Fight together to stem erosion of democracy

Whenever the Centre came up with anti-people policies, there were protests from the affected sections. But there was none to coalesce them for a collective counter programme.
Illustration: Soumyadip Sinha
Illustration: Soumyadip Sinha

To say that we are staring down the barrel is, perhaps, an understatement. The worst that some among us feared is beginning to come true. Looking through the prism of individuals for easy understanding, the Nupur Sharma episode, followed by the undemocratic arrest of journalist Mohammed Zubair and then the Udaipur shocker have shown the disastrous consequences of unending hate mongering that we have been witness to over the recent years. However, to look at it without placing it in the overall context is not going to help us understand where we are and how we got there.

Many of us often wonder how the BJP’s electoral juggernaut moves on despite not getting most things right. The disbelief is not without basis but stems from a superficial thought process. Yes, we first didn’t understand demonetisation, which was hailed by those holding a brief for the government. That it turned out to be a disaster, contrary to the way it was sold as a financial revolution and a move to check black money, is another matter. These days, we don’t even bother to check by how many times the riches of India’s rich have gone up in Swiss banks. Muslims hadn’t understood CAA and were promptly called anti-nationals. Farmers, who didn’t understand farm laws, were bracketed in a similar fashion. Small traders, who were pushed out of business because of GST, have not understood it like Muslims and farmers. And now, the millions of the country’s unemployed do not understand how revolutionary Agnipath is.

From a larger perspective, we are witness to how the veneer of the democratic fabric is being peeled off, layer by layer. This is nothing to be shocked at. This is not the first time that the media and judiciary capitulated. They did it during Emergency after which a mutually comfortable arrangement worked well for years. But there comes a stage when the forces that seek to change the status of a society have to bare their fangs. What we have been seeing in the last few years is exactly that, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former US President Donald Trump and so on being representatives of the order that such forces seek to establish.

Our honourable judges often pontificate about the need for citizens to work tirelessly to sustain liberty, freedom and expression. It may make for good media copy, but right under the nose of the courts and by using observations made in judgments, we are witness to arrests without adherence to any due procedure. That it’s their job first to protect liberty and freedom doesn’t seem to be on the agenda of our courts. Our frontline media channels have mainstreamed hate to unimaginable levels and yet, wine and dine with the high and mighty without remorse while journalists doing ground work and holding up the mirror to power are behind the cells. The kind of data suppression we have seen during the worst phase of Covid has no parallel but those calling it out are dubbed agents of foreign agencies or anti-nationals.

We have no time to discuss how India’s public health system hasn’t improved a wee bit despite the crisis we saw during Covid. We have no time to debate how millions of gig workers suffer from lack of minimum social security. We are not interested in ensuring basic facilities to millions of construction workers (otherwise called migrants) even as we boast of growing skyscrapers, giving a touch of Manhattan to our cities. Governments and banks are the first to reach out to corporates to protect them from any financial crisis, much of it caused by their malfeasance. That 90% of the country’s population has to contend with a crisis month after month has no bearing on us.

To borrow from No is not enough, authored by Naomi Klein, an acclaimed journalist, the expanding power of private wealth over the political system, which could be broadly classified as corporate hegemony, dismantling the welfare state and social services, and attacks on women and minorities from exercising their rights, all form part of this agenda. Only money and power matter. CEOs are hailed as superheroes and bypassing law and regulatory standards become the norm.

If anyone is wondering why unemployment, healthcare or peace don’t matter, it’s because they are managed by a political class that provides the necessary political conditions with its divide-and-conquer politics. The electoral dividends of the BJP are a result of years of indoctrination of various sections of the society, including Dalits and tribals, by projecting Muslims as the other. Such indoctrination pushes people in general into a situation where they don’t know what their interests are. Growing violence over religious beliefs or a financial crisis, the conditions for both being ripe, provide a pretext for further clampdown and furthering the agenda of corporate hegemony.

To think that the Opposition or regional parties have a different policy framework is a delusion. The Congress has long forgotten that it has a job to do as the main Opposition, rather a more important one than the ones in the government. In the last seven years, the only occasion that spurred Congress workers into action was when Madam Gandhi and Rahul had to face the ED. We have state governments, ruled by regional parties, which are no less undemocratic and are okay to doing business with the BJP to protect their own turf. Many of them are no different when it comes to policies and are more than willing to bend over backwards to enable corporate groups exploit natural resources at the cost of the local population.

On all the occasions that the government came up with anti-people policies, the country saw protests from the affected sections. But there was none to coalesce them for a collective counter programme. That explains the failure to pose any serious challenge. Therefore, the answer, as Naomi says, is not saying NO to an individual or a group or Yes to another. And, there is no one-stop solution to the crisis we face today. The beginning perhaps lies in a collective challenge to the system that nurtures the nexus that creates conditions for an undemocratic state.

To my right-wing friends who enjoy writing hate mails to me, this is my signing-off piece.

G S Vasu
Editor of The New Indian Express
(vasu@newindianexpress.com)

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com