Daily Democracy and Daily Citizenship

                    Daily Democracy and Daily Citizenship

Six days to go before Delhi goes to polls for its state Assembly. Political pundits have forecast a hung assembly though some predict a victory for the BJP. Whatever is the outcome, these elections will reflect the level of maturity and thinking among the different segments of Delhi voters. Since Delhi is the seat of Parliament, these results also hold the key to determine the results of the General elections, due in the next six months. This article is not yet another survey of opinion polls as it does not attempt at crystal gazing about the next CM or the next PM. On the contrary it seeks to understand what elections are about.

Broadly speaking, Delhi voters can be classified into three groups- the government servants, the tradesmen and the university students. Outside of these three groups are the slum dwellers who do not have a decent shelter over their heads. Delhi is both a cosmopolitan and capital city of India. It is home to people from all states as the city provides job opportunities mainly in the government sector and to a lesser extent in the private sector. With five premier Central Universities –JNU, Jamia, DU, IGNOU and IIT besides half a dozen State and Private Universities, Delhi is a rich educational hub attracting students from all over India. It is also the cultural capital where institutions of classical music and dance and theatre from the South and the North, from the East and the West provide the highest quality of entertainment catering to the tastes of people coming from different parts of the country. Hence the Delhi voters’ choice that factors in diverse views, perspectives and understanding is almost a mini- national election as it is representative of the choice of the nation.

The three main parties in contention in Delhi elections are the two national parties – the Congress and the BJP and the fledgling AAP which is seen to represent the aam admi. The AAP started with a stinging bang painting the two major parties in black adapting the Old Macdonald’s nursery rhyme to make people see “here a corruption, there a corruption, everywhere a corruption,  E-I-E-I-O”.

The government servants who to a large extent have been both bribe givers and bribe receivers found it easy to join AAP so that the corruption stink did not touch them. The opinion polls gave AAP a head start and eulogized it as the giant slayer. But politics is not a black and white game where all the evil forces are pitted against all the good forces. It is like the T-20 game, mercurially changing the fortunes of the participating teams and often the upward surge gets arrested and the slide comes fast and furious. AAP has had its share of falling off the high moral ground it had claimed for itself thanks to questions -rightly or wrongly-raised about its sources of funding. The two national parties have recently begun to feel less threatened by AAP and have turned their attention to fighting each other.

Delhi voters have to be discerning in making their choice. If they vote Congress, it is an endorsement of the development that Delhi has gained over the last three innings of the Congress rule. The development is for all to see –Metro, Malls, metered gas supply, 24x7 power, fairly good water supply( though some localities have not had this benefit), quality government schools, three new State Universities(GGSIU,Ambedkar University and National Law University),besides  policies like the Baghidari scheme-to promote a meaningful partnership between the Government agencies and citizens, basically covering the provision of civic services, the Ladli scheme to enhance the social status of girl child in the society as well in the family, ensuring her proper education upto senior secondary level and  other schemes to provide genuine welfare to the marginalized groups and raise the  living standards to reasonably satisfactory levels. Such an endorsement will override all the negative criticisms against Delhi government that include corruption charges, women’s safety and rising prices, though these are not exclusively a Delhi phenomenon.  If the BJP is voted back to power after being in oblivion for 15years, it will be turning a Nelson’s eye to all the developments and rivet its attention on corruption, price rise and security of women. Given the pressing nature of day to day problems like price rise and corruption that affect the aam admi, AAP’s  rise to number one position will not be a surprise as it is reflective of the people’s anger against corruption and insecurity. AAP and BJP are one in their common thrust against the Congress government for increased power and water tariff.  But neither of the two parties has come out with their strategy as to how they would ensure uninterrupted power supply on reduced power tariff. It is one thing to make promises, but it is another thing to spell out how those tall promises do not remain just paper promises. Will Delhi buy the promises of AAP and BJP or will it be content with the present status of development ignoring corruption and price rise? Will Delhi vote for pro or anti-incumbency? What do the voters want? How mature are the voters? Will the poor and the marginalized feel that they have not been adequately provided for or will they feel happy that their lot has improved? The voters may not know how and why the prices have increased but they certainly do feel the pinch. Will they be mature enough to see through the dishonest tradesmen’s practice of hoarding and jacking up the price and making  quick money through creating artificial scarcity?

The problem with democracy is that it gives people the right to elect a government of their choice, but  this in turn makes them demand more and more from the government. But do they have a right to make wholesome demands on government without doing their duty? In mature democracy, duties go along with rights. Otherwise as H.L. Mencke says, ‘Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.’

Our democracy suffers because majority of people lack education and correspondingly lack reasoning power. People’s vote in India is not so much a reasoned choice as an emotional decision. The election manifestoes are nothing but promises to meet all their demands and the electors cast their choice in favour of those whose promises they trust. Surprisingly they have all these years acted with an instinctive alertness that puts paid to analytical or reasoned judgement.  They have not been carried away by paper freebies of bringing the moon to their doors and political manifestoes mean nothing to them. They judge by what they have received and what they can hope to receive from the party in power. All the mudslinging that leaders indulge in against their opponents may at best get a guffaw from them, but nothing beyond that.

It is a pity that no one- not even the aam admi party that claims to represent the common man- has dared to include in its  manifesto what the party expects from him .  The attitude of all leaders without exception is that of a donor to the donee. ‘I give, you receive’ is their credo and what ‘I give’ is my decision and ‘what you receive’ is not your decision. It is time to change  our political script. It is time to hold up to the people their duty rather than incite them to fight for their rights. India needs to educate its people to govern themselves before they demand from their leaders good governance. Every party claims that it is against corruption but all this talk about rooting out corruption if it comes to power is mission impossible in the absence of people failing to exercise authority over themselves. Power to the people without teaching them discipline, self control and moral and mental improvement is disastrous. The chaos and anarchy that we see around is because we have not been taught to cultivate obedience to authority whom we have elected, to practise self restraint and orderliness, to respect democracy with its principle of shared responsibility, to do unto others what we do unto ourselves.  Ralph Nader said ‘There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.’ It is election time and it is time for reflection.

A Walk in Winter

                                                                    A Walk in Winter

                      I love Delhi. I have been here for more than four and a half decades and seen Delhi change from a quiet, peaceful city to a noisy chaotic metropolis. I have seen Delhi change from what it was in the ‘60s of the last century to what it is today- when there were fewer cars and buses on the Delhi dusty roads, lined with shady trees on either side with a dirt brown tinge on the leaves, when the three -wheeler auto-rickshaws were giving a run to the phut- phutis( a jugaad construction of low cost  vehicles known as the four-seater motor tri-cycles), when the local shuttles stopped motorists, scooterwallahs and pedestrians at level crossings for indefinitely long periods till they slowly chug-chugged their way through, when a huge banyan tree was the Centrepiece on Ringroad dividing the poor man’s Safdarjung hospital on the right from the elite Medical Institute on the left, when classical music and dance recitals were ticketed performances and not by invitations, when vegetables and fruits were available in plenty, when INA market and Ajmal Khan road  markets were the distinct malls of the time,  when  idlis and dosas and filter coffee were a novelty for those fed on paranthas and lassi, when driving one’s own car was a pleasure and a luxury, when good schools and colleges could be counted on one’s fingers, when cinema theatres were the only source of entertainment for the rich and the poor, when Radio Ceylon was heard from every quarter, when  AIR news and newspapers were the main disseminators of information, when barat ghars and open lawns were the marriage venues as there were fewer five star hotels and farm houses, when there was only Indian Airlines for domestic travel and Air India for foreign visits, when travel by Tamil Nadu express from Delhi to Chennai  was equal to travel by the Great Orient Express, when standing in a long queue  to purchase rail tickets was a daylong herculean and  yet a satisfying effort and last but not the least when one can still see on the roads men with dhotis and women with sarees.

                       That Delhi is no longer today except in one’s memory. The 21^st C Delhi is swanky with wide well-laid roads-along with potholes that are the trademark of the Public Works department. Today the roads are choc-o-block with cars of all sizes and makes, with  A/C and non A/C buses that look slightly more elegant ,less battered and bruised, with the nine-seater Gramin Seva vehicles (the modern version of earlier phut phutis) and auto rickshaws. There are fewer yellow cabs as they have been replaced by Radio Taxis painted with bold and bizarre advertisements on the sides. The silence of the sixties has been replaced by high decibel sounding of horn in all places. The metro has displaced the local ring railway and rendered the overcrowded buses, a thing of the past. The uber swanky malls have come up making earlier markets look like poor cousins. Restaurants and Coffee shops have mushroomed bringing about a capital change in the traditional Delhi-ite palate. Wherever you go, whatever part of the day it is, you meet milling crowds, the exception being the early morning hours when you can walk around the innumerable neighbourhood parks that have come up all over the city.

                       Delhi experiences enjoyable weather for about ten weeks in October and November before foggy mornings, sunless days, grey evenings and protracted nights set in, turning afternoons to dusk and dusk to nights, making one yearn for the sun to brighten and cheer our moods. Hence the morning walks, the afternoon ambulation and evening strolls during the post- autumn, pre-winter months give even the lazy Delhi-ites a springiness in their walk that is not seen during the rest of the year. Sporting colourful woollens and trendy jackets, most of them are out in the streets even if they have no specific work to be accomplished. The weather is slightly chilly, but refreshing and one can see the winter annuals like cineraria, salvia and  chrysanthemums,  not to leave out pansies, petunias, dahlias, nasturtiums, marigold, and phlox. This is what makes Delhi dilwalon ka shehr.

                       The morning walks are bracing and invigorating as there is still quietness all around. I love walking on the pathways that run around the park next to my apartment. One circular walk lasting 5-6 minutes covers 300 meters. Five times around the park will be equivalent to 1500 meters which is still 100 meters short of a mile.  There are not many in the park in the morning hours except retired persons and little babies brought on strollers by the maids. The elders sit on the benches in the garden while the babies sit on the swings or the see-saws with the maids. There are a few benches that seem to be unofficially reserved for the maids who sit and have a lively chat before they make their way to their employers’ houses for their daily grind. Everyday groups of 6-7 maids, decently dressed, occupy these benches and engage in animated talk, punctured with loud laughter. This is the best part of their daily routine as they revel in their dramebazz show, mimicking their memsahebs and their hectoring tone and commenting on the emptiness and vacuity of their orders. Everyday they have a new drama to act and enjoy before their time to leave is signalled by one of the maids getting a call on her mobile from her Memsaheb. They get up not before having one more guffaw about the memsaheb’s call. In the adjacent lawns we have the elders talking about their past and lamenting about the present and drawing a distinction between the politics of the Gandhian days and the present day politics. They are the oldies not able to reconcile themselves to the generational change that has overtaken their ripe old years. Then there are a few middle aged men- mostly traders and business men who get to their shops only around 11 in the morning and therefore having all the time to take a couple of rounds to lessen the tyres around their midriff, though there is a smug look on their face as their belly tyres are an index of their prosperity. On the opposite side there are a few school students who have bunked classes and sit with their earphones swaying to Bollywood music or making snide comments on young girls who walk and run alternately to keep themselves pencil trim. Hardly young men are seen in these parks though one cannot vouch for their hitting the gyms for toning up their physique. I see the change- young women on their march towards meeting their new aspirations, new goals, new freedom while young men loll around wasting their time and energy echoing Samuel Beckett’s profound statement ‘ there’s Nothing to be done’. They carry a mobile phone plugged to their ears and listen to rock music or Bollywood numbers without understanding the lyrics or having any musical knowledge. Even the maids in the park are better in putting to use the filmy songs for their daily dramebazz. Time is not far when we may see she-woman replacing the he-man. Times have changed there is no denying it, but not the delight of the early morning walks that bring to me the fullness of bliss, as I listen to the birds that sing, as I watch children culling flowers on every side, as I see babes leaping up in their mothers/maids arms, as I breathe in the warmth of the early sun and discover all the earth is gay and gives itself to jollity. Yeh hi meri dilli.

                                                            

The New Age Political Weapon: the Art of Mudslinging

 The New Age Political Weapon: the Art of Mudslinging

 

Mudslinging is the game that comes with ease to contemporary politicians. It started with Aam Admi party that was founded on its avowed manifesto to highlight corruption and financial misdemeanours against elected representatives and their kith and kin. First it was Kejrewall who gave his nation a dishonourable sobriquet as a nation of crooks and criminals by his daily press briefings to unleash some alleged criminality of X,Y, Z  and vilifying all political parties on issues of corruption and misgovernance. Though he never lodged a FIR to set the process of criminal justice in motion against those whom he alleged as cognizable offenders, he succeeded in damaging the reputation of many political leaders and painted them with shades of grayish black tinge. With state elections currently reaching a feverish crescendo, all politicians at all levels have followed suit and sharpened their knives to let out a wordy blood bath of innuendoes and insinuations against their opponents. And they do not stop at attacking their present opponents, but stoop so low to drag in all their fathers and forefathers, who they allege of having committed great criminal acts such as conceding to re-draw fresh geographical boundaries that have shrunk the nation and to bring forth worthless progeny to perpetuate dynasty.

What a pity that the present day politicians have no understanding of the legacy of GNP(Gandhi-Nehru- Patel) who had given us the idea of India from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Kolkatta to Kutch. Thanks to this noble triumvirate the different regions of India with different cultures, languages and religions coalesced into a single nation Bharat and adopted the democratic form of governance that continues till today. On hindsight, some of the economic policies of the first thirty odd years have come for scathing criticism today for having given rise to permit-license-quota raj that has made India in a seemingly precipitous decline, relative to the world. Such a hindsight analysis suffers from a failure to see that they do not merit censure since the intentions of the erstwhile leaders were beyond reproach. No single ideology or model has a staying power beyond a certain period. Unfortunately after six and a half decades to win brownie points during the election campaign, the current politicians have indulged in vilification of leaders of those times, when for a huge and fledgling democracy like India with a huge population in abject poverty, the socialist pattern of governance was better suited. Today allegations and counter allegations fly thick and fast, bringing down the political discourses to all time low. The current theatre of political absurdity runs true to the Panchatantra tale about the wolf and the lamb, where the wolf accuses the lamb of having dirtied the water and if he has not done it, it must have been his grandfather! It is indeed a sad reflection on the maturity and understanding of our current politicians that there is no appreciation of what Nehru and Patel had contributed; on the contrary there is a deliberate attempt to pit one against the other and to show who the better of the two was. What a far cry from the cultured, civilized and noble way of the two stalwarts -Nehru and Patel-  working together  despite differences in their ideologies, views and ideas. It is their legacy of democracy that has given these contemporary politicians the right to speak even to the extent of instigating an illusory rivalry between Nehru and Patel where there was none. People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by their remote descendants. It is to be borne in mind that ‘every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard [of knowledge] bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.’

The language used by the present day politicians against their political opponents, their searing personal attacks, and mimicking of their opponents’ personal traits are signs of the new low they have reached. Almost all of them have resorted to demagoguery that leaves a bitter taste in their audience. They seem to appeal to the base emotions and prejudices of people without a thought of how such vituperative attacks will bring an irreconcilable division in the country. It is a pity that none of them know what it is to be a gentleman -politician as delineated by Macaulay when he wrote about Addison, the satirist turned politician. Macaulay had paid a glowing tribute to Addison saying that he was   ‘an unsullied master, accomplished scholar, master of eloquence, consummate painter of life and manners… who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it, who without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform; who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation during which wit had been laid astray by profligacy and virtue by fanaticism.’ Unfortunately our politicians today hold on to the disastrous separation between wit and virtue and resort to rabble rousing with half lies and quarter truths.

RAM-LEELA

                                                              Ram-Leela    

                              The PIL against the title Ram-Leela, the protests outside theatres against showing the film without a title change, the Madhya Pradesh court’s injunction against its release – all these are a bit of déjà vu in contemporary intolerant India where throwing stones and raising a hue and cry at perceived hurt to religious sentiments are routine happenings. How dare anyone talk about Ram, described as “Oka Mata,Oka Bana, Oka Baarya” i.e., One word, One Arrow, One Wife –as indulging in ‘leela’ or dance that is a sanctified privilege given only to Krishna for his Rasleela- to dance simultaneously with a number of gopis in Brindavan. The Rama Bhaktas are up in arms for denigrating Maryada Purush Ram by associating him with leela that is an exclusive right conferred on  Krishna. That is why they have never objected to films with titles like Natwarlal,  Banke Bihari, Bhol Bhulaiyya etc as Krishna is an acclaimed and the most loved prankster.The Judiciary In Madhya Pradesh in its wisdom factored in the wounded feelings of Ram

Bhaktas to order a stay on the release of Ram-Leela despite the producer’s plea that Leela is the name of the female protagonist of the film. Even the Producer’s willingness to use capital ‘L’ for Leela and hyphenate the names Ram and Leela  to make the distinction  between ‘Ramleela’ and ‘Ram-Leela’ has fallen flat on the Ram Bhaktas. For them to equate Ram and his ‘Oka Barya’(one wife) with the story of Romeo and Juliet is seen as the worst sacrilege of the Ramayana even though with due apology and nervous trepidation one has to point to the commonality of enduring love between the two pairs.

The New Age Ram Bhaktas are practising cultural atavism citing divine sanction to punish all those whose semantics defy  any relationship between signs or symbols and what they denote. In India intolerance of other points of view specially related to religion has been on  the upswing as we have seen this periodically happening starting with the ban on Ram Swarup’s Understanding Islam through Hadis(1982), Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses(1988), Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja(1993) and Dwikhandito(2003), James Laine’s Shivaji-Hindu King in Islamic India(2003),-to name a few. This Cultural fanaticism seems to be  the new aristocratism of the masses arrogating to itself the right to be inhuman, and making cultural rights the prerogatives of the inhuman.

The recent uprising against Ram-Leela takes the cake. How can any character with the name Ram be seen dallying and therefore they cry against the term Ramleela. This begs an important question whether those, whose parents have dotingly  christened them ‘Ram’ live like Ram? The alleged charges against  AsaRam Bapu is enough to show that there is no link  between name and character.

                      

The best course is for the Ram Bhaktas to file a PIL in the Supreme Court seeking a divine copyright on the name Ram and a ban on naming anyone as Ram.  These pious devotees can even come out with a list of names that should be out of bounds for ordinary mortals. Maybe this can even be one of the election promises that an ingenuous political party can make use of.    

                         

It is interesting that in the West one hardly comes across the name Jesus. There is one and only one Jesus of Nazareth.It is a rare surname : 1 in 100000 families. This is not by a governmental fiat or by a

religious injunction, but it is a part of  the Western tradition and culture to  respect the Son of God.  It is the same with Islam. There can be no second Allah . In Hinduism, giving God’s names is to make it easy for  all to utter God’s names as and when those with divine names are called.

But those who cry against the desecration of the name have in ignorance woven a halo around the name Ram and have not understood the  significance of the oft-repeated question: ‘What is in a name?’ The best way to understand the correlation between name and personality is to read Gottfried Lessing’s play Nathan der Weise(Nathan the Wise) published in1779 which is a parable of three rings to bring about religious cohesion among Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Nathan a wise Jewish merchant was asked by Sultan Saladin as to which religion  was true.  Nathan narrates to him a parable about a heirloom ring that had the magical quality to make the owner of the  ring pleasant in the eyes of God and mankind. This ring was passed on by the father to his most beloved son generation after generation. Once it happened that a father had three sons whom he loved equally and promised the ring to each one of them. So he made two replicas of the ring and gave the three to them without identifying which one was the  genuine  one. The brothers quarreled as to who had the original till a wise judge admonished them saying that it was impossible to  identify the original, as it was quite possible that all three were replicas and the original could have been lost.  To find out, whether one of them had the real ring, it was up to them to live in such a way that they could prove their ring's powers  by living a life that is pleasant in the eyes of God and mankind rather than expecting the ring's miraculous powers to do so. 

So should each one of us live true to the ideal exemplified by Ram than debate about whether Ram is Romeo and Leela is Juliet or  whether Ram gives himself to leelas without remaining true to the original  ‘Oka Mata, Oka Bana, Oka Barya’. This is well phrased by  Gertrude Stein who says ‘A rose is a rose is a rose’ meaning, ‘things are as they are and not as they should be’. The New age cultural atavists will have to understand that in earlier times, a creative artist  could use the name of the thing and the thing was really there. Over long periods, the thing has lost its identity and so to cavil at titles like Ram Leela is both a sign of their ignorance and intolerance- far removed from  the attributes of the Lord  whose nobility they seem to espouse..