March towards mobocracy

Photo from deepwarriors.com

Over the past 63 years of our experimentation (I would not call it existence) with liberal democracy in India, we have been slowly but surely moving away from those ideals and moving towards, what I like to call, a mobocracy. It's a situation where democratic institutions become defunct, and any dispute is settled by brute force. The more raw power a group has, the powerful they are in the society. Our exercise of franchise has also been moving in that direction, overtly and covertly. Overtly in the sense that political parties try to use their muscle power to garner support; covertly in the sense that political parties try to appease groups and communities, hoping to get their votes, by either directly supporting, or ignoring acts of goondaism by elements of that group.

The last point brings me to the case of the Kerala lecturer T. J. Joseph, who was recently removed from his job for hurting religious sentiments of a particular community. I do not know what exactly he asked in the Malayalam question paper which hurt the sentiments of some people. But that is not very relevant here. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that he did ask a question that hurt some people. What would be a civilized way to deal with that? One could go to some grievance redressal body in the college concerned, or to a court or ... Instead, what happened put us at par with the most barbaric societies on the earth. Some memebrs of the Popular Front of India chopped off his hand. The police believes that some 49 people were involved, and it was a well-organized crime. What happened after this was even more shocking: No reaction from any political party condemning the attack.


As if there is no end to how bizzare things can get. In an absolute chocker (or is it, really? Should we prepare ourselves for more?) the New Man College dismissed Joseph from his job for hurting religious sentiments. Questions that arise are:

1. Is the punishment commensurate with the crime committed (assuimg it was committed)?
   
2. What made the college authorities think that they can arrogate themselves to such positions?

The college's rejoinder with that decision is perhaps potently the most dangerous aspect of the whole episode. They have said that Joseph can be reinstated only if he is pardoned by the leaders of the community whose sentiments have been hurt. Firstly, goons attack someone, then you punish the victim, finally you leave him to the mercy of the so-called leaders of those goons. Justice indeed!

Unfortunately, this incident shows a trend in the country (or may be the world): one of grave intolerance, complete disregard for democratic institutions and mechanisms, and a culture where anything goes if there is gain at the end (votes in our political terms).

Long live Indian mobocracy.

Of shoes, protests and democracy

Everybody is doing an al Zaidi these days. First, it was Jarnail Singh doing it on PC, then it was Ram Kumar doing it on Naveen Jindal. On both cases, political leaders were at the receiving end. Now, what do we make out of this novel mode of protest, throwing your shoes at someone you are not happy with? To me, it is not so new, after all. Throwing eggs or rotten tomatoes have been around for many many years. These days, partcularly with heightened perception of security threat, it is unlikely that you would be allowed to carry eggs or tomatoes (however inocuous they may be) to a press conference of none other than the Home Minister of India. Also, it may not always be that you have such a protest preplanned. Things may happen at the spur of the moment, as it happened between Jarnail Singh and PC. In any case, you are still allowed to go in with your shoes or chappals on. I do not know if you are asked to remove your shoes for a security check as in the US airports, but finally you are allowed in with them on your feet. So they come as handy tool to throw.

But the moot question is, is it a justified way of protest? That is a tricky question to address. The answer depends on how you view things happening around you, what type of society you want to build an so on. If we believe in a law-governed society where rights of each individual is safeguarded and upheld, where anyone aggrieved gets a speedy and fair trial in courts of law, where even the powerful people are brought to book for their unlawful acts, this form of protest is not acceptable. In fact, once we allow these protests become acceptable, we will move away from the path of building law-governed society.

However, the unfortunate fact of the matter is, none or most of these conditions are not ture in the present global, or Indian setup. There is no one to even seriously question GW for his acts in Iraq, forget punishing him. After 25 years of the massacre, none has been punished for the anti-Sikh progrom in Delhi. So al Zaidis and Jarnail Singhs are legitimately aggrieved, frustrated and angry. Therefore, unless our political masters are able to give people the sense of security of a law-governed world, where more civilized forms of protests are not non-chalantly ignored by their class, where genuine emotional distress of communities are not brushed aside by labyrinthine legal-bureaucratic processes and speeches, these things are bond to happen.

Will our political masters wake up someday?