Oppression or Culture?

Squeezed between the Republic Day and the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination was the Jaipur Literary Fest. A fest marked not only by the presence of exalted personalities but also by hypocrites.Well, we may extol the virtues of "ahimsa" but we have just surrendered to the threats of violent rioting. Salman Rushdie, the high profile controversial writer was continuously threatened and lots and lots of pressure built on the government to disallow him a visa...only to realise later that Rushdie being a PIO didn't need to have a visa to visit India. At last, he chose not to visit the JLF. 


All this petty shenanigans by the self-proclaimed pro-religious orthodox has made me think a lot about censorship and that "elusive" democratic freedom of speech. I totally sympathise the organisers of the festival. Let down as they were by the spineless Rajasthan government, who had a keen eye on the Muslim vote bank in the current elections, they did their best. They were personally threatened by a baying mob of bearded youths who invaded the festival compound promising murder and mayhem if Rushdie was allowed so much as a video link (as Germaine Greer said at the time of the Danish cartoons row, “What these people really love and do best is pandemonium”). As cited by Richard Dawkins:

Here are two possible reasons one might offer for kowtowing to a violent threat such as was visited on the Jaipur Literary Festival last week.

1. I shall give in to your demands to suppress freedom of speech, purely because I fear your threats. But don’t for one nanosecond confuse fear with respect. I do not respect you, I despise you and everything you stand for – especially given that your faith is apparently so weak in argument that it requires violent threats to shore it up.
   
   It seems to me that there is nothing reprehensible in such a response. It is not cowardly, simply prudent, and Nick Cohen praises Grayson Perry for using a milder version of it. But the same cannot be said of the following:
   
2. I shall give in to you because I know that freedom of speech is not part of your culture. Who am I to impose Western, colonialist, paternalistic ideas like freedom of speech on your very different and equally valuable culture? Of course your ‘hurt’ and ‘offence’ should take precedence over our purely Western preoccupation with freedom of speech, and of course we’ll cancel the video link.

On American campuses, they held that if a man so much as looked around with a lustful eye, or called a young female a ‘girl’ instead of a ‘woman’, he was guilty of gross sexual impropriety. Yet abroad it was “more or less OK for a cabal of regressive theocratic bigots to insist on the chador, to cut off thieves’ hands and put out the eyes of offenders on TV, and to murder novelists as state policy. Oppression is what we do in the West. What they do in the Middle East is ‘their culture’. Leftists could not make a stand, because to their minds defending Rushdie would at some level mean giving aid and comfort to racists and strengthening the hand of the one enemy they could admit to having: the imperialist warmongers in Washington, DC.

During the mid 1950s, Pandit Nehru addressed a Conference of Newspaper Editors. He advanced the interesting notion that Freedom of Speech and Expression had not been granted to good editors alone; it was most necessary for the bad editors too. It would be easy to say that editors should use their freedoms responsibly and in national interest. Of course, bad editors would do no such thing; they would print scurrilous articles. But then who is to decide who is a good editor and who is bad? If this is left to the government, then predictably only "chamchas" will survive as editors and the honest ones who spoke the truth to power would be hustled off to jail as bad editors misusing their freedoms.

Nehru’s remarks are even more apt now than ever before. I was struck by Justice Katju saying that Salman Rushdie was a poor and sub-standard writer who would have remained unknown except for his scurrilous book The Satanic Verses. This, he is quoted as saying, is much more fundamental issue than merely banning him. Of course, every one is entitled to his own literary standards. I hope the Booker Prize authorities take note of what Justice Katju has said and immediately withdraw the original Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children and its prize as Booker of Bookers of over 25 years. But even a poor substandard writer deserves to be able to write and be read by such tasteless people who prefer him to better writers. A writer’s freedom of expression and for all of us the freedom to read and write as we please is not granted on a quality adjusted basis......but that's all the talk of principles,right? and when one offends you at the emotional level you don't really then care about the principles.

So if someone offends you or your religion, your basic reaction would be try and stop him from doing it. Everyone does! it's the basic human instinct that composes your reaction. But there are several ways of doing it. The reaction which we all saw at the JLF reminds me of the concept of "The Heckler's Veto". It is the shorthand for the proposition that if someone dosen't like an idea, he tries to veto the expression of such an idea by threatening public safety and this is what happened with Salman Rushdie. Those ignomarus fatwa-mongers tried to veto the expression of his thoughts and succeeded. How were they successful, is a totally different topic and I wouldn't delve into it. But the very canonic question is why? Why go against the very nature of your religion and order someone's killing? Why threat someone? If there is freedom of speech, there also is freedom to hear! You don't want to read it or hear about it it's ok! don't deny us! You were offended? Fine! Why don't you publish another book defying all of the facts and praising your religion! If you believe so much in your religion why not give the general public a chance to decide? open yourself to criticism and tell everyone what a glorious past your religion has had. Why just threaten and try to shut up the person before you? It only reveals your doubts in your own religion which you might be trying to cover up!!

Well, in a country like India it is a common sight....the people doing legal things are often afraid of people doing illegal things. It is not the first incidence. Apart from Rushdie, Tasleema Nasreen, M F Hussain were all heckled. Bajrang Dal threatened Hussain for drawing nude pictures of their deities....well why don't they go and demolish Ajanta and Khajuraho!! 

As cited above: that when it is done in the west we see it as oppression but here it's all in the name of protecting our culture......well that's the irony. I would like to cite another incidence by Dawkins :

"When I publicly tackled Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Britain’s leading ‘moderate’ Muslim, on this very question, he repeatedly evaded it before finally conceding that death is indeed the prescribed punishment for apostasy but pleaded that “it is very seldom enforced.” So that’s all right then. Roll on the (‘inevitable’ according to the Archbishop of Canterbury) Sharia Law. Sir Iqbal who, by the way, was knighted for services to ‘community relations’, said of Salman Rushdie, at the time of the fatwa, “Death is perhaps too easy for him.”

Oh but of course, we mustn’t be shocked, it’s their culture and we must respect it."

The Great Indian Lokpal Stir

Let me express my profound unease at the crescendo of euphoria surrounding the ‘Anna Hazare + Jan Lokpal Bill’ phenomenon as it has unfolded in New Delhi and across several hysterical TV stations over the last few days.

This time around, I have to say that the print media has acted (upto now) with a degree of restraint that I think is commendable. Partly, this has to do with the different natures of the two media. If you have to write even five hundred words about the Jan Lokpal bill, you run out of platitudes against corruption in the first sentence (and who can speak ‘for’ corruption anyway?) and after that you have to begin thinking about what the bill actually says, and the moment you do that, you cannot but help consider the actual provisions and their implications. On television on the other hand, you never have to speak for more than a sound-byte, (and the anchor can just keep repeating himself or herself, because that is the anchor’s job) and the accumulation of pious vox-pop sound bytes ‘against corruption’ leads to a tsunami of ‘sentiment’ that brooks no dissent.

The outcome of the  ‘Anna Hazare’ phenomenon allows the ruling  Congress to appear gracious (by bending to Anna Hazare’s will) and the BJP to appear pious (by cozying up to the Anna Hazare initiative) and a full spectrum of NGO and  ‘civil society’ worthies to appear, as always, even holier than they already are.
Most importantly, it enables the current ruling elite to have just stage managed its own triumph, by crafting a ‘sensitive’ response to a television media conjured popular upsurge. Meanwhile, the electronic media, by and large, have played their part by offering us the masquerade of a ‘revolution’ that ends up making the state even more powerful than it was before this so called ‘revolution’ began.
Anna Hazare may finally go down in history as the man who -  perhaps against his own instincts and interests – (I am not disputing his moral uprightness here) -  sanctified the entire spectrum of Indian politics by offering it the cosmetic cloak of the provisions of the draft Jan Lokpal Bill. The current UPA regime, like the NDA regime before it, has perfected the art of being the designer of its own opposition. The method is brilliant and imaginative. First, preside over profound corruption, then, utilise the public discontent against corruption to create a situation where the ruling dispensation can be seen as the source of the most sympathetic and sensitive response, while doing nothing, simultaneously, to challenge the abuse of power at a structural level.

I have studied the draft Jan Lokpal Bill carefully and I find some of its features are deeply disturbing. I want to take some time to think through why this appears disturbing to me.

The  draft Jan Lokpal bill (as present on the website http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/) foresees a Lokpal who will become one of the most powerful institutions of state that India has ever known. It will combine in itself the powers of making law, implementing the law, and punishing those who break the law. A lokpal will be ‘deemed a police officer’ and can ‘While investigating any offence under Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, they shall be competent to investigate any offence under any other law in the same case.’

The appointment of the Lokpal will be done by a collegium consisting of several different kinds of people – Bharat Ratna awardees, Nobel prize winners of Indian origin, Magasaysay award winners, Senior Judges of Supreme and High Courts, the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the Chief Election Commissioner, and members of the outgoing Lokpal board and the Chairpersons of both houses of Parliament. It may be noticed that in this entire body, only one person, the chairperson of the Lok Sabha, is a democratically elected person. No other person on this panel is accountable to the public in any way. As for ‘Nobel Prize Winners of Indian Origin’ they need not even be Indian citizens. The removal of the Lokpal from office is also not something amenable to a democratic process. Complaints will be investigated by a panel of supreme court judges.

This is middle class India’s dream of subverting the ‘messiness’ of democracy come delightfully true. So, now you have to imagine that Lata Mangeshkar (who is a Bharat Ratna), APJ Abul  Kalam (Bharat Ratna, ex-President and Nuclear Weapons Hawk) V.S. Naipaul (who is a Nobel Prize Winner of Indian Origin) and spectrum of the kinds of people who take their morning walks in Lodhi Garden – Supreme Court Judges, Election Commissioners, Comptroller & Auditor Generals, NHRC chiefs and Rajya Sabha chairmen will basically elect the person who will run what may well become the most powerful institution in India (not you not me).

This is a classic case of a privileged elite selecting how it will run its show without any restraint. It sets the precedent for the making of an unaccountable ‘council of guardians’ something like the institution of the ‘Velayat e Faqih’ (Absolute Guardianship of the Jurist)– a self-selected body of clerics – in Iran who act as a super-state body, unrestrained by any democratic norms or procedures. I do not understand what qualifies Lata Mangeshkar and V.S. Naipaul (whose deeply reactionary views are well known) to take decisions about the future of all those who live in india.

The setting up of the institution of the Lokpal (as it is envisioned in what is held out as the draft Jan Lokpal Bill)  needs to be seen, not as the deepening, but as the profound erosion of democracy.

Clearly, there is a popular rage, (and not confined to earnest middle class people alone) about the helplessness that corruption engenders around us. But we have to ask very carefully whether this bill actually addresses the structural issues that cause corruption. In setting up a super-state body, that is almost self selecting and virtually unaccountable, it may in fact laying the foundations of an even more intense concentration of power. And as should be clear to all of us by now, nothing fosters corruption as much as the concentration of unaccountable and unrestrained power and history tells us that all fascist regimes begin by sounding the tocsin of ‘cleansing’ society of corruption and evil..
I am not arguing against the provision of an institution of a Lokpal, or Ombudsman, (and some of the provisions even in this draft bill – such as the provision of protection for whistle-blowers, are indeed commendable)  but if we want to take this institution seriously, within a democratic political culture, we have to ask whether the methods of initiating and concluding the term of office of the Lokpal conforms to democratic norms or not. There are many models of selecting Ombudsmen available across the world, but I have never come across a situation where a country decides that Nobel Prize winners and those awarded with state conferred honours can be entrusted with the task selecting those entrusted with the power to punish people. I have also never come across the merging of the roles of investigator, judge and prosecutor within one office being hailed as the triumph of democratic values.
Having said this, lets also pause to consider that it’s not as if others have not been on hunger strike before – Irom Sharmila has been force fed for several years now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irom_Chanu_Sharmila – but I do not see her intransigence being translated into a tele-visually orchestrated campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The impunity that AFSPA breeds is nothing short of a corruption that eats deep into the culture of democracy, and yet, here, moral courage, and the refusal to eat, does not seem to work.
The current euphoria needs to be seen for what it is – a massive move towards legitimizing a strategy of simple emotional blackmail – a (conveniently reversible) method of suicide bombing in slow motion. Nothing can be more dangerous for democracy. Unrestrained debate and a fealty to accountable processes are the only means by which a democratic culture can sustain itself. The force of violence, whether it is inflicted on others, or on the self, or held out as a performance, can only act coercively. And coercion can never nourish democracy.
Finally, if, as a society, we were serious about combating the political nexus that sustains corruption – we would be thinking seriously about reforming the CVC, extending the provisions of the Right to Information Act to the areas where it can not currently operate – national security and defence; we would also think seriously about electoral reform – about proportional representation, about smaller constituencies, about strengthening local representative bodies, about the provision of uniform public funding for candidates and about the right to recall elected representatives. These are serious questions. The tragedy that we are facing today is that the legitimate public outrage against corruption is being channeled in a profoundly authoritarian direction that actually succeeds in creating a massive distraction.
In all the noise there has been a lot of talk about cynicism, and anyone who has expressed the faintest doubt has been branded as a cynic. I do not see every expression of doubt in this context as cynicism, though some may be. Instead, I see the fact that those who often cry hoarse about ‘democratic values’ seem to be turning a blind eye to the authoritarian strains within this draft ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ as a clear indication of how powerful the politics of cynicism actually is.

I hope that eventually, once the din subsides, better sense will prevail, and we can all begin to think seriously, un-cynically about what can actually be done to combat the abuse and concentration of power in our society.

Allow me to pick and choose my revolutions. I am not celebrating at Ramlila tonight. Good night.

The Prodigal CV

Then I said to myself, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?" And I said to myself that this also is vanity. For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.

-Anonymous

Sometimes you have a chance encounter with a picture of yours from a different era, and it is like being introduced to your Neanderthal twin from a different world. An emaciated look, sallow eyes, with the only thing worse than your hair-do is your sense of dressing, when wearing oversized tee shirts or tooooo-low waist jeans were in vogue. You look at yourself from the past and wonder, who is this obnoxious creature? I guess it is okay to make fun of oneself publicly. I had one such chance encounter, but not with a picture of mine from the past. Well, it was a picture sort of, but more of my academic achievements, or the lack of it. It happened one day that the TnP in-charge of my branch, Gaurav Choudhary, sent a text asking to prepare a CV and then e-mail it to him within two days. As ordered, I sat down to write, or type, my first ever written Curriculum Vitae (CV), and it was like having a glimpse of the outdated, backdated, anything but the glamorous past.

So......it was the first time I was making CV for myself. Maybe, it’s an indication that I will be out of college soon and will need to fend for myself. The dreams for a lucrative and money-spinning job have just started to take shape, and an impressive resume seems like a good idea to make initial contact with the aliens. Yeah, the feeling is something akin to that. The only trouble was, there was nothing much impressive for me to show off. Not a very rewarding summer internship, no fellowship, no real research experience. However, something had to be written, and that was what I did. Over the next few hours, I took a ride into my past and dug out everything, every single pettiest thing that I ever did and blotched it all over my resume. After continuous hard work, I was finally able to write a quasi-decent and quasi-presentable resume. All the facts about my life, which I had brought to my mind from the hinterlands of don’t-ask-me-where, were all there. For the next few hours of my life, I sat there wide eyed; looking at the wreckage from a disaster movie, my blotchy and mottled, a catawampus CV.

It started with a very confused and baffled-looking picture of mine (who gives their pictures in CVs?) with that desperate look on my face, as if begging the HR to recruit me. What was I thinking, they would take one look at my “handsome” face and let me in? Then came the information no one cared about... Address, Telephone number, Father’s name, Ancestral property’s location, Name of the first pet. (Some of these are exaggerated of course, but I will leave it to you to figure it out.) What, were they going to write me letters? The next “ahem” part was, well, “Sex: Male”. I am impressed I did not mention caste, mother tongue native language, and the name of ancestral village.

Then came the “Biographical Information”, which was fine I guess, but for the parenthesis that said, “In reverse chronological order”. Yeah, as if the order mattered, and more importantly, as if it was rocket science to figure out what order things were in. Of course, every institution I attended had to be listed with the “marks obtained”, because how can one trust the transcripts of my great university, assuming the transcripts reached them on time? Then started the actual meat of the CV thankfully, institutions attended, random projects undertaken, with the mention of everything, from holding a shovel in the lab to ramming a core-cutter into the soil last week. Even things like “had 95% attendance in class”, “recited nursery rhymes 18 years ago”, “sung a song on Teachers’ Day”, or “could eat during class without getting caught” found an apt place in the CV. Then there were awards and accolades. “Stood 7^th out of 120 innumerable students in my school”, “won awards in debates and collages” (who cares?), or “sat through boring seminars” would find a place as well. If this was not insult enough to my academic achievements (or the lack of it), there would be a separate section dedicated to extracurricular activities, because being a house captain, an indispensible member of the Cancer Aid Society, playing Santa Claus for play-groupies on Christmas, standing behind on stage holding the Tricolour on Bapu’s birth day, anchoring soporific events should also count, or giving numerous super boring paper presentations continuously. Not to mention learning gazillion words from Barron’s, or the ability to gobble 50 gol-gappas in a minute.

Whether I like it or not, this will be an indelible part of what I was. It might take years of grooming, feedback, and doing some fruitful experience to build my credentials in the field, and to evolve as a professional. To put it differently, the present me is because that was the past me (though the college in between has metamorphosised me a lot positively, but still........12 years of schooling and 3 years so far for college; do the math!!). I looked at my CV with a mixture of both love and hatred. Is this who I used to be? Desperate to get recognition even for a seminar I attended and slept through? Or being exceptionally good at “plagiary” when it came to writing a test? Was I hoping my experience with being a part of a cancer club, or being a good counter-strike player was about to get me recruited in my dream company?

Yeah, I know we all have to start somewhere, and build from there. Just that early men did not have that polish doesn’t mean they were any less successful in their environment. However, call me smug, arrogant, thankless, whatever, but it doesn’t hurt to make fun of thy own once in a while. Except that 10 years down the line, I would be reading my CV and laughing again. “Went to XYZ dam for an inspection and got the Project Engineer suspended”. (my batch-mates will understand this ;P) Who cares?