Back in the USSR, they had a formula for staying out of trouble: “Don’t think. If you must think, don’t speak. If you must speak, don’t write. If you must write, don’t sign. If you must sign, be prepared.”
That’s practical advice for several contemporary democracies that are giving the least awful form of government a bad name. It’s a dangerous trend because if the gap between democracy and absolutism narrows, people may no longer see the point of the endless struggle to gain and retain freedoms.
The uproars over four recent developments say that we are far from that nadir of apathy. The first is the update to income tax law that allows the agencies to breach citizens’ digital privacy on the basis of suspicions alone―yet another instance of the time-honoured Indian tradition of making the process the punishment. And since digital accounts will be examined, it is yet another nail in the coffin of internet privacy and social media.
Moving on, no one knows how many assets were downed in the brief India-Pakistan aerial conflict, but we know for certain that Siddharth Varadarajan and Karan Thapar, prominent journalists with The Wire, are collateral damage. A BJP functionary accused The Wire’s coverage of undermining “sovereignty, unity, and integrity”, which conveniently attracted the attention of Section 152 of the decolonised Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which is the sedition law. The three trigger words are of such variable meaning that the law could be used to Kafkaesque effect to target almost anyone.
The third development is the crisis of confidence in the Election Commission. Over the years, we have become accustomed to pitched battles over the integrity of electronic voting machines. Now it has become part of the public discourse, the subject of memes and jokes like, “The Election Commission has launched a new app: tap once to vote, twice to vanish from the rolls.” Finally, the joke is on the idea of democracy.
The fourth development concerns the right to recall, which is available in some South American nations, the US and Japan, but its use is limited to removing local officials. Very rarely are top legislators vulnerable to this terrific weapon, the voter’s brahmastra. Before the BJP had a stable government at the Centre, the idea was current in some sections of the party. But they wanted a weapon that targeted the highest elected politicians and could force regime change.
Home Minister Amit Shah has introduced an amendment in parliament that sounds both like recall at the top, and also Lord Dalhousie’s Doctrine of Lapse, by which Awadh and Jhansi became East India Company properties on the charge that they were misgoverned or ungoverned. The new legislation would allow the Centre to dismiss chief ministers accused of serious crimes who have been behind bars for 30 days―even if it’s detention without trial. This is arbitrary, because politicians routinely face false charges. It ignores due process and would give the Centre the power to remove the heads of states, decapitating federalism.
In dystopian times, utopian dreams have a tonic effect. But as the label suggests, they are mostly impractical or bring on problems of their own. Here are two examples: one, the right to recall looks attractive when people lose patience for their government. The Congress went into the wilderness following the charge of “policy paralysis” against Manmohan Singh, but because it followed from a lost election, it was clearly the people’s will. Recall would not have been half as convincing.
Two, when the sanctity of elections is compromised, as it is in India, Turkey and Hungary, among other nations, the voter muses wistfully upon high-minded things, like a perfectly independent Election Commission in an ivory tower with a tunnel leading to its very own bank vault that contains a fixed remittance from the government. Not answerable to any authority, its staffers, chosen on the basis of ability alone, have the power to make and apply election law and set budgets, and are so large-hearted that they do all this transparently. The central arts akademies work somewhat like this, so why not the EC? This utopian vision trips up on efficiency― to be completely effective, the EC needs police powers, which brings on the danger of creating a police state within the State.
In the 19th century, the British churchman and composer of popular hymns Reginald Heber wrote a stanza which continues to delight satirists and humorists: “What though the spicy breezes blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle / Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile?” The good colonial-era bishop had meant to say that nature is beautiful everywhere and only the heathen in Ceylon and other godforsaken places east of Eden are eyesores. The modern interpretation is that human vileness is the baseline.
That exactly describes politics in the world’s major democracies, and it’s a lesson for constitution-makers of the future. The world is coming unglued, mapmakers could be back in business, and constitution-makers must follow. They would have learned that constitutions must be created not for the best people, but assuming that the very worst may rule. They would remember how easily institutions buckle, and how easily the freedom of speech can be curtailed. As the deadpan Soviets used to say, “People are free to speak in the USSR, and free to be arrested thereafter.”
Pratik Kanjilal | Speakeasy | Senior Fellow, Henry J Leir Institute of Migration and Human Security, Fletcher School, Tufts University
(Views are personal)
(Tweets @pratik_k)