their partisan and disastrous self-centered and sometimes autocratic or fascistic policies.  

I think one can broadly agree with Varma’s reservations about the further and more important political role of the middle classes. It is true that while they (if you take the Aam Admi Party as representing them) now have waded into overt political action (like fighting elections) these representatives should probably avoid the simplistic reductionism entailing all economic, political, social issues facing the people of this country to the fountainhead of corruption. They must also make their position clear about the form of capitalist economic development model that the present ruling political parties are committed to and have a good support base among the elite and even sections of the middle classes. Many would argue that some of the major cases of corruption in high places arise out of the crony capitalism and because the kind of unregulated greed of a section of the impatient entrepreneurs is taken to be synonymous with the new aspirational ethos believed to be sweeping India during these past two decades. Since also much of India’s recent economic progress has come about after aligning the country gradually, probably inexorably, with the international trade policies (and quite a few dogmas), and relying on a sizable infusion of foreign capital and much of the domestic economic policies today have to be in consonance with the pulls and pushes generated at the behest of the big global power blocks (like US, European Union, etc) a clear-sighted foreign policy enunciation, that is neither subservient to these blocks nor totally isolationist like in the past, would be a prerequisite for a matured political formation that aspires to rule India. Coming months (or even years) will show if the middle classes have acquired that maturity.  



Narendra Modi’s grip on the electoral arithmetic in Gujarat

Despite strong public opinion prevailing in other parts of the country, successive elections to the Gujarat assembly in 2007 and 2012 were handsomely won by Narendra Modi. Not just critical opinion, there seems to be quite a lot of documentary evidence of the not-so-great performance of Gujarat over the years in terms of the human development, government policies openly favouring the rich and the very rich businessmen and industry groups flouting normal fiscal prudence and administrative norms (running up sizable fiscal debt), the widening of the urban-rural divide, government doing everything to delay and deny justice to the 2002 riot affected and displaced Muslims apart from the official insensitivity towards them and neglect of their rehabilitation needs. Despite all these facts, many of which the congress party brandished as the part of their propaganda at various times before the 2012 elections, 48% of the valid vote polled went in favour of BJP (and in Gujarat the party does not mean anything without Modi), with Congress polling about 39%.

The Muslims constitute only about 9% of the population of the state. For the sake of a simplified analysis, even if Muslims vote enblock against him that hardly affects Modi electorally, as long as he could garner the majority of the remaining votes on the supposed strength of economic development of the state, apparent priority accorded by the government to business and industry (which goes well with the traditional Gujarati ethos), well developed urban infrastructure, good availability of electricity and electronic connectivity, etc. From the reports critical to NaMo and his policies and programs, it may appear that Gujarati society is after all not monolithic and his actions did affect sections of the population in negative ways, especially the poor and the marginalized and those inhabiting the rural Gujarat. Do the voting percentages and patterns in different parts of the State, the regions and the districts demonstrate the disenchantment of these sections? Only a detailed statistical analysis of the poll data can establish that or refute the hypothesis.

Since the voting patterns in 2012 election show a fairly complete polarization between those for and against NaMo (all other parties in the opposition neither significant in gathering votes nor seats) obviously there is a fairly clear divide in the state – it remains, however, to be demonstrated as to whether this divide is indeed between those apparently benefiting from the stress Modi placed on the economic development  (coinciding with the benefits visible in the urban and semi-urban areas of the state) and others being denied of the same. That BJP won comprehensively in the urban areas, cities in particular, is beyond dispute as shown by statistics. But the party also appeared to have got majority of seats – if not greater vote percentage- in most of the 5 major regions of the state.

The 8-9% difference between the BJP and the Congress votes during the last election is too large to have happened without a benefit that accrued to Modi on the back of the perception of a development dividend delivered. There are some indications of the role played by the so-called neo-middle classes of the Gujarati society in this election. There is a sizable section of the population from the poorer classes of the rural areas forced to migrate to urban and semi-urban areas as a result of economic difficulties and backwardness. It is quite possible that they have been attracted by the promise of an economic revival of their fate in the wake of the development ‘magic’ they are consuming as new entrants of the burgeoning middle classes in the cities and urban clusters of Gujarat. And for them the perception is that entrepreneurial ethic is getting the desired attention and support from the government. And naturally they became the latest vote bank for Modi.

Lastly, the recent delimitation of the assembly constituencies may also have played a role in tilting the electoral balance by way of redistributing the purely rural areas and combining them with relatively more urban areas and generating a new constituency with both urban and rural category of voters. This again needs more detailed examination provided relevant statistics are available.

Hope to revisit Modi’s magic formula for wining elections and how it could impact countrywide if at all some other time.



Tsunami of public opinion and the response of the marooned political class

The political class in this country has always moulded the public opinion and is used to commandeering it by (dividing them into religion or caste-based communities,) appealing to raw and the basest and the most archaic instincts of people and historical schisms between communities in terms of their caste, cultural and religious identities. Lack of information, education and enlightenment among the people in broad swaths of the country which foster superstition, outdated outlook and conservatism came in handy in perpetuating this hegemony. And in this they have always had implicit support of the ruling classes, the economically rich and powerful, both in the cities and villages.

But the development breakthrough brought in by the emerging capitalism in India since the 1990s through the policies of liberalization has changed this force field. India is changing with growing aspirational urban middle classes, whose ranks are slowly but surely being swelled with new entrants from poorer and historically and socially backward classes. Ironically, this is helped by the affirmative policies embraced by successive governments and that of positive discrimination that is the staple of the serial political drama played out by the political class for the last three decades. With the growth in the urbanization, education, enterprise, exposure to international standards through television and mobile telephony (probably two major drivers of demands for consumer products that indirectly helped economic growth) came the need for information. At least urban Indians (especially those in semi-urban, tier-2 or tier-3 cities and towns) - and their numbers are no longer miniscule or could be safely ignored in political calculations - are getting to know about the products, standard of life, standard of services available in the most developed and metropolitan cities of the country. They are also getting informed how the best of capitalism is brought out in the first rate cities in the first world countries by harnessing it through intelligent and efficient regulation and steadfastly following the rule of law. 

This underlies the importance and increasing role of the media (especially the electronic version) in highlighting the deficiencies, inequities, unreasonableness in our political system and amplifying the popular impatience about the status quo sought to be maintained by the establishment – the government bureaucracy and the political class – and delays in redressal of the public grievances.

There is also the new technological developments in internet based communication and dissemination (social media platforms, blogosphere) that has made this tide of anti-political class sentiment due to its speed and extent of spread – through spontaneous articulation, repetition, recycling, resonance, lack of a command structure, runaway unpredictability – resemble a tsunami, that of public opinion (something the political class has not yet learnt to commandeer to its selfish goals).

It is in the light of the above that we could analyse what might appear as a beginning of a rethinking by the political class on the bill and later the ordinance to retain the lifeline available in the existing Representation of the People Act (RPA), proposed to be snatched by the Supreme Court in its July judgment, to the convicted members of the parliament and the assemblies. Is this a belated recognition of the strength of public opinion against the criminalisation of politics? It is difficult to be sure, though. Indications are there about the political parties individually readjusting their public posturing, especially keeping in view the imminent need to face the electorates for the assembly elections in four states during the end of this year and for the big parliament election early next year. 

It was the Congress party that actually took the lead through an all-party meeting to reach a consensus about bringing about a bill in the Parliament making the requisite changes in the Representation of the People Act (RPA) so that the elected representatives can continue to hold their position despite conviction, with some marginal restrictions. Practically every party, including the BJP, supported the move. But somehow between that meeting and the actual debate in the Parliament when the bill was introduced, the principal opposition party and also smaller parties like BJD, CPI etc, were smart enough to sense the public mood (to be more accurate the mood of the articulate and educated middle classes) and opposed the bill brought by the ruling party. When at the end of an acrimonious day of debate the bill was referred to the standing committee, it was clear that the political class bought some time for themselves.

Pressures from the parties supporting the UPA, like the SP and RJD, whose leader Lalu Yadav was looking at the spectre of disqualification as MP after his possible conviction in the fodder scam case, partly forced the hand for Congress. There was also this arrogance of power, feeling of hurt among some cabinet ministers who pride themselves as the legal eagles being forced to bite dust on their own legislative turf. One found a determined government pushing the so-called Congress Core group into resolving to bring the law by the backdoor of an ordinance to be regularized later in the parliament’s winter session.

The response of the BJP was crafted on the basis of their cynical estimate that their current losses, if any, due to the application of the new legal provision, would be more than made up by cornering the Congress in the forthcoming assembly elections later this year if they can get on to the right side of the enormously negative public opinion about the ordinance. They went to town crying hoarse (including protesting to the President) about the Congress party’s mala fide intentions in pushing the bill as an ordinance and parading their own consistent stand opposing the bill since the parliament debate.

Congress party’s own prevarication was finally ended when they realized firstly that persuading the President, if not about the legality but the morality of the ‘criminal’ ordinance, would not be a cakewalk. Secondly in some quarters of the party, especially its youth enclaves, the realization had set in that pushing through this ordinance would alienate the party from the young India of the social media, the new voters, aspiring among other things a better definition and practice of the rule of law. Certainly they were loath to loose the game to the opposition even before it began.

Thus the two main political parties, though not voluntarily, showed for once a remarkable alacrity in deferring to the undercurrent of a progressive public opinion in favour of a more lawful political space where the electoral exercise might aspire to become cleaner and fairer. If this trend can be sustained it will certainly be good for our democracy.