Sub heading: The Congress under Rahul Gandhi must end the mistake of “outsourcing” to regional and caste-determined parties in such large states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. BJP also say enough is enough to these fringe parties
Ashish Nandy, the psychologist and social anthropologist, said at the Jaipur Literary Festival that dalits, despite many decades of affirmative action, were still lagging so far behind others that they now seek to equalize through controversial means, including corruption. In Tamil Nadu, film star and director Kamal Hasaan is seeking release of his film Vishwaroopam which is a spy thriller in which the “evil” could be someone like Taliban boss Mullah Omar. In Kolkata, the ‘cultural capital’ of India (only Bengalis know why is it called so), novelist Salman Rushdie had plans to attend the annual book festival now on.
All the three men knew not what they’d soon be up against. Nandy, a life-long supporter of affirmative action against caste discrimination, was accused of vilifying dalit by a phalanx of SC/ST politicians led by Mayawati. Buckling under pressure, the Congress government of Rajasthan got the police in Jaipur to file an FIR against Nandy who had to rush to the Supreme Court to secure a stay order against detention. Hasaan’s film could not be released on the scheduled date because 24 Muslim groups had warned Chief Minister Jayalalitha against its screening, which, according to them, would outrage their community’s sentiments to the extent that there might be street protests. Jayalalitha obligingly got some collector to ban the screening. Hasaan went to the Madras High Court where a single bench threw away the ban order but soon a two-judge bench overturned the previous order and restored the ban. The matter is now being “amicably settled” .
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was away from Kolkata on the day Rushdie was scheduled to arrive. But Muslim groups in the state, led by a prominent mullah, were in confabulation with her close aide and minister Firhad Hakim. A few hundred demonstrators gathered at the airport in anticipation of some ‘action’, with the bonus of being seen on prime time television. Careful after living half his life incognito under life threat from jihadis, Rushdie did not take a chance. He cancelled the trip and blamed the Chief Minister which, in its turn, left her loyal followers yapping in all public forums.
The thread that connects these three isolated incidents, in places separated by distances of space, language and culture, is nothing but politics. In the past decades, India has witnessed the empowerment of many underprivileged groups. But its governance record is so poor that it is now saddled with millions who have votes but little idea of what a democratic society is about. It is the paradox of empowerment without enlightenment. Though nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world, something similar may happen to China if it suddenly embraces electoral democracy.
This “E2 paradox” has been India’s cancer for quite some time. The constituent assembly was not unanimous on universal suffrage, but the emerging ruling coterie was hell-bent on it. However, with a near-total collapse of education, health care and public administration in the subsequent decades, India became a nation of voters, not citizens. From as early as the Sixties, it made the Congress vulnerable in its monopoly of power. By the Nineties, small and regional parties flying flags of caste, language and even outdated ideologies were romping all across the checkerboard of politics. With rising empowerment of the poor and the uneducated, regional chieftains with little concern for the national causes could easily herd them to the polling booths. It became a reciprocal relationship. If they vote the regional satrap to power, the satrap would keep them happy.
To the unenlightened, happiness is not necessarily defined by tangible and measurable reward. I am sure most of Mayawati’s supporters are not familiar with Ashish Nandy’s name, not to speak of his works. But Mayawati has proved her “importance” by getting an FIR registered on the flimsiest of charges. In Bengal, the Chief Minister, could indeed be praying that Rushdie visited her state and a fiasco ensued. For that would have given her an opportunity to consolidate the Muslim votes on the eve of this year’s panchayat elections. It’s pretty much the same story in Chennai.
The situation, instead of improving, is bound to get worse in future. This is because politics in getting more centrifugal and not centripetal. Till now there is one Andhra Pradesh. Soon there may be an additional state, Telengana. The Gorkhas of Darjeeling hills have moved so far away from the leadership in West Bengal that it may not be too long that they get a state of their own. The state parties are devoid of national outlook. Mamata Banerjee torpedoed a much-needed agreement with Bangladesh on sharing the Teesta river water because it could, in her estimate, dry up irrigation water in the northern districts of her state.
This is a problem that the two national parties, Congress and BJP, must address, because regional parties will remain tied to local and group interests of their supporters. The Congress under Rahul Gandhi must end the mistake of “outsourcing” to regional and caste-determined parties such large states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. And both the big parties must address the issue of the increasing tendency of small demographic groups to dictate terms. Enough is enough, these troublemakers must be told.
